Data breaches occurred 10 years ago, but are much more common today, said Michael Stawasz, Department of Justice deputy chief-computer crime, during a panel Thursday sponsored by FCBA. When people think of data breaches, they think of Target and the theft of personal information, he said. “We do a lot of those cases,” Stawasz said. “But today, the model is changing. The market is saturated with people’s information,” the price of stolen data has decreased and cyberthieves are looking for other ways to make money, he said. “Their new business model is. 'I’m just going to mess with you and get you to pay me to stop,'” he said. “Ransomware” has become easier to do and it’s easier to profit from virtual currencies, he said. “Virtual currencies allow them to scale that model to a much larger degree and now you see mass market ransomware.” There has been an “evolution” in the kinds of risks companies face on data breaches, said privacy lawyer Colleen Brown of Sidley Austin. The playing field has changed significantly in recent years, she said. Who is behind the threats, the kind of data targeted and motives have all changed, she said. “Now we have those hacktivists, who aren’t necessarily motivated by financial concerns,” she said. “You have the disgruntled insiders. … The people you’re up against are increasingly sophisticated. They’re increasingly better resourced. … Sometimes these can be very, very large groups of organized individuals.” The threat isn’t domestic, with many perpetrators living in other countries and some even state-sponsored, she said. “This is a very different playing field and there are different fronts to the war.”

A Donald Trump administration likely wouldn't stake out positions too far removed from the Republican norm on communications issues, New Street Research said in a note to investors. “Even without classical campaign position papers, we think Trump will likely be supportive of the general GOP direction in telecommunications policy,” the firm said. “For example, we suspect he would favor reversing current FCC efforts on pre-empting state municipal broadband bans, Set-Top Boxes, Special Access, and Privacy, while being more sympathetic to consolidation than the [Department of Justice] and FCC have been in recent years.” But New Street conceded there’s not a lot to go on. Trump has presented himself as an anti-establishment candidate. “As with most Trump policy pronouncements, we only discern two consistent elements: adjectives and deal making,” New Street said. “That is, the policy will be great, believe me. It will make America winning winners. Further Trump will appoint the smartest people and they will strike great deals. Stated differently ... nothing to date on the campaign trail provides much of a hint on real policy direction on telecom and media.”

Apple formally objected to a Feb. 16 order from U.S. District Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in Riverside, California, which tried to compel the company to help the FBI access an iPhone used by one of the alleged San Bernardino, California, mass shooters (see 1602170068). Apple filed the notice Tuesday. The next day, the company filed a notice of supplemental authority to call attention to Monday's decision by U.S. District Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in New York's Eastern District that rejected the government's use of the All Writs Act to force Apple to help the FBI unlock the passcode on an iPhone used in a drug case (see 1603010013). The FBI is invoking the All Writs Act in the California case and several others across the country. Apple is using Orenstein's decision to support its motion that the California case be dismissed (see 1602250056).

Several more low-power TV broadcasters challenging FCC incentive auction policies in court asked the commission to stay the auction, said joint filings from Free Access and Broadcast Telemedia, Mako and Word of God Fellowship, and separately from Class A broadcaster Videohouse. It was excluded from the auction along with Class A broadcasters Fifth Street and WMTM. Class A Latina Broadcasters, also excluded from the auction, requested a stay last week but the Media Bureau denied that request (see 1602260013). All the filings ask the FCC to hold off on the March 29 auction start pending resolution of court challenges against the auction. “The brief delay of a stay pending appellate review will not have any material adverse impact on the auction,” said the filing from FAB et al. “Immediate commencement of the initial phase of the auction under the current shadow of legal uncertainty is altogether unnecessary.” FAB’s court case is based on arguments the FCC didn't sufficiently study the auction’s effects on LPTV, while Mako argued the agency is violating congressional intent and the law by not protecting LPTV stations. The Class A stations all seek to be included or protected in the incentive auction, and Videohouse said the FCC is likely to lose that case. Its request for stay should be granted because being displaced by the incentive auction is likely to cause irreparable harm to the station, the filing said.

The FCC doesn't have a good basis for increasing special access regulation on incumbent telcos in the broadband business market, said speakers sympathetic to ILEC views on a Digital Policy Institute webinar Wednesday. "It's an extremely competitive market," said Anna-Maria Kovacs, senior visiting fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. CLECs and other competitors have built facilities in virtually every census block where there's special access demand, and in most there are multiple providers that could reach nearby buildings by installing relatively short connections, she said, calling cable "omnipresent." Asked about the possibility of FCC regulation, she said, "I don't like to see attempts to fix something that is not broken because it can result in something that is broken." Phoenix Center President Larry Spiwak said there aren't any barriers to entry, "It's just expensive." He said it's cheaper to buy access to existing ILEC facilities than it is to deploy new facilities. "What we're really doing is quibbling over rates," he said. The FCC didn't do a cost-benefit analysis, complicating calls for new regulation, he said: "I'm not quite sure what the case is for regulation." Kellogg Huber attorney Evan Leo said cable industry opposition to CLEC regulatory calls (see 1602220059) "is a pretty significant and telling sign of where the marketplace is headed." He said "basically zero" large corporations are complaining to the FCC about special access. "We do not see a constituency of American businesses complaining," he said. Colleen Boothby -- counsel for the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, which represents business customers -- wasn't on the call, but she took issue with Leo's statements. In an email response when we sought comment, she said: "In 2002, the Fortune 500 business customers that are the members of Ad Hoc were the first to point out, in writing and on the record, that carriers were using special access de-regulation solely to raise prices, which is not something companies typically do when they face real competition. In the 14 years since then, Ad Hoc and its members have participated in every phase of every proceeding opened at the FCC to examine (or not) the special access marketplace, including merger proceedings, tariff investigations, and the special access docket itself. Ad Hoc has consistently complained that the FCC’s ill-advised, premature de-regulation of special access has been, and still is, costing real businesses real money due to the lack of competition that would otherwise discipline the ILECs’ prices and practices. Now that the FCC has finally required parties to provide data instead of self-serving rhetoric, our complaints have been vindicated.”

