As announced on RIPE Labs we monitored the behaviour of a number of networks that participated in the World IPv6 Launch on 6 June 2012. For that, we looked at the full list of participating organisations as shown on the ISOC website and chose 50 websites from that list. We looked at 'interesting' sites and at geographic distribution. We also tried to find a good mix of networks that had IPv6 switched on already and those that didn't have IPv6 deployed at the time they registered on the ISOC web site.

For the 50 selected websites we checked whether they had AAAA records registered in the DNS for their main website. This is a necessary step to enable end-users to visit the website over IPv6.

Full article available at http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120611_measurement_results_from_world_ipv6_launch/

EURid publises on its website on March 8 the availability of the Q4 report. Impressive figures underlining the success and interest in the special ccTLD .eu. Marc Van Wesemael, general manager of EURid seems to be very happy : "I am pleased to see the extent of .eu consumer loyalty. The strong renewal rate for 2011 shows that end-users have a sustained interest in renewing their .eu domain names."

On average, 81.6% of registered .eu domain names were renewed in 2011, according to the latest quarterly progress report from the .eu top-level domain registry, EURid. .eu has maintained a renewal rate of over 80% for the past five years.

.eu registrations grew by 3.0% in Q4 2011 which was the strongest growth since Q1 2010. Registrations increased in 23 of the 27 EU nations and the strongest growth was in Malta (8.6%), Austria (7.2%) and France (6.6%) during the fourth quarter.

.eu completed Q4 2011 with 3.51 million registered .eu domain names, an increase of 5.5% compared with Q4 2010. Annual growth of over 10% was recorded in 11 European Union countries, namely Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Full article posted on EURIDs website

The full report for Q4 2011 is available for download at: http://link.eurid.eu/reports.

The most recent voting on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was held on the whole document. The general trend seems to go in the negative direction (against).

If you are interested in seeing who of the Belgian EU parliamentarians voted for or against the ACTA proposal may click here.

From the 22 votes 8 of them where against the ACTA proposal, 11 voted for. We clearly need to convince our EP the risks such a proposal contains with regards to the privacy of our citizens. Catching the bad guys can not be done through the honest citizens.

Top websites, Internet service providers, and home networking equipment manufacturers commit to largest transition in the Internet’s history

[Washington, D.C., USA and Geneva, Switzerland] – 17 January 2012 – Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.

Organized by the Internet Society, and building on the successful one-day World IPv6 Day event held on 8 June 2011, World IPv6 Launch represents a major milestone in the global deployment of IPv6. As the successor to the current Internet Protocol, IPv4, IPv6 is critical to the Internet’s continued growth as a platform for innovation and economic development.

“The fact that leading companies across several industries are making significant commitments to participate in World IPv6 Launch is yet another indication that IPv6 is no longer a lab experiment; it's here and is an important next step in the Internet’s evolution,” commented Leslie Daigle, the Internet Society’s Chief Internet Technology Officer. “And, as there are more IPv6 services, it becomes increasingly important for companies to accelerate their own deployment plans.”

More to read on website Internet Society

New Website Coming Soon!

We are pleased to announce that we will be launching a re-designed version of our website on Thursday 15 December.

The new version of the site will feature a new design, more intuitive navigation and all new content.

We received feedback from many of you about the fact that we have great content; unfortunately it's difficult to find. Thanks to our new design and navigation, we are confident that you will find what you are looking for easier and faster.

In addition to improved navigation and design, our new site will feature:

• New sections such as What We Do, Where We Work to find out the depth of what the Internet Society is doing.
• New ways to get involved and join the Internet Society community.
• Stories that help everyone understand how the Internet makes the world a better place. Check out the "Breaking Barriers" story on our new homepage this Thursday to see a great example.
• Multilingual content. Specific sections of our site will be available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic. New translated content will be added to the site on a continual basis.
• And much more

Remember to come back and check out our new website this Thursday!

