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By: Rob Lever Agence France-Presse

10:26 am | Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

WASHINGTON The Internet is set for a major upgrade in the coming week. But if all goes well, users wont even know its happening.

The switch occurs at 0001 GMT Wednesday, when the Internet system shifts to a new standard that allows for trillions of IP numbers or addresses, up from the current four billion.

Known as the World IPv6 launch to geeks, the move will see Web operators and others switch permanently to the new system from the existing standard, IPv4. A test of the system was held last year.

The new standard was needed because the number of IP addresses under the old system has been exhausted.

The full transition will take several years, and old IPv4 devices and networks should continue to function as before.

Most users shouldnt notice anything, said Leo Vegoda, a numbers resources manager for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Internet address system.

If ordinary Internet users need to know stuff, then the technology isnt right.

But Vegoda said there may be some irritations for users, as those using equipment on the old standard connect to computers and networks on the new standard.

More here:
Internet address system upgrade likely to be smooth

Windows 8 Release Preview

Windows 8 Release Preview includes the sixth release previewof Internet Explorer 10. After several years of beating the drum of standards compliance and freedom from plugins, Internet Explorer 10 has surprised many with the integration of Adobe Flash. That's not the only provocative change the new browser makes: it enables Do Not Track by default, too. Standards compliance has also been further improved, and there are one or two interesting new usability features.

As previously reported, Internet Explorer 10 will include a Flash component, on both x86/x64, and ARM. This will be usable in both the desktop front-end and the touch-friendly Metro one. Flash will work on any site in the desktop browser, and on a select set of whitelisted sites, including YouTube, Netflix, and CNN, in the Metro browser.

While the x86/x64 desktop browser will allow any plugins, the Metro browser will not; nor will either of the ARM browsers. This puts Flash in a very privileged position. Even Microsoft's own Flash-like Silverlight runtime isn't getting the same treatment.

Explaining the decision to incorporate Flash, Microsoft calls it a "practical matter," and that having more sites "just work" in the Metro browser is the most important concern: users shouldn't be forced to put down their tablets and use a PC just because they come across a site that uses Flash.

The Flash plugin-that-isn't-a-plugin is based on the regular, fully-featured desktop version of Flash, not Adobe's now-discontinued mobile effort. Microsoft and Adobe have worked together to improve the battery life and security of the Flash player, with Adobe supporting Windows platform features such as ASLR, and adopting and adapting Microsoft's Secure Development Lifecycle. Contrary to our previous report, however, Adobe says that it hasn't given Microsoft access to the source code; it merely hands over compiled binaries.

Being integrated into Internet Explorer, the Flash plugin will be updated by Microsoft, through Windows Update, just as is already done in Google Chrome. The whitelist, too, will be subject to periodic updates, so we might expect to see new sites added and others removed, according to user demand and migration to HTML5 technologies.

In practice, it works about as well as can be expected. It calls itself version 11.3 (compared to the current 11.2 for other platforms), and if you visit a whitelisted site, it fires up the Flash content without any fuss or indication that it's doing so.

Microsoft says that it has worked to make the Metro Flash (though not the desktop one) more amenable to touch content: it supports double-tap and pinch-to-zoom, for example, but doesn't support mouse hover effects. This may be true, but the broader problemplenty of Flash content just isn't designed for touchremains. YouTube, for example, all works, but certain features, such as the quality/resolution menu, are a little too dainty for convenient fingering.

In spite of concerns over security and battery life, having Flash is, at this stage in the Web's life, still better than not having Flash. One can, for example, just follow links to YouTube, without being taken out of the browser experience and into a separate YouTube application, and without having to worry about whether a given video supports HTML5 viewing (not all do). In a contradictory sense, the Metro browser manages to achieve a more Web-native experience (insofar as it doesn't depend on "there's an app for that," for rich content, letting you stay within the browser) by allowing the use of non-Web technology.

Continue reading here:
Internet Explorer 10: embedded Flash, Do Not Track, and stable standards

As the Internet prepares to celebrate World IPv6 Day next week, law enforcement is worried the transition could hinder legitimate investigations. Some tech companies agree it's a concern.

The FBI tells CNET that the IPv6 transition may require it to develop "additional tools" for surveillance.

The FBI is worried that an explosion of new Internet numeric addresses scheduled to begin next week may hinder its ability to conduct electronic investigations.

A historic switchover that will give the Internet a nearly inexhaustible supply of network addresses -- up from the current nearly exhausted total of 4.3 billion -- is planned for next Wednesday. AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Cisco, and Microsoft are among the companies participating.

Side effects from the transition to Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6, "could have a profound effect on law enforcement," an FBI spokesman told CNET. "Additional tools" may need to be developed to conduct Internet investigations in the future, the spokesman said.

That's one reason the FBI recently formed a new unit, the Domestic Communications Assistance Center in Quantico, Va., which is responsible for devising ways to keep up with "emerging" technologies. CNET was the first to report on the formation of the center in an article last week.

While Wednesday's World IPv6 Day is only one step in the transition to the next-generation system, it's expected to mark the beginning of a gradual decline in popularity of the outgoing IPv4 standard. The participating Internet providers will begin to switch over a fraction of their residential subscribers on Wednesday, and router makers will enable IPv6 by default for their products. (Here's an IPv6 FAQ.)

