http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/technology/07sprint-web.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=4097
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=23022&email=text
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=22971&email=text
Martins Zvaners, RFE spokesman, thinks that was the largest attack ever experienced by RFE. At its peak, the DDoS attack was sending more than 50000 requests to the RFE sites, flooding its servers' capacity and throwing them offline.
Although there is no proof of who was behind the attacks, Zvaners pointed his finger at the Belarus administration: "This started on the day of a demonstration that they wanted no one to cover. They've never been real happy with us. In an ongoing sense, they are always 'jamming' our signals. We can't say for certain who did it, but you look at the circumstances and you can start to draw some possible inferences."
US State Department spokeswoman Jessica Simon stated that it was the Belarusian Government's responsibility to stop such kind of attacks while Nina Ognianova, the program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said it was also the responsibility of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to find and punish those responsible with the attacks. "In Belarus especially, RFE/RL service is significant now more than ever because Lukashenka's regime has destroyed the other independent and opposition broadcasters. (...) So we certainly are very concerned about this short-lived but successful attacks" said Ognianova.
RFE issued a news release on 28 April following which the attacks stopped and the sites went back online. According to Zvaners, RFE has now taken protection measures against similar attacks.
During the three days of the attack, RFR/RL's Belarus Service was supported by 22 Belarusian sites that hosted its content. "Dear friends. We value your solidarity and we promise to support any site that falls victim to such an attack in the future. (...) Thanks to all of you for your support of freedom" said Alyaksandr Lukashuk, director of RFE/RL's Belarus Service, who considers that the response to the attack was an example that could create a precedent for future online "esprit de corps" among journalists and pro-democracy advocates.
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.9/radio-free-europe-belarus
Martins Zvaners, RFE spokesman, thinks that was the largest attack ever experienced by RFE. At its peak, the DDoS attack was sending more than 50000 requests to the RFE sites, flooding its servers' capacity and throwing them offline.
Although there is no proof of who was behind the attacks, Zvaners pointed his finger at the Belarus administration: "This started on the day of a demonstration that they wanted no one to cover. They've never been real happy with us. In an ongoing sense, they are always 'jamming' our signals. We can't say for certain who did it, but you look at the circumstances and you can start to draw some possible inferences."
US State Department spokeswoman Jessica Simon stated that it was the Belarusian Government's responsibility to stop such kind of attacks while Nina Ognianova, the program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said it was also the responsibility of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to find and punish those responsible with the attacks. "In Belarus especially, RFE/RL service is significant now more than ever because Lukashenka's regime has destroyed the other independent and opposition broadcasters. (...) So we certainly are very concerned about this short-lived but successful attacks" said Ognianova.
RFE issued a news release on 28 April following which the attacks stopped and the sites went back online. According to Zvaners, RFE has now taken protection measures against similar attacks.
During the three days of the attack, RFR/RL's Belarus Service was supported by 22 Belarusian sites that hosted its content. "Dear friends. We value your solidarity and we promise to support any site that falls victim to such an attack in the future. (...) Thanks to all of you for your support of freedom" said Alyaksandr Lukashuk, director of RFE/RL's Belarus Service, who considers that the response to the attack was an example that could create a precedent for future online "esprit de corps" among journalists and pro-democracy advocates.
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.9/radio-free-europe-belarus
The new cable will connect three continents, with 13 landings in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
The project is one of the several major India-Europe cable projects recently announced, driven by carriers' desire to capture the rapid growth of voice and data traffic between India, Europe, and the Middle East.
The new cable will provide higher capacity and diversity for broadband traffic currently relying largely on traditional routes from Europe to India.
The 15,000km cable network system, named the Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system, will connect three continents at a cost of more than US$700 million. Thirteen landings are planned in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and India. The system will utilise state-of the-art next-generation technology which is designed to provide up to 3.84 terabits per second using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to provide upgradeable transmission facilities which support internet, e-commerce, video, data, and voice services. The system is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2010.
