fixing the Internet?

Last week, the administration said the United States will begin negotiations to cede control of one of the Net’s most powerful institutions, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. Currently overseen by the Department of Commerce, ICANN will be taken over by an international agency to be assembled later. The process is set to begin next week in Singapore, where the current ICANN members are scheduled to meet.

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Who controls the Internet?
a short history & the future? Published on 24 Mar 2014

The Internet began as a Pentagon-funded project called ARPANET, a network linking computers in some American universities and government agencies. Eventually, it was opened up to become the world wide web, connecting everything from computers and mobile phones to tablets and video game consoles.No one government fully controls the Internet, but the US does regulate some protocols. Faced with pressures, it is now considering relinquishing some of it to global stakeholders.Al Jazeera's Gerald Tan reports.

Social media analyst: Internet censorship is a grave concern

Published on 2 Dec 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish : The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations responsible for international information and communication technologies regulations, is set to meet in Dubai to revise regulations for the first time since 1988.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Thomas Crampton, the Asia Pacific director of social media at the communications firm Ogilvy and Mather, says much is at stake in the negotiations.

Winner and losers from the Samsung Apple clash

Published on Aug 27, 2012 by Euronews : Samsung's big loss to Apple in a potentially game changing US patent lawsuit over smartphones meant a dramatic fall in the South Korean company's shares in Soeul - down almost 7.5 percent - while Apple's stock rose in New York on Monday.

But the industry is still sorting out who will be the long term winners and losers in the smartphone world.

Google may suffer as it supplies the Android operating system for Samsung phones. That means it could lose out if Apple manages to get permanent bans on the sale of some Samsung handsets.

A decision on that is due from the court next week.

Partially blocking Samsung from the US market could dramatically change the league table where the South Koreans dominate with 32.6 percent of all smartphone sales worldwide between April and June. Apple had 16.9 percent, Nokia 6.6 percent, Taiwan's HTC 5.7 percent and China's ZTE had 5.5 percent.

Investors obviously think Nokia could be a winner from Samsung's setback.

The Finnish firm's shares shot up on Monday. Its newest smartphones use a Microsoft operating system, which Apple has no problems with.

Other handset makers will now be worrying whether they will be next on Apple's litigation list and how much this case will change the dynamics of the highly competitive mobile phone industry.

IP- a threat to knowledge for human benefit & free market?

Samsung ordered to pay Apple $1bn

Published on Aug 24, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish : A California jury has found that Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, deliberately copied elements of Apple's iOS-based product line.

The jury ruled that Samsung willfully infringed at least three of Cupertino-based Apple's patents, including navigation, zoom features and icons.

The ABCs of Apple v. Samsung

There are five drama-laden days of hearings coming up this week in the patent battle between the two tech titans. Here are some bite-sized takeaways to help keep you in the know.

To casual observers, patent disputes too often prove impenetrable -- with their arcane legal arguments and mind-numbing technical detail.

Apple v. Samsung, however, has been as good a courtroom drama as Silicon Valley has to offer.

We've seen lawyers snapping at the judge. One of Samsung's lawyers literally begged the court to reverse a ruling. A steady stream of juicy trade secrets has flowed out of both companies in the form of courtroom exhibits. And somewhere just offstage waits a third powerful player.

CNET broke the news last week that Google, the company that isn't a party to the suit but has plenty at stake, is lending aid to Samsung as well as other Android partners that Apple has named in similar patent suits.

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• iPhone owned 63 percent of smartphone marketshare at AT&T
• Samsung goes on offense, aims to bust Apple patents
• Judge tosses trio of Samsung phones from Apple case
• Samsung exec: Don't copy, 'learn the wisdom of the iPhone'
• 
  

Trust us, as we go into a full week of new courtroom testimony, there's still plenty of action left. Here are some key facts to help you stay on top of it all.

How did this start? You can trace the clash back to January 9, 2007, when the iPhone debuted. Apple said in a lawsuit it filed against Samsung in April 2011 that within a couple of years of Apple's releasing the iPhone, Samsung had created iPhone clones that ripped off Apple's technology and designs. Apple also claims Samsung did the same thing after the iPad came out. Samsung responded by countersuing Apple for patent infringement.

What's at stake? Apple wants $2.5 billion if it wins. Samsung is also seeking monetary damages. What this case is really about, though, is stopping Google and its Android operating system. Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder and CEO, said before dying last October that he wanted to destroy Android because he considered it a "wholesale" ripoff of the iPhone.

If Apple wins, the company's lawyers will first be able to force Samsung to stop shipping some of its handsets and computer tablets in the United States but more importantly, Apple will have a nice precedent with which to attack HTC and other companies that use Android. If Apple loses, then the decision will obviously work against Apple's larger anti-Android strategy.

