Hackathon@AIS: Testimonies of the Fellows

The Hackathon@AIS is a yearly event, in its second year, aimed at exposing engineers from the Africa region to Open Internet Standards Development. This year, the event was held in Dakar Senegal at the Radisson Blu Hotel, from 9-10 May 2018, during the Africa Internet Summit (AIS-2018).

The event was attended by more than 75 engineers from 15 countries including 11 fellows who were supported to attend the event.

We are happy to share the testimonies of  the fellows who attended the Hackathon@AIS.

Adama Assiongbon

Hackathon@AIS has been a very good and enriching experience for me because it is a meeting of ICT sharing especially with the IPWAVE workshop which is a technology of the near future where we will be ready on the African continent to implement this technology and bring more to the development of the continent. It is up to us the beneficiaries of Hackathon@AIS to bring a plus to our communities. The idea of Hackathon is very beneficial for the development of Africa. Thank you AFRINIC and ISOC.

Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong

Coming from Chad, I have found the Hackathon@AIS to be a wonderful  and collaborative meeting that I have never seen before. It has allowed me Continue reading

Future Thinking: Arnaud Castaignet on Estonia’s e-citizenship

In 2017, the Internet Society unveiled the 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. The interactive report identifies the drivers affecting tomorrow’s Internet and their impact on Media & Society, Digital Divides, and Personal Rights & Freedoms. In May 2018, we interviewed Arnaud Castaignet, head of public relations for Estonia’s e-Residency programme.

Mr Arnaud Castaignet is the head of public relations for the Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency programme, a government-issued digital ID offering the freedom to join a community of digitally empowered citizens and open and run a global EU company fully online from anywhere in the world. Previously, he worked for the French President François Hollande as a digital strategist. Arnaud is also a Board Member of Open Diplomacy, a Paris-based think tank established in 2010, and a member of the Young Transatlantic Network of Future Leaders, a flagship initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States specifically geared toward young professionals 35 years old and younger. Estonia not only became the first country to say that Internet access was a human right, but has given their citizens free public WiFi, enabled them to vote online since 2005, and are protecting them with strong privacy, transparency Continue reading

2018 Global Internet Report – Take our survey on the Future of the Internet

Last year, the Internet Society published a comprehensive study to better understand the forces of change that will shape the Internet over the next five to seven years: The 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. By focusing attention on the significant potential of the Internet for innovation and sustainable development, but without denying or shirking the challenges it also introduces, the 2017 report has become a powerful tool in the global awareness and advocacy work of the Internet Society and its chapters.

We now want to work with you as our most important stakeholders on a new report that takes a closer look at one of those forces and how it may impact the future, namely Consolidation in the Internet Economy. Understood as growing forces of concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and fewer opportunities for market entry and competition, this topic includes the impact of consolidating forces on all stakeholders as well as on the Internet’s underlying and evolving technology.

We have selected this theme because findings from last year’s report, and developments since its release, indicated increasing concerns about a growing concentration of power in the Internet Economy. They point to market and technical forces that may be Continue reading

Video – Vint Cerf on the 6th anniversary of World IPv6 Launch and why IPv6 is so critical now

Today, on the sixth anniversary of World IPv6 Launch, Vint Cerf, co-designer of the TCP/IP protocol and a “Father of the Internet”, sent us this video message to share with you all:

To learn more about IPv6, read our State of IPv6 Deployment 2018. And if you have not yet started, visit our Deploy360 IPv6 resources to learn how you can begin.

The post Video – Vint Cerf on the 6th anniversary of World IPv6 Launch and why IPv6 is so critical now appeared first on Internet Society.

Six Years After: State of IPv6 Deployment 2018

On the sixth anniversary of World IPv6 Launch, we’re sharing an updated report on the State of IPv6 Deployment in 2018. It really is staggering how far IPv6 deployment has progressed in six years. In mid-2012, Google measured less than 1% of users accessing their services over IPv6. Today that figure is getting close to 25%. Several major operators now deliver the majority of traffic from major content sources like Google, Akamai and Facebook over IPv6. Individual operators, like T-Mobile USA, have deployed IPv6-only networks for their subscribers.

