Long-time Slashdot reader penciling_in shared this special report from CircleID: Vinton Cerf, widely known as the 'Father of the Internet,' has been awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2023 for his contributions to the development of the Internet architecture and for his leadership in its growth as a critical infrastructure for society. In 1974, Robert Kahn and Cerf, who was working as program manager at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office, jointly designed the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol. Together they make up the Internet's core architecture and enable computers to connect and exchange traffic.... Since 2005, Cerf has been vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google in Reston, Va., promoting the usage of the Internet for the benefit of the public. Cerf is also in charge of locating new technologies and creating policies that assist the production of Internet-based products and services. IEEE Spectrum shares this quote from one of the endorsers of the award. "Cerf's tireless commitment to the Internet's evolution, improvement, oversight, and evangelism throughout its history has made an indelible impact on the world. It is largely due to his efforts that we even have the Internet, which has changed the way society lives.

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Netflix has unveiled its plans to prevent password sharing between people in households outside of an account owner's primary location. From a report: As reported by gHacks, the streaming service has detailed how it aims to crackdown on account sharing in an updated FAQ. The information varies between countries, but it looks like the company will be paying careful attention to the devices used to log in to accounts from now on. The FAQ pages for US and UK subscribers currently highlight that devices may require verification if they are not associated with the Netflix household or if they attempt to access an account outside the subscriber's primary location for an extended period of time. The FAQ pages for countries where Netflix is testing extra membership fees for account sharing have tweaked the rules. The Costa Rican Help Center states that devices must connect to the Wi-Fi at the primary location and watch something on Netflix "at least once every 31 days." The company will use information "such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity" to determine whether a device signed into an account is connected to the primary location. A device may be blocked from watching Netflix if it's deemed to fall outside of the household. As further set out in the guidelines, if you are the primary account owner and you find yourself travelling between locations, you can request a temporary code to access Netflix for seven consecutive days. Alternatively, you can update your primary location if it has changed.

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The World Wide Web Consortium: The World Wide Web Consortium began the year 2023 by forming a new public-interest non-profit organization. The new entity preserves our member-driven approach, existing worldwide outreach and cooperation while allowing for additional partners around the world beyond Europe and Asia. The new organization also preserves the core process and mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web, by developing open web standards as a single global organization with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community. Our Director, Tim Berners-Lee, noted: "Today, I am proud of the profound impact W3C has had, its many achievements accomplished with our Members and the public, and I look forward to the continued empowering enhancements W3C enables as it launches its own public-interest non-profit organization, building on 28 years of experience." Our vision for the future is a web that is truly a force for good. A World Wide Web that is truly international and more inclusive, more respectful of its users. A web that supports truth better than falsehood, people more than profits, humanity rather than hate. A web that works for everyone, because of everyone.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nearly 45GB of source code files, allegedly stolen by a former employee, have revealed the underpinnings of Russian tech giant Yandex's many apps and services. It also revealed key ranking factors for Yandex's search engine, the kind almost never revealed in public. [...] While it's not clear whether there are security or structural implications of Yandex's source code revelation, the leak of 1,922 ranking factors in Yandex's search algorithm is certainly making waves. SEO consultant Martin MacDonald described the hack on Twitter as "probably the most interesting thing to have happened in SEO in years" (as noted by Search Engine Land). In a thread detailing some of the more notable factors, researcher Alex Buraks suggests that "there is a lot of useful information for Google SEO as well." Yandex, the fourth-ranked search engine by volume, purportedly employs several ex-Google employees. Yandex tracks many of Google's ranking factors, identifiable in its code, and competes heavily with Google. Google's Russian division recently filed for bankruptcy after losing its bank accounts and payment services. Buraks notes that the first factor in Yandex's list of ranking factors is "PAGE_RANK," which is seemingly tied to the foundational algorithm created by Google's co-founders. As detailed by Buraks (in two threads), Yandex's engine favors pages that: - Aren't too old - Have a lot of organic traffic (unique visitors) and less search-driven traffic - Have fewer numbers and slashes in their URL - Have optimized code rather than "hard pessimization," with a "PR=0" - Are hosted on reliable servers - Happen to be Wikipedia pages or are linked from Wikipedia - Are hosted or linked from higher-level pages on a domain - Have keywords in their URL (up to three)

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British cybersecurity officials are warning that hacking groups linked to Russia and Iran are duping people into clicking malicious links by impersonating journalists and experts. From a report: The hackers, who have similar goals but are said to be working separately, have sought to steal emails from people working in academia, defense, the media and government, as well as from activists and non-governmental organizations, according to an advisory released on Thursday by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. "These campaigns by threat actors based in Russia and Iran continue to ruthlessly pursue their targets in an attempt to steal online credentials and compromise potentially sensitive systems," said Paul Chichester, the center's director of operations. "We strongly encourage organizations and individuals to remain vigilant to potential approaches and follow the mitigation advice in the advisory to protect themselves online."

