In the winter of 2014 I wrote a blogpost under the title 'Luddites of the 21st century unite?' (read here). In the post I wondered where the 21st century Luddites were. ICT, automation, artificial intelligence all threatened jobs, yet all those affected embraced smartphones and the Internet in droves. It seems I found them, but what to do? Brexit and Luddites Fast forward to early summer 2016. more
Germany is trying to beef up its cyber defense, after the interior minister called for rules that allow nations to attack foreign hackers targeting critical infrastructure. more
This summer EU regulators are finalizing their guidelines for member states on legal protections for wired, wireless and mobile open Internet access service. European citizens, businesses and NGOs have one last chance to make their voices heard on the so-called "net neutrality" guidelines by writing a comment for Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) by July 18. more
Google has been ordered by U.K.'s Information Commissioner's office to remove nine links to current news stories about older reports which themselves were removed from search results under the 'right to be forgotten' ruling. more
There has been a significant focus over the past two years on the vulnerability and cyber threat risks faced for voting systems at the local level. That focus has typically been on State and local jurisdictions like cities, counties and towns, and resulted in the creation of the DHS Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) to assist. However, there are other local governance entities at significant risk as well. more
There is a Dutch website which regularly publishes comments on rulings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration, Dutch court cases, and similar things. They have a newsletter which reports over the latest cases. It is really meant for people who are into the legal aspects of domain names. In the July "nieuwsbrief" newsletter, there was a remark (in Dutch) about a case that the top level ".nl" suffix to the name should not be considered relevant. more
U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have introduced the bipartisan Cybersecurity Disclosure Act of 2015 on Thursday, a bill that seeks to encourage the disclosure of cybersecurity expertise, or lack thereof, on corporate boards at publicly traded companies. more
TorrentFreak reports: "Following on the heels of this week's domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it's clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods. more
China is moving forward towards implementing a controversial cybersecurity law that could have significant implications for foreign businesses operating in that lucrative market, reports Katie Bo Williams in The Hill. more
People working on net neutrality wish for a "third way" — a clever compromise giving us both network neutrality and no blowback from AT&T;, Verizon, Comcast and others. That dream is delusional because the carriers will oppose network neutrality in any real form; they want paid fast lanes. They have expressed particular opposition to "Title II" of the Communications Act — something telecom lawyers mention the same way normal people might reference the First or Second Amendments. Title II is the one essential law to ban paid fast lanes. more
France has put an end to its most extreme measure of its notorious "three strikes" anti-piracy law. "Getting rid of the cut-offs and those damned winged elephants is a good thing. They're very costly," Joe McNamee, of European Digital Rights. more
Tomorrow afternoon at 1pm EST Apple will be giving testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. The session that Apple and others will be taking part in is aptly named, The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy In common with other hearings the various witnesses called to speak have already submitted their written testimony, so we can already look at it and analyse it. more
A prominent attorney for cybersecurity issues says the unnamed Twitter worker who deactivated President Trump's Twitter account not to say anything and get a lawyer. more
Introduced by ranking Senate members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, S.3480 is intended to create an Office of Cyber Policy in the executive branch of the government, confirmed by the Senate and ultimately reporting to the president. Senators Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln and Tom Carper introduced the bill publicly on June 10, and a critical part of the bill is that critical infrastructure networks such as electricity grids, financial systems and telecommunications networks need to cooperate with the Office of Cyber Policy. more
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers. The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the "Net Neutrality" bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast. more
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