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You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 21 of 38. Line of Effort 4: Expand and Diversify Civil Society Participation in Multistakeholder Processes The United States and its partners remain committed to the multistakeholder model of Internet and digital governance. Active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders, including governments, civil society, the private sector, academia, and the technical community, is essential to informing our discussions and policymaking, promoting transparency and accountability, and strengthening implementation and sustainable development. Through foreign assistance programs, the Department of State is advancing policy and advocacy initiatives through which civil society stakeholders engage with national governments, regional governance bodies, and international standard-setting entities to encourage Internet and digital governance policies consistent with democratic values and international human rights. The Department of State will continue its efforts to expand and diversify the groups who are working to promote interoperable, rights-respecting, and secure digital technologies. It will also continue to prevent and defend against efforts by repressive governments to exclude civil society and other stakeholders from participation in relevant fora. The United States strongly supports the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as the preeminent global body bringing together all stakeholders through a bottom-up process to discuss rights-respecting solutions to Internet public policy issues. It will continue to work with allies and partners to sustain and bolster the IGF’s relevance. Continue Reading Here. This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 21 of 38. You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here . This part is 21 of 38. here Line of Effort 4: Expand and Diversify Civil Society Participation in Multistakeholder Processes The United States and its partners remain committed to the multistakeholder model of Internet and digital governance. Active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders, including governments, civil society, the private sector, academia, and the technical community, is essential to informing our discussions and policymaking, promoting transparency and accountability, and strengthening implementation and sustainable development. Through foreign assistance programs, the Department of State is advancing policy and advocacy initiatives through which civil society stakeholders engage with national governments, regional governance bodies, and international standard-setting entities to encourage Internet and digital governance policies consistent with democratic values and international human rights. The Department of State will continue its efforts to expand and diversify the groups who are working to promote interoperable, rights-respecting, and secure digital technologies. It will also continue to prevent and defend against efforts by repressive governments to exclude civil society and other stakeholders from participation in relevant fora. The United States strongly supports the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as the preeminent global body bringing together all stakeholders through a bottom-up process to discuss rights-respecting solutions to Internet public policy issues. It will continue to work with allies and partners to sustain and bolster the IGF’s relevance. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State by the U.S Department of State

U.S. Advocates Multistakeholder Model for Internet Governance, Empowers Civil Society Participation

You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 6 of 38. Threats to the Internet and Digital Freedom Authoritarian and illiberal states are seeking to restrict human rights online and offline through the misuse of the Internet and digital technologies. Governments are closing and siloing the Internet: suppressing dissent through Internet and telecommunications shutdowns, virtual blackouts, restricted networks, and blocked websites. The PRC has developed a massive system of surveillance, and its firms are now exporting their regulatory approach and technical capabilities to facilitate other governments’ monitoring and repression. Beijing has also used cyber means to target people beyond its borders, including journalists, dissidents, and individuals it views as threats to Chinese Communist Party narratives, policies, and actions. In the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian government blocked access to foreign websites and increased censorship and surveillance of domestic users. The Iranian government continues to rely on Internet restrictions, filtering, and surveillance to repress opposition to the regime. A growing number of governments, including backsliding democracies, are misusing digital tools in ways that violate or abuse the individual’s right to be free from arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s privacy, and restricting and threatening individuals’ rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Commercial spyware, AI-enabled facial recognition software, and other surveillance technologies are misused against journalists, human rights defenders and other activists, women, and members of marginalized groups, including beyond countries’ borders. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) chills speech, impedes privacy and freedom of expression, and undermines the ability of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals to participate in democracy, governance, and civic life. The proliferation of online manipulation, in combination with threats posed by foreign adversaries seeking to interfere with information integrity, pose fundamental threats to democracy, undermining trust in institutions, threatening electoral processes, and sowing discord within and between countries. PRC actors have increased their capabilities to conduct covert influence operations and disseminate disinformation. Even if Beijing sets limits on these activities, individuals not under its direct supervision may attempt election influence activities they perceive are in line with the PRC’s goals. The Russian government remains a serious foreign influence threat because of its wide-ranging efforts to try to divide Western alliances and undermine U.S. global standing. Recently, Russian influence actors have adapted their efforts to better hide their hand. Continue Reading Here. This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 6 of 38. You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here . This part is 6 of 38. here Threats to the Internet and Digital Freedom Authoritarian and illiberal states are seeking to restrict human rights online and offline through the misuse of the Internet and digital technologies. Governments are closing and siloing the Internet: suppressing dissent through Internet and telecommunications shutdowns, virtual blackouts, restricted networks, and blocked websites. The PRC has developed a massive system of surveillance, and its firms are now exporting their regulatory approach and technical capabilities to facilitate other governments’ monitoring and repression. Beijing has also used cyber means to target people beyond its borders, including journalists, dissidents, and individuals it views as threats to Chinese Communist Party narratives, policies, and actions. In the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian government blocked access to foreign websites and increased censorship and surveillance of domestic users. The Iranian government continues to rely on Internet restrictions, filtering, and surveillance to repress opposition to the regime. A growing number of governments, including backsliding democracies, are misusing digital tools in ways that violate or abuse the individual’s right to be free from arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s privacy, and restricting and threatening individuals’ rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Commercial spyware, AI-enabled facial recognition software, and other surveillance technologies are misused against journalists, human rights defenders and other activists, women, and members of marginalized groups, including beyond countries’ borders. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) chills speech, impedes privacy and freedom of expression, and undermines the ability of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals to participate in democracy, governance, and civic life. The proliferation of online manipulation, in combination with threats posed by foreign adversaries seeking to interfere with information integrity, pose fundamental threats to democracy, undermining trust in institutions, threatening electoral processes, and sowing discord within and between countries. PRC actors have increased their capabilities to conduct covert influence operations and disseminate disinformation. Even if Beijing sets limits on these activities, individuals not under its direct supervision may attempt election influence activities they perceive are in line with the PRC’s goals. The Russian government remains a serious foreign influence threat because of its wide-ranging efforts to try to divide Western alliances and undermine U.S. global standing. Recently, Russian influence actors have adapted their efforts to better hide their hand. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State by the U.S Department of State

The Battle for Internet Freedom: Surveillance, Censorship, and Online Manipulation

You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 5 of 38. Competing Internet Norms Russia, the PRC, and other authoritarian states have promoted a vision of global Internet governance that centers on domestic control and top-down, state-centric mechanisms over the existing bottom-up multistakeholder processes. Russia and the PRC attempt to use multilateral fora like the UN to exert their influence on and appeal to developing countries, with the aim of reshaping the global cyber and technology policy landscape to advance an authoritarian agenda while hampering the United States and its allies. Russia, the PRC, and others seek to reshape norms governing cyberspace, undermine the technical underpinnings of the Internet, and dilute accountability for authoritarian countries’ malicious use of cyberspace capabilities. Authoritarian governments are working to weaken global commitment to universal human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international legal instruments, such as the UN Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Authoritarian governments, most notably the PRC, are actively working to co-opt and redefine well-established terminology related to “democracy” and “human rights” in the context of international technology policy development, including through their input into the UN Pact for the Future process and its Global Digital Compact. Continue Reading Here. This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here. This part is 5 of 38. You can jump to any part of the United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy here . This part is 5 of 38. here Competing Internet Norms Russia, the PRC, and other authoritarian states have promoted a vision of global Internet governance that centers on domestic control and top-down, state-centric mechanisms over the existing bottom-up multistakeholder processes. Russia and the PRC attempt to use multilateral fora like the UN to exert their influence on and appeal to developing countries, with the aim of reshaping the global cyber and technology policy landscape to advance an authoritarian agenda while hampering the United States and its allies. Russia, the PRC, and others seek to reshape norms governing cyberspace, undermine the technical underpinnings of the Internet, and dilute accountability for authoritarian countries’ malicious use of cyberspace capabilities. Authoritarian governments are working to weaken global commitment to universal human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international legal instruments, such as the UN Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Authoritarian governments, most notably the PRC, are actively working to co-opt and redefine well-established terminology related to “democracy” and “human rights” in the context of international technology policy development, including through their input into the UN Pact for the Future process and its Global Digital Compact. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State This post was originally published on May 6, 2024, by the U.S Department of State by the U.S Department of State

The Battle for Internet Governance: Authoritarian Agendas vs. Multistakeholder Norms

