---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20190813221600.GA6559@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 22:16:01 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: United States: New FCC Regulations To Curb Foreign Caller ID Spoofing by David O. Klein On August 1, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") adopted new regulations that will allow the federal government to pursue enforcement actions against foreign businesses that knowingly "spoof" US recipients with the intent to cause harm, defraud, or obtain anything of value. Spoofing is the practice of using misleading caller ID information to manipulate a recipient into answering a call or text message through the use of a telephone number displayed on caller ID is intended to be somewhat recognizable to consumers. In the past, we have blogged about legislation that was introduced to address spoofing. That specific legislation died in committee, but with the passage of the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services Act of 2018("RAY BAUM'S"), new FCC regulations have been put into place to pursue foreign bad actors. http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=834382&email_access=on -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20190813235139.GA7125@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 23:51:39 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: TCPA Law - FCC Eliminates Opt-Out Notice Requirement for Solicited Faxes On November 14, 2018, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") issued an order ("2018 Order") formally eliminating the requirement that opt-out notices must be included on faxes sent with the recipients' prior consent pursuant to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"). The FCC's new TCPA law guidance appears to be in direct response to the decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley, et al. v. FCC, which held that the FCC lacked the power to issue a ruling purporting to dictate the content of solicited - as opposed to unsolicited - faxes. On that basis, the D.C. Circuit struck down certain portions of the FCC's 2006 Junk Fax Rule as invalid. http://www.mondaq.com/ac/content.asp?content_id=3988&email_access=on -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <D7127A0A-4944-4161-811C-3CBD8BC953B7@roscom.com> Date: 15 Aug 2019 12:50:49 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: I shared my phone number. I learned I shouldn't have. Our personal tech columnist asked security researchers what they could find out about him from just his cellphone number. Quite a lot, it turns out. By Brian X. Chen For most of our lives, we have been conditioned to share a piece of personal information without a moment's hesitation: our phone number. We punch in our digits at the grocery store to get a member discount or at the pharmacy to pick up medication. When we sign up to use apps and websites, they often ask for our phone number to verify our identity. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/technology/personaltech/i-shared-my-phone-number-i-learned-i-shouldnt-have.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <78F1F311-5AD2-416A-901E-613743889EC2@roscom.com> Date: 15 Aug 2019 13:14:31 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: They Stole Your Files, You Don't Have to Pay the Ransom The F.B.I. should follow the example of European law enforcement and help victims of ransomware decrypt their data. By Josephine Wolff In July, Europol celebrated the third anniversary of its No More Ransom initiative, announcing that the public-private partnership had helped more than 200,000 ransomware victims recover their files using its library of freely available online tools instead of giving in to hackers' demands to pay a cryptocurrency ransom. All told, the recovered files saved victims some $108 million in ransom, according to Europol, the European Union's police agency. The No More Ransom tools are available to everyone, not just those in the European Union. People from 188 countries have visited the project's website in three years, with nearly 10 percent of that traffic coming from the United States, according to data collected by the European Cybercrime Center. But here in the United States, where ransomware is on the rise and increasingly targeting both local governments and private companies, law enforcement has been strangely quiet about promoting alternatives to ransom payment. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/ransomware.html ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Fri, 16 Aug 2019