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Technology 12 November 2018

The Week in Internet News: China Wants Fairer Internet, More Control

Grant Gross
By Grant GrossGuest AuthorTechnology Reporter

China wants fairness: Chinese President Xi Jinping called for international cooperation to make the Internet more “fair and equitable,” while also asserting the Chinese government’s authority to shape it, Reuters reports. Xi has pushed for his country’s “cyber sovereignty” while promoting “core socialist values” online. Chinese officials also promoted the idea that each country should choose its own Internet “governance model,” The Star says.

Drones for broadband: A U.K. company has begun using drones to build fiber broadband networks in remote areas, reports Computer Weekly. Openreach is using drones to lay fiber in remote areas of the Scottish Highlands, where river gorges have previously presented a challenge.

Encrypted chat busted: Dutch police have found a way to infiltrate IronChat, an encrypted chat service running on proprietary hardware, Gizmodo says. The police were able to read 258,000 messages on the service, which costs about US$1,700 for a six-month subscription. News reports suggest the encryption wasn’t as strong as the vendor may have claimed.

Saving the Web: World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee has been pushing a new Contract for the Web, in hopes of defining the responsibilities that governments, companies and citizens each have on the Web. Shortlist.com examines his efforts, which include plans for publishing a new contract in mid-2019.

It gets worse: Internet of Things security will get worse before it gets better, because of the millions of poorly designed devices that have been rushed to market, ZDNet suggests. Many millions of devices are operated by users who have no idea they need better security, the author says.

Artificial news: China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, plans to deploy a digitally generated news anchor to report the news in both Chinese and English, Newatlas.com says. The goal is to save employment costs of real talking heads. There appears to be some Artificial Intelligence component to the digital anchor, but so far, he lacks sophistication, the story adds.

Around the world, people are reacting to security challenges with laws to regulate technology – interventions that risk breaking the Internet. Instead, the collaborative approach is essential for cybersecurity. #DontBreakTheInternet

Disclaimer: Viewpoints expressed in this post are those of the author and may or may not reflect official Internet Society positions.

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