Defenders of the open internet are issuing urgent calls to action as news reports indicate that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Ajit Pai has set his sights on a December 14 vote to kill net neutrality and “destroy the internet as we know it.
Mobile web browsing has been steadily growing since 2009, while the desktop’s share of web traffic has steadily decreased. In October, the two crossed over, with global mobile and tablet browsing accounting for 51.3% versus the desktop’s 48.7%, according to the latest data from web analytics firm StatCounter.
Source: Mobile web browsing overtakes desktop for the first time | The Guardian
The internet must be fast, fair and open. That is the message I’ve heard from consumers and innovators across this nation. That is the principle that has enabled the internet to become an unprecedented platform for innovation and human expression. And that is the lesson I learned heading a tech startup at the dawn of the internet age. The proposal I present to the commission will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future, for all Americans.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality | WIRED
It would be better to have no rules than the ones being proposed by the FCC, which simply legalize discrimination on the Internet.
Don’t ask for your privacy. Take it back…
A 2012 report from the New America Foundation found that residents of major American cities pay more money for slower Internet service than their counterparts in major cities around the world. Case in point: in Hong Kong, roughly $35 gets you access to a fiber-optics network with 500 Mbps download speed; in New York or Washington, it gets you a cable network at 25 Mbps.
Karma is two things: First, it’s a hotspot, a tiny device that connects to 4G networks and then shares the Internet connection to any device that can use Wi-Fi—your laptop, tablet, e-reader, etc. The device, which is about the size of a large wristwatch.
Karma hotspot broadband access: Cheap mobile data plans. – Slate Magazine
The Internet is groaning today under the load of a huge cyberattack — one of the worst on record — that’s clogged some of its most vital systems.
Who's To Blame For The Huge Cyberattack Slowing The Web? Your ISP – ReadWrite
Congress is actually considering making the law Aaron Swartz was prosecuted under even worse…
The CFAA, America's awful computer-crime law, might be getting a whole lot worse
This is very funny! 🙂
An army of Internet freedom activists immediately leapt into action after the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, was recently reintroduced to Congress. Among them have been Demand Progress and Fight for the Future, who this week helped 300,000 citizens send a petition against CISPA to the lawmakers behind it.
Read more: Internet Activists Deliver 300,000 Anti-CISPA Signatures to Congress |Mashable
Nowadays, sneaking in a personal call or quick browse through Facebook during work is typical on-the-job behavior. But what if you abandoned work completely and outsourced your job to, say, China?
Read more: U.S. Employee Outsourced His Job to China, Watched Cat Videos Instead | Mashable
But with great opportunity comes great responsibility. Along with its conveniences, the IoT will unveil unprecedented security challenges: in data privacy, safety, governance and trust.
Read more: The Internet of Things Has Arrived — And So Have Massive Security Issues | Wired.com
The digital pioneer and visionary behind virtual reality has turned against the very culture he helped create. He may be the first Silicon populist.
To my mind an overleveraged unsecured mortgage is exactly the same thing as a pirated music file. It’s somebody’s value that’s been copied many times to give benefit to some distant party. In the case of the music files, it’s to the benefit of an advertising spy like Google [which monetizes your search history], and in the case of the mortgage, it’s to the benefit of a fund manager somewhere. But in both cases all the risk and the cost is radiated out toward ordinary people and the middle classes—and even worse, the overall economy has shrunk in order to make a few people more.
Read more via What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web? | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine.
“Internet access in America remains relatively slow – particularly when it comes to upload speeds, the very feature necessary for cloud computing and creating user-generated content. Cable companies dominate wired internet access and face no real competition or pricing pressure; telcos like Verizon and AT&T have retreated to wireless, which will never be a full substitute for wired capacity; and we still have no plan for a nation-wide upgrade to fiber.”
Read more: It's Time to Fix the Pitifully Slow, Expensive Internet Access in the U.S. | Wired.com.
“A password expert has shown that passwords can be cracked by brute force four times faster than was previously thought possible.”
Read more: 8-character passwords just got a lot easier to crack – Technology on NBCNews.com