June 2015

FBI official: Companies should help us ‘prevent encryption above all else’

The debate over encryption erupted on Capitol Hill again on June 3, with an FBI official testifying that law enforcement's challenge is working with tech companies "to build technological solutions to prevent encryption above all else." At first glance the comment from Michael B. Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, might appear to go further than FBI Director James B. Comey. Encryption, a technology widely used to secure digital information by scrambling data so only authorized users can decode it, is "a good thing," Director Comey has said, even if he wants the government to have the ability get around it. But Steinbach's testimony also suggests he meant that companies shouldn't put their customers' access to encryption ahead of national security concerns -- rather than saying the government's top priority should be preventing the use of the technology that secures basically everything people do online.

"Privacy, above all other things, including safety and freedom from terrorism, is not where we want to go," Steinbach said. He also disputed the "back door" term used by experts to describe such built-in access points. "We're not looking at going through a back door or being nefarious," he argued, saying that the agency wants to be able to access content after going through a judicial process. But many technical experts believe that building intentional vulnerabilities into the systems that people around the world rely on reduces the overall security of the entire digital system, even if done to comply with legal requirements.

Telecom Law Overhaul Hit by 'Atomic Bomb' of Net Neutrality

Republican Representatives are beginning to acknowledge that their ambitious dream of overhauling the nation's core communications law is unlikely to be realized anytime soon. And the culprit, they say, is network neutrality. "Net neutrality certainly was a mini-atomic bomb in the middle of it," said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR). Chairman Walden emphasized that he's "not ready to throw in the towel" on piecemeal updates of the Communications Act, the foundational law for regulation of the Internet, television, and telephone industries. But he admitted that the bitter partisan divide over net neutrality has made any comprehensive rewrite difficult. The prospects aren't any brighter in the Senate. "[Net neutrality has] definitely made it a more difficult environment to do significant telecom updates or reforms," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD).

Republican Representatives consider the net neutrality rules a government power grab that will stifle investment in broadband networks. This meansit will be difficult for Republicans to rewrite the Communications Act without first settling the issue of how much authority the Federal Communications Commission has over the Internet. And the prospects for significant legislation dim as the 2016 presidential election draws close. Harold Feld, the senior vice president of Public Knowledge and a net-neutrality supporter, argued that there's plenty of common ground that lawmakers could find rewriting the Communications Act. But, he said, Republican Representatives will have to first give up their crusade against net neutrality. He accused the Republicans on the House Commerce Committee of only fueling the partisan flames by passing a bill that would require the FCC to do more of its work in public. "They can call net neutrality a 'bomb,' but they don't seem to be calling in the bomb squad to defuse it," he said.

Consumers Dislike Data-Mining but Feel Helpless to Stop It, Report Finds

Should consumers be able to control how companies collect and use their personal data? At a dinner honoring privacy advocates this week in Washington, Timothy Cook, the chief executive of Apple, gave a speech in which he endorsed this simple idea. “You might like these so-called free services,” Mr. Cook said. “But we don’t think they’re worth having your e-mail or your search history or now even your family photos data-mined and sold off for God knows what advertising purpose.” Now a study from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania has come to a similar conclusion: Many Americans do not think the trade-off of their data for personalized services, giveaways or discounts is a fair deal either.

The findings are likely to fuel the debate among tech executives and federal regulators over whether companies should give consumers control over the information collected about them. In the survey, which is scheduled to be made public on June 5, 55 percent of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that “it’s O.K. if a store where I shop uses information it has about me to create a picture of me that improves the services they provide for me.” About seven in 10 people also disagreed that it was fair for a store to monitor their online activities in exchange for free Wi-Fi while at the store. And 91 percent of respondents disagreed that it was fair for companies to collect information about them without their knowledge in exchange for a discount.

Evil Wi-Fi captive portal could spoof Apple Pay to get users’ credit card data

Researchers at Wandera, a mobile security company, have alerted Apple to a potential security vulnerability in iOS that could be used by attackers to fool users into giving up their credit card data and personal information. The vulnerability, based on the default behavior of iOS devices with Wi-Fi turned on, could be used to inject a fake "captive portal" page that imitates the Apple Pay interface. The attack leverages a well-known issue: iOS devices with Wi-Fi turned on will attempt by default to connect to any access point with a known SSID. Those SSIDs are broadcast by "probe" messages from the device whenever it's not connected to a network. A rogue access point could use a probe request capture to masquerade as a known network, and then throw up a pop-up screen masquerading as any web page or app.

