IPv6, DNSSEC, Security and More at ION Malta

The Deploy360 team is back from ION Malta, which took place on 18 September alongside an ICANN DNSSEC Training Workshop. We again thank our sponsor Afilias for making this possible, and are now working toward our final ION Conference of the year, ION Belgrade in November. All the presentations from ION Malta are available online.

I opened the event with an introduction to Deploy360 and an invitation for everyone to get involved with the Internet Society’s 25^th anniversary the next day. We also heard from Jasper Schellekens, the president of the ISOC Malta Chapter about their activities and how to get more involved. They have a small but mighty presence in Malta and are looking forward to getting more members and increasing their activity.

Next, Nathalie Trenaman from RIPE NCC gave a fascinating presentation on the status of IPv6 in Malta. Unfortunately, IPv6 penetration in Malta is extremely low, but ISPs are transferring IPv4 address space around and, interestingly, have purchased over 30,000 IPv4 addresses from Romania. She encouraged ISPs to begin moving to IPv6 now, as RIPE NCC estimates that full transition takes about 2.5 years to complete.

Next up, Klaus Nieminen from the Finnish Communications Continue reading

Response to the Community on .CAT Issues

Last week I published a statement about Internet blocking measures in Catalonia, Spain.

The situation in Catalonia is delicate and politically sensitive. Understandably, my statement prompted some strong reactions from the Internet community.

In light of this, we feel it is important to clarify what we set out to do in the statement.

The statement was not drafted as a comment on the current political debate and it was not intended to be read in this way. There are many other stakeholders who are much better positioned than the Internet Society to deal with and comment on these political aspects.

Rather, we wanted to highlight the potential consequences for the Internet that stem from the court order requiring .CAT to monitor content and use the DNS (domain name system) to block that content. In this instance, the content in question related to the 1st October referendum.

We firmly believe that intermediaries (in this case the top-level domain (TLD) operator, but it could be any other intermediary such as an Internet Service Provider (ISP)) should not be put in the position of having to decide what content is legal and what is not. Simply put, this is not the role of Continue reading

Every Connection Matters – Shape Tomorrow and Help Close Digital Divides

We are currently living a special moment in time, a sort of paradox.

Today, almost half of the world’s population already has Internet access. This figure is much higher than anything we could have anticipated 10 years ago, an achievement we should be happily celebrating.

But a recent report by the Internet Society, Paths To Our Digital Future, shows there are no guarantees when it comes to the Internet’s future.  To achieve a digital future where people come first will require new thinking, new approaches, and new tools for this rapidly changing world around us.

And with this we find ourselves facing an even greater challenge. This is no longer the Internet of 10% of the world’s population. It is the Internet of 50% of the people around the world; in some countries, Internet penetration is now close to 100%.

The Internet has become essential, and the opportunity gap between those who are connected and those who are not grows each day. We cannot afford to remain indifferent to this Internet revolution.

If we don’t connect the remaining 50%, this gap could have long-term consequences for the opportunities that present themselves later in life.

After the United Nations adopted Continue reading

Supporting Internet Development in The Gambia

Dawit Bekele, the Internet Society’s Regional Bureau Director for Africa, paid a visit to The Gambia from 17-18 September 2017. This was the first time a senior Internet Society staff visited The Gambia with the intention of meeting Internet Society Gambia chapter leadership, members, and local partners. The aim was to discuss our past and future plans for more engagement and future Internet development. It was also an opportunity to raise the profile of the Internet Society Gambia Chapter.

During his short visit, Dawit Bekele and the Internet Society Gambia chapter executives took the opportunity to meet with the Minister, Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure (MOICI), Honorable Demba Jawo.

The team also visited and met with the Management of The Gambia’s Public Utilities and Regulatory Agency (PURA) as well as the Chairperson of the Serrekunda Internet Exchange Point SIXP, Mrs. Isatou Jah. Among the topics discussed was the way forward in fostering partnership with local stakeholders in supporting Internet development, security, and capacity building.

The official visit was preceded by a visit to the Internet Society Gambia office where the team met with the Director General of The Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (TANGO), Mr. Ousman Yabo, and toured the Continue reading

The Most Important Participant in the Internet Ecosystem

The Internet is borderless, decentralised and indiscriminate, and it can empower people across class, colour and social status. But one question has always intrigued me: How can the universality of the Internet be ensured and sustained? I received the theoretical response to this question at the Pakistan School on Internet Governance in 2016 where I learned about the multistakeholder model and community-driven approaches to addressing the broad range of complex issues of the Internet ecosystem. Being part of a telecom regulator in South Asia that generally follows the chain of command, the idea of inclusive policies and programmes was truly a revelation. I decided to explore further and applied for a fellowship to the 2017 Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) and the Asia-Pacific School on Internet Governance (APSIG).

