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 …
[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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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/
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.
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Marco Hogewoning, Manager of Public Policy and Internet Governance at the RIPE NCC, has written about the Irrationality of Deploying IPv6 – August 3rd, 2021
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Read more at:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/nixi-unveils-three-new-initiatives-to-create-awareness-about-ipv6/articleshow/82102938.cms
In the first three months of 2021, three 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 […]
Internet shutdowns harm societies, economies and the global Internet infrastructure – that’s why we’re tracking disruptions on the Internet Society Pulse platform. There are thousands of disruptions to Internet access every day all over the world, but not all of them are the result of deliberate shutdowns. Lengthy outages are usually the result of technical errors, […]
The administrators of the Uzbek country-code top-level-domain (ccTLD) are celebrating the 26th birthday of .uz in the best way possible: by deploying DNSSEC. In their announcement of this happy news, UZINFOCOM highlight that the .uz ccTLD now boasts 92,000 registered domains, having grown by over 50% in just the last three years. The celebrations include the release […]
Several governments around the world turn to limiting or shutting down access to the Internet as an easy solution to quell potential local problems. In the past few years, we’ve noticed that Internet shutdowns occur around periods of local unrest, elections, or national school/university exams. We have also noticed that shutdowns rarely serve their purpose […]
After 5 years of discussing, coding and testing, and 34 revisions to the draft specification, a new version of the technology underpinning the web, and many other Internet applications these days, is nearly ready for publication by the IETF and more widespread adoption. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) serves as the foundation of data communication for the […]
Note: This blog post originally appeared on the Internet Society Benin Chapter’s website here, in French. It has been translated and re-posted here with the permission of the Benin Chapter. Internet shutdowns are rife today. The reasons often mentioned are the following: to prevent the spread of social unrest, to fight against the dissemination of […]
IPv6 is the latest version of the fundamental technology (Internet Protocol) that powers the Internet. The previous version, IPv4, is still in operation on many networks around the world but it can only support an Internet of a few billion devices. By contrast, IPv6 can support an Internet of billions of billions of devices and […]
Many popular Internet applications like e-mail and web browsers use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to secure traffic against eavesdropping and against data being tampered with while in transit between clients and servers. Over time, flaws in early versions of TLS have been identified leading to substantial improvements to the protocol. The documents defining version 1.0 and […]
A resilient Internet connection is one that maintains an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation. Internet Resiliency is a new focus area for Pulse for 2021 and we’re still working on defining the data and metrics for this section. Once finalized, we’ll track resiliency metrics to help support […]
In order to align better with the Internet Society’s brand strategy, and to further differentiate our platform from other products with similar names, we have decided to rename our measurement platform. As of 1 March, 2021, Insights will be known as Internet Society Pulse. The new URL is: https://pulse.internetsociety.org/ A redirect will be implemented so […]
This article was first published on the Internet Society blog. The Indian government’s recent Internet shutdown during farmer protests impacted over 50 million residents. It is a stark warning of the danger of tampering with the foundations that make the Internet work for everyone. Internet shutdowns are a dangerous tactic increasingly used by the state to quell situations […]
This article was first published in Coindesk on 4 February 2021 by Sandali Handagama. (c) Sandali Handagama / Coindesk. Internet disruptions are costly, but that doesn’t stop governments from shutting down access. The new military government in Myanmar has reportedly ordered telecommunications companies to temporarily block access to Facebook citing the platform is a threat to the […]
On 13 January, ahead of the Ugandan 2021 General Elections, our data sources began showing evidence of Internet disruption in Uganda signaling that a wide scale outage was underway. Over 17.5 million Internet subscribers in the country and countless business, services and educational institutions were affected. Prior to the shutdown, Reuters, NYTimes, and AccessNow had […]
This article was first published on the Internet Society Blog Here at the Internet Society, we’ve always known that the Internet can be an integral part of our existence. 2020 has shown us that we need stable, reliable, and available Internet for everyone, everywhere. Much of our work – and the work of the organizations that facilitate the […]
This article was first published on the Internet Society Blog There are many people, projects, and organizations that are collecting data on various facets of the Internet, but there’s no single site that provides a curated set of insights. To help address this gap, we’ve launched Internet Society Pulse to help everyone gain deeper, data-driven insight into the […]
In a recent blog post, Mozilla announced the introduction of a new feature coming to Firefox in version 83 that allows users to enable always-on security for their web browsing. By enabling HTTPS-only mode, users can be confident that their browsing is always secure from eavesdroppers. When this new mode is enabled, Firefox will attempt […]
This article was first published on the Internet Society Blog For many in the African region, Internet interruptions or service degradations occur frequently, which results in a disjointed Internet experience. In order to help improve this experience, we need to track and measure various Internet characteristics through network telemetry. This data can help to identify […]
One of the indicators we provide as part of our Insights platform is the economic cost of shutdowns. In our data, we rely on a tool developed with Netblocks.org, the Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST). The COST builds upon indicators from the World Bank, ITU, Eurostat and U.S. Census to estimate the economic impact of […]
This article was first published on the Internet Society Blog Things might have seemed quiet on our Measuring the Internet activities for the last few weeks, but lots of work has been taking place behind the scenes to ensure that the Internet Society Pulse platform will be ready for phase one of its launch in December 2020. What We’re Working […]
Apple’s iOS 14 release (and upcoming MacOS 11 release) has included client support for HTTPS records, allowing connections to be upgraded to QUIC when the HTTP/3 parameter is returned in the DNS record. Apple has reported that so far, of the population that has manually enabled HTTP/3 on iOS 14, 8% of the QUIC connections had […]
Amazon has announced that their content distribution service CloudFront will now support TLS1.3 for viewer connections. Amazon identify the improved security and performance provided by the latest version of the TLS protocol as key benefits. Their testing shows latency reductions of up to 33% for ‘time-to-first-byte’, meaning more responsive websites for end users. Many popular […]
A recent report – Milliseconds make Millions – commissioned by Google and published by Deloitte, has shown that mobile website speed has a direct impact on user experience. Reducing latency and decreasing load times by just 0.1 second can positively affect conversion rates potentially leading to an increase in net earnings. Over a four-week period, Deloitte’s research team analyzed mobile web […]
The Kashmir Observer has documented the impact of long-lived Internet shutdowns on the young people in Kashmir. As is clear from our map of the frequency of shutdown events, India is a repeat offender where Internet shutdowns are concerned. The political unrest in the Kashmir region has been used to justify the long-lived shutdown of […]
Many organizations are required to use their own IPv6 addresses for compliance or regulatory reasons. A new release from Amazon enables such customers to create their IPv6 applications in AWS with minimal disruptions. Additionally, applications may be using trusted IPv6 addresses that business partners and customers have whitelisted in their firewalls. These applications can now […]