The African Union's Convention on the Establishment of a Credible Legal Framework for Cyber Security in Africa (AUCC) has been the focus of debate recently.To shed light on online security issues in Africa, CIO East Africa sought the views of Ms Sophia Bekele, an internet security expert and international policy advisor over internet and ICT. more
Delegation from the European Standardization Organizations (ESOs) - CEN, CENELEC and ETSI - met with Neelie Kroes, the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, in Brussels yesterday (2 April 2014) discussing how to maximize the positive contribution that standards can make to enhancing internet security and protecting personal data, in order to support the successful implementation of the EU Cybersecurity Strategy. more
The Subcommittee on Communications and Technology has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, April 2, 2014 on "Ensuring the Security, Stability, Resilience, and Freedom of the Global Internet." more
On October 30 – 31, 2013, The New York Review of Books held a conference called "Power, Privacy, and the Internet," taking a look at the role of the Internet both as a vehicle of political and cultural dissent and, in the hands of the state, as a weapon of repression and control. The recordings from the event have recently been released where listeners can stream or download the audio. more
Turkey's Parliament has passed a bill that includes controversial arrangements concerning the protection of online privacy despite concerns raised by the European Union as well as Turkish NGOs and opposition parties, according to a report today by Turkey's Daily News. more
Internet security has been a primary focus this week for more than 1100 engineers and technologists from around the world gathered at the 88th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Participants are rethinking approaches to security across a wide range of technical areas. more
Doug Madory from Renesys reports: "In response to recent NSA spying allegations, Brazil is pressing ahead with a new law to require Internet companies like Google to store data about Brazilian users inside Brazil, where it will be subject to local privacy laws. The proposed legislation could be signed into law as early as the end of this week. However, Google's DNS service started leaving the country on September 12th, the day President Rousseff announced her intention to require local storage of user data." more
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has announced that greater efforts to bring about better, more consultative global policy-making are needed to maximize the potential of the Internet to power future economic growth. ICC BASIS (Business Action to Support the Information Society) plans to use its presence at the 8th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF), taking place in Bali, Indonesia, between 22-25 October, to call for attention to a greater collaboration between stakeholder groups and stronger pro-growth international policies in order to help the Internet retain its place as the world’s primary economic enabler. more
Leaders of organizations responsible for coordination of the Internet technical infrastructure globally have met in Montevideo, Uruguay, to consider current issues affecting the future of the Internet. more
In a recent blog post, Dan Jaffe, Association of National Advertisers' Executive VP of Government Relations, shares some concerns about ICANN's "overly rapid Top Level Domain rollout". more
Edward Wyatt reporting in the New York Times: "In a momentous battle over whether the Web should remain free and open, members of a federal appeals court expressed doubt over a government requirement that Internet service providers treat all traffic equally. On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission and Verizon, one of the largest Internet service providers, squared off in a two-hour session of oral arguments -- three times as long as was scheduled." more
Google reported today that it has filed an amended petition in the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The company, in a blog post, reports: "This petition [PDF] mirrors the requests made to Congress and the President by our industry and civil liberties groups in a letter [PDF] earlier this year. Namely, that Google be allowed to publish detailed statistics about the types (if any) of national security requests we receive under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including Section 702." Request has also been made by Google for the court to hold its hearing in open rather than behind closed doors. more
Bruce Schneier in an op-ed piece published in the Guardian on Thursday writes: "Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract..." more
Gregory S. Shatan of Reed Smith writes: "Last week, ICANN (the organization that oversees the domain name system of the Internet) was busy with nothing less than the security and stability of the Internet. At ICANN's recent meeting in Durban, those of us attending heard a drumbeat of studies, presentations and concerns regarding "name collisions": the conflicts that will arise when new gTLDs go live and conflict with existing top-level extensions in private networks..." more
Michael Berkens reporting in TheDomains.com blog reports: National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) is an organization whose members include Secretaries of State and Lieutenant Governors of the 50 U.S. states and territories send a letter to ICANN in late July that was just published today, that the new gTLD's .INC, .LLC, .CORP and .LLP.should only be allowed to be registered by 'entities that are appropriately registered and in good-standing with the Secretary of State or other appropriate state agency." more