How to Find Out If You're Paying for Slow Internet

Authors:
(1) Vinod S. Khandkar and Manjesh K. Hanawal, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India and {vinod.khandkar, mhanawal}@iitb.ac.in. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Work and Background Challenges in TD Detection Measurement Setup Development Case Study : Wehe - TD Detection Tool for Mobile Environment Shortcoming of Wehe on HTTPS Traffic TD Detection of HTTPS Traffic Conclusion & References VII. CONCLUSION Net neutrality violation detection is a need of an hour. As many of the ISPs are also content providers these days, they compete with each other, which can lead to one deliberately discriminating the services of the other to gain market share. However, users should have the freedom to choose services as per their wishes. Our work considered various challenges in the detection of traffic discrimination in HTTPS traffic. As a case study, we validated Wehe, one of the latest tools available to detect traffic differentiation. The described challenges helped us divide the entire tool into multiple interdependent components and validate them independently. Our validation using commercial traffic shaper revealed that traffic in Wehe setup may not mimic the characteristics of HTTPS traffic accessed from the original servers. Hence, middle-boxes may not subject them to intended discrimination. Thus, Wehe may not detect discrimination of HTTPS traffic. Our new method that uses the appropriate SNI parameter value in the initial TLS handshake message overcomes this shortcoming. Hence our work provided a mechanism to detect a wide range of possible discriminations on the Internet. REFERENCES [1] T. Garrett, L. E. Setenareski, L. M. Peres, L. C. E. Bona, and E. P. Duarte, “Monitoring network neutrality: A survey on traffic differentiation detection,” IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 2486–2517, 2018. [2] V. Nguyen, D. Mohammed, M. Omar, and P. Dean, “Net neutrality around the globe: A survey,” in 2020 3rd International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies (ICICT), 2020, pp. 480–488. [3] Ramneek, P. Hosein, W. Choi, and W. Seok, “Detecting network neutrality violations through packet loss statistics,” in 2015 17th AsiaPacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS), 2015, pp. 404–407. [4] D. Li, F. Tian, M. Zhu, L. Wang, and L. Sun, “A novel framework for analysis of global network neutrality based on packet loss rate,” in 2015 International Conference on Cloud Computing and Big Data (CCBD), 2015, pp. 297–304. [5] M. Dischinger, A. Mislove, A. Haeberlen, and K. P. Gummadi, “Detecting bittorrent blocking,” in Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement, Oct. 2008, pp. 3–8. [6] M. B. Tariq, M. Motiwala, N. Feamster, and M. Ammar, “Detecting network neutrality violations with causal inference,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies, ser. CoNEXT ’09. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2009, p. 289–300. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/1658939.1658972 [7] R. Ravaioli, G. Urvoy-Keller, and C. Barakat, “Towards a general solution for detecting traffic differentiation at the internet access,” in 2015 27th International Teletraffic Congress, Sep. 2015, pp. 1–9. [8] Y. Zhang, Z. M. Mao, and M. Zhang, “Detecting traffic differentiation in backbone isps with netpolice,” in Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement, ser. IMC ’09. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2009, pp. 103–115. [Online]. Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1644893.1644905 [9] P. Kanuparthy and C. Dovrolis, “Shaperprobe: End-to-end detection of isp traffic shaping using active methods,” in Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement Conference, Nov. 2011, pp. 473–482. [10] U. Weinsberg, A. Soule, and L. Massoulie, “Inferring traffic shaping and policy parameters using end host measurements,” in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, 2011. [11] M. Dischinger, M. Marcon, S. Guha, K. Gummadi, R. Mahajan, and S. Saroiu, “Glasnost: Enabling end users to detect traffic differentiation,” in 7th USENIX Conf. Networked Systems Design and Implementation, Apr. 2010, pp. 27–27. [12] V. Bashko, N. Melnikov, A. Sehgal, and J. Schonw ¨ alder, “Bonafide: A ¨ traffic shaping detection tool for mobile networks,” in 2013 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM 2013), 2013, pp. 328–335. [13] A. Molavi Kakhki, A. Razaghpanah, A. Li, H. Koo, R. Golani, D. Choffnes, P. Gill, and A. Mislove, “Identifying traffic differentiation in mobile networks,” in Proceedings of the 2015 Internet Measurement Conference, Oct. 2015, pp. 239–251. [14] R. Narisetty and D. Gurkan, “Identification of network measurement challenges in openflow-based service chaining,” in 39th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks Workshops, 2014, pp. 663– 670. [15] E. Balestrieri, L. De Vito, F. Lamonaca, F. Picariello, S. Rapuano, and I. Tudosa, “Research challenges in measurement for internet of things systems,” ACTA IMEKO, vol. 7, p. 82, 01 2019. [16] E. Karoly. (2000, Feb.) Qos performance validation in real life scenarios. [Online]. Available: http://archive.opengroup.org/tech/qos/ conference/q101/karoly.pdf [17] S. Molnar, P. Megyesi, and G. Szab ´ o, “How to validate traffic gen- ´ erators?” in 2013 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC), 2013, pp. 1340–1344. [18] G. Lu, Y. Chen, S. Birrer, F. E. Bustamante, C. Y. Cheung, and X. Li, “End-to-end inference of router packet forwarding priority,” in IEEE INFOCOM 2007 - 26th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, 2007, pp. 1784–1792. [19] R. Mahajan, M. Zhang, L. Poole, and V. Pai, “Uncovering performance differences among backbone isps with netdiff,” in Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, 2008, pp. 205–218. [20] (2008, Jun.) Ookla, measuring and understanding broadband : Speed, quality and application. [Online]. Available: https://www.ookla.com/ docs/UnderstandingBroadbandMeasurement.pdf [21] V. S. Khandkar and M. K. Hanawal, “Detection of traffic discrimination in the internet,” in 2020 International Conference on COMmunication Systems NETworkS (COMSNETS), 2020, pp. 677–679. [22] Tcpreplay: Pcap editing and replay tools for *nix. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/appneta/tcpreplay [23] W. Cui, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, and R. Katz, “Protocol-independent adaptive replay of application dialog,” in 13th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Feb. 2006, pp. 27–27. [24] R. T. El-Maghraby, N. M. Abd Elazim, and A. M. Bahaa-Eldin, “A survey on deep packet inspection,” in 2017 12th International Conference on Computer Engineering and Systems (ICCES), 2017, pp. 188–197. [25] M. AlSabah, K. Bauer, and I. Goldberg, “Enhancing tor’s performance using real-time traffic classification,” in Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, ser. CCS ’12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2012, p. 73–84. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/2382196.2382208 [26] Z. Hu, L. Zhu, J. Heidemann, A. Mankin, D. Wessels, and P. Hoffman, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3,” Internet Requests for Comments, IETF, RFC 7858, August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc8446.pdf [27] C. Zhou, C. Lin, and Z. Guo, “mdash: A markov decision-based rate adaptation approach for dynamic http streaming,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 738–751, Apr. 2016. [28] T. Joe, L. Eliot, M. Allison, K. Markku, O. Kumiko, S. Martin, E. Lars, M. Alexey, E. Wes, Z. Alexander, T. Brian, I. Jana, M. Allison, T. Michael, K. Eddie, and N. Yoshifumi. (2020, Sept) Service name and transport protocol port number registry. [Online]. Available: https://www.iana.org/assignments/ service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml [29] G. Keinan. (2018, January) Optimizing enterprise networks through sd-avc (software define application visibility and control). [Online]. Available: https://www.ciscolive.com/c/dam/r/ciscolive/emea/docs/2018/ pdf/BRKCRS-2502.pdf [30] A. Rao, J. Sherry, A. Legout, A. Krishnamurthy, W. Dabbous, and D. Choffnes, “Meddle: middleboxes for increased transparency and control of mobile traffic,” in CoNEXT Student Workshop, ACM, 12 2012, pp. 65–66. [31] R. Liu and X. Yu, “A survey on encrypted traffic identification,” in Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Cyberspace Innovation of Advanced Technologies, ser. CIAT 2020. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2020, p. 159–163. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/3444370.3444564 [32] F. Li, A. A. Niaki, D. Choffnes, P. Gill, and A. Mislove, “A large-scale analysis of deployed traffic differentiation practices,” in Proceedings of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication, ser. SIGCOMM ’19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019, p. 130–144. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/3341302.3342092 [33] P. Srisuresh and K. Egevang, “Traditional IP Network Address Translator (Traditional NAT),” Internet Requests for Comments, IETF, RFC 3022, Jan 2001. [Online]. Available: https://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc3022.pdf This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Vinod S. Khandkar and Manjesh K. Hanawal, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India and {vinod.khandkar, mhanawal}@iitb.ac.in. Authors: Authors: (1) Vinod S. Khandkar and Manjesh K. Hanawal, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India and {vinod.khandkar, mhanawal}@iitb.ac.in. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Related Work and Background Related Work and Background Challenges in TD Detection Measurement Setup Development Challenges in TD Detection Measurement Setup Development Case Study : Wehe - TD Detection Tool for Mobile Environment Case Study : Wehe - TD Detection Tool for Mobile Environment Shortcoming of Wehe on HTTPS Traffic Shortcoming of Wehe on HTTPS Traffic TD Detection of HTTPS Traffic TD Detection of HTTPS Traffic Conclusion & References Conclusion & References VII. CONCLUSION Net neutrality violation detection is a need of an hour. As many of the ISPs are also content providers these days, they compete with each other, which can lead to one deliberately discriminating the services of the other to gain market share. However, users should have the freedom to choose services as per their wishes. Our work considered various challenges in the detection of traffic discrimination in HTTPS traffic. As a case study, we validated Wehe, one of the latest tools available to detect traffic differentiation. The described challenges helped us divide the entire tool into multiple interdependent components and validate them independently. Our validation using commercial traffic shaper revealed that traffic in Wehe setup may not mimic the characteristics of HTTPS traffic accessed from the original servers. Hence, middle-boxes may not subject them to intended discrimination. Thus, Wehe may not detect discrimination of HTTPS traffic. Our new method that uses the appropriate SNI parameter value in the initial TLS handshake message overcomes this shortcoming. Hence our work provided a mechanism to detect a wide range of possible discriminations on the Internet. REFERENCES [1] T. Garrett, L. E. Setenareski, L. M. Peres, L. C. E. Bona, and E. P. Duarte, “Monitoring network neutrality: A survey on traffic differentiation detection,” IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 2486–2517, 2018. [2] V. Nguyen, D. Mohammed, M. Omar, and P. Dean, “Net neutrality around the globe: A survey,” in 2020 3rd International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies (ICICT), 2020, pp. 480–488. [3] Ramneek, P. Hosein, W. Choi, and W. Seok, “Detecting network neutrality violations through packet loss statistics,” in 2015 17th AsiaPacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS), 2015, pp. 404–407. [4] D. Li, F. Tian, M. Zhu, L. Wang, and L. Sun, “A novel framework for analysis of global network neutrality based on packet loss rate,” in 2015 International Conference on Cloud Computing and Big Data (CCBD), 2015, pp. 297–304. [5] M. Dischinger, A. Mislove, A. Haeberlen, and K. P. Gummadi, “Detecting bittorrent blocking,” in Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement, Oct. 2008, pp. 3–8. [6] M. B. Tariq, M. Motiwala, N. Feamster, and M. Ammar, “Detecting network neutrality violations with causal inference,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies, ser. CoNEXT ’09. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2009, p. 289–300. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/1658939.1658972 [7] R. Ravaioli, G. Urvoy-Keller, and C. Barakat, “Towards a general solution for detecting traffic differentiation at the internet access,” in 2015 27th International Teletraffic Congress, Sep. 2015, pp. 1–9. [8] Y. Zhang, Z. M. Mao, and M. Zhang, “Detecting traffic differentiation in backbone isps with netpolice,” in Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement, ser. IMC ’09. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2009, pp. 103–115. [Online]. Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1644893.1644905 [9] P. Kanuparthy and C. Dovrolis, “Shaperprobe: End-to-end detection of isp traffic shaping using active methods,” in Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement Conference, Nov. 2011, pp. 473–482. [10] U. Weinsberg, A. Soule, and L. Massoulie, “Inferring traffic shaping and policy parameters using end host measurements,” in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, 2011. [11] M. Dischinger, M. Marcon, S. Guha, K. Gummadi, R. Mahajan, and S. Saroiu, “Glasnost: Enabling end users to detect traffic differentiation,” in 7th USENIX Conf. Networked Systems Design and Implementation, Apr. 2010, pp. 27–27. [12] V. Bashko, N. Melnikov, A. Sehgal, and J. Schonw ¨ alder, “Bonafide: A ¨ traffic shaping detection tool for mobile networks,” in 2013 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM 2013), 2013, pp. 328–335. [13] A. Molavi Kakhki, A. Razaghpanah, A. Li, H. Koo, R. Golani, D. Choffnes, P. Gill, and A. Mislove, “Identifying traffic differentiation in mobile networks,” in Proceedings of the 2015 Internet Measurement Conference, Oct. 2015, pp. 239–251. [14] R. Narisetty and D. Gurkan, “Identification of network measurement challenges in openflow-based service chaining,” in 39th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks Workshops, 2014, pp. 663– 670. [15] E. Balestrieri, L. De Vito, F. Lamonaca, F. Picariello, S. Rapuano, and I. Tudosa, “Research challenges in measurement for internet of things systems,” ACTA IMEKO, vol. 7, p. 82, 01 2019. [16] E. Karoly. (2000, Feb.) Qos performance validation in real life scenarios. [Online]. Available: http://archive.opengroup.org/tech/qos/ conference/q101/karoly.pdf [17] S. Molnar, P. Megyesi, and G. Szab ´ o, “How to validate traffic gen- ´ erators?” in 2013 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC), 2013, pp. 1340–1344. [18] G. Lu, Y. Chen, S. Birrer, F. E. Bustamante, C. Y. Cheung, and X. Li, “End-to-end inference of router packet forwarding priority,” in IEEE INFOCOM 2007 - 26th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, 2007, pp. 1784–1792. [19] R. Mahajan, M. Zhang, L. Poole, and V. Pai, “Uncovering performance differences among backbone isps with netdiff,” in Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, 2008, pp. 205–218. [20] (2008, Jun.) Ookla, measuring and understanding broadband : Speed, quality and application. [Online]. Available: https://www.ookla.com/ docs/UnderstandingBroadbandMeasurement.pdf [21] V. S. Khandkar and M. K. Hanawal, “Detection of traffic discrimination in the internet,” in 2020 International Conference on COMmunication Systems NETworkS (COMSNETS), 2020, pp. 677–679. [22] Tcpreplay: Pcap editing and replay tools for *nix. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/appneta/tcpreplay [23] W. Cui, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, and R. Katz, “Protocol-independent adaptive replay of application dialog,” in 13th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Feb. 2006, pp. 27–27. [24] R. T. El-Maghraby, N. M. Abd Elazim, and A. M. Bahaa-Eldin, “A survey on deep packet inspection,” in 2017 12th International Conference on Computer Engineering and Systems (ICCES), 2017, pp. 188–197. [25] M. AlSabah, K. Bauer, and I. Goldberg, “Enhancing tor’s performance using real-time traffic classification,” in Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, ser. CCS ’12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2012, p. 73–84. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/2382196.2382208 [26] Z. Hu, L. Zhu, J. Heidemann, A. Mankin, D. Wessels, and P. Hoffman, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3,” Internet Requests for Comments, IETF, RFC 7858, August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc8446.pdf [27] C. Zhou, C. Lin, and Z. Guo, “mdash: A markov decision-based rate adaptation approach for dynamic http streaming,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 738–751, Apr. 2016. [28] T. Joe, L. Eliot, M. Allison, K. Markku, O. Kumiko, S. Martin, E. Lars, M. Alexey, E. Wes, Z. Alexander, T. Brian, I. Jana, M. Allison, T. Michael, K. Eddie, and N. Yoshifumi. (2020, Sept) Service name and transport protocol port number registry. [Online]. Available: https://www.iana.org/assignments/ service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml [29] G. Keinan. (2018, January) Optimizing enterprise networks through sd-avc (software define application visibility and control). [Online]. Available: https://www.ciscolive.com/c/dam/r/ciscolive/emea/docs/2018/ pdf/BRKCRS-2502.pdf [30] A. Rao, J. Sherry, A. Legout, A. Krishnamurthy, W. Dabbous, and D. Choffnes, “Meddle: middleboxes for increased transparency and control of mobile traffic,” in CoNEXT Student Workshop, ACM, 12 2012, pp. 65–66. [31] R. Liu and X. Yu, “A survey on encrypted traffic identification,” in Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Cyberspace Innovation of Advanced Technologies, ser. CIAT 2020. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2020, p. 159–163. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/3444370.3444564 [32] F. Li, A. A. Niaki, D. Choffnes, P. Gill, and A. Mislove, “A large-scale analysis of deployed traffic differentiation practices,” in Proceedings of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication, ser. SIGCOMM ’19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019, p. 130–144. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1145/3341302.3342092 [33] P. Srisuresh and K. Egevang, “Traditional IP Network Address Translator (Traditional NAT),” Internet Requests for Comments, IETF, RFC 3022, Jan 2001. [Online]. Available: https://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc3022.pdf This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Ensuring Fair Internet Access: Challenges and Solutions in Traffic Discrimination Detection

