As we built our new website, one of my own guiding principles was “POSSE“, a content publishing model from the “IndieWeb” movement. The idea is:
Publish on your
Own
Site,
Syndicate
Elsewhere
Essentially, make sure you own your own content – and then share it out onto other sites and services. (See the IndieWeb page about POSSE for more discussion.) Make your own website the “hub” for all your content, and then have spokes going out to all the other places where people might discover and learn about your content.
To me, this model is the best way to support the principles of the open Internet, while engaging people in the places where they already are.
This is part of a series of posts about the evolution of our new site.
We aren’t just publishing reports, papers, blog posts and articles for the sake of talking about what we are doing.
We are publishing content to bring about change that ensures the Internet remains open, globally connected, and secure. As we said in our vision statement for the new website:
Our website is a driving force in Continue reading
Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority launched in 2016, has delivered on its pledge to offer free certificates that enable secure HTTP connections for complete domains.
The organization’s new wildcard certificate service, allowing website operators to secure all subdomains of a domain with a single certificate, should help the Internet become more secure by enabling wider deployment of HTTPS, Josh Aas, executive director of the Internet Security Research Group, wrote in a blog post. (Full disclosure: the Internet Society is a major sponsor of Let’s Encrypt.)
Last July, Let’s Encrypt had promised that it would offer free wildcard certificates. With the recent release of the ACMEv2 [Automatic Certificate Management Environment] Protocol, the organization delivered on that promise.
“Wildcard certificates can make certificate management easier in some cases, and we want to address those cases in order to help get the Web to 100% HTTPS,” Aas wrote. “We’re excited about the prospect of a 100% HTTPS Web and we’re working hard to get there.”
A wildcard certificate isn’t recommended for all websites, Aas noted. In most cases, other certificates, such as single-domain ones, will be more appropriate.
Although wildcard certificates enable streamlined management of HTTPS, some security Continue reading
The application process for the Hackathon@AIS is now open. The Hackathon@AIS is an event aimed at exposing engineers from the African region to Open Internet Standards development and is co-organized by the Internet Society and AFRINIC. This will be the second event in the series following a successful event held in Nairobi last year during the Africa Internet Summit.
A list of the topics that will be covered this year can be found here.
Network/Systems engineers, software developers, and computer science students are encouraged to apply as engagement in open Internet standards development can help further their careers.
The event will be held on the 9th and 10th of May 2018 in Dakar, Senegal. If you are interested in participating AND can commit to being available over the 2 days, please complete the application form. Space is limited and successful applicants will be notified and then be enrolled in various online training sessions in the build up to the event.
Fellowships will be awarded to strong applicants where possible.
Applications close on the 8th of April 2018.
The post Applications Now Open for Hackathon@AIS appeared first on Internet Society.
Unlike most children of his age, Alex Bahati, 16, is privileged to have a smart phone at his disposal when he is at home during school holidays. Alex lives with his two young siblings and a house help. His parents work with an international NGO and their work demands a lot of travel and this keeps them away from the family most of the time. The flat where Alex lives is fixed with free Wifi giving the residents access to the Internet without much restriction. At Domus Marie Secondary School where he is in Form one, the deputy principle Mr. Thomson reported that Alex is one among a couple of students who are withdrawn and sleepy in class most of the times. His parents have also pleaded with the school administration to give Alex some special attention because he is addicted to the Internet.
As founder of MediaNetWorks, an advocacy and capacity building organization, I have been holding presentations and seminars about Internet safety in local schools, churches, and events organized for children. Some events of seven years ago remain vividly clear. While giving a workshop on Internet Safety to teens at a local Church in Ngong (Nairobi), Continue reading
While Internet-connected devices afford utility unseen in generations past, they may also create a host of security issues, ranging from insignificant to catastrophic in potential impact. In an effort to mitigate this risk, the Internet Society partnered with Innovation, Science and Economic Development, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, CANARIE, and CIPPIC to host a multistakeholder meeting on the security of IoT devices. The event takes place in Ottawa, Canada on April 4, 2018.
This meeting will be the first in a year-long process to develop recommendations for a set of norms and/or policies to secure IoT in Canada. This event will serve as an opportunity to begin planning and implementing a bottom-up, organic process to remedy existing and potential security challenges in Canada’s national IoT ecosystem.