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A group representing internet service providers across Europe said on Tuesday that a proposal to make Big Tech companies pay towards telecom operators' network costs could create systemic weakness in critical infrastructure. From a report: Telecom operators have been pushing the European Union to implement new laws that would see U.S. tech firms like Alphabet's Google, Meta's Facebook, and Netflix bear some of the costs of Europe's telecoms network, arguing that they drive much of the region's internet traffic. In September, European Commission's industry chief Thierry Breton said he would launch a consultation on so-called "fair share" payments in early 2023, before proposing legislation. Now, the European Internet Exchange Association said the proposals risked reducing the quality of service for internet users across Europe, and could "accidentally create new systemic weaknesses" in critical infrastructure, in a letter addressed to the European Commission's industry chief Thierry Breton and the Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The porn industry has been around for a while and in today's digital age business is booming. When Laurie Schlegel isn't seeing her patients who struggle with sex addiction, she's at the Louisiana State Capitol. The Republican state representative from Metairie passed HB 142 earlier this year requiring age verification for any website that contains 33.3% or more pornographic material. "Pornography is destroying our children and they're getting unlimited access to it on the internet and so if the pornography companies aren't going to be responsible, I thought we need to go ahead and hold them accountable," said Schlegel. According to Schlegel, websites would verify someone's age in collaboration with LA Wallet. So, if you plan on using these sites in the future, you may want to download the app. "I would say so," said Sara Kelley, project manager with Envoc. "I mean, I think it's a must-have for anyone who has a Louisiana state ID or driver's license." Kelley added there are other ways websites could ask you to verify your age if you cannot access LA Wallet. She added that although some personal information will be required, companies must not retain personal data after complete verification. "It doesn't identify your date of birth, it doesn't identify who you are, where you live, what part of the state you're in, or any information from your device or from your actual ID. It just returns that age to say that yes, this person is old enough to be allowed to go in," explained Kelley. It will be the website's responsibility to ensure age verification is required when accessing their site in Louisiana. Schlegel said there will be consequences for those who fail to follow the law.

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Speedometer 3 will be a "cross-industry collaborative effort" from the Chrome, Safari and Firefox makers to create a new model that balances the companies' visions for measuring responsiveness. Engadget reports: Three companies making a tool that will rate the effectiveness of their competing products sounds like a recipe for disaster. However, Speedometer's governance policy includes a consent system that differs based on potential ramifications. For example, significant changes will require approval from the other two companies, while "non-trivial changes" will need consent from one of the other two parties. Meanwhile, "trivial changes" can be green-lit by a reviewer from any of the three browser makers. The policy's aim is that "the working team should be able to move quickly for most changes, with a higher level of process and consensus expected based on the impact of the change." The project will follow Speedometer 2, the current de facto benchmark developed by Apple's WebKit team. The Speedometer 3 project is still in its infancy, and its GitHub page warns that it is "in active development and is unstable." The groups recommend using Speedometer 2.1 until development is further along, though we don't yet know when Speedometer 3 will be ready.

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Vivaldi recently became the first browser to have its own Mastodon instance, Vivaldi Social. Now, the new version on the desktop is the first to integrate Mastodon into the browser itself, along with the ability to pin tab groups and other UI improvements. From a blog post: We believe in providing alternatives to Big Tech while putting your privacy first and launched Vivaldi Social, our Mastodon instance. And today we are integrating Vivaldi Social into the sidebar of our desktop browser becoming the first browser to offer this functionality. The new version -- Vivaldi 5.6 -- also allows you to pin your tab stacks. We've added a new private search engine You.com for select countries, helping to broaden your choices for searching the web. Vivaldi's sidebar of icons links to a number of utility functions. And now it integrates Vivaldi Social, our Mastodon instance.

