Featured Blogs

On the Need to Separate the Telecom Business Agenda from Government Policy

At Guadalajara, Mexico this week, in the policy debate kicked off by the ITU, Russian Federation's Minister of Communications proposed that the ITU should give itself veto power over ICANN decisions. This proposal by the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC) calls for the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to be scrapped and replaced by an ITU group. more

USC: Solving the Digital Divide?

Like many in the UK communications industry my colleagues and I at Entanet have been eagerly awaiting the Digital Britain report. Darren Farnden, Entanet's Head of Marketing, has posted an interesting assessment of key parts of the report at opinion.enta.net. Given the content of Darren's article I thought it would be useful to post it in full here for CircleID readers... more

DNSSEC and DNS over TLS

The APNIC Blog has recently published a very interesting article by Willem Toorop of NLnet Labs on the relationship between Security Extensions for the DNS (DNSSEC) and DNS over Transport Layer Security. Willem is probably being deliberately provocative in claiming that "DoT could realistically become a viable replacement for DNSSEC." If provoking a reaction was indeed Willem's intention, then he has succeeded for me, as it has prompted this reaction. more

Why Private Support of Cyber Security Initiatives May Not Work

A fledgling international cyber security alliance is continuing to gather backing from private business, according to a recent article published on ComputerWeekly.com. The International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) aims to support law enforcement agencies in countries that lack the resources to fight cybercrime. Commercial security organizations such as McAfee and Trend Micro are supporting the alliance. more

Spamhaus Motion to Reconsider

A few weeks ago, Spamhaus filed a motion to have the judge reconsider his recent $27,002 award to e360. Their brief hangs on three arguments. ... it's clear Spamhaus is prepared to take this to the Court of Appeals (again) if the judge doesn't reconsider. In my lay reading of the law, and the memo in support of motion to alter judgement I don't think Spamhaus is out of line in asking for the judge to reconsider. I expect that if the judge doesn't reconsider, then we'll see an even more aggressive filing taking it up to the Court of Appeals. more

Understand More, Fear Less: Will G20 Be Able to Contribute to an Internet Future with a Human Face?

Last week, the G20's ministers responsible for the digital economy met in Düsseldorf to prepare this year's G20 summit, scheduled for Hamburg, July 2017. Building on important strides initiated two years ago during the G20 summit in Antalya and based on the G20 Digital Economy Development and Cooperation Initiative (DEDCI), which was adopted last year under the Chinese G20 presidency, the Düsseldorf meeting adopted a "G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Declaration" which also includes a "Roadmap for Digitalisation". One day before the ministerial meeting, non-state actors were invited to discuss "Policies for a Digital Future" within a so-called Multistakeholder Conference. more

Warning, Danger Lurks Here: Exploring DKIM/ADSP Edge Cases - Missing message-id

This article is the first in an occasional series on DKIM/ADSP edge cases that may not be generally recognized or understood. Many people advocate DKIM/ADSP adoption without fully recognizing potential implementation and operational issues. The fact is that the email messaging environment is fraught with opportunities for poor outcomes because of common practices that need to be considered or poorly understood implementations that are not considered... more

Should We Make the Possession of Malware a Crime?

In the U.S., it is a federal crime to use malware to intentionally cause "damage without authorization" to a computer that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce. Most, if not all, U.S. states outlaw the use of malware to cause damage, as do many countries. The Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, which the United States ratified a few years ago, has a provision concerning the possession of malware. Article 6(1)(b) of the Convention requires parties to the treaty to criminalize the possession of malware "with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing" a crime involving damage to a computer or data... more

.Brand Applications Account for One Third of All New gTLD Applications

ICANN announced today that they received a total of 1930 New gTLD applications from 60 countries for 1408 unique strings. Of the 1930 applications received, .Brands accounted for 664 of them. There are an additional 80 .Brand TLDs which we have classified as "Other", as they do not fall into any of the categories listed above. more

.COM - The Riskiest Top-Level Domain?

A couple of weeks ago, NetworkWorld published an article indicating that the .com TLD was the riskiest TLD in terms of containing code that can steal passwords or take advantage of browser vulnerabilities to distribute malware... It is unclear to me what they mean by TLD's being risky. The number of domains, 31.3% of .com's being considered risky, what does this actually mean? Is it that 31% of .com's are actually serving up malware or something similar? If so, that seems like a lot because for many of us, nearly 1 in every 3 pages that most people visit would be insecure... more

Takeaways from the DNS-OARC’s 28th Workshop

March has seen the first of the DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research Center (OARC) workshops for the year, where two days of too much DNS is just not enough! These workshops are concentrated within two days of presentations and discussions that focus exclusively on the current state of the DNS. Here are my impressions of the meeting. more

Apple TV Demolishing Telco and Broadcasting Business Models

The future of broadcasting has been under discussion for close to two decades and, while changes are certainly happening, they are rather slow and therefore new opportunities or threats (depending on where you sit) continue to arise. On the one hand we are now starting to see the more widespread availability of digital TV and this has revealed a clear point of difference between the strategic directions being taken by the telecoms and the broadcasting industries. more

Celebrating Six Years Since World IPv6 Launch - and How Far IPv6 Has Come!

Six years ago today, organizations all across the Internet came together as part of World IPv6 Launch to permanently enable IPv6 on their networks. Today, from that tiny launch the global Internet has grown to where over 25% of users are regularly connecting over IPv6. In some regions, this is significantly higher. For example, 237 million people in India connect over IPv6. Some mobile operators have over 80 or 90% of their devices connecting over IPv6. more

MIT Spam Conference: 2010 Call for Papers and Participation

I am proud (or disappointed) to announce the 8th annual MIT Spam Conference, March 25th and 26th at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A regular research competition that brings out the best minds in the fight against unsolicited email. At this point it would be helpful to provide a little background on the conference and remind everyone that the Call For Papers is still open. more

The Christmas Goat and IPv6 (Year 4)

This year, 2013, I got 24 days of IPv6 and DNSSEC measurements. All in all it created 15GB logs with more than 62 million rows. On the 21st of December, early in the morning, the goat was "traditionally" burnt down, however this year with one exception. Via the Swedish newspaper Expressen the arsonists anonymously took the blame and also filmed their own act. more