Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

The BRICS Internet Cable: Back to Cable Geopolitics?

October 29, 2013October 29, 2013 Staff Writer

News of the laying of a BRICS-cable triggered public attention as news of laying telegraph cables did a century ago. The ‘cable rush’ by Britain, Germany and France – then major industrial and colonial powers – heralded the start of cable geopolitics which still exist today. Despite all the promises of the end of geography and Internet ‘virtuality’, geography remains as important as ever. Are we facing a renewed interest in cable geo-strategy? In Part 1 of this article, we will look at the emergence of cable geo-strategy. In a…

New gTLDs: does your business know a thing about new domain names

October 25, 2013 Staff Writer

New generic top-level domains are set to shake-up the way businesses pick names for their websites. We explain how they work The starting gun has been fired on the biggest land grab in the history of the web. Beginning today, thousands of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) will be unleashed, giving businesses the opportunity to be more creative with their website addresses. No longer will businesses be restricted to .co.uk, .com or the slightly more esoteric likes of .net or .tv. Instead, they’ll be able to put their brand name…

The Open (Internet) Society and Its Enemies: Can Multistakeholderism Survive “Information Dominance”?

October 18, 2013 Staff Writer

Information Dominance For General Keith Alexander, the head of the US‘s major surveillance agency, the NSA’s fundamental ambition appears to be what he and the US military call “Information Dominance”. “Information Dominance is the ability to seize and control the information domain “high ground” when, where and however required for decisive competitive advantage… Information Dominance means freedom of action to maneuver and act — conduct offensive and defensive actions, kinetically and non-kinetically — at the intersection of maritime, information and cyberspace domains” John Arguilla, a leading US cyberwar strategist defines…

Why the world’s technology giants are investing in Africa

October 15, 2013 Staff Writer

“I don’t understand. Why is it that the media only seems to talk about Africa when bad things happen?” The man behind the counter at my hotel in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, was talking to me about my job, and why I was visiting. He looked genuinely pained. He told me he is a big fan of the BBC – in west Africa the World Service and language services have a big following – but it seemed to him that the media outside the continent often only noticed when bad…

book fair targets Internet giants Amazon, Apple and Google

October 11, 2013 Staff Writer

Organisers of the world’s biggest book fair warned on Tuesday against the domination of Internet giants as the publishing world grapples to blend old and new forms of reading. American giants Amazon, Apple and Google — whose entry into the world of online sales and digital books is threatening the traditional publishing industry — are “logistics magicians but are not publishers”, said Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. “There’s no passion there,” he told reporters as the giant German book fair prepared to open Wednesday. Boos warned it…

Big data pitches the EU against US government and corporates

October 11, 2013 Staff Writer

The benefits of big data are being squashed under a steamroller of short-term corporate interests and the privacy abuses of security infrastructure, argues Joe McNamee. Joe McNamee, is the executive director of European Digital Rights (EDRi), an NGO that campaigns for civil rights in the digital environment. “What legal framework should be implemented when companies and governments increasingly know more about individuals than they know about themselves? This is the stark – and vastly underestimated – question that is facing European policy-makers in the reform of the data protection framework.…

During Shutdown, IRS Computers Still Churn Out Tax Liens, Levies And Bills

October 7, 2013 Staff Writer

At 1 A.M. Tuesday, just an hour after the budget standoff forced the partial shutdown of the federal government , Forbes contributor Kelly Phillips Erb (aka Taxgirl) delivered two pieces of bad news to taxpayers: you still have to pay any taxes due, and if you have problems, tough luck, the Internal Revenue won’t be answering its phones. (Yes, you cynics, that is news. Even during the busy tax return filing season more than two thirds of callers do get through to a human being at the IRS, although they…

Twitter to raise $1bn in its stock market launch

October 4, 2013 Staff Writer

Social networking company Twitter has said it plans to raise $1bn (£619m) in its stock market debut in documents filed with US regulators. In the filing, revealed on Thursday, the seven-year-old company said that it now has 218 million monthly users and that 500 million tweets are sent a day. It made a loss of $69m in the first six months of 2013, on revenues of $254m. It will be the largest Silicon Valley stock offering since Facebook’s listing in 2012. Analysts said that the offering was likely to get…

ICANN and Your Internet Abuse

October 3, 2013 Staff Writer

In spite of the material we were presented with in Durban something has gone very wrong inside of ICANN Compliance. KnujOn has published a report which demonstrates that ICANN Compliance appears to completely collapse between September 2012 and December 2012. Following December 2012, ICANN seems to stop responding to or processing any complaints. It is around this time certain compliance employees start disappearing. This was not limited to the Sydney office as some would have us believe, all while we have been given assurances the compliance team was being ramped…

Tips to Protect eCommerce Website Availability and Security During the Holidays

October 3, 2013 Staff Writer

With the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, Internet retailers are gearing up for an onslaught of Web traffic — which is great, as long as they have the right measures in place to keep their customers safe and satisfied. Even one hour of downtime due to a website outage or a malicious attack can have significant impact on a retailer’s reputation and revenue, especially during the holidays, a time which the National Retail Federation says can add up to 40 percent of an online retailer’s annual revenue. With some large…