Internet Governance

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Global Surveillance: Towards Convergence?

Built for the most part during the Cold War, surveillance systems on a global scale were considered a vital necessity with the onset of nuclear weapons, if only to keep Mutually Assured Destruction at bay. Today, these systems are also used for domestic surveillance and universal data harvesting, including on one's own citizens. Should we still consider these systems with the same reverence as if we were, say, in the midst of some Cuban Missile Crisis? more

Investigation Reveals Massive Security and Privacy Breaches Affecting Chinese Version of Skype

Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers have released a report on the extensive surveillance system in China that monitors and archives text conversations that include politically charged words. The research group, called Information Warfare Monitor, is a joint project of The SecDev Group, and the Citizen Lab, at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. The following are introductory excerpts from the study... more

One Step Closer to an Accountable ICANN

We believe that certain updates in the latest draft that limit the scope of ICANN's Mission, as specified in paragraph 188, could explicitly prevent ICANN from actively enforcing its contracts with Registries and Registrars or use contracts as a tool to implement consensus policies in the future. We suggest in our comments that revised bylaw text be added explicitly stating that the enforcement and creation of ICANN's contracts with Registries and Registrars... more

Revised Top Level Domain Law in Sweden?

On March 31, Swedish regulatory overview office, Post and Telecom Authority published a 54 pages report on revision of the Swedish Top-Level Domain (TLD) law for internet. The report contains proposals for revision of policy and Swedish law regulating top level domains. This is not a surprise. The issue has been simmering for ten years, at least. However, with increasing dependency of information society, public regulators are increasingly inclined to revise public regulation in the area. more

Privacy and the Future: Are We Good Trustees of the Internet?

Recently I was reminded of the words, "responsibilities and service to the community." To individuals involved in internet governance, these words should be well known. But have we lived by the code exemplified by these words? Have we lived up to the high standards that they represent? I have always been a student of history because it never fails to show me that humanity, on many occasions, tends to repeat the same mistakes. more

Report on Why Cameroon Has Blocked the Internet

Three weeks have passed since reports of Cameroon blocking the internet in English-speaking parts of the country and residents say services have yet to be restored. more

Survey: Public Interest Representation in the Information Society

All civil society organisations and other self-identified public interest representatives in the regime of Internet governance and related areas of information and communications policy are invited to complete a survey titled Public interest representation in the information society. This survey contributes towards the development of a map of Internet governance... more

The Continuing WHOIS Disappearing Act

WHOIS is about to become even harder to find. ICANN has recently concluded long-delayed contract negotiations with industry meant to accommodate the technical migration from the WHOIS protocol to the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). Instead of limiting the changes to what's necessary to implement the new technical protocol, the proposals effectively gut WHOIS, making it virtually impossible to find by eliminating web-based WHOIS access... more

Clash Over Dot-Amazon During the ICANN Meetings in Abu Dhabi

Government representatives from several countries in the Amazonas region clashed with a team of lawyers and communication officers of the global retailer Amazon over the top-level domain .amazon during the Annual Meeting of the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names Numbers (ICANN) in Abu Dhabi today. more

FCC’s McDowell Warns of “Irreversible International Regulation”

The stakes of the U.S. communications policy debates are larger than many assume. Subjecting broadband to new and extensive regulation in the U.S., says FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell in today's Wall Street Journal, could invite a regulatory ripple effect across the globe. more

Caribbean Candidates Vie for Posts in ARIN Elections

Three Caribbean candidates -- Peter Harrison, Kerrie-Ann Richards and Alicia Trotman -- have been named among the final candidates to contest elections for leadership roles at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) in October. ARIN is one of five Internet registries worldwide that coordinate the distribution and administration of number resources. The registry serves the United States, Canada and several territories in the Caribbean. more

White House Calls for a Meeting with Domain Registrars, Registries, and ICANN

Brian Krebs reporting in Krebs on Secruity: "The Obama administration is inviting leaders of the top Internet domain name registrars and registries to attend a three-hour meeting at the White House next month about voluntary ways to crack down on Web sites that are selling counterfeit prescription medications..." more

Your Future is Scripted! China, AI and the Race for Digital Authoritarianism

The race for digital authoritarianism between China and the US is now exceedingly stark. It is a race with enormous implications for the management of humankind, (yes I said it) and the respected doctrines of our human rights and freedoms. Everything we care about today as freedom-loving citizens will be transformed by AI, from access to healthcare to economic status and, more importantly, your ability to serve. more

ATRT and the Dog That Didn’t Bark

A favorite Sherlock Holmes story has the detective unraveling the mystery of a murdered horse trainer and the theft of a prized thoroughbred by concentrating on the fact that a dog didn't bark in the night when the horse was stolen. This silence implied for Holmes that it was no stranger who entered the stall. From this he deduced that it was the trainer himself who had removed the horse to fix a race for his profit and that the horse had killed the trainer when he tried to cripple it. ICANN 41 has been afflicted by a similarly curious silence. more

White House Issues Update on Cybersecurity Report

J. Nicholas Hoover reporting in InformationWeek: "The White House on Wednesday issued an update of the Obama administration's ongoing cybersecurity work, detailing some of the steps being taken in an effort to secure the nation's networks against cyber attacks and in the process offering some new insight into the administration's future plans. The progress report, issued immediately after a meeting held by White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt with agency secretaries, cybersecurity experts..." more

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