More than 30 million people lost their data connectivity on December 6, 2018, in the United Kingdom as O2's network suffered from a nationwide service outage. Based on several reports, the incident was caused by a human error at Ericsson, the telecoms supplier responsible for operating certain parts of the O2 network. To compensate for the downtime and tarnished reputation, the O2 management is now reportedly seeking damages of up to a hundred million pounds from Ericsson. more
Last week ETECSA began offering 3G mobile access to Cuba's national intranet and the global Internet and President Diaz-Canal tweeted the news. His tweet has received 216 comments so far and reading through them, many are effusively positive... Others were critical, noting that the prices are high relative to Cuban incomes (one said "absurd") and the technology is obsolete -- "Congratulations, but they're 20 years late." more
The short history of Internet Governance is full of errors, failures, and - mainly - omissions. Despite the shortcomings, we also must acknowledge the achievements of past and present internet governance efforts. In particular, ICANN and its stakeholder constituencies have delivered on the mandate of a stable, secure and resilient Internet. Working with the IANA, IAB and IETF, the operational functions of IP addresses, and the Protocol Assignment and DNS must be seen as an unqualified success. more
There is considerable rhetoric propagated today about 5G security. Some of the more blatant assertions border on xenophobia with vague assertions that the 5G vendors from some countries cannot be trusted and wholesale government banning is required. Existing treaty obligations are being summarily abrogated in favour of bilateral trade bullying. These are practices that the late President George H.W. Bush sought to eliminate a quarter century ago through intergovernmental organization initiatives... more
Here in the United States, we recently celebrated Thanksgiving and with that, we now enter the last weeks of 2018. I've spent much of this past year involved in ICANN's Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) for gTLD Registration Data and I'm happy to say our group has reached a historic milestone. Just last week, the group published its initial report for public comment. more
Macron has declared the Internet to be under threat. Without stepping back to question and explore the underlying causes of those threats, he uses them as a justification to propose a different approach to, albeit limited, current Internet Governance processes. Here we explore his proposals and some of the issues they generate. He acknowledges that Civil Society and the private sector have been core drivers in the creation of the Internet. He argues that its benefits and existence are endangered by predatory practices. more
Several weeks ago, the White House published a document asserting that "America Will Win the Global Race to 5G." The White House should get over it. This is not about America winning any global race to 5G, but the world working together on fundamentally different, complex, new communication networks and services. There are four important points, however. more
Over the past few years, the term "open internet" has become popular among politicians in Washington and Europe. It is bandied about in political pronouncements that assert that everyone needs to somehow support the open internet without ever actually defining it. It is sometimes used as a synonym for Net Neutrality. In fact, it is a bogus public relations term that is rather like saying you believe in the Tooth Fairy. more
Today, President Macron threw down the gauntlet to President Trump and the US administration on Multistakeholderism. In his welcome address to IGF 2018 Paris a few hours ago, President Macron challenged IGF to become more relevant by reinventing itself in factoring in multilateralism into IGF's non-decision-making body and to move beyond the mere talk-ship lip service it has been for the last 13 years. more
As the ITU-T 2018 Plenipotentiary Conference rolls toward a close this week, its most controversial and contentious subject appeared baked into a new treaty instrument resolution that has apparently reached a kind of steady-state. After distilling the many input proposals through ten revisions and a corrigendum, the tasked drafting committee has produced a new resolution with the simple title of "OTTs." more
My thesis is simple: the way we protect privacy today is broken and cannot be fixed without a radical change in direction. My full argument is long; I submitted it to the NTIA's request for comments on privacy. Here's a short summary. For almost 50 years, privacy protection has been based on the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs). There are several provisions... more
The development of the Internet has arrived at a new Crossroads. The growing Internet Governance complexity is leading also to a higher level of confusion on how the digital future should be shaped. The French president Emanuel Macron and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will open both the Paris Peace Forum and the 13th IGF where Internet Governance is a key issue. Is the time ripe for a "New Deal" on Internet Governance? And which stakeholder should bear the primary responsibility for the normative framing of the key challenges internet governance is facing? more
Two months ago, the Trump White House published its National Cyber Strategy. It was followed a few days ago with the release of its draft NSTAC Cybersecurity "moonshot." The Strategy document was basically a highly nationalistic America-First exhortation that ironically bore a resemblance to China's more global two-year-old National Cybersecurity Strategy. more
Last week during the ICANN meeting in Barcelona I attended a short presentation from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Their mission is pretty simple: ...eliminate child sexual abuse imagery online. Fortunately, the presentation I was at did not include any of the actual material (which would have been illegal anyway) but even without seeing any of it the topic is one that I think most people find deeply disturbing. more
This past Saturday, a self-professed neo-Nazi massacred eleven worshipers at synagogue services in Pittsburgh. The killer was reported to have lived on and was incented by an "Over the Top (OTT)" service purposely established to facilitate extremist activities known as Gab. Within hours, the cloud service providers hosting their services announced they would no longer provide hosting services. Presumably, the threat of both potential civil litigation liability among other penalties, as well as adverse publicity, provided the motivation. more
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