Digital Agenda: Turning government data into gold

Brussels, 12 December 2011 – The Commission has launched an Open Data Strategy for Europe, which is expected to deliver a €40 billion boost to the EU's economy each year. Europe’s public administrations are sitting on a goldmine of unrealised economic potential: the large volumes of information collected by numerous public authorities and services. Member States such as the United Kingdom and France are already demonstrating this value. The strategy to lift performance EU-wide is three-fold: firstly the Commission will lead by example, opening its vaults of information to the public for free through a new data portal. Secondly, a level playing field for open data across the EU will be established. Finally, these new measures are backed by the €100 million which will be granted in 2011-2013 to fund research into improved data-handling technologies.

Full text at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1524&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

[Washington, D.C., USA and Geneva, Switzerland, 10 August 2011] – The Internet Society is proud to announce that the organization will celebrate its 20-year anniversary in 2012. To recognize this momentous milestone, the organization will launch a comprehensive set of exciting initiatives to reflect on the accomplishments of the Internet Society’s first two decades, as well as focus attention on the evolution of the Internet over the past 20 years and the opportunities and challenges that will have a profound impact on its future.

The Internet Society was founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. Over the years, the Internet Society has been committed to ensuring the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. Through developing-country workshops, public policy, technical activities, sponsored events, and the many and varied activities of its Members, Regional Bureaus, and local Chapters, the Internet Society serves the needs of the growing global Internet community.

“Twenty years ago, several Internet pioneers had the foresight to form a global organization to help ensure the continued development of an Internet that was open and accessible to all, as well as to more directly support the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in its open standards processes," said Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. “As we approach our 20-year anniversary, we have a remarkable list of accomplishments to celebrate. We now have 90 Chapters, individual Members in nearly every country in the world, and more than 100 organization Members from industry, academia, NGOs, and government who share in the vision of our founders, and support our ongoing efforts to address the long-term health of the Internet for generations to follow.”

Saturday 14 November, the day before the official start of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt), some preparatory meetings took place. ISOC organised a briefing session for the IGF ISOC ambassadors, among which we find also the ISOC Belgium president. During the coming 4 days he will participate actively in the IGF as an ambassador as well as an active panelmember in 2 sessions. More details will follow.

Lynn St Amour, President and CEO ISOC explains to Ian Scales why, despite some telco claims to the contrary, the Internet model is not 'broken' and needs no radical surgery to keep it relevant and technically fit for purpose. Those who want to change the fundamental Internet rules need to re-think their approach and 'lean in' to support and  prosper from its open development environment.

Lynn has been interviewed by ITU Telecom during the ITU World 2009 conference in Geneva.

26 June : the European Commission announced the adoption of amendments to EC 874/2004 (policy rules implementation and function of the .eu TLD. Speakers of Bulgarian and Greek will soon be able to have .eu websites in their own languages. These new rules (defined by ICANN) will make it possible for Internet users to register their domain names under .Eu using the characters of all the 23 official languages of the European Union, now including Cyrillic and Greek scripts.

Internet founders and leaders are joining industry executives and government officials in praising the selection of Rod Beckstrom as the new Chief Executive Officer and President of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

"Rod Beckstrom has exactly the sort of strong personal and technical background that ICANN needs, as we enter a period of unprecedented growth and change for the Internet," said ICANN's Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, in announcing the appointment. "In addition to his cyber security expertise, he's been a successful CEO of a global enterprise, done NGO work and volunteer work and a bestselling author. It's an extreme understatement to say we are enthused."

18 June, German Federal Government.

The Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen kicked off and led the discussions within the German Federal Government to block Internet sites in order to fight child pornography. The general idea is to build a censorship architecture enabling the government to block content containing child pornography. The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) is to administer the lists of sites to be blocked and the internet providers obliged to erect the secret censorship architecture for the government. 389 politicians voted in favor for this new law, 128 were against. Quite a political success.

