Top Stories

  • President Donald Trump warned that Huawei Technologies Co. is “very dangerous” from a “security standpoint, a military standpoint” but said it was possible that the blacklisting of the company could be part of the trade negotiations with China. If there were an agreement, he told reporters, it was possible that Huawei could be “included in a trade deal.” (Politico)
  • The Senate approved on a 97-1 vote a bill allowing the Federal Communications Commission to increase the fines for robocallers to as much as $10,000 per call. The bill, which was introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), was supported by the FCC, all 50 state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission. (The Hill)
  • Manipulated videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), changed to make her look as if she were slurring her words, have been disseminated across social media, with one version on Facebook drawing more than 2 million views by Thursday night. Analyses of the altered Center for American Progress video show that the video was slowed to about 75 percent of its original speed. (The Washington Post)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

05/28/2019
National Institute of Standards and Technology’s privacy framework discussion draft webinar 1:00 pm
House Oversight and Reform Committee civil rights subcommittee’s field hearing on the 2020 Census 2:00 pm
05/29/2019
AWE USA 2019
AEI’s discussion with Ambassador Robert Strayer on 5G network security 9:00 am
The Aspen Institute’s event on the challenge of deterrence in cyberspace 12:00 pm
AT&T and Carnegie Mellon University’s Privacy in the World of Internet of Things forum 1:00 pm
05/30/2019
AWE USA 2019
ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation event on artificial intelligence 10:00 am
Cato Institute’s panel discussion on free trade and propserity 12:00 pm
Financial Times’ event on AI and the future of work 6:00 pm
05/31/2019
AWE USA 2019
FTC Cmr. Phillips keynote at Global Antitrust Economics Conference 9:00 am
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s public forum on USA Freedom Act and telephone records 10:00 am
Brookings Institution’s conversation with CIA’s privacy and civil liberties officer 10:30 am
View full calendar

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General

Microsoft Pulls Huawei Products From One of Its Cloud Server Catalogs
Dina Bass, Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. has removed Huawei Technologies Co. from one of its websites offering cloud gear, a week after the U.S. government blacklisted the Chinese company. The world’s largest software maker still won’t comment on whether it is rescinding Huawei’s licence to use the Windows operating system.

Republicans and Democrats are learning how to work together on tech regulation
Makena Kelly, The Verge
Last spring, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat before Congress to atone for the company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and in the following months, momentum has built in the halls of the Capitol to regulate these giant tech companies, or even break them up.

NASA announces first major contract for the space station it wants to put in orbit around the moon
Christian Davenport, The Washington Post

Since March, when Vice President Pence suddenly announced a crash program to get humans to the surface of the moon by 2024, NASA has been scrambling to pull off what many think is a near-impossible feat.

SpaceX launches 60 internet-beaming Starlink satellites to orbit
Miriam Kramer, Axios

SpaceX launched 60 of its internet-beaming Starlink satellites to orbit on Thursday night from Cape Canaveral, marking the first launch of its kind for the Elon Musk-founded company.

SpaceX Rockets Were Imperiled by Falsified Reports, Prosecutors Say
Maria Armental and Micah Maidenberg, Politico

Elon Musk’s space venture last year discovered that an employee at one of its contractors falsified product-quality reports for components intended for its rockets, generating concerns at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to federal investigators.

Indian PM Narendra Modi’s reelection spells more frustration for US tech giants
Manish Singh, TechCrunch

Amazon and Walmart’s problems in India look set to continue after Narendra Modi, the biggest force to embrace the country’s politics in decades, led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to a historic landslide re-election on Thursday, reaffirming his popularity in the eyes of the world’s largest democracy.

NASA’s first-of-kind tests look to manage drones in cities
Scott Sonner, The Associated Press

NASA has launched the final stage of a four-year effort to develop a national traffic management system for drones, testing them in cities for the first time beyond the operator’s line of sight as businesses look in the future to unleash the unmanned devices in droves above busy streets and buildings.

Stocks Advance at End of Tough Week; Pound Climbs: Markets Wrap
Namitha Jagadeesh, Bloomberg

U.S. equity futures climbed with European stocks at the end of a bruising week in which escalating trade tensions dominated the market landscape. The pound rose after U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May laid out a timetable to quit.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

Zuckerberg dismisses calls to break up Facebook
Cristiano Lima, Politico

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday rebuffed calls for the company to be broken up over competition concerns, disputing claims the firm has grown too dominant.

