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  2. March 2016

March 2016

The FBI is testing a code-based way to get into the San Bernardino iPhone

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.”

FBI: We may not need Apple’s help with that iPhone, but we didn’t lie about it

The government is pushing back against claims that it misled the public about needing Apple's help to break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino (CA) shooters. "We tried everything we could think of -- asked everybody we thought might be able to help inside and outside the government -- before bringing the litigation in San Bernardino," FBI Director James Comey said. He also wrote a letter responding to an editorial criticizing the government's handling of the case. "You are simply wrong to assert that the FBI and the Justice Department lied about our ability to access the San Bernardino killer’s phone," Director Comey said.

Instead, the attention to the case had spurred "creative people around the world to see what they might be able to do" to help the agency get around the phone's security features, he wrote. "Lots of folks have come to us with potential ideas -- it looks like we now have one that may work out. We're optimistic and we'll see," Director Comey said. On March 21, the Justice Department asked the court overseeing the dispute to delay a hearing set for the next day because an "outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking" the iPhone in question over the weekend. The government asked for more time to explore if they would be able to use the technique to gain access to the device.

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

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.

Set-Top Diversity Debate Rages On

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.

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