The Week in Internet News: Google, Mozilla Block Surveillance in Kazakhstan
Root-level spying: Google and Mozilla are blocking surveillance efforts by Kazakhstan’s government, Engadget reports. The two organizations are blocking a root certificate that the Kazakhstan government rolled out, allowing it to monitor the encrypted Internet activity of any users who installed it. The government forced ISPs to require all customers to install the certificate in order to gain Internet access.
Broadband for all: An opinion piece in the New York Daily News calls for citywide municipal broadband service after one city report estimated that 29 percent of city residents have no broadband service. “By virtually all measures, New York City’s system for providing broadband internet service is an abysmal failure,” the piece says.
A new war: The industrial Internet of Things is a new battleground for hackers, Silicon Angle says. Nation states are increasingly targeting these systems, with potentially deadly consequences. “The stage is set for the world to find out what might happen if petrochemical, gas and power plant safety systems designed to prevent catastrophic accidents are disabled by malicious hackers,” the story says.
Regulation isn’t the cure: Meanwhile, regulation alone won’t solve the IoT security problems, says IoT for All. While several governments are considering IoT security regulations, Continue reading
G7 Leaders: Protect Strong Encryption for a Secure World
Encryption protects us every day. It helps secure web browsing, online banking, and critical public services like electricity, elections, hospitals, transportation, and more.
If the G7 countries are truly committed to building a safer and equal world, then it is crucial to recognize the important role that end-to-end encryption plays in securing the Internet, their economies and their citizens.
The Internet Society and more than 30 organizations have signed an open letter calling on the G7 leaders to do just that – prioritize digital security – and not to require, coerce, or persuade device manufacturers, application, and service providers to:
- modify their products or services or delay patching a bug or security vulnerability to provide exceptional access to encrypted content;
- turn off “encryption-on-by-default”;
- cease offering end-to-end encrypted services; or
- otherwise undermine the security of encrypted services.
Digital security is the foundation of our connected economies and societies. And digital security is underpinned by strong encryption! It ensures that data – whether that of law enforcement, banks, or everyday citizens – can only be accessed by its intended recipient. Any attempt to insert “exceptional” or “lawful” access to encrypted content provides a way for others, including criminals, to gain access. This weakens Continue reading
Measurement Lab: How Do We Know If the Internet Is Open?
An open Internet is the foundation of access and innovation, where users can go where they want, when they want without discrimination. But how do we know if the Internet is truly open? As individuals, our Internet performance experience is mediated by our physical location, infrastructure, government, and Internet service providers. Yet we are largely blind to how our Internet is impacted by these systems. Without that knowledge, innovation stalls, disparity of access grows, and people become isolated from this critical piece of global infrastructure.
Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society, is a consortium of research, industry, and public interest partners focused on fostering, collecting, and publishing open Internet performance data. M-Lab was founded in 2008 to build a global platform designed to enable anyone to measure their Internet service using open source tools. Over ten years later, M-Lab collects over 2 million measurements per day worldwide and has become a trusted source of open data and tools to gather and understand Internet infrastructure from the consumer perspective. Cities and municipal governments; national regulators and government agencies; academics and researchers; ISPs, network operators, and companies; civil society and advocacy organizations; and the Continue reading
AfPIF Day Three: A Record Number of Women
It’s been a record-breaking year: 97 women attended AfPIF 2019, the highest ever, showing the fruits of diversity efforts from organizers and sponsors.
In the last three years, there have been fellowships targeting women in engineering, supported by organizations like Workonline, Google, LINX, and Akamai. There’s also been a working lunch, where participants discuss the best way AfPIF can be more inclusive to women.
As the curtains fell on the tenth edition of AfPIF, it was clear that the future is looking bright, with 367 men and women attending, representing 59 countries: 202 from Africa, 36 from Europe, 16 from America, and 13 from Asia.
The first panel of the day was dedicated to looking back at the challenges in the last ten years, identifying the opportunities going forward, and what we all must do in order to guarantee business growth and better connectivity for the region.
