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Coronavirus Online Threats Going Viral, Part 5: Social Media

For our final blog in this series, looking at the online risks associated with COVID-19, we focus on social media. The popularity of social media channels means that they are extremely susceptible to exploitation by cybercriminals and other infringers, particularly during the coronavirus crisis. In an earlier post in this series, we discussed the use of social media for the distribution of phishing-related content, but CSC has also noted marked activity relating to the creation of fake accounts. more

Internet Usage by Time Zone, China Biggest Contributor

Pingdom has conducted a study on how today's two billion internet users around the world are spread over different time zones. Study found two time zones stand head and shoulders above the others in terms of the amount of Internet users they contain: UTC+8, which passes through eastern Asia, and UTC+1, which passes through Europe and Africa. more

China Sets Up Internet Oversight Body, Has Authority to Investigate and Punish

Caixin reports that the State Council, China's cabinet, has set up an office to regulate internet activity, according to an announcement released on May 4 via an official website. The new department, called the State Internet Information Office, will supervise online content management and process approvals of businesses involved in online news reporting, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. The new agency is reported to have the authority to investigate and punish online content-providers if necessary. more

The Mobile App Trap

The Apple App Store was seven years old as of Friday, 10 July, marking a key -- and possibly critical -- evolution in how we use the Internet. First, the numbers, which are truly astounding -- there are now more than 1.4 million apps available, which have been downloaded more than 100 billion times. And that's just Apple. Add in Android and the other platforms, and we start talking about a new app economy, generating billions in revenues for developers from around the world. more

Renewed Internet.nl Website: Modern Standards Need to be Used for a Free, Open and Secure Internet

Modern Internet Standards provide for more reliability and further growth of the Internet. But are you using them? You can test this on the Dutch website www.internet.nl (also available in English and Polish). Recently the website was renewed. Not only the style has been adapted, but also the way the tests are performed and the test results are shown. A lot of additional information has been added, so that even the tech savvy internet users can find an explanation underpinning the test results. more

Group Announces Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web, Lunching in 2015

EFF, Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, Identrust, and researchers at the University of Michigan today announced a new certificate authority (CA) initiative called "Let's Encrypt". more

Study Indicates Nearly Half A Million Jobs Created from “App Economy” in US

A new study reveals close to 466,000 jobs have been created in the "App Economy" in United States -- up from zero in 2007. The total number of Apps Economy jobs includes jobs at 'pure' app firms such as Zynga as well as app-related jobs at large companies such as Electronic Arts, Amazon, and AT&T, as well as app 'infrastructure' jobs at core firms such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. In addition, the App Economy total includes employment spillovers to the rest of the economy. more

Infrastructure for a Connected World

Connected devices need a free-to-use infrastructure that allows for innovation beyond the needs of a provider or other intermediary. An interface is best when it disappears and the user can focus the problem at hand. In the same way infrastructure, is best when it can simply be assumed and becomes invisible. With an invisible infrastructure as with an invisible interface a user can concentrate on their tasks and not think about the computer. Dan Bricklin and I chose to implement VisiCalc on personal computers that people could just purchase. more

DOTZON Study: Digital City Brands 2021

DOTZON presents the fifth edition of the Digital City Brands study. After introducing the study in early 2017, DOTZON expanded further and enhanced the data to display how cities successfully use their Digital City Brands. The Digital City Brand is the digital dimension of the City Brand and mirrors the "Digitalness" of a city. However, the Digital City Brand is much more than a mere extension of the City Brand. more

Is Technology the Problem?

We do live in turbulent times. There is such a lot happening, with many people feeling overwhelmed and lost. One of the reasons given why we do have these problems is technology. I would argue against that. In all reality, technology is a tool that we can use, and yes, we all know that we can use it for the wrong reasons (cars kill people, atom bombs, killer robots, chemical and biological warfare and so on). However, we have learned to live with it, and in general, the outcome from science, innovation and technology has been positive. more

Global Internet Traffic Falls by Around 40% Due to a Google Outage

Worldwide internet traffic plunged by around 40% as Google services suffered a complete black-out, according to web analytics experts. The tech company said all of its services from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube to Google Drive went down for between one and five minutes on Friday. more

The Age of Information Ubiquity… Passed?

My first day back at the office after a summer of working remotely featured a traffic jam of the sort that reminds me why I hate commuting: one car crash, a key highway closed, and no reasonable surface road alternative routes. There's just nothing to do but suffer the consequences when that road backs up. I had an early team meeting and was already scrambling to leave the house with a buffer of half the regular commute time. It wasn't going to be enough. I dropped a note to my team, who'd all be participating from their locations (in other cities and countries), and warned them. more

Digital in 2021 – Five Predictions for Brand Protection

While smartphones were an integral part of our lives before 2020, now, as a result of the changes associated with COVID, our mobile devices are virtually "super-glued" to our hands. The worldwide pandemic has heavily influenced our lives. Based on our past experiences with digital brand protection and the trends we're currently seeing, we've made five predictions regarding the future of internet usage in 2021. more

Google Set to Launch Chrome Browser Today

Google announced on Monday that it has been working on an open-source browser known as Chrome and that it is going to release a beta version today in 100 countries. News about the launch of Google Chrome (originally planned for announcement after the holiday weekend) was accidentally emailed to outside sources according to reports. The new browser features include "isolated" tabs designed to prevent browser crashes and a more powerful JavaScript engine. Chrome is based on the open-source software Webkit which is also used to build Google's mobile software Android. more

Popular Websites Agree to Participate in ‘World IPv6 Day’

On 8 June, 2011, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be amongst some of the major organisations that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour "test drive". The goal of the Test Drive Day is to motivate organizations across the industry - Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies - to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out. more