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FCC chair: 911 call operators should be able to track VoIP calls
Location tracking can sometimes mean the difference between life and death when it comes to 911 calls. If you ring the emergency services with a cell phone using your provider's network, the call handler is able identify where you are, and ensure help is sent to the right place. Now, the chairman of the FCC says the same function should be enabled on VoIP calls.
FCC wants to help identify the floor a 911 call is coming from
The Federal Communications Commission issued a new proposal today designed to help first responders better locate 911 callers. The proposed rules would require cellular providers to provide more detailed locations of callers, including a vertical location that would make it possible to find out what floor of a multi-story building a caller is on. If approved, the requirements would go into effect starting in April 2021.
YouTube says it'll finally stop recommending conspiracy videos
YouTube says it will stop recommending conspiracy videos. Given that even the most innocuous of searches can lure you down an algorithmically generated path that almost invariably leads to videos containing outlandish claims, the move seemed inevitable. YouTube's Kids app wasn't immune either, as such videos were popping up there.
Hackers claim to have insurance data linked to 9/11 attacks
The hackers who stole Orange is the New Black are back, and they've hit a new low. The group known as TheDarkOverlord claims to have stolen 18,000 documents from Hiscox Syndicates, Lloyds of London and Silverstein Properties, and threatened to release files providing "answers" for 9/11 attack "conspiracies" unless it received a ransom. A Hiscox spokesperson confirmed the hack to Motherboard and indicated that this was likely insurance data tied to litigation involving the terrorist campaign.
911 mobile services are gradually returning after CenturyLink outage
911 services are gradually coming back online in several states and cities following an outage. An outage at a CenturyLink data center affected 911 mobile calls in Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Seattle, Salt Lake City and other locales.
Porsche's sports car tech improves the new Cayenne SUV
I'm driving up the Northern California coastline when a very happy, very overweight yellow dog runs into the road. Hours earlier a Porsche spokesperson had explained how well the new Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB) work, adding they would take a little time to get used to. This real-world canine test brings the SUV to a quick stop without much effort on my part. I would have been able to stop in time even with the regular Cayenne brakes. But sometimes it takes real life to show just how helpful new technology is.
Porsche's latest 911 knows when it's on a wet road
Porsche may pitch the 911 as a pure driver's car, but that doesn't mean it will turn down technological assistants that could get you out of a jam. The company has unveiled the eighth-generation 911 as a 2020 model, and one of its most conspicuous upgrades is a "world first" Wet mode that detects water on the road, prepares control systems and alerts the driver to the slippery conditions. You don't have to tone the car down (say, if you're on a track and expect to slide around), but you only need to push a button to configure the car for safety. The feature will come standard, Porsche said.
Seattle PD registry opens for residents worried about 'swatting'
The practice of 'swatting' has increasingly become a part of online harassment, and now the Seattle Police Department formalized a proactive measure for residents who think they might be a target. It published a PSA for the project showing bodycam footage of officers responding to a call that turned out to be a swatting "prank" where a caller claimed he was holding five hostages and would kill them if he didn't get $5,000. When police rushed to the location, they found only a young woman and a cat. For people like live streamers who may be targets, the PD is using its arrangement with a company called Rave Facility. It already used their tech to create a "Smart 911" profile residents could fill out to give responders a heads up about being hearing impaired, having pets or a medical condition to be concerned about. This next step contains a flag for registering swatting concerns about a particular location.
Google provides 911 call centers with more accurate location data
Google is providing 911 operators with more accurate location information from callers using Android phones. The company has partnered with T-Mobile and emergency technology companies RapidSOS and West to send location data from its Emergency Location Service to 911 call centers when an Android user places an emergency call. For T-Mobile customers, that information will be sent via the carrier and when call centers use RapidSOS, Google's location data will be sent through the emergency technology company. In the US Virgin Islands, Google has integrated this technology in partnership with West.
AT&T will pay $5.25 million fine for 911 outages
The FCC said today that it had settled its investigation into two 911 outages experienced by AT&T customers last year. On March 8th, AT&T wireless phone customers using Voice over LTE weren't able to connect to 911, an issue that lasted around five hours and affected 12,600 people. Then again on May 1st of last year, a second outage, lasting just over 45 minutes, prevented 2,600 911 calls from going through. Planned network changes were the source of the problem, inadvertently interfering with AT&T's 911 call routing. The FCC also said that the company "failed to quickly, clearly and fully notify all affected 911 call centers" following the March outage.
