Featured Blogs

The Whois Wars Go On

There is a lot of discussion about the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Phase 2 report on evaluating a System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) to non-public gTLD registration data after the decisions taken by the GNSO Council on September 24th. Notably, the Business Constituency (BC) and the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) have voted against the adoption of the Final Report of the EPDP team. more

Cuban “Technological Sovereignty” - a Walled Garden Strategy?

ToDus, a messaging application described as a "Cuban WhatsApp" and Apklis, a distribution site for Android mobile apps, were featured at the First Computerization Workshop held recently at the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas (UCI). One might ask, why do we need a Cuban WhatsApp and Apklis when we already have WhatsApp itself and the Google Play Store? more

The Top 10 .Brand Moments of 2017

Each year in December, I sit down and take a moment to reflect on how the .brands space has progressed in the previous 12 months. Most folks will understand that starting a movement to create the next evolution of the internet with 'digital superbrands' was a little slow at first. Slowly but surely, that has started to change and especially in 2016, it really felt like people were starting to 'get it' -- both in terms of brands themselves, and the media and consumers. more

Watching North Korea’s Internet Connectivity Go Up and Down Via Twitter

One thing I enjoy about following Dyn Research (formerly Renesys) on Twitter is that they provide quite interesting graphics and charts about Internet outages. They've been tracking North Korea's Internet access quite closely over the past week and their tweets have been quite enlightening. Back on December 22, for instance, DynResearch tweeted a chart showing a 9-hour, 31-minute outage... more

Google.cn Added ICP License Number on Monday

Beijing News is reporting (in Chinese) that one of their reporters noticed on Monday that the Google.cn landing page has added an ICP license number dated 2010. The license number had not been there before. ... The report did not clarify whether the addition of the ICP license means that the Chinese authorities have renewed Google.cn's ICP license... more

When DNSBLs Go Bad

I have often remarked that any fool can run a DNS-Based Blacklist (DNSBL) and many fools do so. Since approximately nobody uses the incompetently run black lists, they don't matter. Unfortunately, using a DNSBL requires equally little expertise, which becomes a problem when an operator wants to shut down a list. When someone sets up a mail server (which we'll call an MTA for Mail Transfer Agent), one of the tasks is to configure the anti-spam features, which invariably involves using DNSBLs. more

SpaceX Starlink Is Coming to Low-Income Nations

Beta testers in the US and Canada paid $500 for a terminal and are paying $99 per month for the service. The beta tests began in high-income countries, but SpaceX is beginning to roll Starlink out and will include low-income nations, for example, India. Last September, SpaceX responded to a request for consultation on a roadmap to promote broadband connectivity and enhanced broadband speed from TRAI, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India. more

4G Mobile Trials Have Begun in Cuba - What Is Their 3/4/5G Strategy?

During the first month of 3G mobile service, Cuban Internet use increased substantially. At the end of January, ETECSA had 5.4 million mobile users, 35% of which use the Internet and they are adding 5,000 new data customers per day. According to Eliecer Samada, head of ETECSA's wireless access group, the company is now at 160% of the expected capacity. more

The Role of the BFR in SpaceX’s Satellite Internet Service

SpaceX started with their Falcon 1 booster followed by several versions of the Falcon 9. The Falcon Heavy will fly later this year, and the rocket that will take the first person to Mars is called, for now, the Big F*ing Rocket or BFR. The 150-ton BFR payload will be ten times that of the Falcon 9. It will have an extra landing-guidance engine for reliable reusability and SpaceX also expects to be able to soft-land and reuse the second-stage payload rocket as well as its protective nose cone, substantially reducing cost per launch. more

Amazon Web Services Targets Startups and Creators With .aws

It will come as no surprise to those who've read my blogs that I get pretty excited about seeing .brand domains launch. At Neustar we're all in on promoting .brand usage in any industry, from all around the world and as such, we're always watching closely for any signs of new domains on the horizon, trawling for case studies or any hint of new activity. So imagine my surprise when a brilliant .brand example jumped out in front of me at JFK airport. more

What If I Were Wrong About Edge-Caching?

Nicholas Thompson at Wired Blog sums up yesterday's Wall Street Journal piece on Google. To summarize his summary: Google's edge caching isn't new or evil; Lessig didn't shift gears on NN; Microsoft and Yahoo have been off the NN bandwagon since 2006; The Obama team still supports NN; Amazon's Kindle support is consistent with its NN support. Yet... yet... more

Email Snooping Can Be Intrusion Upon Seclusion

Analysis could also affect liability of enterprises using cloud computing technologies... Local elected official Steinbach had an email account that was issued by the municipality. Third party Hostway provided the technology for the account. Steinbach logged in to her Hostway webmail account and noticed eleven messages from constituents had been forwarded by someone else to her political rival. more

OneWeb and Intelsat Sign the First Multi-Orbit Broadband Agreement – More to Come

Last October, I reviewed multi-orbit tests and plans of several low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), and Geostationary (GEO) broadband satellite companies and quoted Neil Masterson, CEO of LEO operator OneWeb as saying, "Interoperability with GEO satellites must happen - it's common sense ... Customers don't care whether it's a LEO satellite or a GEO satellite - all they want is connectivity." more

On New Domains and ICANN Accountability, More Questions than Answers

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) went before a Congressional panel this week to defend its plan to create an unlimited number of new Internet domains (like .web, .food, etc.) I was a witness at the hearing, which made one thing clear: the "consensus" on new Internet domains is not as strong as ICANN would have us think. more

Why DNS Is Broken, Part 1: Trust

So this Internet thing, as we discussed in our last article, is broken. I promised to detail some of the specific things that are broken. Implicit trust is the Achilles heel of the Internet... All of the communication between the resolver and the DNS server is in plain text that can be easily seen and changed while in transit, further, the resolver completely trusts the answer that was returned... more