Attempts to weaken or restrict encryption would have a damaging impact on the overall digital economy, including undermining systems, increasing consumer costs, and diminishing America's global competitiveness, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in a report released Monday (see 1603040023). ITIF authors Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn said the U.S. government should promote better cybersecurity practices around the world, "in part by encouraging continued innovation in encryption." They said the government can rebuild trust in the domestic technology sector through strong data security practices in the U.S. Congress should prohibit NSA from "intentionally weakening encryption standards" and improve transparency of the cryptographic standards-setting process, they said. It should also pass legislation to ban efforts to install back doors into products and services and preempt any similar actions by state governments, plus oppose other governments' initiatives to introduce back doors into products and services or weaken encryption, they wrote. Castro and McQuinn said Congress should set "clear rules for how and when law enforcement can hack into private systems, and how and when law enforcement can compel companies to assist in investigations." And it should provide more resources to law enforcement in investigations and analysis of digital evidence, they said.

After 50 “glorious years,” Moore’s law is “running out of steam,” said a paper published Friday in The Economist. Moore’s law, which holds that computing power doubles every two years with no uptick in cost, has resulted in a modern smartphone that today packs more computing punch than a supercomputer did two decades ago, the paper said. “But after half a century of blistering progress, the end is now in sight.” Fifty years of Moore's law “have made computers cheap, powerful and tiny, but the exponential increase in computing power has been slowing for some time,” it said. “With transistors getting ever smaller, each successive shrinking is bringing fewer benefits while costs are rising dramatically.” The “twilight” of Moore’s law “will bring change, disorder and plenty of creative destruction,” it said. “An industry that used to rely on steady improvements in a handful of devices will splinter. Software firms may begin to dabble in hardware; hardware makers will have to tailor their offerings more closely to their customers’ increasingly diverse needs.”

The court order forcing Apple to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5C used by a gunman in the California mass shooting in December applies only to that phone and "does not compel [the company] to unlock other iPhones or to give the government a universal 'master key' or 'back door,'" argued DOJ lawyers in a 35-page filing Thursday countering Apple's motion to dismiss the case (see 1603020061). The lawyers said the All Writs Act (AWA), which the government is applying in the court order, isn't "dusty and forgotten" as Apple has described it, but "vital" to the U.S. legal system and "regularly invoked." They said the Supreme Court rejected similar policy arguments in 1977's U.S. vs. New York Telephone that Apple now raises: "that the AWA could not be read so broadly; that it was for Congress to decide whether to provide such authority; and that relying on the AWA was a dangerous step down a slippery slope ending in arbitrary police powers." DOJ lawyers said "fears have proved unfounded" in the 40 years since that decision. The order instructs Apple to create "a narrow, targeted piece of software" for just that one iPhone within the company's own secure headquarters, the lawyers said (see 1603010013). Justice said the device is owned by the County of San Bernardino, which is where the shooting took place, and was used by "now-dead terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, who also consented to its being searched as part of his employment agreement with the County. In short, the Order invades no one's privacy and raises no Fourth Amendment concerns."

The FCC handed down a $1.6 million fine to Florida-based telecom provider NetOne for instances of cramming -- the practice of billing consumers for unauthorized services or features -- the commission said in a news release Wednesday. The Enforcement Bureau reviewed more than 100 consumer complaints against NetOne, which detailed instances of the company charging consumers "late fees" after they had canceled service, and refusing to close customer accounts until the unauthorized fees were paid, said the release. The FCC said NetOne "continued to engage in cramming despite repeated warnings" from the commission, which issued a notice of apparent liability to NetOne in the case in July 2014. NetOne didn't comment.

A coalition of privacy, civil liberties and human rights groups is demanding the U.S. government include the organizations in discussions of free expression and privacy online as federal efforts to combat violent extremism widen. In a letter sent Tuesday to three top White House officials, nearly a dozen groups -- including Access Now, Center for Democracy and Technology and New America's Open Technology Institute -- cited a couple of private meetings since January between the government and technology company executives on how to counter terrorists' use of the Internet to radicalize and recruit people. "When the government sits down with those companies that have practical control over a broad swath of public speech and private communication, and especially if and when those conversations lead to voluntary surveillance or censorship measures that would be illegal or unconstitutional for the government to undertake itself, the consequences are truly global," the letter said. The coalition said the potential human rights threat is "especially acute" since many federal programs "overwhelmingly target Muslim and other marginalized communities and individuals." To ensure human rights are protected, the groups said the government must engage with civil society groups "to the same extent" as technology companies. The administration and companies also need to be transparent about steps being taken, such as changes to security features in services and products -- amid the FBI's legal fight to force Apple to help the agency gain access to an iPhone (see 1603040023) -- "or any changes to policies and practices that determine what speech is censored or reported to the government," the letter said. The U.S. has promoted the Internet internationally through a multistakeholder approach, and it should do the same domestically, the coalition said. The letter was addressed to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and National Economic Council Director Jeffrey Zients. The White House did not comment.

