Featured Blogs

IPv6’s Long March

With the thousands of IPv6 controlled lights dimming over the 2008 Olympics, the long march on the road to IPv6 continues as the Olympic IPv6 Workout enters history. The early objective of full commercial deployment for 2008 proved elusive and more realistic goals were set and met with success. Not wasting any time, the starting shot toward commercial deployment followed on the heels of the closing ceremony with the august 25th announcement... more

Chehadé Sends ICANN Board Farewell Letter

ICANN's current CEO Fadi Chehadé is leaving the organisation in a few weeks time. His replacement has been announced and the upcoming public meeting in Marrakech, Morrocco, will be Chehadé's final public engagement as ICANN CEO. A couple of days ago Chehadé sent the ICANN board a letter entitled "Summary of My Tenure". While the letter may have been addressed to the board, it was published on the ICANN website immediately. more

A Bigger Boat: Application Security Outgrows Capacity for CIOs

There is a classic scene in the movie, "Jaws," when Roy Scheider gets a look at the size of the shark circling his fishing vessel and says, "We're going to need a bigger boat." The same case can be made for CIOs dealing today with application security. Hackers from all over the world are circling business and government like great whites looking for vulnerabilities in Internet-facing applications. The growth of applications is great for doing business but they have become chum in the water for predators. more

New Book: Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS

The idea behind my recent book "Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS" is to provide a unifying overview around the area of domains and naming where I think there exists an artificial divide, and that divide exists between domain policy, and managing ones' domain portfolio; and the DNS ops side of things: running your nameservers or outsourcing to a vendor, or both. I've been doing this for over 20 years, I've seen almost every failure condition that can happen to your domain or DNS... more

Will We See IPv6-Enabled Consumer Devices at CES This Week?

What kind of IPv6 support will we see in consumer devices at the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in Las Vegas this week? The show is already underway and much of the tech media is already writing in breathless prose about the latest tablets, notebooks and zillions of other consumer devices making their debut at CES. While the bright-shiny-object-chasing side of me definitely notices those articles, my own interest is on a deeper and far more technical level. more

Presenting a Way Forward: Step-by-Step and ICANN’s New gTLD Process

I read this to the ICANN Board Thursday morning, in Sydney, after more prep work than I care to recall. If you don't know that the DAGv3 is delayed, or what the IRT is, this is a good time to bush up on current ICANN state. "Good morning. My name is Eric Brunner-Williams, and I am speaking to you on behalf of the initial signatories of the Step-by-Step proposal. I represent one of the signatories as the principal of the native, aboriginal, and indigenous cultural and linguistic Top-Level Domain (TLD) project, one of many similar efforts to preserve living languages and cultures..." more

Future Network Forum to Be Held in Nanjing in December 2015

Between December 10th and 11th 2015, the China Future Network Development and Innovation Forum, jointly hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Nanjing Municipal Government, is scheduled to be held in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. The forum will be jointly organized by Jiangsu Future Networks Innovation Institute and Beijing Internet Institute, with the theme of "Building future network test facilities and promoting network development & innovation", and it will invite nearly a hundred industrial experts at home and abroad, to establish a platform marked by security, innovation, openness, cooperation where the policy, industry, academics, and application are integrated. more

Customer Confusion over New(ish) gTLDs Targeting Financial Services

For the last decade and a bit, banking customers have been relentlessly targeted by professional phishers with a never-ending barrage of deceitful emails, malicious websites and unstoppable crimeware -- each campaign seeking to relieve the victim of their online banking credentials and funds. In the battle for the high-ground, many client-side and server-side security technologies have been invented and consequently circumvented over the years. Now we're about to enter a new era of mitigation attempts... more

Does Renewing a Domain Name Count as “Registering” a Domain Name Under the ACPA?

The U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA") is a federal law -- part of the Lanham Act that deals with trademarks and unfair competition. It says that a person can be liable if he or she registers a domain name that contains another's distinctive trademark with a bad faith intent to profit from that mark. One issue that has arisen over the years is whether registration that can give rise to liability means only the first time the domain name is registered, or whether it applies to the re-registration... 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

A Peek Inside the FCC

I write a lot about the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but I imagine a lot of folks don't realize the many functions the agency handles. Like any regulatory agency, the FCC staff and Commissioners have been tasked by Congress with a wide range of responsibilities. The public gets to hear from the FCC formally once each month ... more

A Cynic’s View of 2015 Security Predictions - Part 1

Cyber security was a hot topic in 2014. It seemed not a week went by without details of a high profile data breach hitting the headlines. To recap, the Sony breach was one of the most notable, as was the Home Depot hack, while details of widespread security vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed, Shellshock and Poodle were also revealed. But what will 2015 bring? Will it be more of the same, or have cyber criminals got some new tricks up their sleeves? more

Solving the .US Registrant Data Directory Services (RDDS) Conundrum

Recently ten Democratic Members of Congress wrote a letter to Alan Davidson, head of the NTIA, requesting that the "NTIA immediately cease the public disclosure of personal information about users of .US" country code top-level domain (ccTLD). This communication highlights a significant concern regarding domain registration data: the need to protect the privacy rights of Registrants. However, an equally significant concern regarding registration data was raised... more

Unpacking the Framework to Address DNS Abuse

As the Internet has grown, so too have the abuses that go along with one of the world's most transformative technologies. For all of the positives the Internet brings, negatives like phishing, malware and child exploitation are a reality online. As of December 9, 2019, 48 registrars and registries have signed onto the "Framework to Address Abuse." This initiative was launched last month by a number of domain name registries and registrars, just prior to the ICANN meeting in Montreal. more

Accountability and Redress

In ICANN circles these days, accountability is the buzz word. Nearly everybody is talking about it. Generally everybody is in favor of it, but that's where the agreement ends. This paper urges action by ICANN to provide a means for redress of grievances as an essential element of accountability. I would like to review the ICM case (the delegation of the .xxx domain), and the role of ICANN's Independent Review Panel (the IRP). As you will recall, the ICANN Board had originally awarded .xxx to ICM, but in a subsequent reconsideration had reversed the award. more