Policy & Regulation

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The Borg in Us All: Is Resistance Futile?

One of the main roles played by science fiction is to portray fundamental issues and questions that face humanity long before they actually become relevant to our daily lives. We cannot always be sure of where our reality ends, and fiction begins. Star Trek storylines including Borgs are a good example. In the storyline, Borgs are part organic, part artificial and created eons ago, yet they seem to presage the challenges in our contemporary personal reality and challenges in the Internet's cyberspace. more

Research Group Releases International Law on Cyber Warfare Manual

The newly released handbook applies the practice of international law with respect to electronic warfare. The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare -- named for the Estonian capital where it was compiled -- was created at the behest of the NATO Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, a NATO think tank. It takes current rules on battlefield behaviour, such as the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration and the 1949 Geneva Convention, to the internet, occasionally in unexpected ways. more

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Asked to Investigate Trump’s Cancelation of Privacy Rules

"Activists and academics are calling on Canada's privacy commissioner to investigate after an executive order from President Donald Trump last week stripped Canadians and other foreigners of the limited digital privacy protections they had enjoyed previously in the U.S," Daniel Tencer reporting in the Huffington Post. more

FCC Adopts New Rules for 5G Networks, US First Nation to Make the Move

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopts new rules to enable rapid development and deployment of next generation 5G technologies and services. more

The Future of Communications Cross-Subsidies

It used to be so much easier to manage a system of cross subsidies for communications. If a regulator wanted consumer services to be subsidized by businesses, rural to be subsidized by urban, local subsidized by long distance, TV production subsidized by distribution, it could just issue an order to make it so. So let it be written; so let it be done. There were few, if any, other suppliers of those services, so there were limited arbitrage opportunities. more

German Minister Calls for Rules Allowing Nations to Attack Foreign Hackers

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

My Name is Vint Cerf, I’m a Scientist and I am Voting for Barack Obama

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist who is also credited as the co-founder of the Internet, has endorsed U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in a YouTube video submitted to AVoteForScience channel. In the video, Cerf discusses the importance of Net Neutrality (NN) and the fact that Obama is the candidate that supports NN. The following excerpt is a portion of what Cerf says in the video... more

NTIA Asks New gTLD Applicants to Submit Public Interest Commitments

Kevin Murphy reporting in Domain Incite: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said today that all new gTLD applicants, even those that have not already been hit by government warnings, should submit Public Interest Commitments to ICANN. In a rare comment sent to an ICANN public forum today, the NTIA suggested that applicants should use the process to help combat counterfeiting and piracy. ... NTIA said that applicants should pay special attention in their PICs to helping out the "creative sector". more

Experts Urge Support for Security Researchers, Call a Stop to Intimidation Efforts

Over fifty experts and expert advocates have released an open letter in support of security research and against efforts to chill or intimidate security researchers. more

Testing, Testing, Testing for a More Secure (Internet) World

Reading up on COVID-19 and Zoom/Boris Johnson outcry yesterday, an analogy struck me between the two: the lack of testing. In both cases, to truly know how safe and secure we are, testing needs to be stepped up considerably. This post focuses on cybersecurity. Over the past days and weeks, more and more organisations have switched to digital products and services to sustain working from home, to keep productivity up and to be connected. more

ICANN Announces Newly Created Organization to Replace IANA

ICANN has announced the name of the newly incorporated organization, Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), as a nonprofit entity to begin operation as 'Post-Transition IANA'. more

The Digital Age and Education of the Future

For some years I hear people discuss that education needs to transform and adapt to the Digital Age. In one way education has: I am told that so called MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, are a huge success. Classes from lecturers at (top) universities are freely available online. But this is traditional education distributed and made accessible in a modern form. The debate ought to focus on education for the jobs and skills of the future. more

China One Step Closer to Implementing Controversial Cybersecurity Law

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

FCC Declines Emergency Briefing Request Concerning Location Data Collection

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai declined a top House Democrat's request for an emergency briefing on the wireless industry's data collection practices amid troubling reports about the availability of real-time location information, reports Harper Neidig in The Hill. more

WIPO: Disregard TLD in Trademark Dispute

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