Seven years ago, the Internet Society helped to organize World IPv6 Day, where thousands of ISPs and websites joined together for a successful, global-scale, 24-hour trial of IPv6. A year later, for World IPv6 Launch, major ISPs, home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world permanently enabled IPv6 for their products and services.

To help showcase the progress made in the six years since World IPv6 Launch we are sharing:

– an updated report on the State of IPv6 Deployment 2018
– an infographic that clearly shows the scale and scope of IPv6 deployment
– and a fun quiz for you to test and share your knowledge of the Continue reading

G7 Leaders, the World is looking at you to make the right decisions

As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gets ready to host the G7 Summit this week, renewed tensions around trade remind us how vulnerable the global economy is, and how working together is more important than ever to solve these complex issues.

And today, the world is looking to G7 leaders to make the right decisions.

The connected future is here. While the Internet has yet to reach its full potential (half of the world’s population remains offline), there’s little doubt that it’s already changing the landscape of trade, jobs, and the digital economy. According to data from McKinsey, the Internet accounts on average for 3.4 % GDP across the large economies that make up 70 % of global GDP. The global network offers a unique space where data, goods and services can flow and fuel the next wave of global growth, where anyone can take part and benefit from new economic opportunities.

One of the values of this connected world is our ability to interconnect — the way we live our lives, the way we socialize, and we interact with the world. Everything from clothes to toys and toothbrushes are coming online as well. The International Data Continue reading

The Internet of Food is on the table

The food sector is one of the few large remaining sectors that have not been radically transformed by new technologies yet. Up to now, the Internet in particular was not involved as much as other sectors. However, in a not-too-distant future, the everyday question “what’s for dinner?” will be answered by algorithms managed by the next generation of food companies. When these algorithms are governing the food industry, they will also be governing people as well as their health and well-being.

As food is online, we will start realizing how important network design has become for our existence. The question “what’s for dinner?” will be replaced by “who decides what we eat?”. The Internet Society members, Johan Jörgensen, Michael Daun and Patrik Fältström, assure that this is the most profound question that the tech revolution has asked so far. That is the reason why they created a Special Interest Group on Internet of Food to focus on general discussions around the future infrastructure and standards for the digital world of food.

The project leader Johan Jörgensen explains: “The initial work in the SIG has been about discussing which standards already exist in the food Continue reading

Watch live – June 6 panel on “Innovation, security, and the Internet of Things (IoT)” in Ottawa

As a side event before the 2018 G7 Summit this week in Canada, tomorrow, 6 June 2018, the Internet Society will hold a panel to not only talk about the risks and opportunities the Internet of Things (IoT) brings, but also what policy makers can do to build a connected future for everyone.

The panel, Innovation, security, and the Internet of Things, will take place in Ottawa Ontario. If you’re in Ottawa, you can join us from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 6 June, at the Alt Hotel Ottawa at 185 Slater St. If you’re somewhere else, the event will be
livestreamed.

Moderator David Akin (Global News) will facilitate a discussion between:

• Jeff Wilbur, Director, Online Trust Alliance
• Katie Watson, Policy Advisor, Internet Society
• Jacques Latour, Chief Technology Officer, Canadian Internet Registration Authority
• Mike Hoye, Engineering Community Manager, Mozilla

While the opportunities these connected devices can bring us are virtually unprecedented, the steps we must go through to protect ourselves online can feel overwhelming. At the Internet Society, we believe in a future where manufactures, software developers and service providers put people first and ensure user’s privacy and security is their top priority.

To understand Continue reading

Great Hopes and some concerns at the African Internet Summit (AIS)

Earlier this month, the African Internet community gathered in Dakar, Senegal for the Africa Internet Summit (AIS). The event highlighted some of the great hopes, as well as some of the concerns, that the African Internet community has for the future.

