Mobile Future told the FCC it should reject Competitive Carriers Association requests that the agency adopt band-specific spectrum aggregation limits for high-band spectrum addressed in the spectrum frontiers order. CCA filed a petition for reconsideration on the order in December (see 1612140075). What CCA asks “would undermine the efficient allocation of spectrum and substitute the Commission’s static judgment about how the newly repurposed spectrum will be used and deployed for providers’ own business and technological assessments,” Mobile Future said. It supported other petitions asking the FCC to eliminate a cybersecurity reporting requirement also in rules. CCA, CTIA, NCTA and others sought elimination of the mandate. “The very notion of a cybersecurity reporting requirement fundamentally runs counter to the voluntary, industry-led approach that has served all stakeholders so well in this context,” Mobile Future said. “Collaborative efforts for enhancing cybersecurity protections have proven to be effective, and government officials and industry alike have recognized that multistakeholder cooperation on these issues through existing mechanisms, such as the Commission’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council, ‘addresses fast-changing technology-based issues better than prescriptive regulation.’” Mobile Future commented in docket 14-177.
A consumer advocacy group wants San Francisco police to keep tabs on Uber's self-driving car program, launched in mid-December, but which now is only being used for mapping purposes. Consumer Watchdog Monday sent a letter to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) to request Police Chief Bill Scott "closely monitor" the company's autonomous cars. “Based on Uber’s past performance when they flouted California law and put their robot cars on the road without the required permits from the [California Department of Motor Vehicles], there is absolutely no reason to trust the company now,” wrote John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog privacy project director. He wrote that Uber's cars were seen going through red lights when they were first deployed and the company blamed the human test driver. In a news release announcing the letter, Simpson wrote Uber didn't want to get the permits from the DMV because it didn't want to share information about its test activities. The DMV requires companies testing self-driving technology on public streets to file "disengagement reports" when the tech fails or test driver has to intervene, Simpson said. Uber Head-Advanced Technology Group Anthony Levandowski wrote in a Dec. 14 blog post that when San Francisco riders request an UberX ride, the company's lowest-cost option, they will be matched with a self-driving car, if available. That program was halted after a week when regulators revoked vehicle registrations since the company didn't want to get a permit for testing self-driving cars. Levandowski said at the time it didn't need permits since the cars weren't ready to be driven without a person monitoring them. An Uber spokeswoman emailed that the company is pleased with the similar Pittsburgh pilot launched in September. Self-driving Uber cars "are on the road in Arizona for internal use at this time, but are not a part of our public operations," she said. She pointed to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle that said Uber had several glitches with that city's program and issues with regulators, prompting the company to halt the pilot in December with the self-driving systems disabled and the cars used only for mapping.
The Competitive Carriers Association joined the Communications Information Sharing and Analysis Center. ISAC, through a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and the National Coordination Center for Communications, “is a critical collaboration between government and industry stakeholders to monitor and prevent harm to America’s telecommunications infrastructure,” CCA said in a Monday news release. “The Communications ISAC operates as a hub for telecommunications industry participants to share and analyze information on network vulnerabilities, intrusions, and other threats.” CCA President Steve Berry said he looked forward to “facilitating greater CCA member integration with the Communications ISAC, particularly with our small carrier members.” CCA members “have invested a great deal constructing broadband networks that serve rural and underserved populations, and like larger carriers, strive to offer their customers the most resilient and secure networks possible -- from both a physical and cyber perspective,” he said.
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly cited blog posts criticizing the Public Safety Bureau's recent cybersecurity white paper, in a pair of tweets Thursday, saying the posts were “helpful” in highlighting issues with the commission's “authority & involvement in cybersecurity issues.” Tech Knowledge Director Fred Campbell and Shane Tews, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute's Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, separately criticized the white paper for exceeding its authority by proposing that the federal government needs to assert “appropriate” regulatory oversight over ISPs’ cybersecurity practices in the absence of clear market incentives to drive improvements (see 1701260020). Multiple industry lawyers said they believe the white paper is unlikely to influence FCC cybersecurity policies under new Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1701250077).
The FCC should allow the Department of Homeland Security to be the lead agency on cybersecurity, said Shane Tews, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, in a Thursday blog post. The FCC Public Safety Bureau issued a white paper last week, before former Chairman Tom Wheeler's resignation, saying the commission can’t rely on organic market incentives alone to reduce cyber risk within the communications sector. The federal government needs to assert “appropriate” regulatory oversight over ISPs’ cybersecurity practices in the absence of clear market incentives to drive improvements, the white paper said (see 1701180082). Tews and others said they don't believe new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will consider making the paper's proposals commission policy (see 1701250077). Congress would do well to instead consider House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul's, R-Texas, planned DHS Reform and Improvement Act as the “best way for the government to facilitate information sharing in this way,” Tews said. McCaul said this month he planned to soon reintroduce the bill, which would reorganize DHS' National Protection and Programs Directorate as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency in a bid to elevate DHS' cybersecurity focus (see 1701050073). Pai has said other agencies have better legal standing and expertise to handle cybersecurity issues than the FCC, and the commission should only be a consulting agency, Tews said. “Establishing a systematic, reliable reporting process and a trusted repository for information-sharing across industries and the government would be a step in the right direction,” she said. “Now is the time to embrace the importance of the internet for our digital economy and to acknowledge the risks that come with the rewards.”
