NSA chief, Mike Rogers during the annual Aspen Security Forum on Saturday, shunned the proposed Russia-U.S. cyber unit, stating "I would argue now is probably not the best time to be doing this." more
A group of over 190 Internet engineers, pioneers, and technologists today filed joint comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explaining "Technical Flaws in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rule-making and the Need for the Light-Touch, Bright-Line Rules from the Open Internet Order." more
Over the next decade which companies do you think will be better able to exercise monopoly power? Amazon, T&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Regional phone companies, or Verizon? If you'd asked me this question in 2000, I would've picked AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and regional phone companies. They are part of local duopolies for wired infrastructure. more
Yesterday's "Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality," resulted in more than 3.4 million emails to U.S. Congress and more than 1.6 million comments to the Federal Communications Commission. more
Apple today reported it is constructing its first data center in China, in partnership with a local internet services company, in order to comply with the tougher cybersecurity laws enacted last month. more
Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has signed into law a cybercrime bill this week targeting online crime and militancy by groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State despite concerns it could limit free speech. more
Google and Facebook, two companies that generally stay on the other side of the Net Neutrality debate, have told reporters they will be participating in the July 12th net neutrality protest. more
State-run telecommunications firms in China are given until February 1 to block people from using VPNs, shuttering key ways both locals and foreigners still manage to access the global, unfiltered web on a daily basis. more
U.S. Congress is growing increasingly suspicious of the popular Russian anti-virus software provider, Kaspersky Lab. more
Home to two-thirds of the world's population and 90 percent of its economic output, the G20 countries are a powerhouse that have yet to take on a coordinated digital agenda. This could be about to change. Under the German presidency of the G20, digital concerns - from getting people connected to protecting people's data once they are - have been made a priority through a new 'Roadmap for Digitalisation'. more
I recently reviewed Trump's Cuban policy speech and its implications for the Internet. The speech was accompanied by a national security memorandum on strengthening US-Cuba policy, which was sent to the Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries, and heads of various departments. The first thing that struck me about the memorandum was that it was a "national security" memorandum. Does Trump think Cuba poses a threat to our national security? more
With all of the current turbulence in the American society, it is no wonder that its telecommunications market is also under severe pressure. In his election campaign, Trump promised his American supporters to make changes to what he called the Washington swamp, but it has become clear that the opposite is happening. While in previous Administrations lobbyists were at least somewhat separated from the politicians, now many of these lobbyists are actually part of the Trump Administration. more
Imagine that Ford was held responsible every time one of its Mustangs broke the speed limit. Imagine that the company responded by limiting the speed of its vehicles to 65 MPH, or that the company was required by the government to report every speeding car to highway patrol. It sounds far-fetched, but is actually a good metaphor for the way that many want technology companies to respond to infractions. more
RightsCon, the world's leading summit on tech, society, and human rights has been called "the Davos of Digital Rights" (www.rightscon.org). At RightsCon 2017, the sixth event of the annual summit series on human rights in the digital age, the global human rights community came together in the heart of European politics and policymaking on March 29-31, 2017. More than 1,500 experts from 105 countries around the world, across diverse geographic and stakeholder lines, joined together to produce measurable outcomes on the most pressing and emerging issues threatening human rights in the digital age. more
Internet connectivity is the great enabler of the 21st century global economy. Studies worldwide unequivocally link increases in Internet penetration rates and expansion of Internet infrastructure to improved education, employment rates, and overall GDP development. Over the next decade, the Internet will reinvent itself yet again in ways we can only imagine today, and cloud computing will be the primary operating platform of this revolution. more