AT&T said the FCC should approve its request to discontinue certain operator services despite concerns expressed by a few consumers and two local public safety officials in Washington state. "None of the comments filed demonstrate that the public convenience and necessity will be impaired as a result of AT&T’s discontinuance of these services," the telco said in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 16-13. AT&T said it was seeking to discontinue operator-assisted "collect calling, person-to-person calling, billed to third party, busy line verification, busy line interrupt and international directory assistance." The 13 comments filed in response "were concerned with the continued availability of busy line verification/interrupt (BLV/I), collect calling and international directory assistance," said the telco, which said it wrote all the commenters to explain "its reasons for discontinuing these services, and provided information on the alternative services, resources or applications that are available." AT&T acknowledged there didn't appear to be a legacy TDM-based voice replacement for the BLV/I service, which eight commenters said was of particular concern for emergency personnel, but it said "the market indicates that there is no need for a replacement service." New products and services "have rendered BLV/I services unnecessary and obsolete" because customers are using modern technologies that notify them when someone is trying to call them or a line is in use, the telco said. The company plans to discontinue the services to retail customers after March 18 and to wholesale customers June 4, it said in its application (see 1601070023).

The Benton Foundation urged the FCC to expand Lifeline USF support to broadband. It also asked the commission either to allow non-eligible telecom carriers to provide Lifeline service or to ease the ETC designation process by forbearing from certain eligibility requirements and establishing a national ETC process. The requests came in a letter posted Friday in docket 11-42 by the group's attorneys at the Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation.

The Rural Utilities Service is seeking comment by March 31 on ways to improve its environmental review process for telecom programs. The Department of Agriculture agency "seeks public and federal agency comments regarding the preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the development of a more efficient and effective environmental review process for the RUS Telecommunications Program -- an environmental review process that is commensurate with the potential environmental impacts of both wired and wireless broadband projects financed by the Agency," said a RUS notice published in Tuesday's Federal Register. Comments are being sought on compliance with various environmental laws and regulations "applicable to the RUS Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan Program, Farm Bill Broadband Loan Program, Community Connect Grant Program, and Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program," which seek to facilitate "affordable and reliable broadband infrastructure" deployment in rural America, the notice said.

FCC proposals to change hearing aid compatibility rules for wireline devices drew support, but there were mixed views on proposed HAC rule changes for wireless devices and consumer group participation in a compliance standards process. Every party filing comments in docket 13-46 backed a proposal to adopt a revised standard (the 2012 ANSI Wireline Volume Control Standard) developed by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) that the FCC in an NPRM said “appears likely” to help people with hearing loss select wireline phones “with sufficient volume control” to meet their needs while giving industry greater regulatory certainty. (TIA is accredited with the American National Standards Institute, ANSI.) Most commenters (an ANSI committee was silent) also backed a proposal to apply wireline volume control and other HAC requirements to handsets used for VoIP services, pursuant to the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. “Any technology requirements for wireline phones should apply to [customer premises equipment] VoIP phones as well,” said Georgia Tech’s Center for Advanced Communications Policy and the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies. TIA said it supports the wireline changes only to the extent that it proposed in a petition it filed. Several commenters generally supported an FCC proposal to set a volume control standard for wireless handsets “to ensure more effective acoustic coupling between handsets and hearing aids or cochlear implants,” but TIA “discouraged” such regulation, saying it “would be duplicative of existing features and requirements." The ANSI committee (ANSI ASC C63®), the Hearing Industries Association (here) and the consumer groups also supported a proposal to require manufacturers to exclusively use an ANSI committee standard (ANSI C63.19-2011) “to certify future handsets as hearing aid compatible.” A proposal to "simplify" the ANSI standard-setting process for HAC compliance and include consultation with “consumer stakeholders” was particularly controversial. The consumer groups were supportive, but the ANSI committee said the FCC shouldn’t designate consumer representatives; TIA said it was concerned about aspects of the proposed consumer consultations, including the precedent it would set; and the Hearing Industries Association said the current ANSI standard-setting process was sufficient. Replies are due March 28.

The FCC invited comment by March 15 on Vonage's application to obtain phone numbers directly from numbering administrators, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 16-49 Monday. Vonage submitted its application Feb. 18 (see 1602190067), the first day interconnected VoIP providers were allowed to seek phone numbers directly under a 2015 FCC order.