An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: Two years ago the FCC announced its intention to fine a Chinese electronics maker $34.9 million and a Florida man $48, 000 for respectively selling and using illegal cell-phone jammers. Today the agency has issued press releases telling us that those fines have finally been made official, without either of the offending parties having bothered to mount a formal defense of their actions. From the press release announcing the fine against CTS. Technology: ” The company’s website falsely claimed that some jammers had been approved by the FCC, and advertised that the company could ship signal jammers to consumers in the United States.” The company did not respond to the FCC’s allegations, although the agency does report that changes were made to its website that appear to be aimed at complying with U.S. law. Next up is Florida man, Jason R. Humphreys, who is alleged to have used a jammer on his commute: “Mr. Humphreys’ illegal operation of the jammer continued for up to two years, caused interference to cellular service along Interstate 4, and disrupted police communications.” Last Fall, a Chicagoan was arrested for using a cell-phone jammer to make his subway commute more tolerable. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FCC Formalizes Massive Fines For Selling, Using Cell-Phone Jammers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The FCC is ready to adopt a proposal that’ll bring a new protocol to wireless networks to help people with disabilities communicate. It’s called real-time text (RTT) and will be a replacement for the aging teletypewriter devices that let users transmit text conversations over traditional phone lines. According to the FCC’s statement, RTT will “allow Americans who are deaf, hard of hearing, speech disabled or deaf-blind to use the same wireless communications devices as their friends, relatives and colleagues, and more seamlessly integrate into tomorrow’s communications networks.” The big differentiator for RTT over current, commonly-used text-based messaging systems is that RTT messages are sent immediately as they’re typed. The RTT technology will let text users communicate with people on voice-based phones and vice versa; it can also work easily in your standard smartphone, eliminating the need for specialized equipment. The proposal calls for RTT to roll out over wireless networks run by “larger carriers” by December of 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
itwbennett quotes a report from The Associated Press: Mattel, the popular toy maker behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, was the victim of a phishing attack last year that nearly cost them $3 million. On April 30, 2015, a Mattel finance executive got a note from the new CEO, Christopher Sinclair, requesting a new vendor payment to China. Transfers required approval from two high-ranking managers; the finance exec qualified and so did the CEO. The transfer was made. The only thing preventing a total loss was the fact that the following day was a bank holiday. Details of the attack against Mattel come from a report by the Associated Press, investigating money laundering and other financial crime in Wenzhou, China. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: Spamhaus, an international non-profit organization that hunts down spammers, is accusing Verizon of indifference and facilitation of cybercrime because it failed for the past six months to take down stolen IP routes hosted on its network from where spam emails originated. Spamhaus detected over 4 million IP addresses, mainly stolen from China and Korea, and routed on Verizon’s servers with forged paperwork. Spamhaus says, “For a start, it seems very strange that a large US-based ISP can be so easily convinced by abusers to route huge IP address blocks assigned to entities in the Asian-Pacific area. Such blocks are not something that can go unnoticed in the noise of everyday activity. They are very anomalous, and should call for an immediate accurate verification of the customer. Internal vetting processes at large ISPs should easily catch situations so far from normality.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 