Authors: (1) William P. Wagner IV, Claremont Graduate University. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Definition of Key Terms Fundamentals of Internet Operation Encapsulation Usage-Based Economic Models Net Neutrality Legal History Researcher Conclusions Areas for Further Exploration & References 8. Researcher Conclusions The research shows that there is sufficient evidence to support the idea of the “Virtuous Cycle,” that it is the activity by innovators, investors, and content providers along the edge of the Internet that drives network growth and innovation, and that this cycle should be protected. Further, this researcher finds that an economic system based strictly on usage of encapsulated packets is capable of responding to all the needs of the infrastructure market, while ensuring competition along the edge. The research also shows that the reverse is not true - the ISPs have an incentive and the opportunity to abuse their position with regard to competition and this would negatively impact the edge. The large ISPs have made no secret of their goals. In Verizon Oral Arguments Transcript at line 31 “I’m authorized to state by my client [Verizon] today that, but for these rules, we would be exploring those commercial arrangements...” Therefore, it is this researcher’s recommendation that the principles of encapsulation, capitalism and democracy would best be served by regulation of ISPs to ensure that the basic tenets of Net Neutrality (as defined at the beginning of this paper and codified in the 2015 FCC Order) are followed. These basic regulations would not restrict any technical decision making by the ISPs, however they would prevent the ISPs from using their often-unique position to restrict access based on content, removing the temptation to start down a slippery slope. This paper is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Net Neutrality: Balancing ISP Power for a Fair Internet

Authors: (1) William P. Wagner IV, Claremont Graduate University. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Definition of Key Terms Fundamentals of Internet Operation Encapsulation Usage-Based Economic Models Net Neutrality Legal History Researcher Conclusions Areas for Further Exploration & References 4. Encapsulation All of this works through a process known as Encapsulation [Fig. 2]. All packets sent over the internet are encapsulated. In the TCP/IP Model, there are four layers of encapsulation on the Internet. 4.1. Network Access Layer The Network Access Layer (sometimes called Media Access Control or MAC) is the lowest layer, or Layer 1 in the model. This layer allows network activity at the most basic level and only for a single local network. It works at the network card level. 4.2. Internet Layer Layer 2 (RFC 791, Sec. 2.2.) of the TCP/IP stack, this layer controls network activity between networks and on a global scale. It defines things like IP addresses. 4.3. Transport Layer Layer 3 of the IP controls the transfer of data. After the previous layers have done their jobs of determining the address where a given packet should arrive, the Transport layer does the job of actually transferring the data and confirming it was sent and received correctly. 4.4. Application Layer Layer 4 of the IP is the Application Layer. This might be a web browser or email program, Facebook or Twitter, or it might be a wind sensor or a fitness app on a watch. 4.5. How It Works When an application is ready to send anything over a network or the Internet, it need only pass that data to the next layer down. Big pieces are broken into smaller pieces as necessary and each one of those pieces is then encapsulated – assigned some unique information that will allow it to be reassembled by the corresponding layer at the other end. Note that encapsulation does not include encryption which is a separate process. Now that the Application layer has encapsulated the smaller pieces, they can be handed off to the lower layers. Then the lower layers take care of their respective network duties, further encapsulating each packet at each layer. Until they are sent over the network and routed to their final destination. The process is repeated in reverse at the other end. Each layer peels off the encapsulation and passes the data up to the next level until all the data has arrived at the Application Layer of the receiving host. Here, the Application layer reassembles all the smaller pieces back in to a complete image, movie, email or anything else. This process means that an application programmer does not need to worry about the mechanics of the network layer, and the network engineers don’t care what language the applications programmer uses. There is a guiding principal that each layer should operate independently of the others. There are, however, situations that require one layer to utilize information from another layer. While there is an active effort to minimize this, there are certain security features and other functionality that requires the layers to interact. Any change of this magnitude requires years of research and consensus from the ISOC’s various advisory boards, specifically the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) via the Internet Advisory Board (IAB) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), as well as input from many outside sources. One example of an upcoming change of this magnitude is QUIC – a possible new HTML standard (in the Application Layer) developed by engineers at Google, that is based on UDP instead of TCP (in the Transport Layer). All the discussion and development of any code or standards related to QUIC are available to the public to read/comment and/or contribute to in a public Github Repository[10]. This paper is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Layers of Encapsulation: Exploring the TCP/IP Model in Internet Communication

