India releases Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022
India released the draft of a new comprehensive data protection bill on 18 November, three months after withdrawing a previous bill that had alarmed big technology companies. This draft bill is the fourth iteration of India’s draft data protection law.
The draft bill is aimed at protecting digital personal data seeks to allow the transfer of data outside India, and provides for penalties regarding data breaches. The draft bill is now open for public consultation and is expected to be presented in the next session of parliament.
For more:
MediaNamaTwitter Suspended its Paid Verification Services
Twitter has suspended its blue tick service, which allowed subscribers to verify accounts for a monthly fee of $7.99, after a spate of online hoaxes used the option to impersonate brands and celebrities.
Over the past few days, several users have spotted and have been posting screenshots of tweets made by parody accounts of political leaders, celebrities and even brands.
Although the platform has not issued an official statement about disabling the Twitter Blue service, The option to sign up for Twitter Blue has vanished for most users on Twitter’s iOS app, where the service launched this week.
For more:
Indiatimes
ISPs Requests NEA for Access to Underground Cable Duct
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have urged Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to give access to underground cable duct system.
Sudhir Parajuli, president of Internet Service Providers Association Nepal (ISPAN), said in a press release on 13 November, that the ISPAN has requested the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) for easy access to the underground duct system. He said that wire management requires a durable and permanent solution to pull cluttered cables.
The ISPs have started removing messy fiber internet cables off the poles on a priority basis. Earlier, NEA issued an ultimatum of 45 days to ISPs to remove unnecessary cables and set criteria for service providers.
For more: Technology Khabar
Telecom Service Provider submitted Cyber Security Audit
Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) has published the names of service providers who conducted internal security audits and cloud audits. According to the NTA, 11 Internal IS audit and cloud audit of FY 2078/79 have been submitted so far.
Cyber Security bylaw mandates telecom and internet service providers to submit an annual report of internal security and cloud audit to NTA. NTA takes action against the service provider who fails to submit the report timely as per prevailing telecommunication law.
For more: Technology Khabar
Supreme Court Ruled in Favor of Media Hub
The Supreme Court of Nepal has ruled in favor of Media Hub to continue with the pay-per-view model for broadcasting FIFA World Cup 2022 in the country. The supreme court has overturned its previous interlocutory interim order about the FIFA World Cup live broadcasting debate. This means, Media hub, which has the exclusive broadcasting rights, will now be able to collect extra money from viewers to broadcast the World Cup football games. Media hub has decided to charge Rs. 500 extra from customers, stating that the domestic advertisements do not cover their costs.
For more: ekantipur
Lawsuit Filed Against Apple for Privacy Violation
Apple users recently filed a class action lawsuit against the Big Tech company for allegedly collecting data without their knowledge.
The suit’s plaintiff Elliot Libman is suing on behalf of himself and other impacted consumers, alleging that Apple’s privacy assurances are in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The complaint detailed the researchers’ findings, specifying what data was being collected. It also alleged that Apple’s assurances and promises regarding privacy are “utterly false.”
The proposed class action lawsuit is based on the research report by the application developers and security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry. They conducted a study that suggested Apple was still collecting the user’s and phone’s extremely detailed data when its own settings promised to “disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether.”
For more: ictsamachar
NTA to improve Cyber Security with the help of Ethical Hackers
Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) is all set to improve cyber security with the help of ethical hackers. For which NTA and BugV have reached an agreement on a deal that will see the cybersecurity platform work to reinforce the security of the authority’s website. The MoU was signed on the 9th of Nov 2022.
As per the agreement, NTA will leverage BugV’s crowdsourced cyber security platform as a “service for the identification of vulnerabilities in its website and thereafter fixing the same”. Bijay Kumar Roy, Director of NTA said “Soon NTA plans to get other telecommunication operators into the platform as well.”
For more: Techmandu
FBI Considered Using Pegasus Spyware in Criminal Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was considering using NSO Group’s infamous Pegasus spyware in criminal investigations, reports the New York Times. Between late 2020 and early 2021, agency officials were in the “advanced” stages of developing plans to brief FBI leadership on the software, according to internal bureau documents and court records seen by The Times. Those documents also reveal the bureau had developed guidelines for fed
eral prosecutors detailing how the FBI’s use of Pegasus would need to be disclosed during court cases. Based on the documents, it’s unclear if the FBI had considered using spyware against American citizens. By July 2021, the FBI eventually decided not to use Pegasus in criminal investigations. Despite the decision not to use Pegasus, the FBI indicated it remains open to using spyware in the future as earlier this year, The Times found that the agency had tested Phantom, a version of Pegasus that can target phones with US numbers.
For more: Technology Khabar
Fixed Broadband User Surpasses 2.99 Million
The number of fixed broadband internet users continues to mark a steady growth. As per a report by Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA), there are 2.3 million fixed broadband internet users with the private ISP WorldLink dominating the leaderboard. As per the Shrawan report, the total number of Fixed Broadband users reached 22 lakh, 99 thousand and 54, which is 34.33% more users than last year. The number of fixed broadband increased more after covid-19 as it was comparatively cheaper than using mobile data.
For more: Technology Khabar
NTC begins SIP Trunk Service
Nepal Telecom (NTC) provides a service called SIP Trunk service which allows subscribers to use the same number in substitute for many. The service is provided to organizations and offices that use at least 100 phone numbers.
The company rolled out the service before the Covid-19 lockdown began. Various government and diplomatic agencies are currently using the service which includes World Bank, American Embassy, etc.
For more: Techmandu