I had the personal honor of speaking at the Opening of the AFNOG meeting where I talked about what the Internet has brought to Africa and the promise that it still holds. I highlighted how Africa has experienced tremendous growth in Internet access and usage over the past few years, and how enormous development opportunities have been opened up for its young population. Believing that we need to put people at the center of our decision-making and build an Internet where everyone’s voice counts, I encouraged the Internet community in Africa to continue to embrace diversity, inclusion, and equality in order to shape an Internet that best serves the billions of people who use it every day, now and into the future.

In many ways, AIS is a showcase for the progress that is being made in creating an Internet for everyone. Key groups are making sure that their voices are being heard.

For example, at a Women in 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

SINOG 5: IPv6, DNS Privacy and IoT Security

There will be significant Internet Society involvement at SINOG 5 next week, which is being co-organised by our colleague Jan Žorž, supported by ISOC, and will feature talks on NAT64Check and the Online Trust Alliance. SINOG is the Slovenian Network Operators Group, and the meeting is held on 7-8 June 2018 at the Biotehniška Fakulteta in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

It’s well worth coming for the keynote alone, which will be given by Ron Broersma (DREN) – one of the earliest Internet pioneers who operated Node #3 of ARPANET. He’ll be talking about IPv6, the Cloud, and a bit of Internet history, and as he was involved in the NCP-to-TCP/IP migration back in 1983, there are perhaps some lessons to be learned in migrating from IPv4-to-IPv6.

Following-on from this will be how IPv6 was implemented at IBM from Andy Mindnich (IBM), a discussion on the issues of CGN and IPv6 from a law enforcement perspective from Sara Marcolla (Europol), some of which we touched upon in a previous blog, and then an update on version 2 of the NAT64Check portal from Sander Steffann. NAT64Check is a tool allowing you to enter the URL of a particular website and run tests over IPv4, IPv6 and NAT64, and Continue reading

Living in Times of Digital Uncertainty: Are Control and Trust Compatible?

The Cambridge Analytica data misuse is the most recent high-profile incident to impact Internet trust. Trust – or the lack thereof – is the term used to describe much of the current state of the Internet. For years now, we have been hearing about a decline in user trust because of fears of surveillance, cybercrime, data breaches, crack downs on speech, or misuse of their data.

However, recently updated data from a recently released edition of CIGI’s annual survey on Trust seems to shatter commonly-held views on the state of trust and raise some novel questions. While the survey covers a wide range of issues from privacy to e-commerce and online habits, one particular result is rather striking:

Three quarters of respondents (73%) said that they agree with the statement “overall, I trust the Internet.” Last year only 56% said that. The trust was highest in China (91%) and India (90%).

This result appears to contradict the assumption that overall trust in the Internet is diminishing.

If, indeed, there is an overall increase in trust, then the first question we should ask is: what type of trust are we talking about?

• Are we referring to trust with regard to Continue reading

APNIC Labs/CloudFlare DNS 1.1.1.1 Outage: Hijack or Mistake?

At 29-05-2018 08:09:45 UTC, BGPMon (A very well known BGP monitoring system to detect prefix hijacks, route leaks and instability) detected a possible BGP hijack of 1.1.1.0/24 prefix. Cloudflare Inc has been announcing this prefix from AS 13335 since 1st April 2018 after signing an initial 5-year research agreement with APNIC Research and Development (Labs) to offer DNS services.

Shanghai Anchang Network Security Technology Co., Ltd. (AS58879) started announcing 1.1.1.0/24 at 08:09:45 UTC, which is normally announced by Cloudflare (AS13335). The possible hijack lasted only for less than 2min. The last announcement of 1.1.1.0/24 was made at 08:10:27 UTC. The BGPlay screenshot of 1.1.1.0/24 is given below:

Anchang Network (AS58879) peers with China Telecom (AS4809), PCCW Global (AS3491), Cogent Communications (AS174), NTT America, Inc. (AS2914), LG DACOM Corporation (AS3786), KINX (AS9286) and Hurricane Electric LLC (AS6939). Unfortunately, Hurricane Electric (AS6939) allowed the announcement of 1.1.1.0/24 originating from Anchang Network (AS58879). Apparently, all other peers blocked this announcement. NTT (AS2914) and Cogent (AS174) are also MANRS Participants and actively filter prefixes.

