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2018年6月19日 星期二

Hillicon Valley: Verizon, AT&T call off data partnerships after pressure | Tech speaks out against Trump family separation policy | T-Mobile, Sprint make case for $26B merger

 
 
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The Cyber and Tech overnights have joined forces to give you Hillicon Valley, The Hill's comprehensive newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

Welcome! Follow the cyber team, Olivia Beavers (@olivia_beavers) and Morgan Chalfant (@mchalfant16), and the tech team, Harper Neidig (@hneidig) and Ali Breland (@alibreland), on Twitter. Send us your scoops, tips and hot NBA trade rumors.

 

AT&T, VERIZON BACK AWAY FROM DATA-SHARING AFTER WYDEN PRESSURE: AT&T and Verizon told Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today that they would no longer share location data with firms like Securus Technologies and LocationSmart, both of which were embroiled in controversy in recent weeks.

The announcements come after Wyden wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month asking the agency to investigate Securus Technologies Inc., a firm that handles phone calls from jails and prisons. Wyden said the company was not properly vetting law enforcement requests for location data provided by national wireless providers.

The scrutiny also follows last month's news that LocationSmart had inadvertently exposed consumer location data on its website due to a software bug.

Verizon and AT&T both told Wyden on Tuesday that they would cease location data-sharing arrangements with such firms, including LocationSmart and Zumigo Inc.

"When these issues were brought to our attention, we took immediate steps to stop it," Verizon spokesman Rich Young said in a statement. "Customer privacy and security remain a top priority for our customers and our company."

Michael Balmoris, a spokesman for AT&T, issued a similar statement.

"Our top priority is to protect our customers' information, and, to that end, we will be ending our work with aggregators for these services as soon as practical in a way that preserves important, potential lifesaving services like emergency roadside assistance," he said.

We have more here.

 

SENATORS UNVEIL BILL ON SUPPLY CHAIN RISKS: A bipartisan set of senators rolled out a bill Tuesday that aims to establish a council responsible for evaluating supply chain risks that could impact national security as well as create a clear path for authorities to deal with threats once they are uncovered.

Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act (FASCSA) following concerns from lawmakers about the use of products developed by foreign countries.

The concerns were magnified by controversies surrounding Russia-based Kaspersky Labs and ZTE, a China-based telecommunications firm.

The Senate bill would require the Federal Acquisition Security Council to develop criteria for assessing supply chain threats. It would be required to consult the private sector on the development of such policies, and call on the government to develop a strategy to deal with the risks.

The new legislation comes after the Senate passed an annual defense policy bill on Monday that included a provision that blocks President Trump's deal to save ZTE and instead places penalties against the company.

Late last month, a federal judge dismissed Kaspersky Lab's two lawsuits alleging that the federal government and Congress acted unlawfully to ban products developed by the cybersecurity firm over security concerns.

More here.

 

T-MOBILE-SPRINT MAKE THEIR CASE TO THE FCC: T-Mobile and Sprint laid out their case for their proposed $26 billion merger in a filing to the FCC today, pushing back against critics who say that the combination will hurt competition and consumers.

The 678-page filing argues that the merger will allow the companies to build a 5G network that will rival those of their biggest competitors, AT&T and Verizon.

"We cannot relinquish our leadership here and the New T-Mobile will deliver on these capabilities within the first couple of years of bringing these two companies together," T-Mobile CEO John Legere wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "As a country we cannot afford to miss this opportunity and the New T-Mobile is fully prepared to do our part, and to do it fast!"

The companies argued that consumers will benefit from their 5G efforts by paying lower prices and seeing improved wireless capabilities.

More on the merger here.

 

ZTE UPDATE: Last night the Senate passed legislation that intends to reverse the Trump administration easing up on ZTE penalties.

Commerce is still moving forward with its plan though and is reportedly working out the details of an escrow account.

A Commerce Department Official who shared details of the ongoing arrangement said that this type of escrow agreement is a normal part of such processes.

ZTE has agreed to pay a $1 billion penalty and put another $400 million in an escrow account with a U.S. bank as a part of its arrangement to get the U.S. to lift its ban on the Chinese phone maker purchasing equipment from U.S. businesses.

This ban, which was imposed after Commerce found that ZTE violated U.S. trade sanctions, forced the Chinese company to shut down its operations.

The escrow is set up for the U.S. to withdraw from should ZTE violate the terms of the agreement.

 

TECH LOBBIES AGAINST FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY: A group that lobbies on behalf of major technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google is pushing President Trump to end the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"We also believe strongly that separating children from their parents runs contrary to the ideals our country holds most dear," said Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI).

"We urge the administration to end the forcible separation of families at the border," he continued.

Others have spoken out too: Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergApple CEO Tim Cook, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki all voiced their disapproval of forced family separations. ITI's statement is the only one to directed at the Trump administration though.

 

KOGAN TESTIFIES ON CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA: The researcher at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal told Congress on Tuesday that he doesn't believe the data he handed over helped the Trump campaign.

Aleksandr Kogan, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, told a Senate Commerce subcommittee that he doubted his datasets on Facebook users would have much utility for a political operation.

"I believe there is almost no chance this data could have been helpful to a political campaign -- and I still have not seen any evidence to indicate that the Trump campaign used this dataset to micro-target voters," Kogan said in prepared testimony.

 

DRAMA ACCELERATES AT TESLA: Remember Insane Mode? Elon Musk's Tesla is seeing its version of that.

Musk sent an all-staff email on Sunday alleging "extensive and damaging sabotage" by a Tesla employee that the company will investigate this week.

The person in question changed the code of an internal project and exposed data to third parties, according to the CEO's email.

"The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad," Musk wrote, adding that the unnamed employee supposedly took action against the company after being passed up for a promotion.

He went on to say that there "may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye," noting that "there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die." Musk listed "oil & gas companies" and "Wall Street short sellers" as being among the company's potential enemies.

 

LONG READ OF THE DAY: The New York Times Magazine profiles Viceland's late night hosts Desus and Mero. The story covers a range of topics, but relevant to this newsletter, it addresses how their show has succeeded in part by putting on air what is happening on Black Twitter on any given day. After Kanye West's TMZ interview in which he suggested slavery may have been a choice, their jokes highlighted how Kanye was being roasted on the Internet. The article discusses how the show is probably more in tune with the pulse of the internet than other any other late night program.

 

A LIGHTER CLICK: What do we think of pants with zip-off legs in 2018? What about in this heat?

 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW:

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks at 10 a.m.

The House Financial Services Committee will examine the "illicit use of virtual currency" at 2 p.m.

 

OP-ED's TO CHEW ON:

The consumer data collection industry is about to explode. (The Hill)

Don't let internet privacy disputes harm communities of color. (The Hill)

 

NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:

IBM made a computer that is apparently pretty good at debating. (IBM)

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff wants a national privacy law. (Politico)

Tim Cook has become an envoy in U.S.-China trade relations. (The New York Times)

Apple fined in Australia over right to repair. (The Wall Street Journal)

 
 
 
 
 
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