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This year, Oxford Languages, the creator of the Oxford English Dictionary, titled "goblin mode" as the 2022 Word of the Year, meaning it best reflected the ethos and mood of the past 12 months. The slang term is defined as a "type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations." NPR reports: The term first appeared on Twitter in 2009 but didn't go viral until 2022, according to Oxford Languages. "It captured the prevailing mood of individuals who rejected the idea of returning to 'normal life', or rebelled against the increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media," the group wrote in a press release. "People are embracing their inner goblin," said Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages. The Word of the Year is typically based on analyzing language data on emerging words and their popularity. But this year, Oxford Languages incorporated a public vote into the process and asked people to cast their ballot between the top three expressions of the year: "goblin mode," "metaverse" and "#IStandWith." More than 300,000 people voted with an overwhelming majority -- about 93% -- favoring "goblin mode."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Major web browsers moved Wednesday to stop using a mysterious software company that certified websites were secure, three weeks after The Washington Post reported its connections to a U.S. military contractor. Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Edge said they would stop trusting new certificates from TrustCor Systems that vouched for the legitimacy of sites reached by their users, capping weeks of online arguments among their technology experts, outside researchers and TrustCor, which said it had no ongoing ties of concern. Other tech companies are expected to follow suit. The Post reported on Nov. 8 that TrustCor's Panamanian registration records showed the same slate of officers, agents and partners as a spyware-maker identified this year as an affiliate of Arizona-based Packet Forensics, which has sold communication interception services to U.S. government agencies for more than a decade. One of those contracts listed the "place of performance" as Fort Meade, Md., the home of the National Security Agency and the Pentagon's Cyber Command. The case has put a new spotlight on the obscure systems of trust and checks that allow people to rely on the internet for most purposes. Browsers typically have more than a hundred authorities approved by default, including government-owned ones and small companies, to seamlessly attest that secure websites are what they purport to be."Certificate Authorities have highly trusted roles in the internet ecosystem and it is unacceptable for a CA to be closely tied, through ownership and operation, to a company engaged in the distribution of malware," Mozilla's Kathleen Wilson wrote to a mailing list for browser security experts. "Trustcor's responses via their Vice President of CA operations further substantiates the factual basis for Mozilla's concerns."

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"Gaslighting" -- behavior that's mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful -- is Merriam-Webster's word of the year. The Associated Press reports: Lookups for the word on merriam-webster.com increased 1,740% in 2022 over the year before. But something else happened. There wasn't a single event that drove significant spikes in curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year. The gaslighting was pervasive. Merriam-Webster's top definition for gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that "causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator." More broadly, the dictionary defines the word thusly: "The act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage." Despite its relatively recent prominence -- including "Gaslighter," The Chicks' 2020 album featuring the rousingly angry titular single -- the word was brought to life more than 80 years ago with "Gas Light," a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. It birthed two film adaptations in the 1940s. One, George Cukor's "Gaslight" in 1944, starred Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist and Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton. The two marry after a whirlwind romance and Gregory turns out to be a champion gaslighter. Among other instances, he insists her complaints over the constant dimming of their London townhouse's gaslights is a figment of her troubled mind. It wasn't. "It's a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large. "It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year," he said. Merriam-Webster chooses its word of the year based solely on data. Rounding out this year's Top 10 are: "Oligarch," "Omicron," "Codify," "Queen consort," "Raid," "Sentient," "Cancel culture," "LGBTQIA," and "Loamy." Last year's pick was "vaccine."

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Somewhere in Silicon Valley is a man "standing up to internet giants Comcast and AT&T," reports the Mercury News. (Alternate URL here.) "Comcast told him it would cost $17,000 to speed up his internet. He rallied 41 South Bay neighbors to build their own lightning-fast fiber-optic network instead " Tech-rich but internet-poor, residents of the Silicon Valley neighborhood were fed up with sluggish broadband speeds of less than 25 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload — the federal definition of a home unserved by adequate internet. Frustrated by the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of internet providers, they created their own solution — and now this tony enclave has one of the fastest residential speeds in the nation. Scott Vanderlip, a software engineer, said Comcast gave him a $17,000 estimate to connect his home to the faster internet service at a neighbor's home. "You got to be kidding me — I can see it on the pole from my driveway," Vanderlip said, remembering his reaction to Comcast's quote. So the self-described "town rebel" jumped at the chance to partner with a startup internet service provider called Next Level Networks. If Vanderlip could rally a few neighbors willing to invest a couple thousand dollars, Next Level would get them very fast internet. That was in 2017. Now, Vanderlip is president of the Los Altos Hills Community Fiber Association, which provides super-fast speeds — up to 10 Gigabits-per-second upload and download — to its over 40 association members, letting them transfer huge files and load webpages in the click of a computer mouse, Vanderlip said. That's 125 times faster than the median download speed in Santa Clara County. It helped that his home "also happened to sit near a local school with a spare fiber optic internet connection," the article points out. But a startup internet service provider called Next Level Networks also handled "the infrastructure procurement, contracts, logistics and retail — essentially providing the residents a turnkey fiber optic internet service — while Vanderlip and two of his neighbors, who joined with an investment of $5,000 each, bought the fiber optic infrastructure, crowdsourced new members and mapped out an initial fiber route to their houses." Thanks to Slashdot reader k6mfw for sharing the story!

