The Week in Internet News: Malaysia Repeals Recently Passed Fake News Law

That was quick: The new Malaysian government has repealed a fake news law passed earlier this year, The Hill reports. The past government had used the law to charge several opposition leaders. The maximum penalty for violating the law was six years in prison and a fine of about US$128,000.

They love us: A community-run ISP in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is the highest-rated broadband provider in the United States in a Consumer Reports survey, notes Motherboard. The community-run service gets high ranks for speed, reliability, and value, the story says.

Legislating backdoors: The Australian government is targeting companies like Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp in a proposal that would require tech companies to decrypt customer communications on demand, CNet reports. The details of the draft proposal are unclear, but the government would require tech companies to provide more assistance to law enforcement agencies, The Register says.

AI doesn’t want your job: Workers don’t need to worry about Artificial Intelligence taking their jobs, Forbes says. AI will replace boring tasks, but generally not replace whole positions, according to one group of AI experts.

97 and counting: The Kashmir region of India has seen 97 Internet shutdowns in six years after and 11-hour Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: US Gov’t Wants More Encryption – For Itself

Encryption for us, not for you: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is researching ways to improve mobile encryption for federal users, even as the FBI continues to fight against encrypted data on the smartphones of ordinary users. FifthDomain has a story on the DHS effort.

Safety labels for the IoT: The Internet of things needs food safety-style labels detailing the safety and privacy controls on IoT devices, suggests a story at Motherboard.

Consumer Reports and other groups have begun working on a new open source standard intended to help make Internet-connected hardware safer, the story says.

Let’s Encrypt gains support: Let’s Encrypt, the Internet Society-supported secure certificate authority, has picked up endorsements from major root programs like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Mozilla, Oracle, and Blackberry, Packt Hub reports. The zero-cost service allows website operators to pick up SSL certificates for free.

That’s a lot of AI: Intel sold $1 billion worth of Artificial Intelligence chips in 2017, Reuters reports. That’s even a conservative estimate, Intel says. Prepare now for the smart robot takeover!

Hired by AI: Meanwhile, AI is coming to the hiring process, Bloomberg reports, and that may not be such a bad thing. AI may actually be Continue reading

Tech Companies Endorse MANRS Routing Security Actions

A coalition of more than 40 companies focused on protecting online users has endorsed a global community initiative, coordinated by the Internet Society, to improve the security of the Internet’s routing system.

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord, whose members include Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will support the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative.

The goal of MANRS is to ensure a secure and resilient Internet by protecting its routing infrastructure. In 2017 alone, more than 14,000 routing outages or attacks – such as hijacking, leaks, or spoofing – resulted in stolen data, lost revenue, and reputational damage.

“The new endorsement is a good first step,” said Salam Yamout, Internet Society Lead for the MANRS initiative.

“It is not enough to talk about routing security; it is time for action,” Yamout added. “Because the Internet’s routing system was built on the principles of collaboration and shared responsibility, this endorsement from the Cybersecurity Tech Accord and our new partnership is a major step forward. It clearly reflects the will of industry to be proactive in implementing safe routing practices.”

MANRS focuses on four defensive actions that can reduce the most common routing threats:

• Filtering, to Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: IoT Security Spending Predicted to Skyrocket

Securing the IoT: Internet of Things security spending is predicted to rise by about 30 percent a year through 2023 as the industry looks for some regulations, reports Cyber Security Hub. Possible regulatory standards are driving part of the growth.

Pornification of the IoT: This is bad news or maybe good news, depending on your perspective. Hackers recently took control of an IoT-connected parking kiosk and connected it to online porn content, Business Insider reports. The kiosk didn’t display the porn content, however, leaving researchers confused about the hackers’ motivation. Maybe, it was just because they could.

AI joins the army: The Indian military is considering the use of Artificial Intelligence for national security and military strategic purposes, says The News Minute. The Indian government is also studying AI uses in aviation, and for cyber, nuclear, and biological warfare.

AI vs. humanity: In a possibly related story, CNBC lists five of the most scary predictions about AI. Among them: Mass unemployment and the use of robots to wage war.