Dan Goodin (Security Editor at Ars Technica, who extensively covers malware, computer espionage, botnets, and hardware hacking) reached Continue reading

To Tackle the VPNFilter Botnet, It’s Going to Take Help from You and Me

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you might have seen headlines like “FBI to America: Reboot Your Routers, Right Now” or “F.B.I.’s Urgent Request: Reboot Your Router to Stop Russia-Linked Malware”. These headlines can be pretty alarming, and you may find yourself thinking, “things must be pretty bad if the FBI is putting out such an urgent warning.”

Cyber threats are not uncommon, but the good news is that the security community is working around the clock to tackle these threats as early and quickly as possible. Most of the time we do not see all this hard work, nor are we often asked to play a large part in taking down a botnet. But this time, by rebooting our routers, we can help the law enforcement and information security communities to identify infected routers so they can be cleaned up, moving us closer to a permanent fix for a particular kind of malware – VPNFilter.

Here is what happened …

From Discovery to Takedown

On 23 May, 2018, researchers at Cisco’s Talos publicly shared their findings about a large botnet of infected networking devices (home routers) they called “VPNFilter” because of concerns that the Continue reading

Connecting the Unconnected: The Land of Zero Connect

As we move to a more digitally-connected world, the need for Internet access has never been greater. In many parts of the world, the Internet has firmly established itself as a core part of everyday life – and this holds true for everyone from kids to adults to senior citizens. Yet, there remain communities and places around the world that are still offline. In some instances, these are probably the hardest locations to connect. And there are many reasons for this – geography and terrain could be one reason, commercial viability of service provision is another, as is affordability – the capacity of the community to pay for devices and Internet connectivity.

In 2010, the Internet Society Asia-Pacific Bureau launched the award-winning Wireless for Communities Programme. This was a pioneering effort that placed the local community front and centre, with its catchphrase – “for the community, with the community, by the community”.

The focus of the programme is to provide Internet access and connectivity to underserved and unserved rural areas in a holistic manner that leads to socioeconomic empowerment. A key component involves developing communities’ capacity to build and operate the wireless network, and at the same time, empowering them 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

GDPR: Going Beyond Borders

Today, the EU General Data Protection Regulation – or GDPR – comes into effect amid a great deal of anticipation and build-up. For the past few years, companies and policy makers around the world have been preparing for this legislation to come into force. It introduces higher and stricter privacy requirements and heavy fines for noncompliance. The interesting, yet challenging, part of the GDPR is that it applies to all organizations processing the personal data of subjects within the European Union, regardless of their location.

In this sense, the GDPR is an ambitious effort that seeks to fill a gap in the field of Internet privacy. Implementation by organizations around the world has not been easy as the statute is complex and, in many ways, difficult to enforce. This has been particularly so for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups as the costs of ensuring compliance are considerable.

At the Internet Society, we are pleased to see privacy becoming a priority, not just a “nice to have.” As an organization with a global community, operating all over the world, we are among those who have been preparing for the GDPR. Doing privacy well is not easy, but it’s Continue reading

Podcast: Talking Data Privacy and GDPR with Todd M. Tolbert

“Let’s raise the bar on data privacy and make the Internet safer.”  With the imminent arrival of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this was one of the points raised by Todd M. Tolbert, our Chief Administrative Officer, in an episode of the Non-Profit Tech Podcast published yesterday. Hosted by fusionSpan’s Justin Burniske, the 35-minute episode covered a wide range of topics, including:

• the difference between data privacy and data protection
• Todd’s thinking about the value the GDPR brings in terms of thinking about data
• mistakes organizations make with regard to handling their data
• resources for organizations to do more
• how you can’t be liable for data that you don’t have in the first place
• asking the question… do you really need to keep those 700 email addresses that no longer work?

And, of course, Todd being who he is, there were some Texan things mixed in to the conversation as well. I very much enjoyed the episode and found it a useful contribution to the ongoing privacy discussions that tomorrow’s GDPR deadline has generated.

Some of the resources Todd shared included:

• Online Trust Alliance’s Online Trust Audit and Honor Roll
• Online Trust Alliance’s Cyber Incident 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