In this year's edition of the World Information Society Report 2007, ITU includes the very latest statistics monitoring the evolution of the digital divide, using a variety of statistical techniques. The digital divide is narrowing most rapidly in mobile telephony, with one in two people in the world expected to have access to a mobile phone by the end of this year. Low-income countries are making important gains in mobile telephony (see Figure), with mobile phones outnumbering fixed lines by seven to one in LDCs and by as much as nine to one in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The digital divide is also narrowing in terms of Internet usage.  In 1997, the nearly three-quarters of the world's population living in low-income and lower-middle income economies accounted for just 5% of the world's total Internet users.  By 2005, they accounted for 32.5% or nearly a third of all Internet users. The digital divide is evolving, however, and gaps in access in the high-speed broadband technologies that will matter the most in tomorrow's 'information economy' are more marked - low-income economies accounted for under 1% of total broadband subscribers worldwide, while lower-middle income economies accounted for just 20% or one fifth of the global total.  The digital divide may be narrowing, but it is taking on new aspects in terms of speed and the quality of access.

"Chapter two: Bridging the Digital Divide" of the World Information Society Report 2007 can be read here.

The ITU has monitored trends in broadband subscribers and the price of broadband services around the world since 2002.  By early 2007, broadband was commercially available in 170 countries, with the latest country to launch commercial ADSL services being Lesotho in early 2007.

In 2002, broadband services were available in just 81 countries, mostly industrialized OECD countries, transition economies in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and some developing countries in Asia-Pacific.  By 2006, the number of countries with commercial broadband service had more than doubled to reach a total of 166 countries, with a number of operators in African countries launching broadband services, including in Botswana, Ghana, Rwanda and Libya.

Chapter three: The Digital Opportunity Index of the World Information Society Report 2007 tracks growth in the Information Society around the world, particularly in the more advanced broadband technologies of 3G mobile and broadband Internet service.  It examines key trends in telecom markets, such as whether subscribers are 'cutting the cord' and the death of dial-up.  To download the text of the chapter for free, please click here.

Etisalat Egypt claimed to have achieved a customer base of 400,000 subscribers at the end of its first month of operations, after officially launching operations on 30 April 2007.  This is strong subscriber growth in the booming Egyptian mobile market, which Etisalat shares with Vodafone Egypt and MobiNil.

As previously reported by ITP.net, the Egyptian Communications Minister, Dr. Tarek Kamel, recently announced Egypt would offer a licence for a second fixed services operator, ending the monopoly of the incumbent operator, Telecom Egypt. According to a report by news agency MENA, Etisalat Egypt may bid for Egypt's second fixed line network licence.

Meanwhile, a press release by AMEInfo reports that Etisalat UAE and Research in Motion jointly announced 14,000 new subscribers to Etisalat's Blackberry service over the first year of operations, since the service was launched in May 2006.  Etisalat continues to go from strength to strength, in a region where mobile ownership is expected to exceed one in two people by the end of this year.

This year's edition of the World Information Society Report 2007 notes that growth in the global Information Society is not without risks and the Report examines the potential pitfalls of growth in the rise of online fraud, other risks and threats to cybersecurity. The expansion of the Internet is opening up many new opportunities for criminals to exploit online vulnerabilities and commit criminal acts or attack countries' critical infrastructures.

Threats in cyberspace are evolving rapidly and deserve greater attention for several reasons. The evolution of telecommunication networks towards Next-Generation Networks (NGN) with decentralized intelligence at the edges of the network could raise new security issues. The capacity and speed of networks are increasing, accelerating the transmission of malicious software alongside other Internet traffic. Transmission and encryption protocols are also constantly being updated. Meanwhile, convergence offers new opportunities for 'cross-infection', with the problems of one access device feeding into other ICTs.

Viruses, spyware, phishing, identity theft, denial-of-service attacks and zombie botnets are endangering cyberspace and jeopardising the very future of the Internet. According to one source, spam and other exploitation now account for up to 90 per cent of all email traffic over the Internet. Spam has now mutated from a general annoyance to a broader cybersecurity threat, acting as a platform for many other types of scams (see Figure).