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Longtime Slashdot reader BenFenner writes: While Chromium recently abandoned the JPEG-XL format (to much discussion on the feature request), it seems the Pale Moon browser quietly became the first to release support for the much-awaited image format. For those unfamiliar with Pale Moon, it is a Goanna-based web browser available for Windows, Linux and Android, focusing on efficiency and ease of use. Pale Moon 31.4.0 also adds support for MacOS 13 "Ventura" and addresses a number of performance- and security-related issues. A full list of the changes/fixes are available in the release notes. Support for JPEG-XL was confirmed on GitHub.

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"Dear internet service providers of America: We're onto your tricks," writes Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler: Last year, I encouraged Washington Post readers to participate in a major nationwide study of ISPs by uploading a copy of their monthly bills to Fight for Fair Internet, a project of Consumer Reports and other partners. Some 22,000 Americans did, and the results released Thursday reveal the many ways internet and cable companies get away with jacking up our bills. For you and me, the study of big and small ISPs alike offers a clearer view of their worst behaviors — and how to fight back. The most important cost-saving lesson: Calling up and threatening to quit your internet service works. It's super annoying, I know, but Verizon (for example) applied discounts to 58 percent of the bills people submitted, with an astounding monthly median discount of $40. The study's spotlight on ISP tricks, including bogus fees, data caps and wildly inconsistent pricing, also is fresh evidence that in many parts of the United States, there just isn't a competitive market for internet service. Who would put up with it if there were? About 200 million people live in parts of the country with only one or two choices for reliable, fast internet, according to a 2021 report from the White House. The report identified the U.S. internet providers charging the highest equipment rental fees (Wave Broadband) and the highest data-cap fees (Cox Communications), as well as the ones with the lowest and highest monthly service fees. But in addition, Consumer Reports notes that "Download speeds routinely fail to match the advertised 'up to' speeds of several ISPs. This was especially true of consumers paying for 'premium' plans purporting to offer download speeds of between 940 and 1,200 Mbps, who in fact experienced median speeds of between 360 and 373 Mbps." The Washington Post highlights one case "Where you might pay more for less: AT&T" On volunteer bills, AT&T's median pricing across different speed plans was all over the map. People getting: 12 mbps paid $63. 45 mbps paid $80. 100 mbps paid $60. 1000 mbps paid $80. Why should people who aren't even getting minimum broadband speeds (25 mbps) be paying more than people getting zippy service? ISPs can and will charge whatever they can get away with in your neighborhood. "The charges on those bills may reflect older plans that we no longer sell," said AT&T spokesman Jim Kimberly. "Customers with older plans can check on our website or call in to see if a lower cost offer is available to them for faster speeds and switch service." That's another lesson for all of us: It's always worth checking to see if there's a new deal available. Unlike the cellphone carriers, ISPs rarely proactively switch consumers into cheaper or better plans.

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Six years after we saw the FCC formally propose "nutrition labels" for your carrier's potentially confusing array of plans, the agency says it's finally happening. The Verge reports: This week, it's ordering US internet service providers to adopt the label format you're looking at [here] -- or it will, as soon as some last bureaucratic elements get worked out. They've changed a bit since 2016 -- now, each plan will apparently have its own label rather than ISPs trying to cram all of them into a single sheet, they don't warn you about coverage, and apparently, ISPs will be able to point you to their network management policy legalese instead of having to ding themselves for throttling data or giving some apps a fast lane. They won't have to report packet loss, either, it seems. Thankfully, ISPs will still need to report their typical speeds and latency, not just reiterate their advertised speed. Hopefully, someone will audit that. Most big ISPs will have six months to slap the new labels onto their websites and distribute them in stores, though the FCC's giving ones with less than 100,000 subscribers a full year to comply. But none of those shot clocks start until the Office of Management and Budget reviews the order to make sure it complies with the Paperwork Reduction Act and similar statutes, the FCC notes, so it might be a bit longer. In the meanwhile, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel suggests that ISPs might want to get ahead of things and adopt them on their own. The FCC also says it hopes these labels will evolve from here [...].

