Reporting

NSA Triples Collection of Data From US Phone Companies

The National Security Agency vacuumed up more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages from American telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon in 2017 — more than three times what it collected in 2016. Intelligence analysts are also more frequently searching for information about Americans within the agency’s expanding collection of so-called call detail records — telecom metadata logging who contacted whom and when, but not the contents of what they said.

Freedom Fiber Looks to Human Side of Broadband, USDA Helps Fund Electric Co-op Broadband Project

The Department of Agriculture awarded Tombigbee Communications a $2.98 million grant for a rural utility broadband deployment in Alabama. Steve Foshee — president and CEO of Tombigbee Communications and its parent company Tombigbee Electric Cooperative — explained that the funding is for one of the most remote parts of a broader area that the company has targeted for broadband deployment. Tombigbee, which offers broadband under the Freedom Fiber brand, aims to deploy broadband throughout 1,000 square miles of rural Alabama where many people do not have broadband available to them at the min

AT&T-Time Warner to Court: DOJ Case Fell Apart

In a post-trial brief, AT&T and Time Warner said the government "came nowhere close" to proving the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger violates antitrust laws. The companies said that the government's case was built on "non-probative competitor complaints, irrelevant slide shows," and a theoretical model of harm that collapsed under the weight of "real-world" evidence, then disintegrated upon first contact with real-world events, testimony, and data." The Justice Department had asserted that without spinoffs of Turner programming networks, the merger would mean substantially less comp

AT&T explains why it blocked Cloudflare DNS: It was just an accident

AT&T has been blocking the new Cloudflare DNS service, but AT&T says the blocking was unintentional and that it will fix the problem soon. The blocking is affecting AT&T home Internet customers who use an AT&T gateway. "With the recent launch of Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS service, we have discovered an unintentional gateway IP address conflict with 1 of their 4 useable IPs and are working to resolve the issue," said AT&T. Most of AT&T's customers should be able to access Cloudflare DNS using the alternate 1.0.0.1 address.

Can Facebook and Google’s new federal watchdogs regulate tech?

Facebook and Google must answer to new cops on the beat – a group of five fresh Washington regulators at the Federal Trade Commission who have the power to punish Silicon Valley if it misbehaves. But veterans of the 103-year old watchdog say that the agency increasingly runs the risk of being outmatched by the very tech giants it oversees without more cash, cutting-edge staff and stronger legal teeth.

The digital revolution is leaving black people behind

Black Americans are frequent users of technology, and have helped build social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram into the giants they are today. But they aren’t reaping the same economic benefits of the tech boom as white Americans, and low rates of black employment in the tech industry are a large part of the reason why. The State of Black America 2018, a report published annually by the National Urban League, compares how black and white people fare in a number of areas, including housing, economics, education, social justice, and civic engagement.

Keeping Lifeline for the Living

The Federal Communications Commission is already taking steps to nix the dead enrollees in the agency’s low-income subsidy program known as Lifeline following a revelation from Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) that 47,942 deceased individuals were signed up between 2014 and October 2017. In July 2017,  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai directed the Universal Service Administrative Company, the nonprofit that manages the subsidies, “to take specific, immediate steps to mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program, including enrollment and subscribership of the deceased,” a FCC spokesman said.

Google sets new rules for US election ads

People buying Google ads related to candidates in US federal elections will have to prove they are US citizens or lawful permanent residents beginning July 10. Under Google’s new rules, people or groups who want to advertise in elections will have to go through a process that includes producing a “government-issued ID” as well as other information, like a Federal Election Commission identification number and an IRS Employer Identification Number. Google says it aims to confirm that buyers are who they say they are and can legally participate in American elections.

Sinclair preps to challenge Fox News

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which for months has denied any interest in challenging Fox News while awaiting approval of a merger with Tribune Co., is gearing up to do just that. As part of the $3.9 billion Tribune deal pending before the Federal Communications Commission, would acquire WGN America, a cable network that currently reaches 80 million homes.

FCC Shifts $9 Billion Phone Aid Fund Out of Bank of America

The Federal Communications Commission began moving almost $9 billion collected to subsidize phone and broadband service from a Bank of America account to what auditors call safer ground at the US Treasury. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has begun shifting the Universal Service Fund money on advice from government auditors, who said keeping the money outside government coffers was risky, according to Mark Wigfield, an FCC spokesman. Auditors recommended moving the money “to better protect and manage this nearly $9 billion fund,” Wigfield said.

