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    Russia blocks video and voice calls on WhatsApp

    Naushad K. Cherrayil
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    Russia blocks video and voice calls on WhatsApp
    • Officials promote a new state-controlled platform, MAX, that promises “seamless integration with government services.
    • WhatsApp and Telegram had been lifelines for secure conversations — protected by end-to-end encryption that kept prying eyes away.

    It was a warm August evening in Moscow when Anna tried to call her brother in St. Petersburg on WhatsApp. The familiar ringing tone never came — instead, just a faint metallic buzz, then silence. She frowned, checked her internet, and tried Telegram instead. No luck.

    Across the city, millions were having the same problem. For years, WhatsApp and Telegram had been lifelines for secure conversations — protected by end-to-end encryption that kept prying eyes away. Now, suddenly, voices were going silent.

    The official explanation came swiftly:
    The government accused these foreign-owned platforms of refusing to share user data with law enforcement — data they said was vital for fighting fraud and terrorism. Until they complied, calls would remain disrupted.

    Messages, voice notes, and text chats still worked for now, but video and voice calls were becoming painfully unreliable.

    Digital sovereignty

    Behind the scenes, though, the situation was bigger than just phone calls. Since the war in Ukraine, Moscow had been building a tighter, more controlled internet — what they called “digital sovereignty.” Facebook and Instagram were gone. YouTube’s speed had been choked to a crawl. Now, the crackdown was hitting messaging apps.

    Officials were promoting a new state-controlled platform, MAX, that promised “seamless integration with government services.” Politicians urged citizens to migrate there, touting its convenience. Critics whispered that MAX would track everything users did and said.

    In July, surveys showed just how beloved these “foreign” apps still were: 97 million Russians used WhatsApp every month, 90 million used Telegram. The scale of the call restrictions meant virtually every household felt the impact — from friends catching up, to parents calling children abroad.

    Rights groups called it deliberate throttling, the latest step in carving out a Russian internet walled off from the rest of the world. Officials called it security. WhatsApp vowed to keep encrypted communication alive “for people everywhere, including Russia.” Telegram insisted it was fighting harmful content daily.

    Anna didn’t know about the political statements, or the public data. She just wanted to talk to her brother. That night, after trying in vain once more, she sighed and typed him a message instead:

    “Call’s not working again. I’ll try tomorrow.”

    Tomorrow might come — but for Russians like Anna, the days of easy, private calling were already fading into the past.

    Countries that have blocked WhatsApp

    • China — WhatsApp has been blocked since 2017 as part of the Great Firewall, pushing users to domestic alternatives like WeChat.
    • North Korea — Generally inaccessible due to the country’s heavily restricted internet; major foreign platforms are banned.
    • Iran —Imposed bans and intermittent restrictions, especially during periods of unrest.
    • Syria — Reported as banned/restricted in government-controlled contexts as part of broader censorship.
    • United Arab Emirates — Texting works, but VoIP (voice/video) calls are blocked as a policy; some temporary allowances occurred during events like Expo 2020.
    • Qatar — VoIP calls restricted; messaging still works.
    • Some reports add Saudi Arabia and Egypt as places where WhatsApp voice/video calls have been restricted at times, while texting remains available; enforcement has varied over time and by carrier.

    Why HTTP/1.1 still endangers millions of modern websites?

    Naushad K. Cherrayil
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    Why HTTP/1.1 still endangers millions of modern websites?
    • A single manipulated packet can cause a website to mix up user sessions, leak confidential info, or serve poisoned content that infects everyone who visits.
    • After two decades of attempted patches, the protocol remains fundamentally unsafe whenever proxies or shared connections are involved.
    • Until full HTTP/2 support arrives everywhere, organisations need to aggressively sanitise incoming requests and routinely scan for lurking vulnerabilities.

    Just because a website uses shiny new security badges on the surface doesn’t mean it’s locked up tight behind the scenes.

    Recent research has unveiled a worrying reality under the hood: millions of websites, even those behind cutting-edge proxies and cloud platforms, are silently backsliding to the outdated HTTP/1.1 protocol somewhere along the request chain. This isn’t just a touch of technical debt—it’s a cybercriminal’s dream come true.

