Featured Blogs

Satellite Internet Access That Could Be Good

According to The Wall Street Journal, a company called O3b Networks LTD Traditional is planning to launch up to 16 satellites by the end of 2010 to provide Internet access in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America. This satellite plan, unlike many others, could be good. These are low earth orbit satellites or LEOs so they will be able to avoid the latency problems which are unavoidable with the geostationary satellites used by companies like WildBlue and Hughes to provide "last resort" Internet access in the US. more

Mobile World Congress and the Big Business Model Clash in Barcelona

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona attracted some of the most important people in the broader telecommunications industry. While they were not necessarily all together at the same time it was good to analyse their presentations and the comments they made within the broader context of the market, to get a clearer picture of where the industry is heading -- or, perhaps more importantly -- where those players are trying to push the industry from their own positions. more

White Spaces: Timing

Last week's emergency petition by the broadcasters to delay the FCC's Nov. 4 vote is just part of the white spaces atmosphere right now. Ars Technica reports that the mud is really flying -- the broadcasters are accusing proponents of white space use of wanting to kill off television. It's a familiar argument -- "If you do Y, broadcast television as we know it will be destroyed." more

Starlink in Ukraine: What Three Years of Wartime Connectivity Taught Us

What began as an emergency response evolved into critical wartime infrastructure. Ukraine's experience with Starlink reveals the strategic risks and benefits of relying on privately operated networks for national resilience and defence. more

(DNS) Security Protocols Do What They Say on the Tin

DNS-over-TLS has recently become a welcome addition to the range of security protocols supported by DNS. It joins TSIG, SIG(0) and DNSSEC to add privacy, and, in the absence of validating stub resolvers, necessary data integrity on the link between a full-service resolver and the users' stub resolver. (The authenticated source feature of TLS may also offer some additional benefits for those of a nervous disposition.) Good stuff. What is not good stuff is... more

Is the New gTLD Program Approval Even a Chance for This Year?

As I noted in my recent comments on CircleID, the recent resolutions from the Special Meeting of the ICANN Board held in Norway in late September left a few important new gTLD issues up in the air and created a little uncertainty in the marketplace. ... However, whilst sign-off on the program is still not guaranteed to occur in December, a recent interesting post on the GNSO mailing list from ICANN's Senior Vice President... more

Satellites Directly to Cellphones

AT&T and satellite company AST SpaceMobile announced a partnership to provide satellite cellular service directly from satellites to cellphones. This will provide a service that is much needed for the billions of remote users who are not in the range of a cell tower. This is an emerging industry that is still being referred to by different acronyms. more

Europe and Data Protection: We Need a Real Debate - Exactly What We Don’t Have Now

Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more

Set-Top-Box Revisited: How Does the Gateway Solution Increase Competition?

The FCC seems determined in revisiting and repairing the current CableCard rules fiasco in which it chose to mandate a universal Set-Top-Box for Cable, Telco, and DBS providers. Where does a solution lie, and is the FCC going down another road of improbable acceptance? The problem with a CableCard solution, in an attempt to create more competition, was the opening of current provider STB's to access other venues, which turned out to be both technically and business concept unfriendly. more

Security, Backdoors and Control

Encryption is a way to keep private information private in the digital world. But there are government actors, particularly here in the US, that want access to our private data. The NSA has been snooping our data for years. Backdoors have been snuck into router encryption code to make it easier to break. Today at M³AAWG we had a keynote from Kim Zetter, talking about Stuxnet and how it spread well outside the control of the people who created it. more

2023 Routing Security Summit Starts July 17 - Participate Virtually

Interested in learning more about routing security? How it can affect your connectivity supply chain? What are best practices for enterprises and organizations? What is the role of CSIRTs in securing routing? What are governments doing now, and planning to do in the future around routing security? more

One Year Later: Lessons Learned from the Target Breach

As the autumn leaves fall from naked trees to be trampled or encased in the winter snow, it reminds us of another year quickly gone by. Yet, for organisations that were breached and publicly scrutinised for their security lapses, it's been a long and arduous year. It was about this time last year that the news broke of Target's mega breach. Every news outlet was following the story and drip feeding readers with details, speculation and "expert opinion" on what happened, why it happened and who did it. more

Ralsky Indicted, CAN-SPAM is Still Useless

Well, I read the indictment (available here from Spamhaus.) It's a long litany of criminal behavior, primarily pump and dump stock fraud of a long list of penny stocks from the US and China. Ralsky is described as the "chief executive officer and overall leader" of the scheme... The thing that strikes me about this indictment is that although it includes a lot of CAN SPAM charges, everything Ralsky and Co. did was already illegal under conventional fraud and computer tampering laws. more

How Dormant Domains Can Be Weaponized During Events Like the 2024 U.S. Election

As with any high-stakes event, elections have become a prime target for cybercriminals seeking to exploit public trust through impersonation, misinformation, and scams. CSC's comprehensive research about the 2024 U.S. Election reveals the alarming role of dormant domains, which have the potential to be exploited for launching cyber attacks against political campaigns, organizations, and constituents. more

The Issue Is the Digital Economy, Not Broadband

After some five years of public debate on the national broadband network it is heartening to see that more and more people are getting the message that the network means more than just fast internet access. Increasingly key decision-makers in business and government are reaching an understanding of the transformation that is underway in the economy. more