Telecom Behind AI Biden Robocall Settles With FCC For $1 Million

New submitter ElimGarak000 shares a report from CyberScoop: The Texas-based voice service provider that sent AI-generated robocalls of President Joe Biden to New Hampshire voters ahead of its Democratic presidential primary has agreed to pay a $1 million fine and implement enhanced verification protocols designed to prevent robocalls and phone number spoofing in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission. The fine represents half the amount the FCC was originally seeking in an enforcement action proposed against Lingo Telecom in May. Despite that, agency leaders characterized the settlement (PDF) as a successful effort to defend U.S. telecommunications networks and election infrastructure from nascent AI and deepfake technologies. […]

In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Lingo Telecom to follow regulatory protocols that were put in place in 2020 to ensure telecommunications carriers authenticate caller identities using their networks. The protocols, known as STIR/SHAKEN, require carriers like Lingo to digitally verify and formally attest to the FCC that callers are legitimate and own the phone number they display on Caller ID. In the New Hampshire robocall case, Kramer and Life Corporation spoofed the phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic party official who was running a write-in campaign for Biden.

The FCC cited Lingo’s inability to properly implement and enforce STIR/SHAKEN as a key failure in a February cease-and-desist letter, and again in May when the agency proposed a $2 million enforcement action. The company was also named in a civil lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and New Hampshire residents, seeking damages over the incident. Per terms of the settlement, Lingo Telecom must hire a senior manager knowledgeable in STIR/SHAKEN protocols and develop a compliance plan, new operating procedures and training programs. They must also report any incidents of non-compliance with STIR/SHAKEN within 15 days of discovery. “Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line.”

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Trump Promotes Family’s New Crypto Platform, ‘The DeFiant Ones’

Former President Donald Trump is about to launch a crypto platform called “The DeFiant Ones,” according to a post of his on Truth Social. “For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites,” Trump wrote. “It’s time we take a stand — together.” From a report: The post marks the first time the Republican nominee for president has used his personal platform to promote the as yet unactivated digital bank. Within minutes, his son Donald Trump Jr., shared the post with his 12 million X followers. Trump’s post includes a link to a Telegram channel called “The DeFiant Ones,” which had approximately 29,000 followers as of Thursday morning, and climbing. An Aug. 15 post describes the group chat as “the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project” which is building “the future of finance.”

Two of Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and and Donald Jr., have spent weeks teasing the forthcoming platform, which Eric recently described as “digital real estate.” “It’s equitable. It’s collateral anyone can get access to and do so instantly,” Eric told the New York Post earlier this month. “I don’t know if people realize what a shake up that is for the world of banking and finance. I hope we can help change that.” The Trump brothers have also promoted the project with posts declaring that “decentralized finance is the future” and asking people to “stay tuned for a big announcement.”

The mention of digital real estate could be a reference to selling digitized versions of assets in the metaverse, a concept which peaked in popularity in 2021 during the last bull market cycle in crypto. Digitized real estate could also mean that the project would tokenize real-world assets. […] Trump’s eldest son recently said that the family wasn’t launching a memecoin and instead, was working to develop a crypto platform that would rival the traditional banking system. “What we want to do is take on a lot of the banking world,” he said Aug. 8. “I think there has been a lot of inequality in that only certain people can get financing […] so this notion of decentralized finance is obviously very appealing to guys like me who have been debanked,” Donald Trump Jr. said in the interview on Locals.

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Google is Shoving Its Apps Onto New Windows Laptops

Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP. From a report: The Essentials app lets you “discover and install many of our best Google services,” according to Google’s announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google’s announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).

HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you’re “in control of your experience” and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.

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110K Domains Targeted in ‘Sophisticated’ AWS Cloud Extortion Campaign

Sonos CEO Says the Old App Can’t Be Rereleased

The old Sonos app won’t be making a return to replace the buggy new version. According to Sonos CEO Patrick Spence, rereleasing the old app would make things worse now that updated software has already been sent out to the company’s speakers and cloud infrastructure. The Verge reports: In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app, confirming a report from The Verge that the company was considering doing so. […] Since the new app was released on May 7th, Spence has issued a formal apology and announced in August that the company would be delaying the launch of two products “until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers, and our partners expect from Sonos.” “The trick of course is that Sonos is not just the mobile app, but software that runs on your speakers and in the cloud too,” writes Spence in the Reddit AMA. “In the months since the new mobile app launched we’ve been updating the software that runs on our speakers and in the cloud to the point where today S2 is less reliable & less stable then what you remember. After doing extensive testing we’ve reluctantly concluded that re-releasing S2 would make the problems worse, not better. I’m sure this is disappointing. It was disappointing to me.”

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App Store VP Departs As Apple Prepares Organizational Changes

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (paywalled), App Store vice president Matt Fischer is departing the company in October as Apple prepares for organizational changes in response to regulatory pressure. MacRumors reports: Apple plans to split its App Store group into two teams, one that handles the App Store and a second team that oversees alternative app distribution. As of earlier this year, Apple has supported iOS app downloads from alternative app stores and from websites in the European Union, a change that the company had to make to comply with the Digital Markets Act. To handle ongoing compliance with EU regulations for app distribution and alternative payment methods, App Store chief Phil Schiller is changing the App Store’s hierarchy.

Fischer joined Apple in 2003 to oversee iTunes marketing, but he has served as the vice president of the App Store since 2010. In an email to Apple employees today, Fischer said that he had been thinking about leaving Apple for some time, and the reorganization provided the right opportunity. With Fischer leaving, App Store senior director Carson Oliver will oversee the App Store, and Ann Thai, a director who oversees App Store features, will head up the team that handles alternative app distribution.

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