Published in Technology.
As a network of networks, the Internet can be characterized as a set of dependencies between networks. Dependencies for both connectivity and customers. An outage at any specific network can impact dependent networks that do not have alternative means of accessing the Internet. Some networks are so large that significant outages can impact many dependent […]
Published in Internet Shutdown, Shutdown.
Internet service interruptions in Lebanon are increasing in frequency and becoming the norm. Access via landlines and mobile data is affected across all regions in the country. The argument used to justify these outages is power cuts at local transmission stations. At the Internet Society Lebanon Chapter, we estimate that the direct and indirect costs […]
Published in Technology. Tags: dnssec.
We wrote earlier this year about Rwanda joining the ranks of fully DNSSEC capable domains and now we can report that they have been followed by the Côte d’Ivoire ccTLD, .ci. The .ci ccTLD is managed by the Côte d’Ivoire Network Information Centre. It’s been a few years since ICANN helped to provide DNSSEC deployment workshops for […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: content blocking, Iran.
Over the past couple of weeks we have observed multiple incidents of artificial Internet limitations in Iran. These incidents are reported to be connected to local unrest. We collect data and analysis on Internet shutdown events occurring around the world, and look at the economic and human impact of these actions. Timeline Regional shutdowns On […]
Published in News. Tags: resilience.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/egypts-submarine-cable-stranglehold/
Published in Shutdown. Tags: Algeria, exam, Jordan, SMEX, Sudan, Syria.
A new report, Internet Shutdowns to Prevent Cheating During Exams: The Impact on Society and Economy in the MENA Region, has been launched today by SMEX, a Lebanese NGO that works to advance self-regulating information societies in the MENA region. The report comes after another summer of Internet shutdowns throughout the region, which saw Internet […]
Published in Centralization, Resilience.
It’s now been a full two months since Rogers Telecom suffered a nationwide Internet outage, leaving tens of millions of Canadians without telecommunications services. On the morning of 8 July 2022, Rogers subscribers across Canada found themselves without Internet service. The outage spread to cable, mobile services, and fixed line telephony, including access to E911 […]
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
Internet shutdowns cost the country more than $580 million in 2021, with 59 million people impacted. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/tech-telco-firms-seek-federal-oversight-to-control-internet-shutdowns-122090700496_1.html
Published in News.
https://blog.apnic.net/2022/08/17/tls-1-3-a-story-of-experimentation-and-centralization/
Published in Shutdown. Tags: Iran, Splinternet.
Iran has a notable history of maintaining a tight grip over the Internet within the country. Since 2009, there has been an increasing number of Internet shutdowns in Iran, ranging from local and regional events to a near total national blackout in November 2019. During this event, the Iranian government shut down the Internet for […]
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/29/how-to-shut-down-the-internet-and-how-to-fight-back
Published in Technology. Tags: internet2.0, l4s.
If you’ve been around the Internet and tech industries for a while, it can start to feel like there’s often more hype than reality to a lot of buzzword-driven trends and so-called innovations. The advent of Web 2.0 in the early noughties had substance and ushered in a new era of more collaborative, social websites and […]
Published in Centralization.
In 2021, a fourth focus area was published on Internet Society Pulse. We called it “Internet Centralization”. Today we’ve changed the name to “Market Concentration” and we wanted to explain why. The concept of centralization can be seen as the degree to which an activity within a given set of relationships is dependent on a […]
Published in Shutdown.
The devastating real-life effects of Internet shutdowns on the lives and rights of millions of people are vastly under-appreciated and deserve much greater attention, says a new report on Internet shutdowns, published by The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR). Internet shutdowns create significant obstacles that damage economies, democratic processes, […]
Published in News.
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/tls-1-2-required-for-aws-endpoints/
Published in News.
https://www.kentik.com/blog/outage-in-egypt-impacted-aws-gcp-and-azure-interregional-connectivity/
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams.
