CircleID: News Briefs

Iran Blocks HTTPS, 30 Million Reported Losing Email Access

2012-02-11T13:09:00-08:00

Iran is reported to have started blocking access to websites that use HTTPS and as a result making popular and secure online services as well as online banking sites inaccessible. An Iranian news agency reports that over 30 million people in the country have lost access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail. Anything based outside the country that uses a secure connection via HTTPS is blocked, according to news reports and a thread on Hacker News. Secure sites based within Iran are reportedly still accessible. The shutdown is said to be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and is believed to be temporary.

Read full story: External Source

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More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Email

ISPs Are Not Broadcasters, Says Supreme Court of Canada

2012-02-10T08:13:00-08:00

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Internet providers are not broadcasters for the purposes of the Broadcasting Act when they simply transmit content to subscribers, reports Michael Geist. The court noted:

The terms "broadcasting" and "broadcasting undertaking", interpreted in the context of the language and purposes of the Broadcasting Act, are not meant to capture entities which merely provide the mode of transmission. The Broadcasting Act makes it clear that "broadcasting undertakings" are assumed to have some measure of control over programming. ... When providing access to the Internet, which is the only function of ISPs placed in issue by the reference question, they take no part in the selection, origination, or packaging of content. The term "broadcasting undertaking" does not contemplate an entity with no role to play in contributing to the Act's policy objectives. Accordingly, ISPs do not carry on "broadcasting undertakings" under the Broadcasting Act when they provide access through the Internet to "broadcasting" requested by end‑users.

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More under: Access Providers, Law, Policy & Regulation

Study Indicates Nearly Half A Million Jobs Created from "App Economy" in US

2012-02-08T12:58:01-08:00

A new study reveals close to 466,000 jobs have been created in the "App Economy" in United States — up from zero in 2007. The total number of Apps Economy jobs includes jobs at 'pure' app firms such as Zynga as well as app-related jobs at large companies such as Electronic Arts, Amazon, and AT&T, as well as app 'infrastructure' jobs at core firms such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. In addition, the App Economy total includes employment spillovers to the rest of the economy.

The research [PDF] analyzed detailed information from The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine (HWOL) database as conventional employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were not suitable to track such a phenomenon as this economic ecosystem is so new.

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More under: Mobile, Web

Mobile Internet Usage at 8.5%, Doubled From Last Year

2012-02-06T15:13:00-08:00

Global internet usage through mobile devices, has almost doubled to 8.5% in January 2012 from 4.3% last year according to a new report from web analytics StatCounter. While this stat excludes tablets, firm's research arm highlights the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet with market share doubling year on year since 2009. Nokia leads worldwide, most probably driven by its dominance in India. Apple is second globally but leads the US and UK markets. In the UK RIM is second only to Apple.

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More under: Mobile, Web

SEC Filing Reveals Facebook Network Equipment Valued Over $1B at Close of 2011

2012-02-02T11:59:00-08:00

"Facebook reported in its SEC filing that it owns 'network equipment' valued at $1.016 billion at the close of 2011," reports Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge. "The number reflects the expense of rapidly building a massive Internet infrastructure, including Facebook's shift from buying vendor gear and leasing data centers to building its own servers, racks and custom data centers."

Facebook Constructing New Data Center - Located 62 miles south of the Arctic Cicle, Lulea. Facility consists of three 300,000 square feet server buildings; scheduled for completion by 2014.

Photo above shows Facebook's first outside the U.S. data center currently being built on the edge of the Arctic Circle. The northern Swedish city of Lulea chosen for the data center is partly because of the cold climate — crucial for keeping the servers cool — and access to renewable energy from nearby hydropower facilities, according to the company.

Image below is a visualization of Facebook's social graph of 500 million back in 2010 created by intern Paul Butler.

Facebook 'Friendship Visualisation' shows pairs of friends between the world's cities based on company's 500 million user base in 2010. Facebook's current user base at the time of its SEC filing is reported to be over 800 million.(Click to Enlarge)

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More under: Data Center

DNSChanger Trojan Still Running on Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt

2012-02-02T10:28:00-08:00

"More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme (link), the malicious software that powered the criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows," reports Brian Krebs. ... "Internet Identity, a Tacoma, Wash. company that sells security services, found evidence of at least one DNSChanger infection in computers at half of all Fortune 500 firms, and 27 out of 55 major government entities."