The FCC released an order Wednesday relaxing out-of-band emission limits (see 1602120044) for operation of U-NII-3 devices in the 5.725-5.85 GHz band. The order also gives manufacturers a revised transition period to meet the new requirements. "We are grateful for the FCC's order and the cooperative effort that led to this result,” said Alex Phillips, president of the Wireless ISP Association, one of the petitioners. “It has been a long process to get the rules right. The FCC's adoption of the new technical requirements proposed by industry will enable rural Americans to receive broadband access over fixed wireless networks where other options are not available.” The order, approved 5-0, is a "a win for rural America," wrote Commissioner Ajit Pai. Residents of such places rely on WISPS, which would have otherwise struggled with emissions limits, he said.

Identity theft was the second most reported complaint to the FTC in 2015, soaring by more than 47 percent from the prior year, the commission said in its annual summary of consumer complaints released Tuesday. The commission said the increase is attributable to a "massive jump" in tax ID theft complaints. ID theft complaints had been the top category for the previous 15 years before debt collection complaints eclipsed it last year, said the commission. Debt collection complaints rose largely because of submissions by a data contributor who collects such complaints via a mobile app, FTC said. “Steps like the recent upgrade to IdentityTheft.gov [see 1601280051] and our leadership of a nationwide initiative to combat unlawful debt collection practices are critical to our ongoing work to protect consumers from these harms," said Consumer Protection Bureau Chief Jessica Rich in a statement. The FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Network data book contains complaints made directly by consumers to the commission, plus those received by other federal and state law enforcement agencies, national consumer protection groups and nongovernmental organizations.

Numerous radio and TV broadcasters met with FCC Media Bureau staff Thursday to discuss a wide range of broadcasting issues, according to a pair of ex parte filings in docket 12-268. TV broadcasters including representatives of Gray, Nexstar, Raycom, Sinclair and several state associations asked the bureau not to change retransmission consent and exclusivity rules, said one ex parte filing. The FCC should ”keep in place the current regulatory framework” and close the retransmission and exclusivity proceedings, the filing said. “The best way for the FCC to ensure that consumers have uninterrupted broadcast TV content through [multichannel video programming distributors] distribution is to have pay TV operators negotiate with broadcasters and not the federal government,” the filing said. The FCC should act to prevent “the worsening noise floor” from further interfering with AM and FM broadcasts, radio broadcasters including iHeartRadio and Platte River Radio, and the Colorado Broadcasters Association told Audio Division staff. Division staff also discussed proposed changes to the nighttime power restrictions on some radio stations, the ex parte said. “The staff discussed the impact of relaxing these limits on other radio services, and raised potential alternatives for alleviating these challenges, such as participation in the new FM translator application auctions windows to be opened in 2017,” the filing said.

Broadcasters from 10 states on Thursday told FCC officials of the importance of activating FM chips in smartphones, a perennial issue for the industry, and about some emergency alert system (EAS) concerns. A meeting with Chief David Simpson and others in the Public Safety Bureau was part of NAB's fly-in to lobby (see 1602260038) the FCC that day (see 1602250038), an association spokesman confirmed. At the EAS/FM chip meeting, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State broadcaster association representatives said Simpson's backing of industry negotiations "led to the activation of FM chips in mobile phones offered by three of the four major wireless carriers, and continued industry efforts toward further increasing the availability of radio-enabled smartphones." AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile offer or are moving to offer devices with the chips activated, Commissioner Ajit Pai has said. Verizon didn't immediately comment Monday. On efforts to allow access to emergency information in languages other than English, broadcasters said there are "various risks concerning technology, accuracy and liability that raise obstacles to translating EAS alerts at the EAS Participant-level," said an NAB filing on the meeting, posted Monday in docket 04-296. It said those concerns are "as opposed to passing through multilingual EAS alerts that are created and disseminated by EAS alert originators." More such ex parte filings will be made in coming days on the broadcaster fly-in meetings, said the NAB spokesman.

NAB opposed petitions from the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, Cal.net, Carlson Wireless Technologies, Google and Microsoft seeking reconsideration of rules for unlicensed use of the TV white spaces. The petitions call for relaxing FCC rules for the use of white spaces devices in the TV band, NAB said. “NAB continues to support unlicensed operation in the television band as long as such operations must not cause harmful interference to licensed services,” NAB said in its filing in docket 14-165. “NAB opposes certain of the changes petitioners seek to the FCC’s rules because they will unnecessarily and unacceptably increase the likelihood for harmful interference to over-the-air television viewers and other licensed operations.” CTIA opposed a request by wireless microphone advocates that the FCC relax out-of-band emissions limits for wireless mics. “The Commission’s decision was based in part on extensive testing information provided by CTIA and its members, and the Commission concluded that the requirements it adopted were necessary to ensure compliance with the Spectrum Act,” CTIA said. “The Commission should uphold this conclusion.” The FCC also should stick with a provision limiting the spectrum that can be used for wireless mics, said CTIA. The 30-MHz limit in the order “is well-supported by the record and falls squarely within the Commission’s stated policy objectives of promoting spectral efficiency and frequency agility for wireless microphones,” CTIA said.