Tag Archives: AT&T

AT&T Says Criminals Stole Phone Records Of “Nearly All” Customers

Hacker

U.S. phone giant AT&T confirmed Friday it will begin notifying millions of consumers about a fresh data breach the allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone records of “nearly all” of its customers, a company person told TechCrunch.

In a statement, AT&T said that the stolen data contains phone numbers of both cellular and landline customers, as well as AT&T records of calls and text messages – such as who contacted who by phone or text — during a six-month period between May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.

AT&T said some of the stolen data includes more recent records from January 2, 2023 for a smaller but unspecified number of customers.

The stolen data includes call records of customer with phone service from other cell carries that rely on AT&T’s network, the company said.

AT&T said the stolen data “does not contain the content of calls or texts,” but does include calling and texting records that an AT&T phone number interact with during the six-month period, as wells as the total count of a customer’s calls and texts, and call durations — information that does not include the time or date of calls and tests, AT&T said.

ABC News reported AT&T has announced that the company believes a hacker stole records of calls and texts from nearly all of AT&T’s wireless customers, according to a financial filing from the company.

“The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information,” AT&T said in their statement released early Friday morning. “These records identify the telephone numbers with which an AT&T or MVNO wireless number interacted during these periods, including telephone numbers of AT&T wireline customers and customers of other carriers, counts of those interactions, and aggregate call duration fora day or month.”

AT&T says it has taken “additional cybersecurity measures” in repos to this incident including closing of the point of unlawful access.

CNN reported the call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of tens of millions of AT&T cellphone customers and many non-AT&T customers were exposed in a massive data breach, the telecom company revealed Friday.

AT&T said the compromised data includes the telephone numbers of “nearly all” of its cellular customs and the customers of wireless providers that use it’s network between May 1, and October 31, 2022.

“We have an ongoing investigation into the AT&T breach and we’re coordinating with our law enforcement partners,” the FCC said on social media platform X. 

AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers told CNN that it was an entirely new incident that had “no connection in any way” to another incident disclosed in March. At that time, AT&T said personal information such as Social Security numbers on 73 million current and former customers was released onto the dark web.

In my opinion, it is good that AT&T scrambled to stop the hacker from gaining even more data. It is unfortunate that happened, and I expect the hacker to face some kind of legal charges eventually.

AT&T and Verizon Delay 5G Rollout Due to FAA’s Airline Safety Concerns

AT&T, , ,

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., agreed to delay their planned December 5 rollout of a new 5G frequency band so they can work with the Federal Aviation Administration to address concerns about potential interference with key cockpit safety systems, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Verge reported that AT&T and Verizon planned to light up new 5G networks that use so-called “C-band” frequencies on December 5th. That rollout will now be delayed until at least January 5th, the companies said Thursday.

Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) posted a “Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin”. The subject was “Risk of Potential Adverse Effects on Radio Altimeters”. In short, the FAA wants radio altimeter manufactures to submit receiver RF selectivity, interference, and tolerance masks, and baseline operational specifications for each model number in production or still in use, and approximate numbers of each radio altimeter model currently in service in the United States.

The FAA also wants radio altimeter manufacturers to test each of their models to determine the susceptibility to interference from fundamental emissions in 3700-3800 MHz, which “is available for wireless broadband in December of 2021”, and the full 3700-3980 Mhz band which will become available later.

In addition, the FAA has a list of requests for aircraft manufacturers, operators, and pilots, regarding the 5G frequency band that AT&T and Verizon want to use.

According to The Verge, AT&T said it is working with the FAA and FCC to better understand that aviation industry’s concerns. In a statement provided to The Verge, “It is critical that these discussions be informed by the science and the data. That is the only path to enabling experts and engineers to assess whether any legitimate co-existence issues exist.”

Verizon provided a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “We appreciate the FCC’s work in its discussions with the FAA and others to ensure a data-driven analysis that will again demonstrate that 5G operations in this band pose no risk to flight safety.”