Sixteen telecommunications companies are investing in the project: AT&T, Bharti Airtel, BT, Cable & Wireless, Djibouti Telecom; du; Gibtelecom; IAM; Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company; MTN; Omantel; PT Comunicacoes, Saudi Telecom Company; Telecom Egypt; Telkom SA; and Verizon Business. In addition to the C&MA, the EIG consortium also signed a supply contract with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications for the cable system's construction.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10505539
The report of the Deputy Jean Dionis du Séjour on the application of the LCEN was updated on 16 April 2008, after the first version was submitted to the Parliament on 23 January. The update concerns some of the latest court decisions in France that established the responsibility of some websites for others' RSS feeds or for user-generated content. The report specifies that the law has created a hosting status that is different from that of an editor and that "this distinction must not be emptied by the court decisions."
The report also claims that the law needs to be changed in order to comply with the new applications available, such as hosting collaboratives websites or online auctions. This could be helpful in order to avoid the situation already presented in EDRi-gram, when Paris Tribunal condemned 3 different French websites for linking to another website containing gossip information on a French actor.
But the report also suggests increasing the obligations on the hosting companies, especially by making public the methods used to fight illegal activities, that would prove their good will. This provision could be enforced by an independent authority, like the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL).
But the French Government does not seem to share this opinion. The new State Secretary in charge with information society, Eric Besson, made clear in the first public appearance that he didn't think that the law needed to be changed. "I will not be the Minister of Internet castration" he declared in a public meeting to Dailymotion, one of the biggest video-sharing French websites.
Since Mr. Besson has an objective to present to the French Government by 31 July 2008 the new plan on information society, he may discuss also the problems of the new type of applications on the Internet.
Two surveys were conducted by Gallup in January 2008, investigating the perceptions on data protection among EU citizens and data controllers respectively. The surveys involved about 27000 EU citizens and 5000 companies from all 27 member states.
The findings of the surveys show that 82% of European Internet users have little trust in personal data management on the Internet and 64% of EU citizens are concerned about data protection issues feeling that the awareness and information on these topics are not satisfactory enough. The lack of information appeared to be a major problem. Especially the national data protection authorities were rather unknown to most of the EU citizens.
Only 28% of respondents said they knew about such institutions existing in their country.
Less than half of the respondents think data is properly protected in their own countries and more than half of them considering the legislation cannot cope with the increasing amount of exchanged personal information.
The surveys also reveal an increase in the awareness of the risks related to potential abuses of private data, proportional to the increased use of privacy protecting tools and technologies. Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that include automatic anonymisation after a certain lapse of time, encryption tools and cookie-cutters, are better known by companies, more than half of them using now such tools. The studies revealed that, although increasing, the level of awareness it still relatively low among EU citizens. More than two thirds of Internet users in some country (such as Ireland or France) say they have never heard of PETs.
One of the topics covered by the studies was data monitoring. Citizens, as well as data controllers, agree on the monitoring of passenger flight details (82%), telephone calls (72%), Internet (75%) and credit card usage (69%) to combat terrorism but only within well-defined limits. About a third of the respondents believe only suspects should be monitored while about 20% wanted even stricter safeguards.
Commenting on the results of the surveys, Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot, temporarily in charge of justice and home affairs, said: "It is our intention to fully analyse and understand the feedback we have been given by Europe's citizens in this survey and we will ensure these comments inform the work we are doing in this area this year. I am convinced that this survey will also be a salutary lesson for all stakeholders involved in handling personal data and maintaining data protection".
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/248
Also included in the report are the updated 2008 ITIF Broadband Rankings, a composite measure of broadband penetration, speed and price among OECD countries. When these factors are considered together, the United States ranks 15th out of 30 OECD nations in broadband performance.
Tech entrepreneur Joi Ito is the new CEO of Creative Commons, the alternative copyright licensing organization that has spawned widespread sharing and reuse of digital content and educational materials - like course lecture notes available for free from MIT. The founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, has moved on to a new project, Change Congress, which describes itself as a movement to increase transparency in the US government’s legislative branch. So far it appears to be an online pledge campaign around a set of commitments, like “Don’t take money from lobbyists and political action commiteees.” The approach is different, but the mission sounds to me awfully similar to the Sunlight Foundation, which “serves as a catalyst to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government.” More about the Creative Commons changes and $4 million in new funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
The term of repayment of the loan financed by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) will be 23.5 years, with no repayments for the first five years, according to a statement posted on the official website of the World Bank.