This session will focus on IoT as it relates to two specific themes: consumer protection and network resiliency. The event will begin with presentations from engaged stakeholders in order to lay the groundwork for group discussion. Participants will then work in small groups to develop consensus on key IoT issues and determine what can be done to meaningfully impact consumer protection and network resiliency. This will create the basis of discussion Continue reading
Un reciente cierre de varios servicios populares basados en la Web en Sri Lanka tuvo como objetivo frenar la violencia de la mafia, pero la acción del gobierno tuvo varias consecuencias imprevistas.
El cierre, ordenado por la administración del presidente Maithripala Sirisena, afectó a Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram y el servicio de llamadas basado en la web Viber. Los servicios se cerraron el 7 de marzo y fueron restaurados el 14 y 15 de marzo.
El gobierno intentó cortar las comunicaciones entre los organizadores de turbas violentas, pero el cierre tuvo un gran impacto en una amplia franja de usuarios de Internet, dijo Sagarika Wickramasekera, presidente del Capítulo Internet Society’s Sri Lanka.
[Read the March 14 statement of the ISOC Sri Lanka Chapter.]
Para obtener más información sobre los cierres de Internet y su costo social y económico, consulte por favor:
The post El cierre de Sri Lanka de los servicios basados en la web genera enormes costos sociales appeared first on Internet Society.
A recent week-long shutdown of several popular Web-based services in Sri Lanka was intended to clamp down on mob violence, but the government action had several unintended consequences.
The shutdown, ordered by President Maithripala Sirisena’s administration, affected Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Web-based calling service Viber. The services shut down on March 7 and were restored on March 14 and 15.
The government’s tried to cut off communications between organizers of violent mobs, but the shutdown had a huge impact on a wide swath of Internet users, said Sagarika Wickramasekera, president of Internet Society’s Sri Lanka chapter.
Because of the loss of social media and calling services, “those who had loved ones in the violence-ridden areas had to go through stressful period of time without any contact with them,” she said.
Facebook-based volunteer groups, civil society activists and other social movements lost contact with their audiences, she added. “This reduced the circulation of validated content and education hence the peace and harmony,” Wickramasekera added. “People had to rely on rumors.”
Businesses and other organizations use WhatsApp and Viber as productivity tools, and their customer communications were disrupted. Small businesses and home-based workers “who were totally depended on social media marketing Continue reading
Good time to be in IoT security: Spending on Internet of Things security products and services will rise to $1.5 billion in 2018, up 28 percent from 2017, estimates Gartner. IoT security spending will skyrocket to $3 billion a year in 2021, according to a story in DarkReading.
Facebook breached? It was hard to avoid the recent news involving Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm used by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The company acquired data on about 50 million Facebook users – getting the data from a researcher – in an effort to build voting profiles for those people. Facebook has called the unauthorized use of its user data a “breach of trust,” while some critics have suggested it’s a plain old data breach, according to a story on Time.com. Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told CNN he’s happy to comply with congressional requests to testify “if it’s the right thing to do.”
Blockchain takes over the world: Google is planning to roll out a Blockchain feature for its cloud-computing service, The Verge reports. The company could potentially license its Blockchain service for other firms to run on their servers. Meanwhile, Chinese telecom and networking vendor Huawei Continue reading
This week is IETF 101 in London, and we’ve been bringing you daily blog posts highlighting the topics of interest to us in the ISOC Internet Technology Team. Friday is only a half-day, but there’s still a couple of interesting sessions to wrap-up the week.
NOTE: If you are unable to attend IETF 101 in person, there are multiple ways to participate remotely.
Homenet starts at 09.30 GMT/UTC, and has the Homenet profile of the Babel routing protocol currently in IETF Last Call. Other drafts being discussed include the Simple Homenet Naming and Service Discovery Architecture, Outsourcing Home Network Authoritative Naming Service, and DHCPv6 Options for Homenet Naming Architecture.
The remainder of the agenda will be a discussion about Homenet security in relation to the home perimeter, HNCP and Babel, as well as appropriate trust models and how to establish trust.
ROLL continues from where it left off on Thursday morning, also starting at 09.30 GMT/UTC. There are several drafts being discussed dealing with the issues of routing over resource constrained networks where limited updates are possible.