Chapter five, "Challenges to building a safe and secure Information Society" of the World Information Society Report 2007 examines these issues.

Using age-disaggregated data from the most recent 2006 Infocomm Survey of the Singapore Infocomm Development Agency (IDA), ITU has calculated the age divide for Singapore using the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI). The Digital Opportunity Index is calculated on the basis of eleven indicators (grouped in three clusters of Opportunity, Infrastucture and Utilization) which can be disaggregated by age, gender, area or region to investigate different aspects of the digital divide.

Not surprisingly, in Singapore, the 15-29 age group makes the most use of ICTs, with a DOI score of 0.80, eight percentage points above the national Digital Opportunity Score of 0.72. Conversely, the 60+ age group lags behind the national average by some nine percentage points.  The total gap in digital opportunity between tech-savvy youth and the elderly amounts to some 17 per cent, with the greatest gaps observed in rates of Internet usage. The only area where the elderly (60+) do better than the youth of Singapore is in access to mobile broadband, which may reflect the greater disposable income of retired workers and ability to buy more sophisticated mobile handsets.

The Government of Singapore has introduced a comprehensive plan, IN2015, that seeks to address the age divide, amongst other issues.

This analysis is presented in chapter four of the ITU-UNCTAD World Information Society Report 2007, available to buy here.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has just issued its Quarterly Performance Indicators of Telecom Services for the quarter ending 31 March 2007. Total gross telephone subscribers (wireless and wireline) surpassed 200 million subscribers for the first time. Total telephone subscribers grew from 189 million in December 2006 to 205 million in March 2007, an increase of 8% during the quarter. Year-on-year growth is even higher, with total telephone subscribers having grown by 46% since March 2006, mostly due to stunning growth in the mobile market, with over 5 million new mobile subscribers being added each month and 6.6 million mobile subscribers during the month of May 2007 alone. (For a comparison of April 2007/May 2007 results, please see here).

Intriguingly, trends in mobile Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) are mixed. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reports that the all-India blended ARPU for GSM services fell by 5.7% from Rs 316 in December 2006 to Rs 298 in March 2007, while the all-India blended ARPU for CDMA services grew by 3.1% from Rs 196 to Rs 202 over the same period.

The number of broadband subscribers (with connections at speeds in excess of 256 kbit/s) grew by 13.8% over the first quarter of 2007 to 2.34 million at 31 March 2007.

These performance indicators confirm that the impressive growth in the Indian telecom market is continuing. Such growth is contributing to progress towards the milestone of half the world's population having access to a mobile phone, a milestone that ITU expects will be achieved before the end of this year.

For access to all recent press releases by the TRAI, please see here.

According to a survey of United States federal government agencies released last week by Cisco, an overwhelming majority of respondents believe that coordination of a mobile or remote workforce will be improved through unified communications - the integration of voice, video and data, delivered across a secure Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure.

The survey of 200 federal information technology decision-makers and IT executives showed that wireless laptops, mobile devices and video-conferencing systems are widely used across different agencies of federal government. Nearly 50 percent of federal organizations now use instant messaging. More than 75% of all respondents report that perceptions and concerns over security pose a challenge to an enterprise-wide implementation of an integrated system, with security and reliability cited as the two greatest overall concerns.

More than two-thirds of respondents plan to have the capabilities to provide real-time notification and identification of employees and instant messaging or live chats in their agencies within the next 18 to 24 months.

The survey was commissioned by Cisco and carried out by Market Connections and can be read here.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are jointly holding a meeting of high-level experts to identify key trends and to address the new technological and policy challenges in the digital content delivery environment.

To view the ITU/EBU conference via webcam, click here.

More information about this meeting can be found here.

Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the ITU, participated in the 17th World Economic Forum on Africa. Under the headline theme "Raising the Bar", this high-level gathering of governments, business, international organisations, civil society and experts focused on leveraging Africa’s strategic role in the global arena. It featured innovative partnerships to sustain growth, address human and infrastructure capacity constraints and assess opportunities for an improved African investment climate.

Dr. Touré contributed a chapter to the African Competitiveness Report 2007 which overviews the ICT landscape in Africa.  It considers the relationship between ICTs and competitiveness with reference to the latest research, examines the changing regulatory and policy landscape in Africa, provides the latest summary statistics on operators and markets and information on a number of planned infrastructure initiatives.  It concludes that the private sector is forging ahead with the introduction of new technologies to grow the mobile and broadband markets. The rise of African strategic investors such as Vodacom, Orascom and Celtel recording strong subscriber growth is especially impressive.

To read Dr. Touré's contributory chapter, please see here. The African Competitiveness Report 2007 is available from the website of the World Economic Forum. For more information on the event, please see here.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will jointly organize a Meeting of High-Level Experts on “Competitive Platforms for the Delivery of Digital Content” to identify global trends and to address the new technological and policy challenges in the digital content delivery environment.

ITU Member States, EBU Membership, meeting participants and other interested parties are encouraged to send in their competitive platforms for digital content related contributions to the meeting at digitalcontent@itu.int

Click here to see the meeting agenda.

Onlline registration is available here.

Information about this meeting can be found here.

 

 

 

 

A recent article in ComputerWorld Australia reports that a common e-crime reporting format to electronically report fraudulent activities will be fully operational in Australia by July, 2007.

In an interview with with Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) Secretary-General, the need for a structured data model to improve incident reporting, share information and allow forensic searches and investigations was highlighted. Secreatry-General Cassidy said that "the first base specification was submitted in June 2005 and the Incident Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF) XML Schema with e-crime relevant extensions will be a recognized IETF standard in about six weeks." This will futhermore be automated with greater ease using a standard schema. He also gave an example to show how it is planned to work:  an Asian country CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) reporting an incident can send it to a European bank, which then can treat the specific request . 

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is currently talking to ISPs to increase phishing data from the field. Cassidy continues, "Reporting is improving. The average time live for a phishing site is now four days: we should be able to reduce this to a single day. We want to make it harder for organized crime by frustrating them and pulling down the sites as quickly as possible. "We don't want it to be easy for them to make a profit so they have to return to old standbys like extortion and drugs."

Cassidy estimates there are upwards of 50 full-time phishing gangs operating worldwide at any given time. While four days may seem a long time the average was well over a week when the working group was first established. He said it can depend on reaching the right person within an organization. "We have ISPs that can bring down sites in minutes but there are some organizations that have an approval process that has to be cleared by three levels of management; even after 20 faxes and two weeks later nothing is done". "Some organizations just aren't interested".

Access the full ComputerWorld article here.

Wired News in an article reports on the recent Anti-Phishing Working Group's Counter e-Crime Operations Summit which took place in San Francisco, United States. The meeting gathered internet-crime fighters from security companies, law enforcement agencies, banks and e-commerce sites to confer on new tactics in the war on cybercrime. "And while nearly everyone agreed the internet has become an infected and dangerous breeding ground for malware and scams, no one could quite agree on what do."

Proposed solutions included:

• the online fraud problem had become so bad due to the neglect of ISPs, users and private corporations alike that the only recourse was to build government-funded free clinics for infected computers;
• the botnet threat requires some top-down authority to fix the problem, the current remediation model which mostly involves running from one computer to another installing patches cannot keep up with attackers that are now better organized and better funded than the security community;
• the increased use of ingress filtering that prevents one computer from successfully spoofing the internet IP address of another (to be widely adopted by ISPs and router manufacturers);
• etc. see the Anti-Phishing Working Group's Counter e-Crime Operations Summit for further information.

Service providers and everyday users were singled out by meeting panelists and audience members for not taking enough responsibility. Attendees slammed ISPs for not searching for rogue computers on their network or shutting off internet access to compromised PCs reported to them by security companies, charging that ISPs were endangering the internet to avoid support calls from cut off customers.

