Tag: internet

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‘X’ Social Media Platform Remains Offline in Pakistan

The shutdown that began last Saturday resulted in users across the country being unable to share information.

After almost a week, the popular social media platform ‘X’ is still inaccessible to Pakistanis and the caretaker government has yet to disclose the reason behind the prolonged disruption, Geo News reported.

According to the report, the shutdown that began last Saturday resulted in users across the country being unable to share information.

Caretaker Minister for Information and Technology Dr Umar Saif was not immediately available for a comment and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has yet to issue a statement on the matter.

“User reports indicate possible problems at X (Twitter),” said website tracker Downdetector.com, Geo News reported.

According to the report, despite being the country among the top internet users globally, Pakistan struggles with internet availability, ranking low compared to its peers, while reportedly authorities intermittently disrupt access to social media platforms.

Ahead of the February 8 general elections, users were unable to access several social media sites, for which authorities concerned blamed an error. However, on the polling day, the internet was shut down to avoid terrorism, according to the caretaker government. Following the sought-after polls, there were repeated disruptions in accessing X.

Internet shutdowns directly contradict constitutionally guaranteed rights like freedom of information (Article 19-A), freedom of speech (Article 19), and freedom of association (Article 17). In its February 2018 ruling, the Islamabad High Court declared internet shutdowns against fundamental rights and the Constitution.

Digital rights activists had slammed the authorities’ move to disrupt the access to the social media platform and deplored the utter lack of transparency from the government.

Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court Thursday ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to fully restore the services of social media platform X across the country and sought a detailed response from the authority and other parties at a later hearing, however, the PTA is yet to allow accessibility. (ANI)

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Internet Shutdowns Could Cost Billions

The UK would lose around $3 billion, and Japan is expected to lose approximately $2.7 billion. An internet outage in Germany will likely cost up to $1.5 billion…reports Asian Lite News

If the internet goes down globally for even just a single day, it would cost $43 billion, with the US and China making up almost half of the sum together, which is $21 billion, a new report has said.

According to the VPN service provider AtlasVPN, if an internet outage occurs just for a single day, the US would alone face huge losses of around $11 billion. China is estimated to lose nearly $10 billion.

The UK would lose around $3 billion, and Japan is expected to lose approximately $2.7 billion. An internet outage in Germany will likely cost up to $1.5 billion.

Countries with Oceanic islands like Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Micronesia would experience the least financial losses if the internet shut down for a day. Specifically, these countries would not lose more than $50K, the report said.

Russia topped the list of losses in 2022, with an estimated $21.59 billion in income lost over 7,407 hours of blackouts that affected more than three-quarters of the country’s population, according to the report by Top10VPN.

India lost $184.3 million as a result of government-imposed blackouts that prevented more than 120 million people from accessing the internet.

Iran, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, and Uzbekistan were among the other countries that suffered the biggest losses due to internet outages in 2022.

Overall, internet shutdowns by the government globally cost $24.6 billion in 2022, up 337 per cent from 2021.

ALSO READ-33% of global population not connected to Internet in 2023

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33% of global population not connected to Internet in 2023

Only 67 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.4 billion people, are online in 2023…reports Asian Lite News

While 2020 saw a double-digit growth in Internet connectivity, the number of people offline worldwide continues to decline to 33 per cent in 2023, according to the latest data from ITU, the UN tech agency on Tuesday.

In 2023, the number of people not connected to the Internet decreased to an estimated 2.6 billion or 33 per cent from the estimated 2.7 billion people offline in 2022. Only 67 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.4 billion people, are online in 2023, the report said.

“This improvement in connectivity is another step in the right direction, and one more step towards leaving no one behind in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, in a statement.

“We won’t rest until we live in a world where meaningful connectivity is a lived reality for everyone, everywhere,” Bogdan-Martin added.

According to early estimates, growth in Internet connectivity remains the strongest in low-income countries where data indicate that Internet users increased by about 17 per cent over the past year. However, less than one-third of individuals are connected to the Internet in these countries.

The latest global estimates confirm that the double-digit growth in Internet connectivity observed at the 2020 peak of the Covid-19 pandemic was short-lived.

Current trends are not strong enough to guarantee that the objective of universal and meaningful connectivity will be met by 2030.

Achieving universal and meaningful connectivity by 2030 — the possibility for everyone to enjoy a safe, satisfying, enriching and productive online experience at an affordable cost — requires a comprehensive approach that addresses infrastructure as well as other factors such as affordability and skills.

The Internet is an essential tool to access information, employment opportunities and education. People without meaningful access may be left behind. This becomes more important as technologies such as artificial intelligence become more prevalent in our day-to-day lives.