One of the key points was that the traditional telco model is changing, and companies will have to adapt in order to stay relevant. Seacom, for instance is exploring other business opportunities as the demand for traditional infrastructure falls and local content grows, leading to formation of ISPs that can survive largely Continue reading
AfPIF Day Two: International Traffic, the Economics of Peering, and a Look Ahead to 2030
In the last five years, Africa’s international traffic patterns have changed, with international and intra regional traffic growing, according to the latest statistics from Telegeography, presented at this year’s AfPIF.
Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos, and Nairobi maintain their top hub status, but Cotonou, Kigali, Libreville, Abidjan, and Dakar have emerged as major hubs as international traffic grows. Cotonou recorded 88Gps between 2018 and 2019, showing a 77% growth, while Kigali recorded 75Gbps, a 92% growth, and Libreville had 113Gbps at 71% growth.
This was attributed to a drastic reduction in connectivity costs, which led to more data center space and eventual demand for more capacity to other international hubs. West African connection, especially between Dakar, Abidjan, Accra, and Lagos has also increased.
Telegeography monitors international transit traffic and the presentation was one of the highlights of the day. Domestic traffic is a bit harder to capture but Telegeography promised to work with more providers to get future snapshots of the growing traffic.
The presentation by Telegeography explored the shifting connectivity landscape in Africa and its effect on interconnection hubs, showing that new hubs may soon emerge, as more and more cities reduce the cost of connectivity and invest in more Continue reading
AfPIF 2019 Kicks Off in Balaclava, Mauritius
The tenth meeting of Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) kicked off in Balaclava, Mauritius, with participants celebrating the achievements and looking forward to further collaboration.
Andrew Sullivan, the President and CEO of the Internet Society, opened by highlighting the importance of the meeting, which helps create a community that supports the growth of the Internet in Africa, identifies challenges, and ensures that understanding spreads.
In his speech, he noted that traffic exchanged inside Africa has expanded enormously as a result of the work done by AfPIF over the years. One of AfPIF goals is to increase the level of local content exchanged locally to 80% by 2020.
Sullivan, who has extensive experience working with international Internet bodies, emphasized the need for a robust community in Africa, led by Af-IX, that will continue working together to ensure that the Internet is built in Africa, according to the needs of Africans and the African network experience.
The annual meeting, brings together chief technology officers, peering coordinators and business development managers from the African region, Internet service providers and operators, telecommunications policymakers and regulators, content providers, Internet exchange point (IXP) operators, infrastructure providers, data center managers, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), Continue reading
Deep Dive: How Healthcare Organizations Practice Privacy and Security
In April, the Online Trust Alliance published the 11th annual Online Trust Audit assessing the security and privacy of 1,200 top organizations across several industry sectors. For the first time, this year’s Audit covered 100 of the top healthcare organizations, including lab testing companies, pharmacies, hospital chains, and insurance providers.
How did they do?
Since this is the first year these organizations were included, we do not have historical comparisons, but we can compare how healthcare sites fared against the other audited sectors. Overall, 57% of healthcare sites made this year’s Honor Roll, the lowest of all the sectors we studied. By far the most common reason for failure in the healthcare sector was weak email security (35%, nearly triple the overall average). Failure due to privacy was better than average, while failure due to site security was slightly worse than average.
Email Security
SPF and DKIM help protect against forged email. Overall 87% of healthcare organizations had SPF on their top-level domain and 67% had DKIM (the lowest of any sector, and the main source of healthcare’s failing scores). DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM results, provides a means for feedback reports, and adds visibility for Continue reading
The Week in Internet News: White House Proposes Social Media Monitoring
We’re watching you: A leaked proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration would put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of regulating how social media platforms and other websites decide what appears on their pages, CNN reports. Critics said the proposal amounts to censorship.
We’re watching you, part 2: In other U.S. government news, the Trump administration has asked a court to reauthorized a suspended National Security Agency surveillance program, targeting the telephone records of U.S. residents, the New York Times reports. The Trump administration wants to make the controversial phone records collection program permanent.
Not just the U.S. government: The Indian government wants Twitter to block what it deems is fake news by suspending eight Kashmir-based accounts for allegedly spreading rumors, India Today reports. Indian security forces have alleged that groups in Pakistan have attempted to divide the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, areas controlled by India but claimed by Pakistan.
