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By Jon Brodkin, Nov 18, 2020 | Original Ars Technica article here.

• Automakers failed to widely deploy safety technology with the 45MHz allocated to it in the 5GHz band
• The 45 MHz, instead, will be used to "supersize" Wi-Fi​

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to add 45MHz of spectrum to Wi-Fi in a slightly controversial decision that takes the spectrum away from a little-used automobile-safety technology.

The spectrum from 5.850GHz to 5.925GHz has, for about 20 years, been set aside for Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), a vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications service that’s supposed to warn drivers of dangers on the road.

But as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today said, "99.9943 percent of the 274 million registered vehicles on the road in the United States still don’t have DSRC on-board units." Only 15,506 vehicles have been equipped with the technology, he said.

In today’s decision, the FCC split the spectrum band and reallocated part of it to Wi-Fi and part of it to a newer vehicle technology. The lower 45MHz from 5.850GHz to 5.895GHz will be allocated to Wi-Fi and other unlicensed services.

"This spectrum’s impact will be further amplified by the fact that it is adjacent to an existing Wi-Fi band which, when combined with the 45MHz made available today, will support cutting-edge broadband applications," the FCC said. "These high-throughput channels — up to 160 megahertz wide — will enable gigabit Wi-Fi connectivity."

"Full-power indoor unlicensed operations" are authorized immediately, while "outdoor unlicensed use" will be allowed "on a coordinated basis under certain circumstances," the FCC said. The FCC ordered DSRC services to vacate the lower 45MHz within one year.

Continue reading “FCC Takes Spectrum From Auto Industry”

By Spiro Skouras, Nov 18, 2020 | Original Activistpost article here.

Recently, the United Nations had some big announcements that went largely unnoticed, including the rollout of a biometric digital wallet and an announcement that one of its specialized agencies The International Civil Aviation Organization is one step closer to a internationally recognized digital travel credential.

As reported by Biometric Update, this particular UN biometric digital wallet is intended for UN employees and it can be used for data related to human resources, medical status, travel, payroll and pensions.

I hope you see where this is going, every aspect of our lives will be centralized digitally using biometrics and in many cases the blockchain, AI and 5G.

Continue reading “UN Announces Biometric Digital ID Wallet”

By Kelcee Griffis, Nov 17, 2020 | Original Law360 article here.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped a former Federal Communications Commission member and a DLA Piper partner as part of his FCC transition team.

The incoming administration named a transition team help steer telecommunications policy and recommend appointments for the FCC and other agencies with jurisdiction over telecom issues, according to Biden’s transition website.

The four-person transition team includes
– John Williams, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, and
– Mignon Clyburn, a Democratic commissioner until 2018
– Edward Smith, a telecom attorney specializing in wireless and satellite technology
– Paul de Sa, a former partner with consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

All are volunteers, and Williams is listed as the team leader. Each of the transition team members has experience at the FCC .

Continue reading “Biden Transition Team FCC Advisers”

By Free the Sky Nov 17, 2020 | Original SF Chronicle article here.

"Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth."

~Henry David Thoreau

Companies are launching unprecedented numbers of rockets to put global Wi-Fi and 5G satellites into the sky. 100,000+ satellites, plus drones and balloons, are planned. Industry and government have done little research, claiming the “big sky” can absorb any problems. Inexplicably, the FCC exempts these satellite networks from environmental review.

However, there are major problems:

• Ozone destruction
• Pollution: rocket exhaust gases, black carbon, alumina, other toxic chemicals
• Fossil fuel use and climate impacts
• Debris and satellite accumulation, collision risk
• De-orbiting pollution, casualties and fires
• RF-radiation impacts to humans, wildlife, plants, and trees
• Loss of night sky, interference with astronomy
• RF interference with GPS, airplanes, weather satellites
• Global electrical circuit interference
• Solar flare disruption to satellites and connected IoT network societies
• Energy use

Continue reading “Global Densified 4G/5G — What is the Environmental Price Tag to the Earth and Life?”

By Jon Rappoport, Nov 17, 2020 | Original No More Fake News post here.

This Week in Virology 641: COVID-19 with Dr. Anthony Fauci

I’ve been saying this for 9 months. Don’t believe the COVID case numbers. It’s a wall-to-wall scam. The situation we’re facing is urgent right now. Red flags. Alarm bells.

Politicians all over the US and the world are using “rising case numbers” to drive people back into lockdowns. The news media are trumpeting these reports of case numbers.

THE CASE NUMBERS COME FROM THE UNRELIABLE TESTS.
. . . AND FROM EYEBALL DIAGNOSES.

Eyeball diagnoses can mean a doctor observes the patient has a cough, or chills and fever. That’s all. That’s all a doctor needs to make a diagnosis of COVID-19. That’s a case number. Ridiculous? Of course it’s ridiculous. It’s a con. Brought to you by the CDC.

Continue reading “Don’t Believe the COVID-19 Case Numbers — They Are a Scam”

. . . from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept . . .

By Karl Bode Nov 16, 2020 | Original Techdirt article here.

We’ve long mentioned how incumbent ISPs like AT&T and Comcast have spent millions of dollars quite literally buying horrible, protectionist laws in around twenty states that either ban or heavily hamstring towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. In some cases these laws ban municipalities from even engaging in public/private partnerships.

It’s a scenario where ISPs get to have their cake and eat it too; they often refuse to upgrade their networks in under-served areas (particularly true among telcos offering DSL), but also get to write horrible laws preventing these under-served towns from doing anything about it.