    How traffic flows

    When you click on a website in 2025, your request doesn’t go straight to its destination. It bounces around—from your browser, through content delivery networks, load balancers, proxies, and then finally hits the website’s back-end servers.

    Somewhere along this relay, if one component only speaks the old HTTP/1.1, the whole secure foundation can be undermined.

    PortSwigger, the well-known application security firm, threw a spotlight on this issue. They found that over 24 million websites—yes, even big corporate ones—still downgrade requests to HTTP/1.1, despite advertising modern security up front. This isn’t just nostalgia for the early 2000s; it’s a recipe for disaster.

    The fatal flaw: Request smuggling

    So, what makes HTTP/1.1 so risky? In a word: ambiguity. The protocol simply lumps requests together on a TCP connection, with multiple ways to specify where one ends and the next begins. That means hackers can trigger so-called “request smuggling” attacks, slipping malicious requests between legitimate ones.

    Suddenly, servers have no idea which data belongs to which user—a perfect opening for session hijacking, data theft, or worse.

    Cybersecurity researcher James Kettle, from PortSwigger, revealed all this at Black Hat USA and DEF CON—earning hefty bug bounty rewards in the process. The flaw is so severe that a single manipulated packet can cause a website to mix up user sessions, leak confidential info, or serve poisoned content that infects everyone who visits.

    Just imagine: logging in to your favourite online store and landing in another customer’s account instead, or having every page you load laced with credit card-stealing code.

    Why are we still using HTTP/1.1?

    Alarmingly, the inertia isn’t just on small-time web hosts. Major cloud service providers like Google and Cloudflare still default to HTTP/1.1 internally unless admins painstakingly reconfigure every layer.

    The industry’s mainstay front-ends—Nginx, Akamai, Fastly, CloudFront—often lack full upstream HTTP/2 support, making upgrades a real challenge.

    Website operators can’t just flip a magic switch and hope for safety. Every component in the chain, from CDN to app server, must support the newer protocols and be configured to reject risky, ambiguous requests. That’s rarely the default, and it requires technical finesse that many organisations lack.

    This isn’t theory—attackers have already shown how devastating these flaws can be. Security researchers demonstrated successful request smuggling hacks against giants like PayPal, exposing unencrypted passwords and siphoning off bug bounties for their trouble.

    The ease with which such bugs can be exploited is alarming: all it takes is a tiny inconsistency between how two servers interpret an HTTP request.

    For example, if a request headers both a “Content-Length” and a “Transfer-Encoding: chunked” flag, different parts of the server chain might read the data differently.

    An attacker can send a malformed payload that one server thinks is over—and another server keeps reading. The result? Malicious code gets silently attached to a victim’s request.

    Can we fix HTTP/1.1?

    Not really, says Kettle. After two decades of attempted patches, the protocol remains fundamentally unsafe whenever proxies or shared connections are involved. “If we want a secure web, HTTP/1.1 must die,” he warns.

    While it’s still safe for straight, direct client-server connections, the web is rarely that simple nowadays.

    Until full HTTP/2 support arrives everywhere, organisations need to aggressively sanitise incoming requests and routinely scan for lurking vulnerabilities.

    PortSwigger’s latest HTTP Request Smuggler tool even automates the search for hidden flaws, but that’s just playing catch-up.

    No matter how pretty a website looks or how many security logos it displays, it could still be vulnerable deep in its infrastructure. Any delay just gives hackers more opportunities to slip through the cracks.

    India’s Tier 2 and 3 cities to be next data centre powerhouses

    Ana Mary Joseph
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    India’s Tier 2 and 3 cities to be next data centre powerhouses
    • The days when Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai were solely at the heart of the data economy are fading.

    India’s digital backbone is getting a powerful boost from tier 2 and 3 cities. Until now, these smaller urban hubs have only hosted about 6 per cent of the nation’s total data centre capacity—roughly 82MW.

    But dramatic change is around the corner: reports predict this figure will vault to between 300 and 400MW by 2030, marking a transformative shift in the data landscape.

