Web

Europol Warns on the Criminal Usage of ChatGPT and Its Implications for Law Enforcement

Europol's Innovation Lab released a Tech Watch Flash report on Monday, sounding the alarm on the potential misuse of large language models such as ChatGPT. Entitled 'ChatGPT - the Impact of Large Language Models on Law Enforcement,' the report provides an urgent overview of the implications of ChatGPT for criminals and law enforcement, as well as an outlook of what may still be to come. more

Internet Watch Foundation Uses Hashes to Block Child Abuse Material

Last week during the ICANN meeting in Barcelona I attended a short presentation from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Their mission is pretty simple: ...eliminate child sexual abuse imagery online. Fortunately, the presentation I was at did not include any of the actual material (which would have been illegal anyway) but even without seeing any of it the topic is one that I think most people find deeply disturbing. more

INET DC, Weds, July 24: Surveillance, Cybersecurity and the Internet’s Future (Livestream available)

Are you concerned about the recent reports about government surveillance programs? Are you concerned about security and privacy online? If so, you may want to attend (in person or remotely) the INET Washington DC event happening on Wednesday, July 24, from 2:00 - 6:00 pm US Eastern time at George Washington University. Sponsored by the Internet Society and GWU's Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute, the event is free and open to the public and will also be streamed live on the Internet for those who cannot attend in person. more

Google Launches Project to Track Encryption Efforts - Both Internally and at Other Popular Sites

Google launched today a new effort to track the progress of encryption efforts - both at Google and on other popular websites. Google hopes the project will hold the company and others accountable to encrypt so as to enhance web safety and security. more

A New Frontier for the Global South

The Fund for Internet Research and Education - FIRE - is an initiative of AFRINIC that gives Grants and Awards to outstanding projects that use the Internet to provide innovative solutions to Africa's unique education, information, infrastructure, and communication needs. FIRE Africa is part of an initiative called The Seed Alliance that has LACNIC's FRIDA Program, APNIC's ISIF.Asia program, and the Internet Society as members. more

Real-Time Email Recommendation Engine Part IV: Image Optimization

Before we dive into optimizing predictive analytics for images using #RealTimeML, at our neighborhood Email Service Provider, there are a few people we need to acknowledge. First, we would like to recognize the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and its managing director Christie Ko. Christie reached out to us to potentially write articles for them, and we talked about several topics in the world of Machine learning (ML). She found our blog here on CircleID and ... more

Making Internet Faster: Google, OpenDNS and Others Announce Joint Effort

Google, OpenDNS, content delivery networks and other operators have announced a joint effort called "The Global Internet Speedup," to "make the Internet faster". According to the group, this collaboration will be executed via an open IETF proposed standard called "edns-client-subnet" in order to help better direct content to users thereby decreasing latency, decreasing congestion, increasing transfer speeds and helping the Internet to scale faster and further. more

The Shadow of the Web

I believe in the Internet As an ideal. As a web of human minds. As a wonder of the world, not built through totalitarian control but rather through fierce coopetition. As a technological pillar held up by a newer, better, governance structure. As the facilitator of knowledge sharing and communication on a level so advanced that it would appear supernatural to folks living just a century ago, or less. I worry for the Internet While it has been a major disruptive force, it is also susceptible to the existing paradigm. more

What Will the Internet Look Like in the next 5 - 7 Years?

We all know that the Internet is one of the most important tools of our time, but we can't afford to take the Internet -- or its future -- for granted. There are uncertainties facing the Internet's future and how they evolve will have a profound impact on society and our ability to solve some of the world's biggest challenges... To help answer these and other questions, the Internet Society is embarking on a collaborative initiative to envision scenarios for the evolution of the Internet. more

The Countdown Has Started – Here Come One-Year Digital Certificate Life Cycles

Apple announced its decision to trust only one-year digital certificates on its Safari browser in February 2020. This decision created a domino effect, with Mozilla and Google following suit; certificate providers announced they would not issue two-year certificates after Aug. 19, 2020. We wrote an article in March to help brands to prepare for this change. more

The Boundary Between Sec. 230 Immunity and Liability: Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings

Out in the wilderness of cyberspace is a boundary, marking the limits of Sec. 230 immunity. On the one side roams interactive services hosting third party content immune from liability for that third party content. On the other sides is the frontier, where interactive content hosts and creators meet, merge, and become one. Here host and author blend, collaborating to give rise to new creations. more

Bug Bounty Programs: Are You Ready? (Part 1)

The premise of crowdsourcing the task of uncovering new bugs and vulnerabilities in an organization's web applications or consumer products sounds compelling to many. What's not to like with the prospect of "many eyes" poking and prodding away at a corporate system for a minimal reward -- and preemptively uncovering flaws that could have been exploited by hackers with nefarious intent? more

Celebrating 20 Years of the World Wide Web

Computer scientists, engineers and journalists gathered today on the CERN particle physics lab in the suburbs of Geneva, Switzerland, to pay homage to the a 1989 proposal by Tim Berners-Lee that would later come to be the blueprint for the World Wide Web. In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for an information management system to his boss, Mike Sendall. 'Vague, but exciting', were the words that Sendall wrote on the proposal, allowing Berners-Lee to continue... more

All About the Copyright Office’s New DMCA System

Website publishers that want to protect themselves against claims of copyright infringement must participate in a new online registration system created by the U.S. Copyright Office for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") -- even if they have participated previously. The new program, launched on December 1, 2016, offers a mandatory online registration system for the DMCA that replaces the original (and clunky) "interim" designation system, which was created in 1998. more

Content vs Carriage – Who Pays?

There was a common catch cry in the early 1990s that "the Internet must be free!" Some thought this was a policy stance relating to the rejection of imposed control over content. Others took this proposition more literally as "free, like free beer!" It might sound naive today, but there was a widespread view at the time that the Internet was able to cast aside conventional economics and operate the Internet infrastructure without charging end-users at all! more