According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, mobile carriers including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are all requiring customers to switch to a debit card or bank account withdrawal in order to receive an autopay discount on their plan. Verizon has included this requirement for years, but in the past few months the other two carriers have quietly added it too. The Verge reports: The new rule goes into effect for AT&T customers on October 2nd, and as a gesture of goodwill, the company will only reduce your discount if you continue to pay with a credit card. Those who register for autopay with a bank or debit card will receive $10 off; a credit card will only get you $5. T-Mobile's change went into effect in July, also eliminating Apple Pay and Google Pay as methods eligible for the $5 discount. Oh, and technically, you can qualify for Verizon's autopay discount with a credit card -- it just has to be a Verizon Visa card.

AT&T and T-Mobile aren't just making this a requirement for new customers -- the change is being applied to all postpaid accounts. Even if you've been receiving the discount for years with a credit card, you'll have to make the switch in order to keep your discount. And it adds up -- the discounts are applied for each line on your plan, so if your whole family is on the same plan, it's a significant amount of money.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T's legacy telephone network may have nearly 200,000 miles of lead-covered cables, according to an estimate by AT&T submitted in a court filing. "Based on its records, AT&T estimates that lead-clad cables represent less than 10 percent of its copper footprint of roughly two million sheath miles of cable, the overwhelming majority of which remains in active service," AT&T wrote in a court filing yesterday in US District Court for the Eastern District of California. "More than two thirds of its lead-clad cabling is either buried or in conduit, followed by aerial cable, and with a very small portion running underwater. There are varying costs of installation, maintenance, and removal by cable type (aerial, buried, buried in conduit, underwater)."

Reacting to the court filing, financial analyst firm Raymond James & Associates wrote in a research note, "AT&T is telling us that the total exposure is 200,000 route miles or less." With about two-thirds of the lead cables either buried or installed inside conduit, "We believe the implication for AT&T's data is that the route miles that should be addressed most immediately is about 3.3 percent (or less)," the analyst firm wrote. AT&T's new court filing came in a case filed against AT&T subsidiary Pacific Bell by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) in January 2021. The sportfishing group sued AT&T over cables that are allegedly "damaged and discharging lead into Lake Tahoe."

The two underwater cables run along the bottom of the western side of Lake Tahoe for a total of eight miles. AT&T "contends that it stopped using the Cables in or around the 1980s or earlier, that the Easements therefore have terminated, and that Defendant no longer owns the Cables," according to a November 2021 settlement. AT&T agreed in that settlement to remove the cables but now says it is at an "impasse" with the CSPA regarding removal. "In this matter, AT&T has always maintained that its lead-clad telecommunications cables pose no danger to those who work and play in the waters of Lake Tahoe, but in 2021, AT&T agreed to remove them simply to avoid the expense of litigation," an AT&T lawyer at the firm Paul Hastings wrote yesterday in a letter to the plaintiff that was attached to the court filing. [...]

AT&T's stance that it won't remove the Lake Tahoe cables any time soon is apparently a surprise to the plaintiff. The CSPA said in a court filing last week that in a Zoom meeting on July 10, "AT&T confirmed that it is prepared to commence the removal process on September 6, 2023, as long as the new permit request that AT&T submitted to State Parks in May is approved by State Park." AT&T's filing said the company never "confirmed" that it is prepared to start the cable removal process on September 6. The CSPA argues that the lead-covered cables "have leached, are leaching, and will continue to leach lead into the waters of Lake Tahoe, and that such leaching may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health or the environment." Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an investigative report that found evidence of more than 2,000 lead-covered telephone cables installed across the U.S. Teleco stock prices plummeted as a result, since the remediation could cost the telecom industry $60 billion.

While members of Congress are putting pressure on telecom companies to act, AT&T does appear to be taking new actions as a result of the investigation. "AT&T is working with union partners to add a voluntary testing program for any employee who works with or has worked with lead-clad cables," which "expands on AT&T's previous practice of providing blood-lead testing for technicians involved in lead-clad cable removal," the company said in its letter to the plaintiff yesterday. AT&T said it is also conducting new testing and site visits at certain locations.

