Economic growth has historically been tightly linked with broadband and internet access. A 2009 report from the World Bank found that a 10% increase in broadband penetration would lead to a GDP increase by 1.38 percentage points in developing countries. The internet has the ability to empower citizens through higher-skilled learning and productivity gains.
Project Isizwe (which means nation, tribe, and people in Xhosa) is helping to bring internet to low-income areas across Africa through access to free Wi-Fi in public areas. They assist governments in setting up and maintaining Wi-Fi networks. The organization does not involve itself directly in operational and political duties, but coordinates the necessary stakeholders for the infrastructure to come into realization.
Last November, Project Isizwe and the city of Tswane completed Phase 1 to provide Wi-Fi in strategic areas such as University campuses and community centres.
For more information, visit their website at http://projectisizwe.org/
AnonGhost Team, an Anonymous subsidiery identified as supposedly being a Muslim hacktivist group, has been singled out by a Cyber Intelligence team for making a thread recently to launch cyberattacks against Israel. They went as far as to offer an exact date of the attack, April 5-7, 2014.
Shortly after the AnonGhost announcement, other groups, such as AnonGhost Tunisie and the Norwegian Ghost Cyber Attackers opened event-pages on anti-Israel Facebook.
It’s suspected that the primary targets by most of these groups are government websites. DDoSing has been the weapon of choice for most Anonymous groups, but concerns have been raised about potential database exploits leading to the leak of sensitive information.
Reports from local German media have indicated that the US have been unable to meet the demands of the German government over a ‘no-spy’ agreement. It was revealed last October that the NSA was secretly conducting surveillance on Chancellor Angela Merkel. For the past several months the two countries have been working on an agreement to reduce the extent of unauthorized surveillance from the US.
Germany is expecting the US to provide access to the surveillance centers located on the top of the US embassy in Berlin and explain how Merkel’s phone was tapped. The US however, isn’t so keen on complying with these terms. The head of the German foreign intelligence agency has stated that he’s willing to not sign the agreement if there’s no improvement.
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), in charge of Singapore’s internet industry, is introducing software programming classes into public schools to develop that skillset in it’s youth early on in academia.
The news was first reported on Good Morning Singapore in mandarin yesterday.
According to the IDA, 1500 students have already been taught advanced programming concepts, and many schools are also going as far as teaching 3D design, and making use of 3D printing for basic prototypes. The IDA is aiming to develop a future-ready workforce to offer Singapore a large economic boost in the next 10 to 20 years.
