1. Monthly archive
  2. June 2016

June 2016

Akamai's State of the Internet Report

The average Internet speed in the United States has made significant gains over the past year but still trails behind a number of smaller, heavily urban countries. According to a new report out by Akamai, the average Internet download speed in the United States is 15.3 Megabits per second (Mbps). To put that in context, Netflix recommends 5 Mbps to stream HD movies and the government has set a goal of 25 Mbps for high-speed Internet service. Those speeds, measured in the first quarter of 2016, are well above the global average. But they don’t put the United States in the top 10 fastest countries, led by South Korea, Norway, Sweden and Hong Kong. Most US states saw double-digit increases in speed. Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Virginia and Washington had the highest US Internet speeds. The city of Washington (DC) had average download speeds of 24 Mbps, the fastest when compared against the 50 states.

Mobile Internet speeds used on smartphones are much slower around the world. The average mobile download speed in the United States is 5.1 Mbps. That is slower than most countries in Europe, which is led by the United Kingdom with an average mobile speeds of 27.9 Mbps. The report also looked at the frequency of cyberattacks in the first quarter of 2016. The retail industry was by far the most frequent target of attacks to their web applications. Distributed Denial of Service attacks were most frequently directed at the gaming industry.

New ACLU lawsuit takes on the Internet’s most hated hacking law

For decades, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has been one of America’s most dangerous laws for anyone doing "unauthorized" things with a computer. Used to prosecute Aaron Swartz, Sergey Alenikov, and jailbreaker George Hotz, the law has long been criticized as a blank check for prosecutors. Under the law’s current interpretation, anyone breaking a website’s terms of service to collect information is guilty of a federal crime. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging that.

The group brought a suit against the Department of Justice on behalf of a group of researchers, who say the CFAA is a legal threat to their research. The plaintiffs specialize in algorithmic research: bombarding closed algorithms with a range of different inputs to study their hidden biases. Those techniques often involve breaking a websites terms of service, potentially exposing them to prosecution under the CFAA. "Being able to run socially beneficial studies like ours is at the heart of academic freedom," said the lead plaintiff, University of Michigan professor Christian Sandvig. "We shouldn’t have to fear prosecution just because we’re doing our jobs." The ACLU’s case is based on a First Amendment argument, and even if it succeeds, it would leave many aspects of the CFAA untouched. Legislators have offered a number of bills to restrict the CFAA’s powers, most recently Aaron’s Law in 2013, but so far none have made it through Congress.

© 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.