RadioShack is trying to auction off its customer data on some 117 million customers as part of its court-supervised bankruptcy.
The data in question, according to a legal challenge launched by Texas regulators on Friday and joined by the state of Tennessee on Monday, includes “consumer names, phone numbers, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, and, where allowed, activity data.”
The states say the sale breaches the 94-year-old chain’s promises to its in-store and online customers that it would not sell their personal identifying information (PII) data.
Tag: AT&T
Despite Throwing Money At Congress, Comcast Finds Merger Support Hard To Come By
Poor Comcast. Despite throwing millions of dollars at think tanks, consultants, PR reps, editorial writers, various front groups and a myriad of other policy tendrils, genuine, meaningful support for the company’s $45 billion Time Warner Cable acquisition is still apparently hard to come by. You might recall that last year top Comcast lobbyist “Chief Diversity Officer” David Cohen proudly crowed that support for the company’s merger was “pouring in” — though he failed to mention that Comcast was paying people for that support, and that said support largely consisted of regurgitated form letters.
Despite the money spent however, it appears that actual support in Congress for the deal is tepid to non-existent. Comcast’s hometown paper the Philadelphia Inquirer points out that whereas the NBC deal saw major support efforts by members of Congress, politicians appear to want nothing to do with this latest merger attempt
AT&T’s Cozy NSA Ties Brought Up In Attempt To Scuttle DirecTV Merger
Before there was Edward Snowden, there was of course the notably less celebrated Mark Klein. As most of you probably recall, Klein, a 22-year AT&T employee, became a whistleblower after hehighlighted how AT&T was effectively using fiber splits to give the NSA duplicate access to every shred of data that touched AT&T’s network. Of course, once it was discovered that AT&T was breaking the law, the government decided to just change the law, ignore Klein’s testimony, and give all phone companies retroactive immunity. It really wasn’t until Snowden that the majority of the tech press took Klein’s warnings seriously.
AT&T’s been loyally “patriotic” ever since, often giving the government advice on how to skirt the lawor at times even acting as intelligence analysts. Business repercussions for AT&T have been minimal at best; in fact, you’ll recall that Qwest (now CenturyLink) claimed repeatedly that government cooperation was rewarded with lucrative contracts, while refusal to participate in government programs was punished. In fact, the only snag AT&T’s seen in the years since was to have its European expansion plans thwarted, purportedly by regulators uncomfortable with the carrier’s cozy NSA ties (AT&T instead simply expanded into Mexico).
Fast forward a few years and The Hill is now claiming that AT&T’s relationship with the NSA could harm the company’s $48 billion attempt to acquire DirecTV. This claim is apparently based on the fact that a coalition of AT&T business partners, called the Minority Cellular Partners Coalition, is warning the FCC in a letter that AT&T’s enthusiastic voluntary cooperation with the NSA shows the company’s total disregard for consumer privacy.
“(Despite immunity) the Commission is still obliged to execute and enforce the provisions of § 229 of the Act, see 47 U.S.C. § 151, and it is still empowered to conduct an investigation to insure that AT&T complies with the requirements of CALEA. See id. § 229(c). And the Commission is obliged to determine whether AT&T is qualified to obtain DIRECTV’s licenses in light of its egregious violations of CALEA. This is particularly true given AT&T’s continued and ongoing pattern of misconduct. Accordingly, the Commission should investigate AT&T’s complicity in the PSP to determine whether AT&T engaged in unlawful conduct that abridged the privacy interests of telecommunications consumers on a vast scale and, if so, whether AT&T is qualified to obtain DIRECTV’s licenses.”
Of course, that’s simply not happening. While the NSA cooperation can be used as a broader example of AT&T’s character (like the repeatedly nonsensical claims the company makes when it wants a merger approved, or how AT&T tries to charge its broadband customers extra for no deep packet inspection), it’s incredibly unlikely that the same government that granted AT&T’s immunity will turn around and sign off on using AT&T’s behavior to squash a merger. If the merger is blocked, it will be due to more practical considerations — like the fact that DirecTV is a direct competitor to AT&T and eliminating them would lessen competition in the pay TV space. When it comes to AT&T’s relationship with the NSA, it’s pretty clear by now that these particular chickens may never come home to roost.
Blackburn Bill Attempts To Gut New Net Neutrality Rules. You Know, For Freedom
During the last election cycle, Representative Marsha Blackburn received $15,000 from a Verizon PAC, $25,000 from an AT&T PAC, $20,000 from a Comcast PAC, and $20,000 from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Surely that funding is only coincidentally related to Blackburn’s recent decision to rush to the defense of awful state protectionist law written by the likes of AT&T and Comcast, preventing towns and cities from doing absolutely anything about their local lack of broadband competition.