    As India’s total data centre capacity races past the 4,500MW threshold by 2030, the importance of decentralising digital infrastructure comes into focus. The days when Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai were solely at the heart of the data economy are fading.

    New contenders like Kochi, Mohali, Jaipur, and Indore are rapidly climbing the ranks, emerging as key drivers of edge computing, storage, and innovation.

    These up-and-coming cities are no longer just supporting cast members in India’s digital play—they’re rewriting the script on what “digital India” means. Behind this wave are pro-business government policies, the need for localised data processing, and a nationwide shift toward decentralisation for greater efficiency and resilience.

    Why these cities?

    There’s a genuine upside for data players expanding beyond the big metros:

    • Lower operational costs and friendlier business climates
    • Proximity to end-users, slashing latency for local content and services
    • Easier access to land and resources (though not without their own challenges)

    But it’s not all smooth sailing. To thrive, these cities need nimble and reliable infrastructure. That’s where modular, pre-engineered data centres come in—especially when you’re dealing with confined space, complex cooling demands, and occasional resource constraints.

    Technologies like liquid cooling and AI-driven airflow management are fast becoming the norm in these new data hubs. The move is less about sheer scale, and more about productivity, uptime, and eco-friendliness.

    With AI and high-performance computing placing fresh demands on infrastructure, innovations in energy use—such as smart power controls and real-time monitoring—are rising to meet both performance and sustainability targets.

    What’s unfolding now is a new chapter in India’s digital tale, where growth and opportunity are not confined to the nation’s largest cities. These regional centres are stitching together a more inclusive and adaptable network, supporting untapped markets and helping bridge the digital divide.

    Sluggish growth clouds consumer electronics in 2025

    TCN Bureau
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    Sluggish growth clouds consumer electronics in 2025
    • Smartphone and notebook shipments in 2025 will be flat or grow by only 1–2% YoY, TV shipments will decline by 1.1%, and the wearables market will contract by 2.8%.
    • smartphones, notebooks, wearables, and TVs are expected to stagnate under the combined pressures of high inflation, a lack of breakthrough innovations, and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty in 2025.
    • Looking ahead to 2026, most consumer product shipments are expected to remain flat or grow only modestly by around 1%, while wearables and automobiles may decline.

    As we move into 2025, the landscape for everyday electronics—smartphones, laptops, wearables, and TVs—looks rather flat.

    A combination of stubborn inflation, a scarcity of truly breakthrough tech, and the unending tension of global politics is leaving the industry at a standstill. Big names in the market are increasingly cautious, with even the most optimistic projections painting a picture of mere stagnation.

    Consolidation looms for 2026

    Industry insights suggest that by 2026, this sluggishness will only become more pronounced. Instead of a rebound, what’s coming is a consolidation phase, where growth rates slow even further. For those of us who remember the boom years, this feels like a sharp change of pace—a reality check driven by market saturation and limited innovation.

    AI Servers: The lone bright spot

    If there is a reason for optimism, it comes from the AI server sector—now the industry’s powerhouse for growth. Surging demand in data centres continues to fuel expansion, and 2025 looks set for another strong year.

    TrendForce projects that AI server shipments will leap by more than 20 per cent compared to last year. Major cloud players are pumping funds into top-tier GPUs (think NVIDIA) and tailor-made ASIC chips for their infrastructures, crowding out budgets that otherwise went to run-of-the-mill servers.

    Another fascinating trend is how companies are adapting their shipment schedules to deal with US tariffs and turbulent geopolitics. Many sectors are choosing to “front-load” their orders in early 2025, thanks in part to fresh Chinese government subsidies.

    Products like servers, tablets, monitors, and vehicles are now expected to be shipped in equal measure in both halves of the year—a break from the usual pattern where the second half sees a spike.

    While this might pad first-half revenues (and, let’s be honest, look good on quarterly reports), it comes with a price: the risk of slumping second-half sales and ballooning inventories by Q4.

    Remember the buzz around AI-powered consumer gadgets? So far, the sizzle outweighs the steak. Despite splashy announcements, integrating AI into everyday devices is still mostly at the marketing phase. Without those must-have killer apps, most consumers remain unconvinced, and brands have little to show beyond upgraded spec sheets.