I get the feeling that AT&T and Verizon are frustrated that they cannot roll out their 5G frequency band just yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, telecom industry officials don’t feel the need for more safeguards, saying that available evidence doesn’t show that the proposed 5G signals will interfere with flight equipment. Cellphone carries outside of the United States are using the that 5G frequency.

AT&T Launches Stream Saver for Mobile Data Customers

AT&T, ,

AT&T logoEveryone wants more data. Especially mobile users. The obvious solution would be for telcos to just give everyone unlimited data. But, they’re not ready to do that just yet. That’s why AT&T launched its new Stream Saver program for mobile video:

Stream Saver allows you to watch more video on your wireless devices while using less data by streaming content that it recognizes as video at Standard Definition quality, similar to DVD, (about 480p), so you can enjoy more of what you love on your smartphone or tablet. You will have control over which lines on your account use Stream Saver and can turn it off or on at any time once AT&T activates it.

(Why anyone would turn Stream Saver off is beyond me.) Stream Saver is automatically available for most AT&T customers:

Stream Saver will be added to existing and new customers on many of our postpaid rate plans that include data. It will be included on AT&T Unlimited Plus, Mobile Share Advantage, Mobile Share Value, and Mobile Share plans, the prior AT&T Unlimited Plan, the AT&T 1GB Tablet Plan, AT&T 1GB Car Plan, our Unlimited Data plan, and other select plans. Some specific plans such as select connected vehicles are not eligible.

AT&T also notes that Stream Saver will be available to GoPhone users with existing data plans. However, the service may not be available on all business accounts.

Stream Save is available at no extra cost to customers. I’m guessing AT&T implemented this plan in reaction to aggressive freebies offered by competitors like T-Mobile. I also wonder if Stream Saver allows AT&T to shape this video-based data in some way that makes it more efficient on their end. Either way, if you’re an AT&T mobile customer, you can now watch the latest season of your favorite TV show without it eating thru your data plan.

I Just Wanted To Give You My Money, T-Mobile…

Apple, AT&T, iPhone, smartphone, , ,

T-mobile logoI’ve been in the market for a couple of smartphones. Specifically, one iPhone 6 Plus for myself and one iPhone 6 for my wife (and fellow GNC contributor) Jen. I was all set to purchase the new phones from T-Mobile earlier this week. But the utter failure of T-Mobile’s website lead me to buying from a competitor instead.

When I logged on to the T-Mobile site, I was immediately greeted with this message:

T-Mobile website browser warning

 

I was using the latest version of Safari on an iMac running the latest version of OS X. And yeah, I get it. Safari is often a bit of a thorn in the side of web developers. But, come on. It’s 2015. Macs are everywhere and many Mac users (including me) prefer to use Safari. Upon seeing this message, I knew I was in for trouble. But I carried on, anyway. I closed the browser warning message and clicked the “Shop” link at the top of the T-Mobile site.

From there, I selected a silver iPhone 6 Plus and continued on thru the rate-plan selection process, which went OK. Then, I went to add the second phone and that’s when the process started to fail. When the iPhone 6 screen loaded, it never gave me an option to buy the phone. I was stuck. I went back to my shopping cart to try and resume the process, and after much lag I was eventually given a “Processing Error” page that told me something had gone wrong, to wait a few minutes and try again.

So, I waited a few minutes and tried again with no luck. I waited a few more minutes and made another attempt. Still nothing. I’m not sure how many times I repeated this process before I started getting frustrated. I imagine at this point, most people would’ve given up. I guess I’m stricken with some sort of weird combination of patience and stubbornness. But, the thing is, I really wanted to buy these iPhones from T-Mobile.