Even more watching: Technicians from Chinese networking vendor Huawei have reportedly helped government officials in Uganda and Zambia spy on political opponents, TechCrunch reports. News reports have Huawei technicians helping the officials spy on the use of apps like WhatsApp and Skype and Continue reading
Day Zero 2019: Bringing Together Young People to Talk about Internet Governance
As we work to foster the multistakeholder model in Internet governance, we must include the voices of youth. They’ve grown up in the age of the Internet, where using connected devices is second nature and we’re beginning to have conversations around issues like encryption and privacy. Young people deserve not just a seat at the table, but to have a say.
Which is why the Internet Society supported the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) USA Youth Day Zero. It’s an event for young people to come together, discuss the Internet policy issues they care most about, and brainstorm potential solutions ahead of the IGF USA. Held at the Center for Democracy & Technology, Day Zero brought together youth from across civil society and academia to ask questions of professionals and talk with one another. It also provided an opportunity for young people to create and foster connections with one another.
The first panel featured professionals who shared how youth could get involved in Internet governance – and the importance of their participation. The panelists were Dustin Phillips (co-chair of the Internet Governance Forum USA and executive director of the Internet Society’s DC chapter), Katie Jordan (Senior Policy Advisor at the Internet Continue reading
Second Meeting of the Indian Network Operators’ Group Concludes Successfully
The Indian Network Operators’ Group (INNOG) organized their second meeting ( INNOG 2) in New Delhi on 1-4 July. The event, comprised of a conference and three workshops, was attended by more than 170 local and international participants. The event was supported by ISPAI, APNIC, NIXI, Internet Society, Tata Communications, Telestra, Spectra, Amazon Web Service, Software Technology Parks of India, and COAI. The Internet Society India Delhi Chapter also supported the event.
The conference held on 1 July was inaugurated by Arnold Nipper of DE-CiX, David Huberman of ICANN, Rajesh Chharia of ISPAI, Ramesh Chandra of Reliance JIO, Shailesh Gupta of Tata Communications, and Srinivas Chendi and Anurag Bhatia of Hurricane Electric. The conference sessions covered a variety of topics including root service, routing security, FreeBSD, leveraging IPv6 for explosive growth, and the ecosystem of IXPs. David Huberman of ICANN shared latest updates on DNS and highlighted the Open Forum in which participants can network and exchange ideas.
Subsequently, from 2-4 July, three workshops were held to address the ongoing challenges faced by Indian Internet services providers. The three workshops were on IPv6 deployment, IXP deployment, and the multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) routing technique.
The workshop on IPv6 Continue reading
Preserving Native Cultures: Vote Now for the Internet Society’s Panel for SXSW 2020
What benefits can Internet connectivity bring to Tribal and Indigenous communities – especially when it comes to language and culture preservation? That’s the topic of our panel proposal for South by Southwest (SXSW) 2020: “How Internet Access Can Preserve Native Cultures.”
And we’re excited to announce that you can now vote for it!
SXSW, is an annual conference held in Austin, Texas, USA. The conference’s many events include a music festival, networking opportunities, and panels that focus on technology, governance, film, culture, and music. The panels featured at SXSW live within tracks that range from health and medtech to innovative applications of new technologies. All panels at SXSW are chosen through a public vote so that participants can decide what they want to discuss at the event.
That’s where we need your help!
SXSW is a platform for bringing important policy issues and initiatives to light, which is why we’ve applied. It’s an ideal forum for exposing the impact that technology can have on culture.
If accepted, our panel would discuss specific issues that Tribal and Indigenous areas face when it comes to broadband deployment, the lessons that communities can learn from one another, and how they can Continue reading
MANRS Observatory: Monitoring the State of Internet Routing Security
Routing security is vital to the future and stability of the Internet, but it’s under constant threat. Which is why we’ve launched a free online tool so that network operators can see how they’re doing, and what they can improve, while anyone can see the health of the Internet at a glance. The MANRS Observatory measures networks’ adherence to MANRS – their “MANRS readiness” – a key indicator of the state of routing security and resiliency of the Internet.
Here’s what the MANRS Observatory is in a nutshell:
- Performance Barometer: MANRS participants can easily monitor how well they adhere to the requirements of this initiative and make any necessary adjustments to their security controls.
- Business Development: Participants can see how they and their peers are performing. They can leverage the MANRS Observatory to determine whether potential partners’ security practices are up to par.
