D.C.'s Complicated View of Cyberwar, Regulation, Liability

MINNEAPOLIS – Lawmakers and politicians trying to equate cyberwar with a kinetic battle are misguided in putting the two on equal footing, said former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart A. Baker today in his keynote at the Cyber Security Summit. “Cyberweapons are not like nuclear...

Verizon to Pay Largest Ever Consumer Privacy Settlement

Verizon will pay the Federal Communications Commission $7.4 million as part of a settlement over the company’s failure to adequately inform and obtain consent from customers before using their personal information to develop thousands of tailored marketing campaigns. Officials say this fine...

Google to Pay $7M Settlement Over Street View Data Collection

Google has agreed to pay a $7 million settlement to several dozen U.S. states as part of an agreement of charges that the company was collecting private user data from WiFi hotspots while its Street View cars were driving around taking photos in various locations. The controversy over Google’s...

GAO: FCC Network Fortification Project Fails

The Government Accountability Office has determined that the Federal Communications Commission failed to properly implement necessary security controls in the initial phases of its Enhanced Secured Networks project, and, as a result, FCC data remains vulnerable to “unnecessary risk of inadvertent...

Verizon Settles with FCC for $1.25 Million Over Tethering Block

In an unprecedented move, the Federal Communications Commission ended a 10-month investigation of Verizon Wireless with a $1.25 million settlement for restricting Android customer access to “tethering” software used to relay Internet signals to other devices. The federal probe was launched after...

Report: Wireless Hacking Suspected In Air Raid Siren Miscues

UPDATE: Residents in two Illinois communities are settling their nerves after civil defense sirens blared for around 30 minutes last Saturday – an incident that authorities say may be the result of hacking. Sirens in the communities of Evanston and Lemont, Illinois, were treated to continuous...

Google's rogue engineer want to Stumble WI-FI Networks on Globe ?

Google's rogue engineer want to Stumble WI-FI Networks on Globe ? European privacy regulators said Wednesday that they were considering reopening their inquiries into Google's collection of personal e-mails and Web searches for its Street View service. Google's public version of events of how it...

Report Says Engineer Designed Google Street View with Payload Data Gathering in Mind

Google says it released the full FCC report on Street View consumer privacy allegations to hopefully put the matter to rest. But revelations that the code might have been created with surreptitious data gathering in mind is likely to keep the issue very much alive. An article in today’s Los Angel...

Critics Continue Pushing for Bigger Probe into Google Street View Practices

Privacy advocates continue urging for a wider federal investigation into Google Street View practices following Google’s $25,000 fine for stonewalling federal officials during an earlier probe of Wi-Fi snooping allegations. The Federal Communications Commission late last week gave the Internet...

ISPs Signal Support For Anti-Bot Code Of Conduct

The U.S.’s leading Internet Service Providers signed on to a new Federal Communications Commission code of conduct to limit the impact of major cyber security threats including botnets, attacks on the Domain Name System DNS and Internet routing attacks. AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Sprint, Ti...

FCC to Investigate BART Wireless Blackout

The FCC is launching a probe into the August 11, 2011 decision by San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit BART to cut-off wireless communication services in their tunnels to disrupt planned protests. The investigation comes almost four months after BART operators used a wireless blackout to dampen...

Insulin Pump Hack Garners Federal Attention

The hack of a commercially available insulin pump earlier this month at the DEFCON hacker conference has attracted the attention of members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which is now calling for a formal review of wireless medical devices like the pump. Senior Committee members Anna G...

FCC Roundtable: Small Businesses Lacking Security, But We Can Help

Small businesses aren’t taking the necessary precautions to protect themselves from cyber attacks, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission FCC – but Uncle Sam wants to help. The U.S. Government agency, better known for battles over media deregulation, is now looking ot help small...

Report: FCC May Push ISPs To Crack Down on Botnets

We’ve known for a long time that botnets are the Madwoman in the Attic at most major Internet service providers ISPs- an unseemly and occasionally embarrassing presence that is occasionally dealt with, but usually silently tolerated. But now, it seems, there’s pressure mounting on ISPs to do...

GSM Network Weakness Exposed at DEFCON

A hardware hacking expert here at Defcon18 successfully faked several attendees’ cell phones into connecting to his phony GSM base station during a live demonstration that had initially raised concerns at the Federal Communications Commission FCC. Read the full article. Dark Reading...