Can 5G Replace WiFi?

Verizon recently posted a webcast with investors where Ronan Dunne, EVP and CEO of the Verizon Consumer Group said that he believed that 5G hotspots using millimeter wave spectrum would eventually displace WiFi in homes. He cites major benefits of 5G over WiFi. He believes that a 5G network will be more reliable and more secure. He thinks that people will value the safety that comes from having traffic inside their home being encrypted... more

Community Networks Could Help Strengthen the Caribbean Internet

By some estimates, only half of the world's population has internet access, leaving the other half at a sizeable competitive disadvantage. This profound connectivity gap is especially significant in the unserved and underserved areas of developing and least-developed countries. For people who live in these places, Internet connectivity is not just about the Internet. It is a lifeline that gives access to electronic commerce and telehealth services, distance learning, social and political engagement, government services... more

CES 2013 Dazzling Innovations - Why Cablecos Should Care

This year, I joined the crowd in Las Vegas for the all-important event that kicks off everything tech for the year - the 2013 International CES. It's a week where geeks and geek-wannabes from around the world seek inspiration and recharge their creative juices. Consumer brands of all types came out in full force, even with the noticeable absence of Apple and Microsoft's presence. More than 150,000 attendees made the trek to what became a technology mecca for the week... But why should MSOs care about a "consumer" electronics show? more

Over 50 Internet Shutdowns Reported in 2016

"Governments around the world shut down the internet more than 50 times in 2016 -- suppressing elections, slowing economies and limiting free speech," Lyndal Rowlands reporting in IPS. more

J.D. Falk Award

This morning M³AAWG announced the creation of the J.D. Falk award to recognize and honor people like J.D. who work to make the Internet safer for all users... J.D. was a legend in the abuse prevention world when I first started learning about spam and abuse prevention back in the late 90's. more

An ITU Cut and Paste Job for New TLDs Could Cost $150k

It was with great interest that I read a recent announcement about a plan by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to publish template answers on a wiki for the 22 questions relating to registry technical operations contained within ICANN's new Top-Level Domain Applicant Guidebook. As someone who has spent the best part of six years following the development of the program (witnessing first-hand each evolution of the Applicant Guidebook) my first thought was one of bemusement... more

Close to Half of America Not Using the Internet at Broadband Speeds, Says Microsoft

The US government’s most recent broadband statistics from the FCC claims 25 million Americans to be lacking access to a broadband connection. more

Should the EB-5 Investor Visa Program Recognize Cyber Workers?

The EB-5 Investor Visa Program was created by Congress in 1990 to "stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors." The program, administered by the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), provides that entrepreneurs (and their spouses and unmarried children under 21) are eligible to apply for a green card (permanent residence) if they make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States; and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs. more

IGF2019 Observation: Compare Chancellor Merkel’s Digital Sovereignty with Chinese and U.S. Version

The 2019 UN IGF is right now being held in Berlin and entering the last day. There has been a wide range of exciting discussions. It is a huge step forward that this year's IGF has been able to bring a plethora of topics together under a framework of thinking after the efforts done by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres' High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (The Age of Digital Interdependence) and by German scholars' engagement with all the stakeholders... more

New German Legislation Provides Copyright-Related Internet Platform Obligations

Recently, there has been an interesting development in the liability of Internet intermediaries in Germany, and I will comment here in this text. The "Act on Copyright Liability Online Content Sharing Service Providers" began to apply on August 1, 2021 in the country. This act is a German attempt to deal with the controversy generated by the approval in 2019 of the new European directive on copyright, specifically with article 17. more

Perspectives on Cyber Governance

APAN (Asia Pacific Advanced Network) brings together national research and education networks in the Asia Pacific region. APAN holds meetings twice a year to talk about current activities in the regional NREN sector. I was invited to be on a panel at APAN 50 on the subject of Cyber Governance, and I'd like to share my perspective on this topic here. more

Scaremongering from Spy Agents

In an article for the Financial Times, Mr Hannigan -- the chief of the British spy agency GCHQ said: "I understand why they [US technology companies] have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics." "But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."... more

ACLU Released Guide for Developers on How to Respond to Government Demands That Compromise Security

It is not uncommon for government agents to force technology companies to create or install malicious software in products in order to help them with surveillance. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released a guide for developers that is intended to help preserve security and customers' privacy. more

The Incredible Leakyness of Commercial Mailers (Cont’d)

Last week I blogged about the way that lots of otherwise legitimate companies leak e-mail addresses to spammers. Here's a few more thoughts. One person asked how I knew that these were leaks, and not dictionary attacks, since the addresses I use are fairly obvious, the name of an often well known company @ my domain. It's a reasonable question, but the answer is simple... more

Somalia’s Extended Internet Outage Results in Millions of Dollars of Loss per Day, Says Government

Somalia's internet connection was finally restored on Monday after weeks of outage due to a severed undersea cable. more