That's what worries the FBI, which has been meeting quietly with Internet companies to figure out how its agents can maintain their ability to obtain customer records in investigations.

"This is a very real concern," says Jason Fesler, Yahoo's IPv6 evangelist. It will "impact a service provider's ability to readily respond to legal requests from law enforcement agencies," according to the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group, or BITAG, which counts AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Google, and Microsoft as members.

D-Link, the Taiwan-based company that's one of the largest makers of routers and networking gear worldwide, agrees. "D-Link is aware of potential issues concerning IPv6 and law enforcement concerns that are currently being assessed," a company spokesman said. "D-Link is committed to IPv6 support and will comply with any future guidelines."

See original here:
FBI: New Internet addresses could hinder police investigations

WASHINGTON & GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The Internet Society, the world's trusted independent source of Internet leadership, announced that Sally Wentworth, Senior Manager of Public Policy at the Internet Society,testified today as an expert witness before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce at a hearing on "International Proposals to Regulate the Internet."

Wentworth joined other witnesses to provide testimony on the pending international proposals to regulate the Internet via changes to the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), a 1988 treaty that currently governs traditional telecommunications. The United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT)in December 2012 and enable the 193 Member States from across the globe to review the ITRs and modify the treaty.

The WCIT has drawn increased attention from the global community, as some ITU Member States have proposed amendments to the treaty that would impact the global Internet architecture, operations, content, and security. Wentworth noted that some government proposals would threaten the viability of the existing global multistakeholder model for standards-setting and Internet policy development, and may seek to apply legacy telecommunications regulations to Internet traffic in a manner that could lead to a fragmented, less interoperable global network.

Additionally, the Internet Society is concerned about the decision-making process at the WCIT meetings. In her written testimony, Wentworth stated, From a process standpoint, the Internet Society is concerned that these major decisions are being made in a purely intergovernmental setting and will therefore lack the broad range of input and collaboration that are the hallmarks of multistakeholder policy development. It is not simply that the treaty negotiation process excludes nongovernmental stakeholders from decision-making, but that it dramatically limits the extent to which participants from industry and civil society can even be meaningfully heard.

Founded in 1992 by many of the same pioneers who built the Internet, the Internet Society champions public policies that support the free and open Internet, and facilitates the open development of standards and protocols in support of the Internets technical infrastructure. With more than 55,000 members and 90 Chapters around the world, the Internet Society serves as a global resource for technically-vetted, policy-based, and ideologically unbiased information about the Internet.

The Internet Society does believe that the WCIT can produce thoughtful, worthwhile policy developments that advance the mission of the ITU and the ongoing expansion of global communications, without imposing dangerous and unnecessary burdens on the Internet. Wentworth commented, Many ITU Member States, including the United States, have shown that they understand the value of the Internet and its unique multistakeholder model. Those delegates are in a critical position to advance an agenda at WCIT that respects the Internet and its global contributions, while continuing to support the pro-competitive policies that have been so successful since the ITRs were first negotiated in 1988.

To read Ms. Wentworths written testimony, visit: http://internetsociety.org/international-proposals-regulate-internet

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone. For more information, visit http://www.internetsociety.org.

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Internet Society’s Sally Wentworth Testifies Before U.S. House of Representatives on International Internet Regulations

Increasingly, Internet users are working "in the cloud" creating and sending data that isn't stored on local hard drives. It's easy to imagine our emails and photos swirling around in cyberspace without a physical home but that's not really how it works. Those files are still stored somewhere, but you can only find them if you know where to look.

In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes on a journey inside the Internet's physical infrastructure to uncover the buildings and compounds where our data is stored and transmitted. Along the way, he documents the spaces where the Internet first started and the people who've been working to make the web what it is today.

Blum tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the Internet can be thought of as three separate entities: data centers that store information, Internet exchange points where networks meet to exchange data with each other, and fiber-optic cables which connect all of the information traveling between cities and continents.

Blum calls these fiber-optic cables, many of which traverse the ocean bottom, the "most poetic places of the Internet."

"They're about the thickness of a garden hose and they're filled with handful of strands of fiber-optic cable," he says. "And light goes in one end of the ocean and out the other end of the ocean. And that light is accelerated along its journey by repeaters that look like bluefin tuna underwater."

The repeaters and the fiber-optic cables extend for thousands of miles below the ocean's surface, along the same routes where other telecommunication cables have been placed for decades. Blum, who watched one of the fiber-optic cables emerge from the sea in Lisbon, says the process hasn't changed much over the decades.

"I saw pictures from [a telegraph] museum in England where the pictures from 100 years earlier looked exactly the same," he says. "The Englishmen in their hats were watching the laborers digging in the wet trench, pulling the cables up. So the technology has changed but the culture hasn't changed and the points being connected haven't changed much."

Journalist Andrew Blum writes about architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art and travel. He lives in New York City.

Journalist Andrew Blum writes about architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art and travel. He lives in New York City.

In the States, many of the trans-Atlantic cables coming from Europe terminate in a Art Deco-style office building at 60 Hudson St. in New York City. More than 100 telecommunications companies have offices in the building, which contains more than 70 million feet of cable wire.

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The Internet: A Series Of 'Tubes' (And Then Some)