Celebrating and Protecting the Global Internet By Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State & Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S. Department of Commerce The U.S. government, working through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), has played a critical role in the stewardship of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS). But now is the time to transition that role, based on the success and maturation of the multistakeholder…
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Edward Snowden: The Biggest Revelations Are Yet to Come
VANCOUVER, Canada — Edward Snowden on Tuesday said the biggest revelations have yet to come out of the estimated 1.7 million documents he acquired from the National Security Agency. In a surprise appearance via satellite robot at the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver, Snowden said there is still a lot of reporting to be done, including diving deeper into the accusation that the NSA tricks companies into building backdoors into their systems that make data vulnerable to hackers across the world. “Is it really terrorism that we’re stopping? I say…
Read MoreHow Facebook will have to radically transform itself in order to justify buying WhatsApp
There has been endless high-quality discussion about why Facebook was willing to pay more than what half of the S&P 500 companies are worth for WhatsApp. My biased distillation of the consensus is, basically, Facebook wanted to keep WhatsApp out of the clutches of Google, and the sale was in stock at a time when Facebook’s share price is at an all-time high, so Facebook didn’t have much to lose. Or you might choose to believe Facebook’s stated reason, which is that WhatsApp could go to a billion users and that, with the…
Read MoreUS playing catch-up in Africa
African consumer spending is projected to rise from US$860 billion in 2008 to US$1.4 trillion in 2020. No other region in the world boasts such numbers. ADDIS Ababa, the rapidly modernising capital of Ethiopia, is on track to host the tallest building in Africa by 2017. That landmark building, which will boast 99 floors of offices and hotel rooms, has a distinctly un-African name: Chuan Hui International Tower. The tower, together with a host of other skyscrapers in the city – including the US$200 million (S$255.7 million) African Union headquarters…
Read MoreObama proposes changes to NSA surveillance
U.S. President Barack Obama called for changes to U.S. National Security Agency surveillance, with new privacy advocates assigned to a surveillance court and a transition away from a controversial telephone records collection program in the U.S. U.S. President Barack Obama called for changes to U.S. National Security Agency surveillance, with new privacy advocates assigned to a surveillance court and a transition away from a controversial telephone records collection program in the U.S. However, Obama stopped short of major changes advocated by his own surveillance review panel and civil liberties groups.…
Read MoreYear End message from DotConnectAfrica: 2013 Year in Review
As 2013 draws to a close it is worth looking back at where we have been and consider what 2014 will bring. As usual for DCA, it has been a year of intense activity to ensure that our promise to Africa stands – that “we shall deliver .africa registry to the continent, sooner than expected”. DCA Trust has a long-standing tradition of informing its African and global constituency on matters affecting the global Internet Governance, ICANN and related African affairs. Our regular Newsletters and Social media Campaigns sites provide us the…
Read MoreGoogle’s ‘Zeitgeist’ Top Searches For 2013 Revealed
Google has revealed its annual look at the top searches for 2013, and as ever it’s revealing, interesting, and mildly disturbing. This year Google split the list into the top “trending” searches – IE those with the most intense periods of interest – and “most searched” terms overall. Among the highlights were the fact that Paul Walker was the top trending search of the year, after his untimely death following a car crash in November, followed by ‘iPhone 5S’ and ‘royal baby’. The top “What Is?” search was led by…
Read MoreDotConnectAfrica Honors Africa’s Hero and Giant Iconic Leader Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
DotConnectAfrica Trust takes this opportunity to celebrate and honor the Giant Iconic Leader of Africa: Courageous, Selfless and Noble. The children of Africa indeed, the entire World mourn and honor the man who truly exemplified the need for hard work and sacrifice even when times were very hard, the comforting proof that good triumphs over evil. That Love wins over Hate. That Togetherness wins over Division. Mandela spent 27 years in prison on Robben Island, fighting over stereotypes and seeking to restore equality in humanity. Africa celebrates the lessons of…
Read MoreICT4D Digest #10 – ICT/Environment – a dual relationship
A weekly digest of reflections and ICT4D-news. The author is Elias Rådelius, a ComDev student at Malmö University and intern at Sida’s dept. for ICT4D. Views expressed are Elias’ own. Read, interact, disagree and join in exploring this ever-changing and exciting field! @SidaICT4D, @eliasradelius I was recently asked a question about how ICTs are used to tackle environmental challenges. You could say that it is sort of a trick question: the relationship between ICTs and the environment is two-faced. On the one hand, ICTs are causing a lot of damage…
Read MoreBitcoin Comes Under Senate Spotlight
Bitcoin is about to get some time in the Capitol Hill spotlight. A pair of Senate committees will hold hearings on the policy issues raised by virtual currencies in the coming weeks, according to Senate aides, a development that comes amid growing attention from government regulators to digital forms of money. Bitcoin, a currency that is essentially a computer code and is not backed by any government, has seen its value surge this year because of interest from retailers and investors. But government agencies have also stepped up their oversight of…
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