APSIG kicked off on 22 July, followed by APrIGF that ended on 29 July in the beautiful city of Bangkok, Thailand. APSIG had a fantastic line up of speakers that touched upon advanced topics like the Internet governance ecosystem, data governance, cybersecurity, Internet of Things governance, gender equality and the digital economy. The learnings I gained from APSIG laid an ideal foundation for me to contribute to Continue reading

The Current Approach to Data Handling Isn’t Working – The Equifax Breach Illustrates Why

Are you from the United States or Canada? If so, there is a big chance you had sensitive personal information stolen in the biggest data breach of the summer. Equifax, a major consumer credit agency in North America, experienced a data breach resulting in the loss of the personal information of over 140 million individuals, which puts its victims at increased risk of identity theft and other forms of fraud. The Equifax breach is on a massive scale, but it is only the latest in a very long list of reported data breaches in recent years. According to Gemalto, over nine billion individual records have been lost or stolen in reported data breaches since 2013 – and the vast majority of breaches go unreported. Data handlers of all types continue to act irresponsibly, failing to protect the data of their users or to even attempt to apply basic data protection procedures.

How data handlers protect the privacy of user data isn’t working.

The dominant approach to data handling, based around the concepts of risk and compliance, is over 35-years-old. With this approach, data handlers try to adhere to regulatory requirements and minimize the risk to themselves – not necessarily Continue reading

Community Networks: By Indigenous Communities, for Indigenous Communities

At the Internet Society, we believe that the Internet is for everyone. We’re standing by that belief by supporting network development and deployment for indigenous communities that face Internet access challenges.

Community networks, communications infrastructure deployed and operated by local people, offer indigenous communities a way to access the Internet to meet their own needs. These community networks offer a connection to health, education, and economic strength. For many, affordable, high-quality Internet access means community sustainability. In addition, community networks encourage policymakers and regulators to examine new ways and means to fill local digital divides, like supporting local content in the appropriate language(s).

These benefits are not theoretical; we have seen great changes through small projects and united community members working toward a common goal. There are many success stories of indigenous community networks around the world. Take a look at how some of our partners have been working with indigenous communities to develop community networks:

• The First Mile Connectivity Consortium supports remote and rural First Nations developing and innovating with information and communication technologies (ICT) through research, policy, and outreach. Their website highlights stories of people like Bruce Buffalo, who developed a system that offers four free Internet access Continue reading

Small Actions, Big Impact: Making the Internet More Secure

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the United States (or Cyber Security Month in Europe) and we’ve never been so aware of the need for cybersecurity. Since the start of last October, we’ve seen massive DDoS attacks, including one that took parts of the Internet offline by targeting Internet infrastructure; countless data breaches, with nearly 2 billion records lost or stolen in just the first half of 2017; and a virulent case of ransomware which crippled the systems of major companies, healthcare providers, and average users. The seriousness of the cyber threats facing us is clear, but what isn’t clear to most are the solutions.

We all play a role in making the Internet more secure. And each of us have to take action if we want to be safer, our privacy to be better protected, and the opportunities enabled by the Internet to grow. This month, take a few small steps to make the Internet more secure. Even small actions, if done by many, can have a big impact.

To start, take the time to update your devices and software. Running updates is one of the easiest actions you can take. Updates can patch vulnerabilities, making it Continue reading

The Internet Society’s 25th Anniversary and the Renewal of Commitment

Using Wifi to Grow Grapes

ICANN Postpones DNSSEC Root KSK Rollover – October 11 will NOT be the big day

People involved with DNS security no longer have to be focused on October 11. News broke yesterday that ICANN has decided to postpone the Root KSK Rollover to an unspecified future date.
To be clear:

The Root KSK Rollover will NOT happen on October 11, 2017.

ICANN’s announcement states the the KSK rollover is being delayed…

…because some recently obtained data shows that a significant number of resolvers used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Network Operators are not yet ready for the Key Rollover. The availability of this new data is due to a very recent DNS protocol feature that adds the ability for a resolver to report back to the root servers which keys it has configured.

