Featured Blogs

India’s eCommerce Policy: NOT a ‘Bollywood Drama’ but an Adaptation of Script of Acts from Elsewhere

The draft e-commerce policy paper of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India raises valid observations concerning some of the imbalances, such as, on the excessive advantages gained by the "first movers" in the private sector, which implies advantages gained by the first -mover States on the Internet, on some of the prevailing gaps in the space and also on concerns about the abusive practices by a few e-commerce platforms and vendors. Most of these concerns are best addressed globally... more

Credibility and Disbelievablity as it Affects Outcomes in UDRP Proceedings

"Credibility" in English comes through Middle French from a Latin word signifying trustworthiness and reliability in business and personal transactions (allegations, contentions, statements, promises, etc.). Where the goal is persuasion, exaggerating, embellishing, withholding, and falsifying evidence or accusing the adverse party of some heinous crime is not a winning strategy for proving claims or defenses. more

Are Inter-Satellite Laser Links a Bug or a Feature of ISP Constellations?

I hope each of these companies has someone in charge of thinking about what might go wrong with a single, satellite-based network providing fast, low-cost links anywhere on the global Internet. OneWeb, SpaceX, Telesat and Leosat all aspire to be global Internet service providers using constellations of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Their success will require still-unproven technological innovation, but there are also political stumbling blocks. more

Why More Registries Should Be Talking About DNS Security

I've been incredibly lucky in my time at Neustar to lead both the exceptional Registry and Security teams. While these divisions handle their own unique product and service offerings, it's clear that they have some obvious crossovers in their risks, opportunities and challenges. Having been closely involved in the strategy of both these teams, it strikes me that there is more we as Registry Operators and service providers can and should be doing to align the world of cybersecurity with that of domain names. more

The Huawei Issue in the Broader Context of Global Politics

It is very sad to see that Huawei has become a victim of US-China trade war politics and it will be very interesting to see how their court case against the US Government will pan out, the company claims that the ban of its products is "unconstitutional." There is no indication that Huawei has been involved in any spying activity; nor does it appear to have any intention of doing so. more

Will PDP 3.0 Save the Multi-Stakeholder Model?

For the past several months, there has been much discussion within the ICANN community about something called "PDP 3.0". This has been raised in a number of different contexts including as part of ICANN's new governance review. But what exactly is PDP 3.0? And, will it save ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance model? I believe that if we are to save the multi-stakeholder model then now is the time to address the big issues not just the low hanging fruit on the surface - a new approach to achieving consensus across parties with widely differing views is needed. more

Still No Access to WHOIS Data

The ICANN 64 meeting in Kobe concluded two weeks ago, and we are no closer to accessing WHOIS data critical for law enforcement, cybersecurity threat investigators, intellectual property owners, or other consumer protection advocates who rely on the data to act quickly against online abuse in the domain name system. Instead of a balanced approach to WHOIS that serves the public interest, the ICANN Board is set to approve a new global policy that fails to even fully acknowledge critical... more

Google and ETECSA Will Agree to Exchange Internet Traffic Without Charge

Google and ETECSA have signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to negotiate a peering agreement that would allow cost-free data exchange between their networks once an undersea cable physically connects them. Google has worked hard to establish a relationship with ETECSA and the Cuban government. In recent years, Cuba, not the US, has limited the Cuban Internet. This agreement telegraphs a change in Cuban policy. more

The EPDP on Generic Top-Level Domain Registration Data: Phase 1 Down, Phase 2 To Go

The ICANN community recently gathered in Kobe, Japan for its first meeting of the year and it was certainly a busy week for attendees. Much of the meeting centered around the work of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) to address gTLD registration data. As a member of the EPDP team, we had been hard at work since being formed in August of 2018. Just prior to the Kobe meeting, we published the phase 1 Final Report. more

Guadeloupe Moves to Set Up Internet Exchange Point

Developments in the Caribbean digital space are fuelling initiatives to strengthen the Internet infrastructure in the region. In Guadeloupe, a recent agreement among three Internet service providers has cleared the way for the island to establish its first Internet exchange point. Commonly called an IX or an IXP, an Internet exchange point is a critical element of Internet infrastructure used to interconnect networks and deliver data traffic between them. more

Unexpected Effects of the 2018 Root Zone KSK Rollover

March 22, 2019, saw the completion of the final important step in the Key Signing Key (KSK) rollover - a process which began about a year and half ago. What may be less well known is that post rollover, and until just a couple days ago, Verisign was receiving a dramatically increasing number of root DNSKEY queries, to the tune of 75 times higher than previously observed, and accounting for ~7 percent of all transactions at the root servers we operate. more

A Dangerous, Norm-Destroying Attack

Kim Zetter has a new story out describing a very serious attack. In fact, the implications are about as bad as possible. The attack has been dubbed ShadowHammer by Kaspersky Lab, which discovered it. Briefly, some crew of attackers -- I suspect an intelligence agency; more on that below -- has managed to abuse ASUS' update channel and private signing key to distribute bogus patches. more

The IPv4 Market Runs on All Cylinders in 2018

2018 was a record-breaking year for the IPv4 market. The total volume of addresses traded, overall number of transactions in the ARIN region, and prices reached their highest levels to date. Since 2014, the number of transactions has grown considerably, mostly attributable to a dramatic increase in small block trades of fewer than 4,000 addresses. The volume of addresses sold during the same period, however, tells a different story. more

EURid Pauses Brexit Plans

When the UK announced its intention to withdraw from the European Union it was clear to some of us that this would cause complications with .eu and possibly other domain name extensions. Over the past year, it's become clear that the European Commission, who mandate the .eu domain name policy, weren't interested in providing a "soft landing" for impacted registrants of .eu domain names. more

SpaceX’s Starlink Internet Service Will Target End Users on Day One

Starting with Teledesic in 1990, would-be Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations have been justified to the FCC, other regulators, and the public as a means of closing the digital divide. Teledesic's goal was "providing affordable access to advanced network connections to all those parts of the world that will never get such advanced capabilities through existing technologies." Today's low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite companies make the same claim, but Telesat, OneWeb and Leosat seem to be targeting commercial markets first. more