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Cyber Crime to Top Internet Forum AgendaMar 09, 2010 (Business Daily/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- An international conference on the future of the Internet will be officially opened despite earlier fears of insecurity. The meeting had earlier been threatened by fears of terrorist attacks. Last month, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) received an unclassified report from the United States' Department of State related to the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the venue for the meeting, that said the building was a key target for militants. According to Doug Brent, chief operating officer at (ICANN), the board resolved to go on with the conference after it was briefed on additional security measures. "The government and all parties involved have stepped up their security preparations for the event and we are confident that all will go on smoothly," said Sammy Buruchara, chairman of the Kenya Network Information Centre (Kenic). Among other issues, international delegates at the 37th gathering of senior officials of the ICANN meeting will discuss evolution of the Internet, its security and innovations that would create new business opportunities in Kenya and across the globe. In particular, the meeting is expected to focus on the growing cyber security threat, with the Kenyan members planning to unveil a new security agenda. "Cyber security is becoming a serious issue for anyone involved in the ICT industry and the Kenyan delegates will be working together on a comprehensive security agenda for the country," Mr Buruchara. Another important issue that is of concern to industry players is the declining Internet addresses on IPV4 (the current Internet platform). It is estimated that only 10 per cent of the total Sh4.3 billion addresses on this platform are remaining. This means that unless speedy migration to the new addressing system known as IPV6, which features an almost inexhaustible number of addresses, is implemented soon, new computers or servers will not have the ability to connect to the Internet as they will lack a unique identifying address (a special set of numbers). While the Internet will continue working after the addresses run out, "what will happen is that no new businesses can start up on the net, at least, without multi-hosting on an existing IP (Internet protocol) address. In short, it could be a slowdown in the Internet economy that has ballooned over the last decade," reads part of an analysis of the situation by InfoQ, an online technology community. In light of this risk, the Internet Society, an organisation that develops standards, says that network operators and enterprises will need to implement IPv6 in order to ensure long-term network growth and global connectivity. Though there are ongoing mitigation efforts to ensure maximum use of IPV4 addresses in existence, analysts say they will be exhausted anyway in the next one to two years. ICANN is the global organisation that allocates and co-ordinates Internet addresses to promote secure and competitive use of the resource. However, some delegates will attend meetings using live Internet links in their home countries due to security fears. |