Internet access is an essential part of life for many people around the globe – but not during the school exam period in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This is the message that is conveyed by the ongoing disruption of Internet access for millions of people, in part or in full, to stop students cheating on public exams in several countries, including Syria, Sudan, Jordan, and Algeria. Often used as […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams, Sudan.
General entrance exams in Sudan took place from 11-22 June, 2022, and alongside them came Internet shutdowns implemented as a measure to combat cheating. As has occurred over the last few years, Internet access was disrupted for everyone, rendering Sudan out of reach from the world for a few hours on each day with scheduled […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams, Syria.
General entrance exams in Syria took place from 30 May – 21 June, 2022, and alongside them came Internet shutdowns implemented as a measure to combat cheating. As is the case since 2016, Internet access was disrupted for everyone, rendering Syria out of reach from the world for a few hours on each day with […]
Published in Technology. Tags: ipv6.
On Internet Society Pulse we present a variety of different measurements that help to illustrate the extent and variation in IPv6 deployment around the world and across the networks that comprise the global Internet. June 2022 marks the 10-year anniversary of World IPv6 Launch so we thought this would be a good time to reflect on some of […]
Published in News.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-view-http3-usage/
Published in Uncategorized.
https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-at-a-un-security-council-meeting-on-the-use-of-digital-technologies-in-maintaining-international-peace-a/
Published in Shutdown.
Every year, throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, millions of people are cut off from the Internet for lengthy periods while students take their school exams.In many countries in the region, national school exams are a major annual event. They can have a huge impact on people’s futures and the results usually […]
Published in Technology. Tags: dnssec.
It’s been a few years since ICANN helped to provide DNSSEC deployment workshops for African ccTLD registries but that effort is still paying off. The latest ccTLD to join the ranks of fully DNSSEC capable domains is Rwanda’s .rw domain. The Rwandan ccTLD is managed by the Rwanda Internet Community and Technology Alliance and Rwanda is the 17th African […]
Published in Past Event.
Published in Technology. Tags: ipv6.
Google’s latest IPv6 measurements show the percentage of its users connecting to Google services over IPv6 passed 40% for the first time on 30 April this year. This is a significant milestone in the ongoing deployment of IPv6 services to Internet users all around the globe. Crossing this latest threshold now means that IPv6 use by Google users has grown from […]
Published in News.
Please complete and submit this form to receive updates from Internet Society Pulse
Published in Technology. Tags: ipv6, MANRS, roa, rpki.
Internet measurement results from our friends at APNIC show that efforts to improve the security and resilience of the Internet’s routing system passed a significant milestone recently. More than 50% of advertised IPv6 address space has a valid Route Origin Authorisation (ROA). This means that now, for the first time, the majority of announced IPv6 address space is secured with RPKI. […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams, india, shutdowns.
High Court in India Challenges Internet Shutdown Order in West Bengal By Tanmay Singh, Internet Freedom Foundation and Anandita Mishra, Internet Freedom Foundation On 8 March, 2022, a resident of Calcutta in India challenged an Internet suspension order, which was issued by the State Government of West Bengal on 3 March, 2022. The order, ostensibly […]
Published in Uncategorized.
This is a live dashboard of speedtest data collected from Measurement-Lab. It presents data on both Ukraine and Russia as from 1 February, 2022. This dashboard provides a summary view by country (Pages 1 and 4) including the number of tests run on Ukrainian and Russian networks. The other pages provide either a City-level or […]
Published in News.
Mozilla Foundation hosted a Twitter Spaces audio chat related to Mozilla’s new open dataset on Internet outages with Berhan Taye, Doug Madory, Maria Xynou, Alberto Dainotti and Alessio Placitelli. The recording is online now if you wish to listen or share further. It was a wide-ranging conversation about technical outage measurements, why they matter and […]
Published in Past Event. Tags: resilience.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/research-event/upholding-sustainable-resilient-internet-what-coalitions-and-solutions
Published in Non classifié(e).
Published in Resilience, Shutdown. Tags: Russia, ukraine.