U.S. AWOL: The U.S. government lacks the resources and reputation to remain a leader in global conversations about Internet policy, according to an Engadget story about a recent congressional hearing. Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Facial Recognition IDs Politicians as Criminals

You look like a criminal: Amazon.com’s facial recognition technology falsely flagged 28 U.S. lawmakers as criminals in a test run by the American Civil Liberties Union, The Guardian reports. Whoops! Five members of Congress have demanded an explanation from Amazon, CNET says.

Amazon instead of libraries? It was a bit of a weird week for Amazon. After a Forbes article – since pulled from the website – suggested the giant retailer should replace libraries, the Internet went nuts, not in a good way. The Daily Dot looks at the controversy.

AI as the terminator: Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban has joined the ranks of luminaries warning about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. “If you don’t think by the time most of you are in your mid-40s that a Terminator will appear, you’re crazy,” he said at a gathering of conservative high school students. CNBC.com has the details of his speech.

AI as a money saver: Meanwhile, AI backers say the technology can bring huge benefits. London’s Metropolitan Police Service could save £30 million and put 545 officers on the streets by using AI to analyze large volumes of data and cross-reference information from databases and surveillance systems, according Continue reading

Internet Drone and Balloon Projects Move Forward

Two innovative ideas to bring Internet access to hard-to-serve areas of the world – using drones and high-altitude balloons – seem to be progressing, even though the two companies pushing the projects aren’t offering a lot of details.

Facebook’s Aquila, using solar-powered drones as wireless Internet relays, and Google sister company X’s Project Loon, using large hot-air balloons in a similar way, both received significant attention when announced earlier in the decade.

In recent years, both projects have plugged along, even as some critics have doubted their long-term viability. While the projects have garnered less attention in recent years, Facebook launched test flights of an Aquila drone in June 2016 and May 2017.

Recent weeks have brought new updates about both initiatives, although the companies still aren’t talking much.

On June 27, Facebook announced it will stop building its own drones. While some early news reports suggested that Facebook was shutting down its drone-based Internet initiative, the company emphasized that it would instead depend on other companies to build aircraft.

“Going forward, we’ll continue to work with partners like Airbus on [high-altitude] connectivity generally, and on the other technologies needed to make this system work, like flight control computers and Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Startup Cash for Spy-o-T

Investing in hacking IoT: A startup in Israel has raised $12.5 million in investments to help governments hack the Internet of Things and other technologies, Forbes reports. What could go wrong? Toka says it’ll provide spy tools for whatever device its clients require, with a special focus on the IoT.

Encryption wars, part 348: U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray says legislation allowing law enforcement agencies access to encrypted devices may be necessary if the government and private vendors cannot come to a compromise, Cyberscoop reports. The FBI has, for several years, complained that its investigations are hampered by encrypted devices, although many security experts say encryption backdoors will make us all less safe.

AI for good: More than 2,000 Artificial Intelligence experts have signed a pledge saying they will not participate in the development of legal, autonomous weapons systems, Gizmodo reports. Autonomous weapons posed a “clear and present danger to the citizens of every country in the world,” the pledge says.

Clamping down: The government in Iraq shut down the Internet for two days in response to protests there, CircleID says. The government ordered the disconnection of the fiber backbone that carries traffic for most of the country Continue reading

Community Networks Can Help Solve World’s Problems, Ebook Says

By bringing broadband to new areas, community networks can help end discrimination, fight climate change, and feed the hungry of the world, says a report newly available as an ebook.

Community networks can help the United Nations achieve its Sustainable Development Goals, including an end to poverty and universal clean water, by bringing Internet service, and along with it, investment into areas not yet covered, says the report, Community Networks: the Internet by the People, for the People.

For the U.N. to reach its Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, nations and organizations will need to spend approximately US$1 trillion, noted Kathryn Brown, president and CEO of the Internet Society and a coauthor for the report.

While the goals are ambitious, they can be accomplished, with help from Internet access, Brown wrote in the report. “The Internet itself is an enabler for the goals,” she said. “We will be able to get there faster and in a way that lasts, if everyone can access the Internet and benefit from it.”

The report, available online since December, was recently released as a ebook on Amazon.com as a way to more widely distribute it. Supported by the Internet Society, Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Startup Finds a Way to Glue Fiber to Roadways

Why don’t we glue it in the road? A technology startup has patented a way to integrate broadband fiber to blacktop, reports Motherboard. The patented technique, inspired by dentistry, uses a blend of resins to stick fiber optic cables to roads.

