Featured Blogs

Phish or Fair?

It shouldn't be a big surprise to hear that phishing is a big problem for banks. Criminals send email pretending to be a bank, and set up web sites that look a lot like a bank. One reason that phishing is possible is that e-mail has no built in security, so that if a mail message comes in purporting to be from, say, [email protected], there's no easy way to tell whether the message is really from bankofamerica.com, or from a crook. more

Trademark Clearinghouse Debate is Not About the Trademark Clearinghouse!

A comment period on the "strawman", a proposal to update the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH), is currently underway. Originally planned to end on January 11, it has been extended by ICANN to February 5. The comment portal has so far received 89 email contributions. A fair number, but the real story is how many major brands have spoken out on the proposed amendments to the TMCH model. more

Fact Checking the Recent News About Google in Cuba

Google's Cuba project has been in the news lately. Mary Anastasia O'Grady wrote a Wall Street Journal article called "Google's Broken Promise to Cubans," criticising Google for being "wholly uninterested in the Cuban struggle for free speech" and assisting the Castro government. The article begins by taking a shot at President Obama who "raved" about an impending Google-Cuba deal "to start setting up more Wi-Fi access and broadband access on the island." more

ICANN Chairman’s Durban Roundup

Respected ICANN Chairman of the Board Steve Crocker has wrapped up his organisation's 47th International Meeting, held in Durban last week, with a message to the community. This message, reproduced here in its entirety, provides both a useful and concise summary of the Durban meeting and insights into the Chairman's view of where ICANN stands at the moment, the successes it has notched up and the challenges it faces. more

World’s Critical Infrastructure

After all the unexplainable outages that undersea cables have severed, I thought it would be essential to highlight a brief history about who owns the oceans including some pointers about global undersea communication cables aka world's critical infrastructure. more

Verizon and Skype: Who’s the Winner?

Until only recently, has it been remotely plausible to consider such different companies joining forces. I've written about Skype often, and for the most part, they've been a threat for incumbents of all stripes. To hear about this from Verizon during such a public event makes it very clear that the sands are shifting once more, and yet again, VoIP is the culprit. more

The Senate Should Take the DOTCOM Act Off Cruz Control

Recently we speculated on the question "Will 2016 Politics Trump Bipartisan Support for the MSM and DOTCOM Act?" That article discussed the possibility that the Obama Administration's decision to relinquish ICANN stewardship via the periodic re-awarding of the IANA functions contract might arise in the ongoing U.S. Presidential sweepstakes, most likely from a Republican entrenched in the far right wing of that Party. We also discussed whether its introduction might erode the currently broad and bipartisan Congressional acceptance of the transition... more

Computing Clouds in Orbit – A Possible Roadmap

Last week, I predicted that much of the Internet and most cloud datacenters would launch into space in the next ten years. Today the only part of the Internet in space is a very small amount of "bent-pipe" access: signals which go from a user to a satellite and bounce back down to a ground station which feeds them into the terrestrial internet where all processing is done and all queries answered by internet-connected servers, many of them in cloud data centers. more

Google Playing to Win in the 700 MHz Auctions

Many say Google will bid to lose in the upcoming 700 MHz auctions and many more are equivocating. The idea is Google's entry alone will induce enough openness, and besides they couldn't afford to become an operator. This shows a total lack of understanding! more

Looking Ahead: ICANN’s Upcoming Policy on DNS Abuse Mitigation

ICANN is finalising a policy to curb DNS abuse, aiming to preserve internet stability while defending freedom of expression. With regulatory pressure mounting, the multistakeholder model faces a critical test. more

ICANN Issues Guidance to Domain Registrars and Registries in Light of Hurricane Maria

ICANN has issued a guidance notice to registrars and registries in relation to Hurricane Maria, which caused massive damage throughout the Caribbean. This isn't the first time that this has happened, with a previous incident in Asia triggering action from both registrars and registries to give domain name registrants impacted by the natural disaster breathing space. more

Deja Vu All Over Again: Cables Cut in the Mediterranean

The end of the year is approaching which seems to be a harbinger of Internet disasters. Four years ago (on 24 Dec. 2004), TTNet significantly disrupted Internet traffic by leaking over 100,000 networks that were globally routed for about an hour. Two years ago (on 26 Dec. 2006), large earthquakes hit the Luzon Strait, south of Taiwan, severing several underwater cables and wreaking havoc on communications in the region. Last year there was a small delay. On 30 Jan. 2008, more underwater cables were severed in the Mediterranean, severely disrupting communications in the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. Calamity returned to its customary end-of-year schedule this year, when early today (19 Dec. 2008) several communications cables were severed, affecting traffic in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. more

Examining Stuart Lynn’s Domain Name Plans - Part I

Last month ICANN began soliciting comments on Stuart Lynn's A Plan for Action Regarding New gTLDs, which will be one of the Internet governance organization's primary discussion topics at its December meeting in Amsterdam. more

PRISM and the Administration State Strikes Back

It is a safe assumption that if you are reading this post, you like technology. If that is the case, then you understand the tremendous economic, cultural, and human rights benefits an open, universal, and free Internet provides. That freedom is under attack. And it is our responsibilities, as stakeholders in a successful Internet, to balance governments and have an open dialog on the topic. more

World Notices That Verisign Said Three Months Ago That They Had a Security Breach Two Years Ago

The trade press is abuzz today with reports about a security breach at Verisign. While a security breach at the company that runs .COM, .NET, and does the mechanical parts of managing the DNS root is interesting, this shouldn't be news, at least, not now. Since Verisign is a public company, they file a financial report called a 10-Q with the SEC every quarter. According to the SEC's web site, Verisign filed their 10-Q for June through September 2011 on October 28th. more