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Kaspersky is stopping the operation and sales of its VPN product, Kaspersky Secure Connection, in the Russian Federation, with the free version to be suspended as early as November 15, 2022. BleepingComputer reports: As the Moscow-based company informed on its Russian blog earlier this week, the shutdown of the VPN service will be staged, so that impact on customers remains minimal. Purchases of the paid version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will remain available on both the official website and mobile app stores until December 2022. Customers with active subscriptions will continue to enjoy the product's VPN service until the end of the paid period, which cannot go beyond the end of 2023 (one-year subscription). Russian-based users of the free version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will not be able to continue using the product after November 15, 2022, so they will have to seek alternatives. BleepingComputer emailed Kaspersky questions regarding its decision to stop offering VPN products in Russia, but a spokesperson has declined to provide more information. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced VPN bans in June 2021 and then again in December 2021. "The reason for banning 15 VPNs in the country was because their vendors refused to connect their services to the FGIS database, which would apply government-imposed censorship in VPN connections, and would also make user traffic and identity subject to state scrutiny," reports BleepingComputer. "Ever-increasing controls are strangling VPN usage in Russia. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Digital Transformation requested all state-owned companies to declare what VPN products they use, for what purposes, and in what locations."

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"Internet provider Starlink is reviving the old concept of soft data caps with the introduction of a 'Fair Use policy,'" writes Slashdot reader thegarbz. "Users who consume more than 1TB of data per month will find their connections deteriorated." The Verge reports: Residential customers will now start each monthly billing cycle with an allocation of "Priority Access" data that tracks what you're using from 7AM in the morning until 11PM at night. If you surpass that 1TB cap, which Starlink says less than 10 percent of users currently do, you'll be moved to "Basic Access" data, or deprioritized data during heavy network congestion, for the rest of your billing cycle. If you want to buy more Priority Access data, you can, at the cost of 25 cents per GB, and any data used between 11PM and 7AM doesn't count towards your Priority Access tally. "This announcement comes off the back of a recent article by ArsTechnica, showing that Starlink's median download speed has dropped to 62Mbps in Q2 of 2022 as the network struggles under the load of increased subscriber numbers," adds thegarbz.

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Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, said Friday that he doesn't view blockchain as a viable solution for building the next iteration of the internet. From a report: He has his own web decentralization project called Solid. "It's important to clarify in order to discuss the impacts of new technology," said Berners-Lee, speaking onstage at the Web Summit event in Lisbon. "You have to understand what the terms mean that we're discussing actually mean, beyond the buzzwords. It's a real shame in fact that the actual Web3 name was taken by Ethereum folks for the stuff that they're doing with blockchain. In fact, Web3 is not the web at all," he said.

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When underwater cables congregate in one place, things get tricky. From a report: Look at Egypt on a map of the world's subsea Internet cables and it immediately becomes clear why Internet experts have been concerned about the area for years. The 16 cables in the area are concentrated through the Red Sea and touch land in Egypt, where they make a 100-mile journey across the country to reach the Mediterranean Sea. (Cable maps don't show the exact locations of cables.) It has been estimated that around 17 percent of the world's Internet traffic travels along these cables and passes through Egypt. Alan Mauldin, the research director of telecoms market research firm TeleGeography, says last year the region had 178 terabits of capacity, or 178,000,000Mbps -- the US has median home Internet speeds of 167Mbps. Egypt has become one of the Internet's most prominent chokepoints for a few reasons, says Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik. Primarily, its geography contributes to the concentration of cables in the area. Passing through the Red Sea and across Egypt is the shortest (mostly) underwater route between Asia and Europe. While some intercontinental Internet cables travel across land, it is generally safer for them to be placed at the bottom of the sea where it is harder for them to be disrupted or snooped upon. Going through Egypt is one of the only practical routes available. To the south, cables that pass around Africa are longer; while to the north, only one cable (the Polar Express) travels above Russia. "Every time someone tries to draw up an alternative route, you end up going through Syria or Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan -- all these places have a lot of issues," Madory says. The JADI cable system that bypassed Egypt was shut down due to Syria's civil war, Madory says, and it has not been reactivated. In March this year, another cable avoiding Egypt was severed as a consequence of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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