How Are You Solving the Digital Divide

One of the most common questions I'm being asked these days is from local politicians and economic development folks who want examples of other communities that are tackling and solving the digital divide. I'm able to trot out the big-picture stories because they come to my attention in reading about the industry. As an example, just before I wrote this blog, I read an article that says that the State of Maryland will be providing 150,000 laptops to homes... more

Crypto Back Doors Are Still a Bad Idea

In the always interesting Lawfare blog, former FBI counsel Jim Baker in a piece called Rethinking Encryption reiterates his take on the encryption debates. There's a certain amount that makes me want to bang my head against the wall... But it's worth reading to remind us of what the other side is thinking, even with a lot of motivated reasoning that makes him conclude that Congress can pass some laws and the going dark problem will be solved. more

White House Announces Historic $42 Billion Investment in Nationwide Broadband Access

In an effort to universalize access to high-speed broadband by 2030, the White House has allocated $42 billion to the 50 states and U.S. territories under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. more

Google Fiber Pauses Operations Until Further Notice

Access, the Alphabet internet division containing Google Fiber, is laying off about nine percent of its staff and "pausing" fiber operations while looking for alternate ways to deliver internet service to new cities. more

FCC Chairman: It’s Time to Settle Net Neutrality Questions

Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Chairman, Tom Wheeler, today in an open letter in the Wired Magazine writes: "After more than a decade of debate and a record-setting proceeding that attracted nearly 4 million public comments, the time to settle the Net Neutrality question has arrived..." more

5 Questions to Ask To Choose the Right Website Monitoring Solution

In these competitive times and with the holiday's looming, your Website experience needs to give customers a "warm and fuzzy" feeling. That is, it should be available and fast, with no major hiccups. Website monitoring is essential in delivering just that. How do you find a monitoring tool? Just set the monitoring budget, find a vendor, call the sales department and buy yourself some monitoring, right? Whoa, not so fast. more

Several Models of Android Devices Discovered Collecting and Transmitting Sensitive Personal Data

Several models of Android mobile devices discovered containing firmware that collect sensitive personal data about their users and transmitted this sensitive data to third-party servers without disclosure or the users' consent. more

Website Monitoring Practices Taking Advantage of Critical Loopholes in Privacy Protection

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information have released a report raising concern over website monitoring practices which appear to be taking advantage of critical loopholes in privacy protection. According to the study, most popular websites in the United States "all share data with their corporate affiliates and allow third parties to collect information directly by using tracking beacons known as 'Web bugs' -- despite the sites' claims that they don't share user data with third parties." more

How a Resilient Society Defends Cyberspace

Seventy-five years ago today, on May 29th, 1934, Egyptian private radio stations fell silent, as the government shut them down in favor of a state monopoly on broadcast communication. Egyptian radio "hackers" (as we would style them today) had, over the course of about fifteen years, developed a burgeoning network of unofficial radio stations... It couldn't last. After two days of official radio silence, on May 31st, official state-sponsored radio stations (run by the Marconi company under special contract) began transmitting a clean slate of government-sanctioned programming, and the brief era of grass-roots Egyptian radio was over... more

U.S. Federal Government Response Too Slow to Friday’s Internet Attack, Warns Cybersecurity Official

"We often refer to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland that caught on fire over 20 times before we actually did something to introduce the Clean Water Act," says Allan Friedman, the director of cybersecurity initiatives for the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), in conference call on Monday. more

Pay TV Loses Record 1.3M Subscriptions So Far This Year

The U.S. Cable, satellite and telecommunications-based subscription video services lost 430,000 customers in the third quarter of this year, bringing the year-to-date drop to 1.3 million -- the largest ever through the first nine months of the year. more

Farm Access to Broadband

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been measuring computer usage on farms and publishes the results every two years in its Farm Computer Usage and Ownership report. The most recently released report for 2019 was compiled by asking questions to 20,000 farmers. This is a large sample from the more than 2 million farms in the country. more

Chinese Hackers Exploit U.S. Telecom Systems, Eviction Efforts Lag

American officials have revealed an ongoing struggle to expel Chinese hackers from telecommunications networks, months after the espionage was first discovered. The campaign, attributed to a group called "Salt Typhoon," has infiltrated major telecom carriers, particularly in the Washington region. more

Brazil Judge Orders 72-Hour Ban on WhatsApp

A Brazilian judge on Monday issued a 72-hour ban on WhatsApp chat service throughout Brazil. The measure which took effect at 2 p.m. was issued on April 26 following a failed 2013 access order from a branch of civil police that investigates criminal activity online. more

Internet Cable Activated in Cuba

Doug Madory reporting from Renesys: In February 2011, the first submarine cable connecting the island nation of Cuba to the global Internet (by way of Venezuela) landed on Siboney beach, Santiago de Cuba. In the two years since, the fate of the cable has been a mystery for Cuba observers. In the past week, Renesys' global monitoring system has picked up indications that this cable has finally been activated, although in a rather curious way, as explained... more