That money surely is also only tangentially related to the fact that Blackburn has also just introduced the “Internet Freedom Act” (pdf), aimed at gutting the FCC’s recently unveiled Title II-based net neutrality rules and prohibiting the agency from trying to make new ones. Whereas most of us thought net neutrality is about protecting consumers and smaller competitors from the incumbent ISP stranglehold over the last mile, Blackburn’s website informs readers that net neutrality rules harm innovators, jobs, and err — freedom:
FCC Approval Of Zero Rating Shows Companies Can Still Violate Neutrality Under New Rules, They Just Have To Be More Clever About It
We’ve discussed more than a few times the awful precedent set by AT&T’s Sponsored Data effort, which involves companies paying AT&T to have their service be exempt from the company’s already arbitrary usage caps. While AT&T pitches this as a wonderful boon to consumers akin to 1-800 numbers and free shipping, as VC Fred Wilson perfectly illustrated last year, it tilts the entire wireless playing field toward companies with deeper pockets that can afford to pay AT&T’s rates for cap exemption.
So how will the FCC’s new net neutrality rules impact AT&T’s plans? There’s every indication it won’t. The rules are still a few years and a few legal challenges away from becoming tangible, and in the interim, the FCC is telling companies that none of the zero rated efforts currently in play should be impacted. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Norway, Chile and now Canada all realize the threat posed by zero rated apps and have passed net neutrality rules that outlaw zero rating. The FCC, in contrast, has consistently implied it sees zero rating as “creative” pricing.
That’s given AT&T the justifiable confidence to sally forth with its dangerous precedent. After all, injecting a gatekeeper like AT&T (with a generation of documented anti-competitive abuses under its belt) right into the middle of the wireless app ecosystem won’t hurt anyone, and has nothing whatsoever to do with net neutrality.
Comcast Blocks HBO Go From Working On Playstation 4, Won’t Coherently Explain Wh
About a year ago we noted how Comcast has a weird tendency to prevent its broadband users from being able to use HBO Go on some fairly standard technology, including incredibly common Roku hardware. For several years Roku users couldn’t use HBO Go if they had a Comcast connection, and for just as long Comcast refused to explain why. Every other broadband provider had no problem ensuring the back-end authentication (needed to confirm you have a traditional cable connection) worked, but not Comcast. When pressed, Comcast would only offer a generic statement saying yeah, it would try and get right on that:
“With every new website, device or player we authenticate, we need to work through technical integration and customer service which takes time and resources. Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize as we partner with various players.”
And the problem wasn’t just with Roku. When HBO Go on the Playstation 3 was released, it worked with every other TV-Everywhere compatible provider, but not Comcast. When customers complained in the Comcast forums, they were greeted with total silence. When customers called in to try and figure out why HBO Go wouldn’t work, they received a rotating crop of weird half answers or outright incorrect statements (it should arrive in 48 hours, don’t worry!).
Fast forward nearly a year since the HBO Go Playstation 3 launch, and Sony has now announced an HBO Go app for the Playstation 4 console. And guess what — when you go toactivate the app you’ll find it works with every major broadband ISP — except Comcast. Why? Comcast appears to have backed away from claims that the delay is due to technical or customer support issues, and is now telling forum visitors the hangup is related to an ambiguous business impasse:
“HBO Go availability on PS3 (and some other devices) are business decisions and deal with business terms that have not yet been agreed to between the parties. Thanks for your continued patience.”
Since every other ISP (including AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable) didn’t have a problem supporting the app, you have to assume Comcast specifically isn’t getting something from Sony or HBO it would like (read: enough money to make them feel comfortable about potentially cannibalizing traditional TV/HBO viewers). It’s a good example of how crafting net neutrality rules is only part of the conversation. It’s great to have rules, but they don’t mean much if bad or outright anti-competitive behavior can just be hidden behind half-answers and faux-technical nonsense for years on end without repercussion.
AT&T’s $30 ‘Don’t Be Snooped On’ Fee Is Even Worse Than Everybody Thought
Last week we noted that while AT&T has been trying to match Google Fiber pricing in small portions of several markets, it has been busily doing it in a very AT&T fashion. While the company is offering a $70, 1 Gbps service in some locations, the fine print indicates that users can only get that price point if they agree to AT&T’s Internet Preferences snoopvertising program. That program uses deep packet inspection to track your online behavior down to the second — and if you want to opt out, that $70 1 Gbps broadband connection quickly becomes significantly more expensive.
While most people thought this was rather dumb, AT&T actually received kudos on some fronts for trying something new. Apparently, the logic goes, AT&T charging you a major monthly fee to not be snooped on will result in some kind of privacy arms race resulting in better services and lower prices for all. While sometimes that sort of concept works (Google and Apple scurrying to profess who loves encryption more, for example), anybody who believes this is a good precedent doesn’t know the U.S. telecom market or AT&T very well.
As Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM notes, it’s not as simple as just paying AT&T a $30 to not be snooped on. AT&T actually makes it very difficult to even find the “please don’t spy on me option,” and saddles the process with a number of loopholes to prevent you from choosing it. In fact, you’re not even able to compare prices unless you plug in an address that’s in AT&T’s footprint, but currently doesn’t have AT&T service. Meanwhile, according to Higginbotham’s math, even if you’re successful in signing up, that $30 privacy fee is actually much more depending on your chosen options. If you just want broadband, opting out of AT&T snoopvertising will actually run you $44
AT&T Charging Customers to Not Spy on Them
AT&T is charging a premium for gigabit Internet service without surveillance:
The tracking and ad targeting associated with the gigabit service cannot be avoided using browser privacy settings: as AT&T explained, the program “works independently of your browser’s privacy settings regarding cookies, do-not-track and private browsing.” In other words, AT&T is performing deep packet inspection, a controversial practice through which internet service providers, by virtue of their privileged position, monitor all the internet traffic of their subscribers and collect data on the content of those communications.
What if customers do not want to be spied on by their internet service providers? AT&T allows gigabit service subscribers to opt out — for a $29 fee per month.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, AT&T is forgoing revenue by not spying on its customers, and it’s reasonable to charge them for that lost revenue. On the other hand, this sort of thing means that privacy becomes a luxury good. In general, I prefer to conceptualize privacy as a right to be respected and not a commodity to be bought and sold.
European Lawmakers Demand Answers on Phone Key Theft
European officials are demanding answers and investigations into a joint U.S. and U.K. hack of the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile SIM cards, following a report published by The Intercept Thursday.
The report, based on leaked documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed the U.S. spy agency and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, hacked the Franco-Dutch digital security giant Gemalto in a sophisticated heist of encrypted cell-phone keys.
The European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the European Union’s data protection law, Jan Philipp Albrecht, said the hack was “obviously based on some illegal activities.”
“Member states like the U.K. are frankly not respecting the [law of the] Netherlands and partner states,” Albrecht told the Wall Street Journal.
Sophie in ’t Veld, an EU parliamentarian with D66, the Netherlands’ largest opposition party, added, “Year after year we have heard about cowboy practices of secret services, but governments did nothing and kept quiet […] In fact, those very same governments push for ever-more surveillance capabilities, while it remains unclear how effective these practices are.”
“If the average IT whizzkid breaks into a company system, he’ll end up behind bars,” In ’t Veld added in a tweet Friday.
The EU itself is barred from undertaking such investigations, leaving individual countries responsible for looking into cases that impact their national security matters. “We even get letters from the U.K. government saying we shouldn’t deal with these issues because it’s their own issue of national security,” Albrecht said.
Still, lawmakers in the Netherlands are seeking investigations. Gerard Schouw, a Dutch member of parliament, also with the D66 party, has called on Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch minister of the interior, to answer questions before parliament. On Tuesday, the Dutch parliament will debate Schouw’s request.
Additionally, European legal experts tell The Intercept, public prosecutors in EU member states that are both party to the Cybercrime Convention, which prohibits computer hacking, and home to Gemalto subsidiaries could pursue investigations into the breach of the company’s systems.
According to secret documents from 2010 and 2011, a joint NSA-GCHQ unit penetrated Gemalto’s internal networks and infiltrated the private communications of its employees in order to steal encryption keys, embedded on tiny SIM cards, which are used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the world. Gemalto produces some 2 billion SIM cards a year.
The company’s clients include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers. “[We] believe we have their entire network,” GCHQ boasted in a leaked slide, referring to the Gemalto heist.
AT&T Patents “Fast Lane” For File-Sharing Traffic
Despite the growing availability of legal services, unauthorized file-sharing continues to generate thousands of petabytes of traffic each month.
This massive network use has caused concern among many Internet providers over the years, some of which decided to throttle BitTorrent transfers. Interestingly, AT&T believes the problem can also be dealt with in a more positive way.
A new patent awarded to the Intellectual Property division of the Texas-based ISP describes a ‘fast lane’ for BitTorrent and other P2P traffic.
Titled “System and Method to Guide Active Participation in Peer-to-Peer Systems with Passive Monitoring Environment,” one of the patent’s main goals is to speed up P2P transfers while reducing network costs.
While acknowledging the benefits of file-sharing networks, the ISP notes that they can take up a lot of resources.
“P2P networks can be useful for sharing content files containing audio, video, or other data in digital format. It is estimated that P2P file sharing, such as BitTorrent, represents greater than 20% of all broadband traffic on the Internet,” AT&T writes.
To limit the impact on its network resources, AT&T proposes several technologies to serve content locally. This can be done by prioritizing local traffic and caching files from its own servers.
“The local peer server may provide the content to peers within the same subnet more efficiently than can a peer in another subnet,” the patent reads.
“As such, providing the content on the local peer server can reduce network usage and decrease the time required for the peer to download the content.”