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Pakistan ranks third globally for imposing internet curbs

Earlier in May, a report said that Pakistan in 2022 remained among the world’s worst performers in terms of internet access and digital governance, Dawn reported…reports Asian Lite News

Pakistan has been ranked third in the world for the imposition of internet restrictions in the first half of 2023, Pakistan-based Dawn reported.

Pakistan has imposed three of the 42 new restrictions worldwide, Dawn reported citing a report by Surfshark, a virtual private network company headquartered in Lithuania, a half-year analysis of internet shutdown based on the Internet Shutdown Tracker. These internet restrictions were imposed after the arrest of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan on May 9. At the time, restrictions on access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube were imposed in Pakistan, the report said. Furthermore, several temporary cellular network disruptions were witnessed in Pakistan for several days afterwards.

Facebook meta.(photo:Pixabay.com)

In the first half of 2023, Facebook continued to face restrictions in the first half of 2023. Facebook was restricted in Ethiopia, Guinea, Senegal, Pakistan, and Suriname, Dawn reported citing the report. All of these nations have had a history of government-imposed internet restrictions.

Telegram, Instagram, and YouTube faced restrictions in four countries. WhatsApp and Twitter faced restrictions in three countries. Ethiopia had restricted TikTok in first half of the year. However, US became the eighth nation to ban TikTok, Dawn reported citing the report.

TikTok. (Photo:Unsplash)

According to the report, there was a 31 per cent decline in new internet disruption in the first half of 2023 in comparison to the same period in 2022. However, the number of nations imposing restrictions increased from 13 to 14.

Asia led the world for internet disruptions with 71 per cent of new global cases, Dawn cited the report. According to Surfshark, an estimated 2.35 billion people faced internet censorship throughout the year.

Earlier in May, a report said that Pakistan in 2022 remained among the world’s worst performers in terms of internet access and digital governance, Dawn reported.

The report titled ‘Pakistan’s Internet Landscape 2022’ was released by human rights and advocacy organisation Bytes For All and explored in detail the complex relationship between human rights and information and communication technologies, as per the news report.

According to the report, Pakistan made some gains with respect to internet access and overall governance. However, the country remained among the worst performers, according to Dawn.

“In terms of internet access and overall governance, Pakistan made some gains, but in the context of the world, the country remains among the worst performers, even within just Asia,” Dawn quoted the report as saying.

The report said that despite a rise in internet penetration, approximately 15 per cent of the population still lacked access to the internet and mobile or telecom services. According to the report, the rest of the people suffered from slow speeds and a lack of consistency in services. (ANI)

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Tech Lite

Mobile, Internet usage to drive India’s digital ad spend to $21 bn by 2028

Apple announces contactless payments via new iPhones.

With users spending around seven hours daily on their smartphones, digital platforms have a good engagement rate…reports Asian Lite News

With the significant surge in the use of smartphones and Internet, digital ad spending in India is likely to reach $21 billion by 2028, a report showed on Tuesday.

Notedly, growth in user-generated content (UGC) will empower individual creators and influencers to build their digital identity, which brands can leverage for digital ads.

This strong ecosystem of 2.5 to 3 million creators is expected to drive marketing spending of $2.8 billion- $3.5 billion by 2028, according to the report by Redseer Strategy Consultants.

The digital ad spend in the country is set to observe a muted growth in FY23 due to macro factors, post which it would account for 65-70 per cent of overall ad spend in India growing at a CAGR of 19-21 per cent.

“Upon mapping market sizing across media agencies, we observe a significant under-reporting of digital ad spend in India. However, our projection has considered enterprise spends, SMB spends, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing and gaming,” said Mukesh Kumar, engagement manager, Redseer.

With users spending around seven hours daily on their smartphones, digital platforms have a good engagement rate.

Some of the most popular performances driving digital advertising platforms include e-commerce, short videos, OTT, social media, long-form videos, and news outlets.

According to the report, global slowdown due to increasing interest rates, energy crisis etc., has led to new-age companies focusing on profitability and controlling their spending on ad and hence slower growth is expected in FY23.

Under the current economic headwinds, the ad market is estimated to grow by 6-8 per cent in FY23, said the report.

“We expect macroeconomic engines to pick up momentum again by FY24 since, after every economic downturn, eventually, consumer morale returns,” it added.

As the creator economy grows, it is essential to bridge the gap between brands and influencers through a centralised platform such as the creator marketplace, the report mentioned.

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Tech Lite USA

Musk launches satellite internet service called Starshield

Elon Musk

Starlink for RVs allow users to get immediate access to high-speed, low-latency Internet while in motion, at any location where the company provides active coverage…reports Asian Lite News

Elon Musk-run SpaceX has announced a new government-focused satellite internet service called Starshield with a focus on “national security”.

Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts, the company said on its website.

While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on three areas: Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads.

SpaceX said that Starshield will launch satellites with sensing payloads and deliver processed data directly to the user.