Google took down 1.7 billion advertisements that violated its advertising policies in 2016, double the amount from the previous year, the company said in a Wednesday blog post. Google caught more by expanding its policies, including to cover payday loan ads, and by upgrading detection technology. Last year, the enhanced technology found and disabled 112 million “trick-to-click” promotions that often appear as system warnings to deceive customers, Google said. The web firm said it disabled more than 68 million bad ads for healthcare violations in 2016, up from 12.5 million the year before. Google took down 17 million ads for illegal gambling and about 80 million ads that deceived, misled or shocked users, it said. Google said it took down 23,000 “self-clicking” mobile ads that automatically download an app without the user tapping anything. The company removed about 7 million ads that intentionally tried to trick Google’s detection systems and suspended 1,300 accounts that cloaked their ads as news, it said. Google took action against 47,000 sites for promoting weight-loss scams, 15,000 sites for unwanted software and 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for advertising counterfeit goods, it said. The company said it disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.
Cisco’s proposed acquisition of application-performance monitoring company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion would give customers “the instrument to get insight into their applications all the way from the customer down to the code,” said Rowan Trollope, general manager-Cisco’s IoT and applications business group, on an investor call Wednesday. Visibility into the performance of apps running on Cisco’s infrastructure “has never been more critical to running their business,” he said. AppDynamics CEO David Wadhwani said the company’s technology can be deployed across private and public clouds, and enterprises are moving toward hybrid cloud models. Companies need a monitoring system that “sits above all of that for the next generation of IT operation,” he said. AppDynamics technology can give customers unified monitoring across multiple clouds, including public and private environments, he said, and customers can host data in its environment or their own. The data residency offering is critical for regulatory and compliance requirements, Wadhwani said. The company collects “trillions” of metrics for its customers every month. For Cisco, making sense of data can help its customers understand how a networking bottleneck translates to “somebody sitting in the checkout cart with a spinning hourglass,” said Trollope. “Being able to connect those dots hasn’t really been possible.” Cisco has been hearing from customers that they want more access to that kind of data, he said. Trollope envisions a world based on “systems of intelligence,” where “you rely more on automation and you rely more on the machine to make the decisions in real time.” The company with "the most richly aggregated, correlated, real-time data set" will be the one with the platform for the “enterprise of the future,” he said. The deal is expected to close in FY 2017 Q3 subject to customary approvals. Cisco's Q3 ends on April 30. Wadhwani will remain after the deal, with his firm becoming a new software business unit in Cisco's IoT/Applications business reporting to Trollope, Cisco said Tuesday.
The likely implications of Ajit Pai's being named FCC chairman and what it means for ISP privacy rules and the rest of Verizon’s regulatory agenda are difficult to predict, said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matthew Ellis on a financial call Tuesday as the carrier released Q4 results. “There’s a lot of changes going on in D.C,” Ellis said. The appointment of Pai “may have a number of impacts across the regulatory space,” he said. “It’s just too soon to tell exactly where we’re going to be.” Verizon has to make long-term investments, Ellis said. “Our investments aren’t focused on just who happens to be in office today,” he said. “We’re making investments for 10-plus years.” None of that will change, he said on his first call as CFO. He gave no update on Verizon’s proposed $4.83 billion buy of Yahoo, which over the past four months disclosed two data breaches that occurred in 2013 and 2014 (see 1609220046 and 1612150010). “We are still working with Yahoo to assess the impact of the breaches and we have not reached any final conclusions yet,” Ellis said. The acquiree said the deal's closing was delayed a quarter to Q2 (see 1701240034). Verizon meanwhile added 591,000 net subscribers in the quarter, with total subscribers of 114.2 million, up 1.9 percent from last year, Verizon said. But subscriber additions were below the 726,000 predicted by Wall Street analysts. “In the fourth quarter we expanded our customer base in highly competitive wireless and broadband markets,” CEO Lowell McAdam said in a news release. “This capped a year in which we delivered solid results and returned value to shareholders, including $9.3 billion in dividends.”
Consumers 18-35 are more concerned about their personally identifiable information (PII) than those 36-50, IDC reported Tuesday. Overall, 84 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed expressed concern about their PII security, and 70 percent said they're more concerned than a few years ago. Growing sensitivity to data exposure has consumers “on the verge of making serious changes in their behavior,” said IDC. As technology becomes more integrated in people’s lives, and businesses and governments leverage data to provide services or sell products, individuals can feel "overly connected and may yearn for greater anonymity,” said analyst Sean Pike. “Consumers can exact punishment for data breaches or mishandled data by changing buyer behavior or shifting loyalty.” Executives need to understand the risk their organizations assume when collecting consumer PII, “but also the potential security and compliance solutions available to help manage the collection, processing, and use of sensitive data," he said.
With an installed base of 15 billion IoT devices forecast by 2021, botnets could be an unmanageable cybersecurity risk, Juniper Research reported Monday. The use of botnets to disrupt internet services is a current threat and will be used for more malicious purposes, it said. Attacks such as the ones against Dyn in October (see 1610210056) can be seen as “proof of concepts,” said analyst Steffen Sorrell. “Medium-term, botnets will be used far more creatively -- not only to disrupt services, but also to create a distraction enabling multi-pronged attacks aimed at data theft or physical asset disruption.” Juniper urged IoT device manufacturers to implement security-by-design and said vendors such as Amazon, Google and Samsung should lead efforts to bring together other vendors to establish “security best-practices.” The market is “wide open for challenger cybersecurity vendors,” said the report, saying the industry needs to move beyond traditional signature-based detection methods to address IoT cybersecurity effectively.