OpenDNS is used extensively in Cyprus and Malta.

There is a strong preference to use the ISP’s provided DNS resolution service in Belgium, Estonia, Italy, and Slovenia, where more than 90% of the samples show that the local resolver is being used.

The use of open DNS resolvers in the EU is slightly less than the internet-wide average.

It is also worth noting that the open resolver metrics have a visible weekday/weekend variance.

Some 20% of the Internet’s user population use an open resolver to resolve names, which is an unexpectedly high number.

If the DNS lookup could be transformed into a search engine, then this would represent a direct threat to their business, and in performing NXDOMAIN substitution, this was exactly what some ISPs were doing.

it also should be observed that Google had a strong commercial motive to enter this space.

he idea is that the open resolver may not be operating in the same regulatory or legal framework as the client and the client’s ISP and may be able to resolve DNS names that would otherwise be proscribed.

Perhaps the Swiss domicile of Quad9 made Quad9 a more appealing target for German legal action.

IPR interests associated with Sony Music Germany bought a suit against the open DNS resolver provider Quad9 in a German court. The court ruled that Quad9 must block the resolution of a domain name of a website in Ukraine that itself does not hold copyright infringing material, but instead contains pointers to another website that is reported to hold alleged copyright infringements.

The motives for these blocking lists are varied and include attempting to curtail the propagation of malware, disrupt the command-and-control channels of co-opted zombie attack bot armies, censor offensive content and protect rights holders from efforts to infringe their intellectual property rights.

The DNS has become fodder for various national regimes to both observe their citizens and to impose controls on their online activities.

the DNS resolvers’ query logs had considerable value, despite the somewhat disturbing privacy issues.

operators of these recursive resolvers were privy to large volumes of useful and timely information about user behavior, and in an Internet economy that is increasingly defined by surveillance capitalism, this is extremely valuable information.

the role of operating these recursive resolvers to the local Internet Service Provider (ISP).

We distinguished between the DNS servers that handled queries for applications running in end hosts, so called stub resolvers at the edge of the network, and recursive resolvers, which are DNS servers that assist a collection of stub resolvers by acting as their agent and performing the distributed database queries for them.

the DNS as an essential facilitator in every network transaction, the DNS really is the most critical component of the Internet’s infrastructure these days.

Few services currently operate independently of the Internet, and perhaps more significantly, most services are critically reliant on the Internet.

as if Europe is over on the exploited side of the techno-colonial landscape, rather than being one of the exploiters.

many nations may have already adopted the position that they are too small to take on today’s digital behemoths and declare independence and self-sufficiency (in the sense of eliminating their dependence on them).

It appears that the DNS is the only remaining part left of the “glue” that holds the Internet together and is now the defining medium of what is “the Internet.”

Some Thoughts on DNS4EU – the European Commission’s Intention to Support the Development of a New European DNS Resolver

The internet was not constructed as an amalgam of various national networks but was conceived and constructed as a single artifact that had never integrated such geopolitical concepts into its internal architecture.

to mitigate this level of foreign dependence in our digital infrastructure to some very small extent.

This topic raises a whole set of uncomfortable questions about the level of interdependence within the digital landscape and the vulnerabilities presented by this.

The last time European-domiciled enterprises were included in this top ten list was in late 2015, when the Swiss Pharmaceutical corporation, Novartis, and the Swiss food and drink enterprise Nestlé were both listed in this top 10.

The European industrial giants of the old telephone world, such as the former stalwarts Alcatel, Siemens, Philips, Ericsson and Nokia, have found it extraordinarily difficult to translate their former dominant positions in the telco world into the Internet world.

21 guidelines for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities.

LEO, the area of outer space around Earth that includes all orbits below 2,000km, andis the home of the International Space Station and of thousands of other satellites,is rapidly becoming a hazardous area due tospace debris and inoperable spacecraft orbiting at very high speeds.

to agree on and implement norms of responsible behaviour in outer space by state and non-state actors.

