Iranian residents Said Pourkarim Arabi, Mohammad Reza Espargham and Mohammad Bayati were indicted for identity theft aimed at getting U.S. aerospace and satellite technology on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, DOJ said Thursday. It alleged the hacking campaign began in July 2015 and ran through at least February 2019, targeting online accounts of organizations and companies involved in aerospace or satellite technology. DOJ alleged victims included a satellite-tracking company and a satellite voice and data communication company.

Comments are due Sept. 24 at the International Trade Commission on the public interest ramifications of an import ban DivX seeks on LG, Samsung and TCL smart TVs, said Wednesday’s Federal Register. DivX’s Sept. 10 complaint (login required) in docket 337-3489 seeks a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations the video processors in the TVs infringe four DivX patents on adaptive bitrate streaming. Component suppliers MediaTek, MStar and Realtek are also named as potential respondents. DivX was “one of the first companies to enable successful delivery of high-quality digital video over the internet,” said the complaint: No harm would come to the public if the TVs were excluded because other manufacturers could easily fill the void. Respondents didn't comment.

EU net neutrality rules ban "zero rating" packages that favor some applications and services while blocking or slowing others, the European Court of Justice said Tuesday (cases C-807/18 and C-39/19). The issue concerns a challenge by Hungarian telco Telenor Magyarorszag to a National Communications and Media Office order to terminate some of its access services. A national court asked the ECJ to interpret provisions of regulation (EU) 2015/2120, which sets out measures on open internet access and user rights. The services allowed subscribers to access certain applications, such as Facebook, Twitter and Apple Music, without deducting the data volume from data packages purchased, and to continue using those services when the data volume was used up, while blocking or slowing data traffic to others. The court found such arrangements breach net neutrality. The outcome wasn't a foregone conclusion, blogged telecom consultant Innocenzo Genna, because zero rating practices aren't clearly covered: The practice was considered to be forbidden, and this judgment "eliminates doubts" that the applicable provisions aim to target such practices. Genna noted the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications hasn't barred all zero rating practices in principle but left it up to national regulators or courts to assess the impact of such practices on users' rights. The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association didn't comment.

Oracle was silent Monday about its status as the likely buyer of TikTok’s U.S. business after Microsoft disclosed that TikTok parent ByteDance rejected its offer. Oracle CEO Safra Catz put TikTok questions off limits at the very top of her fiscal Q1 call last week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed on CNBC Monday that the Trump administration got "a proposal over the weekend" for making Oracle TikTok's "trusted technology partner, with Oracle making many representations for national security issues." The proposal includes the "commitment to create TikTok Global as a U.S.-headquartered company with 20,000 new jobs," he said. It will be reviewed this week at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. before a "recommendation" is made to President Donald Trump, he said. Microsoft was confident its proposal “would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” said the company Sunday. “We would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combating disinformation.” Trump’s Aug. 6 executive order bans transactions with ByteDance and WeChat parent Tencent after Sept. 20 if their U.S. operations aren’t sold to American partners (see 2008070032). ByteDance and TikTok sued Aug. 24 to block the EO (see 2008240047).

July smartphone imports of 18.2 million to the U.S. was their highest monthly volume of 2020 but remain on pace to finish the year with 20% fewer shipments than 2019, according to Census Bureau data we accessed Sunday through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb. Unit imports were up 15% sequentially and 6.2% from July 2019. That's improvement from Q2 (see 2008160001). The average July smartphone import was priced at $244.68, up 6.3% from June and 6.9% year on year. China generated 75% of July smartphone imports. PC monitors, a connectivity tool throughout much of telework and remote-learning mandates, cooled off from their torrid Q2 performance.

Amazon, Edge Cable and China Mobile hope to operate their private fiber cable network connecting central California and the Philippines by Q4 2022, they said in an FCC international Bureau application Thursday. They would use the 7,460-mile CAP-1 line capacity for services offered by their affiliates or would provide bulk capacity to wholesale and enterprise customers. They asked to operate on a non-common carrier basis, citing "robust competition" on the U.S./Philippines route. They asked for approval by Nov. 1, 2021, to meet their construction schedule.

More than 105 5G networks are deployed worldwide, said 5G Americas Thursday, based on a report by Rysavy Research. The report predicted “billions” of IoT devices will be deployed over the next decade. “Operators are transitioning to standalone architecture, lowering network latencies, improving coverage, addressing industrial IoT, and simplifying operations,” the report said. Beamforming and massive multiple-input and multiple-output "are enabling use of spectrum above 6 GHz, as well as improving performance in lower bands.”

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Wednesday DHS is “working with our interagency and industry colleagues to protect our information and communications infrastructure from intellectual property theft and nefarious data collection by China.” In a “state of the homeland” address, Wolf said he ordered the launch of a China Working Group and singled out the work of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which “is at the forefront guarding against nation-state actors’ cyber-enabled espionage and malicious influence activity aimed at all levels of government and industry.”

China on “multiple occasions” has protested the Trump administration’s “unreasonable oppression of Chinese enterprises” on false national security grounds, said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Monday when asked about reports that DOD is seeking to impose export restrictions on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s largest chipmaker. The administration “for some time” has been “abusing” its authority “to impose all sorts of restrictive measures on Chinese companies without producing any solid evidence” of wrongdoing, he said. “This is stark bullying. China firmly opposes that.” SMIC has been “fully compliant with all rules and laws” throughout its “long-term strategic partnerships with multiple U.S.-based semiconductor equipment suppliers,” said the company Saturday. SMIC “manufactures semiconductors and provides services solely for civilian and commercial end-users and end-uses,” it said. “We have no relationship with the Chinese military.” Any statements to the contrary are “false accusations,” it said. It’s open to “sincere and transparent” talks with the administration to resolve “potential misunderstandings,” it said. DOD didn’t comment Tuesday.

Global July semiconductor revenue increased 4.9% year on year to $35.2 billion, up 2.1% sequentially, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Thursday. The global industry “has remained largely resistant to global macroeconomic headwinds” -- “but substantial market uncertainty remains for the rest of the year,” said SIA. Sales into the Americas in July rose 26% year on year.