Facebook, Eutelsat to Build High Throughput Satellite System for Africa

Eutelsat Communications and Facebook announced today their partnership on a new initiative that will leverage satellite technologies to get more Africans online. "Under a multi-year agreement with Spacecom, the two companies will utilize the entire broadband payload on the future AMOS-6 satellite and will build a dedicated system comprising satellite capacity, gateways and terminals," according to the official announcement. more

AFNIC Examines the 50/50 Theory for New TLDs

AFNIC recently conducted a test examining validity of the claim that the number of domain names registered by the end of the 1st day of the public opening of a TLD amounts to 50% of the stock that the TLD will achieve by the end of its 1st month, and that the latter number will represent 50% of the stock at the end of the 1st year. more

Engaging Consumers in Cyber Security: It’s Up to You

In a perfect world, consumers recognize authentic emails from fake, update their operating system, browser and anti-virus software, and have a healthy skepticism about the safety of the Internet. The bad guys hate perfect, so we should be working with consumers to stop them. ... Organizations like mine are joining forces to recruit consumers -- who are also your customers and employees -- in the fight against cybercrime. more

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

At Least One U.S. Voting Software Supplier Cyberattacked by Russians, According to Leaked Document

Russia's military intelligence agency launched a cyberattack just days before Election Day 2016 on a U.S. software supplier that provides voting services and systems, according to a top secret report posted Monday by The Intercept. 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

6 Reasons a Billing Solution Won’t Cut It for Service Fulfillment

You don't always need to dazzle consumers -- but you do need to deliver what they want, when they want it, or else risk being left behind. The crux of service activation is to provide requested services to the subscriber in the shortest possible timeframe. The rise in multi-play service offerings can sometimes make this goal difficult, with service fulfilment involving multiple back-end components, including billing, provisioning, activation, monitoring, and diagnostics, as well as different technology types. more

Canadian Government Used Airport Wi-Fi to Track Travellers, According to Leaked Snowden Documents

A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden indicates that Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal, according to a report from CBC. After reviewing the document, one of Canada's foremost authorities on cyber-security says the clandestine operation by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) was almost certainly illegal...  more

Net Neutrality Can Be Taken Too Far, Says Zuckerberg in Defense of Internet.org Project

While speaking at a town-hall-style meeting in India on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s controversial Internet.org project, insisting on how the project can help connect parts of the country that otherwise wouldn’t have access to the Internet. more

Researchers Expose Over 320 Million Hashed Passwords

A group of security researchers have succeeeded in cracking over 320 million passwords which were made public in an encrypted blacklist. more

Quantifying the Benefits of Telemedicine

There was a recent article in JAMA Network Open, part of the monthly journals of the American Medical Association, that reported on a large study to quantify the benefits of using telemedicine with cancer patients. The study was conducted at National Cancer Institute - Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Florida from April 2020 through June 2021. The study wanted to quantify the cost savings for patients that were able to conduct visits via telehealth rather than drive to the cancer center. more

ISOC President on the Path to a Global Internet of Opportunity

Information Society meeting this week must rebuke those nations that seek top-down, censorial control of the Internet, warns Kathryn Brown, president of the Internet Society. more

Are You Playing Roulette With Your Network Upgrades?

Exponential growth in network bandwidth requirements has created a need for large CAPEX investments for most service providers. Unfortunately, each provider faces limits on all expenditures and must upgrade only what is needed, when it is needed. Nobody should waste time or money by performing unnecessary network upgrades. To avoid needless upgrading, providers must have all the data they can get from their network to guide them through the decision-making process.  more

Internet Governance and End-User Engagement

As the digital landscape continues to evolve at an accelerated pace, the role of end-user participation in Internet governance has never been more crucial. With the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) +20 Review on the horizon, it's time to critically evaluate the progress made and the vast terrains yet to be charted. This topic was recently discussed at the EURALO round table moderated by Pari Esfandiari with panelists Sandra Hoferichter, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, and Lucien Castex, delving into the intricacies of fostering a user-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented information society since the inaugural WSIS meetings in 2003 and 2005. more

It’s Time to Change the US’ Cuba-Internet Strategy

In a post last week, I advised Cuban President Díaz-Canel that investment in fixed broadband Internet would benefit both the Cuban people and his regime. This week, I've got advice for US President Biden -- don't try to out-pander the Republicans and call President Díaz-Canel's bluff by offering support for fixed broadband. What won't work... more