AT&T's stock slid to a 30-year low following the news.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Newly raised concerns about lead-covered telephone cables installed across the US many decades ago are putting pressure on companies like AT&T and Verizon to identify the locations of all the cables and account for any health problems potentially caused by the toxic metal. US Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to the USTelecom industry trade group this week after a Wall Street Journal investigative report titled, "America Is Wrapped in Miles of Toxic Lead Cables." The WSJ said it found evidence of more than 2,000 lead-covered cables and that there "are likely far more throughout the country."

WSJ reporters had researchers collect samples as part of their investigation. They "found that where lead contamination was present, the amount measured in the soil was highest directly under or next to the cables, and dropped within a few feet -- a sign the lead was coming from the cable," the article said. Markey wrote to USTelecom, "According to the Wall Street Journal's investigation, 'AT&T, Verizon and other telecom giants have left behind a sprawling network of cables covered in toxic lead that stretches across the US, under the water, in the soil and on poles overhead... As the lead degrades, it is ending up in places where Americans live, work and play.'"

Markey wants answers to a series of questions by July 25: "Do the companies know the locations and mileage of lead-sheathed cables that they own or for which they are responsible -- whether aerial, underwater, or underground? Are there maps of the locations and installations? If not, what plans do the companies have to identify the cables? Why have the companies that knew about the cables -- and the potential exposure risks they pose -- failed to monitor them or act?" Markey also asked what plans telcos have to address environmental and public health problems that could arise from lead cables. He asked the companies to commit to "testing for soil, water, and other contamination caused by the cables," to remediate any contamination, and warn communities of the potential hazards. Markey also asked USTelecom if the phone companies will guarantee "medical treatment and compensation to anyone harmed by lead poisoning caused by the cables." "There is no safe level of lead exposure -- none -- which is why I'm so disturbed by these reports of lead cable lines throughout the country," added US Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ). "It is imperative that these cables be properly scrutinized and addressed."

Another Congressman, Rep. Patrick Ryan (D-NY), said he is considering legislation on remediating contamination from the cables and that telecom companies should "do the right thing and clean up their mess." The Wall Street Journal said its testing in a playground in Ryan's district "registered high levels of lead underneath an aerial cable running along the perimeter of the park."

According to AST SpaceMobile, the company managed to successfully transmit a 4G LTE signal from space that was picked up by "everyday, off-the-shelf smartphones." Next, AST will try and transmit a 5G connection via its BlueWalker 3 (BW3) satellite. The Verge reports: Testing was conducted in Hawaii on AT&T's spectrum using Nokia RAN technology, and the signal, which was beamed from AST's satellite in low Earth orbit, reached speeds of up to 10.3Mbps. That's fast enough for some video streaming, general internet use, and more ordinary cell phone usage. AST's testing followed a recent April test by the same company, where it was able to route an audio call between a Samsung Galaxy S22 in Texas to an iPhone in Japan via satellite.

The BW3 is a massive commercial communication array at 693 square feet -- about the size of a two- or three-car garage -- and the largest ever deployed in low Earth orbit, says AST's release. It operates using the same 3GPP standard found in ground-based cell networks. The achievement is "an important step toward AST SpaceMobile's goal of bringing broadband services to parts of the world where cellular coverage is either unreliable or simply does not exist today," according to AST's chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, who said this would allow users to text and call, browse the internet, download files, and even stream video using a signal beamed from space.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Internet service providers in both the US and Europe are clamoring for new payments from Big Tech firms. European broadband providers are much closer to realizing the long-held goal of payments from tech companies, as the European Union government is holding an official consultation on the proposal. As the EU process unfolds, the telco lobby group USTelecom is hoping to push the US down a similar but not quite identical path. In a blog post on Friday, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter argued that the biggest technology companies should contribute toward a fund that subsidizes the building of broadband networks. Spalter wrote that Amazon and similar Internet companies should fill what he called a "conspicuously empty seat at the collective table of global high-speed connectivity."