Continue reading I Just Wanted To Give You My Money, T-Mobile… →

Messy Apple Divorce

Android, Apple, Phone, Samsung, smartphone, , , , , ,

I have a older friend that just upgraded from an iPhone 5 to a Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

The iPhone 5 was his second iPhone and he liked it well enough until the 7.1 update, which made certain interface elements too small. The incoming call screen contact photos were reduced from being large and easily recognizable to a tiny little hard-to-see thumbnail sized bubble. Also the 7.1 update caused a couple of his fitness apps to no longer function properly — opening one of them would make it necessary to reboot the phone every time it was run.

So, after seeing my Note 3, he decided it was time to move up to a bigger screen and the much better battery life offered by the Note 3.

AT&T ported his phone number over to the new device. All seemed well, until his relatives (a son and a couple of grand kids) that still had iPhones using iMessages could not text his new phone. It seems that there is a well-known problem that happens when a phone number is ported away from an iPhone where iMessages has been used for texting with other iPhones.

Doing a Google search for the problem reveals that there are plenty of people experiencing this problem. If you have an iPhone and used iMessages for texting and port the number to a non-iPhone, regardless of whether it’s another smartphone or even a flip phone, iMessages will capture any text messages sent from any other iPhone where iMessages is still in use.

There are a few work-arounds and perhaps a definitive fix. The other people with iPhones with iMessages enabled can go into their settings and disable iMessages and use regular texting, and their texts to the ported number will go through to the non-Apple phone. Another suggestion is for the user that has ported their number to the non-Apple device log in to their Apple account and remove the old device from their list of Apple devices.

The third way, which may be the definitive solution, is to text “help” to 48369. This generates a reply from Apple, to which you reply “stop.” According to someone who spent time on the phone with Apple support this is supposed to take anywhere from 4 to 12 hours to resolve the issue.

As people move away from iPhones that use iMessages to larger-screened smartphones because of diminished ability to read tiny print, this is likely to become a more widespread issue, which is useful to be aware of even if you are a die-hard iPhone fan and have no intention of switching.

HTC First Facebook Phone Flops – AT&T to Discontinue Smartphone

Information, , , , ,
HTC First
HTC First

Not just a few days ago, AT&T dropped the price of the HTC First phone from $99 to 99 cents. Now – one month after its debut – AT&T has decided to discontinue the phone.

An undisclosed source said the HTC First will soon be discontinued and the remaining inventory will be returned. According to BGR, their source said AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide. That was even after the phone was slashed in price.

Of course its hard to sell against the iPhone5 and Samsung Galaxy S4, which are the biggest products at AT&T right now.

There is no word whether HTC First will be scrapped altogether or find another market for the phone. ALthough with Facebook Home still struggling to even get downloaded on Android devices (Home just hit 1 million according to CNet), it looks like Facebook’s domination of the smartphone market will have to wait.

 

Frontline Airs Exposé on Cell Tower Deaths

AT&T, mobile, wireless, , , , ,

Before you get too excited about the whole cellular radiation debate, which is mostly debunked by the way, this in-depth report was about tower workers falling to their deaths due to poor regulation of safety issues while climbing these monstrous metal towers (climbers are 10 times more likely to die than construction workers).  Frontline aired the show on PBS May 22nd and the entire episode is now available for streaming on their web site.

To nobody’s surprise all of the cell companies refused comment during the show.  In fact, we learned that virtually none of them have even been fined by OSHA for any of the accidents.  They are above responsibility thanks to layers of protection they have put between themselves and the actual contractors who do the dirty work.  Incidentally, many of those workers make around $10 per hour to climb hundreds of feet, mostly unprotected because that allows them to climb faster and get more jobs done.  One of the worst offenders turns out to be AT&T, who pushed hard for fast work to be done during their iPhone expansion.

While one retired AT&T executive did talk with the show, the other interviews are with contract companies and the actual workers.  You can watch chapter 1 of the episode in the embedded video below.  A word of warning – there are a few graphic images of bodies laying at the base of towers.

Watch Cell Tower Deaths on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.