Cybersecurity of developing countries is most at risk! Gartner projects that more than 20 billion IoT devices will be connected by 2020. The security of these Internet Of Things (IOT), relating to cyber security, in a broader sense hinges on service continuity and availability. Whether it be a DDoS attack that affects the availability or a malicious attack on the configuration that brings down the IoT device(s) or exposes private data, they all converge on the concept of cybersecurity. LIRNEasia partnered with Vanuatu Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, Prime Minister’s Office, Netherlands Radio communications Agency / University of Twente and the Internet Society (ISOC) in introducing the Raster Tool and engaging the participants in an IOT cybersecurity assessment exercise.
In the policy world, one does not want to be alone. I have even dressed up new policy ideas as variations on existing ones, in order to get them accepted. When Abu Saeed Khan persuaded me that international backhaul was an important issue in Islamabad in May 2010, he was quite alone. When I made the first presentation on the subject to the expert group at ESCAP in November 2010, LIRNEasia was a lone voice in the wilderness. Abu then took the lead role.
There are many arguments that can be made against the ETNO proposal to import the international accounting-rate regime from voice telephony to the Internet. Here as a PDF is an argument about its impracticality from ISOC. ISOC also agrees with my main point that the ETNO proposals will result in the marginalization and exclusion of the developing countries, especially their poor who are just beginning to join the Internet economy: Because the bilateral model of sending-party-network-pays or “sender pays” that is common in traditional telephony or mobile-settlement systems does not readily accommodate the Internet’s multi-party transit network system, it cannot be mapped to the Internet as we know it. Simply said, retro-fitting a “sender pays” settlement regime to the Internet is not possible without extensive changes to the infrastructure of the global Internet. In addition, the “sender pays” model could adversely impact the technical and commercial environment in developing economies that need to grow their networks.