- Government: Policymakers can better understand the state of routing security and resilience and help improve it by calling for MANRS best practices.
- Social Responsibility: MANRS implementation is simple, voluntary, and non-disruptive. The Observatory can help participants ensure they and their peers are keeping their networks secure, which helps improve routing security of the Internet as a whole.
The Week in Internet News: Testing 1, 2, 3
This is a test: Amazon has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for permission to test a new wireless Internet service using the 3.5 MHz spectrum band, Cord Cutters News reports. The test, in Sunnyvale, California, would run from mid-August to mid-February. The test is in addition to Amazon’s plans to launch 3,236 satellites for a new home Internet service.
Billions for broadband: U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, wants to spend $85 billion to expand rural broadband in the country, CNet reports. She also wants to override states trying to prevent local municipalities from building their own broadband networks.
Russian hackers vs. the IoT: Microsoft has accused a Russian hacking group of targeting Internet of Things devices, including a voice over IP phone and office printer, Security Today reports. The Russian group known as Fancy Bear was allegedly involved in the hack of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 U.S. elections.
Lawsuit recognition: Facebook users can sue the social networking site for its facial recognition photo tagging service, a U.S. court has ruled. Illinois users have claimed the tagging service violates a state privacy law, NPR reports. “Once a Continue reading
Ulukhaktok: Community Networking in the (Far) North
In June of this year, I had the great privilege of traveling to Ulukhaktok, NWT, Canada to talk to community members about the possibility of building a new, local Internet service network. As a result of these meetings, and the incredibly driven individuals I met with in Ulu, this time next year, Ulukhaktok will be the proud owner of the far-most Northern community network in the world.
I left Washington, D.C. in the throes of summer – upper 80-degree weather and so humid you’d feel wet the second you stepped outside. Two days and five planes later I was in Ulukhaktok, a community of about 400 people on the 70th parallel. Summer there is a little different, and I explored the community amidst summer snow and 24-hour days.
I spent four days getting to know the community, and it wasn’t hard to understand the deep sense of community pride right away. Ulu is a beautiful, U-shaped town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. It’s filled with people who will stop when they see a stranger, smile, and ask who you are and what you’re doing. And every time someone stopped, I told them about the Internet Society, Continue reading
Save the Date: 4th Summit on Community Networks in Africa
The 4th Summit on Community Networks (CNs) in Africa will take place in Dodoma, Tanzania from 28 October to 2 November 2019. The Summit hopes to promote the creation and growth of CNs, increase collaboration between CN operators in the region, and provide an opportunity for them to engage with other stakeholders.
The main activities planned include:
- Training Workshop: 28-29 October
- CN Summit Plenary: 30-31 October
- Site Visit to Kondoa Community Network: 1-2 November
The event is targeted at CN operators, policy makers, researchers, evangelists, sponsors, and related networks such as community radio.
Last year over 100 participants from 20 countries, 13 of them African, gathered in Wild Lubanzi, in one of the deepest rural areas of the Eastern Cape. The 3rd Summit on CNs in Africa was organized by the Internet Society,Zenzeleni Networks NPC, and APC from 2-7 September 2018. For the approximate 40 participants from surrounding communities, the Summit was their first international conference – or conference of any kind. It was exciting to see them absorb everything and feel proud of their neighbors in Mankosi, home of the Zenzeleni project, one of many community networks in Africa.
CNs offer local solutions to the connectivity Continue reading
Working Together for an Internet for Women
How can we get more girls and young women involved in the Internet?
Since 2017, the Internet Society’s Women SIG has developed global actions to promote gender equality and to develop digital skills and leadership among girls and young women.
With the support of several Chapters of the Internet Society, we’ve organized global face-to-face and virtual events on security and privacy issues focused on girls and women. But this work can’t be done alone, which is why we’ve promoted collaboration within organizations, government, civil society, companies, academia, and the technical community to organize events that have a positive impact on the Internet community. (We also collaborate with EQUALS Global Partnership.)
This year, to commemorate the International Day of Girls in ICT, promoted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which aims to reduce the digital gender gap and to encourage and motivate girls to participate in tech careers, we organized a series of workshops focused on digital skills for girls. The main node was organized in conjunction with the Internet Society Chapter in Guatemala and the Spain Cultural Center in Guatemala.
