A more secure Internet: Let’s Encrypt, the nonprofit certificate authority, has helped the percentage of websites protected with HTTPS encryption jump from 40 percent in 2016 to 80 percent now, TechXplore notes. The free certificate service has “turned the implementation of HTTPS from a costly, complicated process to an easy step that’s within reach for all websites.” Let’s Encrypt has become the world’s largest certificate authority and provides more HTTPS certificates than all other certificate authorities combined.
The right to the Internet: A new study by Merten Reglitz, a lecturer in global ethics at the University of Birmingham, suggests Internet access should be a human right, Vice reports. Internet access is “highly conducive to a multitude of crucial human interests and rights,” the study says. “Internet access is a uniquely effective way for lobbying and holding accountable global players like global governance institutions and multinational corporations.”
You must include these apps: The Russian government may require PC and smartphone makers to pre-load Russia apps, ZDNet reports. The Russian parliament is debating a bill to require the pre-loaded apps. If the bill passes, the Russian government would publish a list of electronic devices that will need to comply with this new law, including smartphones, tablets, computers, servers, and smart TVs.
Shutdown costs jobs: Software developers and other tech workers have lost their jobs in Kashmir due to an Internet shutdown in effect since early August, the India Times reports. Some software developers are leaving the Indian province to find work, the story says.
New privacy rules: A new California consumer privacy goes into effect in 2020, and Microsoft said it will apply the new regulations across the U.S., Naked Security says. The California Consumer Privacy Act requires businesses that collect personal information to inform consumers of the collection, to tell consumers what personal data is collected, and to tell them how they will use the information. The law also allows consumers to prohibit businesses from selling their personal information, and they can request that businesses delete their information.
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