Given that "six companies account for half of all Internet traffic worldwide... Does it still make sense that the government and broadband providers alone fund this critical infrastructure? Is there no shared obligation from the primary financial beneficiaries of these networks -- the world's most powerful Internet companies?" Spalter wrote. "We need a modern reset that more equitably shares these financial obligations among those who benefit the most from these connections," he argued. USTelecom members include AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Windstream, and other telcos. It's one of the biggest trade groups that lobbies for US-based Internet service providers.

[...] USTelecom pointed to the Biden administration's comments in its pitch to make Big Tech firms pay into a central fund like the existing Universal Service Fund (USF) managed by the Federal Communications Commission. "We concur with the US government's position that rather than the payments to broadband providers proposed in the EU, such 'publicly accountable funding mechanisms can better ensure that resources are devoted to key policy objectives, such as improving access and strengthening network security, while avoiding discriminatory measures that distort competition,'" Spalter wrote. The Biden administration's comments didn't call for tech companies to pay into a government-run fund, though. The document noted that the US "approach to financing improvements to broadband infrastructure involves private investments, a national Universal Service Fund, and significant public funding made from general appropriations," but didn't argue for any changes to who pays into the fund.

Satellite manufacturer AST SpaceMobile partnered with AT&T to make the first two-way audio call using satellites with a standard smartphone. "The initial call was placed using AT&T's networks in Midland, Texas, to mobile carrier Ratuken in Japan on an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone using AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 satellite," reports Engadget. AST SpaceMobile claims to be building "the first and only space-based cellular broadband network." From the report: AT&T aims to use satellites to provide global cellular broadband from 2G to 5G. "Achieving what many once considered impossible, we have reached the most significant milestone to date in our quest to deliver global cellular broadband from space," Abel Avellan, CEO and chairman of AST SpaceMobile, said in a release. "While we take a moment to celebrate this tremendous accomplishment, we remain focused on the path ahead and pivotal next steps that get us closer to our goal of transforming the way the world connects."

It's unclear whether satellite access would come at an extra cost. In AT&T's original AST SpaceMobile partnership announcement, the company couldn't say whether existing plans would include satellite coverage. [...] While satellite offerings aren't available for consumers yet, this successful test brings widespread access one step closer to becoming a reality.

dcblogs writes: Despite the demand of employers like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T and others, nearly 40% of software engineers preferred only remote roles, and if their employers mandated a return to the office, 21% indicated they would quit immediately, while another 49% said they would start looking for another job, according to Hired's 2023 State of Software Engineers. This report gathered its data from 68,500 software engineering candidates and a survey of more than 1,300 software engineers and 120 talent professionals. Employers open to remote workers "are able to get better-quality talent that's a better fit for the organization," said Josh Brenner, CEO of Hired, a job-matching platform for technology jobs.

Frontier, an internet service provider (ISP) that services 25 US states, has just launched 5 Gig fiber internet service across its entire network. The Verge reports: Frontier launched 2 Gig fiber internet service less than a year ago, and the 5 Gig plan is currently available in all of Frontier's fiber-connected markets, with no phased rollouts. Compared to the cable-bound internet that most of us are familiar with, Frontier's 5 Gig internet is reported to have upload speeds that are up to 125 times faster and up to five times faster downloads, all delivered with less latency. The new 5 Gig network is one of the fastest internet options currently available in the US, with other fiber-enabled ISPs like Verizon Fios and Google Fiber still capped at around 2Gbps.

Right now, the only other 5 Gig network currently available in the US is through AT&T, which offers 2 Gig and 5 Gig plans. Google Fiber is also slated to add 5-gig and 8-gig plans to its lineup sometime this year, despite its numerous setbacks.

Fierce Wireless reports: Verizon is telling customers that if they're still using a 3G CDMA or 4G (non-VoLTE) phone that does not support its newer network technologies, "your line will be suspended without billing and will lose the ability to call, text, or use data."

Verizon is the last of the Big 3 wireless carriers in the U.S. to shut down a 3G network and repurpose the spectrum for newer technology. AT&T was first, shutting its 3G network down in February. T-Mobile's shuttered its 3G network over the summer.... Verizon has been working with customers — both consumers and businesses — since 2016 to ensure customers have "every opportunity" to get a device that uses either 4G or 5G, including direct outreach to customers and even sending some customers updated devices proactively, according to Karen Schulz of Verizon's Global Network & Technology Communications team.

