General
Senator says Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg should face ‘possibility of a prison term’ Todd Haselton, CNBC
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), in an interview with Willamette Week, suggested that Mark Zuckerberg should face a prison term for lying to American citizens about Facebook’s privacy lapses. “Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy,” Senator Wyden said in the interview.
U.S. effort to disqualify Huawei’s lead lawyer goes to court Karen Freifeld, Reuters
A former U.S. Justice Department official who now represents Huawei Technologies is expected in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday to defend his right to represent the Chinese company against U.S. charges of bank fraud and sanctions violations. U.S. prosecutors claim lead Huawei lawyer James Cole’s prior work as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department created “irresolvable conflicts of interest” that disqualify him as counsel for Huawei in the case.
Planned Eric Schmidt Talk at AI Conference Draws Protest Tom Simonite, Wired
Eric Schmidt, former CEO and chairman of Google, has donated money to Stanford University, and taught at its business school. But a group of current and former Google employees, academics, and human rights activists wants the university to cancel a talk he is scheduled to give next month at a conference on ethics and artificial intelligence.
Yearslong Tax Dispute Could Cost Big Tech Companies Billions Richard Rubin and Theo Francis, The Wall Street Journal
A long-running tax dispute is racking up a potentially hefty price tag of nearly $2 billion and counting for dozens of big U.S. companies, including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Since the most recent ruling on the case, in June, more than two dozen companies have disclosed the potential impact on their financial results.
Uber Argues Driver Names Are ‘Closely Guarded Trade Secrets’ Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg
Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. have argued to Chicago city officials that the names of their drivers should be treated as “trade secrets,” and should not be released because competitors could use the information to attempt to hire them away.
Parents Thought They Wanted Tech in Every Classroom. Now They’re Not So Sure. Betsy Morris and Tawnell D. Hobbs, The Wall Street Journal
When Baltimore County, Md., public schools began going digital five years ago, textbooks disappeared from classrooms and paper and pencils were no longer encouraged. All students from kindergarten to 12th grade would eventually get a laptop, helping the district reach the “one-to-one” ratio of one for each child that has become coveted around the country.
Trade-Secrets Case Linked to Google Seen as Warning to Silicon Valley Heather Somerville, The Wall Street Journal
The federal indictment announced last week against a driverless-car engineer that accuses him of stealing trade secrets from Google’s parent company before he jumped to a rival is being viewed as a warning to Silicon Valley that prosecutors may scrutinize defections to competitors that involve sensitive technology.
Risk Back On as Tension Ebbs From U.K. to Hong Kong: Market Wrap Robert Brand, Bloomberg
U.S. index futures rallied alongside European and Asian stocks as traders cheered a reduction in political tension from Italy and Britain to Hong Kong. Treasuries and gold retreated, while the dollar slipped.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
Apple patents Watch band that could ID you from your wrist skin Greg Kumparak, TechCrunch
It looks like Apple is playing with the idea of making the Apple Watch’s band a bit smarter. As spotted by PatentlyApple, the company was granted a handful of patents this morning, all focused on bringing new tricks to the Watch by way of the band.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
AT&T Elevates John Stankey to President, Next in Line to CEO Scott Moritz, Bloomberg
AT&T Inc. named media chief John Stankey to the new position of president and chief operating officer, establishing a clear No. 2 to Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson. The company also said that technology chief Jeff McElfresh, 48, will become CEO of AT&T Communications, filling a post vacated last week when John Donovan abruptly stepped down.
Huawei Was Prepared for Anything—Except Losing Google Juro Osawa, The Information
Over the years, people inside Huawei at times worried the Chinese technology powerhouse, now the world’s second largest smartphone company, was too dependent on some U.S. technologies. To reduce its reliance on American-made chips inside its phones, for example, Huawei switched to alternatives that it made in-house.
How Kentucky Gambled for Hundreds of Millions of Dollars From a Broadband Program It Didn’t Qualify for Alfred Miller, ProPublica
In the spring of 2015, KentuckyWired, the Bluegrass State’s ambitious plan to bring high-speed internet access into rural areas, had ground to a halt. Officials were in talks with Macquarie Capital, an Australian investment bank known for organizing big infrastructure projects around the globe, to build and manage the new network.
