News Briefs

Google Applies for New TLDs Including .google, .docs, .youtube, .lol

In a blog post today, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, has revealed various new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) which the company has submitted applications to ICANN for. Vint Cerf writes: "Given this [TLD] expansion process, we decided to submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories..." more

5G Frequency Fees Are Waived in Singapore to Help Drive Market Tests

Singapore government has waived telecom frequency fees for 5G trials until December 2019 in order to catalyze market growth and discovery of potential use cases. more

UK Online Safety Act Becomes Law Amid Controversy

The UK's Online Safety Bill has received Royal Assent and is now officially the Online Safety Act. This law mandates tech companies to incorporate new standards for the design, operation, and moderation of their platforms. more

By 2021 Cost of Cybercrime to Top Annual Natural Disasters and Global Drug Trade Costs, Says Report

By 2021, it is estimated that cybercrime will cost the global economy more than $6 trillion in damages, exceeding annual costs for natural disasters and the global drug trade. more

Internet Is Too Loud, Literally

Lily Hay Newman reporting in Slate: "You may associate the sound of the Internet with the sound of a computer fan or the extinct song of dial-up. But the real sound of the information super highway is the whir of hard discs and fans spinning inside servers and creating a powerful white noise. It seems like it might be a soothing din, but workers report that it's a problem." more

8chan Website Pushed Offline Over Ties to the Mass Shooting in El Paso

The notorious social networking website 8chan was taken offline on Monday afternoon following discontinuation of support from various service providers to the platform over its links to the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. more

ARIN Recognizes Interop for Returning IPv4 Address Space

ARIN today recognizes Interop, an organization with a long-standing presence in the Internet industry, for returning its unneeded Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address space. Interop was originally allocated a /8 before ARIN's existence and the availability of smaller-sized address blocks. The organization recently realized it was only using a small portion of its address block and that returning the remainder to ARIN would be for the greater good of the Internet community. more

FBI Agent Thomas X. Grasso Receives First J.D. Falk Award for Establishing DNS Changer Working Group

Convincing competitors, disparate business entities and researchers to collaborate - many donating their services and resources - to protect millions of end-users worldwide is no small feat. Yet FBI Supervisory Special Agent Thomas X. Grasso did just that by quietly working behind the scenes to create the DNS Changer Working Group that saved an inestimable number of end-users from losing access to the Web over the last two years. more

US-China Tech War Threatens Global Internet Infrastructure: China Plans $500 Million Subsea Cable Rival

Chinese state-owned telecom firms plan an extensive undersea fiber-optic internet cable network to link Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The cable, to be named EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), would cost approximately $500 million to complete and be manufactured and laid by China's HMN Technologies Co Ltd, a fast-growing cable firm whose predecessor company was majority-owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. more

Close to 200K Phishing Domains Discovered in a 5-Month Span, 66% Targetted Consumers, Akamai Reports

Between December 2, 2018 and May 4, 2019, 197,524 phishing domains were discovered, 66% of which directly targeted consumers according to the latest State of the Internet report by Akamai. more

Bluetooth-Based Attack Vector Dubbed “BlueBorne” Exposes Almost Every Connected Device

Security firm, Armis Labs, has revealed a new attack vector that can target major mobile, desktop, and IoT operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, and Linux, and the devices using them.

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VPN Security Flaw Makes IP Address of Users Using IPv6 Easily Traceable

Duncan Geere reporting in Wired: "Since the slow introduction of internet monitoring systems around the world began, more and more people have attempted to preserve their privacy by signing up for VPN services like the Pirate Bay's Ipredator and Pirate Party offering Relakks. But it turns out that there's a gaping security flaw in these services that allows individual users to be identified..." more

Coronavirus Exposes China’s Deep Surveillance State

Surveillance cameras in China can detect fevers with infrared cameras to an accuracy within 0.3℃ and recognize faces even if they are wearing masks. more

Meta Spells Out Absurdity of EU’s Plan to Tax Big Tech for Broadband Expansion

The EU is proposing a telecom-industry-backed plan to effectively tax Big Tech companies, with the intention of throwing that money toward Big Telecom companies for broadband expansion. The proposal is part of the EU's efforts to craft digital policies for the next few decades, with an eye on shoring up lagging broadband access. more

China Mandates IPv6 for Router Manufacturers Starting December 1

In a significant move to advance IPv6 adoption, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has directed local router manufacturers to default to the IPv6 protocol from December 1, 2023 onwards. more