The 2017 Internet Freedom Festival will take place in Valencia, Spain on 6 – 10 March, 2017. The Internet Freedom Festival gathers the community keeping the Internet open and uncensored for a week of multidisciplinary collaboration. The Festival is something of an unconference in that any participant can host a session. The Call for Proposals is now open. Conversations and workshops – rather than sessions that just highlight personal work – are encouraged. Content is divided into eight different Themes, curated by the IFF Fellows. Themes include hackathons, workshops, security trainings, panel discussion and social events. The deadline is 28 Nov 2016.
According the city’s agreement with CityBridge — the company granted rights to install the LinkNYC kiosks and sell advertising on them — there should have been 180 Wi-Fi hotspots installed in the outer boroughs by the end of July. Two months after that deadline, the vendor had just 20 active hotspots in the Bronx, 12 in Queens, and none in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
See video here, or below. NYC Council Tech Committee Chair James Vacca is calling for a hearing on the issue.
Today Tuesday September 27 2016CALinnovates presents Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Privacy Online Privacy and the Price of Innovation which will discuss the FCC’s proposed rule to restrict ISP’s ability to datamine their customers’ online activity. Keynote speaker is former FTC Chair Jon Leibowitz. He will be followed by a panel comprising Richard Bennett, Founder/Publisher, High Tech Forum; Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Public Knowledge, & Tim Sparapani, Senior Policy Counsel, CALinnovates. Moderator is Fawn Johnson, Chief Policy Editor, Morning Consult. The event will be streamed live on the Internet Society Livestream Channel.
Panel 1: Public-Private Cooperation in Incident Response
How can governments and the private sector work together to enhance current incident response collaboration mechanisms and what are the necessary next steps?
Moderator: Robert Morgus, Policy Analyst, New America. Panelists: Chris Boyer, Assistant Vice President, AT&T; Kathryn Condello, Director of National Security, CenturyLink; Arturo Gomez Garcia, Inspector, Mexican Federal Police; Adam Hatfield, Director, CDN Cyber Incident Response Centre, Public Safety Canada; Brad Nix, Acting Director, United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).
Panel 2: Engaging with Small and Medium Enterprise
What challenges do small businesses face in cybersecurity, particularly when doing business internationally? How can our governments and industry engage with SMEs to promote good cybersecurity practices?
Moderator: Ola Sage, Chair, IT Sector Coordinating Council, & CEO, e-Management. Panelists: Alfredo Reyes Krafft, Chairman, Lex Informatica, & Executive VP, Mexican Internet Association; Terri L. Williams, Director, Small Business Development Center’s Procurement Technical Assistance Center at University of Texas San Antonio; J. Paul Haynes, CEO, eSentire.
Panel 3: Cybersecurity Policies in a Global Economy
Can policies be developed and implemented that provide for better cybersecurity without inhibiting cross-border supply chains, for example, by allowing business to be confident that their international operations and intellectual property are secure, cybercrime is prosecuted, and that component parts produced abroad meet cybersecurity standards?
Moderator: Eric Miller, President, Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, & Non-Resident Fellow, Stimson Center. Panelists: Norma Krayem, Senior Policy Advisor Co-Chair, Cybersecurity and Privacy, Holland & Knight LLP; Eric Rojo, Director of Industry Projects, SL Global Energy; James C. Wilson, Senior Legal Counsel, Blackberry.
The following day there was a session focused on the Asia Pacific region. The panel included Dr. Tobias Feakin, Director of National Security Programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an author of the newly released report “2016 Asia-Pacific Cyber Maturity Metrics.” Other speakers: Ryan Gillis – Vice President of Cybersecurity Strategy and Global Policy, Palo Alto Networks; Denise Zheng – Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Strategic Technologies Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Moderator: Peter W. Singer, Strategist and Senior Fellow, New America.
Today Monday September 29 2016 Quartz and Mastercard present Bridging the Digital Divide – an evening discussion surrounding the energy and dialogue of the United Nations General Assembly around financial and economic inclusion. SPEAKERS: Mark Latonero, Fellow, Data & Society Research Institute & Research Director, Center On Communication Leadership And Policy, USC Annenberg School; Olivia White, Associate Principal, Mckinsey & Company; Shamina Singh, President, Mastercard Center For Inclusive Growth; and Kevin Delaney, Co-President And Editor In Chief, Quartz. The event will be webcast live via the Quartz Livestream Channel.
Today Thursday September 22 2016 the New York Network Operators Group (NYNOG) will hold their second meetup at the MarketplaceLive full day event at Spring Studios in NYC. The NYNOG #2 Agenda: – Introduction and Interconnection Basics – Christian Koch of NYNOG + Engineering & Operations for Interconnection – Ryan Woolley of Netflix + The Business of Interconnection – Adam Rothschild of Packet. The session will be streamed live on the Internet Society Livestream Channel. Plus, as a bonus, we will be streaming two later sessions by NYNOG associates: Duckweed in the Data Center? The Next Generation of Sustainability – Philomena Chu : PHD Candidate in Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers & John Peter (JP) Valiuis : VP of Marketing & Thermal Management, Emerson + Rackspace | Cloud training for today’s IT leaders– Ed Molinari : Senior Advisor- Hosting and Cloud Solutions Architect, Rackspace & Zachary Muren : Enterprise Consultant, Rackspace.
