Featured Blogs

Red Tape Set to Snuff Out Online Identity of Wales

Wales, a small Celtic country that has proudly withstood the depredations of Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and tourists, which has given the world everything from an enduring mythology to the world's longest single-world domain name, has been informed that they will not be allowed to proceed with .CYM (short for the Welsh name for Wales, Cymru) because that three-letter code is already claimed by the Cayman Islands. more

Thoughts on the Proposed Copyright Alternative Dispute Resolution Policy

A proposal from the Domain Name Association (DNA) would provide copyright owners with a new tool to fight online infringement -- but the idea is, like other efforts to protect intellectual property rights on the Internet, proving controversial. The proposed Copyright Alternative Dispute Resolution Policy is one of four parts of the DNA's "Healthy Domains Initiative" (HDI). more

2012: The Year of Securing Websites?

In a seemingly never-ending row of news on hacks of websites now the news in which 2.3 million individual cases of privacy sensitive data were accessible through a leak in the websites of most public broadcasting stations in the Netherlands. To make the news more cheerful, the accessible data was, if compiled, sufficient to successfully steal a complete identity. What were thoughts that came to my mind after hearing this news on Friday? more

Broadband and Household Income

Both broadband access and broadband speed positively affect household incomes, according to an analysis by Ericsson in conjunction with Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. This study is a continuation of earlier work by these partners on the impact of broadband. The earlier research concerned broadband's effects on the gross domestic product of entire countries; this study, "Socioeconomic Effects of Broadband Speed: a Microeconomic Investigation," examines the effects on individual households. more

Macro Musings for Digital Strategies Using Unstructured Data

When Doug Dawson wrote his article in February on Artificial Intelligence, he felt that #ai is saddled with too much hype as is its current counterpart, 5G. Certainly, there is a great deal of technology out there that deserves the hype and others that do not. After receiving a certification (Intro to AI) from IBM (while using Watson), I'm here to share that artificial intelligence, and its subsets of machine learning and deep learning definitely deserve a soundbite. more

Identify DDoS Attacks with Monitoring of Internal Applications (Part 1 of 3)

Most cloud DDoS mitigation services are offered on demand meaning that customers can enable the service when they are the victim of a DDoS attack. But how can a company find out -- quickly -- that it is under attack? Sometimes it is difficult to know. In this three part series, we will examine multiple monitoring tools companies can use to capture DDoS, which can help determine whether you are under a DDoS attack. more

Two Things Happened at the FCC Today

Paul Kaputska has the best wrap-up of the 700 MHz press releases and statements online, with comments from major players. Rick Whitt is polite and welcoming, noting the progress that's been made (who would have thought any move towards unlocking devices from networks was possible?) while saying it would have been better to have included wholesale requirements. But while even mainstream media was (finally) focusing on the moderate, incremental, and possibly hopelessly unenforceable (and ultimately meaningless) steps taken by the FCC today in announcing its auction rules, something else happened. more

What is Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP)?

An IPv4 address identifies your connection to the online world. IP addresses make it possible to host websites, manage secure communication, and engage in countless other essential, internet-related activities. Typically, when migrating to a new cloud provider, a business has only one path: lease the provider's IP addresses. But what if a business already has a block of IP addresses? more

Selecting ICANN’s Next CEO: A Letter to the Chair of the Board

Since ICANN's CEO announced (on Twitter) that he would be leaving in July 2012, the Internet has been abuzz with details on what happened and why. Rod Beckstrom's tenure so far has earned praise and criticism, much of the latter dwelling on his management style, and on the rate of turnover in ICANN's staff since his appointment. As for the praise, it was implicit in the official announcement put out by ICANN on 16 September, with a link to a list of the outgoing CEO's achievements. Many in our community have a vivid recollection of the criticism leveled at Beckstrom, during a plenary session in an ICANN international meeting, by Maria Farrell, a former staff member. more

Enterprise or Public Sector Investment in National Lambda Rail Presents a Unique Opportunity

Sometimes in our worries about the Duopoly, we fail to recognize that some extraordinary wealth of opportunity sits right underneath our noses. National Lambda Rail (NLR) is one such case. About six months ago I wrote in some detail about NLR and what made this entity different from previous attempts at research networks in the US... NLR runs on a philosophy of a user owned and administered research network. Intrernet2 (I2), during the ten years of its existence, has run on the basis of first a Qwest donated backbone known as Abilene and since November 2006 on the basis of a seven year managed services contract with Level 3 Communications. more

Breaking Down Silos Doesn’t Come Easy

"We need to break down silos", is a phrase often heard in national and international meetings around cyber security and enforcing cyber crime. So it is no coincidence that at the upcoming NLIGF (Netherlands Internet Governance Forum), the IGF, but also an EU driven event like ICT 2013 have "Breaking down silos" and "Building bridges" on the agenda. But what does it mean? And how to do so? more

Thinking Carefully About New gTLD Objections: Legal Rights (4 of 4)

This last article on the four new gTLD objections will look at the Legal Rights Objection ("LRO"). While other articles in this series have touched on trademark concepts at certain points, issues from that area of the law predominate in LRO. Here we review the pertinent LRO-related trademark concepts, with which many readers likely will have some familiarity from working with domains and the UDRP. Still, the theme of the first three articles applies here: Potential objections are more involved and complicated than they may seem, and require careful thought if they are to be made. more

ICANN Must Release the Single-Character .com Hostages from the IANA Impostor’s Warehouse

Most of the single-character .com labels were initially registered in 1993 by Dr. Jon Postel while performing work pursuant to a contract with, and funded by, the U.S. government and are currently assigned to a "shell registrar" created and controlled by ICANN. This shell - which is the 376th entry on ICANN's list of accredited registrars - is misleadingly identified as the IANA registrar while being engaged in the illicit warehousing of domain names for speculative purposes. more

Obstacles in OneWeb’s Negotiations with Russia

This case illustrates the fact that political, security, and financial negotiations may be as difficult as designing satellites and rockets for a would-be global Internet service provider. OneWeb is investing billions of dollars in a constellation of low-Earth orbit (LEO) Internet-service satellites. In 2015 they placed launch orders for 21 Russian-made Soyuz rockets. more

Overreaching Trademark Owners and the Misguided Better Right Theory of Domain Name Ownership

In Blogs devoted to news from the domain name industry and domainers, there is great glee in reporting about overreaching trademark owners. The reason for the glee, I think, is that it's a form of collective sigh from domainers and the domain industry that the UDRP is working as it should, which means that Panels are careful in their assessments of parties' rights. more