“Starshield provides assured global communications to government users with Starshield user equipment and builds satellite buses to support the most demanding customer payload missions,” it further informed.

Starlink already offers end-to-end user data encryption and Starshield will use “additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements”.

The company said that Starlink’s inter-satellite laser communications terminal, which is the only communications laser operating at scale in orbit today, can be integrated onto partner satellites to enable incorporation into the Starshield network.

“SpaceX’s ongoing work with the Department of Defense and other partners demonstrates our ability to provide in-space and on-ground capability at scale,” said the space company.

Meanwhile, satellite Internet service Starlink will soon be available in recreational vehicles (RVs).

Starlink for RVs allow users to get immediate access to high-speed, low-latency Internet while in motion, at any location where the company provides active coverage.

Recently, the company had announced that its satellite Internet service will be available on select airplanes with the official launch of Starlink Aviation next year.

The service will offer Internet speeds of up to 350 mbps to each plane equipped with its Aero Terminal, which it says is fast enough for video calls, online gaming, “and other high data rate activities”.

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Internet facing most serious bug in recent years, warn cyber firms

Researchers at Microsoft have also warned about attacks attempting to take advantage of ‘Log4j’ vulnerabilities, including a range of crypto-mining malware…reports Asian Lite News.

Cyber security researchers on Monday warned that hackers are making over 100 attempts every minute to exploit a critical security vulnerability in the widely-used Java logging system called ‘Apache log4j2’, leaving millions of companies globally at cyber theft risk.

Several popular services, including Apple iCloud, Amazon, Twitter, Cloudflare and Minecraft, are vulnerable to this ‘ubiquitous’ zero-day exploit, now dubbed as one of the most serious vulnerabilities on the Internet in recent years.

‘Apache Log4j’ is used in many forms of enterprise and open-source software, including cloud platforms, web applications and email services.

According to cybersecurity researchers at Check Point, Since Friday (December 10), they “witnessed what looks like an evolutionary repression, with new variations of the original exploit being introduced rapidly- over 60 in less than 24 hours”.

Apache Log4j is the most popular java logging library with over 400,000 downloads from its GitHub project. It is used by a vast number of companies worldwide, enabling logging in a wide set of popular applications.

“Exploiting this vulnerability is simple and allows threat actors to control java-based web servers and launch remote code execution attacks,” cyber security researchers said in a blog post.

Another cyber security company Sophos said that it is already detecting malicious cryptominer operations attempting to leverage the vulnerability, and there are credible reports from other sources that several automated botnets (such as Mirai, Tsunami, and Kinsing) have begun to exploit it as well.

“Other types of attacks – and payloads – are likely to rapidly follow. While there are steps that server operators can take to mitigate the vulnerability, the best fix is to upgrade to the patched version, already released by Apache in Log4j 2.15.0,” Sophos said in a statement.

However, rolling out an upgrade may not be all that simple – especially if organisations don’t know where it’s been deployed as a component.

At present, most of the attacks focus on the use of cryptocurrency mining at the expense of the victims. However, under the auspices of the noise, more advanced attackers may act aggressively against quality targets.

Researchers at Microsoft have also warned about attacks attempting to take advantage of ‘Log4j’ vulnerabilities, including a range of crypto-mining malware.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for New Zealand, Deutsche Telekom’s CERT, and the Greynoise web monitoring service have also warned that hackers are actively looking for servers vulnerable to ‘Log4Shell’ attacks.

“In the case of this vulnerability ‘CVE-2021-44228’, the most important aspect is to install the latest updates as soon as practicable,” said an alert by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Many Open Source projects like the Minecraft server, Paper, have already begun patching their usage of ‘log4j2’. In a statement, Cloudflare has said it has updated systems to prevent attacks.

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Massive internet outage brings down big global websites

The issues were also affected the UK government websites as British citizens were unable to renew passports, apply for tax allowances, or obtain driving licence during the outage, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk

After a huge global web outage caused by a “service configuration” took popular websites, including leading news portals, off the grid on Tuesday, the services resumed for some websites although it was a slow process.

The technical glitch happened at the end of Fastly, a popular content delivery network (CDN) provider. The Cloud computing services provider said that the issue has been identified.

“The issue has been identified and a fix has been applied. Customers may experience increased origin load as global services return,” Fastly said in an update.

“We identified a service configuration that triggered disruptions across our POPs [points of presence] globally and have disabled that configuration. Our global network is coming back online,” a Fastly spokesperson was quoted as saying in media reports.

A CDN refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of internet content.

Several popular websites were down, including Reddit, Spotify, Twitch, GitHub, Hulu, HBO Max, CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times, BBC, Financial Times and many more.

“Error 503 Service Unavailable,” was the message that appeared on the affected websites earlier.

