Did Russian Cyber Attacks Precede Military Action?

The RBNexploit blog states that the website 'president.gov.ge' was under DDoS attack since Thursday. That site is now hosted out of Atlanta, Georgia (don't you love coincidence?) by Tulip Systems who is prominently displaying an AP story... "Speaking via cell phone from Georgia, Doijashvili said the attacks, traced to Moscow and St. Petersburg, are continuing on the U.S. servers." Rusisan military surrogates in the form of the criminal Russian Business Network are engaged in attacks against servers on US soil. This point should be brought up as the Group of 8-1 discusses appropriate responses to Russia's attack on Georgia. more

Cruz’s Crusade Against IANA Transition Continues with Senate Hearing

Senator Cruz's against the IANA transition will continue next week with a senate hearing next week. The hearing is entitled: Protecting Internet Freedom: Implications of Ending U.S. Oversight of the Internet. While the hearing is being chaired by Cruz, no indication of who else will be speaking has been made public so far. In a press release from Cruz's offices earlier this evening, the Senator continued his almost hysterical and misleading narrative. more

TelChina, China Mobile Building Mobile Payment Solution With .tel

Telnic Limited, the registry operator for the .tel top level domain (TLD), today announced that its regional partner TelChina and China Mobile, a leading mobile phone company, have entered into a strategic relationship to develop Mobile-Pay services on the .tel platform. ... On this platform, users will not have to log on to various websites for payment, but accomplish it through the clicking of a Mobile-Pay link on a .tel page. more

Foggy Bottom’s New Cyberspace Bureau “Lines of Effort”: Dumb and Dumber

The release of the Tillerson letter to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs describes the State Department's new "Cyber Bureau" together with its "primary lines of effort." The proposal is said to be designed to "lead high-level diplomatic engagements around the world." Two of those "efforts" deserve special note and provide an entirely new spin on the affectionate local term for the Department -- Foggy Bottom. more

First Two-Day School on Internet Governance in Afghanistan

On Wednesday April 26, 2017, Afghanistan had its first two-day long school on Internet Governance. The event was organized by a home grown civil society by the name of National IT Professionals Association of Afghanistan (NITPAA). Afghanistan School on Internet Governance (AfSIG) is a new initiative by a group of volunteers at NITPAA, who worked tirelessly for months to put up an event that comprised of speakers from multiple organizations and multiple stakeholders across the country. more

The Latest OEWG on ICTs Report: Thoughts and Recommendations

At the end of July, the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on ICTs -- which is currently discussing how states should and shouldn't behave in cyberspace - concluded its third meeting, which falls in the middle of its four-year mandate (ending in 2025). Below, we provide a summary of what happened, reflections on the outcomes and implications (the good and the bad), and some practical recommendations for stakeholders and governments to consider ahead of the next meeting. more

ccTLDs Might Be Property

The long-running saga of victims who are pursuing 'state sponsors of terrorism' via ICANN has taken yet another turn. Some time back the Plaintiffs in Rubin & ors -v- Islamic Republic of Iran & ors managed to obtain Writs of Attachment in the Federal court district in Washington (D.C.) courts ordering that the ccTLDs of those respective countries be seized in part-payment of the damages they are owed. ICANN, fairly predictably, became involved at this point. more

Substantial Majority of Americans Say Local Governments Should Be Able to Build Their Own Broadband

A recent study conducted Pew Research Center in March 13-27, has found a substantial majority of the American public (70%) believes local governments should be able to build their own broadband networks if existing services in the area are either too expensive or not good enough. more

Holding Times – A Phenomenon Happening With ISP Networks That No One Seems to Talk About

During the last year, we saw a big change in the nature of our broadband usage in that many of us are connecting to remote work or school servers, or we are connecting to long Zoom calls. We already can see that these changes have accelerated the average home usage of broadband. OpenSignal reports that the average broadband usage per home grew from 274 gigabytes per month just before the pandemic up to 462 gigabytes per month measured at the end of the first quarter of this year. more

DOTZON Study: Digital City Brands 2021

DOTZON presents the fifth edition of the Digital City Brands study. After introducing the study in early 2017, DOTZON expanded further and enhanced the data to display how cities successfully use their Digital City Brands. The Digital City Brand is the digital dimension of the City Brand and mirrors the "Digitalness" of a city. However, the Digital City Brand is much more than a mere extension of the City Brand. more

What is a Security Mechanism?

Orin Kerr recently blogged about a 9th Circuit decision that held that scraping a public web site (probably) doesn't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)... On its surface, it makes sense – you can't steal something that's public – but I think the simplicity of the rule is hiding some profound questions. One, I believe, can most easily be expressed as "what is the cost of the 'attack'"? That is, how much effort must someone expend to get the data? Does that matter? Should it? more

Time Warner Cable Showing Photos of Melted Fiber-Opitcs Caused by “Freakish Subterranean Fires”

In follow up to a significant outage in New York City's East Village earlier this month, Time Warner Cable has posted a detailed look at the incident caused by fire melting a portion of the fiber-optic network, affecting 24,000 customers in the area. more

ICANN Senior Executive Resigns Over Undisclosed Conflict of Interest

Senior vice president Kurt Pritz has resigned his new job as ICANN's Chief Strategy Officer over an undisclosed conflict of interest, reports Kieren McCarthy in .Nxt. "In a note posted on the organization's website earlier today, new CEO Fadi Chehade noted that Pritz had resigned 'because of a recently identified conflict of interest'. ICANN has so far refused to identify what that conflict is." more

The Impact of Satellite Broadband

Recently I've had several people ask me about the expected impact of low-orbit satellite broadband. While significant competition from satellites is probably a number of years away, there are several major initiatives like StarLink (Elon Musk), Project Kuiper (Amazon), and OneWeb that have announced plans to launch swarms of satellites to provide broadband. more

ITU 2.0: Take Time to Make Good Decisions

Since the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) discharged delegates from an atmosphere of restrained acidity last December, ITU habitués have wondered how that outcome will affect the rhythms of their regular work in Geneva. This is no less true for governments that approved of the WCIT treaty as it is for those which did not, though the immediate anxiety may be greatest for the latter - for those whom we can call, with sloppy shorthand, the G8. more