Is was stated that users don't care about security because the rogue zombie software often only uses minimal computing power, making the background spam-spouting code not their problem. A few audience members argued seriously that computer users should have to take a test to get an internet license, maintain botnet insurance and have their machines inspected for information-super highway worthiness. Others countered that individuals shouldn't have to know how to secure their own computers, the machines should simply be more inherently secure.

In the article a senior researcher for security company RSA, told Wired News that "none of those solutions would work, because new technical specifications for a security score would take years, and the other proposals wouldn't have the international reach needed to make a dent in the global internet infosphere." "The solution? Money. Governments need to provide rewards to ISPs for taking down botnets, the researcher explains."Governments are the only body with money and the incentive to take down botnets. If you are looking at either a carrot or stick approach, I would go carrot. If you are paying ISPs to get rid of the botnets, then it's international. Everyone wants to make money."

Read the full Wired News article here.

MSNBC news reports in a recent article that a new mutation of the old phishing scam surfaced. Like thousands of previous phishing e-mails, this bogus bank notice asks for your personal information. But in a strange and novel twist, it tries to turn your own phone against you.

In an e-mail message from a bank you see text like: "During our regular update and verification we could not verify your current phone number". You are told to confirm your phone number right away or your account will be suspended indefinitely.Then you’re instructed to forward your phone to the number provided. It’s supposedly the phone number for the bank’s security department. "The bank will verify your phone number and will disable call forward within 20 minutes," the e-mail says. However, this e-mail is not from the bank, and the number does not go to their security department. It’s a Skype number that goes straight to the identity thieves who can be anywhere in the world.

If this new approach works, we are likely to see similar messages pretending to be from other financial institutions asking people to forward their phone number. "After an identity thief steals your credit card number, he needs a way to make money with it. He can charge things or sell the number for others to use. In either case, once the charges start piling up on your account, the bank’s computers are likely to flag these abnormal or out of profile transactions and alert the fraud department."

The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of hundreds of banks, e-tailers, technology companies and government agencies, warns that a growing number of phishing attacks are being designed to steal your personal information by downloading crime-ware onto your computer. They do that when you click the link that’s embedded in the phisher’s e-mail message, the one that’s supposed to take you to the financial institution’s Web site.

For tips on how to protect yourself, and for more information on this new scam, read the full MSNBC article.

Apple has announced that it will launch its new iPhone on 29 June in the United States. The device combines the functionality of a mobile phone with a personal digital assistant and will sell for USD 499 or USD 599, depending on how it is configured. A launch date for Europe and the rest of the world has not been announced.

One of the most interesting features of the iPhone phone is its entirely touch-sensitive interface. Though it has been much anticipated, Apple has come under fire for signing an exclusive deal with AT&T, whereby only AT&T subscribers can use the iPhone. The product was announced last January at MacWorld in San Francisco by the firm's chief executive Steve Jobs.

See the BBC News story here. The presentation by Steve Jobs at MacWorld in January 2007 here (video).

The European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation (ANEC) held its General Assembly on 1 June 2007 in Brussels. For the first time, the group considered issues relating to RFID and digital identity, and in particular the impact that these technologies may have on consumer interests. ITU's Lara Srivastava spoke at the assembly, emphasizing the need for a better understanding of the wide-reaching implications of RFID and the development of global solutions to the digital identity problem. Her presentation is available here.

By the start of 2007, some 79 economies around the world had launched commercial services for "mobile broadband", or cellular mobile services offering speeds of 256 kbit/s or more, with 18 of these economies launching during 2006. Popularly referred to as third-generation (3G) mobile, there are now more 100 million users worldwide that are able to use their mobile phones at broadband speeds. Across the world, there are two main technologies in operation: CDMA 1x EV-DO (which is used in 30 economies, mainly in the Americas and Europe) and W-CDMA (which is used in almost 50 economies, and is particularly popular in Europe). Around half of the economies using W-CDMA have now also launched High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) which offers much faster speeds, up to 14.4 Mbit/s.