    Muted numbers across the board

    Taking stock for 2025, modest growth is the name of the game:

    • Smartphones and notebooks look set to grow by a mere 1–2% (if at all)
    • TV shipments could actually fall by 1.1%
    • The wearables market is likely to shrink by 2.8%

    Looking ahead to 2026, don’t expect fireworks. The best-case scenario for many categories is flat shipments or a minor uptick. Wearables and even automobiles face the possibility of decline. And while AI servers will remain a relative superstar, even their growth will taper, slowed by the challenges of scaling from today’s high base.

    Awaiting a catalyst

    To kick off the next phase of real growth, the electronics sector needs either a giant leap in technology or a new consumer application that genuinely excites and draws in the masses.

    Until that happens, the industry will need to navigate a tougher, low-growth environment—one that rewards resilience, creativity, and perhaps a bit of patience.

    Will the weight of Intel CEO’s past let him down?

    Naushad K. Cherrayil
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    Will the weight of Intel CEO’s past let him down?

    • But the episode had changed the conversation—no longer about Intel’s turnaround or technology roadmap, but about the CEO’s past and where his loyalties lay.
    • Decades of global investments had brought Tan to the top of the American chip industry. Now, those same investments were threatening to pull him down.

    Intel’s gleaming headquarters in Santa Clara had been humming with quiet optimism in early 2025. Lip-Bu Tan, the company’s new CEO, was brought in as a seasoned dealmaker with a knack for spotting the future before it arrived.

    For decades, he’d built a name—and a fortune—through Walden International, placing bold bets on emerging tech companies around the globe.

    Intel’s CEO since March 2025, co-founded and leads Walden International, a venture firm that has poured over $200 million into hundreds of Chinese tech and semiconductor companies—some with alleged ties to the Chinese military. He invested early in SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, and served on its board from 2001 to 2018.

    Others, critics claim, brushed too close to firms with links to the People’s Liberation Army. Tan had even sat on SMIC’s board for nearly two decades. In Silicon Valley, this was seen as the résumé of a man with deep global reach. In Washington, it was starting to look like a liability.

    The tension broke on August 7, 2025. Former President Donald Trump, never one to whisper, took to the airwaves and social media: Lip-Bu Tan, he declared, was “highly conflicted” and should resign immediately.

    Ties with China

    The market recoiled. Intel’s stock slid more than three per cent in hours. Senator Tom Cotton piled on, urging the company’s board to investigate Tan’s past ventures, some of which, Cotton alleged, had defense implications for China.

    Inside Intel, employees watched the storm gather. Tan’s decades-old deals, once seen as savvy global strategy, were being reframed as potential threats to national security.

    For Tan, this wasn’t just politics—it was personal. The accusations implied not only questionable judgment, but divided loyalties. Within hours, he pushed back, calling the attacks “misinformation” and reaffirming his commitment to US law, ethics, and Intel’s future. The board publicly stood by him. But the damage was already in motion.

    But the episode had changed the conversation—no longer about Intel’s turnaround or technology roadmap, but about the CEO’s past and where his loyalties lay.

    Decades of global investments had brought Tan to the top of the American chip industry. Now, those same investments were threatening to pull him down.

    The question hanging over Intel’s glass towers wasn’t whether Lip-Bu Tan could run the company. It was whether the weight of his past would let him.

    What GPT-5 means for business, tech and the future?

    Mohammed Fahad
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    What GPT-5 means for business, tech and the future?

    • Company showcases “vibe coding” – GPT-5’s ability to generate entire software projects instantly from user prompts.

    The AI world experienced a seismic shift this week as OpenAI announced the much-anticipated launch of GPT-5, marking a bold new chapter in the generative AI saga.

    The latest evolution of OpenAI’s renowned models now powers ChatGPT for its immense user base – 700 million and counting – signaling not just a technical achievement, but another step in the sweeping transformation of business, tech, and daily life on a global scale.

    The major tech players – Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft (the last being OpenAI’s significant supporter) – are all jostling for dominance, buoyed by massive investments. Collectively, they’re poised to spend nearly $400 billion this fiscal year just on AI infrastructure and data centres.