“new space”4

STM

STM as themeansand rules to access, conduct activities in, and return from outer space safely, sustainably and securely.

The EU already promotes a multilateral approach to ensure the preservation of the long-term safety and sustainability of activities in outer space, with the objective of reducing threats and risks for all space systems

a globally shared resource

Space Traffic Management (STM)

Should for instance the provision of EU global Positioning, Navigation, Timing(PNT)and Earth Observation data and services be interrupted or severely compromised, this would have a direct impact upon the security, safety, economy, and well-being of European citizens, therefore limiting our freedom of action

more common in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as the number of satellites increases due to the proliferation of mega-constellations.

: if we do not find ways to manage space traffic, our past and present space activities will jeopardise the safety, security and sustainability of outer space and, as a result, our future ability to rely on space as enabler of key services in benefit of humankind.

An EU Approach for Space Traffic Management An EU contribution addressing a global challenge

h tested its longest-range ballistic missile since 2017, when it twice flew intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan and, separately, three interconti

Greater access to data and improved data flows can also warrant greater supply chain transparency, traceability, and ultimately, a more resilient trade of goods and services.

without clearly defined rules of the road for such interactions.

without clearly defined rules of the road for such interactions.

the safety of the International Space Station (ISS)

~25,000 total objects

Flexible Funding

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword Difficulty

of “mega fabs”

the European Commission wants to relax state-aid rules to let member states subsidise such fabs “up to 100% of a proven funding gap” if they are “first-of-a-kind” or would “otherwise not exist in Europe”.

Europe’s firms also make many of the machines that make fabs tick. ASML, a Dutch firm with a market value of €230bn, is the sole global supplier of the lithographic equipment without which fabs cannot etch the most advanced processors. Only Nvidia, an American chip-designer, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of chips, are worth more. An array of smaller European outfits enjoy dominant positions in the complex chipmaking supply chain. Carl Zeiss SMT makes lenses for ASML’s lithography machines (and is co-owned by it). Siltronic manufactures silicon wafers onto which chips are etched. Aixtron manufactures specialised gear to deposit layers of chemicals onto those wafers to make circuits.

One of the industry’s main brain trusts, the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (better known as IMEC), is based in Belgium.

but as a global ecosystem of thousands of companies.

the EU’s new Chips Act, unveiled on February 8th,

The aim was to double the share of microchips made in Europe to 20% of the global total by 2020. Nearly a decade later it remains stubbornly stuck at 10%.

A state-linked newspaper called him the party’s “number one adviser”.

that China practises true democracy, that America’s is a sham and that American power is fading.

There are about 41,000 nuns in America, down from 160,000 half a century ago.

They have more than 155,000 followers on TikTok, a social-media app.

the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, or CDAO, is charged with making sure DOD supports such an enterprise. John Sherman, DOD chief information officer,

If all goes to plan, the Internet will be well into its post-quantum era by the time computing enters its quantum era. This post-quantum Internet could some day be followed, confusingly, by a quantum Internet — meaning a network that uses the principles of quantum physics to make information exchange hacker-proof.

will be hybrid, using post-quantum technology for added security on top of existing systems. Vadim Lyubashevsky, a computer scientist at IBM in Zurich, Switzerland,

“Everybody is pretty confident that once NIST and IETF specify new standards, we’ll be able to roll them out pretty quickly.”

Both Cloudflare and Google — often in cooperation — have started running real-life tests of some post-quantum algorithms by including them in some beta versions of the Chrome browser and in server software. Testing is crucial because, for Internet communications to go smoothly, it is not enough to have perfectly compatible servers and browsers. To connect them, data must also run through network devices that might block traffic that they flag as unusual because of its unfamiliar encryption protocols. (These systems can be used to prevent hacking or stop users accessing prohibited content.) Antivirus software could cause similar problems. The issues also exist “on a broader, Internet-wide scale, in some countries that keep track of what users are doing”, says Sullivan. Network-security workers refer to these issues as ‘protocol ossification’, he says; it has already complicated the transition from RSA, and might disrupt the roll-out of quantum-secure algorithms, too.

