This year, the 47th Munich Security Conference included for the first time a special session on cybersecurity. “This may be the first time,” the president of a small European noted to the high-powered assembly, more accustomed to dealing with armies and alliances than with worms and denial-of-service attacks, “but it will not be the last.”

As unlikely protests swept across Egypt on January 25, an administrator from the Facebook page that was helping to drive the uprisings emailed a top official of the social network, asking for help.

The events from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and now Libya also shined a spotlight on Al Jazeera, as the Qatar-based news network used its well-positioned reporters to garner scoops and become, almost overnight, a new must-view for millions of global citizens interested in the big Middle East story.

"New media and old media converge to become now media." That maxim, so persuasively articulated by 21st century public diplomacy guru Matt Armstrong, has now become real in a Voice of America Persian language television program called Parazit.

Despite the booming information technology industry that has made it "the back office to the world," India still lags far behind nimble China in the race to provide universal internet access to its citizens.But as prices for smart phones plunge and India's cost-slashing mobile service providers get ready to roll out broadband-ready 3G networks, India is poised to leapfrog the PC and take pole position in the mobile internet revolution

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom on February 15 has been criticized by the Chinese media as hypocritical. However, I think it should be seen as a wake-up call for Chinese policymakers to prepare a Web-based public diplomacy with the US.

The voanews.com website was back to normal when I checked. Using Google cache, I found the hacked version, work of the "Iranian Cyber Army," which apparently went after all VOA sites.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing has officially launched a micro blog, attracting more than 5,000 fans in just two days. According to Japanese Ambassador Uichiro Niwa, the micro blog will introduce his schedule as well as various activities related to Sino-Japanese relations.