Why doesn't Apple sue Google?: One likely reason is that Android is free and Google doesn't profit directly from sharing the OS with phone makers. Samsung, on the other hand, chooses to use Android and is generating revenue upon which Apple can calculate damages.

Samsung also makes for an easier target. Apple can compare the iPhone with Samsung's handsets side by side.

Some of the more compelling evidence that Apple has shown to the jury includes side-by-side comparisons of the two company's icons and graphics. Apple has also presented internal e-mails and documents that show Samsung closely studied the iPhone and knew that its own handsets were inferior to Apple's. Apple argues that these documents prove Samsung was trying to mimic the iPhone.Has Apple landed any punches? Apple seems to have the edge when it comes to which side the court favors. In June, the presiding judge in the case granted preliminary injunctions against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. In addition, Samsung has received four sanctions mostly related to failure to turn over evidence.

Read Full Report :

NYPD and Microsoft launch "spying" partnership.

Published on Aug 10, 2012 by PressTVGlobalNews : The new technology partnership between Microsoft and the New York Police department will pair America's largest municipal law enforcement agency with one of the worlds largest developers of computer software and hardware. The mayor of New York has billed the collaboration as a new tool for fighting crime.

ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA

Monday July 09, 2012 Last week, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject ACTA, striking a major blow to the hopes of supporters who envisioned a landmark agreement that would set a new standard for intellectual property rights enforcement. The European Commission, which negotiates trade deals such as ACTA on behalf of the European Union, has vowed to revive the badly damaged agreement. Its most high-profile move has been to ask the European Court of Justice to rule on ACTA's compatibility with fundamental European freedoms with the hope that a favourable ruling could allow the European Parliament to reconsider the issue. While the court referral has attracted the lion share of attention, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports that there is an alternate secret strategy in which Canada plays a key role. According to recently leaked documents, the EU plans to use the Canada - EU Trade Agreement (CETA), which is nearing its final stages of negotiation, as a backdoor mechanism to implement the ACTA provisions. [UPDATE 7/10: new post on why the concern over ACTA in CETA is warranted] [UPDATE 7/11: EC responds by saying ACTA ISP provisions removed from CETA. Appears likely most of remaining provisions remain] The CETA IP chapter has already attracted attention due to EU pharmaceutical patent demands that could add billions to provincial health care costs, but the bigger story may be that the same chapter features a near word-for-word replica of ACTA. According to the leaked document, dated February 2012, Canada and the EU have already agreed to incorporate many of the ACTA enforcement provisions into CETA, including the rules on general obligations on enforcement, preserving evidence, damages, injunctions, and border measure rules. One of these provisions even specifically references ACTA. A comparison table of ACTA and the leaked CETA chapter is posted below.   has already attracted attention due to EU pharmaceutical patent demands that could add billions to provincial health care costs, but the bigger story may be that the same chapter features a near word-for-word replica of ACTA. According to the leaked document, dated February 2012, Canada and the EU have already agreed to incorporate many of the ACTA enforcement provisions into CETA, including the rules on general obligations on enforcement, preserving evidence, damages, injunctions, and border measure rules. One of these provisions even specifically references ACTA. A comparison table of ACTA and the leaked CETA chapter is posted below.  read more >>

How lone grad student scooped government and what it means your online privacy

Jonathan Mayer had a hunch.

A gifted computer scientist, Mayer suspected that online advertisers might be getting around browser settings that are designed to block tracking devices known as cookies. If his instinct was right, advertisers were following people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were configured to prevent this sort of digital shadowing. Working long hours at his office, Mayer ran a series of clever tests in which he purchased ads that acted as sniffers for the sort of unauthorized cookies he was looking for. He hit the jackpot, unearthing one of the biggest privacy scandals of the past year: Google was secretly planting cookies on a vast number of iPhone browsers. Mayer thinks millions of iPhones were targeted by Google.

This is precisely the type of privacy violation the Federal Trade Commission aims to protect consumers from, and Google, which claims the cookies were not planted in an unethical way, now reportedly faces a fine of more than $10 million. But the FTC didn't discover the violation. Mayer is a 25-year-old student working on law and computer science degrees at Stanford University. He shoehorned his sleuthing between classes and homework, working from an office he shares in the Gates Computer Science Building with students from New Zealand and Hong Kong. He doesn't get paid for his work and he doesn't get much rest.

read more : 30 June 2012

FBI wants to ban new Internet protocol?

With the recent unveiling of the newest Internet protocol system, trillions upon trillions of devices are being paved access to the Internet for the unforeseeable future. And right on cue, the FBI is already up in arms over IPv6.