As events unfold in Ukraine and the world is focused on following what is happening, it’s important to remember that critical Internet infrastructure plays a key role in keeping people connected, providing access to all kinds of crucial information and support and helping people stay in contact with loved ones across borders. At the Internet […]
Published in Shutdown.
In the past few years, India has imposed the lion’s share of Internet shutdowns across the world. The country witnessed a marked increase in the number of shutdowns since 2016 – ordering 121 of 213 documented shutdowns in 2019, and 109 of 155 documented shutdowns in 2020. An Internet shutdown, an intentional disruption of access […]
Published in Resilience. Tags: ioda, ukraine.
Data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis tool (IODA) shows a decline in the reachability of Ukrainian Internet address space since the beginning of the recent conflict with Russia. Over 15% of previously reachable Internet addresses are no longer responsive to probes from IODA. The regions most impacted are unsurprisingly those where we know […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams, india.
Note: After this blog post was published, the High Court of Calcutta dismissed the order to shutdown the Internet in West Bengal. Read more about how quick legal action meant that hundreds of thousands of citizens in West Bengal were able to stay online in this blog post. Over the last few years, a worrying […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: censorship, OONI, shutdowns.
The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a global community measuring Internet censorship around the world. In this short video, Maria Xynou, OONI’s Research & Partnerships Director, explains how you can take part by running the OONI Probe app to detect internet censorship where you are. She also explains how you can use the […]
Published in Past Event.
LACNIC 37, Cali, Columbia and online. 2-6 May
Published in Past Event.
IETF 113, Vienna, Austria and online. 19-25 March, 2022.
Published in News. Tags: dnssec.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/dnssec-issues-fiji/
Published in News.
Published in Technology. Tags: dnssec.
Just about every Internet communication starts with a Domain Name System (DNS) lookup. The DNS is an essential piece of Internet infrastructure that translates human-friendly names (internetsociety.org) into computer-friendly numbers (2001:41c8:20::b31a). Like many other components of the Internet, the DNS started out without any security features in a vastly different Internet landscape. Today, security and […]
Published in Resilience. Tags: Infrastructure, Internet Resilience, Yemen.
Yemen was forced into an Internet shutdown on Friday, 21 January, 2022 when the communications building in the city of Hodeidah was destroyed in a nighttime airstrike. The building is home to the only Internet cable landing point, connecting Yemen to the global Internet network, and the airstrike severed Yemen’s Internet gateway. In the aftermath, […]
Published in Technology.
In response to our recent post about the history of Internet network number assignments, Andy Davidson asked an interesting question via Twitter – what would this look like on a per capita basis? Very different indeed is the answer! (You may need to reload this page in your browser to see the animation below.) This […]
Published in Technology.
The Internet is a network of networks. But where are these networks? We can get some insight by using the location of the organization that holds the registration for the allocated Autonomous System Number (ASN) assigned to the network as a proxy for the location of that network. All Internet networks must be assigned an ASN in order for them […]
Published in Technology. Tags: http3.
The new web protocol HTTP/3 now makes up around a third of all traffic on large European networks according to a recent post from Sandvine. They monitored traffic on several large Tier-1 networks in Europe and the US and found that HTTP/3 (running over the new transport protocol QUIC) constituted around 30% of traffic in […]
Published in News. Tags: Kasakhstan, shutdown.
Kazakhstan’s Internet Shutdown Leaves Millions in the Dark During Unrest – The National Post, 10 Jan 2022
Published in Resilience. Tags: Africa, gambia, Internet Resilience.
On the 4 January, 2022, The Gambia, the smallest country in mainland Africa, was completely cut off from the Internet for more than eight hours, leaving almost 2.5 million people without connectivity. Gamtel, the state-owned operator, released a communique on 5 January, explaining the reasons of the outage. What Happened? Most of the international traffic of The Gambia is routed […]
Published in News.
M-Lab is pleased to share our selection of Research Fellows for Spring 2022, generously supported by Internet Society. The fellows were selected for the merit, rigor, and feasibility of their proposed project as well as their research’s relevance to improvement for end-user Internet performance. Read more …
Published in Pulse News.
