1. Monthly archive
  2. December 2015

December 2015

Indian Regulators Suspend Facebook’s Free Basic Services

Telecommunications regulators in India have ordered the suspension of Facebook’s controversial program to bring free basic Internet services to mobile phone users in the country. Facebook’s program, called Free Basics, is one of the signature projects of Internet.org, the company’s ambitious plan to bring the Internet to the billions of people around the world who do not have it. The idea is to give novices a taste of the Internet and encourage them to buy paid data services when they want to explore the Internet more widely. But critics say that by offering a free package of handpicked services, Facebook and its partners are discouraging people from using competing services and violating the principle of network neutrality.

An Indian regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, has now told Reliance Communications, Facebook’s partner in India, to stop offering Free Basics. The order — which was quietly issued about two weeks ago but leaked to the Indian news media the week of Dec 21 — came after Reliance failed to turn over information about the terms and conditions of the service, which it had planned to expand across the country beginning in Nov. “Till such details are submitted to the authority, the launch of the service shall be put in abeyance,” said Ram Sewak Sharma, the agency’s chairman.

Why millions will have restricted Internet access starting Jan 1

Internet surfers may take that little green or gold lock in the corner of their Web browser for granted. But starting Jan. 1, 2016, it might go away for a small percentage of people across the globe, and millions of users could lose access to websites because of it. It's all to do with the "SHA-1 Sunset," a phrase used by technology insiders to describe the expiration of support for a certain level of encryption.

Over the next year, the algorithms older than SHA-1 level of encryption will no longer meet the trusted level of security for many websites, leaving as many as 37 million people unable to access them, according to research from Internet performance and security company CloudFlare. It's a routine update to a Web feature called the certificate signature hashing algorithm. But the change, decided by a consortium of vendors of Internet browser software, could disproportionately affect mobile devices in the developing world. As a result, some of the world's most vulnerable population will be left with only the selection of websites they can view without the needed safety protocols.

Internet lobby takes aim at T-Mobile's 'Binge On' program

The Internet Association, a trade group representing Internet companies, warned that T-Mobile appears to be slowing traffic to all video streaming services, regardless of whether they are participating in its “Binge On” program that allows customers to stream some video for free. “T-Mobile's new ‘streaming optimization’ program appears to involve throttling of all video traffic, across all data plans, regardless of network congestion,” said Michael Beckerman, the president of the Internet Association. “Reducing data charges for entire classes of applications can be legitimate and benefit consumers, so long as clear notice and choice is provided to service providers and consumers,” he said. “However, a reasonably designed zero-rating program does not include the throttling of traffic for services or consumers that do not participate.”

Juniper Hack: DHS Tells Agencies to Close Encryption Backdoors

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and federal agencies are in incident-response mode as they work to remove listening posts in software planted by suspected cyberspies. The unauthorized code can allow attackers to invisibly decrypt communications passing through widely-used Juniper Networks firewalls, according to the company. Currently, the government is scouring its IT inventory to identify affected Juniper systems -- plus any information that ever touched a Juniper firewall. It is believed a foreign party rigged the software. Reports have suggested the assailants might have taken advantage of a weakness that the National Security Agency allegedly placed in a popular encryption formula.

Dave Aitel, who worked at the code-breaking agency and now serves as chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm Immunity, said the discovery of an unauthorized backdoor in Juniper's encryption program demonstrates precisely why even legal backdoors can backfire. The hack reinvigorated an already tense debate about encrypted communications, which consumers increasingly are using for privacy and terrorists increasingly are using to evade law enforcement's eyes and ears. The FBI wants tech providers to be able to break coded messages, when served with a warrant. "We have every presidential candidate talking about crypto backdoors and no one can really point to why they are so dangerous,” Aitel said. But the Juniper software tampering is "a perfect case example of why cryptographic backdoors are so dangerous in the real world.” DHS currently is assessing the risk the Juniper compromise poses to government systems, according to the department.

© 1994-2024 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.