Authors: (1) William P. Wagner IV, Claremont Graduate University. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Definition of Key Terms Fundamentals of Internet Operation Encapsulation Usage-Based Economic Models Net Neutrality Legal History Researcher Conclusions Areas for Further Exploration & References 3. Fundamentals of Internet Operation 3.1. Hardware Independence. As long as the hardware meets some basic technical requirements to communicate with its neighbors, there are no specific restrictions on hardware or communications medium. The Internet is Hardware Agnostic. All decisions about a given network’s hardware are left to the network administrator or owner to provide the best solution for their application. Copper, fiber, satellite or cellular – that decision is up to the network owner – the Internet does not care. 3.2. Network Independence. As long as the data packets arriving and leaving a network meet some basic technical requirements to communicate with their neighbors, there are no specific restrictions. The Internet does not care who the owner or administrator of a given network is or what topology that network employs – it will route packets based on “Best Effort” routing – the Internet is Network Agnostic. 3.3. Content Independence. As long as the data packets leaving a network meet some basic technical requirements to communicate with their neighbors, they will be prioritized by type not content or source. For example: A home user’s VoIP packet should almost always be more important than an FTP request from a big corporation, except on a subnet of only that company’s FTP servers. The Internet is necessarily Content Agnostic. This paper is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

The Agnostic Nature of the Internet: Understanding Hardware, Network, and Content Neutrality

Authors: (1) William P. Wagner IV, Claremont Graduate University. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Definition of Key Terms Fundamentals of Internet Operation Encapsulation Usage-Based Economic Models Net Neutrality Legal History Researcher Conclusions Areas for Further Exploration & References 2. Definition of Key Terms 2.1. The Internet It is relevant and helpful to a discussion on Net Neutrality to understand exactly what the Internet is – and note that there is little substantive difference in these definitions: The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. -Wikipedia An electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world —used with the except when being used attributively. - Merriam-Webster Dictionary The Internet is defined as a network of networks and there is no mention of hardware, network owner, or content provider. There is no single ruling body of the Internet. See Appendix A. In technical terms, we can say the Internet is by definition hardware, network, and content agnostic. These three ideas are fundamental to the internet to provide both forward and backward compatibility. The Internet does not care whether a given network uses fiber, copper or satellite. The Internet does not care whether a given user is using a Mac, PC, Smart Phone or an automated water sensor in a farmer’s field. And for purposes of prioritization, the Internet protocols treat all packets of a given type equally – regardless of content, source, or destination. This paper will use the following definition, which includes reference to the IP protocols that define the technical standards of the Internet: The Internet: A global system of public and private networks, a network of networks, which is hardware, network and content agnostic and based on the Internet Protocol Suite. 2.2. Net Neutrality And, of course the definition of Net Neutrality is seemingly fundamental to any discussion of Net Neutrality. Yet almost immediately we see variance in the definitions: Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers treat all data on the Internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. - Wikipedia The idea, principle, or requirement that Internet service providers should or must treat all Internet data as the same regardless of its kind, source, or destination. - Merriam-Webster Dictionary In this researcher’s opinion, both these definitions seek to express similar ideals, but neither fully succeeds on a technical level. The Wiki definition includes a broad range of internet experiences that one might argue should not be included in a practical definition - like “user” or “method of communication.” Both these aspects are superfluous to a definition of Net Neutrality. By way of illustration, the current system already tiers costs based on the type of user (ex: corporate vs. consumer or private vs government) and it tiers costs based on things like satellite vs terrestrial communication methods. The Merriam-Webster definition hits much closer to the mark, however due to the technical nature of this discussion, I have changed the term “kind.” As discussed later, there is some prioritization of data on the internet based strictly on technical specifications of TCP/IP, and the use of the term “kind” may overlap with that discussion where the terms “type” and “kind” are often used interchangeably. Therefore, to avoid confusion, for purposes of this paper we will use the following modified definition of Net Neutrality (substituting “content” for “kind”): Net Neutrality: The idea, principle, or requirement that Internet service providers should or must treat all Internet data as the same regardless of its content, source, or destination. 2.5. Internet Society – ISOC The internet has grown organically, with standards that are open enough that anyone may participate, while being well defined enough that engineers can design hardware and software with confidence. Although there is no formal governing body of the Internet, the protocols that define the Internet are defined and agreed upon by an international consortium of groups, the largest of which is the Internet Society (ISOC). Within the ISOC and the other global standards groups are various open-membership advisory groups, standards groups, and definitive naming and allocation groups for things like domain names and IP addresses that require global consensus in order to operate correctly. See Appendix A. The group primarily responsible for establishing the technical standards of the Internet is the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [9]. This paper is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Net Neutrality, the Internet and the Internet Society

The level of censorship in Pakistan escalated significantly during the period when authorities successfully banned , formerly known as Twitter. The authorities in Pakistan on February 17, when the rigging of elections throughout the country fueled the citizens to protest. The citizens wanted to take advantage of that opportunity to engage with each other on social media. They turned to increasing the usage of ( virtual private networks) to bypass the ban on social sites on the internet throughout the country. X started to block social media sites VPN An estimated report reveals that the demand for security software in the market has increased by up to 130%. There have been reports of numerous VPN apps suddenly failing, indicating that Pakistan's Censorship is getting more severe. These restrictions indicate citizens' difficulties in Pakistan, including inhibiting freedom of expression in the digital landscape. History of Internet restriction in Pakistan The process of blocking the internet or social media platforms in Pakistan is as old as the country. Citizens were facing these issues not only in this era but also each year in different forms. The PTA banned social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Flicker in 2010. This was done after a competition known as Everyday Draw Muhammad Day. This competition may contain a bit of blasphemous material. In 2012, the Pakistan's most famous site, YouTube. That was a protest against a film released by the United States, "Innocence of Muslims." The process of YouTube restriction continued till 2016. During these years, many steps were taken regarding its usage and ban side by side. However, it was lifted in September 2016, when YouTube was launched as a local version for Pakistan. PTA blocked In 2020, the usage of due to the spreading of immoral content. TikTok in Pakistan was restricted In 2021, the interior ministry ordered the PTA to , Twitter, YouTube, and whatsapp throughout Pakistan. The reason for the temporary blockage of social media platforms should have been explained earlier. Later, that was described as related to security concerns as there was a worse situation due to Tehrik e back anti-France protests. ban Facebook Alarming condition of Pakistan's internet censorship in 2024 Lina Survila, Surfshark virtual private network provider spokeswoman, said 2024 may be a year of internet restrictions in Pakistan due to enhanced Censorship in Pakistan at an alarming level. The country faced digital darkness on five occasions in the first two months of 2024. When a political party, Pakistan's Tehrik-e-Insaf, organized online events that imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, they faced two strikes on the internet in January regarding all social media platforms. After this, the authorities hit the internet and plugged off all the social platforms, including X, on the day of the election, and the government named it a security concern. Through this blockage, they tried to consolidate the maximum potential vote manipulation. , internet watchdog Netblock, said," That day was a massive black day in democracy in Pakistan." Alp Toker One member of the Pakistan Senate presented a report to ban all famous social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. etc. The citizens faced the shutdown of social media during the country's general election. The proposal states that these social media platforms are affecting the young generation, spreading damaging and malicious content throughout the country against the military millennials. This resolution develops criticism of the violation of the rights of people as citizens have the right to express their views freely. Experts say The threats to ban social media and the internet are still at their peak point in Pakistan. Blockage of X- platform A report against internet monitoring services by states that the senator submitted the proposal when citizens were already in a sensitive stage for blockage of social media platforms. After holding the February 8 elections in Pakistan, there was a great protest against vote manipulation. When Liaqat Ali Chattha, a senior Pakistani bureaucrat, revealed that he was involved in manipulating the vote, this claim was retracted after a few days. NetBlocks The PTI, Pakistan's opposition party, claimed that the general election had been thoroughly manipulated in counting. Party officials announced they would keep up their legal actions and street demonstrations to recover the stolen mandate. At that time, people throughout the country flocked to X or Twitter to express their voices and organize themselves to walk in the streets. Politicians  throughout South Asia kept a great eye on X to keep a view of what was happening in the country. This platform also offers the opportunity to express opposing views and criticize the current political establishment. That was when authorities took the step to ban the X entirely in Pakistan. The government began to block this platform's access without announcing any warnings or explanation. PTI called these tactics desperate tactics, which were developed by the imported government and recommended that citizens use safe VPNs to access all banned social media platforms. Ultimately, citizens have still been trying to overcome these unauthentic restrictions using virtual private networks. Investigation Over Censorship Strategies Advocates of digital rights investigate the censorship strategies of the government of Pakistan for all groups at Islamabad-based-bytes. After a proper examination, they concluded that Twitter's block uses HTTP blocking. Another report or expert opinion believes that an equal collaboration of content delivery networks and authorities could be achieved. The report reads like this: "For Pakistan’s telecommunication authority, it's possible to ban  access to Twitter usage by any method, like IP blockage or deep Packet Inspection rather than to block the content by specific content delivery network providers such as Akamai Technologies, which would be more challenging to control." Although digital platforms are affected by their policies at a harsh level, as in this era, it's impossible to keep citizens away from the social market; digital freedom is not the only victim of continuous internet blockage. Effect of Internet Censorship on Pakistan's Economy The effect of internet censorship on Pakistan's economy cannot be overwhelming. The internet shutdown adversely affects many small and larger scale businesses in Pakistan. A Technologies-driven company reveals that it faced a 36% drawback in sales volume. Another report states that the telecommunication sector suffered almost 2.85 million dollars lost. , an IT sector representative, said they faced 3 million dollars per day till the restrictions were lifted. P@sha Almost 1.3 billion rupees loss has been recorded in Pakistan's economy by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics due to internet restrictions. A reveals that in 2023, Pakistan ranked third among the most restricted online nations. That cost may seem more significant this year as democratic values are disintegrating daily. study Solution of Internet Censorship in Pakistan VPN services motivate Pakistanis to come if they are on a quest to find a solution to the restrictions. The provider will guide you in getting rid of these internet shutdowns. Final Thoughts Censorship in Pakistan is on the rise, especially online. Limits on social media not only stifle free speech but also affect data access and democracy. During elections, government control raises concerns about citizens' rights. Many people turn to VPNs to bypass these restrictions. Internet shutdowns hurt Pakistan's growth and democracy. Supporting digital rights and using VPNs can help fight censorship in Pakistan. Frequently Asked Questions 1. What Is The Meaning Of Censorship? Censorship means the suppression of someone's voice, involving the ban on the freedom of the public to raise their voice against their issue. 2. Is there any Censorship in Pakistan? Yes, internet censorship is an example of Censorship in Pakistan. This means that some social sites, including X, are banned. This is also done to suppress the voice of citizens on digital platforms. 3. Why is the Internet Banned in Pakistan? The maximum filtering in Pakistan is intermittent. The Pakistan telecommunication authority has blocked the site, which they consider to contain content related to negativity, such as threatening, blasphemous, or anti-religious content. 4. What To Do If There Is Censorship On The Internet In Pakistan? If there's internet censorship in Pakistan, you can use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to bypass restrictions and access blocked content. Additionally, you can advocate for digital rights and raise awareness about censorship issues. 5. Did Pakistan ban VPNs? VPNs are not banned in Pakistan, but their usage is highly restricted. The PTA allows some approved VPNs to be served.