With computing devices around the globe already switching from the current Internet protocol system, IPv4, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is predictably picking a fight with the biggest names in cyberspace to ensure that the FBI and other agencies across North America will be able to inch themselves into the personal Web surfing habits of citizens across the world. Now requests from the FBI to ready a system to easily snoop through Internet traffic has proponents of IPv6 and industry reps alike scrambling to make sense of the feds’ demands.

Under the original and quickly antiquating Internet protocol system, IPv4, only 4.3 billion computers, modems, smart phones and other wired devices can send and receive information through cyberspace. When the latest rollover to IPv6 is complete, however, 340 undecillion addresses (that’s a lot) will be able to be assigned. On the plus side, trillions of more devices will able to be delivered information over the Internet. The FBI, however, wants to make sure that they can still catch cyber criminals and suggest that they might have to insist that the private sector aids them in their future endeavors.

According to report filed this week by Cnet’s Declan McCullagh, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials have jointly asked Internet representatives that traceability features be enabled with IPv6 that will allow federal agents to identify suspected cybercriminals with the same kind of ease evident with IPv4. Given that the government is already having trouble trying to find alleged cyberterrorists over the Internet as is, though, they might seriously have their work cut out for them. That’s where McCullagh reports, “The FBI has even suggested that a new law may be necessary if the private sector doesn't do enough voluntarily.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official with the FBI clues Cnet in on just why the agency is against the next-generation Internet protocol:

“An issue may also arise around the amount of registration information that is maintained by providers and the amount of historical logging that exists. Today there are complete registries of what IPv4 addresses are ‘owned’ by an operator. Depending on how the IPv6 system is rolled out, that registry may or may not be sufficient for law enforcement to identify what device is accessing the Internet.”

If hunting for cybercriminals is comparable to searching for a needle in a haystack under IPv4, with IPv6 it will be on par with scouring the stratosphere for a single molecule of oxygen.

John Curran of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) tells Cnet, "We're looking at a problem that's about to occur," and adds that, “as service providers start to roll out V6,” that’s exactly what they’ll receive. The answer, according to the FBI, might be a whole new set of legislation that will let them scour cyberspace for the answers for federal inquiries into alleged Internet crimes.

"We're hoping through all of this you can come up with some self-regulatory method in which you can do it," FBI supervisory special agent Bobby Flaim said at an ARIN meeting earlier this year, reports Cnet . "Because otherwise, there will be other things that people are going to consider."

Original report RT | 19 June, 2012

Google told by EC to play ball or face a trial.

The European Commission is warning Google to change its search methods or the company will be forced into court over antitrust issues

The search giant has been under the microscope of the EC over complaints that it has stifled competition in the search market by favoring its own businesses. Several companies have alleged that Google purposely tweaks its search results so that its own sites appear before those of potential rivals.

Until now, the EC been in no rush to launch formal chargesagainst Google. But now the war of words has been ramped up a few notches.

Joaquin Almunia, the European Commission's head of competition, has given Google a deadline of July 2 to change its search results and ad rules or face a trial and the possibility of a hefty fine, according to the Guardian. The deadline and threats were spelled out in a letter sent to Google in light of concerns over the company's dominant position in Europe.

A spokesman for Google told CNET simply that "we continue to work cooperatively with the European Commission."

But the company was a bit more detailed in a statement to the Guardian:

"We operate in over 100 countries around the world, and the Internet is disruptive by its nature. It's understandable that our business should attract scrutiny and sometimes complaints in a few of those countries. We're always happy to answer questions authorities may have about our business."

A Google spokesman also suggested that "we've been co-operating with [the EC's] investigation and that issues can be solved through conversation," the Guardian added.

Almunia has indicated a willingness to settle with Google to avoid a courtroom showdown, but his patience may be wearing thin.

Google has been given an ultimatum by the European Commission: straighten up or we'll take you to court.

The search giant has been under the microscope of the EC over complaints that it has stifled competition in the search market by favoring its own businesses. Several companies have alleged that Google purposely tweaks its search results so that its own sites appear before those of potential rivals.

Until now, the EC been in no rush to launch formal chargesagainst Google. But now the war of words has been ramped up a few notches.

Joaquin Almunia, the European Commission's head of competition, has given Google a deadline of July 2 to change its search results and ad rules or face a trial and the possibility of a hefty fine, according to the Guardian. The deadline and threats were spelled out in a letter sent to Google in light of concerns over the company's dominant position in Europe.

A spokesman for Google told CNET simply that "we continue to work cooperatively with the European Commission."

But the company was a bit more detailed in a statement to the Guardian:

"We operate in over 100 countries around the world, and the Internet is disruptive by its nature. It's understandable that our business should attract scrutiny and sometimes complaints in a few of those countries. We're always happy to answer questions authorities may have about our business."

A Google spokesman also suggested that "we've been co-operating with [the EC's] investigation and that issues can be solved through conversation," the Guardian added.