It looks like every country will start a process of voting specific laws to block and/or filter the Internet. Is this what we need ? Are the ISP's going to accomplish the required activities and what if the fail in doing so ? ISOC worldwide invited their membership in a workgroup which will focus on these type of government actions in order to avoid having the Internet locked up behind hundreds and thousands of filters ...

Buitenlandse zaken vestigt de aandacht van onze landgenoten op berichten van onze ambassade in Moskou die steeds meer gecontacteerd wordt door landgenoten die het slachtoffer werden van oplichting via internet. Meestal gaat het om bedrieglijke liefdesrelaties na een contact via datingsites op internet. Het scenario loopt vaak als volgt:

• Een reeks e-mails (liefdesbrieven) worden uitgewisseld met een Russische dame, die vervolgens voorstelt haar correspondent in België te ontmoeten;
• De dame vraagt om geld op te sturen via organisaties zoals Western Union met het oog op de betaling van onkosten (voor een vliegticket naar België, voor het bekomen van een visum, enz). Soms zijn de voorgestelde bedragen onrealistisch hoog;
• Het komt ook regelmatig voor dat de dame in kwestie, na een eerste betaling te hebben ontvangen, zegt dit geld te hebben verloren, waarna ze vraagt om opnieuw een gelijkaardig bedrag op te sturen;
• Vaak (maar niet uitsluitend) wordt voor het opsturen van geldsommen een adres in de steden Cheboksary en Yoshkar-Ola opgegeven;

Sinds kort worden ook valse e-mailadressen gebruikt, zogezegd namens de Belgische ambassade, (bijvoorbeeld maar niet uitsluitend het adres embassy.be@gmail.com met als hoofding “Embassy of Belgium in Moscow”). Hierbij ontvangen slachtoffers, nadat ze hun correspondente hebben ingelicht over het feit dat de ambassade haar dossier niet kent, een email via een vals adres waarbij de ambassade zogezegd meedeelt zich te hebben vergist en toch een visumaanvraag te hebben ontvangen. Het enige correcte email-adres van de ambassade hiertoe is moscow@diplobel.fed.be .

Indien landgenoten met mogelijk bedrog worden geconfronteerd, raadt Buitenlandse Zaken U aan de grootste voorzichtigheid aan de dag te leggen en in geen geval geld op te sturen. Bij de minste twijfel raden we aan onmiddellijk alle contacten met de correspondent te verbreken.

Landgenoten die reeds het slachtoffer zijn geweest van dergelijke praktijken kunnen klacht neerleggen bij de politie.

Misdrijven op of via het internet kunnen ook online worden gemeld via de website www.ecops.be. Het staat U eveneens vrij hierover de Ambassade van de Russische Federatie te Brussel te informeren. Informatie over de voorwaarden voor het bekomen van een Schengen visum aan Russische staatsburger kan U overigens vinden op de website van onze ambassade in Moskou onder de rubriek visum tarieven (zie onze site diplobel.be).

Starting 3/4/2009 in India, New Delhi, 34 jurors of the WSA Grand Jury have selected among 800 projects the 40 best e-Content projects of the world. They have been judging for 5 days long in order to get the best of the best in 8 categories : e-Business, e-Health, e-Inclusion, e-Entertainment, e-Learning, e-Government, e-Science and e-Culture. The winners will receive their award in Monterey Mexico on the 12th of June. Soon the winnerslist will be announced.

The jurors came from 32 different countries and among them was also a Belgian juror : Rudi Vansnick.

In de voorbije 12 maanden hebben we meermaals dossiers overgemaakt aan de dienst Eco Inspec (vooral spamklachten). Wij hebben inmiddels mogen vaststellen dat deze dienst steeds efficiënter wordt. Maart 2008 werd een spamklacht-melding beantwoord met een brief en een paar A4-tjes antwoordformulier. Onbruikbaar gezien je een email niet kan overschrijven op een voorgedrukt formulier. Gaandeweg hebben we kunnen vaststellen dat de dienst gestadig zijn procedures aanpastte en inmiddels een zeer efficiënte en snelle aanpak toont. Voor de eerste maal kregen we een elektronische melding van de ontvangst van een spamklacht, wat uiteraard aangeeft dat de automatisatie van de procedures een feit is geworden.

