Searching for "Internet"

01
Jan
2022

cheaper internet for low-income Americans

categories: digital divide, educational technology, information technology

A program for cheaper internet for low-income Americans launches today

The FCC extended assistance that started during the pandemic

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/31/22861200/application-now-open-discounted-internet-bills-fcc-affordable-connectivity-program

There’s more funding on the way to close the digital divide in the US. The new $1 trillion infrastructure law includes $65 billion to boost broadband access. More than 30 million Americans live somewhere without adequate broadband infrastructure, according to a Biden administration fact sheet.

01
Aug
2021

Internet of Thing Security Problem

categories: educational technology, information technology

The Internet of Things’ Persistent Security Problem

  • The threat of ransomware
  • IoT’s special vulnerabilities
  • Potential solutions

In what is currently a fragmented regulatory and standards landscape internationally, the EU has taken strongest interest in IoT, but from a competition perspective. The EU Commission is investigating competition questions related especially to the three dominant voice-assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri), a node for issues of data privacy and interoperability. Its recently released report hardly mentions security.

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more on IoT in this iMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=internet+of+things

01
Apr
2021

Terrible Internet speed?

categories: Digital literacy, educational technology, information technology, mobile learning, online learning, technology literacy

Got Terrible Internet Speeds? The FCC Wants to Hear About It

https://www.pcmag.com/news/got-terrible-internet-speeds-the-fcc-wants-to-hear-about-it

The FCC is accepting data via an online form, where you can presumably talk about anything, whether it be slow speeds, lack of providers, data caps, or high costs. The FCC is asking you to describe the problem in three to five sentences, and provide your name, the state where you live, ZIP code, phone number, and any attachments you’d like to include.

The FCC has currently been using its own broadband maps

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more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality

18
Feb
2021

Bundling home internet with other services

categories: Digital literacy, information technology, technology literacy

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/when-should-you-bundle-home-internet-with-other-services/

This guide will help you examine the benefits and disadvantages of bundling specific services, so you can decide if bundling services is a smart fit for you.

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more on ISP in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=ISP

18
Feb
2021

faster internet blocked by politics

categories: announcement

https://www.cnet.com/features/biden-broadband-plan-digital-divide-appalachia-rural-test-case/

How faster internet is being blocked by politics and poverty throughout the eastern US

While FCC data holds that about 93% of Kentucky has broadband access, last September, Microsoft vice president Shelley McKinley said the portion of the state’s population actually using the internet at broadband speeds (defined as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) is only about 31%. Those findings echo Microsoft’s 2016 estimates that 162.8 million Americans are not using the internet at broadband speeds compared to the FCC’s count of 24.7 million.

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more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality

15
Feb
2021

AT&T and Internet

categories: Digital literacy, information technology, technology, technology literacy

You shouldn’t have to publicly humiliate AT&T to get usable internet

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/12/22280964/att-provides-fiber-after-newspaper-ad-media-coverage

Earlier this month, Aaron Epstein spent $10,000 to buy an ad in The Wall Street Journal to tell AT&T’s CEO he wasn’t happy with his internet service — service that was limited to a paltry 3Mbps (via Ars Technica). Now, AT&T has him hooked up with a fiber connection, and he’s getting over 300 Mbps up and down. All it took was getting interviewed by Ars, the ad going viral on Twitter, and a Stephen Colbert mention.

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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality

15
Jan
2021

Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda

categories: Digital literacy, information literacy, information technology, media literacy, social media

Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet…

Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021

Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021

Can We Develop Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda?

Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute and author of many books on disinformation. In an interview, he calls for greater transparency and regulation of the industry.
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/philip-howard/
Platforms like Parler, TheDonald, Breitbart and Anon are like petri dishes for testing out ideas, to see what sticks. If extremist influencers see that something gets traction, they ramp it up. In the language of disease, you would say these platforms act as a vector, like a germ that carries a disease into other, more public forums.
at some point a major influencer takes a new meme from one of these extremist forums and puts it out before a wider audience. It works like a vector-borne disease like malaria, where the mosquitoes do the transmission. So, maybe a Hollywood actor or an influencer who knows nothing about politics will take this idea and post it on the bigger, better known platform. From there, these memes escalate as they move from Parler to maybe Reddit and from there to Twitter, Facebook,  Instagram and YouTube. We call this “cascades of misinformation.“
Sometimes the cascades of misinformation bounce from country to country between the U.S., Canada and the UK for example. So, it echoes back and forth.
Within Europe, two reservoirs for disinformation stick out: Poland and Hungary.
Our 2020 report shows that cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world. This year, we found evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics. This has increased from last years’ report, where we identified 70 countries with cyber troop activity.
identified 63 new instances of private firms working with governments or political parties to spread disinformation about elections or other important political issues. We identified 21 such cases in 2017-2018, yet only 15 in the period between 2009 and 2016.
Why would well-funded Russian agencies buy disinformation services from a newcomer like Nigeria?
(1) Russian actors have found a lab in Nigeria that can provide services at competitive prices. (2) But countries like China and Russia seem to be developing an interest in political influence in many African countries, so it is possible that there is a service industry for disinformation in Nigeria for that part of the world.
Each social media company should provide some kind of accounting statement about how it deals with misuse, with reporting hate speech, with fact checking and jury systems and so on. This system of transparency and accountability works for the stock markets, why shouldn’t it work in the social media realm? 
We clearly need a digital civics curriculum. The 12 to 16 year olds are developing their media attitudes now, they will be voting soon. There is very good media education in Canada or the Netherlands for example, and that is an excellent long-term strategy. 

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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

03
Jan
2021

US Internet

categories: Digital literacy, distance learning, distributive learning, e-learning, educational technology, information literacy, information technology, instructional technology, technology literacy

In 2021, we need to fix America’s internet: We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them from r/technology

IN 2021, WE NEED TO FIX AMERICA’S INTERNET

We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them

https://www.theverge.com/22177154/us-internet-speed-maps-competition-availability-fcc

Across the country, the FCC and internet service providers are pretending there’s competition in an unimaginable number of places where it doesn’t actually exist.

As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wrote for The Verge last March, as many as one in three US households doesn’t have broadband internet access, currently defined as just 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up — which feels like the bare minimum for a remote learning family these days.

early 12 million children don’t have a broadband connection at home, the Senate Joint Economic Committee reported in 2017. And the “homework gap” hits harder if you’re poor, of course: only 56 percent of households with incomes under $30,000 had broadband as of last February, according to the Pew Research Center.

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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality

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