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More under: Cybercrime, DNS, Malware, Security

Prof. Dave Farber on Where the Internet is Headed

2012-01-31T12:19:00-08:00

"Internet protocols simply aren't adequate for the changes in hardware and network use that will come up in a decade or so," says Professor Dave Farber who was recently interviewed by Andy Oram.

"Dave predicts that computers will be equipped with optical connections instead of pins for networking, and the volume of data transmitted will overwhelm routers, which at best have mixed optical/electrical switching," writes Oram. "Sensor networks, smart electrical grids, and medical applications with genetic information could all increase network loads to terabits per second. When routers evolve to handle terabit-per-second rates, packet-switching protocols will become obsolete. The speed of light is constant, so we'll have to rethink the fundamentals of digital networking."

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More under: Broadband, Internet Protocol, Web

Public-Private Cooperation Policy for Cyber Security Suggested by Commissioner Kroes

2012-01-31T11:11:00-08:00

Wout de Natris writes: At a speech during the Security and Defense Agenda meeting on 30 January Vice-President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, showed how the Commission envisions public-private cooperation on cyber security.

Remarks by Kroes:

"The Internet does not belong to any one group, but attacks on it affect every group. So let's work together, all sectors, all levels, public and private, national, international and European. So that we can safeguard the security of the systems that increasingly underpin our lives, today and in the future."

"In tomorrow's world, if the Internet is not secured, nothing will be."

Full statement published here.

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More under: Cyberattack, Cybercrime, Internet Governance, Malware, Policy & Regulation, Security

DDoS Attacks Increased by 2000% in Past 3 Years, Asia Generating Over Half of Recent Attacks

2012-01-31T10:44:00-08:00

In the past three years, Akamai has seen 2,000% increase in the number of DDoS attack incidents investigated on behalf of its customers. The latest State of the Internet report released today by Akamai also identifies top countries from which this observed attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks.

From the report: During the third quarter of 2011, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 195 unique countries/regions, up from 192 in the second quarter. After making its first appearance in the top 10 list in recent memory in the second quarter, Indonesia vaulted to the top of the list this quarter, generating 14% of observed attack traffic. Myanmar, which had suddenly appeared at the top of the list in the prior two quarters, disappeared from the list just as suddenly in the third quarter, potentially indicating that the attack traffic that had been observed originating from the country has either been shut down, or is now coming from other places. With Myanmar dropping out of the top 10 list, South korea moved into it, more than tripling its observed level of attack traffic, responsible for 3.8% in the third quarter. In addition to South korea and Indonesia, Taiwan, China, India, and Egypt were all responsible for higher percentages of attack traffic as compared to the prior quarter.

Attack Traffic – Top Originating Countries

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More under: Cyberattack, Security

BT Working on 300Mbps Residential Pilot Project

2012-01-30T12:43:00-08:00

Openreach, the lead deployment arm of BT, has issued an announcement asking residents and landlords of apartment blocks to join a pilot project that will eventually bring broadband download speeds of up to 300Mbps to residents.

"Participants will gain access to Openreach’s Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology which delivers super-fast broadband speeds," says Openreach. "End users will initially have access to downstream speeds of up to 100Mb/s but these will rise to give users the option of up to 300Mb/s in the spring of this year, the fastest commercially available speeds in the UK for a residential connection. Upstream speeds will also be the fastest in the UK."

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More under: Access Providers, Broadband

Protests Erupt Over EU's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

2012-01-27T10:24:00-08:00

In a blog post today, Michael Geist writes: "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). This has generated a flurry of furious protest..."

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More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Internet Governance, Law, Policy & Regulation

Making the Web Faster: Google Working on Enhancing Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

2012-01-26T15:47:00-08:00

As part of its efforts to speed up the delivery of web content, Google has proposed changes to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), "the workhorse of the Internet." Yuchung Cheng who works on the transport layer at Google writes:

"To deliver content effectively, Web browsers typically open several dozen parallel TCP connections ahead of making actual requests. This strategy overcomes inherent TCP limitations but results in high latency in many situations and is not scalable. Our research shows that the key to reducing latency is saving round trips. We’re experimenting with several improvements to TCP."

Cheng believes the current transport layer badly needs an overhaul to catch up with other (networking) technologies. Read more.

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More under: Internet Protocol, Web

NASA Website Blocked Due to DNSSEC Error

2012-01-25T14:30:00-08:00

A misconfiguration in NASA's DNSSEC implementation on its website caused Comcast's network to block users from the site last week. NASA had incorrectly signed DNSSEC in its implementation of the new security protocol that last week, causing Comcast's newly DNSSEC-enabled service to automatically block access to the site. the day part of the Web went dark in protest of controversial anti-piracy legislation, leading some users and pundits to inaccurately speculate this was Comcast's way of protesting the government-based bills.