Internet Censorship in Pakistan in 2024

Hey Hackers! We’ve got some exciting news  🥁🥁🥁 Web 2.5, HackerNoon’s documentary on the next-generation internet is now available on demand! ! Watch it here Web 2.5: A HackerNoon Film The Web 2.5 Documentary by HackerNoon centers on the internet’s evolution and complex history. In a light-hearted interview lasting just under half an hour, HackerNoon’s team interrogates the different phases of the Internet, from an era of dial-up modems to one slowly defining what Web 3 is. The internet is not a flawless, mysterious machine operating in a black box; it is a dynamic tool collaboratively built by users worldwide, and its evolution is a shared responsibility. As , HackerNoon COO, points out, the ball has already been dropped a few times. She identifies 2016 as a turning point for Web 2 and the tech ecosystem, highlighting issues such as weaponized ad-based tech algorithms, mass distrust in the government, struggling publishing industries, and pervasive misinformation as the straws that broke the camel’s back. Linh Dao Smooke “I think we desperately need a reimagined internet because somewhere along the way we lost the plot. We all wanted it to be a force for good but we ended up driving people further apart” The dialogue continues with the HackerNoon team further investigating the broken state of the Internet, questioning whether Web 3 is the solution, and discussing the company's commitment to keeping information on the Internet free, user-friendly, and easily accessible. “We live between social media and the traditional Forbes of the world, bringing you a high-quality tech story without all the noise,” said David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO. Is Web 3 really the future, or is it just a passing trend for people looking to make a quick buck? The HackerNoon team has its answer and now, they want to help you find yours. Watch the Web 2.5 documentary, available on demand now!

Web 2.5: HackerNoon's Vision for a New Wave Internet 

ওয়েব 2.5: একটি নতুন তরঙ্গ ইন্টারনেটের জন্য হ্যাকারনুনের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি

Web 2.5: HackerNoons Vision für ein New Wave Internet

Web 2.5: La visión de HackerNoon para una nueva ola de Internet

Web 2.5 : la vision de HackerNoon pour une nouvelle vague Internet

वेब 2.5: हैकरनून का नए दौर के इंटरनेट का विजन

Web 2.5: 新しい波インターネットに対する HackerNoon のビジョン

웹 2.5: 뉴 웨이브 인터넷을 위한 HackerNoon의 비전

Web 2.5: Visão do HackerNoon para uma nova onda de Internet

Web 2.5: видение HackerNoon новой волны Интернета

Web 2.5: HackerNoon'un Yeni Dalga İnternet Vizyonu

Web 2.5: Tầm nhìn của HackerNoon về làn sóng Internet mới

Web 2.5：HackerNoon 对新一波互联网的愿景

Toppled power lines catalyze fires and electrical injuries amid an already upsetting hurricane. Natural disaster recovery is expensive and time-consuming, as its ferocity makes operations more complex. The time for resilient, modern infrastructure is now and that is visible in the planet’s extensive network of underwater cables. However, critical fixtures like these are prime targets for cybercriminals because of how much data travels through them. Are humans doing enough to safeguard them? The Importance of Undersea Internet Cables Undersea cables are as subtle as they can be despite worldwide. They are small in diameter and house impressively thin wires despite the immense pressures and climate of the deep ocean. Visualizing how much they impact the world’s day-to-day operations is challenging. However, they are deceptively critical for our productive, communicative planet, sending up to 224 Tbps (terabits per second). spanning 1.4 million kilometers Global Connectivity An estimated through hundreds of fiber-optic undersea cables. Disrupting this much communication and data transfer with careless cable management and security could uproot societies. 97% of Earth’s information passes The subsea infrastructure map describes international relations and what regions are responsible for the most information distribution and retrieval. Because this information is public, it’s straightforward for criminal syndicates to craft a profitable project. Economic Impact Nations connected to these cables have a more impressive global reach, signifying international economic prominence, expansion, and urban development. Unfortunately, cybersecurity breaches are expensive to isolate and recoup from, and prices balloon yearly. Critical infrastructure compromises have a price tag higher than any other type of breach, per instance. This is a culmination of essential businesses shutting down and becoming inoperable, labor required to contain the threat, and resources necessary to put everything back online and salvage extricated data. averaging around $5 million Technological Advancements Submarine cables are one of the backbones of digital transformation and tech development. These were and the Internet of Things because they deliver high-speed, low-latency connections to every area. The robust infrastructure makes communities more efficient and convenient, but its surface area means more entry points and potential vulnerabilities for hackers. critical in expanding 5G Physical Threats to Undersea Cables Cybersecurity risks are not all hidden within the digital ether — physical threats accompany those efforts. How do they appear and how can the world defend against them? Natural Disasters and Wildlife Seismic activity and oceanic storms threaten cable sturdiness. Additionally, sharks and other marine life add more stress. Severed cables leave gaps for hackers to tinker and fix the wires to work for them. Advocating for regulation to standardize the usage of strong materials that do not degrade under sand and water is necessary for keeping them out of harm’s way. Additionally, endorsing any legislation to reduce climate change impacts indirectly supports subsea cable health. Human Activities Consider how a heavy anchor could cut or smash an old cable. Threat actors are just as capable of this type of physical destruction to cyber infrastructure as they are of executing it within digital landscapes. Other destructive activities include drilling or fishing. Additionally, and could permeate any commercial industry with financially-susceptible interests. nation-state sabotage is not unheard of Aging Infrastructure New cables may hit ocean floors, but this does not mean old ones are getting the upgrade they need. Additionally, many of the most critical wires are in clumps, making it easier to attack a lot at once. Updates should include redistributing chokepoints for less concentrated attack surfaces. Even amateur hackers know antiquated technology stops receiving support, meaning vulnerabilities abound. Undersea transmission must be able to receive ongoing patches and updates to withstand novel threat variants. Cyber Threats to Undersea Cables The attacks within digital spaces are arguably more destructive. These are the most notable threat variants and ways humanity should protect cables. Wiretapping Tapping undersea cables has been , demonstrating the literal leagues people will go to impede and damage communications and information. This can happen by going underwater or tapping it from a landing station. happening since the First World War DDoS Attacks Interrupting internet connections is a lucrative venture, primarily when and health care rely on connectivity just as much as everyone else. Overwhelming submarine cables are an obvious way to extend the outage duration because remediation takes so long. essential services like finance Data Interception Instead of destroying or bombarding cables, why not place a small bug to capture bytes of sensitive data? Disrupting signals allows criminals to receive immediate information while redirecting or obstructing communication — a popular option for espionage. Surveillance threats are harder to catch, making them enticing to criminal outfits. Intercepting data may also occur through social engineering, such as manipulating an official to steal credentials to access subsea wire operating systems. Protection of Undersea Cables Dedicated upkeep makes these techniques viable for the long term. Next-generation remote monitoring and maintenance systems will be quintessential for identifying threat attempts, detecting backdoors, submitting updates, and gathering data. This calls for upgraded inventory management systems , as well as coordinate and record each cable with greater visibility. to cut costs and improve efficiency Education on physical and digital threats is vital for forging plans to make undersea cables secure. The International Cable Protection Committee is an example of the degree of commitment the planet needs. They submit calls to action from the most powerful entities, including recent events like involving hard-to-access, damaged cables. the compromises in the Red Sea Generally, international laws to deliver the coverage undersea cables demand. Writing contingency plans, filling out regulatory gaps, and completing more risk assessments require dedicated research into the resilience and distribution of the wires. This knowledge is limited, publicly unavailable or hard to access. need to be more holistic Advanced encryption and security measures based on the most up-to-date compliance frameworks ensure the industry’s best knowledge shields these cables. More digital and physical walls equate to better data integrity. Authorities must get into the habit of consulting with leaders like the ICPC and related organizations for informed guidance. This includes discussing industry threats and thoughtful operations execution with businesses like fisheries. Out of Sight, Out of Mind Ignoring the power and value of submarine cables allows their data and influence to fall into the hands of cybercriminals. More comprehensive and strict protective measures are crucial for withstanding the modern hacker’s constantly developing and subversive tactics. Global connectivity and sustainable development mandate it, which only happens with collaboration and awareness of how essential underwater infrastructure is.

Are We Ignoring the Cybersecurity Risks of Undersea Internet Cables?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg&embedable=true&transcript=true&long=true

Tech Monopolies and Internet Gatekeepers Transcript from John Oliver's Last Week Tonight

জন অলিভারের লাস্ট উইক টুনাইট থেকে টেক একচেটিয়া এবং ইন্টারনেট গেটকিপার ট্রান্সক্রিপ্ট

Tech-Monopole und Internet-Gatekeeper. Transkript aus John Olivers „Last Week Tonight“.

