Marvin Ammori

Gail Harris writing for ISN Insights discusses the issues facing US Cyber Command now and in the future.

Jeffrey Carr over at Forbes’ Digital Dao blog reports that the Iranian Parliament has ordered the Basij (Iran’s voluntary paramilitary corps) to increase recruitment of hackers to “fight the ‘soft war’ in cyberspace.”  Carr speculates that we may see this cost-effective policy replicated quickly develop across the globe.

Meg Beasley at Federal News Radio reports on the creation of a National Program Office within the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, which “will be in charge of coordinating efforts between the government and private industry” to ensure that the environment for online transactions is more secure.

(hat tip – cyberwar)

Ben Rooney writing for the WSJ’s Digits Blog reports on a breakthrough made by the Irish company Intune Networks – the optical burst packet switch, which could improve fiber efficiency upwards of 80%.

Word broke Monday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had admitted the Stuxnet worm had disabled some of  his country’s uranium centrifuges.  But Computer World reports on some skepticism of the report, noting that some researchers are waiting for more proof (however difficult it might be to acquire it) before concluding that the worm did in hamper the nuclear program.

Earl Zmijewski at the Renesys Blog has a post on a DNS censorship incident which took place in March of this year, and provides insight into how such tampering might be prevented in the future.

UltimaRatioReg at the US Naval Institute’s Blog discusses the indictment of Lin Mun Poo, a Malaysian hacker sought for breaches into financial systems (including the Federal Reserve Bank) as well as a major breach into a DoD contractor’s network.  You can read the request for permanent order of detention here.

Paul Budde at CircleID discusses remarks made by Britain’s Minister for Communications – remarks suggesting a tiered regime for Internet traffic may be necessary to cope with strains on network capacity.  Budde argues such a concept mistakenly relies on “competition” in the market, which is largely dominated by a triopoly of telcos, and that net neutrality principles are necessary to protect consumers.

Marcelo Prince writing for the WSJ’s Digits Blog discusses Verizon’s new broadband package, with download speeds of up to 150mb p/s and 35mb p/s upload speeds.  The price tag?  $195 a month, plus subscribers must sign a one year contract and pay for voice service (without those items the cost is $215).

Tim Berners-Lee has a piece in Scientific American in which he argues that open and royalty-free standards are crucial to defending the Internet from various threats posed by surveillance and other invasive measures.