Featured Blogs

Part 2: Let’s Have an Honest Conversation About Huawei

In the first section of this piece, I argued that the anti-Huawei litany only makes sense when one realizes that it is the Chinese state, not a global telecommunication equipment manufacturer based in China, is the target of this attack. China, in this view, is an integrated monolith, and any Chinese firm can be ordered to do the government's will without any legal, political, or economic checks and balances. more

Proving and Rebutting Respondent Lacks Rights or Legitimate Interests in Accused Domain Names

Paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy requires complainants to offer evidence conclusive by itself or sufficient from which to infer that respondents lack rights or legitimate interests in the accused domain names. As I've pointed out in earlier essays (here and here) the standard of proof is low and relies on inference, for good reason; beyond the visual proof and what may be obtainable from on- and offline research, respondents control evidence of their choices. more

From Telegraph (1914) to Twitter (2014) - Are There Lessons to Be Learned?

Could the Great War have been avoided if leaders had gotten together and negotiated in person instead of exchanging telegrams? In the voluminous historiography of the origins of WWI, there is a very little on the role of the telegraph. Today, as Twitter takes its place conference rooms, we can learn a lot from the failure of telegraph diplomacy one century ago... The telegraph introduced the notion of 'virtual presence'; for the first time in human history, communication was detached from transportation. more

Agriculture At High-Speed: Project Updates on Bridging California’s Rural/Urban Digital Divide

When farms are connected to the Internet, we all benefit. Agriculture that gains real-time information about plants, soil, atmosphere, and irrigation, dubbed "precision agriculture", can save farmers 20-30% of their water consumption while increasing productivity by 20-70%, according to Valley Vision. The San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter is pleased to announce that we have started phase one of our collaborative project, "Bridging California's Rural/Urban Digital Divide with Mobile Broadband"... more

Outlawing Botnets

The European Commission is apparently considering the promulgation and adoption of a directive that would, at least in part, criminalize botnets. As I understand it, the premise behind adopting such a directive is that since botnets are capable of inflicting "harm" on a large scale, we need to separately criminalize them. I decided to examine the need for and utility of such legislation in this post. more

Cuba Reaches Five Million Mobile Accounts

Cubans now have 5 million mobile accounts. The five-millionth account was recently opened Guanabacoa, in the eastern part of Havana and we see here that growth slowed last year, but has resumed -- perhaps due to increased 3G availability. Most Cubans have 2G phones, which are used primarily for making calls and sending text messages that may have attached images. more

Call for Participation: Registration Operations Workshop at IETF-92

The next Registration Operations Workshop will take place at the start of IETF-92 on Sunday, March 22, 2015, at The Fairmont Dallas Hotel. The workshop will start at 12:30 p.m. CDT and will finish at 4:30 p.m. CDT. We are seeking proposals for Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) extensions to be featured as part of the workshop, including existing extensions that people wish to register with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)... more

Twitter, DDoS and the Motivations Behind the Attack

As we all know by now, last week, on Thursday, August 7, Twitter was hit with a denial-of-service attack that took it down for several hours. Other social networking sites like Facebook, LiveJournal, Youtube and Blogger were also hit. They managed to repel the attack although Facebook was not quite as successful as the other larger players. The theory floating about at the moment is that this was a politically oriented play designed to target one guy: a blogger. We are nearing the 1-year anniversary of a the Russian/Georgian 2008 war. There is a pro-Georgian blogger by the username of "Cyxymu" who had accounts on all of these services. more

Muzzled by the United Nations

The Internet Governance Forum is winding down today in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. There have been a lot of very constructive conversations in workshops and panels over the past four days about how to advance security, privacy, child protection, AND human rights and free expression on the Internet. Unfortunately, the biggest headline coming out of the forum so far has been an incident on Sunday... more

Computer Transactions, Not People, Are Driving the Need for All-Fibre Networks

Ever since we first became involved in developing policies and strategies for countries relating to what are now known as national broadband networks, we have argued that those taking part in the strategic decision-making processes of designing these networks should look, not at what broadband can do now, but at what high-speed broadband can do to assist countries to create the best opportunities for future developments. more

The Next New Media: Typewriters and Handwritten Letters

Who would have thought that typewriters and handwritten letters would ever be back in fashion? But back in 2013 it was reported that Russia was buying large quantities of typewriters. When this was further investigated the country denied that this was for security reasons. Since the Snowden revelations there has been a further rush on typewriters, both by government officials and by a range of, mainly corporate, businesses. more

CENTR Awards to Include Best Domain Name Registry as Chosen by Registrars

CENTR, the body which represent of European domain registries, will be holding its annual awards again this year. What's different for 2017 however is that they've added a new category: "Registry of the Year Award" ... And unlike with the other award categories, this one is open for voting to the registrar channel. The online voting or ranking is open now and is open to registrars who have a direct relationship with the registries. more

The Other Side of Security

The Denver edition of Security BSides took place a few weeks ago in a garage turned art gallery on the far end of Denver's emerging Santa Fe Arts District, right on the border between historic working-class neighborhoods and a rambling wasteland of building supply warehouses. ... The presentation I enjoyed most was "Top 10 Ways IT is Enabling Cybercrime," presented by Daniel J. Molina from Kaspersky Labs. He described how quickly threats are evolving, how many new threats are appearing every day, and explained that the targets aren't always who you'd expect. more

Timing Is All: Cybersquatting or Mark Owner Overreaching?

Admittedly, timing is not altogether "all" since there's a palette of factors that go into deciding unlawful registrations of domain names, and a decision as to whether a registrant is cybersquatting or a mark owner overreaching, is likely to include a number of them, but timing is nevertheless fundamental in determining the outcome. Was the mark in existence before the domain name was registered? Is complainant relying on an unregistered mark? What was complainant's reputation when the domain name was registered? What proof does complainant have that registrant had knowledge of its mark? Simply to have a mark is not conclusive of a right to the domain name. more

ICANN’s Comment Period on Accountability Process Seeks Scope Limitations

Bowing to unprecedented community pressure in the form of a unanimous letter questioning its staff-developed Accountability Process, as well as a reconsideration request filed with the Board, on September 5th ICANN issued a notice titled "Public Comment Invited: Enhancing ICANN Accountability Process". The notice opens a 21-day public comment period on that staff proposal. However, ICANN staff apparently cannot resist asserting some form of top-down control even what that very conduct is at issue, and the notice and accompanying explanation contain attempts to restrict and unduly channel the scope of community comment. more