So that brings the IETF in London to a close, and hopefully we’ve also given you a bit of an Continue reading
Esta semana tiene lugar el IETF 101 en Londres. El Equipo de Tecnología de Internet de ISOC te trae entradas diarias de blog que destacan los temas de interés.
A NOTAR: Si no puedes asistir al IETF 101 personalmente, hay muchas posibilidades de participar a distancia
Homenet comienza a 09.30 GMT/UTC. Homenet en este momento tiene el perfil Babel del protocolo de enrutamiento. Otros borradores incluidos son: Simple Homenet Naming and Service Discovery Architecture, Outsourcing Home Network Authoritative Naming Service, y DHCPv6 Options for Homenet Naming Architecture.
The post IETF 101, Día 5: Todo claro, verdad? appeared first on Internet Society.
I’m pleased to introduce our new project New Digital Rights MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), that will teach citizens about their personal data rights through GDPR and MyData frameworks. It is funded by the Internet Society’s Beyond the Net Funding Programme and made possible with volunteers.
The project is a partnership between ISOC Finland Chapter and Open Knowledge Finland. Other NGO’s and associations like Electronic Frontier Finland, Faktabaari, and student organisations will be engaged.
The aim of the project is to make citizens more aware of their digital rights, initially focusing on explaining GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and MyData. The solution is to educate people through a MOOC-platform and series of workshops that create content and train people and organizations to use it.
MyData is the biggest part of our work in Open Knowledge Finland at the moment and we have made a whole conference around this Nordic model of personal data management. It is very much entwined with the changes in the GDPR and we felt that while we made people aware of relevant changes in the European data protection, MyData could be explained in parallel to the GDPR, in a separate, cross-referenced module.
As of now, there will not Continue reading
J’ai le plaisir de vous présenter notre nouveau projet MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) de droits numériques (New Digital Rights) qui enseignera aux citoyens leurs droits en matière de données personnelles à travers les frameworks GDPR et MyData. Il est financé par le programme de financement Beyond the Net de l’Internet Society et rendu possible grâce à des bénévoles.
Le projet est un partenariat entre ISOC Finland Chapter et Open Knowledge Finland. D’autres ONG et associations comme Electronic Frontier Finland, Faktabaari et des organisations d’étudiants seront mobilisées.
The post Les débuts des nouveaux droits numériques pour les citoyens finlandais appeared first on Internet Society.
Cuando Internet no llega a lugares remotos, un modelo que funciona muy bien es aquel en el que la comunidad construye la red para llegar a Internet (no esperar que un proveedor llegue a su comunidad sino construir la red para llegar hasta el proveedor más cercano). Eso implica varios desafíos y requiere cambios tecnológicos, legislativos, nuevos estándares y comunidades que sean capaces de construir y operar la infraestructura comunitaria.
Las redes comunitarias tienen características únicas que requieren una evolución y mudanzas disruptivas tanto en las tecnologías como en la gestión de los recursos (aprovechamiento de la infraestructura pública, gestión del espectro, recursos de Internet, etc.).
Las experiencias prueban que existen muchos modelos que hacen sustentables y efectivas estas redes comunitarias. Ahora debemos comenzar a formalizar y generalizar esos modelos para conseguir la escala e impacto necesarios. Debemos promover cambios en reglamentos y en tecnologías, en gobiernos y en empresas, en fabricantes de equipos y en software open-source. Será necesario organizar y capacitar a las comunidades, involucrar a las ONG para que tengan la capacidad y recursos para ayudarlas, convencer a las empresas que esto no afecta sus negocios y ser sensibles a las necesidades y diferencias de las Continue reading
How do we connect everyone, everywhere, to the Internet? What role do “community networks” play in helping connect more people? How can we best use wireless spectrum and what are the issues with that? How can satellites fit into the picture? And what is the state of satellite technology? And what about the role of “space lasers”?
All that and more was the subject of yesterday’s featured panel at the Technical Plenary at IETF 101 in London.
Organized by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), the panel was moderated by our Jane Coffin and included these speakers:
You can watch the recording of the session at:
The session began with Leandro Navarro outlining how half the world is still not connected to the Internet and is not Continue reading
Comment connecter tout le monde, partout, à Internet? Quel rôle jouent les «réseaux communautaires» pour aider à connecter plus de gens? Comment pouvons-nous utiliser au mieux le spectre sans fil et quels sont les problèmes avec cela? Comment les satellites peuvent-ils s’intégrer dans l’image? Et quel est l’état de la technologie par satellite? Et qu’en est-il du rôle des “lasers spatiaux”?
The post Comment connecter tout le monde à Internet? Une réunion plénière technique de l’IETF 101 appeared first on Internet Society.
We are pleased to announce that nominations for the 2018 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award are now open. Do you know someone who should be a recipient?
This annual award is presented to an individual or organization that has made outstanding contributions in service to the data communications community and places particular emphasis on those who have supported and enabled others.
Nominations are encouraged for individuals or teams of individuals from across the data communications industry around the world who are dedicated to the efforts of advancing the Internet for the benefit of everybody.
Past Postel award winners include kc claffy for her pioneering work on Internet measurement, Mahabir Pun for his key role in bringing the Internet to rural Nepal with the founding of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, and Bob Braden and Joyce K. Reynolds for their stewardship of the RFC (Request for Comments) series.
The signature crystal globe and a USD 20,000 prize will be presented at the IETF 102 in Montreal, Canada (14 -20 July 2018) to the chosen candidate.
Nominations can be made either by self nomination or by third party: https://apps.internetsociety.org/form/postel-nominations
Please share this information with your networks. The deadline for nominations Continue reading
Nos complace anunciar que las nominaciones para el Premio al Servicio Jonathan B. Postel 2018 (Jonathan B. Postel Service Award) ya están abiertas. ¿Conoces a alguien que debería ser destinatario de este precio?
The post Las nominaciones estan abiertas ! Jonathan B. Postel Service Award 2018 appeared first on Internet Society.
Fake news spreads much faster than real news, and real people – not bots – are to blame, according to a recent study.
Fake news – defined by the researchers as stories debunked by six major fact-checking services – can spread 10 times faster than legitimate news stories, according to the study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The researchers studied rumors spread on Twitter between the service’s launch in 2006 and 2017. While some U.S. lawmakers and other critics have blamed automated bots for the spread of fake news before the 2016 election, the MIT researchers filtered out tweets spread by bots for their study.
The researchers found that false news not only spread faster than true stories, but it also had a much wider reach, according to the study, published this month in Science. The top 1 percent of news “cascades” – the researchers’ word for widely spread tweets – reached between 1,000 and 100,000 people, while Continue reading
Community Networks are a matter of autonomy, which has been demonstrated by the indigenous communities of Mexico and the world. Like languages, the traditional crop-growing system milpa, the communal land, assembly, and tequio – or community work – it is a tool that addresses the needs of humanity.
Radio, telephony, and community wireless Internet and Intranet networks (local content offline platforms) acquired and operated by the communities themselves, not only respond to the human right to communication and connectivity, but also to the right to exercise it from their own values and principles; to the possibility of discussing and deciding, for example, how it will work, where the infrastructure will be placed, who will be responsible for the maintenance, when it will be used, and how the network that belongs to everyone will be sustained.
The Mexican Constitution recognizes in its Article 2 the system of traditional organization of indigenous communities and the right to establish their own means of communication, in addition to requiring authorities to create the conditions so that they can operate and administer them in accordance with the law. Although the conditions are written on paper, there are persistent legal and bureaucratic obstacles that distance Continue reading
This week is IETF 101 in London, and we’re bringing you daily blog posts highlighting the topics of interest to us in the ISOC Internet Technology Team. And Thursday is probably the busiest day for us, covering the whole range of our interests.
ROLL has its first of two sessions starting at 09.30 GMT/UTC; continuing on Friday morning. There are several drafts being discussed dealing with the issues of routing over resource constrained networks where limited updates are possible.
NOTE: If you are unable to attend IETF 101 in person, there are multiple ways to participate remotely.
There’s a choice between a couple of working groups after lunch, starting at 13.30 GMT/UTC.
DOH was chartered to create a single RFC, so clearly the draft DNS queries over HTTPS is going to be the primary focus of discussion. However, there will also be updates on the practical implementation work, and a discussion about possible future work if there is a decision to re-charter the group.
6LO runs in parallel and has a fairly busy agenda with Registration Extensions for 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery, and Address Protected Neighbor Discovery for Low-power and Lossy Networks having received feedback from the IESG. Continue reading