Some websites managed to find workarounds to the problem, with tech site The Verge taking to Google Docs to publish its news, but forgetting to limit those who could write on it, leading to a series of amusing edits and tweets.

Other popular websites affected were gov.uk, Quora, PayPal, Shopify and others.

The issues affected the UK government websites as British citizens were unable to renew passports, apply for tax allowances, or obtain driving licence during the outage.

The Guardian newspaper said its website and app were affected by a wider internet outage.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Pic Andrew Parsons No 10, Downing Street)

“Outages were reported in locations as varied as London, Texas and New Zealand,” the report noted.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said the government was aware of the problems with accessing gov.uk. He also said reports that users were unable to book Covid-19 tests online were being investigated as a “matter of urgency”.

Asked if ministers believed a malicious foreign group or state was responsible, he said the outage “appears to be… affecting a number of sites globally, it doesn’t appear to be targeted at any one site”.

Last year, a problem with Cloudflare, another CDN company, led to a half-hour outage for most of the internet in major cities across Europe and the Americas.

The Cloudflare outage was eventually traced back to an error in a single physical link, connecting data centres in Newark and Chicago, that caused a cascading failure that knocked out almost 20 data centres worldwide, according to Guardian report.

Meanwhile, the sudden outage sparked many memes and jokes online, with hashtag #InternetShutdown, #InternetDown and #Error503 dominated trends on Twitter globally, the Indian Express reported.

From netizens to brands, all joined the bandwagon to find some solace amid many panicking it might be a “cyber attack”.

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Internet freedom in Pakistan declined in 2020

The report said Pakistan was witnessing decline in enforcement of digital rights, freedom of expression and right to information ,especially in online spaces…reports Asian Lite News

Internet freedom in Pakistan has declined dramatically in 2020 as Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government has increased blocking political, social and cultural websites, as well as increased “weaponisation of the cybercrime law as a tool”, according to a report.

The report–‘Annual Pakistan media legal review 2020’–was launched by the Institute for Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA) to commemorate the upcoming World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Dawn reported.

“The accumulative effect of these outcomes was that the already unfriendly legal framework governing freedom of expression, right to information and digital rights in Pakistan worsened considerably during 2020,” according to the report titled “Growing fear and hate in Pakistani online civic spaces.”

The report said Pakistan was experiencing major setbacks in the enforcement of digital rights, freedom of expression and right to information – especially in online spaces – through regression in the areas of internet policies and regulations.

“This is resulting in a rise in censorship, hate speech, digital surveillance and breach of privacy and disinformation and misinformation online,” the report added.

Also read:Cops confirm top B’desh militant Mamunul was trained in Pakistan

The report noted that the cybercrime law was repeatedly invoked against journalists and opinion makers for exercising freedom of expression and social media activism.

A large number of journalists and social media activists became targets of the draconian Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016, the report said.

Several journalists and rights activists faced inquiries, abductions, investigations and arrests related to their online/social media activities and posts, according to the report.

“Freedom of expression is a guaranteed fundamental right in the shape of Article 19 of the Constitution,” IRADA Executive Director Mohammad Aftab Alam said.

“The government needs to roll back its increasingly coercive policy and hostile practices aimed at curbing free speech and bring them in alignment with the best practices of diversity and pluralism in expression and allow online spaces to be representative of the people’s opinions and interests,” he added. (ANI)

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Musk’s master plan for cheaper internet

The satellite broadband company will double the internet speed to 300 Mbps this year…reports Asian Lite News.

A world without internet is inconceivable in the present days. Elon Musk has said that the new Starlink internet service by SpaceX that will make web access more affordable for people in remote areas worldwide including in India should be fully mobile later this year.

The satellite broadband company will double the internet speed to 300 Mbps this year.

The company currently promises speeds between 50 and 150 Mbps for the Starlink project that plans to deliver high-speed internet through a network of about 12,000 satellites. The company has already put over 1,200 of its Starlink satellites in orbit.

Responding to a follower on Twitter about the launch of the service, Musk said on Friday: “Yeah, should be fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion. We need a few more satellite launches to achieve compete coverage & some key software upgrades.”

“Service uptime, bandwidth & latency are improving rapidly. Probably out of beta this summer,” he added.

SpaceX has sought approval from regulators in the US to connect its Starlink satellite Internet network to large vehicles including trucks and ships.

The request, filed with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), marks a move to expand the Starlink satellite Internet network from rural areas to other sectors.

Musk has clarified that SpaceX is not connecting the Starlink satellite Internet network to Tesla cars.

“Not connecting Tesla cars to Starlink, as our terminal is much too big. This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks & Rvs,” he said in a tweet.

SpaceX is currently offering the beta version of Starlink on pre-orders in India for a fully refundable deposit of $99.

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