Useful information

How many satellites are currently planned for low Earth orbit? 2,345,078 Concerning numbers from Dan York in the IRTF SPACE research group at #IETF126 #KesslerSyndrome

Another excellent edition of the ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop getting underway at #IETF126 in Vienna www.irtf.org/anrw/2026/progra...

Internet Research Task Force@irtf.org · 3w ago

The ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop will take place in Vienna at IETF-126 on Monday, July 20th. Check out the program at www.irtf.org/anrw/2026/pr... and see www.ietf.org/meeting/126/ for online participation options.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Boswell, from my group, and Sawsan El Zahr from the University of Oxford, who shared the Brendan Murphy memorial prize for best presentation at the recent multi-service networks workshop – Elizabeth spoke about her work on security and privacy risks of junk DNS queries

Standards processes need appeals, objections, and ways to challenge decisions. But when those same tools are used to exhaust people, delay work, or make participation unsafe, the process stops protecting the work. New post: When Process Stops Protecting the Work

When Process Stops Protecting the Work

Heather explores the fine line between healthy dissent and procedural obstruction in standards development, examining how appeals, objections, and governance processes can strengthen collaboration—or slowly undermine it. This episode considers why protecting fairness also requires protecting the people doing the technical work. Learn how process abuse affects standards organizations, contributor participation, and technical decision-making. Heather discusses practical ways to document recurring patterns, support chairs and editors, and preserve constructive disagreement without allowing procedural conflict to overwhelm progress or discourage future contributors.

sphericalcowconsulting.com

"Scotties in the City"

This report is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the debate around age verification and the Internet

Internet Architecture Board@iab.org · 2mo ago

READ: The report from the IAB/W3C Workshop on Age-Based Restrictions on Content Access has been published as RFC 9998. Read the significant points of discussion, and the topics that may warrant further consideration and work: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9998/

I am looking for a (fully funded) PhD student working with me in Glasgow on provable security! www.iacr.org/jobs/item/4226

"Discover the Ease of Going Digital" they say, outlining a 9-step process to follow where step 5 requires downloading and completing a PDF form containing 50 questions…

A discussion about the social media ban on under 16s. BBC: “You’re gong to have a lot more time to fill. What will you do?” Student: “Stare at a wall.”

We need to think deeper: why is this unacceptable for a 17 year old but acceptable for an 18 year old - or a 57 year old? Age controls are not the real problem.

Melanie Ward MP@melanieward.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is unacceptable. Is a 17 year old boy being pushed to watch antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people after just 11 minutes what Meta considers to be age-appropriate? (1/3)

THIS. Do I worry about the effects of social media on my 11-year-old? Obviously yes. Do I think she should be banned from it any more than young men falling into the manosphere on Reddit, middle-aged ladies being dragged into transphobia on Mumsnet, or pensioners radicalised by Facebook? 100% no.

We are offering a number of Diversity Travel Grants to support early-career academics and PhD students to attend the IRTF meetings co-located with the IETF-127 Meeting in San Francisco in November 2027. More details at www.irtf.org/travelgrants/ Application deadline: July 03, 2026

If you're in Edinburgh for the #RIPE92 meeting next week, look out for my PhD student Elizabeth Boswell, who will be presenting her work on "Black Holes and Prisoners: Understanding AS112 Deployment Characteristics", from PAM2026, during the DNS session on Thursday 21 May

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

Jim Pickard@pickardje.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Breaking: Jess Phillips resigns as safeguarding minister just ahead of the 1pm news bulletins

"The Intolerable Hypocrisy of Cyberlibertarianism" – on the early Internet, and things that should have been clear at the time, if only we knew then what we know now matduggan.com/the-intolerable...

Vote early (well, err, vote!), vote often

We've submitted "Analysing Internet Standards Development Organisation Data" to the IRTF, highlighting some issues to consider when studying data relating to the Internet standards development ecosystem – feedback welcome! datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-pe...

UK policymakers need to rethink online safety laws. A new joint statement warns that age-gating and access restrictions threaten to fragment the open Internet and erode the rights of all users. Read more about the statement from 19 organisations including ORG, @mozilla.org and @torproject.org ⬇️

Companies and civil society warn that UK is undermining open web

Signatories of joint statement, including Mozilla, Tor and Open Rights Group, call on ministers to address root causes of online harm rather than pursue blanket access restrictions.

openrightsgroup.org

“People talk a lot about the protocols that power Bluesky vs. ActivityPub, because we're nerds and we believe deep in our hearts that the superior protocol will win. This is adorable. It flies in the face of literally all of human history…” matduggan.com/boy-i-was-wr...

Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

I have never been an "online community first" person. The internet is how I stay in touch with people I met in real life. I'm not a "tweet comments at celebrities" guy. I was never funny enough to be ...

matduggan.com

Proud advisor moment of Shuo Li who successfully defended her PhD with minor corrections - she is now heading to NSDI to present her work next week!

London, briefly – it’s always a pleasure to support the @internetsociety.bsky.social in their policymaker programme

As we celebrate #EarthDay 2026, what is the technical community—the people who actually build and operate the Internet—doing about climate concerns and environmental sustainability? I wrote on the Internet Society blog about two #IETF and #IRTF groups.. www.internetsociety.org/blog/2026/04...

Climate and Environmental Sustainability Within the IETF and IRTF - Internet Society

As we celebrate Earth Day 2026, what is the technical community doing about climate and environmental sustainability?

internetsociety.org

Is social media dying? How much did Twitter change as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has changed Here are the key take-aways 🧵 Full paper out now in in JQD:DM!

you know you've been computering for too long when you can recognise what this is

I just saw someone wearing a Great Wave off Kanagawa - Godzilla mashup t-shirt, and I need this.

O.m.g. This is the best thing I've seen in several weeks. Can't decide if written by undercover Greenpeace infiltrates or wholly generated by AI

TJ McIntyre@tjmcintyre.com · 4mo ago

This is quite something. You have to assume corporate didn’t actually review it. “After all, it’s only a coloring book for kids.”

@maryellenfoster.bsky.social I saw this and thought of you