Uber covers up a data breach, the noose tightens on net neutrality, and Bulletproof’s website spills the data beans.
All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault.
Enlarge / Protestors object to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to eliminate net neutrality rules before Pai’s appearance at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC on May 5, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla)
You have until midnight Eastern Time tomorrow night (Wednesday) to file comments on the Federal Communications Commission plan to deregulate broadband service and roll back net neutrality rules.
There are 21.9 million filings on the FCC’s “Restoring Internet Freedom” docket already, blowing away the four million received before the 2015 decision that imposed net neutrality rules. Many comments are apparently from spam bots and form letters, but Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to undo net neutrality rules has received massive attention.
The deadline for initial comments passed on July 17, and the deadline for replies to initial comments was supposed to pass on August 16. But the FCC extended the deadline by two weeks to August 30, partially granting a request for an eight-week extension from net neutrality advocates.
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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Peter Dazeley)
The Federal Communications Commission is being pressured to release the text of 47,000 net neutrality complaints before going through with Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to eliminate net neutrality rules.
The FCC has refused to release the text of most neutrality complaints despite a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request that asked for all complaints filed since June 2015. The FCC has provided 1,000 complaints to the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), which filed the public records request but said last month that it’s too “burdensome” to redact personally identifiable information from all 47,000.
Today, 16 groups wrote a letter urging the FCC to release all the complaints so they can be reviewed by the public before the commission finalizes a plan to dismantle the 2015 net neutrality rules. “The FCC has failed to make critical evidence available for public review and comment,” they wrote to Pai and the other four commissioners.
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Enlarge / John Oliver takes on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in net neutrality segment. (credit: HBO Last Week Tonight)
The US Federal Communications Commission says it has no written analysis of DDoS attacks that hit the commission’s net neutrality comment system in May.
In its response to a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request filed by Gizmodo, the FCC said its analysis of DDoS attacks “stemmed from real time observation and feedback by Commission IT staff and did not result in written documentation.” Gizmodo had asked for a copy of any records related to the FCC analysis that concluded DDoS attacks had taken place. Because there was no “written documentation,” the FCC provided no documents in response to this portion of the Gizmodo FoIA request.
The FCC also declined to release 209 pages of records, citing several exemptions to the FoIA law. For example, publication of documents related to “staffing decisions made by Commission supervisors, draft talking points, staff summaries of congressional letters, and policy suggestions from staff” could “harm the Commission’s deliberative processes,” the FCC said. “Release of this information would chill deliberations within the Commission and impede the candid exchange of ideas.”
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