Ars Technica

A new technique that abuses poorly secured servers is fueling record-breaking denial-of-service attacks, along with notes demanding the targets pay hefty ransoms for the debilitating flood of junk traffic to stop. Memcached, a database caching system for speeding up websites and networks, lets DDoS vandals amplify their attacks by an unprecedented factor of 51,000. That means a single home computer with a 100 megabit-per-second upload capacity from its ISP is capable of bombarding a target with a once-unimaginable 5 terabits per second of traffic, at least in theory.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai can usually count on support from broadband industry lobbyists and conservative think tanks each time he announces a new policy. But Chairman Pai's proposal to limit broadband choices for poor people who rely on a telecommunication subsidy program is coming under fire from all directions. Chairman Pai wants a major overhaul of Lifeline, a federal program that lets poor people use a $9.25 monthly household subsidy to buy Internet and/or phone service.

Charter Communications is appealing a court ruling that said the ISP must face a lawsuit alleging the company falsely promised fast Internet speeds that Charter knew it could not deliver. Charter claims that federal regulations, including the recent repeal of net neutrality rules, preempts the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary in February 2017. The New York Supreme Court rejected Charter's motion to dismiss the case on February 16, but Charter is appealing the decision in a state appellate court.

AT&T raised the price of one unlimited smartphone data plan by $5 a month and lowered the price of another by $10, for single-line users. Instead of the entry-level unlimited plan costing $60 and the better plan costing $90, the single-line prices are now $65 and $80 a month (plus monthly taxes and fees and a one-time $30 activation fee for each line). AT&T raised the family plan prices by $5 a month for both of these unlimited plans. For example, four-line plans that used to cost $155 or $185 a month now cost $160 or $190.

As Feb 22's SpaceX launch of two test satellites vividly demonstrated, several companies are moving ahead with ambitious plans to design, build, and fly hardware capable of delivering broadband Internet from space. However, as intense as the battle for broadband may be in orbit, the fight is also heating up on the ground. In particular, there is a controversy quietly simmering at the Federal Communications Commission. In a somewhat bizarre situation, the founder and chairman of one company seeking to deliver broadband services, OneWeb, has founded a second company to compete with himself.

President Donald Trump warned about the influence of violence in movies while discussing school safety and mass shootings, suggesting it could be a contributing factor to recent mass shootings.  "We have to look at the internet, because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds, and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they're seeing and how they're seeing it. And also video games," President Trump said. "I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts.

[Analysis] Can states force Internet service providers to uphold net neutrality? That's one of the biggest unanswered questions raised by the Federal Communications Commission vote to repeal its net neutrality rules. After the FCC vote, lawmakers in more than half of US states introduced bills to protect net neutrality in their states.

Thursday, Feb 22, will be the red letter day for court and congressional challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's Dec 14 decision to roll back network neutrality rules and reclassify Internet service providers out from under Title II common carrier regulations. The FCC Has delivered the final Restoring Internet Freedom order to the Federal Register, which has just signaled it would be publishing that order on Feb 22. That means the repeal will take place on or about April 23. But the lawsuits to overturn the repeal can get started in Feb or in early March.