Indeed, the company initially said it was closing its 3G network in 2019. Then they extended it to the end of 2020 and finally, to the end of 2022. In March 2021, Verizon made it clear they were sticking with the 2022 end date and advised customers still accessing the 3G network that they may experience a degradation or complete loss of service.
"Even after that, until the day before their February billing cycle, they'll still be able to use the phones for two things: calling 911 and Verizon customer service," reports the Verge: While 3G will still exist in other countries for quite a few more years, Verizon's deadline is pretty much the end of the line for it here in the US. The tech hasn't gone gentle into that good night; carriers delayed their shutdowns several times, there were tiffs between Dish and T-Mobile, and you can't just turn a network that had been around for years off without things starting to break. (Some notable examples: some connected cars and trucks have been pushed offline, as have parking meters and older Kindles. AT&T's shutdown was even blamed for delays in reporting voting results in Michigan this year.)

Part of the reason carriers are decommissioning their networks is to help build their new ones. As we saw earlier this month, T-Mobile's latest and greatest 5G tech makes use of spectrum that was once part of its 3G network.
The Verge's conclusion? "Spare a thought for the tech that helped build the mobile-first world we live in; even if this ends up being the last time you ever think about it."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: [AT&T] was fined $23 million for bribing a state lawmaker's ally in order to secure a key policy vote. According to a deferred prosecution agreement, the vote in question was a 2017 vote on Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) legislation that would have eliminated AT&T's obligation to continue to provide landline service to all state residents. AT&T of course wants to be free of having to provide dated landlines. Consumer groups are quick to note many of those landlines are used by old people who often can't afford (or don't understand how to use) cellular service, leaving them cut off from essential services and 911. They were also paid for on the back of millions in taxpayer subsidies, suggesting that taxpayers should have some say in the matter.

Instead of just making its case, AT&T used an intermediary lobbying firm to deliver $22,500 to former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan to influence his vote: "AT&T allegedly used a lobbying firm as an intermediary to make the payment and disguise its true purpose. US Attorney John Lausch's office filed a one-count criminal information in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, charging AT&T Illinois with using an interstate facility to promote legislative misconduct. Former AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza was indicted on five charges as a result of the same investigation."

A young man who was not even old enough to drive back in 2018 managed to yoink nearly $24 million from a major crypto investor's account. Now, over four years later and thousands likely invested in both an investigation and lawyers fees, Michael Terpin can now claim he has reclaimed $22 million from the the original hack, according to a recently filed agreement. From a report: The original complaint filed in New York Southern District Court back in 2020 named the then-18-year-old Ellis Pinsky of leading a 20-person group that met on the OGUsers' forum that attacked people's crypto wallets using stolen SIM card data. Pinsky allegedly performed this hack when he was only 15 years old while living with his mother in upstate New York. The only other hacker named in the original complaint was 20-year-old Nick Truglia, who had been previously jailed on federal charges for a separate crypto theft. Terpin was a major name in the tech and crypto world, especially back in the late 20-teens as the co-founder of crypto investment firm BitAngels along with early work launching Motley Fool and Match.com. At the time, Terpin's phone hack was one of the largest crypto hacks of its kind. Nowadays, however, $24 million would be chump change to some of the funds modern crypto hackers seem to be rolling in by attacking crypto exchanges, protocols, and cross-chain bridges.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Comcast were hit with copyright lawsuits accusing them of turning a blind eye to customers who illegally distribute and download pirated films. The production companies seek to force the internet providers to implement policies that provide for the termination of accounts held by repeat offenders and to block certain piracy websites. Hollywood Reporter: The trio of complaints filed throughout September, with the most recent filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania federal court, come from Voltage Pictures, After Productions and Ammo Entertainment, among others. Two law firms, Dovel & Luner and Culpepper IP, are representing the production labels. The internet providers knowingly contributed to copyright infringement by their customers, the lawsuits claim. Plaintiffs say they sent Verizon, AT&T and Comcast hundreds of thousands of notices about specific instances of infringement. They claim, for example, to have sent over 100,000 notices to Comcast concerning the illegal downloading of I Feel Pretty using its services. The lawsuit seeks to hold the internet providers liable for failing to investigate.