Nu nog de politieke wil om deze dienst nog efficiënter te laten optreden door de gepaste acties op wetgevend vlak. Het mag niet blijven bij spamklachtmeldingen, ook effectief optreden tegen de "daders" is een manier om de dienst Eco Inspec meer armslag te geven.

WORLD WIDE WEB'S 20TH BIRTHDAY HIGHLIGHTS VALUE OF OPEN INTERNET

Geneva, Switzerland - 12 March 2009 - As the inventor of the World Wide Web returns to Geneva for the twentieth birthday of his creation,  the Internet Society celebrates both his achievement and the open, standardised Internet platform that made it possible.

Tim Berners-Lee, together with our compatriot Robert Cailliau (added by ISOC Belgium), helped change the course of history by inventing the World Wide Web, while working at the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva, 20 years ago. What some may not realise is that the Internet itself had at that time already been running for more than 15 years.

ISOC's press release

De strafrechtbank van Dendermonde, inmiddels een beruchte stad, heeft een van 's werelds grootste searchengines  Yahoo veroordeeld wegens het niet verlenen van medewerking bij gerechtelijk onderzoek in kader van cybercriminaliteit. Dit vinden we zeer opmerkelijk enerzijds, maar een grote stap voorwaarts in de aanpak van cybercriminaliteit. In de komende dagen, met name op woensdag 5/3, is de voorzitter van ISOC Belgium, aanwezig op de ICANN meetings in Mexico, panellid in een open debat e-Crime and Abuse of the DNS Forum: A Global Perspective. Sinds 3 jaar is ISOC Belgium begaan met de problemen van cybercriminaliteit in België en Europa. Er werd tot op vandaag heel weinig aandacht gegeven aan deze problemen.

During the 34th ICANN meetings in Mexico, ISOC Belgium will have a particular task to fullfil. The At-Large Summit is the first-ever gathering of the representatives of individual Internet users participating in ICANN.

ISOC Belgium's president will be co-chairing the workgroup 3 on new GTLDs on Sunday and Tuesday. Tuesday 3/3 he organises a thematic session with the title "Registries-registrars and abuse of domain names". On Wednesday 4/3 he is member of the panel debating on e-Crime and Abuse of the DNS Forum.

The full program is accessible here and some of the sessions have remote participation services.

Ms Carmen Manfredda, acting National Member for Italy, will take the lead in coordinating a Europe-wide investigation on internet telephony (VoIP).

At the request of Direzione Nazionale Antimafia in Rome, the Italian Desk at Eurojust will play a key role in the coordination and cooperation of the investigations on the use of internet telephony systems (VoIP), such as “Skype”. Eurojust will be available to assist all European law enforcement and prosecution authorities in the Member States. The purpose of Eurojust’s coordination role is to overcome the technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of internet telephony systems, taking into account the various data protection rules and civil rights.

Source : Eurojust -

Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder of Kaspersky Labs (anti-virus software), was present in Brussels and commented on the cybercriminality today. Remarquable statement of Mr Kaspersky : there is only one way to stop cyber criminality, we need a better international collaboration. This sounds very wellknown in our ears.

At several occassions our chair has made similar statement at national and international conferences. Mr Kaspersky's comments are in this a welcome confirmation of the activities ISOC Belgium has been focussing on the last couple of years. And we will certainly not stop these actions. Next event : ICANN meetings in Mexico 1 - 6 March.

ICANN released the second version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook for new GTLDs today 18/2/2009, which contains a lot of modifications as a result of the public comment period. A 52 days comment period starts the day the document is released in the 5 languages, probably just before the start of the ICANN meetings in Mexico next week.

More detailed data can be found here.

