June 2015

The Syrian Electronic Army hacked the official Web site for the US Army, a Twitter account apparently associated with the hacktivist group claimed. The site was down in the afternoon of June 8, while screenshots posted on the social network by SEA purported to show messages of support for beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the site earlier in the day.

The Army confirmed the site outage. "Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," said Brig. Gen. Malcolm B. Frost, an Army spokesman. "After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the Web site temporarily." The statement did not address the SEA army claims of responsibility. However, the official Facebook page for Fort Bragg in North Carolina warned people to "avoid" using the Army's Web site because it was down "reportedly from being hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army."

The National Security Agency is taking steps to turn its massive collection of Americans’ phone records back on. After President Barack Obama signed legislation to end the controversial program, the Justice Department submitted a legal memorandum to the secretive federal court justifying authorization for the NSA collection for another six months, as the new law allows. “[T]he government respectfully submits that it may seek and this court may issue an order for the bulk production of tangible things” under the law, “as it did in ... prior related dockets,” the Justice Department said. The legal analysis was submitted on June 2, less than an hour after the White House announced that President Obama had signed the USA Freedom Act into law. The memo was not revealed to the public until June 8. The memo outlines the legal rationale for restarting the NSA program.

A combination of T-Mobile and Dish Network would merge two companies rooted in different industries. For consumers, it would merge some of the fastest-growing bills in their budgets. American households spent more than $191 a month on average for television, Internet and phone services in 2013, according to Labor Department data. That was up 24 percent from 2007 and about what they spent on health insurance. The question is whether Americans are going to take to paying all that to one company. The prospect isn’t so far-out anymore.

With satellite broadcaster Dish Network pursuing a merger with wireless carrier T-Mobile US, AT&T about to close a $49 billion acquisition of Dish rival DirecTV and cable companies experimenting with cellphone plans, many of the services that keep people entertained and in touch are moving under the same roof. Such providers are betting on so-called convergence -- the idea that they will be better off if they can bulk up, as services that used to flow via different wires and satellite dishes all start traveling on the Internet. The biggest benefit for operators is that customers who sign up for multiple services are less likely to switch providers. However, people tend to have a negative reaction to bigger bills, even if it is the same amount previously spread out over multiple providers, said telecommunications consultant Chetan Sharma. “It is a phenomenon that is top down,” he said. “Industry pushes it rather than consumers seeking it.”

One of the big concerns about the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) is not only how a nationwide broadband network for public safety will be created but how it will be sustained with funding. A group in central Minnesota hopes to show that cooperation between the private and public sectors can work to support public safety. The pilot project involves the State of Minnesota, Great River Energy, Motorola, NewCore Wireless, Central Transport Group, the City of Elk River, Tessco and CommScope. Private-sector partners donated equipment, tower space, technical services and carrier services at no cost to the government.

"Our project reached out into the private sector, so we wanted to be able to demonstrate that if the FirstNet network is to be built and operated, there will have to be a financial budget put in place that allows that system to operate, and by just putting public safety devices on that network, it's going to be hard to generate enough revenue to pay for capital and operating expenses," explained Albert Kangas, GM and COO of NewCore Wireless. One of the ideas for supporting FirstNet involves the private sector purchasing bandwidth on the network, but those users would be pre-empted by first responders when they need it. "So it's finding that private sector use that fits in with the mission of FirstNet," as well as being able to fund the project.