SpaceX Succeeds in Launching Its First Full Batch of Starlink Internet Satellites

SpaceX on Thursday successfully launched 60 Starlink satellites with its Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. more

The Impact of Satellite Broadband

Recently I've had several people ask me about the expected impact of low-orbit satellite broadband. While significant competition from satellites is probably a number of years away, there are several major initiatives like StarLink (Elon Musk), Project Kuiper (Amazon), and OneWeb that have announced plans to launch swarms of satellites to provide broadband. more

Food for Thought on the “New TLD” Business Models

There is always some degree of confusion in discussions about the "new TLDs". Some points of view try to be optimistic, others on the contrary only highlight the bad news, and most refer indistinctly to the "new TLDs" as if they did not break down into different segments, each of which obeys dynamics and constraints of its own. The purpose of this post is to provide some food for thought and to shed some light on those dynamics and constraints... more

UK Announces $28M Fund for Army Cyber Operations Centers

The UK Ministry of Defence has announced a £22m ($28 million) fund for the development of British Army cyber operations centers across the country. more

Might Satellite Constellations Learn to Avoid Debris?

The European Space Agency (ESA) reported that as of January 2019 there were about 5,000 satellites in space and 1,950 of them are still functioning. Hopefully, those functioning satellites have fuel and thrusters that will enable them to de-orbit and (mostly) burn up in the atmosphere when their useful life is finished. The remaining 3,050 are slowly drifting, along with a lot of debris. The ESA estimates that there have been over 500 break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events... more

Baltimore Gets Hacked: Main Computer Systems Crippled, Experts Estimate Months to Recover

On May 7, hackers breached parts of the computer systems that run Baltimore's government, taking down essential systems such as voice mail, email, a parking fines database, payment systems used for water bills, property taxes, real estate transactions and vehicle citations. more

US Huawei Ban Threatens Internet Access in Rural Areas, Some Providers May Fold

Much of rural America with very low population density, depends on small wireless carriers for their internet access as AT&T, T-Mobile and other large providers have no interest in providing services. more

DDoS Storm Is Coming, Warn Researchers Noting an 84% Surge in the First Quarter of 2019

The number of DDoS attacks during the first three months of 2019 increased by 84%, compared with the previous quarter. more

Qualcomm’s Licensing Practices Are Illegal, U.S. Judge Rules

A U.S. district court judge rules that Qualcomm violated anti-trust laws and has ordered the chip maker to change some of its licensing and negotiation practices. more

Microsoft Sees Serious Appetite for Revised Privacy Laws in US, Says It’s Time to Match EU’s GDPR

With the first anniversary of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) approaching in just a few days, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Julie Brill says GDPR has been an important catalyst for progress in privacy protection around the world. more

Threat Intelligence Platform in Action: Investigating Important Use Cases

As technology gets more and more sophisticated, tech-savvy cybercriminals are having a field day devising increasingly ingenious ways to steal confidential data from ill-prepared targets. What this means is that an equally sophisticated cybersecurity response is needed to keep attackers at bay. This would involve re-examining reactive cybersecurity practices and adopting a proactive approach towards an active search for risks and vulnerabilities with the help of threat intelligence (TI). more

NGOs, Academics Warn Against EU’s Deep Packet Inspection Problem, at Least 186 ISPs Breaking Rules

European Digital Rights organization (EDRi) along with 45 NGOs, academics and companies from 15 countries sent an open letter to European policymakers and regulators on Wednesday warned against the widespread use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology by Internet service providers in the EU. more

ICANN Says Amazon Inc’s Application for .AMAZON TLD Can Proceed Following 30 Days of Public Comment

The giant online retailer Amazon Inc is one step away from winning the .AMAZON top-level domain name after a 7-year battle with the eight Latin American countries. more

Broadband and Food Safety

I recently saw a presentation that showed how food safety is starting to rely on good rural broadband. I've already witnessed many other ways that farmers use broadband like precision farming, herd monitoring, and drone surveillance, but food safety was a new concept for me. The presentation centered around the romaine lettuce scare of a few months ago. The food industry was unable to quickly identify the source of the contaminated produce and the result was a recall of all romaine nationwide. more

A Closer Look at the “Sovereign Runet” Law

In December 2018, a bill on the "stable operation" of the Russian segment of the Internet was introduced and got the title "Sovereign Runet" in mass media and among the public. It was adopted after 5 months later, despite doubts about the technical feasibility of its implementation. The law is very ambitious in its intent to simultaneously control Internet traffic and protect Runet from some external threats, but legislators still have no idea how it would actually work. more