"Comcast did not take meaningful action to prevent ongoing infringements by these Comcast users," states the complaint. "Comcast failed to terminate the accounts associated with these IP addresses or otherwise take any meaningful action in response to these Notices. Comcast often failed to even forward the Notices to its internet service customers or otherwise inform them about the Notice or its contents." The internet providers, therefore, vicariously infringed on plaintiffs' movies since they had the right to terminate the accounts of customers who violate copyright law, the suit alleges. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1988, criminalizes services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It provides protection from liability for services providers. But the production companies argue the internet providers don't have safe harbor under the law since it only shields companies if they've adopted and implemented policies that provide for the termination of accounts held by repeat offenders.

Here's a warning from the threat intelligence unit of AT&T Cybersecurity, AT&T Alien Labs: With a rise of nearly 650% in malware and ransomware for Linux this year, reaching an all-time high in the first half year of 2022, threat actors find servers, endpoints and IoT devices based on Linux operating systems more and more valuable and find new ways to deliver their malicious payloads. New malwares like BotenaGo and EnemyBot are examples of how malware writers rapidly incorporate recently discovered vulnerabilities to find new victims and increase their reach.
But they've discovered a new malware targetting Linux endpoints and IoT devices, stealthily "delivered in a multistage infection chain where each module responds to a part of the payload and downloads and executes the next one. An attacker can gain full control of the system, in addition to the cryptocurrency miner that will be executed and set to persist."

The Register summarizes their report: The malware was dubbed "Shikitega" for its extensive use of the popular Shikata Ga Nai polymorphic encoder, which allows the malware to "mutate" its code to avoid detection. Shikitega alters its code each time it runs through one of several decoding loops that AT&T said each deliver multiple attacks, beginning with an ELF file that's just 370 bytes... AT&T didn't say how the initial infection occurs, but it did say Shikitega exploits two Linux vulnerabilities disclosed in 2021 to achieve its ultimate objective, which AT&T said appears to be the installation and execution of the XMRig cryptocurrency miner.

The final stage also establishes persistence, which Shikitega does by downloading and executing five shell scripts that configure a pair of cron jobs for the current user and a pair for the root user using crontab, which it can also install if not available. Shikitega also uses cloud hosting solutions to store parts of its payload, which it further uses to obfuscate itself by contacting via IP address instead of domain name....>
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Bottom line: Shikitega is a nasty piece of code. AT&T recommends Linux endpoint and IoT device managers keep security patches installed, keep EDR software up to date and make regular backups of essential systems.
Ars Technica reports: The ultimate objective of the malware isn't clear. It drops the XMRig software for mining the Monero cryptocurrency, so stealthy cryptojacking is one possibility. But Shikitega also downloads and executes a powerful Metasploit package known as Mettle, which bundles capabilities including webcam control, credential stealing, and multiple reverse shells into a package that runs on everything from "the smallest embedded Linux targets to big iron." Mettle's inclusion leaves open the potential that surreptitious Monero mining isn't the sole function....

Given the work the unknown threat actors responsible devoted to the malware's stealth, it wouldn't be surprising if the malware is lurking undetected on some systems.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: A group of independent movie companies has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AT&T. The Internet provider, which has over 80 million subscribers in the US, faces far-reaching demands. In addition to millions in damages, the filmmakers want the ISP to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers and block access to sites such as The Pirate Bay and YTS. [...] In a complaint (PDF) filed at a federal court in Texas, Voltage Pictures and its affiliates, known for films such as "After We Collided," "Dallas Buyers Club," "Room 203," and "The Bird Catcher", accuse the ISP of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

"For years, AT&T has knowingly allowed AT&T users to engage in online piracy, the illegal distribution and downloading of copyrighted materials, including films. AT&T provides the IP addresses used for piracy, makes the connections needed to share and download pirated films, and transmits the pirated films," they write. The ISP allegedly turned a blind eye to pirating subscribers, facilitating mass online piracy. The filmmakers say they sent tens of thousands of notices to the company, reporting alleged copyright infringements. In some cases, hundreds of notices were sent for a single IP address without any visible response from the Internet provider.

