Apple releases iOS 11.4.1 and blocks passcode cracking tools used by police

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Apple today released iOS 11.4.1, and while most of us are already looking ahead to all the new stuff coming in iOS 12, this small update contains an important new security feature: USB Restricted Mode. Apple has added protections against the USB devices being used by law enforcement and private companies that connect over Lightning to crack an iPhone’s passcode and evade Apple’s usual encryption safeguards.

If you go to Settings and check under Face ID (or Touch ID) & Passcode, you’ll see a new toggle for USB Accessories. By default, the switch is off. This means that once your iPhone or iPad has been locked for over an hour straight, iOS will no longer allow USB accessories to connect to the device — shutting out cracking tools like GrayKey as a result. If you’ve got accessories that you want to continue working after your iPhone has been sitting locked for awhile, you can toggle the option on to remove the hour limit.

Read More from The Verge Here

Cell phone technology helps in Victoria Martens case

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Cellular data shows where you have been, on what days, for exactly how long.
Investigators in the Victoria Martens case say the information helped them discover Michelle Martens and Fabian Gonzales were not in the apartment when Victoria died.

Read More from KOAT News Here

 

Spectrum Mobile Rolled Out by Charter

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Charter Communications officially joined the ranks of cable operators to enter the wireless market with the recent introduction of Spectrum Mobile.

The company offered its current internet customers an unlimited Spectrum Mobile data plan for $45 per line or a “by the gig” plan for $14 per gigabit of data each month.

The latter price is slightly above the $12 per gigabit plan offered by Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile service, but both cable giants will offer unlimited plans for $45. Both companies run their wireless services on Verizon MVNOs, and they have agreed to partnerships on wireless research and on backend systems.

Cable operators hope that low-cost wireless service will help retain TV and internet customers in the era of cord-cutting. Wireless industry giants, meanwhile, have pointed to those services as evidence of growing competition in the U.S. market.

Read More from Wireless Week Here

FCC Fines AT&T $5.25M Over 911 Outages in 2017

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AT&T will pay $5.25 million to settle a federal investigation into outages of 911 service in early 2017.

The Federal Communications Commission added that the company, as a condition of the settlement, must take steps to ensure reliable 911 call completion, curb the likelihood and impact of outages, improve notifications of 911 call centers during outages and file compliance reports with the agency.

The FCC’s investigation found that planned network changes made by AT&T on March 8, 2017, and May 1, 2017,  resulted in inadvertent interference with 911 call routing on its VoLTE network on those days.

The March outage lasted five hours and led to failed 911 calls from about 12,600 unique users, while the May outage resulted in 2,600 failed calls over 47 minutes.

Read More from Wireless Week Here

NSA deletion of more than 685 million call records raises questions

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The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program. The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database.

Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries.

The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to receive.

That points to a failure of the program, according to David Kris, a former top national security official at the Justice Department.

Read More from CBS News Here