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).
Some 32 million federal employees with security clearances may have had personally identifiable information (PII) compromised in a recent breach of Standard Form 86 (SF86) background checks stored on servers operated by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), said House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Wednesday during part two of a hearing on the breach. OPM Director Katherine Archuleta declined to confirm whether that number was accurate, saying the background checks contain PII for family, friends, neighbors and associates of the subject of the background check.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told the agency’s newly rechartered Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council Wednesday emergency communications must be among the group’s top priorities as it starts its two-year run. The new CSRIC, CSRIC V, held its first meeting at the FCC Wednesday.
The FCC will ask the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) to work on additional cybersecurity issues when the rechartered CSRIC V convenes June 24 for its first public meeting, Homeland Security Bureau Chief David Simpson said in a Monday blog post. CSRIC voted in March to adopt recommendations on adapting the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector use (see 1503180056). The CSRIC report drew wide praise from industry stakeholders, including in comments published earlier this month (see 1506010055). That report was one of CSRIC IV’s “biggest achievements” and “I expect the new CSRIC to build on these efforts by developing recommendations on how communications companies can improve information sharing about cyber risks within the private sector,” Simpson said. The FCC also expects CSRIC V to develop recommendations on reducing the frequency and impact of “misrouted” 911 calls, improving Next-Generation 911 and emergency alert systems, and enhancing communications infrastructure reliability, Simpson said. “I also expect that members will examine the challenges associated with prioritizing emergency communications during disaster-related infrastructure outages,” he said. The CSRIC meeting is set to begin at 1 p.m. at FCC headquarters.
The FCC 's Emergency Alert System (EAS) Sixth Report and Order puts improvements in the EAS system based on the 2011 nationwide EAS test into effect, said the order released Wednesday. “Our rules governing these alerts must continue to evolve as legacy networks and services transition to next generation technologies,” the order said. The order adopts “six zeroes” (000000) as the national location code “pertaining to every state and county in the United States,” and the order requires EAS participants to use equipment capable of processing the code. Participants must also use equipment “capable of processing a National Periodic Test (NPT) event code for future nationwide EAS tests” so future national, regional, state and local activations are consistent, the order said. Test data must now be filed in an Electronic Test Report System that was constructed to be “a practical, accessible, and minimally burdensome tool for recording EAS dissemination data,” the order said. The data will be used for developing an FCC Mapbook for illustrating how EAS alerts are propagated throughout the country. EAS participants are also required to ensure that EAS visual messages are “readable and accessible to all members of the public,” the order said.