---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20191011153513.GA5769@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 15:35:13 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Editorial: Taking On Telephone Torture Kudos to voice service providers AT&T Services Inc; CenturyLink; Comcast; Bandwidth Inc; Charter Communications; Consolidated Communication Inc; Frontier Communications Inc; Sprint; T-Mobile USA; US Cellular; Verizon; and Windstream Services LLC that joined in recent months with Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and 50 other Attorneys General to form a bipartisan public/private coalition to combat the insidious robocalls that torment people nationwide. Robocalls and telemarketing calls are the number one source of customer complaints to Attorneys General offices, as well as to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trades Commission. No doubt they are the number one source of irritation in every household. https://www.newtownbee.com/10102019/taking-on-telephone-torture/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <8E15528E-84D6-432E-86B4-888448E294B3@roscom.com> Date: 13 Oct 2019 20:56:07 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Attackers exploit an iTunes zeroday to install ransomware Apple patches actively exploited flaw that let ransomware crooks evade AV protection. By Dan Goodin Attackers exploited a zeroday vulnerability in Apple's iTunes and iCloud programs to infect Windows computers with ransomware without triggering antivirus protections, researchers from Morphisec reported on Thursday. Apple patched the vulnerability earlier this week. The vulnerability resided in the Bonjour component that both iTunes and iCloud for Windows relies on, according to a blog post. The bug is known as an unquoted service path, which as its name suggests, happens when a developer forgets to surround a file path with quotation marks. When the bug is in a trusted program - such as one digitally signed by a well-known developer like Apple - attackers can exploit the flaw to make the program execute code that AV protection might otherwise flag as suspicious. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/attackers-exploit-an-itunes-zeroday-to-install-ransomware/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <EA96359D-75C2-4F40-9EDE-174391114E18@roscom.com> Date: 13 Oct 2019 20:51:31 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Activists' phones targeted by one of the world's most advanced spyware apps "Pegasus," developed by Israel-based NSO Group, stalks 2 Moroccans, researchers say. By Dan Goodin Mobile phones of two prominent human rights activists were repeatedly targeted with Pegasus, the highly advanced spyware made by Israel-based NSO, researchers from Amnesty International reported this week. The Moroccan human rights defenders received SMS text messages containing links to malicious sites. If clicked, the sites would attempt to install Pegasus, which ... is one of the most advanced and full-featured pieces of spyware ever to come to light. One of the activists was also repeatedly subjected to attacks that redirected visits intended for Yahoo to malicious sites. Amnesty International identified the targets as activist Ma=C3=A2ti Monjib and human rights lawyer Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/activists-phones-targeted-by-one-of-the-worlds-most-advanced-espionage-apps/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <32C89700-EE20-418C-A567-6F7C4AFFAD75@roscom.com> Date: 13 Oct 2019 20:54:11 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: AT&T raises prices 7% by making its customers pay AT&T's property taxes AT&T tacks on fee after locking customer into contract, raises it from 3% to 7%. By Jon Brodkin Telecom companies like AT&T love creating new fees to tack on customer bills, and they really love raising those fees after customers sign contracts that are supposed to lock in a consistent price. It's a win-win for the company, but not the customer: AT&T gets to advertise a lower price than it actually charges and has a mechanism for raising customer bills whenever it wants to. Customers who are angry enough to cancel service would have to pay early termination fees. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/att-raises-prices-7-by-making-its-customers-pay-atts-property-taxes/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <87FAC513-3817-4AFC-9D19-2065E6D9BD2E@roscom.com> Date: 13 Oct 2019 20:44:42 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: [Paywall] California's Privacy Act: What You Need to Know Now This week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, published draft guidance for enforcing the state's landmark privacy legislation. The draft text of the regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will undergo a public consultation period, including a number of public hearings, with submissions open until December 6th [of] this year. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/12/californias-privacy-act-what-you-need-to-know-now/ ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Tue, 15 Oct 2019