A Mature Broadband Market? (Implications and Industry Shifts)

It is becoming clear that the broadband market is reaching maturity. This is already causing havoc in the industry for ISPs that relied on year-over-year customer growth to prop up stock prices. Earlier this year, the New Street Research, a company that specializes in research in the telecommunications and technology sectors, said that it estimated that new broadband customers would grow by about 1 million this year. more

One Billion Smartphones in Use in the World, According to a Recent Study

Reported today on mobiThinking blog, the number of smartphones in use worldwide has now broken the 1 billion mark, according to Strategy Analytics. "That is a stunning landmark... It is an awful lot of smartphones. It is equivalent to one seventh of the global population and one sixth of mobile phone subscribers. But it is a lot less smartphones than some people have been reporting. Barely a day goes by without some ludicrous estimate of smartphone penetration." more

Executive Order and the New Date Privacy Rights of Non-US Citizens

"Last week, President Trump signed an executive order affecting the privacy rights of non-US citizens with respect to data residing in the US," Bruce Schneier writes in his security blog. more

Controversy Looms as Pakistan Passes Cybercrime Law, Critics Say Violates Human Rights

Pakistan's National Assembly on Thursday passed the controversial cybercrime bill through a majority vote that prescribes a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail and 5 million rupees in fine for cyber-terrorism. more

Stop the Presses! No Consensus at NetMundial!

We could see it as a victory for those advocating changes and adjustments in the system of internet governance. Au contraire... we could consider it as the debacle of the good intentions... all ending up in not knowing if it was worth it. I say and maintain, that the effort and the earned contributions were worth it. The final result is that ICANN should be strengthened to recognize its merits and achievements, not underestimate what this organization has accomplished in fifteen years of hard and continuous work. more

How Brexit Raises Risks for Non-Compliant .EU Domain Names

On June 3, 2020, EURid, the registry for .EU domains, published its timeline and action plan to withdraw and delete .EU domains registered to entities and individuals located in the U.K. ... Following the .EU regulations that were published on March 29, 2019, registrations of .EU domain names may be held by EU citizens, citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, independent of their place of residence -- as well as organizations that are established in the EU. more

WikiLeaks’ Vault 7: CIA Gives a Free Lesson in Personal Cyber Security

WikiLeaks' newly released Vault 7 trove is a tantalizing study in how one of the world's premiere intelligence agencies hacks devices. Analysts and experts have signaled that this leak appears authentic based on some clues in the content. But while it may ultimately be comparable in size to the Snowden or Manning leaks, it lacks the "wow" factor that made those landmark whistleblowing cases so important. What lessons are to be learned from the leaks, and how should we apply them to our personal digital lives? more

In Response to Offensive Destruction of Attack Assets

It is certainly true that DDoS and hacking are on the rise; there have been a number of critical hacks in the last few years, including apparent attempts to alter the outcome of elections. The reaction has been a rising tide of fear, and an ever increasing desire to "do something." The something that seems to be emerging is, however, not necessarily the best possible "something." Specifically, governments are now talking about attempting to "wipe out" the equipment used in attacks. more

Botnet Takedowns Having Limited Impact on Overall Spam Volumes, Says Google

Google, which through its Postini email security and archiving service processes over 3 billion email connections a day, reports that despite recent series of major botnet takedowns, spam levels during the first quarter of 2010 have held fairly steady. "This suggests that there's no shortage of botnets out there for spammers to use. If one botnet goes offline, spammers simply buy, rent, or deploy another, making it difficult for the anti-spam community to make significant inroads in the fight against spam with individual botnet takedowns." more

Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group Releases Statement on ICANN Staff’s Accountability Plan

Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) today released the following statement on ICANN staff's accountability plan... "A number of public comments and discussions in London focused on the inherent conflict of interest behind staff developing its own accountability and transparency mechanisms, so it was surprising to see that input had not been taken into account in the development of this proposal..." more

NTAG Chair Blog: Singapore Mid-term Update

While the media spotlights the US role in Internet governance, the NTAG Executive Committee has been focussed on the daily business of ensuring the New gTLD programme is moving forward in the best interests of applicants. There are signs that ICANN is becoming more responsive to applicant needs. Quick action implementing GAC Advice once it was resolved by the New gTLD Program Committee, the recent name collision webinar, and an ongoing dialogue on new gTLD auctions procedures are all positive steps. more

The Changing World of Network Management in an Increasingly Cloud-Centric World

Over the past two weeks Andrew Lerner, Vice President in Gartner Research covering enterprise networking products, has put out two successive blogs that raise really interesting questions about the changing world of network management in an increasingly cloud-centric world. In "What Keeps Network Folks Up at Night?", Andrew writes about the worrisome challenges in the Banking/Financial industry related to frequent manual network configuration errors. more

RIPE 86 Bites: Gigabits for EU

Rudolph van der Berg presented on the latest updates from the ongoing tensions in the Internet industry between carriage infrastructure providers and content providers, with a European perspective. The carriage providers in the EU region are asserting that they're making major capital investments in augmenting the access network infrastructure to carry gigabit traffic volumes, which is largely streaming content, while at the same time the content providers were getting a free ride, or so goes the argument. more

Department of Homeland Security Issues More Warnings on Security Vulnerabilities in Medical Devices

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in medical devices which have come after independent researchers, or the companies themselves, reporting the problems. more

Rightside Rejects Donuts’ Unsolicited $70 Million Proposal, Says Undervalues Business

In an announcement released this morning, Rigtside said its Board of Directors has rejected the unsolicited proposal from Donuts Inc. to acquire Rightside's entire registry of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and related assets for $70 million in an all-cash deal. more