View as PDF
Published in Centralization.
[Note: On 2 August 2022, we changed the name of the Centralization focus area to Market Concentration. Find out why here.] The Internet is built on a decentralized model. Its many network operators make independent decisions about how to interconnect, and the core functions and decisions required to keep the Internet running are distributed among its participants using open standards and protocols. This decentralized architecture, where power and […]
Published in Pulse News. Tags: IGF, Internet Resilience, shutdowns.
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2021 took place from 6-10 December, 2021. The Pulse team gave a lighting talk on Internet Resilience and Internet Shutdowns. This short session offered a brief overview of the Internet Society Pulse platform and the data presented on it. There was discussion on how the Internet Society Internet Resilience (IRI) […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: measurements, OONI, shutdowns.
With Internet shutdowns, disruptions and censorship events on the increase around the world, tracking where such events are happening and gathering evidence to help in the fight against them is becoming more and more important. Tracking these events is crucial because of the impact they have on society and the economy. When social media apps […]
Published in Pulse News. Tags: shutdowns, thomson reuters.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Conference 2021 took place on 17-18 November, 2021. The Pulse team took part in a panel session on The Human Cost of Internet Shutdowns hosted by Jigsaw (Google). Scott Carpenter, Director of Policy and International Engagement at Jigsaw was joined by Internet Society Pulse Shutdowns expert, Hanna Kreitem, Justin Henck, […]
Published in News.
When the internet goes dark: How states are weaponising digital shutdowns to stifle dissent
Published in Past Event.
The Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be hosted by the Government of Poland under the overarching theme: ‘’Internet United’’. The programme is built around the six issue areas: (1) Economic and Social Inclusion and Human Rights, (2) Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity, (3) Emerging Regulation: Market Structure, Content, Data and Consumer Rights […]
Published in Resilience, Shutdown. Tags: india, Measuring the Internet, resilience, shutdowns.
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” – Lord Kelvin On November 11, 2021. The Internet Society India – Hyderabad Chapter organized a one-day workshop on Internet Measurements, Global Policy and Online Privacy. Held in virtual mode, the workshop was moderated by Internet Society Pulse Internet Resilience expert, Amreesh Phokeer, and was attended […]
Published in Resilience.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear that the Internet plays a critical role in society, and it’s underlined the importance of reliable Internet connectivity for everyone. It’s also highlighted a stark reality. Not all countries are on a level playing field with a resilient Internet infrastructure—one that maintains an acceptable level of service in the […]
Published in News.
Measurement Lab is seeking three Research Fellows to expand Internet performance research beyond the measurement and optimization for bandwidth. Fellows will utilize M-Lab’s longitudinal, open dataset and/or platform to identify under-recognized Internet performance metrics that can be used to improve end user performance. See https://www.measurementlab.net/blog/research-fellowship-call/
Published in Past Event. Tags: shutdowns.
Trust Conference is the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s flagship annual event and a leading human rights forum. The Pulse team will be taking part in a panel session, The Human Cost of Internet Shutdowns, alongside Jigsaw (Google). More details available here.
Published in Past Event. Tags: india, Workshop.
The Internet Society India Hyderabad Chapter Workshop on Internet Measurement will take place on 11 November, 2021, at 04:30 UTC. The workshop will provide an overview of the Internet ecosystem in India and in the region using an Internet measurement lens and will focus on global routing and privacy considerations. Register here.
Published in Technology. Tags: tls1.3.
In a recent update Apple announced that support for TLS1.0 and TLS1.1 will be deprecated as of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15. Support for these insecure versions of TLS will be removed entirely in future releases. Apple specifically recommend supporting TLS 1.3. As we reported earlier this year, versions 1.0 and 1.1 of the TLS […]
Published in News, Technology. Tags: ipv6.