Weather Agencies See Risk to Future Storm Forecasting From 5G Thomas Seal and Angelina Rascouet, Bloomberg
Weather agencies are warning that signals from new 5G mobile networks will make it harder to predict and track deadly storms, as the fiercest hurricane in more than 80 years tore across the Bahamas to threaten the U.S. East Coast.
Wi-Fi 6 is barely here, but Wi-Fi 7 is already on the way Stephen Shankland, CNET
Wi-Fi 6 is just now arriving in phones, laptops and network equipment. But engineers are already turning their attention to what’ll come next: Wi-Fi 7.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Forget Politics. For Now, Deepfakes Are for Bullies Tom Simonite, Wired
While Americans celebrated a long Labor Day weekend, millions of people in China enrolled in a giant experiment in the future of fake video. An app called Zao that can swap a person’s face into movie and TV clips, including from Game of Thrones, went viral on Apple’s Chinese app store.
Welcome to San Diego. Don’t Mind the Scooters. Erin Griffith, The New York Times
The first thing you notice in San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter is not the brick sidewalks, the rows of bars and the roving gaggles of bachelorette parties and conferencegoers, or even the actual gas lamps. It’s the electric rental scooters.
America’s Stormy Affair With Apple AirPods: Love ’Em and Lose ’Em Rachel Feintzeig, The Wall Street Journal
For months, Danny Shea suffered a low-level anxiety that finally lifted in June as he boarded a flight from Munich. His left AirPod tumbled from his ear and fell, forever gone, to the runway below.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
Google accused of secretly feeding personal data to advertisers Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times
Google is secretly using hidden web pages that feed the personal data of its users to advertisers, undermining its own policies and circumventing EU privacy regulations that require consent and transparency, according to one of its smaller rivals.
Amazon tests Whole Foods payment system that uses hands as ID Nicolas Vega, New York Post
Forget the titanium Apple Card — Amazon’s latest payment method uses flesh and blood. The e-tailing giant’s engineers are quietly testing scanners that can identify an individual human hand as a way to ring up a store purchase, with the goal of rolling them out at its Whole Foods supermarket chain in the coming months, The Post has learned.
Jeremy Hammond, Anonymous Hacker and WikiLeaks Source, Summoned to Testify Before a Federal Grand Jury Dell Cameron, Gizmodo
Imprisoned hacktivist Jeremy Alexander Hammond, a former WikiLeaks source once regarded as the FBI’s most-wanted cybercriminal, has been called to testify before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, Gizmodo has learned.
Facebook will no longer scan user faces by default Jay Peters, The Verge
Facebook is making facial recognition in photos opt-in by default. Starting today, it’s rolling out its Face Recognition privacy setting, which it first introduced in December 2017, to all users.
California adopted the country’s first major consumer privacy law. Now, Silicon Valley is trying to rewrite it. Tony Romm, The Washington Post
For the past two months, residents here in California’s capital have been inundated by mysterious ads on Facebook and Twitter, warning that the government is about to destroy the Internet as they know it.
Lawmakers offer bill to shore up federal cybersecurity Maggie Miller, The Hill
Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) will introduce a bill this week intended to modernize a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that ensures the cybersecurity of federal agencies. The Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act would formally codify the department’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, which provides tools and services to federal agencies to increase cybersecurity.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Why is the Russian meddling in 2016 such a big secret? I’m not allowed to say. Stephanie Murphy, The Washington Post
In May, other members of Florida’s congressional delegation and I were briefed for 90 minutes in the U.S. Capitol by officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. I sought the briefing after then-special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report showed Russia had probed and even pierced election networks in Florida, among the most closely contested states in U.S. politics.
Build an Online Presence Without Giving Up Privacy Thorin Klosowski, The New York Times
Every hiring manager will do a Google search on your name, most companies keep an eye on your social networks, and in several industries, you’re expected to have an online presence. With all this online performance, is it possible to retain some semblance of privacy?
Research Reports
Why 5G requires new approaches to cybersecurity Tom Wheeler and David Simpson, Brookings Institution
“The race to 5G is on and America must win,” President Donald Trump said in April. For political purposes, that “race” has been defined as which nation gets 5G built first. It is the wrong measurement.
H.R. 3318, Emerging Transportation Security Threats Act of 2019 Congressional Budget Office
H.R. 3318 would require the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to establish a task force to analyze emerging and potential threats to transportation security. The bill also would require TSA to develop a strategy to mitigate those threats.
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