Seattle selected Rave Mobile Safety's Alert Emergency Notification System as its emergency mass notification system, said a news release from the company. AlertSeattle lets residents and city employees receive important emergency and community updates, by email, text, voice call, and on social media, the firm said. The tight integration between AlertSeattle and King County's Smart911 system allows residents to opt to provide critical information they wish to make available to responders in the event of a 911 call, it said.

Broadcasters and legislators are waiting to see if the FCC will act on recent commitments to step up enforcement against pirate radio stations, according to interviews and an exchange of letters between Chairman Tom Wheeler and 33 House members. In Wheeler's letter to the legislators and in a June roundtable with broadcasters, the FCC identified some actions to turn up the heat on unlicensed broadcasters, but it's unclear if the agency will take the simple step that broadcasters want most, said New York Broadcasters Association President David Donovan.

Even as comment deadlines on emergency alert system rules were set Monday, the FCC had already received some filings from EAS stakeholders. Comments on proposed changes are due Sept. 9, replies Sept. 24, in docket 04-296, the Public Safety Bureau said in Monday's Federal Register. The proposed rule changes follow a request by the National Weather Service that the FCC add three EAS event codes for extreme wind and storm surges, and that it revise the territorial boundaries of geographic location codes 75 and 77, which are offshore marine areas.

Passwords stored in Microsoft’s Group Policy Preferences may be insecurely stored due to incomplete implementations of Microsoft Security Bulletin MS14-025, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in an alert Friday. U.S.-CERT said that if administrators haven’t cleared previously stored passwords, the system may be vulnerable to exploitation. Attackers “may decrypt these passwords and use them to gain escalated privileges,” the alert said. U.S.-CERT recommends administrators employ the PowerShell script provided in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2962486 and follow the instructions to clear all “CPassword” preferences.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will host a workshop Aug. 27 on improving the use and accessibility of the emergency alert system, the FCC said in a public notice Tuesday. Attendees at the workshop will discuss methods to “empower and encourage” state and local use of EAS and Wireless Emergency Alerts for localized alerts, the PN said. The workshop will also address accessibility issues for EAS visual alerts, such as synchronicity of EAS audio with EAS visual crawls, and text-to-speech technology, the PN said. The workshop will be open to the public but will have limited seating, it said.

“Recently disclosed vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and Microsoft Windows may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with system privileges” by “convincing a user to visit a website or open a file” that could allow an attacker to combine Flash and Windows vulnerability to take “full control of an affected system,” said the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team in an alert Wednesday. US-CERT said that “since attackers continue to target and find new vulnerabilities in popular, Internet-facing software, updating is not sufficient, and it is important to use exploit mitigation and other defensive techniques.” Don't "run untrusted Flash content,” and “review the Bulletin and apply the necessary updates,” US-CERT said.

CLEVELAND -- ATSC President Mark Richer thinks commercial launches of ATSC 3.0 TVs and broadcast services (see 1504130028) are possible by the end of the decade, perhaps sooner, he said Thursday at field trials to showcase the LG-Zenith-GatesAir Futurecast technology proposal for ATSC 3.0. Richer was among a group of several dozen broadcast industry dignitaries, including Lynn Claudy, NAB senior vice president-technology, and ATSC Chairman Glenn Reitmeier of NBCUniversal invited to Cleveland to witness the Futurecast field trials in action.

The Senate approved the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act (S-1180) Thursday by unanimous consent, getting praise from CTIA and NAB. “This bill takes important steps to expand our nation’s public warning system to ensure the largest number of people are reached,” said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., one of the bill authors. “The IPAWS Modernization Act of 2015 also ensures effective training and collaboration so that when an emergency hits, we are ready.” He urged the House to pass the legislation quickly. The legislation “would result in more families and businesses receiving lifesaving information quickly, and would ensure our government has the flexibility it needs to evolve with future changes in technology,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who also backs the bill. CTIA praised Johnson and McCaskill's “willingness to structure their bill in a way that preserves the successful Wireless Emergency Alert system that has been used to notify the public of imminent threats and Amber alerts more than 11,000 times since it went live in 2012,” CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said.

The FCC released an order Wednesday making changes to its Part 5 Experimental Radio Service (ERS) rules, which were updated in a May 2013 order. The FCC agreed to modify the rules, “consistent with past practice,” to allow conventional ERS licensees and compliance testing licensees to use the bands exclusively allocated to the passive services in limited circumstances. The FCC also decided some cost recovery is allowed for the testing and operation of experimental medical devices in clinical medical trials that take place under the agency’s market trial rules, and added a definition of “emergency notification providers” to the rules to clarify that all participants in the Emergency Alert System (EAS) are such providers. But the agency declined to expand the eligibility for medical testing licenses. Medical device maker Medtronic had asked the FCC to expand the definition beyond healthcare facilities of who's eligible for a medical testing license. “In particular, Medtronic argues that expanding the eligibility to device manufacturers would level the playing field under the rules since the line between device manufacturers and health care facilities is blurring as healthcare providers are among those who develop medical devices,” the agency said. The FCC said it considered this request but found “good reason” to deny it. “The Commission limited the eligibility and scope of a medical testing license to hospitals and health care institutions to address their particular needs in conducting multiple clinical trials, both within their institutions and at defined geographic areas beyond their facilities that will be monitored by the licensee,” the agency said. “The Commission’s primary concern in authorizing experimentation with [radio frequency] RF devices is to ensure that the devices do not cause harmful interference to authorized users of the spectrum and that the devices do not enter into commerce prior to Commission certification,” the agency said. “A Part 5 licensee is the party that we hold responsible for the proper operation of the experimental RF devices to avoid harmful interference to authorized spectrum users and to take corrective action as necessary.” Expanding eligibility to hold a license could “create confusion in determining who is responsible for the proper operation of the experimental RF devices to avoid harmful interference to other spectrum users and to take corrective action as necessary,” the FCC said. Companies like Medtronic still have other options, including obtaining a conventional experimental license to conduct a test, the agency said. Medtronic asked the FCC to change the rules in a 2013 petition. In restricting who's eligible, the FCC is out of sync with Food and Drug Administration rules, the company said. “By barring a significant portion of the medical community involved in clinical trials from obtaining medical testing licenses, the ERS Order reflects a misunderstanding of the process of medical device development, arbitrarily imposes additional costs and burdens on entities that sponsor or conduct clinical trials but do not meet the Commission’s narrow definition of ‘health care facility,’ and discourages the very innovation it seeks to encourage,” Medtronic said at the time.

The FCC’s new rules for the Emergency Alert System were published in the Federal Register Tuesday. The rules take effect July 30 and include a national location code for EAS alerts issued by the president, amend FCC rules for nationwide EAS tests, and set accessibility standards for EAS alerts (see 1506040056).