This week in Montreal is the invite-only inaugural edition of Splintercon, an event focused on innovative solutions for isolated networks. Here are some highlights: * The Splintercon knowledge base is everything already, and growing https://splintercon.net/resource * Splinternet is an evolution of Internet Without Borders a nomadic event series held

RFC 9505: Newly minted RFC 9505 is an informational document from the Internet Research Task Force that "describes technical mechanisms employed in network censorship that regimes around the world use for blocking or impairing Internet traffic." The best part about this project that extended over nine years is

Behavioral advertising is about to meet its demise. Scholar-activist Nathalie Maréchal and privacy expert Nick Doty, with colleagues at the Center for Democracy and Technology, have just launched The Future of Online Advertising project. For years it's been apparent that Targeted Advertising Is Ruining the Internet and Breaking

... but PR isn't one. Everyone is talking about AI– even me! Just like no one "goes online" anymore, AI is already everything everywhere all at once. Tim Wu (gift link) centers actual harms in his analysis of the White House executive order on AI, to get

The latest in "tech isn't neutral": The ITU spoke out against the internet shutdown in Gaza: “ITU condemns the communication blackout in Gaza and calls for life-saving access to networks to be restored." Full internet blackout means the siege on Gaza is happening in darkness.

Beyond carbon: This summer I attended a retreat at a convent in Montenegro with the critical infrastructures lab to talk about standards, emerging tech and environmental sustainability. Most discussion in the tech industry focuses on the important and nearly insurmountable problem of energy consumption and emissions, there are many impacts

Some bits about the future: Last week Careful Trouble and I published a new report, A Thousand Cassandras. Conventional wisdom says tech moves faster than policy. So we asked some of the most prescient minds of our time about the ways digital human rights advocates can better predict the future.

The internet is becoming increasingly fragmented at the technical level with various companies and countries developing their own digital ecosystems and national intranets. Even if basic internet connectivity is available, and inter-connectivity possible, user access to information and services can be unequal across jurisdictions. Circumventing fragmentation with VPNs is not

Space-based connectivity is not a new concept, and neither are the benefits and problems associated with a space-based internet. The rapid growth of this sector cannot be overstated. "Mega constellations" are the subject of a research and analysis paper about the governance of satellite broadband, because of their