June Newsletter

The thorny issues of surveillance and Government broadband programmes dominate the shortlists for the Internet Hero and Internet Villain awards at the 2014 ISPAs.  Getting broadband right is a major priority for government and industry, and with the PRISM revelations still coming, there is still much concern from industry and the public about state surveillance. These awards celebrate those who have either helped or hindered the industry in the last year, with previous winners including Dr Julian Huppert MP, Rt Hon William Hague MP and B4RN. Internet Hero 2014 shortlist:

• The Guardian - For their reporting of mass surveillance programmes.
• Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA) - For their continued championing of alternative networks.
• Internet Matters - For their campaign to inform users of the importance of online safety.
• Public Accounts Committee/ National Audit Office - For holding the government to account on the broadband programme.

 Internet Villain 2014 shortlist:

• Charles Farr, Director of the Office of Security, Home Office - For continued attempts to collect communications data in spite of the growing consensus to balance retention of data with fundamental rights.
• NSA/GCHQ - For running the widest covert electronic surveillance programme in the world.
• Norfolk County Council - For failing to rollout superfast broadband to 80% of residents as promised.
• Russian Government - For passing one of the most restrictive internet freedom laws in the world.

These awards are sponsored by fulfilment experts NetLynk Direct.

Chris Townsend OBE, Chief Executive of BDUK, will give the keynote speech at the ISPA Awards. Chris is a new appointment to the post and the speech will be an excellent chance to outline the future of the superfast broadband programme. Superfast take up has grown significantly this year, and it will be a good chance to hear from the man responsible for rolling it out. Away from BDUK, Chris ran ticketing and commercial operations for the London 2012 Olympic Games and before that held senior posts at Transport for London, where he introduced the Oyster Card. The ISPA Awards will be taking place on the 10^th July at the Park Lane Sheraton, and are the longest running internet industry awards in the UK. The event is almost fully sold out and we like to thank the awards sponsors LinITX, Magrathea, NetLynk Direct, Tagadab and Wick Hill for their support and making these awards possible.

Responding to the CJEU judgement, ISPA responded by saying the judgement puts industry in the difficult position of having to balance the right to privacy of individuals with right to information of the general public. ISPA has consistently argued that companies are ill-placed to make such decisions which should be made by a competent court.  Members are updated on EU affairs via ISPA’s membership of EuroISPA.

DDoS attacks are readily available to purchase with a credit card on the Internet for only a few pounds. However, the cost to enterprises of defending against them is considerable.   Allot Service Protector, available through Wick Hill resellers, provides ISPs with an opportunity to upsell DDoS security to their customer base, providing a solution to this problem. Given that DDoS attacks work by flooding networks, it makes sense, for enterprises, that they are combatted as close to the edge of the network as possible, or indeed before they have even hit the network. By deploying Allot Service Protector on their networks, ISPs can provide surgical mitigation of DDoS attacks, before they even reach an enterprise’s routers, firewalls, switches, etc., so their enterprise customers will be unaffected by the attack.   A full review and analysis of these issues is available on the Wick Hill Blog here: www.wickhill.com/AllotDDoS

ISPA has been in touch with Government on some new Bills arising from the Queen’s Speech.  The Serious Crime Bill has some sections of relevance to members, and we’ve been working with members to get in touch with the Home Office to make those concerns heard.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published their cyber essentials scheme this month, and has been working with industry to develop the quality mark, gained through a self-assessment tool. The campaign aims to help SMEs implement cost-effective cyber security solutions, and act as an assurance for those who interact with firms. An overview of the scheme can be found here.

Online extremism, broadband, and the ISPA Awards have been the main issues for ISPA’s press office this month, with stories featuring in the Independent, BBC News, uSwitch (here and here), ISP Review and thinkbroadband. Full coverage can be seen here.

ISPA members get free and discounted places at a variety of external conferences and events. Please click here to see the calendar of events.