The Wandera attack uses this behavior to get a mobile device to connect and then presents a pop-up portal page -- the type usually used when connecting to a public Wi-Fi service to present a Web-based login screen -- that is designed to resemble an Apple Pay screen for entering credit card data. The attack could be launched by someone nearby a customer who has just completed or is conducting an Apple Pay transaction so that the user is fooled into believing Apple Pay itself is requesting that credit card data is reentered. An attacker could loiter near a point-of-sale system with an Apple Pay terminal and continuously launch the attack. Considering that the fake captive portal page is displayed beneath a "Log In" title bar, this attack may not fool many people.

NAB: FCC Spectrum Scenarios Raise More Qs Than As

The National Association of Broadcasters has taken issue, make that issues, with the Federal Communications Commission's recent simulations of various scenarios for setting clearing targets for spectrum in the incentive auction. In a filing with the FCC June 4, NAB said the FCC's public notice on the simulations raises more questions than it answers, particularly by basing the simulation on a different standard for how much allowable interference there would be to stations and wireless carriers when stations are repacked after the auction.

Two weeks ago, the FCC released some data from incentive auction simulations -- based on three separate spectrum clearing targets -- of how it would "optimize" its reclamation and divvying up of the 600 MHz spectrum band between wireless carriers and broadcasters in the incentive auction. Optimizing means getting the most spectrum while creating the least post-auction interference (impairment) in the repacked spectrum bands. The scenarios it ran were for freeing up 85 MHz of broadcast spectrum (if 40 percent-50 percent of broadcasters participated), 114 MHz (50 percent-60 percent participation), and 126 MHz (60 percent-70 percent) participation -- Fox, Ion, Univision and Tribune have told the FCC it should shoot for 126 MHZ. “Participation” doesn’t mean that is what percentage of stations need to give up spectrum. That is the percentage who participate in the auction, win or lose. numbers. NAB said it was troubled with the FCC's use of a new standard for limiting market variability -- the difference in the amount of spectrum cleared in different markets -- and was not sure how that would be applied. NAB called it a "step backwards" from the "shared goal" of a successful auction.

Pay TV Subs Yearn for Unlimited DVR Storage

About 51 percent of pay TV subs are “very interested” in having unlimited space to store DVR recordings, Parks Associates found in a survey. Parks said that trend is illustrative of consumer demand for cloud-based DVR services, predicting that the number of subs taking a cloud DVR service will exceed 4.6 million by the end of 2015, and rise to 24 million by 2018. That bodes well for multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) that have launched those services already. Parks said more than 50 percent of US broadband homes already have a DVR as part of a pay TV subscription or have bought one at retail. In its survey of US broadband homes, Parks also found that consumers would also find two other pay TV features particularly appealing – a two-week catch-up TV service, and multiscreen access to DVR-recorded shows.

Campaign Finance Reform Advocates: Media Should "Significantly Increase Coverage" Of Money In Politics

A coalition of 18 groups that advocate for campaign finance reform are calling on broadcast media outlets to devote more coverage to America's broken campaign finance system and the need for reforms, especially as some estimates suggest that spending for the 2016 presidential election could top $10 billion.

On June 4, the groups sent a letter to the heads of the major news networks, calling on them to "take greater action in the future to ensure that Sunday political talk shows and nightly news devote appropriate attention to campaign finance reform." The letter, which was sent to Fox News, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and PBS, comes after a series of Media Matters analyses indicated that the crisis of big money in politics -- an issue that is of deep concern to a bipartisan majority of Americans -- was rarely covered by these networks. The letter went on to explain that increased coverage of money in politics is crucial in the run-up to the 2016 election because of the influx of "dark money," secretive funds given to political nonprofits and super PACs by undisclosed donors. As the groups explained in their letter, dark money "runs counter to American values of accountability and transparency that give voters the information they need to make informed decisions," and substantive coverage of its outsized influence on the democratic process is more important than ever.

A brief history of Dish's many attempts to break into wireless

[Commentary] The only reason Dish's reported merger talks with T-Mobile should come as a surprise is if you haven't been watching the company at all over the past few years. Sure, the merger might be a consolation prize for both companies, but for Dish in particular it would be a win after a long and probably frustrating string of losses. For at least four years now -- and probably longer -- Chairman Charlie Ergen has been striving to find ways to get Dish involved in a real wireless network. The company has fought with the Federal Communications Commission, juggled wireless spectrum, and been in talks with more companies than you might remember. Dish has been grasping, and these T-Mobile rumors are just the latest in a long string of rumors about the company.

So you might be tempted to count Dish out, to assume that this is just a quixotic quest and that Ergen and his company are more likely to dangle from a windmill than to build an actual cell tower on top of one. But you shouldn't count Dish out just yet. It's not just that the only tech executive who's more unfiltered than Ergen happens to be T-Mobile's CEO John Legere, it's that interspersed with the wireless losses is a story of a very important win. Dish's Hopper DVR famously added the ability to skip commercials and even more famously led to a huge row with television networks. Yet even as Dish capitulated on ad skipping, it won real concessions: the ability to stream content from those networks over the internet. The result was Sling TV, the first real, live TV streaming service in the US with any kind of meaningful scale. Yes, Dish's many (many!) attempts to get into wireless seem crazy when you see them listed out like this. But maybe, just maybe, Dish will finally be able to claim it's crazy like a fox.

Why Dish, T-Mobile Merger Makes All the Sense in the World

[Commentary] The reported merger between satellite pay-TV provider Dish and telecommunications company T-Mobile US -- said to be in talks -- is soon to be official, Meridian Advisory Group (MAG) Managing Partner Shahid Khan said. And Khan expects the company combination to fly through the customary regulatory review. Why does this apparently imminent deal make sense for Dish anyway?

Well, for starters, the satellite provider’s numbers have been slowing down as of late, Khan pointed out. The company also needs to get with the times if it wants to complete with the evolving “quadruple play” expectations, which tacks on consumer cellular service to the popular “triple play”: home phone, television and Internet combination. Currently, there’s a clear lacking on Dish’s end. “Cable today is two-way communication … Satellite is predominantly one-way,” Khan explained, calling such a deal “crucial to Dish’s survival.” Also, it’s always safer -- though clearly not cheaper -- to buy into an established company than launch a new one from scratch. Dish had just two options to catch up, as Khan sees it -- Sprint or T-Mobile -- and this proposed merger is the better match. “A combined Dish/T-Mobile will be able to offer consumers a superior nationwide network, strong set of video content offerings, and better bundles,” he said. Plus, the merger has a hidden competitive benefit: “Had Dish not gone after T-Mobile, Comcast might have,” Khan said, characterizing T-Mobile as a missed opportunity for the more massive cable company.

A T-Mobile-Dish Deal Could be the Ultimate Marriage of Convenience

A deal between Dish and T-Mobile is akin to two people who hook up because they are the last ones left in the bar at closing time. Both had their eye on other combinations but saw their efforts foiled. And more than anything, neither company wants to go home alone. Plus, while not the perfect catch, each partner has its good parts.

T-Mobile is an aggressive, fast-growing upstart in wireless, while Dish has deep spectrum holdings. Together, they can offer a combination of services that neither was able to do solo. Both companies have long sought merger partners, with Dish having previously sought to buy Sprint, and T-Mobile having tried to sell itself to AT&T and to merge with Sprint. Dish was outmaneuvered by SoftBank, while regulators shot down T-Mobile’s deals with AT&T and Sprint. Dish had also approached rival DirecTV for a possible tie-up last year. A Dish-T-Mobile deal, though, is unlikely to encounter the same degrees of regulatory scrutiny that T-Mobile encountered in those prior efforts. A Dish deal would maintain four national wireless carriers and arguably strengthen the No. 4 wireless carrier while the other two transactions would have removed a competitor from the market.

Benton

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