News Briefs

ICANN’s 52nd Meeting Kicks Off in Singapore

Singapore's Minister of Communications and Information, Dr. Yaacob bin Ibrahim, and former Senior Advisor to President Bill Clinton, Ira Magaziner, spoke to the success of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance during the Opening Ceremony of ICANN's 52nd public meeting today... more

GigaNet Call for Proposals: Internet Governance Research a Decade After WSIS

In 2016, the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) will celebrate its 11th Annual Symposium which will take place on 05 December 2016 in Guadalajara, Mexico as a pre-event of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
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Cisco’s Big Bet on IoT, Acquires Jasper for $1.4 Billion

Cisco has announced its intent to acquire Jasper Technologies, Inc., a privately held company based in Santa Clara, which provides a cloud-based IoT service platform helping enterprises and service providers launch, manage and monetize IoT services on a global scale. more

Google Praises Canada for “Keeping the Internet Awesome”

In response to Canada's recent decision to keep a hands-off approach to distributed content over the Internet and through mobile devices, Jacob Glick, Google's Canada Policy Counsel has highly commended the decision. In a blog post today, Glick writes: "If you've ever wondered about the power and popularity of user-generated content in Canada, consider this: if all three Canadian television networks began broadcasting Canadian content 24 hours a day, seven days a week, YouTube would still have more Canadian content than those three networks combined." more

Internet Association Releases Policy Roadmap for Trump

The Internet Association today released a policy roadmap detailing a roadmap for the incoming administration and Congress. more

GOP Lawmakers Say NTIA Violated Law in IANA Transition Plan

A number of Congressional Republicans today questioned National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for apparent violation of federal law in using federal funds to relinquish U.S. oversight of the Internet. more

ICANN Board Takes Steps to Launch Next Round of New gTLDs

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has adopteda 98 recommendations in the New gTLD subsequent procedures policy development process. This sets in motion the start of the implementation process for the next round of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). more

APWG: The Internet Has Never Been More Dangerous

Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) released its latest Phishing Activity Trends Report today warning that the number of unique phishing websites detected in June rose to 49,084, the highest since April, 2007's record of 55,643, and the second-highest recorded since APWG began reporting this measurement. "The number of hijacked brands ascended to an all-time high of 310 in March and remained, in historical context, at an elevated level to the close of the half in June," says the report. more

Policy Review: Botnets are eWMD, electronic Weapons of Mass Destruction

The latest issue of Policy Review from the Hoover Institution, a public policy research center -- focused on advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy -- has an essay titled eWMDs – electronic weapons of mass destruction. The Policiy Review readers are warned that botnets should be considered a serious security problem and that "cyber attacks present a grave new security vulnerability for all nations and must be urgently addressed." more

China Developing Cyber Weapons to Gain Control of Enemy Satellites

According to a leaked US intelligence report, China is developing capabilities to "deny, exploit or hijack" enemy satellites as a core part of its goal to control information.  more

Cameras, DVRs Used for Massive Cyberattack on French Hosting Company and Others

"Hackers infect army of cameras, dvrs for massive internet attacks," reports Drew Fitzgerald in the Wall Street Journal. more

ICANN Needs to Tighten Director-Conflict Policies, Says CEO

ICANN needs to strengthen conflict-of-interest policies for its board of directors, said Rod Beckstrom, CEO, in his opening remarks during the organizations 43rd public meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica. "It is time to further tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board. ... ICANN must place commercial and financial interests in their appropriate context," said Beckstrom, who plans to step down in July. "How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?" more

Ted Cruz: IANA Transition ‘Likely Illegal’

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called on Congress to stop the Obama administration from giving away control of the Internet with congressional authorization -- a move Cruz said is likely illegal," Nicholas Ballasy reporting today in PJ Media. more

GigaNet Symposium Will Be Held Next Week in Brazil

On Monday, 09 November 2015, the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) will hold its 10th Annual Symposium on Internet Governance Research in João Pessoa, Brazil. The symposium will take place as a pre-event of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which starts on Tuesday in the same location. During their symposium researchers from several parts of the world will address various topics including privacy, infra-structure, trust, security and more. more

Dish Network Confirms Network Outage Was a Cybersecurity Breach Impacting Customers and Employees

The satellite television provider, Dish Network is currently dealing with a cybersecurity incident that has affected its internal networks, customer support systems, and websites such as boostinfinite.com and dish.com. It is currently investigating the incident and has confirmed certain data was extracted from its IT systems as a result. more