Featured Blogs

Why SDN is Not Enough

A hot topic in telecoms at the moment is 'software-defined networking' (SDN). This term covers a range of technologies that put networks under the control of centralised management software. But what if SDN misses the point of why broadband networks exist in the first place? Network equipment vendors are busy pushing operator CTOs to adopt a 'software telco' approach. A small army of analysts and consultants cheer this process on. more

Is the DMCA an Effective Way to Take Down Infringing Content?

As promised at an end-of-the-year (2015) announcement, the U.S. Copyright Office has now launched a comment submission process about the "safe harbor provisions" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA is often used by copyright owners to get infringing content - images, text, videos, music, even software - removed from problematic websites. more

EURid Gets .?? (Cyrillic for .eu)

EURid, who run the .eu registry, have finally been delegated .?? (Cyrillic for .eu). Punycode xn--e1a4c. One of the things that EURid is chartered to do under its contract to the European Commission was to get the extension in scripts other than Latin. EURid used ICANN's IDN ccTLD "Fast Track" process, though whether the process is truly "fast" or not is debatable, as it is still quite a long process. more

How to Choose a Cyber Threat Intelligence Provider

Throughout the course of my career I've been blessed to work with some of the most talented folks in the security and cyber threat intelligence (CTI) mission space to create a variety of different capabilities in the public, private and commercial sectors. Before I came to lead the Verisign iDefense team about five years ago, I had to evaluate external cyber-intelligence vendors to complement and expand the enterprise capabilities of my former organization. more

Smart Cities Love IPv6

I recently attended a Forum on Internet of Things in Smart Sustainable Cities: A New Age of Smarter Living staged in Singapore on 18 January 2016. The public forum provided a contextual overview to the second meeting of the ITU Study Group 20: IoT and its applications including Smart Cities and Communities which took place back-to-back with the Forum. more

Republican Presidential Candidate Upset With ICANN CEO

Republican senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz is not very happy with ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade. In a letter dated today, Cruz along with two other senators, have dropped some pointed questions for Chehade in relation to his involvement with a recent meeting in China... "As you must know, the World Internet Conference is not a beacon of free speech..." more

Pulling the Trump Card on Cloud and SDN

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) have been picking up the pace as of late. A high percentage of communication service providers and large data centers have either added these technologies on their roadmaps, or are already doing small-scale Proof-of-Concepts (PoC) in their testbed environments. more

Lessons to Be Learned from the Armada Collective’s DDoS Attacks on Greek Banks

'It could've been worse' is a fascinating expression. It implies that the incident in question obviously could have been worse than expected, however it also implies that it could have been better, ultimately leading to the conclusion that it was at least somewhat bad. So both fortunately and unfortunately for three Greek banks, the ransom DDoS attacks levied against them by hacker group the Armada Collective could have been worse. more

Behind the Curtain: Making IPv6 Work

Wouldn't it be nice if turning on IPv6 really was 'press one button and the rest is magic' easy? For some things, it is. If you're talking about client-side, enabling an IPv4-only home service on DSL or fibre really can be this simple, because all the heavy lifting is being done inside your ISP: you're not enabling IPv6 in the network, you're turning on the last mile. It was knocking at your door and you just had to let it in. more

Malware Reach Is Expanding, Ransomware on the Rise

We live in an online age, one where malware infections have become commonplace. Some might say this is the price of doing business online. News headlines report damaging attacks on well-known brands with depressing regularity. Consumer confidence suffers as customers look to organizations to sort out the issue, secure their transactions and fix the problem. more

Watching the Watchers Watching Your Network

It seems that this last holiday season didn't bring much cheer or goodwill to corporate security teams. With the public disclosure of remotely exploitable vulnerabilities and backdoors in the products of several well-known security vendors, many corporate security teams spent a great deal of time yanking cables, adding new firewall rules, and monitoring their networks with extra vigilance. more

Moving to the Cloud? Tips for a Soft Landing

Companies are no longer afraid of the cloud. Big talk about security and performance issues has dwindled to small voices as enterprises and SMBs alike adopt cloud services to empower their global impact. Big cloud benefits, however -- agility, scalability and on-demand access -- are the result of a thoughtful, well-planned move from on-site servers to off-site resources. Here are four key tips for a soft cloud landing. more

Now We’re Talking About Some Serious Money

ICANN has now published the results of the auction for .SHOP, an eye-popping $41,501,000. This pushes the ICANN's auction pot over $100 million. That's a lot of money. There are eighteen more name contention sets that are on hold for various reasons, of which a few such as .WEB look likely to generate even more money once the hold issues are resolved. more

2015 Domain Year in Review

2015 was a challenging yet exciting year for brand owners. While new gTLDs continue to consume much of the news in the domain industry, there were other notable highlights. Global domain registrations reached nearly 300 million; ICANN had several initiatives in motion that were of particular concern to brand owners; and companies continued to face threats to their brand reputation, revenue and customer trust. Here's my top 5 domain highlights from 2015. more

Busting 3 Popular and Misleading Terms in Telecom

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language." (-Ludwig Wittgenstein) The words we use to describe telecoms networks often contain hidden metaphors and meanings that lead us into wrong thinking. Here are three examples... Why misleading? The word "best" implies both benevolent and optimal intentionality: the network is going to do the "right" thing for its users, and it will maximise the "rightness" in some way. more