For the first time ever, ISIF Asia is supporting IPv6 uptake via a USD 800,000 direct grants program for IPv6 deployments. Grants available range between USD 30,000 and USD 250,000 and applications are now open. They will remain open until funds are exhausted. Who can apply? To be eligible for the grants, organizations must hold IPv6 address space […]
Published in Technology. Tags: http3.
One of the ‘enabling’ technologies that we track on Internet Society Pulse is the latest version of the protocol that underpins the web, namely HTTP/3. In addition to powering the web, HTTP is increasingly used to transfer data between Internet-connected devices of all kinds. In a recent Technical community update, Nick Banks highlighted the huge […]
Published in News. Tags: Facebook, MANRS.
Facebook Has Good MANRS. Mistakes Still Happen – MANRS, 6 October 2021
Published in News. Tags: cloudflare, Facebook.
Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the Internet – Cloudflare, 4 October, 2021
Published in News. Tags: Facebook, ThousandEyes.
Facebook Outage Analysis – ThousandEyes, 4 October 2022
Published in Technology. Tags: https.
The latest development in the HTTPS deployment success story has seen the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) declare “Victory!” and move on. EFF have announced that because HTTPS is actually everywhere, the HTTPS Everywhere browser plug-in is no longer needed and they are preparing for its deprecation. After the end of this year, the browser extension […]
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
The Open Internet on the Brink: Economic and Social Costs of Restrictions – The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, September 2021.
Published in Pulse News. Tags: cloudflare, Data partners, OONI, W3Techs.
The Internet Society Pulse platform provides curated insights into the overall health, availability, and evolution of the Internet. This quarter, we’re excited to announce that we have three new Data Partners – Cloudflare, OONI and W3Techs. Cloudflare: Bolstering Internet Shutdowns Data To help everyone gain deeper, data-driven insight into the Internet, we need to present […]
Published in Resilience. Tags: Africa, afrinic, MIRA, webinar.
The Measuring Internet Resilience in Africa (MIRA) project team held its first quarterly update meeting on 16 September, 2021. MIRA is a joint initiative between African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) and the Internet Society. The project uses Internet measurements gathered by measurement devices called MIRA pods, which are located within African countries, to: Determine levels of […]
Published in News. Tags: Afghanistan, disruptions.
The Battle for control of Afghanistan’s Internet – Wired, 7 September, 2021
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
The Draconian Rise of Internet Shutdowns – Wired, 2 September, 2021
Published in News. Tags: Afghanistan, Asia, Kentik, shutdowns.
Kentik’s Doug Madory asks What’s Next for the Internet in Afghanistan?, 31 August, 2021
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
The Current 004: Internet Shutdowns, Jigsaw, August 2021
Published in Past Event. Tags: Africa, afrinic, MIRA.
The Measuring the Internet in Africa (MIRA) project team is pleased to invite you to its first quarterly update meeting, which takes place on 16 September, 2021 at 13:00 UTC. MIRA is a joint initiative between African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) and the Internet Society. The project uses Internet measurements gathered by measurement devices called […]
Published in Technology. Tags: dnssec.
We noticed some exciting news via Twitter from the .ch registry SWITCH recently: For the first time, more than 10% of all .ch domain names are signed with #DNSSEC on #1August 🇨🇭🥳. The number of signed names is increasing sharply as more registrars and hosters offer enhanced security for their domain customers. pic.twitter.com/xCG8eeCpss — Michael […]
Published in Technology. Tags: dnssec.
In the second quarter of 2021, three more countries have joined the ranks of those with DNSSEC-signed country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) and security keys deployed in the DNS root zone. Just about every Internet communication starts with a Domain Name System (DNS) lookup. The DNS is an essential piece of Internet infrastructure that translates […]
Published in News. Tags: ipv6.
Marco Hogewoning, Manager of Public Policy and Internet Governance at the RIPE NCC, has written about the Irrationality of Deploying IPv6 – August 3rd, 2021
Published in News. Tags: cloudflare, radar, shutdowns.
Working With Those Who Protect Human Rights Around the World – 29 July, 2021
Published in Past Event.
