IoT Security Policy Platform Wants to Raise the Bar On Global IoT Security

By next year, five Internet of Things (IoT) devices are projected to be in use for every person on the planet.

IoT devices offer endless opportunities to improve productivity, economic growth, and quality of life. Think smart cities, self-driving cars, and the ways connected medical devices can monitor our health. The potential growth of IoT is virtually infinite.

But with opportunity comes a significant amount of risk. As much as we’d like to trust manufacturers to make sure burglars can’t watch our homes through data from an automated vacuum, many new devices lack even basic security features. And thousands of new devices are coming online each year without commitment to basic measures such as using unique passwords, encrypting our data, or updating software to address vulnerabilities.

To help people and businesses around the world prepare, a dedicated group is rising to the challenge of securing the Internet of Things though cooperation across borders and sectors.

They are government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other organizations and experts working on IoT security joined together to form the IoT Security Policy Platform. We are proud to say the Internet Society is amongst them too. Together we’ve been discussing and sharing best practices and Continue reading

Community Network Champions Take a Rural Dip in India

By Digital Empowerment Foundation

In the last 25 years, half the world has been connected to the Internet and the almost infinite opportunities it has to offer. Most of these, among the 3.5 billion connected individuals of the world, are people who are largely economically empowered, literate, and reside in urban or accessible areas. However, there is also half the world that is yet to get online and access what the Internet has to offer them.

The biggest barrier to widespread connectivity is the high cost of infrastructure. With many telecom companies unwilling or unable to build infrastructure in far flung and rural areas, large swathes of the world have remained in media darkness. Evidently, most of those who are excluded from digital ecosystems are people who are largely at the bottom of the pyramid and reside in rural or inaccessible areas. They are people who have not been connected by the mainstream Internet Service Providers (ISP) – and who may have to wait a long time to be connected.

So who will take the responsibility of connecting them?

It has to be the community themselves.

Over the years, community network providers have proved to be great enablers for Continue reading