    Investor optimism is palpable, with stakes riding high on whether these colossal gambles will translate into equally giant leaps in productivity and enterprise value.

    So, what’s the catch with GPT-5, and why is it causing so much buzz?

    “PhD-level” expertise

    For starters, OpenAI is pivoting hard toward enterprise solutions. While millions of individuals love ChatGPT for everything from daily chats to trivia, the real prize lies in wooing businesses with robust, reliable, and specialised AI.

    OpenAI claims GPT-5 is a quantum leap in this direction, handling software development, technical writing, health inquiries, and finance questions with what CEO Sam Altman calls “PhD-level” expertise. The company even showcased “vibe coding” – GPT-5’s ability to generate entire software projects instantly from user prompts.

    The implications are dizzying – and yet, not everyone is sold on the leap from GPT-4 to GPT-5. Early testers note improvements, especially in coding and complex problem-solving, but some argue the jump isn’t as dramatic as previous upgrades.

    The human-AI gap remains: GPT-5 can’t autonomously learn or reason quite like people do, though it continues to eat away at domains once considered strictly human turf.

    Meanwhile, the business of AI isn’t slowing. OpenAI is already exploring new employee compensation through share cash-outs at a mind-boggling $500 billion valuation, up from an already impressive $300 billion mark.

    The AI talent war is brutal – think nine-figure signing bonuses for top researchers.

    And yet, the broader question lingers. As analyst Noah Smith points out, while consumers are hooked on AI chats and novelty, it’s unclear whether enterprise adoption – the truly big money – has matched the hype or the investment. Will GPT-5’s new capabilities tip the scales?

    Musk reignites AI rivalry

    Meanwhile, Elon Musk has reignited the AI rivalry with a dramatic statement on X (formerly Twitter) targeting OpenAI’s brand-new GPT-5.

    In his trademark provocative style, Musk, the head of Tesla and the driving force behind xAI, brazenly claimed his company’s latest AI model, Grok-4 Heavy, had already surpassed GPT-5’s capabilities “two weeks ago.”

    He declared, “Bottom line: Grok-4 Heavy was smarter than GPT-5 two weeks ago and is now significantly better,” turning up the heat just hours after OpenAI’s latest reveal on August 7.

    Naturally, Musk didn’t stop at words. He posted a chart—originally shared by another X user—putting Grok-4 Heavy at the top and relegating GPT-5 to a spot somewhere between Grok-4 and Grok-4 Heavy. With this, he didn’t just challenge a competitor—he called down the lightning on the entire AI leader board.

    For context, Grok-4, unveiled by xAI in early July, is the company’s state-of-the-art language model, while Grok-4 Heavy takes things further by enabling multi-agent collaboration and more advanced reasoning.

    Musk also flooded his timeline with images and videos showing off what Grok-4 Heavy can do, while inviting users to share their own creations. One can’t help but wonder if this is both a flex and an open invitation for a user-powered reality check against OpenAI.

    OpenAI, meanwhile, isn’t about to let the spotlight drift. CEO Sam Altman, during a pre-launch press briefing, introduced GPT-5 as a “major step toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).”

    Altman painted a vivid picture: “If GPT-3 felt like talking to a high school student, GPT-4 like a college student, then GPT-5 feels like talking to a PhD-level expert.” It’s clear he expects GPT-5 to make a serious splash, especially with its promised leaps in enterprise use, technical projects, and even health and finance queries.

    But this rivalry runs deeper than just two AI models jostling for tech-world bragging rights. Musk and Altman have a long, tangled history. Formerly joined at the hip as OpenAI co-founders, they split over vision and values—Musk has since claimed OpenAI lost its way by putting profit before principle.

    Not content to critique from the sidelines, he launched xAI as a direct alternative, pledging to build AI that’s both more powerful and more transparent.

    The public showdown between Grok-4 Heavy and GPT-5, stoked by Musk’s high-profile antics and Altman’s grand vision, guarantees a spicy chapter in the ongoing AI arms race.

    For the rest of us? We get front-row seats to a rivalry that’s almost as fascinating as the technology itself.

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