Our Internet Measurement and Data Expert, Amreesh Phokeer will be speaking as part of this year’s Africa DNS Forum. The full event program is now online and registration is open.
Published in Resilience. Tags: Africa, afrinic, MIRA.
On 21 July, 2021, we held a webinar to launch the Measuring Internet Resilience in Africa (MIRA) project. The joint Internet Society – AFRINIC initiative seeks to determine levels of Internet resilience in African countries. The initiative has already began conducting various measurements as outlined in the MIRA project overview and MIRA measurement infrastructure has been deployed […]
Published in News.
Increasing https Adoption – Chromium 14 July, 2021
Published in News. Tags: shutdowns.
When Governments Turn the Internet Off – Reboot, 8 July 2021
Published in Pulse News.
This article was first published in dot.magazine as part of a series on collaboration. The Internet’s distributed and synergistic nature makes measuring individual aspects of the Internet on a global scale difficult, explains Susannah Gray from the Internet Society. For most people, the Internet is something that is accessed on their device – a ubiquitous […]
Published in News.
The Deeper Root Cause of the Fastly and Akamai Outages – CircleID, 28 June, 2021
Published in Past Event.
Join us for a webinar on 21 July 2021, at 13:00 UTC, for a webinar on Measuring the Internet in Africa (MIRA). The joint Internet Society – AFRINIC initiative on Measuring Internet Resilience in Africa (MIRA) seeks to determine levels of Internet resilience in African countries. The initiative has already began conducting various measurements as […]
Published in Shutdown. Tags: india.
India is widely considered to be the world’s largest democracy, yet it also holds the dubious distinction of having the highest number of Internet shutdowns worldwide. In 2020 alone, 109 shutdowns occurred in the country. By contrast, the nation with the second highest number of shutdowns (Yemen), had only six. The Indian government typically justifies these […]
Published in News.
Why the Internet Is Vulnerable to Outages – LifeWire, 22 June, 2021
Responding directly to a request for easy to share information about circumvention tools during a shutdown, Localization Lab has created short animations in 4 local languages and a video overviewing how to download and use a VPN when one is no longer able to use messaging applications or access content online. Localization Lab has also […]
Published in News.
https://freemyinternet.info
Published in News.
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10094/
Published in News.
Published in Shutdown. Tags: exams, shutdown, Syria.
This blog post was originally authored by Ali Sibai and posted on the SMEX website. It is reposted here with permission. In recent years, internet outages in Syria have become a familiar, dystopian tradition during the Official High School Exams. The Syrian government has unplugged the internet during exams every year since 2016, plunging the country […]
Published in Pulse News.
On 13 May, 2021 the Internet Society’s Kenneth Olmstead gave an overview of the Pulse platform during the Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC) 35 Meeting. Pulse was presented during the technical forum, and Kenneth gave a quick walk-through of the Pulse platform itself and the various data that the team collates on […]
Published in Shutdown.
This article was originally published on the Internet Society’s blog. With protests intensifying and social media interruptions reported in the weeks leading up to Benin’s presidential elections on 11 April 2021, many Internet and civil rights organizations were growing nervous about the potential for another Internet shutdown. Internet access was cut for almost 24 hours […]
Published in Technology.
I was recently honoured to be asked to present and participate on a panel of experts for the BEREC public technical workshop on IPv6 deployment across Europe. BEREC is the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications with the aim to foster ‘independent, consistent and high-quality regulation of digital markets for the benefit of Europe and its […]
Published in Resilience. Tags: Africa, afrinic, Internet Resilience, MIRA, resilience.
Internet resilience is the ability of a network to maintain an acceptable level of service at all times. The Internet plays a critical role in society and the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of reliable and stable Internet connectivity. However, not all countries have Internet infrastructure that is robust enough to provide an acceptable […]
Published in Past Event.
https://berec.europa.eu/eng/events/berec_events_2021/280-berec-public-technical-workshop-on-ipv6-deployment-across-europe