News Briefs

Facebook Goes Live with Express Wifi in India

According to a new update on Facebook's Internet.org website on Monday, a service called "Express Wifi" has gone live and plans are in place to expand to other regions soon. more

For the First Time Wireless Carriers and Auto Makers Seek Common Ground on Wireless Standards

For the first time auto makers and wireless carriers are actually seeking common ground around the creation of the wireless new standard, writes Roger Lanctot, Associate Director in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. more

Germany’s Leading ISP Deutsche Telekom Under Cyberattack, Close to 900K Customers Affected

Close to a million Deutsche Telekom customers have had trouble getting online since Sunday afternoon which the company on Monday confirmed to be the result of an "outside" attack. more

BITAG Outlines Steps to Dramatically Improve the Security and Privacy of IoT Devices

Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) today released a report outlining a set of guidelines it believes could dramatically improve the security and privacy of IoT devices and minimize the costs associated with the collateral damage that would otherwise affect both end users and ISPs. more

Dyn Acquired by Oracle

Oracle this morning announced agreement to acquire Dyn, leading cloud-based Internet Performance and DNS provider. Dyn, which recently gained substantial media attention as a result of a historic cyberattack, drives 40 billion traffic optimization decisions daily for more than 3,500 enterprise customers, including preeminent digital brands such as Netflix, Twitter, Pfizer and CNBC. more

Russian Security Firm Kaspersky Announces Its Own Secure OS, 14 Years in the Making

"I've anticipated this day for ages -- the day when the first commercially available mass market hardware device based on our own secure operating system landed on my desk," writes Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, in a blog post introducing company's layer 3 switch powered by Kaspersky OS. more

Microsoft’s Datacenter in Wyoming Powered Entirely by Wind Energy

Microsoft has announced the purchase of its largest wind energy to date -- 237 megawatts of wind energy -- which will in turn allow its datacenter in Cheyenne, Wyoming to be powered entirely by wind power. more

German Minister: Facebook Should Be Treated as Media Company, Held Criminally Liable for Hate Speech

Germany's Justice Minister says Facebook should be treated like a media company rather than a technology platform, suggesting he favors moves to make social media groups criminally liable for failing to remove hate speech. more

FCC Drops Every Major Item from the Agenda

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has taken all rulemakings off agenda a day after the Republican Party lawmakers' request. more

Several Models of Android Devices Discovered Collecting and Transmitting Sensitive Personal Data

Several models of Android mobile devices discovered containing firmware that collect sensitive personal data about their users and transmitted this sensitive data to third-party servers without disclosure or the users' consent. more

Akamai: DDoS Attacks Increased 71 Percent in Q3 2016 as Compared to Q3 2015

Akamai releases its Third Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet / Security Report, providing analysis of the current cloud security and threat landscape, including insight into two record setting DDoS attacks caused by the Mirai botnet. more

Global Internet Freedom Declines for Sixth Consecutive Year in 2016, Says Freedom House

"Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during antigovernment protests," according to the Freedom on the Net 2016 report released by Freedom House. more

Encrypted Email Sign Ups Have Doubled Since Trump Victory, Says PortonMail

Since Trump’s victory, the number of new users signing up for the Switzerland-based encrypted email service provider, ProtonMail, has doubled compared to the previous week, the company reported. more

Pay TV Loses Record 1.3M Subscriptions So Far This Year

The U.S. Cable, satellite and telecommunications-based subscription video services lost 430,000 customers in the third quarter of this year, bringing the year-to-date drop to 1.3 million -- the largest ever through the first nine months of the year. more

.ORG Registry Stays With Current Backend Operator, But Will Save Millions in New Deal

"The non-profit that runs all .org domains and provides the bulk of the funding for the Internet Society and Internet Engineering Task Force has just saved itself millions of dollars a year," reports Kieren McCarthy in The Register. more