Next Wednesday September 21 2016 theInternet Society will be holdingInterCommunity2016 – the second online meeting of our entire 80k+ global members. Sessions will be staggered according to time zones, session 3 will be optimally timed for participation in the Western Hemisphere. ISOC-NY will be one of several Chapters setting up “nodes” (= remote hubs) to participate. We will meet at Civic Hall starting at 11:45am, and the session will run 12:30pm-4pm. We are honoured to be joined in person by ISOC’s Senior Director of Internet Leadership Toral Cowieson, who will address the global meeting via our node. Space is limited but all ISOC NY members are invited to attend. Pleaseregister via our meetup. It is also possible to individually participate remotely in the Global Meeting from 2pm-4pm..
What: InterCommunity 2016 Global Member Meeting New York node
Where: Civic Hall, 156 5th Ave, NYC 10010
When: Wednesday September 21 2016 11:45am-4pm
Agenda:
11:45am: Doors open
12:00p – 2:00p: North America Regional Session
2:00p – 4:00p: Global Session
Register (in person): https://www.meetup.com/isoc-ny/events/234096480/
Register (remote): https://icomm16.internetsociety.org/
Twitter: #iComm2016
Facebook: #iComm2016
On Saturday September 17 2016 A11ynyc will present Accessibility Camp NYC 2016at NYU MAGNET2 Metrotech Center in Brooklyn. Speakers from different fields in accessibility will come together to share ideas, experiences, and knowledge. Focusing on users with different disabilities, sessions can cover digital accessibility topics from the web (technical to tactical), desktop software, assistive technology, hacking, education, elections, and everything in between. The event will be webcast live on the Internet Society Livestream Channel.
Some background:
After 18 years of steady progress since the formation of ICANN, and two years of intense negotiation within the multistakeholder community to come up with a plan, on Aug 12 2016 the NTIA declared that it intends to let theIANA Functions Contract expire on Sep 30 2016, “barring any significant impediment”. However, a significant impediment may indeed possibly arise in the form of congressional opposition. On the Senate side this is led by former presidential candidate Ted Cruz who, speaking on Sep 8 2016, vociferously spoke against it.
(transcript)
Cruz made several spurious claims – pretty much the opposite of reality – about the implications of the transfer, for instance, about the power of governments to control global content via ICANN, or that ICANN would leave U.S. jurisdiction. This prompted ICANN to issue a refuting FAQ.
Also on September 8, a bill opposing the transfer was introduced in the House, and several other prominent pols sent a letter to the DoC & DoJ raising anti-trust, jurisdiction, and accountability concerns. Cruz’s solution was to call for “continuing and strengthening” financial constraints imposed on the NTIA in 2015 via a continuing resolution, in effect de-funding the transfer in the imminent Appropriations Bill. If such were to happen, the only way the transition would go through would be via an Obama veto, and a resulting government shutdown. Something that did happen in the battle over Obamacare in 2013, but not seen as a likely prospect in 2016, despite it precipitating a Republican pratfall last time round.
However, transcendentally, whether such financial constraints do even in fact prevent the transfer taking place appear negated by a GAO report issued on Monday! The NTIA’s Larry Strickling immediately responded “We thank the GAO for its thorough analysis of the property implications of the IANA transition. We are pleased that GAO concluded that the transition does not involve a transfer of U.S. government property requiring Congressional approval.”
I have concerns about the US ceding control of the Internet. But, when a pile of f!lth like Ted Cruz opposes an issue, it means the issue needs our full support.
ron baione-doda
12:42 am on September 15, 2016 Permalink
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As you can see from the hearing, no one mentioned any whistle-blower process at ICANN past, present or future. Anyone who thinks that the so-called post transition “checks and balances” processes approved and presented to Congress by the ICANN-accountability working group will stand up to the sophisticated methods of intimidation and bribery used by foreign intelligence services is merely pretending to believe in a world of international human rights and respect that does not yet exist. A world of international human rights and respect may one day exist, and at that time a transition could be considered in my opinion. I would recommend at this time that any allusion to a fragmented internet is nothing more than a bluff on behalf of those foreign governments pretending like that would be somehow a beneficial alternative to the current status quo for their economies, and lastly I recommend that the functions of ICANN be transferred to an office in the Pentagon under military supervision, until such time as a world of international human rights and respect occurs. Globalists who benefit from globalism financially willfully promote that the bluffs of foreign governments are somehow worth worrying about, such as the UN gaining control of ICANN. The U.S. has veto power at the UN, so that argument is moot. Stop falling for the bluffs of foreign governments, pretending that those bluffs represent real risks to the U.S. so you can further your globalist agenda. Its like if you owned something that you wanted to lose and the first person who asked you for it you were like, “oh i better give it up because this is the way the world is going now and if I don’t it’s a risk.”. The ICANN whistle-blower process basically relies on some hero in ICANN discovering undue foreign influence and then leaking that to wikileaks. There is no guarantee that the GAC influencer within ICANN on behalf of the American people will have America’s interests in mind, more likely it will be someone put there to continue selling out America to the false idea that globalism as a governance model, governed by people far away locally unaccountable. Globalism works only as an economic and travel facilitator as it should be limited to, but power-seekers know no such reasonable limits, although there are some signs , as with Brexit and the good work of Ted Cruz that there are many people willing to argue for limits on globalism to prevent increasingly unaccountable non-localized government, the ultimate corruption.
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