March 2016

Garry Shandling, Star of Groundbreaking Sitcoms, Dies at 66

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2016

Lifeline Enters Final Stages of Debate

AGENDA
   Agenda for March 2016 FCC Meeting - press release [links to Benton summary]
   FCC Announces Dates for NPRM to Strengthen the Emergency Alert System [links to Federal Communications Commission]

SECURITY/PRIVACY
   The FBI is testing a code-based way to get into the San Bernardino iPhone
   FBI: Time Needed to Know if Phone Can Be Unlocked [links to Associated Press]
   FBI: We may not need Apple’s help with that iPhone, but we didn’t lie about it [links to Benton summary]
   US Indicts 7 Iranians in Cyberattacks on Banks and a Dam [links to New York Times]
   How a DDoS campaign became an act of cyberwar
   Indictment against hackers linked to Iranian government to be unsealed [links to Washington Post]
   After Verizon breach, 1.5 million customer records put up for sale [links to Ars Technica]

ELECTIONS & MEDIA
   Clinton hits at ‘dangerous’ Brussels response by Trump and Cruz
   Why hasn’t Internet voting caught on? This expert has a nefarious theory. [links to Benton summary]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Lost e-mails from Clinton server discovered
   Two Members of Congress say NSA must end plans to expand domestic spying [links to Ars Technica]
   Library of Congress Salutes Carlin's 'Seven Dirty Words' [links to Broadcasting&Cable]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Buyers of struggling little TV stations could make big money in airwave auction

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   ‘Internet Essentials’ Grows to More Public Housing
   Something Amiss in Washington - AT&T blog [links to Benton summary]

LIFELINE
   MMTC to FCC: Get ETCs Out of Lifeline Verification [links to Broadcasting&Cable]

TELEVISION
   Set-Top Diversity Debate Rages On
   Op-Ed: Millennials Are Watching TV, You Just Aren’t Counting Them [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
   How Millennials Consume TV Depends on Which Stage of Life They're In [links to AdWeek]

CONTENT
   In Shift to Streaming, Music Business Has Lost Billions [links to New York Times]

TELECOM
   Statement of Commissioner Pai on the D.C. Circuit Staying the FCC's Inmate Calling Rate Regulations for a Third Time - press release [links to Benton summary]
   FTC Signs Memorandum of Understanding With Canadian Agency To Strengthen Cooperation on Do Not Call, Spam Enforcement [links to Federal Trade Commission]

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
   FCC Announces Dates for NPRM to Strengthen the Emergency Alert System [links to Federal Communications Commission]

DIVERSITY
   Writers Guild of America West: Minorities Lag in TV Programming Boom
   Wall Street Journal Vows To Fix Pay Gap For Women And Minorities [links to Huffington Post]
   Hollywood Condemns Georgia’s Religious Liberty Bill [links to Variety]

HEALTH
   CBO Scores the Rural Health Care Connectivity Act - research [links to Benton summary]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Apple and Google among firms calling for changes to UK’s Investigatory Powers bill [links to Guardian, The]
   FTC Signs Memorandum of Understanding With Canadian Agency To Strengthen Cooperation on Do Not Call, Spam Enforcement [links to Federal Trade Commission]