Almunia has indicated a willingness to settle with Google to avoid a courtroom showdown, but his patience may be wearing thin.Google is also facing similar antitrust woes in other countries.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission hired high-profile attorney Beth Wilkinson to determine whether the company has violated antitrust laws in the United States.

Some experts believe the FTC is using Wilkinson's reputation as a tough litigator to force Google to settle or wind up in court.

Original 

House Approves Controversial CISPA Cyber-Security Bill

Though the House was not expected to vote on the controversial CISPA legislation until tomorrow, lawmakers approved the bill late on Thursday by a vote of 248 to 168.

206 Republicans voted in favor of CISPA, as did 42 Democrats, while 28 Republicans and 140 Democrats voted against it. Fifteen members did not vote. The full vote tally is available on House.gov.

CISPA now moves to the Senate. The White House has already threatened to veto the bill.

Privacy groups swiftly condemned the move, but bill sponsor Mike Rogers said "America will be a little safer and our economy better protected from foreign cyber predators" thanks to the the Cyber Information Sharing & Protection Act.

CISPA would allow for voluntary information-sharing between private companies and the government in the event of a cyber attack. Backers argue that it's necessary to protect the U.S. against cyber attacks from countries like China and Iran, but opponents say that it would allow companies to easily hand over users' private information to the government.

House members debated the bill for several hours on Thursday, and offered up amendments that dealt with things like Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, details about which agencies receive private cyber-security information, clarification on certain terms, and more.

ORIGINAL REPORT :

Anonymous in Paris: Anti-ACTA protest video

Uploaded by RussiaToday on Mar 10, 2012 - Supporters of the Anonymous hacker group, which is calling to halt moves by governments to tighten control over the internet, gathered near the Pompidou Center in Paris on Saturday. The group says it is trying to attract ordinary citizens' attention to the violation of rights and freedoms. In particular, the group is protesting against the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which promotes the creation of criminal sanctions against internet providers and users who do not comply with the legality of content saved or uploaded. The group gained fame because of its attacks on the websites of various organizations and institutions.

Copyright in the digital world - a reality?

Fred Wilson: "Everybody Is a Pirate, So Fix the System"

EU gets tough on internet data protection

Published on 25 Jan 2012 by Euronews - The EU has unveiled tough new rules on protecting internet users personal data that have far-reaching implications for web giants such as Google and Facebook. The proposals would significantly boost regulators' data protection powers. 

Companies could be fined up to one percent of their global revenues for violating the rules. 

Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said: "Citizens will have to know how their data is processed. Second: a consent to use data will be necessary, to be given the explicit consent by the citizens."

An ACTA of war: Secret censor tool to shake up world wide web.

A demonstrator with ACTA stickers on his mouth takes part in a protest against Poland's government plans to sign international copyright agreement ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), in front of the European Union office in Warsaw on January 24, 2012 (AFP Photo / JANEK SKARZYNSKI)

As cyberspace turns its attention to the SOPA and PIPA bills in the US, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been quietly signed or ratified by most of the developed world and is arguably the biggest threat to Internet freedom yet.

ACTA has – officially – been in the works since 2008, and was signed by the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea in 2011. All negotiations were held behind closed doors, and it is mostly thanks to Internet hacktivist groups like Anonymous that news of the potential damage ACTA could cause has spread.

Most recently, Anonymous turned their attention to Poland, where officials announced that they will sign the controversial treaty on January 26. A number of government website attacks has left them paralyzed for two days, and several Polish websites have since announced they will go dark in protest at the treaty, echoing recent unprecedented actions by Wikipedia, Redditt, BoingBoing and many others.

However, Polish officials have said they will sign the agreement as planned. Government minister Michal Boni said "The ACTA agreement in no way changes Polish laws or the rights of Internet users and Internet usage,” after a meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The irony of that statement is that ACTA will do exactly that. It will surpass the sovereign laws of participating nations, especially in the matter of ISP monitoring.

ACTA's reach is far more global, with countries like the US, Switzerland, Japan and all European Union members in its grasp. It is allegedly being introduced "to create new legal standards of intellectual property enforcement, as well as increased international cooperation, an example of which would be an increase in information sharing between signatory countries' law enforcement agencies." But in reality, the measures that have been worked on by behind-the-scenes politicians and media industry moguls are just shy of draconian.

RT 24 Jan 2012   | read full report 

What Is ACTA ?

Uploaded by 1TheRevolutionIsNow on Jan 18, 2012 - ACTA - 'The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement' is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement in Europe.

ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that would create its "own governing body outside existing international institutions" such as - the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.

An open letter signed by many organizations, including Consumers International, EDRi (27 European civil rights and privacy NGOs), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASIC (French trade association for web 2.0 companies), and the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), states that "the current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy."