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  2. November 2015

November 2015

FCC Fines Cox for Data Breach

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has entered into a $595,000 settlement with Cox Communications to resolve an investigation into whether the company failed to properly protect its customers’ personal information when the company’s electronic data systems were breached in 2014. As a result, third parties had access to the personal information of Cox’s subscribers. Cox has approximately six million subscribers nationwide.

The action represents the FCC’s first privacy and data security enforcement action with a cable operator. As a condition of settlement, Cox will pay a $595,000 civil penalty. The settlement also requires Cox to identify all affected customers, notify them of the breach, and provide them one year of free credit monitoring. Under the settlement, Cox will adopt a comprehensive compliance plan, which establishes an information security program that includes annual system audits, internal threat monitoring, penetration testing, and additional breach notification systems and processes to protect customers’ personal information and CPNI. The Enforcement Bureau will monitor Cox’s compliance with the consent decree for seven years.

The kernel of the argument: Linux and Growing Unease About Security

Linus Torvalds -- who in person could be mistaken for just another paunchy, middle-aged suburban dad who happens to have a curiously large collection of stuffed penguin dolls -- looms over the future of computing much as Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs loom over its past and present. For Linux, the operating system that Torvalds created and named after himself, has come to dominate the exploding online world, making it more popular overall than rivals from Microsoft and Apple. But while Linux is fast, flexible and free, a growing chorus of critics warn that it has security weaknesses that could be fixed but haven’t been.

Worse, as Internet security has surged as a subject of international concern, Torvalds has engaged in an occasionally profane standoff with experts on the subject. In blasting the security features produced by a group, he said in a public post, “Please just kill yourself now. The world would be a better place.” Linux has thrived in part because of Torvalds’s relentless focus on performance and reliability, both of which could suffer if more security features were added. Linux works on almost any chip in the world and is famously stable as it manages the demands of many programs at once, allowing computers to hum along for years at a time without rebooting. Yet even among Linux’s many fans there is growing unease about vulnerabilities in the operating system’s most basic, foundational elements -- housed in something called “the kernel,” which Torvalds has personally managed since its creation in 1991. Even more so, there is concern that Torvalds’s approach to security is too passive, bordering on indifferent.

South Carolina Public Service Commission considers adding universal fees to mobile phone bills

Is making a call on your mobile phone the same as calling on a traditional landline in South Carolina? If the state Public Service Commission (PSC) says it is, you likely will face a higher monthly mobile phone bill in the future. Representatives of the burgeoning wireless phone industry and the shrinking landline phone business argued before the PSC about whether they compete for the same customers. At issue is the universal service fund, which is mandated by federal law to increase access to affordable phone service in rural areas where it’s costly to extend and maintain lines.

A shrinking pool of landline customers pay a fee for the fund but the swelling tide of wireless customers currently do not pay. State law provides that phone services in competition with landline carriers may be subject to the universal service fund fee. Landline phone companies emphatically say mobile phone service directly competes with the landline phone service they provide. But the wireless industry contends the two services are not in competition.

Not so fast Frontier and CenturyLink: Oregon regulators raise the bar for gigabit tax breaks

Oregon utility commissioners overruled their staff, opting for a broad definition of the term "broadband" in a rebuke to two of the state's largest telecommunication companies. The three commissioners agreed during a public hearing in Salem (OR) that broadband means anything faster than dial-up connection, at least as it applies to determining eligibility for tax breaks Oregon lawmakers approved in March.

That definition encompasses nearly all Internet service in the state. Commission staffers had proposed a narrower definition, classifying broadband as service with download speeds of 10 megabits per second and uploads of 3 Mbps. In practical terms, Nov 3's decision means it will be harder for Frontier Communications and CenturyLink to qualify for the new tax breaks. Those companies warned lawmakers the decision may slow their rollout of hyperfast "gigabit" Internet service in Oregon.

Senator Chris Coons to Serve as ITIF Honorary Co-Chair

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) announced that Sen Chris Coons (D-DE) will serve as an ITIF honorary co-chair alongside Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Reps Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Darrell Issa (R-CA). Sen Coons takes over a position held most recently by Sen Mark Warner (D-VA). “ITIF is able to play an important role in developing policy because they work on creative solutions to break through partisan gridlock,” said Sen Coons. “We can’t move our country forward unless we work together, and that’s why I’m honored to serve as a co-chair of ITIF with Senator Hatch, Representative Eshoo, and Representative Issa.”

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