News Briefs

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Other Tech Companies Join Forces to Support Apple in FBI Case

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft are among tech companies that have joined Apple in its iPhone fight with the U.S. government, according the latest report from the Wall Street Journal. more

Approach IoT With Security in Mind, Says AT&T Chairman

By 2020, some 50 billion devices are expected to connect to the Internet and the economic value created by IoT could be worth as much as $11.1 trillion -- roughly 11% of the global economy by 2025, according to a new report released by AT&T. more

Google Offers Free DDoS Protection for News Sites

Google has announced its first initiative out of Jigsaw which is the expansion of its experimental service, Project Shield. Google is offering Project Shield as a free service leveraging Google technology to protect news and free expression sites from DDoS attacks on the web. more

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade is Misleading the US Senate, Says Sen. Cruz

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has released a statement today regarding a letter that Cruz, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) received from Fadi Chehade, CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Friday. more

3.2 Billion People Online in 2015 - Up from 3B in 2014, Facebook Reports

At the end of 2015, 3.2 billion people were estimated to be online -- up from 3 billion in 2014, according to the study conducted by Connectivity Lab at Facebook. The increase is "partly attributed to more affordable data and rising global incomes in 2014." more

Facebook’s Chief Sympathetic to Apple’s Position in Clash with FBI

Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg made comments at the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona today stating he is sympathetic to Apple's position in its clash with the FBI. more

Large Volume of DNSSEC Amplification DDoS Observed, Akamai Reports

A dramatic increase in DNS reflection/amplification DDoS attacks abusing Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSEC) configured domains have been observed in the past few months, according to a security bulletin released by Akamai’s Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT). more

Internet Society Responds to FBI vs Apple Encryption Debate

The Internet Society today expressed concern over the recent order from the United States District Court for the Central District of California requiring Apple to bypass or disable the auto-erase function on a seized iPhone and to enable the FBI to more effectively conduct a brute force attack on the device. more

Google Expands Google Ideas, Now Called “Jigsaw”

Google has expanded Google Ideas, its think tank project, to a technology incubator called Jigsaw, the company announced today. Jigsaw is tasked to tackle geopolitical challenges, countering violent extremism, censorship, and other political challenges through the use of technology, says Alphabet executive chairman, Eric Schmidt in post on Medium. more

GNU C Library Found Vulnerable to Rogue DNS Server Attacks

Security experts from Google's Project Zero along with researchers from Red Hat, have identified and helped patch a security flaw in the GNU C Library (glibc) that could be exploited via rogue DNS servers, reports Catalin Cimpanu from Softpedia. more

PIR Invites Bids for .Org Back-End Operations

In a post today, Public Interest Registry (PIR), the not-for-profit operator of the .org, .ngo and .ong domains, has announced a Request for Information for the management of its back-end registry services. Afilias which has been the technical provider for PIR since it was established by ISOC following the successful ISOC/Afilias strategic partnership in the bid for .ORG in 2002, says it has been expecting an RFP since the last contract was signed and that it remains committed to its continued work with the organization. more

US Senate Gives Final OK to Ban Internet Taxes

The U.S. Senate today passed legislation placing a permanent ban on states' taxing Internet access, sending the measure to President Obama for signing into law. more

TLD Operators Should Not Police Content, Says EFF

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a letter today stating "companies and organizations that run the Internet's domain name system shouldn't be in the business of policing the contents of websites, or enforcing laws that can impinge on free speech. more

Obama Proposes $19 Billion for Cybersecurity in Final Budget Plan

President Obama is seeking a 35 percent increase in cybersecurity funding in his final budget to boost the capability of the federal government to defend itself against cyberattacks, reports Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post. more

ICANN Names Göran Marby as New President and CEO

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today released the much anticipated news regarding its new President and CEO. Göran Marby, currently Director-General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), has been named ICANN's next President and CEO. Marby will succeed current President and CEO Fadi Chehadé whose term finishes on March 15, 2016. more