Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Millions of records that the Federal Communications Commission’s top lawyer once fought to hold back from state law enforcement officials now serve as key evidence in a year-long probe into cases of Americans being impersonated during the agency’s latest net neutrality proceeding.

During the second year of the Trump Administration, the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) has made great strides in supporting America’s bright future. In January 2019, OSTP welcomed the confirmation of Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier as its new Director. Other highlights:

CTIA, a trade group representing top US wireless providers, disagreed with European and Asian counterparts over alleged security threats from Chinese equipment maker Huawei. A Feb 14 release from GSMA, a London-based wireless industry group, urged European lawmakers not to ban Huawei as a supplier.

House Commcerce Committee Vice Chair Yvette Clarke (D-NY) and Rep John Curtis (R-UT) spoke at The Hil event titled "Boundless: Building a 5G World". They touted the potential benefits from emerging 5G technology, but warned that Congress must act quickly in a bipartisan fashion before the US falls behind. "We've got to remember to keep 5G nonpartisan, because the moment it becomes owned by a single party, then that's when it loses,” said Rep Curtis.

The Senate Commerce Committee drilled down on the 5G rollout in a hearing titled "Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the United States." It was the first hearing of the committee in the 116th Congress, and the shadow of Chinese tech in US telecom loomed large over the proceedings.

I believe it is no longer enough to be first to 5G—the networks we deploy must also be secure. And to build 5G security effectively, we must build a market for more secure 5G equipment. That means making sure our companies can continue to innovate and encouraging other countries to invest in 5G security, too. This is a big task. As with all significant endeavors, the hard part is where to start. But I have some ideas—about where the Federal Communications Commission should begin.

At State of the Net, much of Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr's speech focused on 5G and on the "real challenge" from China, which he said has deployed 5G at five times the pace of the US -- a timely comment in the midst of the Huawei controversy. He stopped short of promising special consideration for US 5G projects, but he cautioned against establishing policy barriers. "I want to let the private sector compete" without restraints from local government agencies, on topics such as tower deployment, he said.

Desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook  has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August.

An indictment unsealed on Jan 28 claims that telecommunication equipment vendor Huawei stole trade secrets from Bellevue (WA)-based T-Mobile USA and then obstructed justice when T-Mobile threatened to sue Huawei in US District Court in Seattle.