Shor, then at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, laid the groundwork for those algorithms’ demise

In 2018, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a consensus-based virtual organization that steers the adoption of security standards on a global scale, endorsed another public-key system to replace it. That system is called elliptic-curve cryptography, because its mathematics grew out of a branch of nineteenth-century geometry that studies objects called elliptic curves.

RSA,

Someone who wants to receive confidential messages can announce their public key to the world, say, by printing it in a newspaper. Anyone can use the public key to scramble their message and share it openly. Only the receiver knows the private key, enabling them to unscramble the information and read it.

quantum-resistant crypto,

then publish official versions of those algorithms.

Q-day

If they reach their full scale, quantum computers would crack current encryption algorithms exponentially faster than even the best non-quantum machines can. “A real quantum computer would be extremely dangerous,” s

Web3—the latest Silicon Valley buzzword

It is the same kind of mechanism that creates aurorae like the Northern Lights, but it can have dangerous effects too.

but can be used in places where wired connections cannot.

a geomagnetic storm

The term cyber is mostly used at an international level when discussing issues related to security and confidence-building, while digital has a broader social, economic and political dimension

Promoting digital governance will play a key role. This represents an important area of digital foreign policy and will allow for the creation of common rules in the digital space and strengthen both institutions and cooperation mecha-nisms.

more a continuation of Switzerland’s proven approach to protecting its interests and promoting its values in a new ‘space’.

The global COVID-19 crisis has highlighted that while new digital technologies can help us better understand and contain the spread of a pandemic, for example through the use of digital contact tracing, and while they underscore the importance of issues relating to technical standardisation and cross-border cooperation, these technologies also raise a number of questions, for example about application security and data protection.

GESDA is currently in its 36-month pilot phase and is focusing on the development of an academic and a diplomatic forum that should ensure mutual exchanges between the different subject areas

the UNDP is a partner within the framework of the Core Government Functions programme (promotion of e-governance as a means of achieving better governance) as well as the fintech dialogue programme.

Fintech dialogue platform (Geneva)

Fintech dialogue platform (Geneva)

A gender gap is emerging particularly in the least developed countries but also in middle-income nations: compared to men, 43% fewer women in the least developed countries have access to the internet.

promoting the use of technology in the economy (in order to bridge the gender-specific digital divide, it primarily supports female entrepreneurs)

There are two aspects to the role of digitalisation in government. At one level it is a work tool and a means of simplifying processes, for example in consular services or IT applications. But digitalisation is now also a foreign policy matter, raising a number of important questions.

Digital data and applications are driving development-related and humanitarian innovation across the globe. This focuses on the benefits for people and their needs in order to achieve the goals set out in the IC Strategy 2021–24 and the 2030 Agenda. The FDFA’s commitment to exploiting the full potential of new technologies in combating poverty is brought together in its Tech4Good approach.

digitalisation described the technical process for converting analogue information into digital formats. This is now referred to as digitisation. Continual technological devel-opments have resulted in structural changes, new applications and systems, for example the creation of networks or the use of AI. Nowadays, the term digitalisation spans all of these developments, including opportunities for use as well as their social, economic and political impact, for example.

Switzerland intends to further raise its profile by facilitating the creation of secure, reliable data storage and through the Humani-tarian Data and Trust Initiative aimed at data responsibility in humanitarian action.

Cross-border data flows and digital trade

Harmonised international rules, for example on cross-border data flows, play a key role in ensuring that these supply chains operate smoothly and that goods and services are traded with as little discrimination as possible.

Cross-sectoral approaches

Technological innovation, digitalisation and automation bring unprecedented opportunities. However, if the right framework conditions are not in place, they also present significant risks: surveillance that violates civil and political rights, manipulation of public opinion, cyberattacks, dependence on foreign tech monopolies, deindustrialisation, unemployment and growing inequality.

inability to ensure the security of the population and provide basic public services, alongside its failure to establish mutually constructive relations with the country’s citizens.