The project aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the land registry and cadastre services.
"This objective will be achieved through renovating and updating cadastre maps to support digital cadastre and land registry information; making the digital land registry and cadastre information available to public and private entities; improving customer services in land registry and cadastre offices; improving human resources in the Turkish Land Registry and Cadastre Agency (TKGM); and developing policies and capacity to introduce in Turkey best international practices in property valuation." the statement said.
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/finance/8845032.asp?gid=231&sz=35481
Governments face growing pressure to improve the customer experience for citizens accessing public services, according to a new Deloitte report titled One Size Fits Few: Using Customer Insight to Transform Government.
Leading businesses have trained people to expect high quality, personalized services -- standards that citizens are now applying to government. At the same time, governments around the world are confronting significant short- and long-term fiscal pressures -- from managing rising health care costs to rebuilding public infrastructure. According to the Deloitte study, governments can both reduce costs and improve the level of service they offer to their consumers by adapting to the public sector some of the customer-centered reforms pioneered by leading companies.
Facebook has evolved into one of the latest tools for political dissent in Egypt, as activists use the social-networking site to organize protests on soaring food prices. The activists, who are urging Egyptians to stay home Sunday and boycott buying all commodities through Tuesday, use signs similar to online banner ads on the site to promote the strike. One such banner is fiery red and reads: "May 4, a general strike for the people of Egypt."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080503/ttc-malaysia-mongolia-internet-crime-cen-0de2eff.html
Carriers have already begun launching 3G services in the 850 MHz band, but the licenses for the 2.1 GHz band cover major cities such as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and the capital Brasilia.
Anatel had initially ruled against using the 850 MHz band for 3G, making carriers wait for the auction of UMTS licenses for 1.9 GHz–2.1 GHz frequencies, but on October 31 last year it said it would allow carriers to use any frequency.
Rufat Gulmammadov, the MCIT Information Society Department’s director, said that the workgroup is works on preparation the second stage of the programme “E-Azerbaijan”.
“In two or three months we will discuss its final version. After its adoption we will apply such projects as e-government, regional innovation zones, technoparks,” R.Gulmammadov said.
The Programme will continue E-Azerbaijan Programme to be valid until 2008. At present the country is applying State Programme of Information & Communication Technologies (E-Azerbaijan) for 2005-08. The fresh programme will set a challenge of full realization of ICT sector potential to bring it to the leading position (along with oil and gas sector) in economy of Azerbaijan.
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm
The report, Australians' Use of and Satisfaction with e-Government Services – 2007, set out to provide an overview of the range and uptake of e-government services. Amongst its key findings, the report discovered that although the most common way of contacting government remains in person, this has steadily declined over the past three years: from 46 percent in 2004–05 and 43 percent in 2006, to 37 percent in 2007.
That 11 percent drop has now been picked up by the increasing preference to contact government through online channels. Contacting the government via online media has grown from 14 percent in 2004-05 to 25 percent in 2007. These statistics were backed up by an increase in the number of people who prefer to contact government by Internet – which grew from 31 percent in 2004-05 to 41 percent in 2007.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/74577,one-quarter-of-australians-go-online-for-government-contact.aspx
The government of Bangladesh has committed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have set challenging targets to humanity to improve the living conditions of excluded people around the world. One of these goals concerns Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The Target 8 of MDGs states: “In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication technologies.”
The issue with 4G backhaul is a simple one: T1-line backhaul, which many carriers -- particularly in the U.S. -- use extensively, cannot cope with base stations that pump out data at hundreds of megabits a second to provide a few megabits-a-second data downloads to each individual user. Yet faster data downloads are supposed to be what sells so-called 4G services -- be they WiMax or Long-Term Evolution -- to consumers. Carriers, meanwhile, want 4G to further bump up data revenues, which are supposed to supplant declining voice revenue over time.
