Featured Blogs

The Only Winning Game at the WCIT

With Russia flipping its far reaching Internet takeover proposals into the WCIT pile this morning, it became apparent to WCITeers heading to Dubai in a couple of weeks that the entire show was on a fast trajectory into the wild blue yonder. Indeed, the event may provide an opportunity for Hollywood to film a sequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Unfortunately, the Russian proposals are only one of many wake-up indicators that this event may not be the exercise in rational, intelligent discourse that some in the preparatory process apparently believed. more

New TLD Applicants: Read This Before Selecting a Registry Provider

As each day passes, I spend more time immersing myself with prospective clients who are weighing up our offering over those of alternative providers. The more I become entrenched in this competitive process, the more it becomes increasingly clear that many of the competing RSPs pitching their wares to hopeful applicants are misleading them by hiding critically important information in fine print disclaimers or feeding them rubbish in order to whittle down the competition. Competition is a great thing; it just needs to be on the same playing field. Make sure you are comparing apples with apples. more

United States Is the Most Bot-Infected Country. Right?

A couple of days ago, Threatpost posted an article indicating that the United States is the most bot-infected country... I think that Microsoft's mechanism of measuring bot infections is a good one, not necessarily because it is the most accurate but because it represents the most complete snapshot of botnet statistics. Because Microsoft Windows is installed on so many computers worldwide and because so many users across the world call home to the MSRT, Microsoft is able to collect a very large snapshot of data. more

DNS Oblivion

Technical development often comes in short, intense bursts, where a relatively stable technology becomes the subject of intense revision and evolution. The DNS is a classic example here. For many years this name resolution protocol just quietly toiled away. The protocol wasn't all that secure, and it wasn't totally reliable, but it worked well enough for the purposes we put it to. more

ICT in Agriculture: A Travel to Australia’s Outback Queensland

In October 2020, I went on a two-week tour into Queensland's Outback, traveling through various landscapes from pastoral and agricultural lands to savanna and the desert. Leaving Brisbane, past Toowoomba, you enter the Darling Downs. This is one of the richest agricultural areas in Australia. British Botanist Alan Cunningham first explored it in 1827. However, only after the penal colony of Moreton Bay (now Brisbane) was closed, free settlers were allowed in the area. more

Why a Net Neutrality Law is Not Enough

Once we decide that Network Neutrality is a good thing to (re)enshrine in law, then we need to ask how to do that effectively. One way would be to pass a law saying, "Thou shalt not discriminate." That's the current approach. But network operators will say that they must manage their network, and if, in the course of network management, they were to disadvantage some source, destination, application, service or content, they might be accused of violating the law. So any Network Neutrality law must have a Network Management Exception... more

Exploring the Domain of Subdomain Discovery

Domain name monitoring - that is, the detection of domains with names containing a brand-term (or other string) of interest - is a very well-established element of brand protection services. Branded domain names are of key importance to brand owners (as the basis for business-critical infrastructure (i.e. 'core' domain names), and as part of a 'tactical' portfolio of strategic and defensive registrations), but also to infringers, who can utilise domains as a means of impersonation, passing off, claimed affiliation, or traffic direction and monetisation. more

Fashion of the Moment: The “Pioneer Program”

I have had the question recently with several new gTLD applicants. I think this is a good subject for applicants with the intention to sell domain names AND who are alone to apply for their string. A Pioneer program allows to: Find good partners to developp a TLD; once the program is signed, it is an insurance they will have a good use of the requested domain name... more

The Big Bad Internet

I often think there are only two types of stories about the Internet. One is a continuing story of prodigious technology that continues to shrink in physical size and at the same time continue to dazzle and amaze us... The other is a darker evolving story of the associated vulnerabilities of this technology where we've seen "hacking" turn into organised crime and from there into a scale of sophistication that is sometimes termed "cyber warfare". And in this same darker theme one could add the current set of stories about various forms of state sponsored surveillance and espionage on the net. more

Internet Governance Forum Publishes BPs on Regulation and Mitigation of Unsolicited Communications

The IGF this morning published a number of reports, including the aforementioned one, at the URL provided, titled 'IGF 2015 Best Practice Forum Regulation and mitigation of unsolicited communications.' The reports can be found in the included URLs on the IGF Website. more

The Cost of an ISO 27001 Certification

The first question I often get when talking to IT Service providers on ISO 27001 certification is: "How much does it cost to get it?" I like to reply with a question: "how much does it cost when you don't have it?" The answer to the first question is easy, the answer to the second one is more complicated. As a financial I am interested in the business case. If the cost of not having an ISO 27001 certification is higher than the cost of getting and maintaining one, you can actually make a profitable investment by getting certified. more

How Do We Get More Network Operator Feedback Into IETF Standards? Please Take This Survey

How do we get more feedback from the operators of networks back into the standards process of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)? How do we help know whether the open standards being developed within the IETF reflect the operational realities of the networks into which those standards will be deployed? If we could get more network operators participating in the IETF standards process, would that result in better standards that are deployed faster? more

New gTLDs: If I Knew Then, What I Know Now…

If only I had been able to predict the new gTLD future, but alas my crystal ball (well, really it's a Magic 8 Ball ®) did little to help me. And I really doubt that 5+ years ago, when this new gTLD journey began, that anyone could have predicted where we are now. All that said, back in 2008, I wish I could have known that... more

IANA: A Tale of Two Fails

The IANA -- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority -- is, functionally, the boiler room of the Internet. Every protocol in use to shovel data from Tallahassee to Timbuktu? Listed there. IP addresses? They are the root from which all addresses flow. Domain names? They are the Source. The entire operation is chock-full of magic numbers, numbers that form and fuel the digital world we use daily. But there are other, lesser-known numbers... It is of PENs that I write today... more

New Internet Domain Names Need a Backstory to Succeed

If web address registrations are any indication (and they may not be), the hundreds of new Internet domains (where .guru competes with .com and .berlin intrudes on .de) are seeing slow, but steady success. By one count, there are about 2 million new online addresses. Slow and steady may wind up being the best business model, but if the effect of the top level domains is to be felt in business, culturally and socially, there needs to be more done than create the opportunity to register a new name... more