The Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) DASH specification has been approved by 24 national bodies and ratified as an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 23009-1), and is expected to be published in March 2012.
The specification, a new method of dynamically adaptive streaming over the HTTP protocol, will comprise two types of stream segments – multiplexed streams using MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) or elementary streams using fragmented MP4 files (fMP4) – using a Common File Format (CFF) that allows a choice of codecs and digital rights management (DRM) schemes. DASH is expected to eventually supercede all current methods except Apple’s HLS, the differentiating factor being the use of a proprietary manifest file in Apple HLS (known as an .m3u8 file) and a standards-based XML-based manifest file in DASH (known as an MPD or Media Presentation Description file).
Additional work is to be done on the CFF – with an emphasis on establishing a common DRM scenario – at the next MPEG meeting in San Jose, California, in February 2012, after which device vendors and content suppliers will commence interoperability tests.
)Following the US Senate Commerce Committee hearing on new TLD expansion on December 8 2011, Dr. Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, Chair of the At-Large Advisory Council (ALAC), which represents the views of Internet users within the ICANN multistakeholder process, and Beau Brendler, Chair of the North American Regional At-Large Organization (NARALO) have written to Committee Chair Sen. John Rockefeller to depict the testimony of former ICANN Chair Esther Dyson as “out of date”.
we found Ms. Esther Dyson’s description of the ALAC circa 2003 extremely out-ofdate. Her testimony depicted the ALAC prior to the establishment of the five Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs) which are designed to provide a structured input first to the ALAC and then to ICANN from Internet end-users around the world.
and
Today, the ALAC is able to comment on any aspect of the new gTLD program, which it has on several occasions, as well as any other program or process at ICANN.
It’s not all criticism, though..
However, we fully support her overall message for the public to pay attention to the workings of ICANN, and that ICANN’s door is open.
The letter goes on to emphasize that public interest should be the touchstone of Internet policy, and appeals to the Senator for assistance in strengthening that priority by encouraging membership in At-Large by interested parties. (One way would be to join ISOC-NY since we are an At-Large Structure! However NARALO, uniquely amongst the regions, does accept individual members.)
Tomorrow, December 15, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary will meet to markup and potentially vote in committee on H.R. 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” or SOPA. Today the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – of which ISOC-NY is a member – has written a letter to the House Committee expressing its profound concern with the proposed legislation, and the equivalent PROTECT-IP (PIPA) bill in the U.S. Senate, both of which would mandate the blocking and filtering of the Domain Name System (DNS).
In particular, the NCUC is very concerned with the provisions in both Bills relating to Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. As identified by numerous technical, legal and policy experts:
DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe.
Filtering DNS or blocking domain names does not remove the illegal content – it simply makes the content harder to find. Those who are determined to download filtered content can easily use a number of widely available, legitimately-proposed tools to circumvent DNS filtering regimes. As a result, DNS filtering encourages the creation of alternative, non-standard DNS systems.
DNS filtering and blocking raises human right and freedom of expression concerns, and often curtails international principles regarding the rule of law, due process and justice. Some countries have employed DNS filtering and blocking as a way to restrict access to the global Internet and to curb free speech.
The United States has historically advocated for freedom of expression and has been a strong proponent of online Internet freedoms. The United States Government has a significant responsibility to balance its domestic obligations and their potential global impact, especially with respect to Internet policy. Given its commitment to global Internet freedom, it would be detrimental to the global Internet if the United States were to insist on such an approach.
NCUC explains that the implications of legislation like PIPA and SOPA will be to have a negative impact upon the Internet’s design and can potentially create serious international political and legal problems. It will compromise Internet freedom held dearly by various organizations and institutions, like the OECD, the European Parliament, the Internet Society, and the Council of Europe – all of whom have committed to preserve this freedom and requested the United States to commit as well to preserving this freedom.
The letter ends with an appeal to the Committee to consider the viewpoints also expressed by a multitude of actors and organizations and not support legislation that undermines the global Internet.
On Nov 30 2011 the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School hosted a panel discussion – From Public Squares to Platforms: Free Speech in the Networked World. A diverse panel from academia, public interest, and private practice, discussed the opportunities and challenges for free speech as it increasingly moves from the town square to the networked world.
Panelists:
Dorothy Chou – Senior Policy Analyst, Google
Linda Lye – Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California
Philip Hammer – Of Counsel, Hoge Fenton Jones & Appel
Andrew McLaughlin – Non-Residential Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society and the Executive Director of Civic Commons
Laurence Pulgram – Partner and Chair of Commercial and Copyright Litigation Group, Fenwick and West LLP
Moderator:
Nicole Ozer – Co-Chair- California State Bar Cyberspace Committee, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California
Policies mandating DNS filtering undermine the open architecture of the Internet and raise human rights and freedom of expression concerns
[Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland – 12 December 2011] – The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. While the Internet Society agrees that combating illicit online activity is an important public policy objective, these critical issues must be addressed in ways that do not undermine the viability of the Internet as a platform for innovation across all industries by compromising its global architecture. The Internet Society Board of Trustees does not believe that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are consistent with these basic principles.
Specifically, the Internet Society is concerned with provisions in both bills regarding Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe. (More …)
On December 7 2011 the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School hosted a panel discussion – What’s Wrong With SOPA? – on the evils of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently before Congress.
Panelists:
Mark Lemley – William H. Neukom Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Josh Mendelsohn – Partner, Hattery
David Ulevitch – Founder & CEO, OpenDNS
Paul Vixie – Chairman and Chief Scientist, Internet Systems Consortium
Fred von Lohmann – Senior Copyright Counsel, Google
Albert Wenger – Partner, Union Square Ventures
Moderator:
Anthony Falzone – Executive Director, Fair Use Project at the Center for Internet and Society
Bufferbloat refers to excess buffering inside a network, resulting in high latency and reduced throughput. Some buffering is needed; it provides space to queue packets waiting for transmission, thus minimizing data loss. In the past, the high cost of memory kept buffers fairly small, so they filled quickly and packets began to drop shortly after the link became saturated, signaling to the communications protocol the presence of congestion and thus the need for compensating adjustments.
Because memory now is significantly cheaper than it used to be, buffering has been overdone in all manner of network devices, without consideration for the consequences. Manufacturers have reflexively acted to prevent any and all packet loss and, by doing so, have inadvertently defeated a critical TCP congestion-detection mechanism, with the result being worsened congestion and increased latency.
Now that the problem has been diagnosed, people are working feverishly to fix it. This case study considers the extent of the bufferbloat problem and its potential implications.
PRESENTERS Shai Halevi, Cryptography Researcher, IBM – Since 1997 Shai has been a research staff member in the Cryptography group at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Shai is a board member of the International Association for Cryptologic Research and an editor in ACM TISSEC. He was an editor of the proceedings of CRYPTO in 2009, and co-editor of the proceedings of the Theory of Cryptography Conference in 2006. Shai has a PhD in Computer Science from MIT.
Michiel de Jong, Founder & Lead Developer, Unhosted.org – Michiel de Jong studied Computer Science at Leiden University before working as a researcher and web technology engineer in several European countries. Last year he took a three month sabbatical on tropical island Bali, to work on a hobby project. The result became known as the Unhosted project and quickly gained a lot of momentum in the free software community. This way, what started as a programming holiday, turned into a full-time occupation for him.
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