Door toedoen van de wijziging van de gebruiksvoorwaarden van Facebook komt nogmaals de privacy en het auteursrecht in opspraak. Het is overduidelijk dat er nood is aan een betere bepaling van wat een Internetgebruiker aan rechten en plichten heeft. Zeker als het gaat om het plaatsen van eigen materiaal (teksten, beelden, geluid) op websites die slechts één doel nastreven : populariteit aan de hand van hun "klanten - leden".

Opmerkelijk toch dat alleen bedrijven auteursrechten betwisten, zeer uitzonderlijk krijg je dit te horen van een burger. En in deze gaat het dan om een toch wel vrij grote groep van burgers. In de komende dagen zullen we samen met enkele organisaties de koppen bij elkaar steken om eventuele acties tegen dergelijke "geldwolven-achtige" methodes te kunnen voeren.

On the website of the EU we find following message :

The Commission proposes € 5 billion new investment in energy and Internet broadband infrastructure in 2009-2010, in support of the EU recovery plan

As part of the ongoing implementation of the EU recovery plan endorsed by the European Council in December 2008, the European Commission has today presented proposals to invest in key energy and Internet broadband infrastructure projects. These will deliver a much needed stimulus to the EU economy in the short term, while at the same time targeting strategic goals such as energy security. All Member States will benefit from the package of measures

Het bestuur en de leden van ISOC Belgium betuigd zijn medeleven met de ouders en familie van de slachtoffers van het ongelooflijke voorval in Dendermonde. Dit schokt niet alleen België maar ook de wereld.

Al onze leden en symphatisanten worden vriendelijk uitgenodigd hun medeleven naar het e-mailadres dendermonde@isoc.be te sturen. ISOC Belgium zal alle berichten samenbrengen en officieel overmaken aan de stad Dendermonde. U kan ook uw medeleven betuigen via deze link

Small communities looked with great eyes to the offer to participate in the Internet world by means of new GTLD's. Several organisations spend a enormous budget in trying to understand the process and policy behind this action. But, the pressure of large business and commercial benefit is destroying their dreams ... unlucky again ?

For that reason we ask and require the split of the proposal into 2 parts : the geographical, community bounded, non-commercial, not-for-profit and by government guaranteed GTLD's should have the opportunity to enter their proposals as soon as possible with a low entry fee. The second part/phase would be for commercial organisations, having an initial goal of benefit. And as such considered being more generic than geographic oriented.

Finally, Barack Obama is he 44th president of the United States, and somehow the 'president of the world'. Probably he will also be the president of a futur Internet, as we have found some rumours dr. Vinton Cerf would become a personal advisor of the president.

Den Haag/Amsterdam, 15 januari 2009

Vanavond zijn in cultureel centrum Felix Meritis in Amsterdam de acht Nederlandse inzendingen voor de World Summit Award 2009 bekend gemaakt. De bekendmaking werd gedaan door Jan Willem Broekema, voorzitter van Internet Society Nederland, tijdens een grootschalige internetnieuwjaarsbijeenkomst van 21 nationale en internationale organisaties uit de internetwereld in het bijzijn van zo'n 400 internetprofessionals

Meer info hier

In preparation of the 34st ICANN meetings in Mexico (March 2009) ISOC Belgium put the focus on the new GTLD's and the topic cyber criminality in general. More specific information on what is scheduled will be available soon here. We can already mention the participation in the french event in Paris on the 26th January, but that's just a warming up. In dept debates and discussions will follow in the month after the ICANN meetings, as a result of the EURODIG and IGF meetings.

More details here.

We herewith want to enable all our members to receive the new year's wishes send out by the CEO and president of ISOC worldwide. Please click on "read more" for the detailed letter.

Today (11/12/2008) W3C announced a new standard that will help Web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0" improve upon W3C's groundbreaking initial standard for accessible Web content, apply to more advanced technologies, and are more precisely testable. W3C also published supporting resources, including "Understanding WCAG 2.0," "Techniques for WCAG 2.0," and How to Meet WCAG 2.0: A Customizable Quick Reference. Read the press release, testimonials, announcement, and WCAG Overview. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.