Redditor wins right to use anonymous screen name in copyright case
Jon Porter, The Verge

A Redditor who posted information about a Jehovah’s Witness-affiliated organization has won the right to defend themselves in court under a pseudonym. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the user known only as Darkspilver, successfully argued that unmasking them put them at risk of being cast out by their Jehovah’s Witness community.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

FCC Opens Door to Next-Gen TV
John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable

Looks like the next-gen era in broadcast transmissions will begin May 28. That red-letter day is when the FCC says it will start accepting TV station applications to modify their licenses to allow them to broadcast in the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard, which will allow for interactivity, targeted advertising, 4K pictures and more, though it will require a new TV set or adaptor to receive them.

Head of NOAA says 5G deployment could set weather forecasts back 40 years. The wireless industry denies it.
Jason Samenow, The Washington Post

What if, suddenly, decades of progress in weather prediction was reversed and monster storms that we currently see coming for days were no longer foreseeable? The toll on life, property and the economy would be enormous.

China says U.S. needs to fix ‘wrong actions’ as Huawei ban rattles supply chains
Stella Qiu and Tony Munroe, Reuters

China said the United States needs to correct its “wrong actions” in order for trade talks to continue after it blacklisted Huawei, a blow that has rippled through global supply chains and battered technology shares.

Bids in Germany’s 5G auction already top 6 billion euros
Douglas Busvine and Emma Thomasson, Reuters

Germany’s auction of frequencies for fifth-generation mobile services, now into its 10th week, has drawn 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in bids so far. The amount raised in a record 405 auction rounds for the 41 blocks on offer has exceeded forecasts as operators slug it out to secure spectrum to run ‘smart’ factories and offer super-fast broadband to the home.

Mobile Technology and Social Media

Bill to ban the sale of loot boxes to children presses forward with bipartisan support
Makena Kelly, The Verge

Today, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) will be formally introducing his bill to ban the sale of loot boxes to children, and two of his Democratic colleagues have signed on in support of the legislation. Hawley’s Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act would, if approved, prohibit video game companies from selling loot boxes to children under the age of 18 and make it unlawful for minor-oriented games to include pay-to-win mechanics.

It’s Getting Way Too Easy to Create Fake Videos of People’s Faces
Samantha Cole, Motherboard

Researchers at the Samsung AI Center in Moscow developed a way to create “living portraits” from a very small dataset—as few as one photograph, in some of their models.

Who Needs Google’s Android? Huawei Trademarks Its Own Smartphone OS
Yang Jie and Dan Strumpf, The Wall Street Journal

Huawei Technologies Co. is pinning its hopes on a self-designed operating system to replace Google’s Android following a U.S. blacklisting. The question is: Can it succeed where others have failed?

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Google disables Baltimore officials’ Gmail accounts created during ransomware recovery, says city needs to pay
Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun

Gmail accounts created by Baltimore officials as a workaround while the city recovers from the ransomware attack have been disabled because Google considers them business accounts that should be paid for, the mayor’s office said.

Florida election vendor says it has proof it wasn’t breached by Russians
Kim Zetter, Politico

A Florida-based maker of voter registration software says it has proof that neither its employees’ email accounts nor its systems were penetrated in a Russian cyberattack in 2016 — an attack that could have allowed hackers to prevent voters from casting ballots during the presidential election if successful.

Sen. Coons examines Amazon’s privacy and data security practices for Alexa devices
Maggie Miller, The Hill

Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) is looking into Amazon’s privacy and data security practices in regards to its Alexa devices, sending a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday to request information.

Snapchat Employees Abused Data Access to Spy on Users
Joseph Cox, Motherboard

Several departments inside social media giant Snap have dedicated tools for accessing user data, and multiple employees have abused their privileged access to spy on Snapchat users, Motherboard has learned.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Consent Doesn’t Equal Protection: Congress, it’s Time for a Privacy Bill
Debra Berlyn, Morning Consult

It’s time we took a more critical look at the “notice and consent” mechanism since it’s not actually placing protection for consumer data, or the subsequent handling of that data, in the hands of the consumer.

Why We Should Stop Fetishizing Privacy
Heidi Messer, The New York Times

Big tech companies create jobs, encourage innovation and provide valuable services free. Why would we want to break them up?

U.S. and China Go Their Own Ways With AI
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

As the U.S. and China appear headed for a digital cold war, competing policy approaches to the same technologies are emerging. Artificial intelligence is a prime example: Policy makers in democratic societies should, in theory, be making sure it isn’t used to promote intellectual conformity or to persecute minorities and dissidents.

Research Reports

The FTC’s Big Tech Revolving Door Problem
Public Citizen

Public Citizen found that just over 75 percent of top FTC officials (31 out of 41) over the past two decades have either left the agency to serve corporate interests confronting FTC issues, joined the agency after serving corporate interests on these issues, or both. More than 60 percent of the officials studied (26 out of 41) have revolving door conflicts of interest involving work on behalf of the technology sector.

Morning Consult