According to a recent study, broadband Internet access is now considered by many US households a necessity and they turn to broadband Internet during recession. The study released by Jonathan Orszag, Robert Willig, and Mark Dutz suggests that with $32 billion gains in 2008, consumers increasingly benefit from using broadband at home. "Once people get a taste of the entertainment, educational opportunities, social networking and everyday services that broadband access facilitates, they grasp the immense value it can add to their lives as a powerful tool, regardless of where they come from," said Co-Chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance Bruce Mehlman. "Once a broadband user, always a broadband user." more
The Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) lends out scans of physical books, ensuring that each scan is lent to one person at a time. Publishers sued, and the Archive lost thoroughly in April 2023. The Archive appealed the decision to the Second Circuit court in New York. As I said at the time, the appeal seemed like a long shot since that is the same court that said that Google Books was OK, mostly because it didn't provide full copies of the books. more
"Britain's banks are not reporting the full extent of cyber attacks to regulators for fear of punishment or bad publicity, bank executives and providers of security systems say," reports Lawrence White in Reuters today. more
In a previous post, I asked whether electronically steered antennas (ESAs) would replace parabolic antennas in satellite ground stations. I read a few articles suggested by others and by Google search, used some common sense, produced a list of advantages of ESAs, and concluded that it was likely they would eventually replace parabolic antennas for many applications. more
Let's face it, when it comes to digital technologies, fundamental human rights are not on top of the digital agenda. They seem irrelevant and remote, even an obstacle to digital innovation and opportunities. We are quick to pay lip service to them, but we permit the profit motive and stakeholder self-interests to override human rights principles. It does not matter how right and righteous the cause might be; to be implemented, it must be profitable or carry stakeholder benefits. more
Milton Mueller reporting at IGP: At the recently concluded Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, a memo was circulated calling for the creation of a "Commission on the Future of Internet Cooperation." The commission, the confidential memo said, would consist of "civic leaders, ministers, CEOs and technical pioneers." Its purpose will be to "provide new ideas for transnational and multistakeholder proposals for Internet governance." According to the leaked document, the group is supposed to begin work in October and conclude its work with a presentation at the World Economic Forum in January 2014. more
Craig Moffett, of MoffettNathanson, was recently quoted in FierceTelecom asking if the broadband industry is reaching maturity. Other than in rural areas, where many homes are still hungry for better broadband, the broadband penetration rate in cities is approaching 90%. It's a fair question to ask if there is room for much more growth in the industry. This is a question that has bounced around for the last five years. more
Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, in his Internet Governance Outlook 2024, reminded us that 2024, as the years before and future years, will be pivotal for Internet Governance processes. We eagerly await Wolfgang's missives every January, and we trust what we read because we know him, and we trust CircleID. We should be grateful and cherish this example of straightforward, digitally enabled, and trust-based human communication... more
If you operate an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) or are interested in creating one, the Internet Society has a “Sustainable Peering Infrastructure” funding program that is open for applications until this Friday, September 6, 2024... Grant funds from USD $5,000 up to $50,000 are open to all regions and are available to assist in equipment purchases (switches, optic modules, servers, and routers), training, capacity building, and community development. more
"A group of Democratic U.S. senators on Tuesday demanded Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) to explain why hackers' theft of user information for half a billion accounts two years ago only came to light last week and lambasted its handling of the breach as "unacceptable," reports Dustin Volz from Washington in Reuters. more
Linda Hardesty wrote an interesting article in FierceNetwork that asks the question, "What if, in ten years, young people don't subscribe to fixed broadband at all?" Her story is based on a U.K. research group that predicts that within ten years, there will be a lot of young people who will never have subscribed to a landline broadband product. more
The previous two articles in this series have outlined techniques for 'mining' brandable domain names -- that is, domain names of potential interest to entities looking to launch a new brand name and associated website -- from the enormous dataset of unregistered names (determined via zone file analysis). The key element of the identification process is the implementation of filtering techniques to identify... more
Zoom programmers made elementary security errors when coding, and did not use protective measures that compiler toolchains make available. It's not a great stretch to assume that similar flaws afflict their server implementations. While Mudge noted that Zoom's Windows and Mac clients are (possibly accidentally) somewhat safer than the Linux client, I suspect that their servers run on Linux.Were they written with similar lack of attention to security? more
In 2021, the story was price. In 2022, the story was price and large block supply. Spurred by unprecedented unit pricing, the IPv4 market in North America experienced its second-best year ever in market history. Nearly double the number of IPv4 addresses were traded in 2022 compared to 2021, predominantly due to the increased flow of large block supply from twelve sellers, five of whom were first-time market participants. more
Conventional wisdom within the domain-sales industry states that the stock of unregistered domain names is 'running out,' with limited or no availability of short, desirable domain names across popular extensions (TLDs). This presents problems for would-be brand owners looking for a brand name (and accompanying suitable website presence) to utilize for newly-launched companies... more
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