Today's Senate hearing with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg will start a long discussion on data collection and privacy from Internet companies. Although the spotlight is currently on Facebook, we shouldn't forget that the picture is broader: companies from device manufacturers to ISPs collect network traffic and use it for a variety of purposes. more
ICANN has been busy in managing several parallel processes that are also closely tied together in one way or the other. The processes include the new gTLD process, the IANA transition and most currently and important action yet that would act as the synergizing factor is the accountability process. ICANN has also posted for public comment proposed Bylaws revisions that would incorporate a higher voting threshold for the Board to determine not to follow the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee. more
The victory of Trump left the world perplexed, it did not take long to appear texts blaming Facebook and its bubble for the unexpected result. The "bubble", a theme that circulated more for the academic and technical spheres gained an unusual popularity in the last days, never saw so many texts on the subject published in such a short space of time, and in the recognized spaces of global journalism. more
Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and his staff met yesterday with the Internet Association, a trade group whose members include Amazon, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Reddit, Spotify, Twitter, and about 30 other Web companies. The meeting occurred about a week after Pai reportedly met with broadband industry lobby groups to discuss his plans for eliminating net neutrality rules." more
NIST's release of their initial public draft of SP 800-137, Guide for Continuous Monitoring of Information Systems and Organizations will create a set of challenges for the federal cybersecurity community. Agencies and contractors will need to shape the document through the multi-stage revision process while continuing to implement their own continuous monitoring measures. more
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has updated the national broadband speed standard to at least 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload speeds, marking the first adjustment since January 2015. more
Huawei is the strong favorite of Canadian network builders, for good products and extraordinary support. It displaced the incumbents at Bell Canada years ago and has a joint "Living Lab" in Vancouver with Telus. Huawei had already won the 5G contracts. It has a thousand researchers and spends a quarter billion dollars on Canadian R&D. It was a government decision. more
Brexit will impact many things. One that has not been getting much attention, however, is domain names and more specifically .eu domains. Under the current regulations, you need to be a resident of the European Union to register a .eu domain name. As I covered in a blog post last year, there is the potential for hundreds of thousand of .eu domain names being pulled overnight. more
The White House has expressed its full support on the need for permanent reauthorization of Section 702, created "to address an intelligence-collection gap that resulted from the evolution of technology in the years after FISA became law in 1978." more
Over the past weeks, communities gathering experts from government, business, Civil Society, and the academic and technical communities, have been working through open mailing lists and online virtual meetings on IGF Best Practices. The discussion was documented by independent experts that will feed into five 90 minute Forums in Istanbul and that will in turn report into a Best Practices Main Session. more
This year, the Internet Society celebrates its 25th anniversary. Our own history is inextricably tied to the history of the Internet. We were founded in 1992 by Internet pioneers who believed that "a society would emerge from the idea that is the Internet" -- and they were right. As part of the celebration, this September we will launch a comprehensive report that details the key forces that could impact the future of the Internet. The report will also offer recommendations for the Future and we need your input. more
U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and co-founder of the bipartisan Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, has released a letter asking three federal agencies for information on the tools available that prevent cyber criminals from compromising consumer products, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. more
While jogging along LacLeman in Geneva I caught up with Dr. Kim Seang-Tae, the President of the National Information Society Agency of South Korea. He is also one of the Commissioners of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development. Dr. Seang-Tae is the chief architect of the FttH miracle that is transforming South Korea. His broadband journey began in 1994, when he developed the country's first broadband plan. more
The ".COM Registry Agreement Amendment" is on the Main Agenda for this Thursday's Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board. The proposed extension of the RA was announced and put out for public comment on June 30th. The public comment period closed on August 12th and ICANN staff's Report of Public Comments was due on September 15th, coincident with the Board meeting. The original due date for that staff Report was August 26th, but was pushed back to accommodate the large number of comments... more
A domain name is a unique alphanumeric designation that facilitates reference to sets of numbers which actually locate a particular computer on the Internet. Domain names are a fundamental part of the Internet's user interface. Improving the usability of the Internet depends upon effective domain name policy. This study is intended to contribute to improvement in Internet usability for the end users of domain names. Benefits of more usable domain names include: higher sales, customer satisfaction and productivity, and reduced support costs. more
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