Featured Blogs

Preparing DNSSEC for the Post-Quantum Era

To prepare DNS security for a post-quantum future, Verisign and partners are testing new cryptographic strategies that balance security, performance, and feasibility, especially through the novel Merkle Tree Ladder mode for managing large signatures. more

Thinking Outside The ICANN Box: Creating A Prototype Based On Internet Experience - Part I

In research, one of the important steps is to identify the problem that needs exploration. Another step is to identify how to find a solution. Once it is possible to agree on the nature of the problem, then it begins to be a matter of how to approach the problem. more

Zoom Security: The Good, the Bad, and the Business Model

Zoom - one of the hottest companies on the planet right now, as businesses, schools, and individuals switch to various forms of teleconferencing due to the pandemic - has come in for much criticism due to assorted security and privacy flaws. Some of the problems are real but easily fixable, some are due to a mismatch between what Zoom was intended for and how it's being used now - and some are worrisome. more

A Trebuchet Defence in the Age of the Augmented Reality Cyberwarrior

I've been ruminating on this for a while, this follow-up that was a decade in the offing. My article Trench Warfare in the Age of The Laser-Guided Missile from January 2007 did pretty good in terms of views since I wrote it. Less so in terms of how well the ideas aged or didn't, but that's the nature of the beast. Everything gets worse, and simultaneously, better, and so here we are: Using embarrassingly ancient approaches to next-generation threats. Plus ça change. more

The Cock and the Goat: ICANN in the Age of Horrorism

Like everyone else, former ICANN board members have been preoccupied by the horrific November 13th, 2015 attacks on Paris, France, by a bunch of cold-blooded mass murderers. Our email list discussion of the Paris attacks covered a number of issues, including the inevitable question: what, if anything, should ICANN do in response? Some list subscribers concluded that the events had nothing to do with ICANN's mission, and that we should just sigh and move on. Others, on the other hand, said: not so fast, it would serve ICANN well to take a closer look at the matter, and its ramifications on wider world of ICANN.  more

Telegeography’s Submarine Cable Map Now Lets You Link to Specific Cables or Landing Points

Want to easily show people where a specific submarine cable goes? Or what cables terminate in a particular location? Last year I wrote about Telegeography's cool interactive submarine cable map and how useful it is to understand the submarine cable side of Internet infrastructure. In that article I mentioned how great it would be if you could get a link for a particular cable or location that you could pass along to other people. more

Understanding the Threat Landscape: Basic Methodologies for Tracking Attack Campaigns

The indicators of compromise (IOCs) outlined in my last blog post can be used as a baseline for developing intrusion sets and tracking attack campaigns and threat actors. When launching an attack, threat actors use a variety of vectors and infrastructure, which Verisign iDefense analysts -- as well as analysts across the cybersecurity community -- correlate to group attacks, tracking actors and determining attack methods. more

Blame Yourself, Not ICANN

Domain name owners have traditionally complained that ICANN does not listen to us, and there is indeed plenty of evidence demonstrating the group’s obliviousness to community input. Nevertheless, as domain owners, we need to begin giving ourselves a share of blame too. It’s time to reflect on our failures so we can come up with an actionable solution... more

Call for Participation - DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 54 in Dublin, Ireland

Would you like to present an idea you have related to DNSSEC or DANE to a gathering of people within the DNSSEC community? Do you have an idea for a new tool or service? Have you recently implemented DNSSEC or DANE and want to share your story? The deadline is Monday, August 17, so please send your proposal soon! We are open to proposals on a wide range of topics... more

We Are All Internet Exceptionalists Now

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its defeat call attention to a delicious irony in public discourse on Internet governance. Even those who don't want the Internet to be an exception from traditional forms of regulation and law are forced to admit that something new and exceptional must be done to bring it under control, such as massive departures from traditional concepts of territorially bounded sovereignty through the use of in rem jurisdiction. more

The Design of the Domain Name System, Part VI - Overloaded Record Types

In the five previous exciting installments, we've been looking at aspects of the design of the DNS. Today we look at records types, and how you can tell what a DNS record means. All the records in the DNS are strongly typed. Each record includes an RRTYPE, a small number, which defines both the format of the record and what the record means. It is possible and common to have different record types with the same format, but different meanings. more

What Will 6G Look Like in a Geopolitical Divided World

A recent session of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) masterclass on 5G, featured Dr. Ian Oppenheimer, the NSW Government's Chief Data Scientist and one of the country's most respected experts in radio technology. Ian is also the Chair of the scientific advisory board of the 6G Flagship organization, a global research organization based in Finland. This organization has just published a range of fascinating research papers on 6G. more

Biggest Botnet Takedown to Date

Yesterday law enforcement officials arrested 6 people and charged them with running a massive internet fraud ring. Over 4 million PCs were part of the botnet. According to the FBI, "the cyber ring used a class of malware called DNSChanger to infect approximately 4 million computers in more than 100 countries. There were about 500,000 infections in the U.S., including computers belonging to individuals, businesses, and government agencies such as NASA." more

Telephony is Disrupted Because Voice No Longer Matters… (As Much)

Does "voice" communication really matter as much today in business communications? Think about it. When you need to reach someone today, what do you do? Do you call them on the phone? Or do you send them email? Or a text message? or IM? I know personally that my normal communication flow usually goes something like this: Instant Messaging; I check first to see if I can reach the person on some form of IM... SMS; if the matter is relatively important... E-mail/Facebook/Twitter/other; Previously that would have just been email, but these days I find myself very often sending messages via Facebook or Twitter... more

Rewiring Internet Governance: Step One Is About ICANN (Part 1)

It is time for some straight talk about governance. The word "governance" used here means authority. It does not merely mean rules, or coercion, or any other weasel-worded definitions that deflect our attention from the art of good governance as distinct from self-serving opportunism and illusory power sharing. Politics, as Theodore Lowi reminded us, is ultimately about "who gets what". Quibbling with endless essays about who rules the root is useful, but not demonstrative. more