The Director

On Thursday, Stephen J. Lukasik passed away peacefully at the age of 88. He was the legend in a field with no peer. For nearly half a century, he shaped the development of national security and network technology developments at a level and extent that is unlikely ever to be matched. For a great many of us in that arena from the 1960s past the Millennium, he was the demanding visionary leader who set the policies and directions, framed the challenges, approved and funded the projects, and questioned the results. more

Could Cybersecurity Become a New Driver for Business Transformation?

My involvement in the ICT industry over the last 40 years has always been to look at the strategic advantages that new technologies have to offer. I entered the industry through a proto-internet development called videotext. I looked at this technology, at what organisations could do with it, and assisted, for example, in the 1980s when the Commonwealth Bank introduced the world's first national online banking service called Telebank. more

The Long-Run Effect of Cuba’s Recent Internet-Augmented Protests

It’s now more than 6 weeks since the Cuban political protests and accompanying Internet service disruption. Will they lead to a long-run change in the Cuban Internet or the Cuban political situation? Let’s start with the Cuban Internet. Many of the Internet changes during the protests have disappeared. Total daily traffic, the ratios of mobile to fixed traffic, and human to automated posts, and the proportion of blocked Signal sessions are about what they were before the protests. more

Canadian Report Tells ISPs to Deal with Hate Sites

A report calling for reforms to Canada's Human Rights Commission is calling for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to form their own monitoring body to more speedily deal with hate material hosted on their servers. The report calls for the Human Rights Act to be amended to remove provisions that have the government body censor hate speech, while at the same time calling for ISPs to invoke their terms of service to knock down hate websites. more

Australian Farms Get Connected to the Starlink Satellites

Last year, I reported on the possibility that LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite-based systems might be a gamechanger for the delivery of high-speed data services, including internet access, to people in regional and remote Australia. What has become clear with the rollout of the NBN is that the quality of data connections in metropolitan cities in many cases has improved, but that the rest of Australia doesn't have a similar experience. more

Know Someone Who Has Made the Internet Better? Postel Service Award Nominations Deadline May 15

Do you know of someone who has made the Internet better in some way who deserves more recognition? Maybe someone who has helped extend Internet access to a large region? Or wrote widely-used programs that make the Internet more secure? Or maybe someone who has been actively working for open standards and open processes for the Internet? more

Trusted Notifier Arrangements Require Trust: Why Unpacking Misunderstandings Around Trusted Notifiers Is Important for Dealing With DNS-related Abuse

Domain Name System (DNS) Operators (Registries and Registrars) receive notices asking them to take action on a wide range of alleged technical and content-related abuses. However, there is a fundamental question of when it is appropriate to act at the DNS level and the evaluation of whether the alleged abuse meets a sufficient threshold for action at the DNS level. Additionally, given the volume of abuses occurring on the internet, existing resources, mechanisms, and protocols available in-house to Operators are in many cases insufficient to address abuses in a timely fashion. 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

Dot GCC Applicant Fights for Survival

Much has been said about the advice ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee submitted to the Board of directors at the close of last April's Beijing International Meeting. The recommendations given by governments will probably be the subject of much more discussion in the weeks ahead and the run-up to ICANN's next meeting in Durban (South Africa) in July. Especially now that the comment period opened after Beijing on GAC Advice has closed, and that ICANN has published its summary of the comments received. more

Google License to Operate in China Renewed

Google Inc. today announced via its official blog that the Chinese government has renewed its license and that it will continue to operate in China. Google further notes: "We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it's up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China." more

EFF Raises Concerns Over EU’s Proposed Cyber Resilience Act

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has voiced concerns about the European Union's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), saying it could pose significant threats to open-source developers and cybersecurity. more

Is Defining Broadband by Speed a Good Policy?

I’ve lately been looking at broadband policies that have shaped broadband, and I don’t think there has been any more disastrous FCC policy than the one that defines broadband by speed. This one policy has led to a misallocation of funding and getting broadband to communities that need it. The FCC established the definition of broadband as 25/3 Mbps in 2015, and before then, the definition of broadband was 4/1 Mbps, set a decade earlier. The FCC defines broadband to meet a legal requirement established by Congress and codified in Section 706 of the FCC governing rules. more

How Effective Are Internet Blackouts? Insights from Uganda

On 18th February, 2016, Uganda Communications Commission, the Telco regulator, ordered all ISPs to sever access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. 11 million Internet users, including myself were forced to live through a four-day Internet blackout. With this unprecedented move, Uganda joined Syria, Russia, Egypt, Burundi and other regimes that have weaponized the Internet to curtail free speech and access to information. more

IANA Contract Extended by One Year, Announces Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce on Monday announced the official date for privatization of the DNS to be September 30, 2016 -- formerly set to expire on September 30, 2015. more

Navigating the .brand Delegation Process

Today marks a major milestone for .brand Top-Level Domain applicants, as we pass the deadline set by ICANN for them to sign their Registry Agreement (RA). For those who have knuckled down over the last few weeks and months to meet this deadline, congratulations -- for many, this was no mean feat and the effort should be acknowledged. more