In the United States, the law requires Internet providers to adopt a policy that provides for the termination of accounts of repeat infringers, under appropriate circumstances. AT&T references this in its terms but according to the filmmakers' complaint, this policy is not sufficient. The lawsuit specifically claims that AT&T willingly keeps repeat infringers on board because that adds tens of millions of dollars to AT&T's bottom line. [...] To compensate for all piracy-related losses, the plaintiffs request actual or statutory damages, which can run into millions of dollars. In addition, they also want AT&T to terminate repeat infringers under appropriate circumstances. Finally, and of particular interest, the movie companies also want the Internet provider to block foreign pirate sites. They include YTS, The Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x, and others that have been called out in the US Trade Representative's annual overview of notorious markets.

AT&T workers are pushing to keep working from home as an option, citing "long commutes to and from work, exorbitant childcare costs, ongoing concerns over exposure to COVID-19 variants and now monkeybox," reports The Guardian. From the report: At AT&T, the world's largest telecommunication company, workers represented by the Communications Workers of America agreed to a work from home extension until the end of March 2023, but workers say the company is forcing many workers to return to the office much sooner than that, while other departments had already been forced back to the office by their managers. [...] AT&T workers have started a petition demanding the company makes working from home a permanent option for workers. [...] Val Williams, an AT&T worker and union steward for the Communications Workers of America in Houston, Texas, was forced to return to work in the office in April 2022. She criticized the push to bring workers back into the office after she said workers had been praised for productivity while working from home.

Williams criticized the pushback to return to the office given AT&T is a communications company with the technology and resources to make working from home a seamless option. "Our revenue has increased over the last two years while we were working from home. Our job descriptions state we are capable of working with little to minimum management and that's what we've been doing," she said. She also argued it was unfair how the push to return workers to the office has been enforced, with some departments being brought back while others are still working from home. "We don't feel like anybody's health is greater than any others. Because everybody has their own health issues, or they may have family members that have health issues that they have to return home to," she added. [...] A spokesperson for AT&T did not provide data on how many workers at the company are still working from home, but claimed it was never the company's intention to make working from home indefinite. "The health and safety of our employees continues to be our priority," said the spokesperson in an email. "As we have throughout the pandemic, we adhere to guidance from the medical community, including implementing safety protocols to help protect our employees' wellbeing. And now that we are a largely vaccinated workforce, we believe it's safe for employees to return to the workplace. We do our best work when we're together."