Major spending to fix IoT security: The Internet of Things security market will grow to US$6 billion by 2023, with spending to rise 300 percent between 2018 and 2023, according to Juniper Research. However, poor long-term device support and little fear of ramifications will keep security spending on connected homes lagging behind other markets, the research firm says.

Data breaches cost big bucks: The average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million, up more than 6 percent from last year, according to a study from IBM and the Ponemon Institute. Compromised organizations took 197 days to identify a breach and an additional 69 days to contain it, reports IT Pro. A data breach cost organizations an average of $148 per lost or stolen record.

AI takes over the world: About three-quarters of all consumers have interacted with artificial intelligence systems, reports ComputerWeekly.com. A Capgemini survey of 10,000 consumers found, however, that more than half of consumers prefer Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: WhatsApp Looks to Combat the Spread of Fake News

Fake messaging: WhatsApp, the popular messaging tool, will pay researchers up to $50,000 to study the spread of fake news through its platform, notes Mashable.com. The announcement came after reports of mob lynchings in India fueled by false information spread on WhatsApp, reports the Washington Post. India’s government asked the app maker to take immediate action to stop the spread of fake news.

Defining fake news: While we’re still on the topic of fake news, Cambodia’s recent crackdown on false information is raising concerns about press freedom in the country, reports The Guardian. A new directive aimed at fake news on websites and social media allows for violators to be jailed for two years and fined US$1,000, but civil rights groups said the new rules could give “authorities the power to silence individuals at the click of a button.”

Fired by a computer: A Los Angeles worker was recently shown the door by an automated process that seemed to assume he was let go after his original manager was laid off, the BBC reports. The case could raise questions about artificial intelligence processes, but the real fix would be a more intelligent machine, The Conversation says.

AI manages Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: WiFi Gets a New Security Standard

A more secure Wi-Fi: The Wi-Fi Alliance has released the new WPA2 standard for WiFi that’s designed to mitigate several long-standing security problems. Among the fixes: The new standard mandates stronger WiFi passwords, Wired.com reports. The new standard also will include 192-bit encryption. The alliance also published the new WiFi Easy Connect protocol, designed for IoT devices that have limited or no display, says SlashGear.

Wait for us, says email: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the organizations behind the HTTPS-encryption initiative Let’s Encrypt, has launched an email server encryption project called STARTTLS Everywhere. The project is designed to help admins run more secure email servers, Engadget reports.

AI targets fraud: Insurers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence technologies to root out fraud, Fast Company says. AI can help pick out inconsistencies and unusual patterns to identify “sophisticated rings of fraudsters rigging auto accidents” and people exaggerating the worth of their damaged property.

AI also examines eruptions: Scientists at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo are using AI to help predict the types of eruptions coming from volcanos, says Phys.org. By examining tiny particles of volcanic ash, the AI is predicting the types of eruptions coming from Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Governments Shut Down Internet for School Testing

Couldn’t you just take their phones away? The government of Algeria told telecom carriers to shut down Internet service for several hours a day during high school testing season, according to several news reports. The government is trying to prevent the repeat of a situation in 2016, when exam questions were leaked online, reports Al Jazeera. The government of Iraq has taken similar action, the news agency says. It’s unclear how a short shutdown each day will prevent leaks.

Why IoT security is terrible: The headline is certainly catchy, but the IEEE Spectrum suggests that the Internet of things has some special security challenges including nation state hackers that are targeting the systems (although that’s true of other IT systems as well). Another of the six reasons: Many IoT systems, like your connected refrigerator, don’t have dedicated IT security workers looking out for them.

Score one for encryption: Using the encrypted WhatsApp, Syrian school girls banned from attending school in Islamic State-controlled territory, are taking pictures of school work and sharing it with each other, notes NakedSecurity, referencing a report on the BBC. “Education is everything, and it’s our weapon,” one of the girls says.

Not so fast, WhatsApp: Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: X-Ray I

AI to get X-ray vision: Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are getting close to creating AI that can see through walls, Geek.com reported. The research team is using AI to analyze radio signals bouncing off human bodies. The result is a neural network-generated stick figure that moves like the targeted person does.