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SECURITY/PRIVACY

FBI TESTING CODE-BASED WAY TO GET INTO THE SAN BERNARDINO IPHONE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima, Elizabeth Dwoskin]
The FBI is testing a possible method to help unlock a terrorist’s iPhone on a number of different devices and operating systems before it tries the actual phone in question, law enforcement officials said. The agency anticipates it will soon be able to test the approach on the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino (CA) attack, apparently. The solution, which officials said was brought to them by an outside party over the weekend, is aimed at replicating what the government had tried to force the phone’s maker, Apple, to do — write code to dismantle a security feature on the iPhone 5C that automatically erases data on the phone after 10 incorrect attempts to guess the numeric passcode. The bureau is testing the approach first on other devices to try to catch any errors that might inadvertently erase the data that investigators are trying to recover. “Caution is the rule of the land,” one official said. One idea being passed around the security community was a technique that requires removing the phone’s chip and making thousands of copies of the encrypted data on it. Once the data is copied, the chip is put back on the phone and a specialist can attempt to guess the passcode. If he guesses incorrectly — he has 10 attempts before the chip’s data gets wiped — he replaces the data with one of the copies. But FBI officials said they were going in a different direction. “I’ve heard that [method] a lot,” FBI Director James Comey said. “It doesn’t work.”
benton.org/headlines/fbi-testing-code-based-way-get-san-bernardino-iphone | Washington Post | USA Today
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HOW A DDOS CAMPAIGN BECAME AN ACT OF CYBERWAR
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Russell Brandom]
In September 2012, US banking websites started picking up floods of fake traffic. It was a denial-of-service (DDos) campaign, waged more or less weekly. It went on for month after month, always hitting in the middle of the week, during normal business hours. Under other circumstances, it could have been taken as a hacktivism campaign, akin to similar actions from Lulzsec or other Anonymous branches. The attacks were all simple floods of traffic, nothing sophisticated or technically demanding. While they certainly made life difficult for a number of network managers, the end result was never more serious than a service interruption in customer-facing online banking sites. But as it turned out, this flood of traffic was coming from Iran, which pushed this DDoS campaign onto the world stage. US attorneys unsealed an indictment against seven Iranians for "Cyber Attacks against the US Financial Sector." According to the indictment, the attacks were carried out on behalf of the Iranian government and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a prime example of the politics of cyberwar. One of those attackers had claimed credit for a previously reported infiltration of a small dam in upstate New York, making these the first public charges for digital attacks on critical US infrastructure.
benton.org/headlines/how-ddos-campaign-became-act-cyberwar | Verge, The |
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA

CLINTON HITS AT 'DANGEROUS' BRUSSELS RESPONSE BY TRUMP AND CRUZ
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Carla Marinucci]
Hillary Clinton, drawing a sharp contrast with Republican presidential candidates in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks, warned in a counterterrorism policy address that in the fight against ISIS, America must “rely on what actually works — not bluster that alienates our partners and doesn’t make us any safer.” In a reference to Trump and his signature proposal to build a wall on the Mexican border, Clinton said, “When other candidates talk about building walls around America, I want to ask them: How high does the wall have to be to keep the Internet out?” Clinton also slammed Sen Ted Cruz’s call for more surveillance of Muslims, saying, "One thing we know that does not work is offensive, inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes all Muslims. There are millions of peace-loving Muslims living, working, raising families, and paying taxes in this country. These Americans are a crucial line of defense against terrorism. They are the most likely to recognize the warning signs of radicalization before it’s too late, and the best-positioned to block it."
benton.org/headlines/clinton-hits-dangerous-brussels-response-trump-and-cruz | Politico
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

LOST E-MAILS FROM CLINTON SERVER DISCOVERED
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Conservative legal watchdogs have discovered new e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server dating back to the first days of her tenure as Secretary of State. The previously undisclosed February 2009 e-mails between Clinton from her then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, raise new questions about the scope of e-mails from Clinton’s early days in office that were not handed over to the State Department for recordkeeping and may have been lost entirely. Clinton’s presidential campaign has previously claimed that the former top diplomat did not use her personal "clintonemail.com" account before March 2009, weeks after she was sworn in as secretary of State. But on March 24, the watchdog group Judicial Watch released one message from Feb. 13, 2009, in which Mills communicated with Clinton on the account to discuss the National Security Agency’s (NSA) efforts to produce a secure BlackBerry device for her to use as secretary of State. The discovery is likely to renew questions about Clinton’s narrative about her use of the private e-mail server, which has come under scrutiny. In 2015, news organizations reported that Obama Administration officials had discovered an e-mail chain between Clinton and retired Gen David Petraeus that began before Clinton entered office and continued through to Feb. 1. The chain of e-mails began on an earlier e-mail system that Clinton used while serving in the Senate, but was reportedly transferred on to the clintonemail.com server.
benton.org/headlines/lost-e-mails-clinton-server-discovered | Hill, The
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