Transcripción de Monopolios tecnológicos y guardianes de Internet de Last Week Tonight de John Oliver

Monopoles technologiques et contrôleurs d'accès à Internet Transcription de Last Week Tonight de John Oliver

जॉन ओलिवर के लास्ट वीक टुनाइट से टेक मोनोपोलीज़ और इंटरनेट गेटकीपर्स ट्रांसक्रिप्ट

テクノロジー独占とインターネットゲートキーパー ジョン・オリバーの先週の今夜の転写

기술 독점과 인터넷 게이트키퍼 존 올리버의 오늘 밤 마지막 주에 대한 대본

Monopólios tecnológicos e guardiões da Internet Transcrição do livro Last Week Tonight de John Oliver

Технологические монополии и интернет-привратники Стенограмма выступления Джона Оливера на прошлой неделе сегодня вечером

Teknoloji Tekelleri ve İnternet Bekçileri John Oliver'ın Geçen Hafta Bu Geceki Konuşmasının Metni

Bản ghi chép về Độc quyền công nghệ và Người gác cổng Internet từ Tuần trước Tối nay của John Oliver

科技垄断和互联网看门人约翰奥利弗上周今晚的文字记录

The idea behind the Internet of Value (IoV) is that , with the help of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. money should be able to be sent as quickly as information This change is similar to how the internet changed the way people share knowledge. The internet made it possible to instantly send and receive information around the world. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain aim to do the same for value, making transactions faster and more transparent without the need for middlemen. Decentralized Payment Protocols in the Internet of Value Decentralized payment protocols are an interesting shift in how we handle digital transactions. Instead of relying on centralized systems or sticking with the isolated nature of traditional blockchains, these protocols aim to streamline things by cutting out the middleman and allowing transactions to happen directly between peers. The idea is pretty simple: decentralized payment protocols use a network of nodes to verify and validate transactions instead of a single authority overseeing transactions. This decentralized approach contrasts with traditional systems, where banks or other central entities usually handle transaction processing, often leading to delays and extra costs. What's intriguing is how these protocols are designed to work across different blockchains, a big departure from how things typically operate. This interoperability means you can move your assets between various networks more seamlessly without relying on third-party exchanges or complex conversions. Security is also a key consideration. While some systems heavily depend on smart contracts to enforce transaction terms, decentralized payment protocols take a different route, aiming for simplicity and robustness. They use advanced cryptographic techniques and consensus algorithms to ensure secure and reliable transactions. How Decentralized Payment Protocols Work Within the IoV Decentralized payment systems make it possible for money to be sent quickly and easily across the internet by leveraging blockchain technology. They are also pretty versatile, catering to different needs, including the integration of cryptocurrency payments for businesses. Below are some examples of decentralized payment platforms and how they enable the transfer of value across different use cases. How RippleNet Enables Cross-Border Payment Solutions RippleNet is a platform that enhances cross-border payment efficiency through its  messaging, settlement, and foreign exchange (FX) management features. One of the essential aspects of RippleNet is RippleNet Home, which streamlines management tasks across the network. Users can initiate and monitor payments, troubleshoot issues, analyze payment execution, manage accounts and user profiles, and retrieve API credentials, among other functionalities. RippleNet Home is a centralized hub for overseeing various aspects of business operations within the RippleNet ecosystem. On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) is a liquidity solution offered by RippleNet. It enables instant settlement without needing pre-funded capital in destination markets. ODL facilitates real-time settlement of payment funds, access to global payout rails, upfront visibility of fees, and automatic payout to beneficiaries' bank accounts, enhancing the efficiency and transparency of cross-border transactions. RippleNet's flexibility, particularly with ODL integration, caters to diverse customer needs across multiple use cases. Payment service providers can leverage ODL for cross-border remittances, while fintech companies can facilitate business-to-business transactions for small-to-medium enterprises. Additionally, corporations can utilize ODL for internal treasury payments to accounts in foreign countries, optimizing liquidity management and reducing transaction costs. Various transaction types are supported within the RippleNet ecosystem, each tailored to specific use cases. Individual payments involve settling individual customer or business payments using ODL, with XRP funding the sender wallet and recipients receiving fiat payouts in receive markets. Bulk funding allows instant topping up of sender positions with receivers, facilitating efficient remittances and B2B payments. Internal treasury transactions enable intra-company transfers for customers with accounts in foreign countries, streamlining cross-border treasury operations. How Kima Enables Asset Transfers without Smart Contracts Kima facilitates asset transfers across various blockchain networks and traditional bank accounts, employing a specialized chain designed for direct transactions with the source and destination networks or banks. Unlike relying on smart contracts, which can be susceptible to exploits, Kima ensures the security of sensitive funds in transit by utilizing proven technologies such as Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS) and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) like Intel SGX, which have demonstrated resilience in real-world scenarios. In its approach to settlement security, Kima adopts a straightforward principle: if assets aren't present in a vulnerable environment, they can't be compromised. This philosophy drives Kima's avoidance of smart contracts, oracles, and external relayers, eliminating potential points of failure. Instead, Kima's technical framework comprises three key components: External Accounts (EOAs), TSS and TEEs, and Efficient Liquidity Management (LiMa). EOAs serve as native blockchain wallets acting as pools, enhancing security by eliminating the need for smart contracts across every blockchain and mitigating vulnerabilities associated with cross-contract messaging. TSS and TEEs enable secure key sharing among parties without direct exposure, bolstering the system's resilience against critical compromises. Additionally, Kima employs a Liquidity Management algorithm to optimize the distribution of assets across pools, ensuring effective service delivery. Additionally, Kima bridges the gap between traditional and decentralized finance systems by offering support for fiat integration through an opt-in compliance system. This protocol-level integration enables access to legacy systems like fiat payments while adhering to regulatory requirements, including KYC anti-money laundering verifications. Recognizing the challenges inherent in achieving compatibility within the web3 ecosystem, Kima emphasizes a holistic approach. Rather than treating compatibility issues as isolated problems, Kima views them as interconnected symptoms of a broader issue. Kima keeps liquidity pools on each combined layer-1 blockchain by enabling smooth cross-chain exchange without token wrapping. This lets users move assets directly between chains without creating synthetic tokens. At the core of Kima's functionality lies its blockchain, orchestrating asset synchronization across multiple layer-1 blockchains through committee-based consensus. This consensus mechanism relies on rotating sets of wardens responsible for ensuring asset pool synchronization and authorizing withdrawals on destination chains only upon confirmation of corresponding deposits on source chains. Kima leverages TSS protocols within TEEs to enhance security and privacy in cross-chain transfers. By employing TSS, Kima enables participants to collaboratively generate and control signing keys securely, ensuring that a predetermined threshold of participants must engage in authorizing transactions. Through proactive secret sharing and the use of Intel SGX enclaves, Kima fortifies the security of its TSS implementation, minimizing the risk of key compromises and unauthorized access. How Coinbase Commerce Integrates Cryptocurrencies into Retail Transactions Coinbase Commerce facilitates the integration of cryptocurrency payments into merchants' operations via an API or user interface. This enables customers to pay directly from their devices using the blockchain for settlement. Merchants and customers benefit from guaranteed settlement without exposure to cryptocurrency volatility. Payments are automatically settled into stablecoins, providing merchants with stability. Additionally, Coinbase Commerce supports various wallets and exchanges, allowing merchants to deposit funds into their preferred storage solutions. The Commerce Onchain Payment Protocol simplifies the payment process, enabling merchants to accept various cryptocurrencies. Customers can utilize their verified Coinbase accounts to make seamless payments to any Commerce merchant. Transactions are confirmed instantly, leveraging cost-effective networks like Base and Polygon. Coinbase Commerce operates on the Onchain Payment Protocol, an open-source standard to streamline cryptocurrency payments. Unlike traditional pull payments, where merchants initiate transactions, cryptocurrency payments rely on a push system initiated by customers. Upon payment initiation, Coinbase Commerce creates a Charge representing the requested payment, generating a unique payment link and Universally Unique Identifier (UUID). Customer transactions are broadcast to the cryptocurrency network for validation, with Coinbase monitoring the blockchain for inbound payments and updating charge statuses accordingly. For non-developers, Coinbase Commerce offers user-friendly solutions such as embedding payment buttons on websites or creating hosted checkout pages. These options require minimal coding and provide a straightforward experience for customers. Merchants can integrate Coinbase Commerce into existing e-commerce platforms to accept cryptocurrency payments without extensive technical expertise. Final Thoughts As blockchain technology improves and decentralized payment systems improve, the Internet of Value looks like it could have a bright future. Adding digital assets to financial systems and creating new decentralized financial services could lead to significant growth and broad use. The IoV could affect e-commerce, banks, and money transfers, making things easier, cheaper, and safer. In general, I'm hopeful about the IoV's future.

