Category: featured

U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance

Staff Writer

Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws. The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors’ Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12. “The Justice Department is helping private…

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Africa Union Tyranny of .africa and the African Community Circus

Staff Writer

The GAC shall provide advice and communicate issues and views to the ICANN Board. The GAC is not a decision making body. Such advice given by the GAC shall be without prejudice to the responsibilities of any public authority with regard to the bodies and activities of ICANN, including the Supporting Organisations and Councils.” GAC Principle 1   Following the article written on Kenya’s position being ignored at GAC, the former Vice chair at GAC Ms. Alice Munyua has reportedly forwarded a 12th April 2012,a letter that was written by Kenya…

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DotConnectAfrica Participates at the ICANN 46 International Meeting in Beijing, China

Staff Writer

DCA’s application for .Africa new gTLD received an ICANN GAC Policy Advice Objection which the organization hopes to resolve by following the due process provisions within the ICANN new gTLD Program. PRLog (Press Release) – Apr. 17, 2013 – The DotConnectAfrica Trust delegation led by its Executive Director/CEO, Ms. Bekele participated and contributed at various sessions of the ICANN 46 International Meeting held in Beijing China from 7th – 11th April 2013. Beijing, is the capital of the People’s Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in…

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Crowdsourced videos, photos could aid Boston blast investigations

Staff Writer

Law enforcement officials could have something very different on their hands as they investigate the dual bomb blasts that struck the Boston Marathon finish line today: a potential abundance of photo and video evidence from the public. Government surveillance, while growing, still misses more than it catches. But events with thousands of spectators offer the potential for a detailed crowdsourced record of what happened. This public panopticon is changing how we see the world. February’s Russian meteor was captured by many dash-cams mounted in Russian cars, but in this case…

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U.S. Department of Commerce not supporting USPS objection to .mail top level domains

Staff Writer

Last week I wrote about how the United States Postal Service filed objections to all of the top level domain applications for .mail. It’s a big waste of money, as in order to prevail the USPS would have to show it has some sort of legal rights to the term “mail”. ICANN just published a letter from Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the U.S. Department of Commerce, saying that it does not support the objections: Adapted from domainnamewire

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gTLD: The Impact of 524 Words on the Global Branding World

ADOTAS – There are specific 542 dictionary words applied for as generic top-level domain as ICANN gTLDs at an average cost of million dollars each. What will these dictionary words achieve as cyber brands, what power will they exert on new and established brands and who will be the new winners or losers in this global race? Which dictionary words will win gold, silver or bronze medal as top level domain names?  Each one of the 542 proposed dictionary word top-level domains will be analyzed and categorized in a special…

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Internet addresses coming closer to being more international

Research Triangle Park, N.C. — The agency in charge of Internet addresses says it’s given preliminary approval for 27 new suffixes — all in Chinese, Arabic and other languages besides English. But there are some familiar names among the applicants on the initial list, among them: Verisign Amazon Wal-Mart Samsung They are the first approved out of nearly 2,000 bids submitted last year. The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers previously said it was reviewing the non-English bids first. ICANN expects additional approvals in the coming weeks. Did your…

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Facebook and Google Create Walled Gardens for Web Newcomers Overseas

With more than half the people in the world still not online, Facebook and Google are waging a battle to make sure that Internet newcomers get their first tastes of the Web from them. Each company is persuading wireless carriers in poor countries to offer customers free or very cheap online access that is limited to stripped-down versions of the Web giants’ sites. The idea is that once these new users get some experience in a walled garden of Facebook or Google, they will want more Internet access and pay…

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Internet Providers Persuade FCC Panel Against Cybersecurity Recommendations

WASHINGTON—Big Internet providers seem to have talked their way out of unwelcome new recommendations on cybersecurity. Danny Yadron has specifics of how Internet providers oppose proposed cybersecurity measures put forth by an FCC panel. Photo: Getty Images. An original draft of a report by an advisory panel to the Federal Communications Commission, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, endorsed a list of concrete suggestions for major telecommunications and cable companies to tackle the cybersecurity problem. Those measures—which included steps such as controlling which employees have administrative privileges on company networks—weren’t…

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25 years on, Tim Berners-Lee wins ‘UK’s Nobel prize’ for siring the internet

Staff Writer

Just the other day we were contemplating the tragic irony of the internet’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee having just 125,000 Twitter followers, while Jersey Shore’s trainwreck-in-chief ‘Snooki’ had over 6 million. Wasn’t it about time Sir Tim, who NBC’s presenters admitted they “hadn’t heard of” during the Olympic opening ceremony, got a little more recognition for his planet-altering creation of the world wide web? Well it turns out the judges for the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, our new answer to the Nobel prize, felt the same way and have…

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