Getting More Information

Discussion on the public DNSSEC-coord mailing list indicates more info may be available in a talk Duane Wessels is giving at the DNS-OARC meeting tomorrow (Friday, September 29). The abstract of his session is:

A Look at RFC 8145 Trust Anchor Signaling for the 2017 KSK Rollover

RFC 8145 (“Signaling Trust Anchor Knowledge”) was published in April 2017. This RFC describes how recursive name servers can signal, to authoritative servers, the trust anchors that they have configured for Continue reading

Can IoT platforms from Apple, Google and Samsung make home automation systems more secure?

In August 2017, a new botnet called WireX appeared and began causing damage by launching significant DDoS attacks. The botnet counted tens of thousands of nodes, most of which appeared to be hacked Android mobile devices.

There are a few important aspects of this story.

First, tracking the botnet down and mitigating its activities was part of a wide collaborative effort by several tech companies. Researchers from Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, Oracle Dyn, RiskIQ, Team Cymru, and other organizations cooperated to combat this botnet. This is a great example of Collaborative Security in practice.

Second, while researchers shared the data, analysed the signatures, and were able to track a set of malware apps, Google played an important role in cleaning them up from the Play Store and infected devices.

Its Verify Apps is a cloud-based service that proactively checks every application prior to install to determine if the application is potentially harmful, and subsequently rechecks devices regularly to help ensure they’re safe. Verify Apps checks more than 6 billion instances of installed applications and scans around 400 million devices per day.

In the case of WireX, the apps had previously passed the checks. But thanks to the researcher’s findings, Google Continue reading

Out of the Section 230 Weeds: Internet Publisher-Providers

On Tuesday, the U.S. Congress continued to grapple with the potential implications of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA). SESTA would carve out an exception to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which is considered a bedrock upon which the modern Internet has flourished. If SESTA became law, websites that host ads for sex with children would be not be immune from state prosecutions and private lawsuits [although under 320(c)(1), websites are already subject to federal criminal law statutes].

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (c)(1) states, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 230(c)(2) protects actors who proactively block and screen for offensive material. These provisions have allowed the Internet to grow and develop without the threat of lawsuits smothering its potential. If the websites of 1990 had been liable for everything their users posted, the Internet would look very different today.

Since 1996, the Internet has dramatically changed in ways unanticipated by the Communications Decency Act. The Internet provides the platform to publish material that can reach enormous numbers of people around Continue reading

Post Equifax, We Need to Reconsider How to Identify People 

Victims of identity theft will tell you the experience is like having your personal life broken into, tossed around, and thrown out onto the street. It is a violation that is indescribable. Then, you could discover that strangers are impersonating you, carrying out crimes under your name, and destroying your reputation. Unraveling the mess that follows is a long, painful and never-ending process – all this because someone else was careless or willfully negligent with your data.

Even if your data was not exposed in the Equifax breach, you should be both concerned and angry. This is a potentially catastrophic breach: roughly 143 million individuals (approximately 45% of the US population) now face the prospect of identity theft.

As a society, we need to seriously rethink why and how we identify people. How did the social security number become the default identifier, especially for non-governmental functions such as credit reporting? When the Social Security Administration first issued SSNs in 1936, their “sole purpose” was to track the earning history of workers for benefits. In fact, Kaya Yurieff points out that until 1972, the bottom of the card read: “FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PURPOSES — NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION.”

Social security numbers Continue reading

Familiarizing Africans with Internet of Things

About 70 years ago, the world was introduced to the digital computers revolution which made the computation of millions of operations as fast and easy as 1+2. This simplified so many time-consuming activities and brought about new applications that amazed the world. Then, about 40 years ago the advent of networks and inter-networks (or the Internet) revolutionized the way we work and live by connecting the hundreds of millions of computing devices that have invaded our homes and offices.

Today, we are at the beginning of a new revolution, that of the Internet of Things (IoT), the extent of which might only be limited by our imagination. Internet of Things refers to the rapidly growing network of objects connected through the Internet. The objects can be sensors such as a thermostat or a speed meter, or actuators that open a valve or that turn on/off a light or a motor. These devices are embedded in our everyday home and workplace equipment (refrigerators, machines, cars, road infrastructure, etc.) or even the human body. These devices connected to powerful computers in the “cloud” might change our world in a way that few of us can imagine today. It is estimated that Continue reading

Celebrating 25 Years of Advocacy

It’s been a week of jubilation: The Internet Society celebrated 25 years of advocacy for an open, globally-connected, and secure Internet with events that crisscrossed the globe. The festivities kicked off at the University of California Los Angeles campus where in 1969 the first message was sent over ARPANET – the Internet’s predecessor.