Cyber hygiene

Affordability measures the cost of connectivity relative to local income.

uch as open radio access networks (open RAN)

internet bandwidth, network coverage, and telecom market dynamics

The term “emerging technology’’ encompasses artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, 5G and other new technologies.

s gender, race, ethnicity, disability, economic status, geography, sexual orientation, language, refugee status, and age

detailed data and metadata on past and on-going projects, initiatives, stakeholders, outcomes, standards, lessons learnt, and knowledge in digital health are only captured in a fragmented manner.

an open-source software that seeks to provide a comprehensive sys-tem linking patient, provider and payer data.

into actionable insights to enhance effective governance and coordination.

the SDC commissioned a study, with a view to mapping and assessing Swiss and in-ternational initiatives on technologies for health and health system strengthening.

“That first airplane didn’t have any transportation advantages,” says Ahn, “but it eventually changed the world.”

Quantum computers manage data in the form of qubits. Coupled together using the quantum physics phenomenon called entanglement, qubits can influence each other at a distance.

funds from European lenders would be extended on commercial terms

a new approach based on ‘soft’ assets, very much stepping on the EU’s toes and their €300 billion worldwide connectivity strategy,”

“One can be cautiously optimistic,” Moore said, but pointed out that recently described the EU’s Global Gateway as largely “a mixture of existing commitments, loan guarantees and heroic assumptions about the ability of the club to ‘crowd in’ private investment rather than actual new spending”.

Chinese lenders have become more cautious – especially over mega infrastructure projects.

He said Spain wanted to see more projects in North Africa, the Germans doubted that all the projects were carefully thought through, while Hungary, Finland and Portugal pointed out that they first had to budget for the additional development projects.

Māori might be the ‘luckiest’ Indigenous people – but that’s not down to New Zealand exceptionalism

essential for the shared goal of maintaining the international rules-based order.

Transatlantic coordination on China (another declared goal of the new German government) adds an additional layer of complexity

Greece and Lithuania are both members of the EU and they follow a very different approach toward the PRC

In the area of targeted sanctions over human rights violations, more transatlantic cooperation appears highly realistic

In the United States, the rise of China seems to be perceived as an existential threat to the Western way of life. From a European perspective, China is rather discussed as a substantial challenge for the future structure of the international order.

will most likely apply value-based foreign policy by putting more emphasis on upholding international norms, multilateral cooperation, and defending the rule of law within those international institutions.

a “value-based foreign policy”

the Foreign Office would need to transform into a facilitating platform and assume the role of strategic mediator between the various ministries.

the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action has a more cooperative approach toward the PRC than the Ministry of Interior, which views China increasingly through the lens of a hybrid threat.

If the minister of foreign affairs aspires to play a central role in German China policy, in-depth reform of the Federal Foreign Office would need to be implemented first. For instance, steps to make the Federal Foreign Office fit for dealing with China could include the following: First, generating and nurturing China specialists, including appointing external special advisers (in a long-term, not only ad-hoc, capacity). Currently, the Federal Foreign Office primarily relies on generalists and a lot of knowledge gets lost due to the rotation principle. Second, the ministry would need to expand financial and personal resources. The workload for German diplomats has increased significantly over the past years, while the necessary means to face those challenges remain limited. The ministry could also, third, introduce a more strategic outlook for the Federal Foreign Office altogether and, fourth, create a special representative for China who coordinates all China-related activities in the federal government and directly reports to the foreign minister.

an overview of its possibilities, including the growth of new marketplaces, such as an increased demand for video games and online forms of entertainment.

“The transformation of perception on account of being located in the metaverse will have a meaningful cultural effect on society and will change social behavior, including reducing the importance of moral and ethical norms due to the use of a virtual avatar.” They warn that this could particularly affect children, “the most vulnerable group in the new metaverse.”

could lend itself to illegal transactions conducted in cryptocurrency, including trade between people of different nationalities that could violate border regulations.

