Featured Blogs

Personalized Search Opacity

Google announced Friday that it would now be "personalizing" all searches, not just those for signed-in users. If your browser has a Google cookie, unless you've explicitly opted out, your search results will be customized based on search history. Danny Sullivan, at Search Engine Land, wonders why more people aren't paying attention. more

What Did the Bush Admin Promise the Telco’s in Early 2001?

I have a hypothesis: The Bush administration came to power in December 2000. American telcos were on the precipice about to go into Free fall. We have seen how Bush politicized the Justice Department and are much more aware thanks to John Dean's Broken Government and Charlie Savage's Take Over of the intense desire to aggregate executive power to feed the Addingtons belief in the Unitary Executive. We now know that Cheney was meeting with the energy industry in early 2001 promising them whatever they wanted. We may begin to ask what the domestic telecoms industry was being promised? more

Live Today: IXPs and the Relationship Between Geography and Network Topology

Today at 5:10pm EDT the IETF 90 Technical Plenary will be streamed live out of Toronto, Canada... After some initial reports, the technical focus will be on "Network topology and geography." The session will be recorded for later viewing. The slides are online and from what I can see it should be a very interesting talk for those of interested in the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. more

The Broadband Numbers Racket

Financial Times has an article called The broadband numbers racket, by former FCC chief economist Thomas Hazlett, now a professor of law and economics at George Mason University. Hazlett points out that too many people use superficial selection of statistics to bolster questionable policy positions. more

Heading Into Panama for ICANN62

Well amazingly, it's that time again. Next week, individuals from around the world with a keen interest in Internet policy will head to Panama City, Panama for the second ICANN meeting of the year. As always, Brandsight will be attending to follow all of the important policy work being carried out by the community. Before I head off to the meeting (which based on my research will actually be my 32nd ICANN meeting!), I'd like to share a preview of the major topics slated for discussion. more

A Q&A on Google’s New gTLD Solution, Nomulus

Nomulus is the code for the backend domain name registry solution offered by Google which requires the use of Google Cloud. This solution is the one used for all of Google's new gTLDs and the solution works. An announcement for this solution can look like a potentially "simple" solution for future .BRAND new gTLD applicants, but is it truly the case? more

Hacking: Users, Computers, and Systems

As many people have heard, there's been a security problem at the Internal Revenue Service. Some stories have used the word hack; other people, though, have complained that nothing was hacked, that the only problem was unauthorized access to taxpayer data but via authorized, intentionally built channels. The problem with this analysis is that it's looking at security from far too narrow a perspective... more

A Cynic’s View of 2015 Security Predictions - Part 4

Lastly, and certainly not the least, part four of my security predictions takes a deeper dive into mobile threats and what companies and consumer can do to protect themselves. If there is one particular threat category that has been repeatedly singled out for the next great wave of threats, it has to be the mobile platform -- in particular, smartphones... The general consensus of prediction was that we're (once again) on the cusp of a pandemic threat. more

Changes in the ICANN Board’s Operational Activities

One of the more interesting developments in this new year is the proposed changes in how, or perhaps more accurately, when the ICANN Board will undertake its activities. Historically, the ICANN Board has held monthly teleconferences (Special Board Meetings), with the exception of those months when the ICANN Board meet in person as part of a regional meeting (Regular Board Meeting). Approximately five years ago, the ICANN Board also began holding bi-annual retreats as part of their regular business activities. Interestingly, the proposed 2010 agenda for the ICANN Board has only four proposed Special Meetings... more

I Needed Music ‘cos I Had None…

The latest report on young people's online music-finding habits from consumer research company The Leading Question has attracted a fair amount of coverage for its headline finding that UK teenagers use of filesharing services has dropped by a third... Music industry pollsters will inevitably look for a silver lining in the cloud of consumer behaviour, and a focus on the growth of legal services is to be expected. But even with that caveat in mind, there has clearly been a shift in behaviour as more young people find licensed ways to listen to the music they want, watching YouTube videos, streaming songs through MySpace and Spotify and generally using legal avenues to find and enjoy the music of new bands like Florence and the Machine. more

The Epsilon Phishing Model

Phishing researcher Gary Warner's always interesting blog offers some fresh perspective on clicking links on emails, as the crux of the phishing problem. Gary writes: "There is a saying 'if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime.' In the case of the Epsilon email breach the saying might be 'if you teach a man to be phished, he'll be a victim for a lifetime.' In order to illustrate my point, let's look at a few of the security flaws in the business model of email-based marketing, using Epsilon Interactive and their communications as some examples." more

Internet’s New “Big Bang” Creates Chance to Put Down Roots

The Internet has done as much as the jet engine to shrink the distance between where we are and where we want to go. Even the propeller-type connectivity of dial-up was a giant leap forward. But as much as the technology has allowed us to go with ease to any place we choose - to learn, to be heard, to promote - equally powerful is the platform's ability to help us gather. The phenomena of social media services like LinkedIn and Facebook are present day proof of this human urge. more

Singapore’s Fiber Infrastructure Beginning to Pay Off

It's still early days, but Singapore's approach to fiber deployment is beginning to pay off. In December 2007, Singapore announced a major program to get fiber deployed throughout their city state. A critical advantage of their approach was government mandated structural separation between the dark fiber layer deployed in the public right-of-way (a natural monopoly) and higher layer services (where competition is possible and highly desirable. more

Domains Locked in London Police Takedown Ordered to Be Transferred

The National Arbitration Forum has just handed down its decision in respect to the three domain names locked down at Public Domain Registry in response to the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit takedown requests. The decision is in favour of easyDNS and orders the three names to be transferred to us. more

Will LTE Steal the Broadband Revolution?

There is no doubt that LTE is going to take a prime position in broadband developments. With competitively priced services, innovative smartphones and an increasing range of very innovative apps this market is set to continue to boom. So how will all this impact the overall broadband market? ...this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. more