The Role of Decentralized Payment Platforms in the Internet of Value

The Noonification: The Internet Is Dead. Long Live The Internet. (3/21/2024)

It’s no secret that the death of the internet as we know it is no longer greatly exaggerated. Between the big tech giants and generative AI the death spiral of the web has accelerated, like some digital ouroboros, the internet has begun to feed on itself and shit out the worse parts for the rest of us to consume. Web3 failed to deliver anything but more similar in the form of cryptocurrencies, NFTs and ultimately a market-fuelled distraction cobbled together on top of blockchains which is hardly that venture capitalists are determined to push as the correct rhetoric — one that is self-serving because of their investment into get-rich-quick meme coins rather than the projects themselves. If we look back at the web it began with one man’s PC sitting on his desk with a post-it note warning people not to turn it off. It then took 2 years of fucking around with DNS, TCP/IP and HTML before the first 50 websites emerged and then things took off nicely; it was under control of no one and it was decentralised. enshittification the new internet Sadly it wasn’t to last. What began as something owned by everyone on the planet became something owned by few and rented out to everyone for a price, that invoice was either paid financially or through data which the latter we are now beginning to understand the full extent of because it’s being put to good use by the generative AI startups with no compensation. And that’s coming back to bite back hard so very quickly. It’s poetic that Facebook will die choking on its own vomit soon. AI-derived content has taken over the internet and it’s unstoppable and almost unrecognisable as something an algorithm generated to the untrained eye. Those in the know are a privileged few, the vast majority of people wouldn't know where to look to spot a faked article or image, recognise telltale signs, or even copy into an AI detector to confirm its source and origin. The long term consequences are such that pretty much nothing on the internet will be human created or curated, nor even read and digested by people either. We’re being pushed to adopt personal AI assistants to consume the content they gave birth to then regurgitate it back to us as a synopsis for us to use elsewhere or even take action on either personally or in a business context. This is the antithesis of what Tim Berners-Lee wanted to see out of the Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) back in the late 90's— an internet where users kept their data sovereignty, instructed AI agents to perform tasks for them but the web itself was very much human. Web3 startups claim that they have the answer, that blockchain is somehow a magical silver bullet for data provenance and to train new types of AI on, and another excuse for another round of meme coins and but this house of cards is rapidly falling down. Like a stack of dominoes one by one very public and in your face Web3 projects like Nike’s RTFKT and are quietly being abandoned, with claims that intelligent NFTs Starbucks’s Odyssey it was a proof of concept and we’ll do better next time. Only there won’t be a next time for them. They overestimated how interested their existing customer base would be, underestimated how much the hype would be driven by the same circle of Discord lurkers shouting WAGMI and wen moon, and grossly underestimated and understood just how apathetic the general public and those who just want to drink a bloody cup of coffee would be to collecting for a glorified Pannini sticker album. What I will say is that blockchain isn’t the answer, it never was. It’s a distributed ledger you can do stuff with but it’s not an internet protocol or replacement for the web itself. The fact that you need to create and burn magic internet money to make it work invites speculative behaviour. Web3 turned the internet into a different type of stock market, trading made-up asset classes and foreign currencies and completely abandoning why it existed in the first place. After the death of the first internet, lots of tiny new internets will grow up in its place. Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life There’s an interesting turn of events emerging though, a strange confluence of ideas mixed with a societal need for nostalgia. We’re seeing a shift across generations that is railing against the relentless push towards subscriptions and digital ownership People are buying physical media in all forms, old and current formats are enjoying a revival as subscriptions become ever more expensive, overlap each other and the choice that we thought was a convenience is now strangling us. because the reality is that you own nothing under either model. The digital feudal system has robbed us all of what we held dear before and web3 failed to give us control back. The internet and how it runs now is dead or drawing its last breath. But it won’t be replaced by one single, new internet nor will it be replaced by blockchains. It’ll be replaced by networks. We have some examples already like and but these rely on blockchains and ultimately are no good both longer term but also from a decentralised control perspective. Another example is , a small group that’s been working for nearly two decades on building a distributed network protocol that works with ordinary kit you’d find in the home (recently announced rebrand as now) IPFS Arweave SAFE Autonomi Much like the distributed systems that allowed BitTorrent (distributed file sharing) and BOINC (distributed computing like SETI@Home and Fold@Home) to function on consumer-grade hardware, there will be a re-emergence of the same movement where people will power the next iteration of the internet from their own devices — not from centralised cloud stacks owned by the same 3–4 major corporations. The internet itself was build as a decentralised and distributed network before capitalism found a way to make it work to its advantages. You can see how this could come about after recently watching the NVIDIA GTC keynote and understanding Sam Altman’s own drive to create a new silicon empire — they’re scared there is not enough compute power that they can build and control for their own ambitions, and control is the key point to pay attention to here because there is already enough compute and storage out there sitting on billions of devices in the world but they just won’t control any of it. When robotics start taking central stage over and above incorporeal AI systems then you’ll begin to understand that every robot in itself is a distributed node on a new type of compute network that won’t rely on centralisation for decision making, but as a collective hive mind can improve and self-learn at an exponential rate. But this is an example of a distributed network under centralised control. And it doesn’t stop at being just one internet, the revolution will be that there will be many under this model, all owned by nobody but powered by everyone in those particular communities it supports. What we need for the internet to be remade is not only a new set of distributed networks and designed to operate in a decentralised manner but also that the network, storage and compute are owned by nobody but powered by everybody. operating systems It was a reason I believed that Web3 DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations) could have taken back control from local authorities as community driven projects, wholly owned and run by the people in those local communities, empowering them to make decisions that made a difference rather than line an MPs pockets. When folks like Peter Diamandis claim that AI will usher in an Age of Abundance what they’re really calling for is a rewriting of economic systems beyond the capitalist one we use today, and that starts by rewriting the infrastructure we rely on so much to power it — the internet. The internet is dead. Long live networks. Also appears . here

The Internet Is Dead. Long Live The Internet.

ইন্টারনেট ইজ ডেড দীর্ঘজীবী ইন্টারনেট।

Das Internet ist tot. Es lebe das Internet.

Internet está muerta. Larga vida a Internet.

Internet est mort. Vive Internet.

इंटरनेट ख़त्म हो गया है. इंटरनेट लंबे समय तक जीवित रहे।

インターネットは死んだ。インターネット万歳。

인터넷은 죽었습니다. 인터넷 만세.

A Internet está morta. Viva a Internet.

Интернет мертв. Да здравствует Интернет.

İnternet Öldü. Yaşasın İnternet.

Internet đã chết. Internet sống lâu.

互联网已死。互联网万岁。

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsf4Zxq2jh4&embedable=true&transcript=true&long=true

Confrontational BBC Interview about the Internet's Content with Tim Berners Lee in 2005

2005 সালে টিম বার্নার্স লির সাথে ইন্টারনেটের বিষয়বস্তু সম্পর্কে বিবিসি সাক্ষাতকার

Konfrontatives BBC-Interview über die Inhalte des Internets mit Tim Berners Lee im Jahr 2005

Entrevista conflictiva de la BBC sobre el contenido de Internet con Tim Berners Lee en 2005

Interview conflictuelle de la BBC sur le contenu d'Internet avec Tim Berners Lee en 2005

2005 में टिम बर्नर्स ली के साथ इंटरनेट की सामग्री के बारे में टकरावपूर्ण बीबीसी साक्षात्कार

2005 年、ティム・バーナーズ・リーとのインターネットのコンテンツに関する対立的な BBC インタビュー

2005년 팀 버너스 리(Tim Berners Lee)와의 인터넷 콘텐츠에 대한 BBC 인터뷰

Entrevista confrontacional da BBC sobre o conteúdo da Internet com Tim Berners Lee em 2005

Конфронтационное интервью BBC о содержании Интернета с Тимом Бернерсом Ли в 2005 году.

2005'te Tim Berners Lee ile İnternet İçeriği Hakkında Tartışmalı BBC Röportajı

Cuộc phỏng vấn đối đầu của BBC về Nội dung Internet với Tim Berners Lee năm 2005

2005 年蒂姆·伯纳斯·李 (Tim Berners Lee) 关于互联网内容的 BBC 对抗性采访

This post covers what I've learned about Akamai's VPC, how I deployed one with Terraform, and why it's good for security. Recently, I had the pleasure of attending in Oakland, CA. In addition to working the Akamai booth, making new friends, and spreading the good word of cloud computing, my teammate and I were tasked with creating a demo to showcase the new product. DeveloperWeek Talia VPC Background A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) enables private communication between two cloud compute instances, isolating network traffic from other internet users, thus improving security. So, how did I decide to showcase this? By building a little Pokémon dashboard, of course. I deployed two apps, each consisting of an app server and a database server (four servers total). The first app + database server pair is deployed normally. The second is configured to run within a VPC. Each app’s front end is built with and uses for styling. The server side is powered by (Qwik’s official meta-framework) and runs on hosted on a . The apps also use for process management and as a reverse proxy and SSL provisioner. The data is stored in a database that also runs on a shared Linode VPS. The apps interact with the database using , an Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) for . The entire infrastructure for both apps is managed with using the , which was new to me but made provisioning and destroying infrastructure really fast and easy (once I learned how it all worked). Qwik Tailwind Qwik City Node.js shared Linode VPS PM2 Caddy PostgreSQL Drizzle JavaScript Terraform Terraform Linode provider If you’re interested, you can find all the code here: github.com/AustinGil/linode-vpc-demo Demo As I mentioned above, the demo deploys two identical apps. There isn’t anything remarkably special about it, but here’s a screenshot. (I had to change the Pokémon names for reasons…) There’s nothing special about this tech stack. I chose these tools because I like them, not necessarily because they were the tools for the job. best The interesting part is the infrastructure. When we consider app #1, it’s essentially made up of two servers hosted inside the Akamai cloud, one server for the app and one for the database. When a user loads the app, the app server pulls the data from the database, constructs the HTML, and returns the result to the user. server The problem here is how the database connection is configured. In some cases, you may deploy a database server without knowing the IP addresses of the computers you want to allow access from (like the app server). In these cases, it’s not uncommon to allow any computer with the right credentials to connect to the database. This presents a security vulnerability because it could allow for a bad actor to connect to the database and steal sensitive data. A bad actor would still need the database host, port, username, and password to get access, so it’s not trivial. And as I said, this is not an uncommon practice, but we can do better. If you know the IP address for every computer that needs access, a good solution might be to set up a or . But if your infrastructure is more dynamic, with servers coming up and down, maintaining lists of IP addresses can be cumbersome. And that’s where VPCs shine. You can configure servers to live within a VPC and allow communication to flow freely only between other computers in the network. firewall VLAN That’s how app #2 is set up. Users can connect to the app server, which allows traffic from the public internet but also lives within the VPC. The app server connects to the database, which is also in the VPC, and only allows connections from within the same network. Then, the app server takes the data, builds the HTML, and returns the page to the user. For a normal user, the experience is identical. The browser loads the table with the modified Pokémon data just fine. The VPC doesn’t change anything for normal users. For bad actors, however, the experience is different. Even if they somehow manage to get the database access credentials, they would not be able to connect because of the network isolation from the VPC. Here, the VPC acts as a virtual firewall, ensuring that only devices with the same network are able to access the database. (This concept is sometimes referred to as “segmentation”) Evidence It’s cool to show a demo and talk about the infrastructure with cute diagrams, but I always want to prove, even if just to myself, that things work as expected. So, I thought a good way to test it would be to try connecting directly to both databases using my database client, . DBeaver For database #1, I set up a Postgres connection using the host IP address I got from my Akamai dashboard and the port, username, and password I had set up in my Terraform script. The connection worked as expected. For database #2, all I had to change was the IP address since all the database provisioning was handled by the same script using Terraform. The only difference was that the database server was put inside the same VPC as the app server, and it was configured to only allow connections from any computer within the same network. As expected, I got an error when trying to connect, even though I had all the correct information. The error doesn’t mention anything about the VPC. It just says that my IP address is not in the allowed list in the configuration file. This makes sense. I could explicitly add my home’s IP address and gain access to the database if needed, but that’s beside the point. The key point is that I did not explicitly add IP address to the Postgres allow-list. Yet, the app server was able to connect just fine, and everyone else was blocked, thanks to the VPC. any Code The last thing I’ll touch on is the Terraform code for deploying this application. You can find the whole file here: [github.com/AustinGil/linode-vpc-demo/blob/main/terraform/terraform.tf](https://github.com/AustinGil/linode-vpc-demo/blob/main/terraform/terraform.tf) It’s also worth mentioning that I tried to make this Terraform file reusable for other people (or future me). That required a bit more variable and config setup based around the file: tfvars [github.com/AustinGil/linode-vpc-demo/blob/main/terraform/terraform.tfvars.example](https://github.com/AustinGil/linode-vpc-demo/blob/main/terraform/terraform.tfvars.example) Anyway, I’m just going to highlight the key parts. 1. Configure Terraform Provider First, since I used the , it makes sense to know how to set that up: Linode Terraform provisioner terraform {
  required_providers {
    linode = {
      source = "linode/linode"
      version = "2.13.0"
    }
  }
}