15-year-old Ellis Pinsky stole $23.8 million worth of cryptocurrency — and his life was never the same. For example, Rolling Stone reports, in his last year of high school, "Four men wearing ski masks and gloves, armed with knives, rope, brass knuckles, and a fake 9 mm," crept around the back of his home in the suburbs: Two weeks before the break-in, a lawsuit had been filed against him, and news stories had circulated connecting him to the hack. He knew that the thieves wanted this money, the millions and millions of dollars he had stolen. He also knew that he couldn't give it to them. He didn't have it. Not anymore.
The magazine paints the portrait of "an anxious young man in Invisalign braces" who describes the revelation he'd had at the age of 13. "The internet held such secrets. All he had to do was uncover them." As he soon found, there were plenty of people working to uncover them all the time, and willing to share their methods — for a price.... Realizing that a lot of the information social engineers used came from hacked databases, he began teaching himself to program, particularly to do the Structured Query Language injections and cross-site scripting that allowed him to attack companies' database architecture. The terabyte upon terabyte of databases he extracted, traded, and hoarded made him valuable to OGUsers as well as to others, like the Russian hackers he was able to converse with thanks to his fluency with his mother's native language... By the time he was 14, he tells me, "I think it's fair to say I had the capabilities to hack anyone."
The article describes him as "attending high school by day and extracting the source code of major corporations by night.... He was 14 years old and taken with the thrill of possessing a hidden superpower, of spending his nights secretly tapping into an underground world where he was esteemed and even feared. And then, in the morning, being called downstairs to breakfast." He wrote a Python script to comb through social media networks and seek out any mentions of working for a [cellphone] carrier. Then he'd reach out with an offer of compensation for helping him with a task. Every fifth or sixth person — underpaid and often working a short-term contract — would say they were game, as Pinsky tells it. For a couple hundred dollars' worth of bitcoin, they'd be willing to do a SIM swap, no questions asked. Eventually, Pinsky says, he had employees at every major carrier also working for him. Then the stakes got even higher. It was only a matter of time before OG hackers, known to each other as "the Community," realized that if they could use the SIM-swapping method to steal usernames, they could just as easily use it to steal cryptocurrency...
In one massive heist Pinksky stole 10% of all the Trigger altcoins on the market from crypto impresario Michael Terpin. ("As Pinsky's money launderers were converting it, the market was crashing in real time.") Pinsky recruited a crew to launder the money — at least one of which simply kept it — but even with all the conversion fees, he still made off with millions. And then... For a while, he half-expected the FBI to knock on his door at any moment, just like in the movies; but as time passed, he grew less anxious.... He says he moved on to learning different types of programming. He ran a sneaker business that used bots and scripts to snap up limited pairs then flip them... He went to soccer practice. He and his friends had started hanging out with girls on the weekend, driving down to the docks where you could see the glowing lights from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Until Terpin figured out it was Pinsky who'd robbed him: Pinsky and his legal team preempted his arrest by contacting the U.S. attorney directly and offering his cooperation. In February 2020, he voluntarily returned every last thing he says he got from the Terpin heist: 562 bitcoins, the Patek watch, and the cash he'd stored in the safe under his bed.... When I ask if he has also worked with the FBI to help bring down other hackers, he blinks quickly and then changes the subject.
Pinsky has not been criminally charged — partly because he was a minor, but also because of his cooperation with law enforcement. But filing a civil suit, Terpin wants to be compensated with triple the amount stolen, arguing that the teenager who robbed him was running an organized crime racket and that he should be heavily punished to set an example.

Rolling Stone's article raisees the question: what should happen next?

From the MacRumors blog earlier this week: Germany's Federal Cartel Office, the Bundeskartellamt, has initiated proceedings against Apple to investigate whether its tracking rules and anti-tracking technology are anti-competitive and self-serving, according to a press release. The proceeding announced will review under competition law Apple's tracking rules and specifically its App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATT) in order to ascertain whether they are self-preferencing Apple or being an impediment to third-party apps...

Introduced in April 2021 with the release of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, Apple's App Tracking Transparency Framework requires that all apps on âOEiPhoneâOE and âOEiPadâOE ask for the user's consent before tracking their activity across other apps. Apps that wish to track a user based on their device's unique advertising identifier can only do so if the user allows it when prompted.

Apple said the feature was designed to protect users and not to advantage the company... Earlier this year it commissioned a study into the impact of ATT that was conducted by Columbia Business School's Marketing Division. The study concluded that Apple was unlikely to have seen a significant financial benefit since the privacy feature launched, and that claims to the contrary were speculative and lacked supporting evidence.
The technology/Apple blog Daring Fireball offers its own hot take: In Germany, big publishing companies like Axel Springer are pushing back against Google's stated plans to remove third-party cookie support from Chrome. The notion that if a company has built a business model on top of privacy-invasive surveillance advertising, they have a right to continue doing so, seems to have taken particular root in Germany. I'll go back to my analogy: it's like pawn shops suing to keep the police from cracking down on a wave of burglaries....

The Bundeskartellamt perspective here completely disregards the idea that surveillance advertising is inherently unethical and Apple has studiously avoided it for that reason, despite the fact that it has proven to be wildly profitable for large platforms. Apple could have made an enormous amount of money selling privacy-invasive ads on iOS, but opted not to.

