Featured Blogs

May 31 Deadline for $517,000 US in Internet-related Grants in Africa and Asia Pacific

If you are located in Africa or the Asia Pacific region, this coming Tuesday, May 31, is the application deadline for an excellent series of grants related to Internet infrastructure, development, security and education. I just wrote about the Internet Society Cybersecurity Grant for up to $56,000 AUD (roughly $40K USD) in the Asia Pacific region... but it is part of a larger set of grants that all have a deadline of May 31. more

Advantage of Commercial Clouds vs. HPC for Scientific Research

The Department of Energy (DoE) recently came out with an excellent report, called the Magellan report, on the advantages and disadvantages of using commercial clouds versus in house High Performance Computers (HPC) for leading edge scientific research. The DoE probably supports the largest concentration of HPC facilities in the world. I agree with the report that for traditional applications such as computational chemistry, astrophysics, etc. will still need large HPC facilities. more

How Not to Take Russia Off the Internet

Last week the Ukrainian government sent a letter to ICANN asking them to revoke the ".ru", ".рф" and ".su" top-level domains. It also said they were asking RIPE, which manages IP addresses in Europe, to revoke Russian IP addresses. Both ICANN and RIPE said no. Other people have explained why it would have been a policy disaster, but beyond that, neither would actually have worked. more

Colloquium on Collisions: Expert Panelists to Select Papers, Award $50K First Prize

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the verb collide is derived from the Latin verb collidere, which means, literally, "to strike together": com- "together" + lædere "to strike, injure by striking." Combined instead with loquium, or "speaking," the com- prefix produces the Latin-derived noun colloquy: "a speaking together." So consider WPNC 14 - the upcoming namecollisions.net workshop - a colloquium on collisions: speaking together to keep name spaces from striking together. more

Hiding in the Firmware?

The most interesting feature of the newly-described "Equation Group" attacks has been the ability to hide malware in disk drive firmware. The threat is ghastly: you can wipe the disk and reinstall the operating system, but the modified firmware in the disk controller can reinstall nasties. A common response has been to suggest that firmware shouldn't be modifiable, unless a physical switch is activated. more

The Supreme Court Decides that Compatible Software is Still Legal

Back in the 1980s, everyone used the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet on their PCs. In 1989, Borland released a competitor, Quattro Pro. It used the same menu commands as 1-2-3 so that users could import their 1-2-3 spreadsheets with keyboard macros. Lotus sued Borland, and after a loss in the district court, Borland won on appeal, arguing that the keyboard commands are a "method of operation" and not subject to copyright. Lotus appealed to the Supreme Court... more

Now That Kurt Pritz Has Resigned over Conflict of Interest, Will a Transparent Investigation Follow?

Yesterday ICANN announced that its new CEO Fadi Chehade accepted ICANN Chief Strategy Officer Kurt Pritz's resignation over conflict of Interests -- will a transparent investigation follow? Otherwise, what else and what next? In a statement on its ICANN website, Fadi Chehade states: "Kurt has submitted his resignation because of a recently identified conflict of interest". more

DNSSEC Status Report: Signing Infrastructure Well Underway, User Experience Still Needs Work

The registries (gTLDS) are all moving towards signing in about a year. PIR and .org is going to be first with .edu, .biz, and others closely behind. The root is scheduled to be signed in the beginning of July (end of June looking at the holiday calendar) being the biggest milestone. Some of the roots already contain DNSSEC information. Other ccTLDs continue to turn DNSSEC on with countries on every continent signed. more

Can We Advance Policies Towards a Safe Transnational Internet Market for Medicines?

As 2020 draws to a close, it becomes possible to assess the trends from different policy areas that were most impacted by the global pandemic, with health-related policies rising to the top of that list. This article focuses on the sale of medicines using the Internet, as it should, without a doubt, be one of the leading concerns of both the general public and policymakers. There is a disconcerting lack of broader social debate around the subject, even though the need is so great. more

Scrutinize ICANN’s Thousand New-TLDs Limit

I am skeptical about how ICANN has arrived at a technical limit of a thousand new TLDs per year. The ICANN study driving this number must be made public so that our industry's risk management experts can size up the finding. Why am I skeptical? more

Internet Society Seeks Nominations for Board of Trustees

Are you passionate about preserving the global, open Internet? Do you have experience in Internet standards, development or public policy? If so, please consider applying for one of the open seats on the Internet Society Board of Trustees. The Internet Society serves a pivotal role in the world as a leader on Internet policy, technical, economic, and social matters, and as the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). more

The Digital Divide Has Persisted over the Life of the Internet

People have been trying to measure the global diffusion of the Internet and the digital divide between rich and poor nation for twenty five years. The first to do so was Larry Landweber, who noted whether or not a nation had an Internet (or other) connection. It was a binary metric -- yes or no -- and it was suitable to its time because there were only a handful of users who were restricted to teaching and research, using a few applications like email, file transfer, news groups and remote login. more

A Look at How the Internet Routes Around Damage: Measuring Global Effects of Storm Sandy

Hurricane Sandy caused major damage in both the Caribbean and the North-Eastern part of the USA. In an earlier article (RIPE Atlas - Superstorm Sandy) we showed data on 15 RIPE Atlas probes that are located in or near the affected areas in the USA. Most of these locations now appear to be back to normal round trip times to targets we monitor. But the effects of Hurricane Sandy were felt beyond the immediately affected area. more

Trump’s Cuba Policy and Its Impact on the Cuban Internet

On June 12th, I speculated on Trump's forthcoming Cuba policy and its impact on the Internet. He outlined his policy in a June 16th speech and the Treasury Department published a FAQ on forthcoming regulation changes. It looks like my (safe) predictions were accurate. I predicted he would attack President Obama, brag about what he had done, make relatively minor changes that would not upset businesses like cruise lines, airlines, and telecommunication and hotel companies. more

ARIN Seeks Caribbean candidate for Board of Trustees

Persons from the Caribbean seeking to contribute to the governance ecosystem of the global Internet can now volunteer for an appointment to the board of trustees of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). The call for volunteers will close on April 30 at 5 pm EDT. ARIN is one of five registries worldwide that coordinate Internet number resources. Its region spans the United States, Canada and many countries in the Caribbean. more