Dr. AI will see you now: Perhaps more useful that looking through walls, some AI technologies are now being used to identify tuberculosis, pneumonia, upper respiratory infection, and bronchitis based on how a cough sounds, said AdWeek. Several companies are exploring other ways to use AI in healthcare settings.

Encryption wars, part 207: Apple has moved to close a security hole that law enforcement agencies used to defeat encryption on iPhones, according to many news reports, including one in the New York Times. The Apple move set off a new round of debate about encrypted devices and law enforcement access, the Washington Post noted.

It appears that at least one company that builds iPhone cracking tools already has a workaround, however, Motherboard reported.

Meanwhile, an FBI official suggested that each encrypted device that law enforcement agencies cannot crack represents a victim without justice, BusinessInsider. Continue reading

This Week in Internet News: AI Diagnoses Skin Cancer Better than Doctors

AI plays doctor: Artificial intelligence can detect skin cancer better than dermatologists, according to a new international study. Flesh-and-blood dermatologists in the study accurately detected 86.6 percent of skin cancers from images, compared to 95 percent for a deep learning convolutional neural network, reports Agence France Presse. Still, there’s no substitute for a thorough clinical examination, the researchers said in a Mirror.co.uk story.

AI can teach, too: Many schools in China are now testing AI as a way to grade homework, reports the South China Morning Post. AI is being used to grade essays, and it recommends improvements in writing style and structure.

AI vs. Internet trolls: AI can even predict when an Internet fight is about to break out, says Bigthink.com. Apparently, one way to predict an online fight is about to happen is when a commenter begins to let the accusations fly by using the word “you.”

Hackers target routers: It’s those Russian hackers again, and they’re after your router. The Russian Sofancy group is among the foreign cyber actors who “have compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and other networked devices,” the FBI warned. One way to limit the attack Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: The FBI Has Fewer Unopened Encrypted Devices Than Reported

Going dark with encryption: The U.S. FBI, for years now, has complained about its inability to access encrypted information held on the smartphones and other devices owned by criminal suspects. But the agency may have been overstating this so-called “going dark” problem, the Washington Post reported this week. A programming error at the FBI led the agency to report that it has seized about 7,800 mobile devices that it cannot open, but the actual number may be less than 2,000, the story says.

AI as Big Brother: Artificial intelligence is being used to track down criminals by combing through data faster than humans can, reports The Telegraph. The story features AI startup Senzing, an IBM spinoff. Meanwhile, the government of China is increasingly using AI to assist its Great Firewall program, says Internet of Business.

A bad year for security: This year is shaping up to be a terrible year for cybersecurity, due in part to poor Internet of Things security, reports Security Boulevard. In addition to the IoT concerns, 85 percent security executives surveyed worry their countries will experience a crucial infrastructure attack in the next five years.

Banking on blockchain and AI: Banks’ use of blockchain, AI, Continue reading

Nonprofit ISP in Mexico Wins Court Battle Against Huge Federal Fee

A nonprofit telecommunications provider offering voice and data services to remote areas in southern Mexico has avoided a crippling federal fee after challenging it in court.

A Mexican court recently ordered the Federal Institute of Telecommunications to reconsider the spectrum fee for Indigenous Community Telecommunications (ICT), which serves about 3,500 customers. The fee, about 1 million pesos or US$50,000, is equal to about half of ITC’s annual operating budget, said Peter Bloom, founder and a board member of ITC.

But the ruling, by the Collegiate Circuit Court on Administrative Matters, Specialized in Economic Competition, Broadcasting and Telecommunications, doesn’t end the legal battle between the nonprofit ISP and the federal regulator.

ITC doesn’t feel like the regulator honored the ruling, Bloom said, even though it exempted the ISP from fees in 2017 and beyond as long as it maintains its nonprofit status.

The court instructed the regulator to “take into account fundamental human and constitutional rights when deciding how or if to charge for spectrum use,” he added. “In our case, our mission is social, but we were being taxed as a commercial cellular provider in an amount that would make it impossible for us to continue operating.”

The Continue reading

Community Networks Can Bridge the Digital Divide, But Some Still Need to Be Convinced

Community networks can help bring connectivity to many of world’s population still without it, but some governments, ISPs, and some potential users need to be convinced of their benefits, connectivity experts said.