BUYERS OF LITTLE TV STATIONS COULD MAKE BIG MONEY IN AUCTION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
On March 29, the Federal Communications Commission will take its latest step toward using multimillion-dollar payoffs to urge broadcasters to give up their airwaves, which in many cases would force them off the air. The spectrum then would be auctioned to telecommunications companies to be used to deliver mobile broadband and Wi-Fi services for America's fast-growing wireless appetite. The biggest winners in the first-of-its-kind auction could be a handful of the nation's newest — and most anonymous — station owners. Companies such as NRJ TV, OTA Broadcasting and LocusPoint Networks have kept a low profile the last few years while snatching up dozens of small TV stations in Los Angeles (CA), San Diego (CA), San Francisco (CA), New York (NY), Chicago (IL) and other markets. The buyers, which include one involving computer magnate Michael Dell, are widely seen as speculators in on the 21st century frontier of wireless spectrum. They have purchased sometimes-struggling TV stations on the cheap and are expected to try to sell the rights to their airwaves in the FCC auction that begins March 29. There's potential for a huge windfall.
benton.org/headlines/buyers-struggling-little-tv-stations-could-make-big-money-airwave-auction | Los Angeles Times
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

'INTERNET ESSENTIALS' GROWS TO MORE PUBLIC HOUSING
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Jeff Baumgartner]
Comcast said it has teamed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) ConnectHome initiative on a pilot that will extend the company’s Internet Essentials program to public housing residents in Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia and Seattle. Internet Essentials, a voluntary commitment linked to Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal and originally designed for low-income families, provides high-speed Internet service (up to 10 Mbps downstream) to those who qualify for $9.95 per month, plus computer equipment (less than $150) and free Internet training. Comcast said Internet Essentials now connects more than 600,000 low-income families, and that 2015 was the program’s most successful year amid a 30% increase in enrolments over 2014.
benton.org/headlines/internet-essentials-grows-more-public-housing | Multichannel News
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TELEVISION

SET-TOP DIVERSITY DEBATE RAGES ON
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The diversity debate over Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's set-top box 'unlocking" proposal continued to heat up with the latest volley coming from supporters of the proposal. In a letter to the FCC commissioners March 24, a group of diverse programmers asked the commission to reject calls to delay the proceeding to study its impact on program diversity. Signing on to the letter were Broderick Byers, CEO, iSwop Networks; Stephen Davis, CEO, New England Broadband; Eric Easter, Chair, National Black Programming Consortium; Clifford Franklin, CEO, GFNTV, and Robert Townsend, principal of The Townsend Group. "The organizations requesting this study and delay have had over 20 years to make a case that a competitive set top box system harms minorities," they wrote. "In these 20 years, these organizations have not made a credible case in this regard. To the contrary, diverse programmers and cable networks have repeatedly made a compelling case that the current system of little to no minority ownership and programming is abhorrent and deserving of a solution such as that proposed in the NPRM." Rather than delay, they urged the FCC to ignore the letter and move ASAP, saying "communities of color" significantly overpay for set-top boxes. On March 21, the National Urban League joined with the National Action Network (Al Sharpton), Rainbow/PUSH (Jesse Jackson) and others to ask the FCC to push pause until the FCC conducts an impact study.
benton.org/headlines/set-top-diversity-debate-rages | Broadcasting&Cable
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DIVERSITY

WGAW: MINORITIES LAG IN TV PROGRAMMING BOOM
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
TV production volume has exploded, more than offsetting the loss of jobs on the theatrical side, but that bounty has not trickled down to the minority media, according to a new report released by the Writers Guild of America, West, which found minority media earnings for TV writers was still over $25,000 less than their white counterparts. A 2014 report (based on 2012 data) on Hollywood writers, which the union represents, found modest gains for minorities and women and more than modest gains for older writers in TV. The just released 2016 Hollywood Writers Report was described by WGAW as "a mixture of slow, forward progress; stalls; and reversals" on the diversity front. “The Guild has watched for years as the progress made by our industry has, in essence, flatlined," said WGAW president Howard A. Rodman. "Today’s report makes it emphatically clear that our Guild needs not just to mirror a broken system, but to work to change it.” Women were in the first category, having made small gains in employment and earnings, but still not achieving parity. But for minority TV writers, "any advances in employment share and relative earnings have stalled since the previous report," WGAW said, with only slight gains in film. Older writers continue to do well, as top writers have aged into the category. Writers 51 to 60 are the highest paid in TV.
benton.org/headlines/writers-guild-america-west-minorities-lag-tv-programming-boom | Broadcasting&Cable | Read the report
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