Read full story: Dark Reading

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More under: DNS, DNSSEC, Security

Exporting SOPA-Like Rules to Other Countries

2012-01-23T12:58:00-08:00

"While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries," says Michael Geist in a blog post today.

Geist writes: "With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the 'enabler provision' to target a wider range of websites. Given the reaction to SOPA in the U.S., where millions contacted their elected representatives to object to rules that threatened their Internet and digital rights, the political risks inherent in embracing SOPA-like rules are significant."

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More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Internet Governance, Law

European Commission Proposes "Right to be Forgotten" Internet Law

2012-01-23T12:04:00-08:00

A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday. It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it. The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive.

Read full story: BBC

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More under: Internet Governance, Law, Privacy

Feds Shut Down File-Sharing Website Megaupload.com, Seven People Charged

2012-01-19T12:05:00-08:00

Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, charging its founder and others with violating piracy laws, the Associated Press reports today. "The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals [SOPA & PIPA] intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs."

From the FBI report today: "Seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with running an international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works through Megaupload.com and other related sites, generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and causing more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced today."

Update from Arbor Networks:

With enough global data, you can actually see the traffic drop when the shutdown occurs. Based strictly on the traffic rates it appears that the shutdown started just after 19:00 GMT on January 19, with traffic plummeting down over the next two hours. The graphic here shows three main client regions – Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the US.

Other sources: (UPDATED Jan 21, 2012 3:19 PM PST)
The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect Jan.21.2012
DoJ Targets Co's for Piracy - DDoS Attacks Unleashed Infosec, Jan.19.2012

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More under: Internet Governance, Law

Websites Go Dark Protesting SOPA and PIPA, Senators Change Course

2012-01-18T11:58:00-08:00

Internet protests on Wednesday quickly cut into Congressional support for anti-Web piracy measures as lawmakers abandoned and rethought their backing for legislation that pitted new media interests against some of the most powerful old-line commercial interests in Washington. Freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising Republican star, was first out of the starting gate Wednesday morning with his announcement that he would no longer back anti-Internet piracy legislation…

Read full story: New York Times

Other sources: (UPDATED Jan 19, 2012 12:40 PM PST)
The Internet Spoke and, Finally, Congress Listened! EFF, Jan.20.2012
Lawmakers try to keep anti-piracy bills on track AP, Jan.19.2012
PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed Ars Technica, Jan.18.2012

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More under: Censorship, DNS, Internet Governance, Law, Policy & Regulation

Kuala Lumpur Mandates WiFi for All Restaurants and Bars

2012-01-17T11:20:00-08:00

A new law passed in Malaysia's largest city, Kuala Lumpur, this month will require all food and beverage outlets to provide wireless internet access to customers by April of this year. The law makes WiFi access for customers a requirement for food operators when applying for a new license for a restaurant or renewing an existing license. Cafes, pubs, bars and club lounges are also required to provide WiFi services, the mayor of Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Fuad Ismail, was quoted as saying to a Malaysian newspaper recently.

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More under: Access Providers

China's Internet Users Pass Half a Billion

2012-01-17T10:56:00-08:00

The number of Chinese Internet users has surpassed 500 million, with nearly half of them using microblogs, or Weibo, according to latest official figures. About 55.8 million Chinese people became new Internet users last year, bringing the country’s Web population to 513 million, representing an Internet penetration rate of 38.3 percent, according to a report released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

The Internet usage rate among people aged between 10 and 29 has been growing rapidly while those aged between 30 and 39 are viewed as main force behind access growth.

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More under: Access Providers, Web

White House on SOPA: Protecting Intellectual Property Must Not Threaten Open, Innovative Internet

2012-01-14T09:26:00-08:00

The White House today released a response to SOPA and PIPA petitions and the legislative approaches to combat online piracy. The response, prepared by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff, states:

"Right now, Congress is debating a few pieces of legislation concerning the very real issue of online piracy, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). We want to take this opportunity to tell you what the Administration will support—and what we will not support. Any effective legislation should reflect a wide range of stakeholders, including everyone from content creators to the engineers that build and maintain the infrastructure of the Internet.

While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

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More under: Censorship, Internet Governance, Law