On 18 September, the 25 Under 25 award ceremony honored young people around the world for their extraordinary work. Born in the age of the Internet, these everyday heroes are passionate about using it to make a positive impact on their communities. Their projects include connecting people with disabilities to employment opportunities, using AI to identify fake news, and humanizing issues affecting refugees and the LGBT community.

Learn more about the 25 Under 25 awardees

Watch the 25 Under 25 Award Ceremony

Just a few hours later, the 2017 Internet Society Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future was launched. The interactive report, the result of in-depth interviews, roundtables, and surveys conducted in 160 countries and 21 regions around the world, offers a glimpse into how the future of the Internet might impact humanity. The report encourages you to explore paths to our digital future, asks thought-provoking Continue reading

Connecting Indigenous Communities

Internet access is often a challenge associated with developing countries. But while many of us in North America have the privilege of access at our fingertips, it’s still a huge barrier to success for many rural and remote Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States.

According to the 2016 Broadband Progress Report, 10% of Americans lack access to broadband. The contrast is even more striking when you look at Internet access in rural areas, with 39% lacking access to broadband of 25/4Mbps, compared to 4% in urban areas.

Many Canadian rural and remote communities face similar access issues. In December 2016, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) set targets for Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer customers in all parts of the country broadband at 50/10Mbps with the option of unlimited data. CRTC estimates two million households, or roughly 18% of Canadians, don’t have access to those speeds or data.

Let those figures sink in for a minute. Today in 2017, millions of people in North America still don’t have access to broadband Internet.

It’s an even harder to pill to swallow when you realize how disproportionately and gravely it affects indigenous communities, many of which are Continue reading

Recognizing Internet visionaries, innovators, and leaders from around the world

As the Internet Society celebrates 25 years of advocacy for an open, globally-connected, and secure Internet, we are honored to recognize some of the trailblazers who have fueled the Internet’s historic growth.

On September 18, the Internet Society gathered to honor the fourth class of Internet Hall of Fame Inductees at UCLA, where nearly 50 years ago the first message was sent over the Internet’s predecessor, the ARPANET.  Over the years, the Internet has evolved thanks to the tireless efforts of individuals, including these inductees, who believed in the potential of an open Internet.

Representing 10 countries, the 14 individuals who comprise the 2017 inductee class are computer scientists, academics, inventors and authors who have advanced the Internet with key technical contributions,  fostered its global reach and increased the general public’s understanding of how it works—in turn accelerating global accessibility and usage among us all.

Ultimately, the success of the Internet depends on the people behind it, and these inductees personify the pioneering spirit of the ‘Innovators’ and ‘Global Connectors’ that have been so instrumental in bringing us this unprecedented technology. They are some of the earliest Internet evangelists and their work has been the foundation for so Continue reading

Watch the Internet Hall of Fame (IHOF) Awards Tonight From L.A.

Who will be inducted into the 2017 Internet Hall of Fame? Who will be recognized for their contributions to the Internet? Find out today at 5:30pm PDT (00:30 UTC) through live video streams. There are multiple options to watch:

InterCommunity 2017 live stream

Livestream.com

YouTube

Facebook Live

The IHOF award ceremony will be recorded and available for later viewing on Livestream, YouTube and Facebook.

Additionally, there is a live transcription service:

View live transcript

You can also follow IHOF activity on Twitter via the @Internet_HOF account and #IHOF2017 hashtag.

The IHOF awards ceremony begins 24 hours of our InterCommunity 2017 event. View the ICOMM 2017 schedule to see what will be happening over the time.

The post Watch the Internet Hall of Fame (IHOF) Awards Tonight From L.A. appeared first on Internet Society.

What does the future hold for the Internet?

This is the fundamental question that we are posing through the report just launched today, our 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future.

The report is a window into the diverse views and perspectives of a global community that cares deeply about how the Internet will evolve and impact humanity over the next 5-7 years. We couldn’t know what we would find when we embarked on the journey to map what stakeholders believe could shape the future of the Internet, nor can we truly know what will happen to the Internet, but we do now have a sense of what we need to think about today to help shape the Internet of tomorrow. The report reflects the views and aspirations of our community as well as some of the most pressing challenges facing the future of this great innovation.

What have we learned? We’ve learned that our community remains confident that the core Internet values that gave rise to the Internet remain valid. We also heard very strong worries that the user-centric model of the Internet is under extraordinary pressure from governments, from technology giants, and even from the technology itself.  There is a sense that there Continue reading