The Associated Press reports: Federal regulators say Verizon and AT&T will delay part of their 5G rollout near airports to give airlines more time to ensure that equipment on their planes is safe from interference from the wireless signals, but the airline industry is not happy about the deal. An airline industry trade group said federal regulators are taking a "rushed approach" to changing equipment on planes under pressure from the telecommunications companies.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday that the wireless companies agreed to delay some of their use of the C-Band section of the radio spectrum until July 2023. "We believe we have identified a path that will continue to enable aviation and 5G C-band wireless to safely co-exist," said the FAA's acting administrator, Billy Nolen. However, aviation groups say the C-Band service could interfere with radio altimeters — devices used to measure a plane's height above the ground....

Nolen said planes most susceptible to interference — smaller, so-called regional airline planes — must be retrofitted with filters or new altimeters by the end of this year. Components to retrofit larger planes used by major airlines should be available by July 2023, when the wireless companies expect to run 5G networks in urban areas "with minimal restrictions," he said. Airlines for America, a trade group for the largest U.S. carriers, said the FAA hasn't approved necessary upgrades and manufacturers have not yet produced the parts. "It is not at all clear that carriers can meet what appears to be an arbitrary deadline," trade group CEO Nicholas Calio said in a letter to Nolen....

Verizon said the agreement will let the company lift voluntary limits on its 5G rollout around airports "in a staged approach over the coming months." AT&T said it agreed to take "a more tailored approach" to controlling the strength of signals near runways so airlines have more time to retrofit equipment.

Sean Hollister writes via The Verge: Since 2013, AT&T has quietly bilked customers out of hundreds of millions of dollars with a bogus "administrative fee," a fee it more than doubled to $1.99 a month in 2018. For a few years there, a California class-action lawsuit made it seem like AT&T might finally get taken to task. But this week, both sides told a judge they'd settle for just $14 million -- meaning customers may get less than 10 percent of what they paid AT&T, while AT&T gets to keep on charging them. According to the proposed settlement agreement in Vianu v. AT&T Mobility -- which still needs to be approved by a judge -- just about every AT&T Wireless postpaid customer in California since 2015 will be eligible for an estimated payment of between $15 and $29.

But again, that's only a fraction of what AT&T's own records show it charged: $180 per customer on average since 2015, according to documents. The settlement "represents a refund of approximately 6-11 months of the average fees," they read. Meanwhile, the lawyers are likely to get $3.5 million. "The estimated payment amount represents a strong result for the Settlement Class, particularly given the substantial risks, costs, and delay of continued litigation," reads the proposed settlement agreement, going on to list all the ways that the lawyers suing AT&T believe that AT&T might still win the case. [...]

Oh, and you won't even get a check in the mail if you're still an AT&T customer, assuming this version of the settlement is approved. The money will be credited back to your AT&T account, where AT&T can dip its hand right back in again for that $1.99 -- or more if it feels emboldened enough to increase the fee yet again. (Admittedly, the AT&T account could be a more reliable way to make sure customers get money back.) The settlement websites can be found here.

An AT&T spokesperson issued the following response: "We deny the allegations in this lawsuit because we clearly disclose all fees that are charged to our customers. However, we have decided to settle this case to avoid lengthy, expensive litigation."

Apple's controversial App Tracking Transparency feature available in iOS 14.5 is expected to have a significant impact on Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and YouTube in 2022. According to a report by Lotame, big tech platforms' revenue could drop by almost $16 billion. 9to5Mac reports: For those who don't remember, ATT requires that applications ask permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites. For example, when you open the Facebook app, you'll see a prompt that says the app would like to track you across other apps and services. There will be two options from which to choose: "Ask App not to Track" or "Allow."

Talking about Facebook, Lotame's report shows that Zuckerberg's company will take the biggest hit as the privacy changes will cost it $12.8 billion in revenue: "The effects of these changes on these companies are hard to isolate because all four players are still growing extremely strongly, still taking share from the last bastions of traditional media and gaining share in digital media as privacy regulations make it harder and harder for independent publishers and technologies to execute,' said Mike Woosley, Chief Operating Officer at Lotame. 'To add to the complexity, the pandemic has introduced volatile and unpredictable gyrations in the pacing of media spend.'"