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Democracy Now Video Reporting on Iran’s European Aided Internet Monitoring Capabilities

Democracy Now has a video discussion on the recent reports about telecoms in Europe aiding the Iranian government develop highly sophisticated Internet censorship mechanisms or deep packet inspection. The WSJ recently reported that the Iranian monitoring capabilities where "at least in part [provided] by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finish cellphone compnay, in second half of 2008." (also see previous report: Iran's Internet Censorship Most Sophisticated in the Worldmore

FCC Launched Investigation Into Exclusive Handset Deals

Grant Gross of IDG News report: "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will launch an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said. Copps has instructed FCC staff to open an inquiry into exclusive handset deals, he said during a speech at the Pike and Fischer Broadband Summit Thursday." more

Iran’s Internet Censorship Most Sophisticated in the World

Iran's political filtering during the recent 2009 presidential campaign and the role of the Internet in the post-election turmoil has brought a heightened level of attention to the country's Internet filtering system. According to a status report just updated by the OpenNet Initiative, the Internet censorship system in Iran has become one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated in the world. Iran and China are the only countries that aggressively filter the Internet using their own technology. Iran's aggressive filtering measures "have contributed to the implementation of a centralized filtering strategy and a reduced reliance on Western technologies," says OpenNet. more

Canadian Government Proposes Mandated Surveillance Capabilities at ISPs

Government of Canada has introduced a new bill that could allow the police to access ISP's user data without warrant. According to Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, "the Government has taken another shot at lawful access legislation today, introducing a legislative package called the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act that would require mandated surveillance capabilities at Canadian ISPs, force ISPs to disclose subscriber information such as name and address, and grant the police broad new powers to obtain transmission data and force ISPs to preserve data." more

221,744 “Iran” Tweets Per Hour at Peak

Ben Parr of Mashable reports: "The use of Twitter (Twitter) has been immense. #IranElection has been a top trending topic for days, as have terms like Iran, Tehran, Ahmadinejad, and Mousavi. But while there have been 10,000 to 50,000 tweets at any hour mentioning "Iran", it peaked yesterday at 221,744. This seems extreme, but it makes sense when you realize that it corresponds with when Twitter's downtime was rescheduled, which had major buzz the entire day." more

UK to Implement Broadband Tax

Millions of households in UK will be paying a "broadband tax" in order to fund increase and improvement of broadband access in the country according to the Digital Britain white paper launched yesterday. BBC today reports: "One of the biggest surprises in the Digital Britain report was the news that everyone with a fixed line telephone would pay a broadband tax. At 50p a month the amount is unlikely to break the bank but experts are already questioning what it will buy." more

Twitter Reschedules Critical Maintenance to Avoid Down Time for Demonstrators in Iran

cores of Twitter users around the world thanked the social networking site, Twitter, today for its decision to postpone a scheduled maintenance which would take the service down for 90 minutes tonight at around 9:45 pm PST. Twitter has become a lifeline for Iranian demonstrators as the microblogging service is providing a vital means of communication amongst protesters as well as the outside world. In response to a large number of users on Twitter pleading the company to reconsider the timing of its scheduled maintenance -- given the sensitive timing in the Iran -- Twitter decided to reschedule the maintenance to a later time. more

Iranian Protesters Urged Not to DDoS Gov Sites, Could Backfire as Country’s Networks Are Centralized

In the midst of heavy demonstrations in the street of Iran against current regime and controversial election results, online activist have began organizing online attacks against government websites. Activists are asking supporters to use tools currently being spread via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites to participate in the attack. However as one blogger writes, the attack might in fact back fire in a country like Iran where network infrastructure is relatively centralized... more

Pew Reports on the State of P2P, Music Online 10 Years After Napster

A recent report released by Pew Internet & American Life Project reviews the state of music online 10 years after Napster was launched. In the study, Pew Internet also reports that 15% of online adults admitted to downloading or sharing files using peer-to-peer or BitTorrent. "Globally, estimates from file-sharing research firm Big Champagne place the P2P universe at more than 200 million computers with at least one peer-to-peer application installed, and operators of the popular Pirate Bay torrent tracker have identified more than 25 million 'peers' who have used their site alone to exchange files." more

ICANN Confirms Selection of Leading New CEO Candidate, Announcement Expected Next Week

Following rumors last week on the leading candidate for ICANN's new CEO position, an official announcement has been released by ICANN confirming that the board may indeed announce its selection during its meeting in Sydney next week. more

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch Announces Support for dotNYC Plan

Former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch announced Thursday he is supporting dotNYC LLC's bid to operate the .NYC web address. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn disclosed during her State of the City speech in February that the City Council and Office of the Mayor will pursue the .NYC top-level domain. The city last month completed a Request for Information about .NYC and is expected to endorse a company to run the .NYC address this summer. more

Mobile Internet Users to Reach 134 Million by 2013

The total number of mobile internet users are expected to reach 134 million by 2013 as a result of increasing rise in smartphone popularity according to the research firm, eMerketer. Additionally Piper Jaffray, one of few organizations to project the extent of the growth, estimates that combined spending on consumer and business mobile applications will top $13 billion worldwide by 2012, a nearly fivefold increase over 2009," says eMarketer in a report released this week. more

UPDATEDRumor: Rod Beckstrom Next ICANN CEO

Sources indicate former director of the US Homeland Security Department's National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), Rod Beckstrom, will be replacing the current ICANN CEO, Paul Twomey, who announced his resignation earlier this year. Milton Mueller in a blog post on the IGP website writes: "This is still unconfirmed by ICANN but comes from well-informed sources. We also hear that David Eisner, the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service under G.W. Bush and former VP at AOL, was also in the running." Beckstrom recently made headlines for his sudden resignation from his post at NCSC, criticizing the lack of funding from the NSA and its move to try to "rule over" the NCSC. more

Annual Global IP Traffic Will Exceed Two-Third of a Zettabyte in 4 Years

Annual global IP traffic will pass two-thirds of a zettabyte in four years according the Cisco's Visual Networking Index report. The economic downturn has only slightly tempered traffic growth and the global IP traffic is expected to quintuple from 2008 to 2013. Cisco predicts IP traffic to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40%. more

Sources Confirm Google Streaming Over 1.2 Billion Videos Per Day

Source from Google have recently confirmed total number of YouTube video streams are above 1.2 billion per day worldwide according to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch. Previously reported numbers by comScore and other third party services appear to have been fairly under-estimated.  more

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