India is a veritable lighthouse of knowledge and ideas, which can and will make a difference.

The upcoming collaboration between the Observer Research Foundation and India’s Foreign Service Institute to design and run a programme on new economic diplomacy signals the growing importance of this emerging discipline. Over the years, it is expected to build significant capacity amongst young Indian and foreign diplomats to engage effectively with these issues in the context of both bilateral and multilateral platforms.

If data is the new oil, clear and transparent domestic laws and institutions must be developed to inspire confidence in India as a safe destination for data processing.

Protectionist trends are on the rise, and there is a preference for bilateral over multilateral trade arrangements.

The original ITEC programme was expanded to provide 12,000 fully funded training slots in courses ranging from cybersecurity and climate change to entrepreneurship and education.

India’s aid programmes did not translate into any distinct economic benefits for the country.

the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC).

promoting national trade, investment and technology interests

Foreign assistance programmes were added as an afterthought to the principal objective of pursuing commercial goals.

“In the history of the Mongol diplomacy, Mongolia now has the highest number of female ambassadors, six out of 31 ambassadors.”

“In the history of the Mongol diplomacy, Mongolia now has the highest number of female ambassadors, six out of 31 ambassadors.”

Gerelmaa Davaasuren was appointed as the ambassador to Switzerland.

As a result, women began to take initiatives to boost their presence in government service, such as holding diplomatic positions, serving in U.N. peacekeeping missions, entering the military, being elected as parliamentary members – all with significant contributions to strengthening Mongolia’s diplomacy as a whole.

Women have regained space and opportunities to participate in politics and foreign affairs once again, with gender equality efforts part of the policymaking.

an abundance of literature on male Mongol leaders, dating back to the 13th century and Chinggis Khan.

The onset of a multipolar world order means that the U.S. would need to prioritize a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific over its rivalry with Russia in Eastern Europe.

As long as Russia can keep NATO’s capabilities invested in Europe, it will create a favorable strategic environment for China in the Indo-Pacific.

the structural balance of power constraint posed by the U.S. keeps them together in their advance toward a multipolar world.

According to the World Bank, in 1992, China’s nominal GDP was $427 billion, slightly less than Russia’s $460 billion; nonetheless, by 2021, China’s GDP of $16.8 trillion was more than 10 times that of Russia’s $1.6 trillion.

asymmetrical.

evolved into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

By 1996, Russia and China formed a strategic partnership, which led to the “Joint Declaration on Multipolarity and the Formation of a New Global Order” during the 1997 Moscow Summit.

The American inability to accept the multipolarity of the 21st century leads it to conceptualize a bipolar framework of great power rivalry between the U.S. and China, as evident in the concept of the “G-2.” On the other hand, the success of Russian and Chinese foreign policy has been possible due to the groundwork they prepared to maneuver in a multipolar world of the future.

This suggests that the Kremlin believes that it is only by highlighting its red lines that it can restore its prestige as a great power in world politics. In the Russian calculation, it is a great power whose red lines cannot be violated, as opposed to a middle power whose concerns matter but not that much. In the context of the emerging multipolar world order, these calculations are becoming accurate.

Russia’s latest A-SAT test, which generated thousands of pieces of dangerous debris threatening both U.S. and Chinese space assets, occurred on the same date as the meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Joe Biden. A plausible argument could be made that Russia’s A-SAT test was inspired by a need to demonstrate its status as a great power in the hierarchy of nations, as Moscow will not quietly accept its demotion to a lesser adversary to the United States. Interestingly, Russia upped the ante on the Ukrainian front following the Biden-Xi meeting. As the headlines became saturated with fears about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia succeeded in dominating the global geostrategic discourse.

Campbell and Sullivan contended that “coexistence means accepting competition as a condition to be managed rather than a problem to be solved” and added that both nations “will need to be prepared to live with the other as a major power.”

guardrails

With the Biden-Putin summit in June 2021 and the resumption of the Strategic Stability Dialogue, talks of restoration of Russia’s great power status started.