variable "LINODE_TOKEN" {}

provider "linode" {
  token = var.LINODE_TOKEN
} This part sets up the provider as well as a variable, which Terraform will either ask you for or you can provide with the file. tfvars 2. Set Up VPC and VPC Subnet Next, I set up the actual resource along with a resource. This part required a lot of learning on my part. vpc subnet resource "linode_vpc" "vpc" {
  label = "${local.app_name}-vpc"
  region = var.REGION
}
resource "linode_vpc_subnet" "vpc_subnet" {
  vpc_id = linode_vpc.vpc.id
  label = "${local.app_name}-vpc-subnet"
  ipv4 = "${var.VPC_SUBNET_IP}"
} Servers can only be added to VPCs in the same region. At the time of writing, there are thirteen regions where VPCs are supported. For the most up-to-date details, refer to the docs: . linode.com/docs/products/networking/vpc/ I tried deploying my servers to San Francisco and ran into errors several times before realizing that it wasn’t an available region. So I went with Seattle ( ) instead. "us-sea" The subnets were also a learning point for me. As a web application developer, I haven’t had to do much networking, so when I was asked to provide “ ” I had to research. The IPv4 range of this subnet in CIDR format Turns out, (such as a VPC): there are three IPv4 address ranges that are reserved for private networks 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 You have to choose one of these three options, but you have to use format, which is a way of representing the IP range you want to use. Don’t ask me for more details, because that’s all I know. Akamai has more . I just went with . CIDR documentation around the subnets 10.0.0.0/24 Every server in the network will have an IPv4 address within that range. private 3. Set Up Application Servers For Terraform to deploy my application servers, I used the resource. I also used the resource to create a reusable deployment script for installing and configuring software. It’s like a script that lives in your Akamai cloud dashboard that you can reuse on new servers. linode_instance [stackscript](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/linode/linode/latest/docs/resources/stackscript) Bash I won’t include the code here, but it installs Node.js 20 via NVM, installs PM2, clones my project repo, runs the app, and sets up Caddy. You can view the StackScript contents in the source code, but I want to focus on the Terraform stuff. resource "linode_instance" "application1" {
  depends_on = [
    linode_instance.database1
  ]
  image = "linode/ubuntu20.04"
  type = "g6-nanode-1"
  label = "${local.app_name}-application1"
  group = "${local.app_name}-group"
  region = var.REGION
  authorized_keys = [ linode_sshkey.ssh_key.ssh_key ]

  stackscript_id = linode_stackscript.configure_app_server.id
  stackscript_data = {
    "GIT_REPO" = var.GIT_REPO,
    "START_COMMAND" = var.START_COMMAND,
    "DOMAIN" = var.DOMAIN1,
    "NODE_PORT" = var.NODE_PORT,
    "DB_HOST" = linode_instance.database1.ip_address,
    "DB_PORT" = var.DB_PORT,
    "DB_NAME" = var.DB_NAME,
    "DB_USER" = var.DB_USER,
    "DB_PASS" = var.DB_PASS,
  }
}
resource "linode_instance" "application2" {
  depends_on = [
    linode_instance.database2
  ]
  image = "linode/ubuntu20.04"
  type = "g6-nanode-1"
  label = "${local.app_name}-application2"
  group = "${local.app_name}-group"
  region = var.REGION
  authorized_keys = [ linode_sshkey.ssh_key.ssh_key ]

  stackscript_id = linode_stackscript.configure_app_server.id
  stackscript_data = {
    "GIT_REPO" = var.GIT_REPO,
    "START_COMMAND" = var.START_COMMAND,
    "DOMAIN" = var.DOMAIN2,
    "NODE_PORT" = var.NODE_PORT,
    "DB_HOST" = var.DB_PRIVATE_IP,
    "DB_PORT" = var.DB_PORT,
    "DB_NAME" = var.DB_NAME,
    "DB_USER" = var.DB_USER,
    "DB_PASS" = var.DB_PASS,
  }

  interface {
    purpose = "public"
  }
  interface {
    purpose   = "vpc"
    subnet_id = linode_vpc_subnet.vpc_subnet.id
  }
} Configuring the two resources is almost identical, with only a few significant things to note: Application #2 includes configuration to add it to the VPC. The StackScript needs the IP address for the database. Application #1 uses the public IP address from database #1 ( ). Application #2 uses a variable ( ). This variable will come up later, but it’s the private IP address assigned to database #2, running within the VPC. This can be manually assigned, so I set it to . linode_instance.database1.ip_address var.DB_PRIVATE_IP 10.0.0.3 Also note that they are deployed to the same region as the VPC, for the reasons I mentioned above. 4. Set Up Database Servers The databases are also set up using the and resources. Once again, I’ll skip the StackScript contents, which you can find in the repo. It installs Postgres, sets up the database and credentials, and provides some configuration options. linode_instance linode_stackscript resource "linode_instance" "database1" {
  image = "linode/ubuntu20.04"
  type = "g6-nanode-1"
  label = "${local.app_name}-db1"
  group = "${local.app_name}-group"
  region = var.REGION

  authorized_keys = [ linode_sshkey.ssh_key.ssh_key ]
  stackscript_id = linode_stackscript.configure_db_server.id
  stackscript_data = {
    "DB_NAME" = var.DB_NAME,
    "DB_USER" = var.DB_USER,
    "DB_PASS" = var.DB_PASS,
    "PG_HBA_ENTRY" = "host all all all md5"
  }
}
resource "linode_instance" "database2" {
  image = "linode/ubuntu20.04"
  type = "g6-nanode-1"
  label = "${local.app_name}-db2"
  group = "${local.app_name}-group"
  region = var.REGION
  authorized_keys = [ linode_sshkey.ssh_key.ssh_key ]

  stackscript_id = linode_stackscript.configure_db_server.id
  stackscript_data = {
    "DB_NAME" = var.DB_NAME,
    "DB_USER" = var.DB_USER,
    "DB_PASS" = var.DB_PASS,
    "PG_HBA_ENTRY" = "host all all samenet md5"
  }

  interface {
    purpose = "public"
  }
  interface {
    purpose   = "vpc"
    subnet_id = linode_vpc_subnet.vpc_subnet.id
    ipv4 {
      vpc = var.DB_PRIVATE_IP
    }
  }
} As with the application servers, the two database servers are mostly the same, with just a couple of key differences: The second database includes configuration to add it to the VPC. Different settings are written to the Client Authentication file ( ). Database #1 allows all internet connections ( ) while database #2 only allows access from the same network ( ). [pg_hba.conf](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-pg-hba-conf.html) "host all all all md5" "host all all samenet md5" It’s also worth noting that we explicitly assign the server’s private IP address when configuring the VPC settings ( ). This is the same static value that was given to the application server so it can connect to the database from within the VPC. var.DB_PRIVATE_IP Closing Hopefully, this post has opened our eyes to what VPCs are, why they’re cool, and when you might consider one. It’s like having your own little private internet. It’s not strictly a replacement for VLANs or firewalls, but it’s a great addition to any existing security practice or at least something to keep in the back of your head. Building out the demo was interesting in itself, and there were a lot of things that were totally new to me. I spent a lot of time learning: What VPCs are and how they work. It was my first time using Terraform, so that involved installation, usage, terminology, etc. I’ve used Postgres before, but have never had to manually configure client access. This was my second project using Drizzle and although it was very limited, the migrations process was challenging. I learned more than I care to know about networking, computer interfaces, IP ranges, and CIDR. I have much more respect for folks working on the networking layer. Linode StackScripts are also super cool. It was my preferred way to configure a server using Terraform, and I want to see how they work otherwise. There were also a couple of resources that I found particularly helpful: Linode’s VPC documentation Terraform’s Linode provider documentation And in case you want to keep going on with this or related topics, Talia put together some excellent posts recently: Talia’s review of DeveloperWeek Introduction to Akamai’s VPC Crafting a Resilient VPC Landscape using Terraform When should I use a Private IP vs. VLAN vs. VPC? And of course, if you are interested in trying out the VPC or any other Akamai cloud computing products, new users can sign up at and get $100 in free credits :) linode.com/austingil Thank you so much for reading. If you liked this article, and want to support me, the best ways to do so are to , , and . share it sign up for my newsletter follow me on Twitter Originally published on . austingil.com

How I Deployed My Own Lil' Private Internet (a.k.a. VPC)

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