Daily Digest 11/6/2024 (Trump II)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Security

China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts  |  Read below  |  Dustin Volz, Aruna Viswanatha, Drew FitzGerald, Sarah Krouse  |  Wall Street Journal
Trump Might Get Unfettered Surveillance Powers. How Did We Get Here?  |  Intercept, The

Infrastructure

Comcast picks up its broadband deployment pace  |  Read below  |  Linda Hardesty  |  Fierce
Still Talking About Poles  |  Read below  |  Doug Dawson  |  Analysis  |  CCG Consulting

Advertising

Digital ad market booms for Big Tech  |  Read below  |  Sara Fischer  |  Axios

2024 Elections

Elon Musk goes all-in for Trump  |  Politico
Elon Musk’s gamble on Donald Trump pays off  |  Financial Times
How Meta, TikTok, YouTube and X are moderating election threats  |  Washington Post
How Lina Khan Became an Election Hot Topic  |  New York Times
This Google election conspiracy theory doesn’t add up  |  Vox

Stories From Abroad

South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users  |  Associated Press
Corning Hit by EU Antitrust Probe Into Mobile Phone Glass  |  Bloomberg
Today's Top Stories

China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

Dustin Volz, Aruna Viswanatha, Drew FitzGerald, Sarah Krouse  |  Wall Street Journal

Hackers linked to Chinese intelligence used precision strikes to quietly compromise cellphone lines used by an array of senior national security and policy officials across the U.S. government in addition to politicians. This access allowed them to scoop up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio from potentially thousands of Americans and others with whom they interacted. The emerging picture of the intrusion’s reach helps confirm the intelligence community’s concerns about the potentially dire national security consequences of the attack. Hackers burrowed deep into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. With each layer of network infrastructure they unlocked, the Beijing-linked group studied how America’s communications wiring works without detection, carrying out targeted thefts. 

Comcast picks up its broadband deployment pace

Linda Hardesty  |  Fierce

Comcast’s CFO Jason Armstrong said that two years ago the company used to increase its broadband footprint by passing 800,000 more homes per year, but now it’s pacing at around 1.2 million new homes passed yearly. Armstrong recently reiterated what Comcast executives have been saying for several quarters now—that fixed wireless access (FWA) and fiber are its two key competitors in terms of technology. Jason Livingood, VP of Technology Policy, Products and Standards with Comcast, said the company has been focused on building in rural areas over the last couple of years, and Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grants will drive even more.

Still Talking About Poles

Doug Dawson  |  Analysis  |  CCG Consulting

Across the country at federal, state, and industry association meetings there are dire warnings being issued that the cost involved on getting onto poles is going to be a huge hindrance to the implantation of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. Everybody who is talking about this is right, but this is not a new topic—we’ve been talking about this for decades. Now that we are on the eve of finally seeing broadband offices reviewing BEAD grant applications, these warnings feel like too little too late for me. I’m not sure that the folks calling for new pole regulations understand how complicated and challenging it is to change the process of attaching to poles. I’ve worked with many internet service providers to help them through the pole attachment process, and it is rarely easy and often extremely frustrating. There are pole owners who try to make the process easy. But there are pole owners antagonistic to attachers. Unfortunately, there is no universe where we can wave the magic wand of a new regulatory fiat and make pole attachments happen quickly. Anybody who believes this really needs to spend a day looking at poles.

Digital ad market booms for Big Tech

Sara Fischer  |  Axios

The world's biggest digital advertising companies saw significant sales growth last quarter, driving momentum for the U.S. stock market ahead of the 2024 election and foreshadowing a lucrative holiday season. After years of pandemic-driven volatility, the global ad market is finally starting to stabilize in 2024. Investments in generative AI ad products, an influx of political ad dollars tied to the upcoming U.S. election, and healthy consumer spending drove strong revenue and profit growth for the world's biggest tech giants last quarter.

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


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