This dance of dysfunction has been particularly interesting in Colorado, however. While lobbyists for Comcast and CenturyLink managed to convince state leaders to pass such a law (SB 152) in 2005, the legislation contains a provision that lets individual Colorado towns and cities ignore the measure with a simple referendum. With frustration mounting over sub-standard broadband and awful customer service, more than 100 towns and cities have done so thus far. And that was before a pandemic highlighted the urgent importance of broadband for public safety.

The trend continued this month, when the [vast majority of Colorado voters (82%) voted to opt out of the state law restricting community broadband.

According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, several other communities voted along the same lines, and more than 140 Colorado communities have done the same in the fifteen years since the Colorado law was passed:

"Two other Colorado communities – Berthoud and Englewood – also voted in favor of similar ballot questions, asking voters if they want to opt out of SB 152. In Berthoud, 77.3% of voters cast ballots in support of the question. In Englewood, the opt-out question passed with 79.4% of voters in favor, which will allow the city to provide Wi-Fi service in city facilities.

In the 15 years since SB 152 was passed 140 Colorado communities have opted out with resultant networks like Longmont’s NextLight as an example of a municipal Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) success story."

Continue reading “Colorado Voters Continue To Chip Away At State Law Restricting Community Broadband”

Don’t get too hyped on 5G . . .

By Karl Bode Nov 13, 2020 | Original Medium article here.

Apple on Tuesday announced that its new lineup of iPhones will support 5G networks. But while Apple — and special guest Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon — hyped the inclusion of fifth-generation wireless technology in its new handsets as a major game-changer, U.S. consumers expecting earth-shattering improvements in wireless connectivity may be left disappointed.

Wireless carriers have worked overtime to portray 5G as an incredible revolution in modern communications. Companies like Verizon have called the technology the “fourth industrial revolution,” claiming that the standard will usher forth everything from the smart cities of tomorrow to revolutionary cancer treatments.

In reality, consumers should think of 5G as more of a modest evolution than a radical revolution — and take this week’s marketing hype with a grain of salt or two.

How a Band of Activists — and One Tech Billionaire — Beat Alphabet’s ‘Smart City’
Alphabet bet big in Toronto. Toronto didn’t play along

Continue reading “The Empty Promise of the iPhone 12”

By Andrew Mark Miller, Nov 13, 2020 | Original Washington Examiner article here

Four congressional Democrats sent a letter to the owners of Dominion Voting Systems and cited several problems that “threaten the integrity of our elections,” including “vote switching.”

In a December 2019 letter to Dominion Voting Systems, which has been mired in controversy after a human error involving its machines in Antrim County, Michigan, resulted in incorrect counts, ,the following elected representatives . . .

1. Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
2. Sen. Ron Wyden, and
3. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and
4. Congressman Mark Pocan

. . . warned about reports of machines “switching votes,” “undisclosed vulnerabilities,” and “improbable” results that “threaten the integrity of our elections.”

Continue reading “Democratic Senators Warned of Potential Vote Switching by Dominion Voting Machines Prior to 2020 Election”

. . . from the not-really-encrypted dept . . .

Karl Bode, Nov 12 2020 | Original Techdirt article here.

In many ways, Zoom is an incredible success story. A relative unknown before the pandemic, the company’s userbase exploded from 10 million pre-pandemic to 300 million users worldwide as of last April.

One problem: like so many modern tech companies, its security and privacy practices weren’t up to snuff. Researchers found that the company’s "end-to-end encryption" didn’t actually exist. The company also came under fire for features that let employers track employees’ attention levels, and for sharing data with Facebook that wasn’t revealed in the company’s privacy policies.

While the company has taken great strides to improve most of these problems, the company received a bit of a wrist slap by the FTC this week for misleading marketing and "a series of deceptive and unfair practices that undermined the security of its users."

A settlement (pdf) and related announcement make it clear that the company repeatedly misled consumers with its marketing, particularly on the issue of end-to-end encryption:

"In reality, Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to access the content of its customers’ meetings, and secured its Zoom Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised. Zoom’s misleading claims gave users a false sense of security, especially for those who used the company’s platform to discuss sensitive topics such as health and financial information.

Continue reading “Zoom Gets An FTC Slap-on-the-Wrists For Misleading Users On Security & Encryption”

By Larry Dignan, Nov 12, 2020 | Original zdnet article here.

This is how Apple’s move from Intel-based processors to ARM chips will affect software compatibility on the MacOS platform, as new Macs move, on Nov 12, from OS X/macOS 10.x 10 to macOS 11.x. (Big Sur).

Apple has been planning the transition away from Intel silicon to Apple Silicon in Macs for some time and officially announced their plans at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2020. The company has been using its own chips in the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch for years. Using Apple chips in Macs has plenty of benefits:

1. By not relying on Intel, Apple can better control its component costs (better profit margins) and supply chain; see Intel’s delay to moving to its 7 nanometer process.

2. Developers can more easily build an app that runs across all Apple hardware — compiling it as a Mac Universal app.

3. Users will get a more "seamless workflow" across iOS, iPadOS and macOS devices.

4. The M1 will help Apple stand out in a crowded market. As Larry Dignan wrote in his assessment of the M1 on ZDNet, "Apple Silicon is likely to be a differentiator. Apple can market its processors well and Apple fans are likely to buy-in."

Continue reading “Apple M1 SoC and MacOS 11.x — Big Sur”