Biden Signs Bill To Secure Telecoms Against National Security Threats

President Biden signed into law a bill that requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to secure telecommunications systems against potential foreign threats to national security. From a report: In recent years, lawmakers have increasingly voiced concerns about Chinese telecom giants' operations in the U.S., and possible surveillance by the Chinese government. Under the new law, the FCC is barred from considering authorization for products made by companies on its "covered list," which includes Huawei and ZTE. The designation blocks U.S. companies from using FCC funds to purchase communications equipment and services that the U.S. government considers a national security threat. The bill received near-unanimous support in Congress. It was sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), along with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.).

Good luck with that!

[haggie]

Our telecoms can't even stop car warranty robocalls. Do we really think they can prevent state actors?

Re:

[saywhat99]

Absolutely not! And wait until they find out that all of the devices still on the approved list are just assembled in China with tons of Chinese parts.

Re:

[jellomizer]

They can, they are just too lazy to do so.

If they know who to send the phone bill too, and successfully navigate a circuit from one device to an other they can fix caller ID to not be so easily manipulated. But they maintain a technology who's original security was based on the fact it was too expensive to make the electronics that will create those tones.

Fix the caller ID, to not allow anyone to change it, have a registration process where orgs will need to sign up to have their number changed on the ca

Re:Good luck with that!

[splutty]

Not too lazy.

There is no law against it, and they're making money off it. Ergo: Why would they do anything about it?

Other countries have actual laws about it, and there telecomms have no issues at all blocking almost all robocalls.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

If they weren't functioning as a cartel then the answer would be competition.

But since mobile providers are protected by ownership of spectrum and land line providers are protected by monopolies and by natural barriers to entry, there is insufficient competition to make it worth it to block these profitable calls.

Corporatism Forever!

[drinkypoo]

It's amazing how many trolls there are who cannot abide the least bit of condemnation of the actions of their beloved corporations. The telcos have literally stolen hundreds of billions of dollars from the American Taxpayer and they want to preserve that state of affairs at any cost.

Re:

[Vince Ferg]

You are correct that there is no law for it but the FCC did state that all telecom companies would be required to adopt the requirements to stop calls and that deadline is finally occurring at the end of this month November 30th. I can tell you my provider Lumen contacted us earlier this year to inform us that they will be putting this in place November 1st which is now active at this time. Here is some more info on it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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[bagofbeans]

It's tacit admission that telecom infrastructure spies on behalf of source nation. Remember Cisco kit being intercepted and fiddled with?

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Our telecoms can't even stop car warranty robocalls. Do we really think they can prevent state actors?

Oh, they could stop robocalls tomorrow if they wanted to.

But they don't want to - they make money off things like this.

If it's not a law, then the telecoms will let it be. But if it's a law, they'd be forced to do it. Oh they'll whine and moan about "regulatory costs" and "compliance charges" and all that, but as telecommunications companies are pretty much universally hated, they'll find little sympathy.

What could possibly go wrong?

[chipperdog]

Let's see...only established vendors or ones with very deep pockets to buy legislators and commissioners will make the "approved list"...Not good for startup companies.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

only established vendors or ones with very deep pockets to buy legislators and commissioners will make the "approved list"...

Wrong. They don't have an allow list, they have a block list [fcc.gov].

WCPGR(ight)

[cellocgw]

This has about the same chance of functioning as described as did those old "obscenity filters" -- you know, the ones immortalized in new words like "clbuttic" .

Re:

[Aighearach]

This has a 100% chance of functioning.

Right now, companies are still buying the equipment because the government is issuing them waivers.

There will be no more waivers.

Done.

Comcast, infrastructure neglect weaponized

[dicobalt]

Comcast is going to have to do a lot of work to fix their internal infrastructure. Between their years of frequent ISP purchases, poor migration of customer data, their permanently broken provisioning systems, and labor outsourcing of critical services, Comcast's network is a potentially massive threat waiting to be unleashed.

Re:

[Aighearach]

If their provisioning is so broken, why do they have such good uptime?

It seems most of their mistakes are "accidentally-on-purpose" mistakes by their billing dept.

Re:

[dicobalt]

That's like I said, too many databases that all do the same thing and Comcast's poor effort to unify them in their own native systems. Comcast had four different billing systems when I worked there, and I probably worked with maybe 1/10 of their total markets. Then add the migrated systems from other ISPs that may or may not have migrated correctly or may even still be active. ISPs themselves which may have more than one set of databases depending on their own acquisitions over the years.

Re:

[Aighearach]

No, it wasn't like you said at all, you just have poor listening skills.

tax dollars for telecoms ?

[swell]

" The designation blocks U.S. companies from using FCC funds to purchase communications equipment and services that the U.S. government considers a national security threat."

News to me: The FCC (taxpayers) is buying equipment for these monopolistic companies that are overcharging Americans and making Wall Street fat with profits?

Re:

[Aighearach]

Why is that news to you, when you've been hearing about attempts to improve rural internet access for at least two decades.

Hors out of brn

[thunderclees]

If the CPC or PLA deemed it so any equipment made in the PRC has a backdoor.
Just about all telecom equipment like networking equipment is made in the PRC.

What about the solution/carrot?

[OneOfMany07]

OK, you're trying to block a bad solution in your mind. What about if they fly right? Maybe we need to invest in ways to monitor all activity of telecom systems in an independent way. Meaning separate from any infrastructure we add another, trusted device to make sure it's playing fair.

Or what about requiring any device accept open source software/firmware? Then we could at least try to read through code to find the issues ourselves. Or start over from scratch if we don't believe the base is secure (bu

Re:

[drinkypoo]

The "interfaces" are already standards. Unfortunately Huawei owns some of the IP. Whether a global communications standard should be dependent on privately held patents is another topic.

Was Jingoism and Racism Now Brandon Good

[nevermindme]

Amazing how the same regulator actions and advisements by the former administrations were viewed as Jingoism and Racism. Uncle Sun Glasses does it and it is wonderful.

Re:

[opps sorry my bad]

This. The air is thick with hypocrisy. :D

Vague, Inefficient, Opaque like the bible

[witz2]

"that poses an unacceptable risk to national security" Text is Vague, Inefficient and Opaque like the bible, with room for double or misleading interpretation.