We also had a global celebration in El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Honduras, Hong Kong, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Armenia, Continue reading
2019 Indigenous Connectivity Summit Training: Empowering Communities to Create Connections on Their Own Terms
Indigenous communities across North America are working to bridge the digital divide.
Each year the Indigenous Connectivity Summit (ICS) brings together community leaders, network operators, policymakers, and others to talk about new and emerging networks and the policies that impact them. During the two-day Summit, people from across the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world share best practices, challenges, and success stories – and learn how they can work together when they return home to solve connectivity challenges in Indigenous communities.
This year, we’ll be in Hilo, Hawaii from November 12-15.
But that’s not nearly enough time to cover everything, especially with close to 1,000 amazing participants (200 in-person and 700 online) ready to share their stories and create new connections.
So we’re trying something new. As we’ve done before, the ICS will still be split into two parts: a two-day training and a two-day event. But this year, participants can also attend a series of two distinct virtual training sessions before the event in Hawaii: Community Networks and Policy and Advocacy.
These sessions will allow participants to spend time over the course of several weeks getting in-depth information about two of the topics we spend Continue reading
The Week in Internet News: Capital One Breach Affects Over 100 Million
Millions and millions served: More than 100 million people were affected by a massive data breach at banking and credit card company Capital One, Krebs on Security says. The stolen data included about 140,000 U.S. Social Security numbers and approximately 80,000 bank account numbers, and about 1 million Social Insurance Numbers for Canadian credit card customers. A former software engineer has been arrested and accused of stealing the data. The breach is one of the 10 largest ever, USA Today says.
Here we go again: The so-called Five Eyes spy agencies are again calling on tech vendors to allow law enforcement agencies access to encrypted material, Reuters reports. Encryption should not come at the expense of the public’s safety, the five countries argued, even though many security experts say encryption backdoors will hurt public safety. Meanwhile, the U.S and U.K. are specifically targeting encryption in WhatsApp, Forbes says.
Expanded access: Cuba has brought Internet access to private homes and businesses, the New York Times reports. The Cuban government has put into effect a new set of regulations that seek to expand Internet access across the country. The regulations permit the creation of private wired and WiFi internet Continue reading
Asia-Pacific ICT Ministers Focus on Co-Creating the Future of the Internet
Last month, ICT ministers across Asia-Pacific got together in Singapore to decide on the direction of ICT development in the region. At the end of the three-day gathering, leaders adopted the Singapore Statement of the Asia-Pacific ICT Ministers on Co-creating a Connected Digital Future in the Asia-Pacific, a set of high-level policy guidelines that will set the tone for activities of the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) in the next five years.
The Singapore Statement is significant in that it fortifies the principles that underpin a conducive environment for the digital economy to thrive:
- It reinforces support for the multistakeholder approach, with states highlighting their own efforts to make ICT policy processes more inclusive during the meeting.
- It renews its commitment to foster digital communities through collaborative projects to connect unserved and underserved areas.
- It makes explicit references to interoperability and the free and secure flow of information online, putting equal weight on protecting users’ privacy.
It is particularly encouraging to see that amidst the race to capitalize on the vast amounts of data collected from us and our online activities, ICT Ministers opted to focus on trust – built on accountability, transparency, and ethics – as a fundamental pillar in the Continue reading
The Week in Internet News: The Internet of Things and the Domain Name System
IoT vs. DNS: As the use of the Internet of Things grows, so do its threats on the Internet’s Domain Name System, Network World says. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and IBM’s X-Force security researchers have both issued reports describing how the insecurity of IoT could lead to more botnets that attack the DNS.
A lot of zeros: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced an expected $5 billion fine against Facebook for privacy breaches, The Verge reports. Still, some critics suggested the fine was too small. Facebook’s revenue in 2018 was 11 times more than the fine, at $55.8 billion.
Not too big to investigate: Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into Google, Amazon, and Facebook, Vox.com reports. The DOJ’s Antitrust Division is reviewing “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.”
Not just the DOJ: And the Federal Trade Commission is also getting into the antitrust investigations act. Facebook has announced that its friends at the FTC, fresh off their $5 billion fine of the social media Continue reading