The new figures were announced by ITU iand UNCTAD n the second edition of the annual "World Information Society Report", which was launched on May 16 2007. The full text of the report is available online at www.itu.int/wisr. The report tracks progress in narrowing the digital divide and implementing the commitments made at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

EMI has joined the other three major music companies in letting YouTube users play with its music videos, allowing people to get clips by the likes of David Bowie, Norah Jones and Coldplay from the Google-owned site and edit them into their own videos.

London-based EMI Group, the third-largest music company, said Thursday it signed a deal with Google, the last of the four major record companies to be convinced that YouTube's technology would be sufficient to prevent rampant infringement by users. EMI and YouTube said they are still working on developing business models to generate revenue, particularly with regards to new areas such as allowing users to create 'mash-up' videos that include their own content alongside EMI music and clips. "With this deal, all four of the world's major music companies are now official YouTube partners," Chad Hurley, chief executive and co-founder of YouTube, said in a statement. The agreement follows copyright lawsuits filed by media companies that accused YouTube of allowing its users to pirate their programs on the popular video-sharing site.

See the rest of the story on CNN.com here.

Robert Alan Soloway, 27, was indicted this week by a US federal grand jury on 35 counts that include mail fraud, wire fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Accused of being one of the Internet's most notorious spammers, he is currently being held without bail.

Soloway is the first spammer in the nation to be charged with aggravated identity theft under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

See the Reuters story here.  

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recently gave its preliminary approval to a powerful technology designed to detect and block fake e-mail messages. It's called DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and it promises to give Internet users to identify and stop the seemingly endless flow of fraudulent junk e-mail by providing a method for validating an identity that is associated with a message, during the time it is transferred over the Internet. That identity then can then be held accountable for the message.

The draft standard that the Internet Engineering Task Force adopted is a promising solution because it harnesses the power of cryptographically secure digital signatures to thwart online miscreants.

Read the full article on CNET News.

The Internet Society of New Zealand (InternetNZ) has recently released the ISP Spam Code of Practice for public consultation. The Code is posted on the InternetNZ website. Four weeks have been allowed for comment to be received, with a deadline of 18 June 2007.

The Code has been prepared by a working group comprising representatives of the Telecommunications Carriers’ Forum, the Marketing Association, and InternetNZ. According to the website, InternetNZ executive director Keith Davidson says the preparation of the Code is an excellent example of how the industry is working together to fight a common enemy. "Spam is clogging up our inboxes, soaking up our bandwidth, and providing vectors for scams and malware." "The ISP Spam Code of Practice recognises that Service Providers can assist in the minimisation of Spam through their technical approach, by being a first port of call for information and complaints from internet users, and by working with law enforcement agencies."

The ISP Spam Code of Practice is complementary to the New Zealand government’s Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act in that it outlines the responsibilities of ISPs under a self-regulatory model. This was anticipated in the passing of the Act. It is planned that the Code will go live on the same date as the Act of 5 September 2007. It is also complementary to the Marketing Association’s Code of Practice for Direct Marketing, the TCF’s SMS Ant-Spam Code and the TCF’s Customer Complaints Code.

See the Internet Society of New Zealand website for further details.

Under the aegis of the Shaping Tomorrow’s Networks Initiative and in line with the stated objectives of the WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles (December 2003), which affirms “…the common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life…” the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will jointly organize a Meeting of High-Level Experts on “Competitive Platforms for the Delivery of Digital Content” to identify global trends and to address the new technological and policy challenges in the digital content delivery environment.

ITU Member States, EBU Membership, meeting participants and other interested parties are encouraged to send in their competitive platforms for digital content related contributions to the meeting at digitalcontent@itu.int 

To register for the upcoming ITU/EBU Meeting of High-Level Experts on Competitive Platforms for the Delivery of Digital Content, please click here or contact Ms. Cristina Bueti at digitalcontent@itu.int

More information about this meeting is available here.