China had become the primary strategic adversary by the time Joe Biden came to power in January 2021.

the rise of China as a peer competitor to the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific has relegated Russia to a middle power in the American strategic calculus.

about 50 percent of global market share,

India appears to be making a major push to increase its presence in the semiconductor manufacturing sector.

to “develop secure and resilient semiconductor supply chains for industrial growth, digital sovereignty, and technological leadership.”

The ministry expects that by 2030, India’s semiconductor market will be driven by wireless communications, consumer electronics, and automotive electronics with 24 percent, 23 percent, and 20 percent of the market share, respectively.

China has surpassed Taiwan for two years in a row, and is only behind Europe and Japan, each of which had a market share of 10 percent in 2020.

In 2015, China had a meager share of 3.8 percent of the global chip sales, amounting to $13 billion, but by 2020 China had improved its score, marking an annual growth rate of 30.6 percent, capturing a 9 percent market share and about $40 billion in annual sales.

Semiconductors are one of the top five U.S. exports, with more than 80 percent of the U.S. sales to overseas customers.

to recognize the importance of global supply chains and the vulnerabilities in the absence of any concrete action to diversify supply chain partners.

This would allow the use of the digital token for the payment of public charges, taxes, debt and other purposes.

I’m intrigued by new business models pioneered by the likes of F1000, Research Square and Qeios, which tweak the preprint publishing approach in various ways. On Qeios, which is based in London, researchers or their institutions don’t pay per article, but they do pay a monthly fee to post an unlimited number of articles. The articles go up right away, as on a preprint server such as medRxiv, but are later peer-reviewed, as in a journal.

What more could be done? In a November article for The Scientist, Dr. Mullins proposes that preprints “have a limited shelf life with a link that expires within 12 months” so that bad research doesn’t linger. If it’s good work, it should have found a publisher by then, he argues. Every page should have a digital watermark identifying it as not peer-reviewed, he says. And preprints should be digitally linked to the peer-reviewed articles they become to “motivate authors to complete the peer-review process,” he writes.

created arXiv, pronounced “archive,” while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1991.

in the form of preprints

peer review can fail. Retraction Watch, a website, maintains a list of more than 100 Covid-19 research papers that were peer reviewed, published and then had to be retracted.

Peer review is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the scientific research system.

I recommend tuning out divisive rhetoric and cultivating common ground with Americans whom you might not agree with.

I believe Russia is more likely to prefer a path of insidious political polarization to weaken U.S. geopolitical influence.

On Jan. 14, 2022, Russia arrested members of the Russian-based cyber gang REvil who were responsible for the 2021 ransomware attacks against meat supplier JBS Foods, headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, and the Colonial Pipeline, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia. The unusual move caused cybersecurity analysts to wonder about Russia’s motive, including speculation about making it easier for the government to deny a connection to the cyberattacks.

Democracies are especially vulnerable to these techniques, given the open exchange of ideas and lack of centralized control over sources of information.

The maneuvers, which include dismissing and distorting information and undermining opinion leaders, are carried out in the press and on social media.

confidence in elections, undermine economic stability, damage the energy grid, and even disrupt health care systems.

The SolarWinds attack, uncovered in December 2020, gave the perpetrators access to the computer systems of many U.S. government agencies and private businesses.

“I see this as the most pivotal battle in the crypto space over the next few years, stablecoins versus central bank-created digital currencies,”

He said strong private-sector efforts like the one from Facebook are key to balancing the power of governments that are considering making their own state-backed stablecoins.

Governments are highly skeptical of digital currencies, and the United States is still debating how to legislate them.

One person speculated that it could have been more of a headache to Zuckerberg than it was worth.

But Marcus wanted the project to stay more independent.

ould undermine the stability of the financial system,

Unlike cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, the value of which is not tied to anything external, stablecoins are pegged to major currencies already in circulation, which is why proponents say they are more stable.