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CarPIF Regional Connectivity Meeting to Address Affordable and Resilient Internet Access

The Eastern Caribbean island of Grenada has been selected as the venue for the fifth regional meeting of the Caribbean Internet Peering and Interconnection Forum, CarPIF, set for June 12 to 13. The annual international event, which draws Internet giants like Facebook and Google to the region, is focused on developing the Internet in the Caribbean by improving policy and building relationships between network operators and content providers. more

Google, US and UK Government Organizations Announce “Alliance for Affordable Internet”

Stephen Shankland reporting in CNET: "In a new effort to bring Internet access to the world's billions, Google, US and UK government organizations, and a raft of high-tech partners on Monday announced the Alliance for Affordable Internet..." more

Significant Uptick Reported in Targeted Internet Traffic Misdirection

Jim Cowie of Renesys reports: Traffic interception has certainly been a hot topic in 2013. The world has been focused on interception carried out the old fashioned way, by getting into the right buildings and listening to the right cables. But there's actually been a significant uptick this year in a completely different kind of attack. more

The Birth of the Digital Divide

A lot of the money being spent on broadband infrastructure today is trying to solve the digital divide, which I define as a technology gap where good broadband is available in some places but not everywhere. The technology divide can be as large as an entire county that doesn't have broadband or as small as a pocket of homes or apartment buildings in cities that got bypassed. more

Huawei Now One of China’s Largest Software Companies

The latest report from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) shows Huawei at the top of the list of 100 largest software companies in China. On reflection, that's not surprising. Half of Huawei's business is now phones, where chief rival Apple has long considered itself a software company. The great achievement of Huawei's phone division was to pull ahead of everyone in the quality of picture-taking. The hardware can be matched; Huawei's advantage comes from software. more

NCUC Sends Urgent Plea to the ICANN Board Regarding Recent Changes Affecting Noncommercial Groups

An open letter from nearly 150 individual and organizational members of ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) has been submitted to ICANN's board of directors and CEO. The letter has expresses serious concern over a recent ICANN Board decision regarding the restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). From the letter: "We believe that the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) chartering process has been seriously flawed on both procedural and substantive grounds. We appeal to you to address these problems before permanent damage is done to ICANN's reputation, to the GNSO reform process, and to the interests of noncommercial users of the Internet." more

Pursuit of Sikh Separatist Prompts Widespread Internet Shutdown in Punjab, India

Indian authorities have instituted a mobile internet and text messaging blackout in the state of Punjab, which has a population of around 27 million, in an effort to capture a Sikh separatist. The ban began midday Saturday and was extended for another 24 hours on Sunday. more

What Is Privacy?

Ask ten people what privacy is, and you'll likely get twelve different answers. The reason for the disparity is that your feelings about privacy depend on context and your experience. Privacy is not a purely technical issue but a human one. Long before computers existed, people cared about and debated privacy. Future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis defined it as "the right to be left alone" in 1890. Before the Web became a ubiquitous phenomenon, people primarily thought of privacy in terms of government intrusion. more

White House Announces Agenda for Game-Changing Cybersecurity R&D

The United States White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released a new report titled, Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program, specifying an agenda for "game-changing" cybersecurity R&D according to an official announcement today. The report is described as "a roadmap to ensuring long-term reliability and trustworthiness of the digital communications network that is increasingly at the heart of American economic growth and global competitiveness." more

Who Should Solve the Digital Divide?

Adjit Walia, a Global Technology Strategist at Deutsche Bank, suggested in a recent paper that it's in the best interest of U.S. tech companies to tackle the digital divide. He says that those companies rely on a computer-literate public and workforce and that they ought to take a small sliver of their earnings and invest in students today before they fall on the wrong side of the digital divide. more

ICM Registry Publicly Posts Filings for Independent Review Panel Against ICANN on .XXX Domain

ICM Registry (proponents of the .xxx initiative) and Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of the organization, have filed a 522-page brief in the ongoing Independent Review Process that began last June. "In what may prove to be the biggest sleeper Internet governance issue of the year, ICM Registry has publicly posted its filings for the Independent Review Panel that will decide whether ICANN acted improperly in rejecting its application for a .xxx domain," writes Brenden Kuerbis in a post on the IGP blog.  more

US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing Held on IANA Transition

"I urge you: Do not give a gift to Russia and other authoritarian nations by blocking this transition," Lawrence Strickling, administrator of the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said on Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing Held on IANA Transition. more

Facebook Size Estimates

At a staggering $100 billion dollar valuation and reported 900 million users, Facebook represents a massive presence in the global economy. From an Internet infrastructure perspective, Facebook also ranks amongst the largest of the "hyper giants" generating a significant share of daily global Internet traffic. This blog explore Facebook's size in terms of its Internet traffic contribution. more

Finding the Holes in Your Application Security Blanket

Last month, application security provider Veracode came out with a study that stated that more than half of all enterprise applications aren't secure. The company tested approximately 2,900 applications over an 18-month period, and 57 percent failed to meet Veracode's "acceptable levels" of security. While this study gained a tremendous amount of traction in the media... it does not focus on the bigger issue... more

Accountability Initiatives to Secure a Strong Future for .ORG

Last fall, when we put forth our bid to acquire the Public Interest Registry (PIR), our announcement - made jointly with PIR and its parent, the Internet Society - was met with questions. We took them seriously and made a conscious effort to engage with representative members of the .ORG community to deepen our understanding. We found that a consistent message was that the commitments made by Ethos since this fall addressed most of the community's issues, but there was a question as to whether they were enforceable and if so, how? more