Black lawmakers are impatient with tech’s lack of diversity and are threatening regulation to force the issue

Leading black lawmakers are growing impatient with tech’s largely unfulfilled promises to improve employee diversity. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) made the strongest case for regulation during a panel discussion with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus on the last day of their trip to Silicon Valley. She said she was “floored” to find out that many tech companies had only 1 percent to 2 percent black employees.

Is Facebook going to use satellites to corner markets in the developing world?

There's some evidence that Facebook formed a subsidiary satellite company called “PointView” on the down low (the companies seem to share a number of assets, including staff and land).

Foundation Explores Telecom Utility Broadband Partnership Economics

Post Road Foundation, an organization funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, will fund studies in five rural communities to explore the economics of the telecom utility partnership.

There is a major digital divide on the Texas-Mexico border, one of least connected parts of the country

The Texas-Mexico border is one of the least connected in the US. A map from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows border counties bathed in bright red, meaning less than around 60 percent have home internet access. It’s a distinction shared by the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia, other parts of the country with pernicious poverty. But that may change. The small city of Pharr, Texas — just a handful of miles from the border — is trying to make a change, and end the kind of disconnectedness that plagues low-income border communities.

Tech Giants Feel the Squeeze as Xi Jinping Tightens His Grip

For the last decade or so, China has defied the truism that only free and open societies can innovate. Even as the Communist Party has kept an iron grip on politics and discourse, the country’s technology industry has grown to rival Silicon Valley’s in sophistication and ambition. President Xi Jinping’s tilt toward strongman rule could put all that to the test. As Mr.

Cambridge Analytica Closes, Rebranded as Emerdata

In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.

Pirate Radio Stations Explode on YouTube

A trick of YouTube’s algorithms has led to the blossoming of hundreds of unlicensed, independent radio stations on the site, reminiscent of an age of underground broadcasts in the previous century. Many of the channels blink in and out of existence within a week, but their presence has become a compelling part of the site’s musical ecosystem. 

How the US Government Learned to Stop Worrying About The Global Internet and Kicked Russians Off Its Networks

The global internet is a lot less global than it was a few years ago. The US government, which used to be the loudest advocate for knocking down digital barriers, has begun to erect barriers of its own since the 2016 election and the Russian hacking and influence operation that upended it. US officials and lawmakers once merely condemned Russian and Chinese laws that forced tech companies to share their source code or to store citizens’ data within national borders.

Trump Campaign Launches ‘Media Accountability Survey': ‘Do You Trust CNN?’

The Trump Make America Great Again Committee launched a “mainstream media accountability survey” into inboxes around the country. The effort is a joint project paid for by the Donald Trump presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee. “The media loves to pretend they’re unbiased, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” an email promoting the survey reads. “Liberal propaganda machines have used every possible tactic to slander, undermine, and insult the President as he fights to put AMERICA FIRST.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tours Gadsden County broadband access site

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai stopped in Quincy, Florida, as part of a campaign to promote high-speed internet and close the digital divide in rural areas. “I want to illustrate the power of the internet to transform communities and the cost of not getting internet access to some of these communities,” Chairman Pai told business, school and economic development officials gathered at the Quincy site for TDS Telecom, a national internet provider with more than 13,000 Gadsden County customers. He said the digital divide is more prevalent in rural areas.

T-Mobile and Sprint CEOs State Case for Merger at FCC

T-Mobile’s John Legere and Sprint’s Marcelo Claure went to the Federal Communications Commission to begin laying the groundwork for their proposed $26.5 billion merger. They met with FCC Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel and laid out much the same case that the companies have presented in public. 

T-Mobile executives change tune on fixed wireless following Sprint merger deal

T-Mobile executives for years have downplayed the opportunity for fixed wireless technology to replace wired internet connections. But with the proposed deal to swallow Sprint, T-Mobile executives said that the merger would position the newly-combined company to offer internet services to homes, offices and other locations—a move that would put the company into direct competition with the likes of Comcast, Charter, Verizon and other wired internet service providers.

Cambridge Analytica Closing Operations Following Facebook Data Controversy

Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, is shutting down following disclosures about its use of Facebook data and the campaign tactics it pitched to clients. Apparently, the company decided to close its doors because it was losing clients and facing mounting legal fees in the Facebook investigation. The firm is shutting down effective May 2 and employees have been told to turn in their computers.

FCC Chairman Pai Gets Political on USF Funding Cuts

When the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) issued budget figures for the Universal Service Fund (USF) high-cost program, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai took the opportunity to blame USF funding cuts on the previous administration and attempted to drum up support for alternative budget control mechanisms proposed under his administration. The USAC budget figures show forecasted demand for rate of return carriers for the high-cost program for 2018-2019 exceeding the budget by 15.52%.