Featured Blogs

.XXX and Conservative Groups

By now, you should have read elsewhere that the ICANN board has rejected the ICM application to create a .XXX TLD. It still comes as a surprise to some. Frankly, this was the prognosis I made to Stuart Lawley two years ago, for the very reasons mentioned by the European Commission. I mentioned in a previous blog entry that 6000 complaints from US citizens would have more weight on the conservative US administration than any other consideration... more

Domain Name Dispute Cases Increased by 6.6% in 2004

In its February 18, 2005 press release, WIPO has reported filing an average of 3.4 UDRP and UDRP-based cases per calendar day in 2004, bringing the total number of cases received in 2004 to 1,179 -- an increase of 79 cases (or 6.6%) as compared to 2003. Also mentioned in the report is a 37 percent increase in ccTLDs cases over the previous year. Listed below are a number of additional facts and figures reported... more

New Research from CSC on the Impact of COVID-19 on Internet Security and Safety

Hackers are using company domain names for malicious attacks more than ever before. Established research shows that phishing and related malware attacks most commonly occur from a compromised or hijacked legitimate domain name, a maliciously registered, confusingly similar domain name, or via email header spoofing. Domain security intelligence is the first line of defense in preventing domain cyberattacks. more

How Spammers Get Around SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) stops novice spammers but not the professionals, says Spammer-X, a retired spammer who has gone into a lot of the details in his book, "Inside the Spam Cartel". The best way to beat SPF is to join it... First, Joe Spammer rents a dedicated spam host in a spammer-friendly location, like China. Next, he registers 100 domain names, and each domain is registered under a fake name and address. Next, DNS entries for each of the hosts are set up, including a valid pointer record (PTR), an MX record and reverse DNS entries for each domain... 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

If ICANN’t Keep a Contract, Let the Public Enforce It

Earlier in the Registerfly controversy, ICANN Vice President Paul Levins posted to the ICANN Blog: "ICANN is not a regulator. We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly's business practice and behaviour." This is disingenuous. ICANN is the central link in a web of contracts that regulate the business of domain name allocation. ICANN has committed, as a public benefit corporation, to enforcing those contracts in the public interest. Domain name registrants, among others, rely on those contracts to establish a secure, stable environment for domain name registration and through that for online content location. more

The Real Problem with dot-XXX

Shakespeare has Marcellus say in Act 1 of Hamlet, "Something's rotten in the state of Denmark." ...Milton Mueller, in his recent post to this site, would have us believe that since ICANN's Board long ago agreed that ICM's application for dot-xxx registry satisfied its own criteria for a sponsored TLD, then the only explanation for all the delay is, "I'm beginning to think that ICANN's approach to TLD approval was cooked up by a demented sergeant from Abu Ghraib." Milton goes on to assert that ICM's claim on dot-xxx is protected by the 1st Amendment. If this is so, then why after more than six years of discussion, is dot-xxx still raising such a fuss? more

Can’t Sell Your IPv4 Numbers? Try Leasing Them

In a "policy implementation and experience report" presented at ARIN 31 in Barbados, ARIN's staff noted that they are seeing "circumstances" related to the leasing of IPv4 number blocks. At the recent INET in Denver, ARIN's Director John Curran alleged that there is a "correlation" between address leasing activity and organizations that have been unable to complete specified transfers through the ARIN process, which requires needs-based justification. more

In Memoriam: Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. – a Personal Recollection

Brooks is famous for many things. Many people know him best as the author of The Mythical Man-Month, his musings on software engineering and why it's so very hard. Some of his prescriptions seem quaint today -- no one these days would print out documentation on microfiche every night to distribute to developers -- but his observations about the problems of development remain spot-on. But he did so much more. more

10 Things Google Could Do as a Domain Name Registrar

In the absence of any formal announcements, news of Google being accredited by ICANN as a domain name registrar, spread fast in the media today after it was first reported by Bret Fausett on Lextext -- see Google is a Registrar. The company has since mentioned that "Google became a domain name registrar to learn more about the Internet's domain name system," and that it has no plans to sell any domain names at the moment. However, speculations on what Google could do as an accredited registrar are far and wide. Here are ten, listed in no particular order... more

Typosquatting: A Solution

Typosquatting's negative effect on the surfing experience can be easily eliminated, and in a way that allows all parties to make money. What's called for is an affiliate program. You would not be happy if you typed a domain name into your browser and wound up in nowhere land because of a simple misspelling. That's the negative surfing effect of typosquatting... more

SpaceX Starlink Beta and Beyond

SpaceX began public beta testing of the Starlink Internet service in the northern US late last October. Since then, they have made many software updates based on the beta experience and have expanded the uninterrupted-coverage area by launching new satellites. By the end of the year, they had begun beta service in southern Canada and sent beta test invitations to a few UK users. The beta-eligibility area is expected to expand from the current 45-53 degree latitude this month or next. more

Internet Governance Outlook 2019: Innovative Multilateralism vs. Neo-Nationalistic Unilateralism

What says the "Crystal Ball" for the Internet Governance Ecosystem in 2019? In a best case scenario, we will take three steps to Cyber-Heaven. In the worst case scenario we will take three steps to Cyber-Hell. The middle way is no "digital big bang", but some small "digital goodies" and some small "digital disasters". Stumbling further forward into the digital cyberworld. However, 2019 could also go into the history books as the year of "digital wisdom". more

Search Engine Optimization: Static IP vs. Dynamic IP Addresses

This is a hotly debated topic. Some Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) claim that sites with a static IP address rank higher while other SEOs claim that shared hosting is just fine... that it would be stupid for search engines to penalize shared hosting since we are running out of IP addresses and so many sites are currently using name based hosting. ...I decided to run it through our statistical analysis engine to get the facts. Here is the methodology I used to answer this question. more

The Standards Paywalls Fall: Everyone Benefits

Yesterday -- in a unanimous decision of the US Federal Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (CADC) in ASTM v. Public.Resource.Org --- some of the worst standards paywalls came tumbling down. The court definitively determined that where governmental authorities incorporate private organisation technical standards into law by reference, non-commercial dissemination of those standards "constitutes fair use and cannot support liability for copyright infringement." more