Senator asks FCC if Stingrays can interfere with 911 calls
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wants to know if cell-site simulators, also known as Stingrays, have the potential to interfere with mobile communications, and he's asked the FCC to share any research it has done into the matter. In a letter sent to Chairman Ajit Pai today, Wyden asked what steps the agency had taken to ensure the devices -- which track mobile devices by mimicking cell towers -- don't interfere with the communications of targeted and non-targeted devices or calls to 911, specifically. "The FCC has an obligation to ensure that surveillance technology which it certifies does not interfere with emergency services or the mobile communications of innocent Americans who are in the same neighborhood where law enforcement is using a cell-site simulator," he wrote.
Arizona man gets 20 months in prison for emergency system DDoS attacks
Denial of service attacks are serious by themselves, but doubly so when they target vital systems... and one perpetrator is finding that out first-hand. A court has sentenced Arizona resident Randall Charles Tucker (who nicknamed himself the "Bitcoin Baron") to 20 months in prison for launching distributed denial of service attacks against city websites, including damaging attacks against Madison, Wisconsin. He not only took down the city's website, but "crippled" its emergency communication system to the point where first responders had trouble reaching the 911 center. It also 'degraded' the automatic dispatching for emergency crews.
iOS 12 will automatically share your location during 911 calls
Apple is joining Google, Uber and others in providing accurate location data that could save your life in an emergency. The company has revealed that iOS 12 will automatically (and importantly, securely) share your location with first responders during 911 calls in the US, including with RapidSOS' quicker, more accurate internet-based technology. So long as a 911 center supports it ("many" do), iOS should meet the FCC's 2021 requirement of pinpointing your location within 165 feet a minimum 80 percent of the time.
Uber's 911 assistance is now available in the US
Uber's promised 911 assistance feature is now available in the US. If you're ever in an emergency, you can now call for help without having to leave the mobile app and lose track of your location. And if you live in certain cities (Denver, Charleston, Naples, Louisville and three Tennessee cities), a tie-in with RapidSOS will automatically share your location with 911 dispatchers. Uber told TechCrunch that it's in talks with other cities to implement location sharing, and that it'll ideally be available everywhere.
Baltimore’s 911 dispatch system was hacked last weekend
Baltimore's 911 dispatch system was hacked over the weekend and authorities temporarily shut it down. The mayor's office confirmed to The Baltimore Sun that the system was digitally infiltrated early Saturday morning, but provided no other details while the investigation is ongoing.
Apple devices at a California repair center keep calling 911
Apple devices at a refurbishment facility in Elk Grove, California have been calling 911 multiple times a day for the past few months, CBS Sacramento reports. Since last October, the Elk Grove Police station has received around 20 accidental emergency calls per day, adding up to some 1,600 calls in the last four months. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Communication Center has also received 47 accidental calls from the facility since the beginning of this year.
Google is making it easier for 911 to find you in an emergency
When you call 911 from a cellphone, your location is typically sent to the call taker by a wireless carrier. But that information isn't always so accurate. Well Google might have a better way of going about it and it tested its system across a few states in December and January, the Wall Street Journal reports. In the states where the tests took place, Google sent location data from a random selection of 911 callers using Android phones straight to the people taking those calls. The test included 50 call centers that cover around 2.4 million people in Texas, Tennessee and Florida, and early reports of the results suggest the system is promising.
Porsche is working on a plug-in hybrid version of the 911
Porsche has been flirting with EVs for a bit now and it looks like the the famed 911 coupe might be going partially electric. CEO Oliver Bloom recently told Automotive News that a plug-in hybrid version of the car will go on sale near 2023, roughly four years after the redesigned gas version hits the market. The publication reports that the decision to hybridize the coupe isn't final, but that Bloom is pushing for it regardless. "It will be very important for the 911 to have a plug-in hybrid," he said.
Porsche's $2,000 Passport subscription swaps cars on demand
Like the idea of Cadillac's car subscription service, but feel its lineup is a little too... proletarian? If you live in Atlanta, you're in luck. Porsche is launching a Passport service in the city that gives you "frequent" vehicle swaps, unlimited mileage and coverage for the essentials (insurance, registration, maintenance and taxes) for as many as 22 different cars through a mobile app. If you want to ferry the kids to school in a Cayenne but cut loose with a Cayman on the weekends, you just have to tap your phone screen. Think of it as Netflix for speed junkies.
A memory bug made the OnePlus 5 reboot during 911 calls
OnePlus fixed that nasty bug that rebooted your OnePlus 5 when you called an emergency number, but just what caused it, exactly? The company has offered an explanation... and it's a thorny issue. Apparently, there was a cellular modem memory usage problem that kicked in when you made an emergency call while on a voice over LTE network, invoking the OTDOA (Observed Time Difference of Arrival) protocol used for positioning in an emergency. It only occurred on some OnePlus 5 units, but it was tricky enough that the company worked with Qualcomm to eliminate the glitch on devices around the world.