Community networks can bring huge economic, educational, and social opportunities to areas without Internet access, Raul Echeberria, the Internet Society’s vice president for global engagement, said Wednesday.

With nearly half the world’s population still lacking Internet access, “this is creating a huge gap of opportunities,” he said during a community networking roundtable discussion hosted by the Internet Society.

Through community network projects such as a year-old network in the mountainous region of Tusheti in the nation of Georgia, the Internet Society has seen the proof that existing technologies can bring Internet service to some of the most remote areas on Earth, Echeberria said.

After a year of operation, the Georgian network is providing new economic opportunities to inn keepers and other tourism-related businesses in the region, said Ucha Seturi, director of the community network project there. Demand for Internet service is growing, he added.

With the technology questions largely solved, a key piece of the puzzle for community networks is getting the buy-in of the unserved communities and Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Email Encryption Has Efail Moment

Encryption fails: A couple of stories in the news this past week demonstrated problems with encryption, or at least, problems with deployment of encryption. One researcher demonstrated an exploitable loophole he called Efail in PGP/GPG and S/Mime software used by email clients, reports Engadget. Efail abuses the active content of HTML emails to access plain text. In addition, a malware called Telegrab is targeting the encrypted Telegram messaging service. Telegrab steals encryption keys and cache data from Telegram running on the desktop, Tom’s Hardware says.

Artificial investment: The Chinese city of Tianjin is getting serious about funding artificial intelligence projects, with an investment of about US$16 billion, reports Reuters via the Straits Times. Yes, that’s billion with a “b.” It’s part of a Chinese push to be the leading nation in AI development.

AI knows nudes: In other AI news, Facebook has released stats on the numbers of hate speech posts and posts containing nudity that its technology removed in the first quarter of 2018. In short, the social media provider’s AI is much better at flagging nudity than hate speech, reports CNBC. About 60 percent of hate speech taken down on Facebook required human intervention.

DNS attacks on Continue reading

Internet Companies Have More Work to Do on Privacy, Freedom of Expression, Report Says

Top Internet, mobile, and telecom companies across the globe still have many steps they could take to better protect their users’ freedom of expression and privacy, a new report says.

The 2018 Corporate Accountability Index, released recently by Ranking Digital Rights, gave Google a top score of 63 among 22 companies rated for protecting freedom of expression and privacy. But with a perfect score being 100, all the companies rated fell far short, with most receiving failing grades, the group said.

The good news for users is that 17 of the 22 companies evaluated for the 2018 Index improved scores from last year in at least one area, and many had improvements in multiple areas. Ranking Digital Rights, a nonprofit research center tied to the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, rates the companies on 35 indicators.

“We’ve seen some improvement, but there’s a long way to go,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, director of the Ranking Digital Rights project. “At the same time, some of the improvements we’ve seen have been genuinely meaningful.”

A second piece of good news for users: Some of the companies, particularly the rank-and-file employees, seem to pay attention to their rankings in consumer-focused studies, Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Artificial Intelligence Heads to the Final Frontier

Coming to a space station near you: Artificial intelligence is going to space – maybe not a space station, but a satellite – predicts an aerospace executive, quoted in SpaceNews.com. So-called geospatial intelligence, housed on satellites, will collect massive amounts of data in space and analyze it, she says.

More blockchain believers: Tech giant Oracle plans to release its own blockchain software with a platform-as-a-service product coming this month and decentralized ledger-based applications coming next month, Bloomberg notes. Oracle is working with Banco de Chile to log inter-bank transactions on a hyperledger and with the government of Nigeria to document customs and import duties on blockchain.

Does blockchain even lift? Blockchain can help improve the sports and fitness industry by allowing instructors to securely stream workouts, allowing customers to avoid that annoying trip to the gym, Forbes suggests.

Social media eyes encryption: Facebook and Twitter are both looking at encrypting some user communications, according to news reports. Facebook has voiced support for end-to-end encryption on its blog, apparently in response to concerns it was moving to weaken encryption on its WhatsApp messaging service, BGR.com notes. However, Facebook hasn’t enabled encryption by default on it Messenger service, the story Continue reading