Featured Blogs

Do-It-Yourself Rural Fiber

I doubt that any elementary school in the US has fiber to the premises, but, in 2013, an elementary school in rural Bhutan was connected to the Internet using optical fiber in the "last mile." They were able to connect the school because the cabling they used, metal-packed armored cable (M-PAC), which is modeled on undersea cables, does not have to be in a protective duct. It is 4mm in diameter, light and flexible, so it can be installed by supervised volunteers or unskilled workers.
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Can We Really Blame DNSSEC for Larger-Volume DDoS attacks?

In its security bulletin, Akamai's Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT) reported on abuse of DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) when mounting a volumetric reflection-amplification attack. This is not news, but I'll use this opportunity to talk a bit about whether there is a trade-off between the increased security provided by DNSSEC and increased size of DNS responses that can be leveraged by the attackers. more

Wikileaks, the CIA, and the Press

As you've probably read, WikiLeaks has released a trove of purported CIA documents describing their hacking tools. There's a lot more that will be learned, as people work their way through the documents. For now, though, I want to focus on something that's being misreported, possibly because of deliberately misleading text by WikiLeaks itself. Here's the text from WikiLeaks... more

A Repeat Performance for Cable TV 3Q22

Traditional cable providers in the United States continue to lose cable TV customers at the same fast pace as the second quarter of the year. In the third quarter, the cable companies list 1.68 million customers after losing over 1.65 million customers in the second quarter. These numbers come from Leichtman Research Group, which compiles most of these numbers from the statistics provided to stockholders, except for Cox, which is privately held and estimated. more

Content - The Next Regulatory War Zone

At the 2014 TelSoc Charles Todd Oration the former Chair of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel, warned against the looming content monopoly... "There is a constant risk that the exclusive tie-up of rights to content for new and emerging markets will allow the right holders to shut out competition across a wide range of services delivered over new networks." He didn't think that the current telcos have the right expertise to enter the content market... more

7th Registration Operations Workshop (ROW), Vancouver, Thursday May 17th 2018

The Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) was conceived as an informal industry conference that would provide a forum for discussion of the technical aspects of registration operations in the domain name system. The 7th ROW will be held in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday, May 17th 2018 in the afternoon, at the end of the GDD Industry Summit, in the same venue. more

Renesys Chronicles Today’s Internet Blackout in the Sudan (Now Restored)

The team over at Renesys has once again provided a great analysis of an Internet outage in a country, this time in Sudan. In the article simply titled "Internet Blackout in Sudan", Doug Madory writes: A few hours ago, we observed a total Internet blackout in Sudan and, as we publish this blog, the Internet remains largely unavailable. By count of impacted networks, it is the largest national blackout since Egypt disconnected itself in January 2011..." more

Join An Online Dialogue About Encryption - Wednesday, May 25, at 13:30 UTC

What are your concerns around encryption? What questions do you have about the legal, technical and policy aspects of the increasing use of encryption? How does encryption help bring about a higher level of trust in the Internet? On Wednesday, May 25, the Internet Society and its Greater Washington, DC Chapter are hosting an "Online Dialogue About Encryption" to discuss all these questions and many more. more

Be Wary of 5G Hardware

We've now entered the period of 5G competition where the wireless carriers are trying to outdo each other in announcing 5G rollouts. If you believe the announcements, you'd think 5G is soon going to be everywhere. Device manufacturers are joining the fray and are advertising devices that can be used with the early carrier 5G products. Buyers beware -- because most of what the cellular companies and the manufacturers are hyping as 5G is not yet 5G. more

Essential Cyber Security Steps for Your Business

Layered security is a concept that's important for anyone who wants to create a strong, successful defense strategy to understand. This is a strategy that relies on the use of multiple lines of defense in an attempt to repel any potential attacks. For this reason, it's based on the principle that says "no single form of protection is enough to stop a determined cybercriminal. more

Senate Letter to ICANN Board Showcases Critical Misunderstanding of What ICANN Is

Today's new U.S. Senate letter to ICANN - the latest in a series of letters on the work of the ICANN technical communities - is disturbingly well crafted. If taken at face value, it even seems to lend credence to the idea that ICANN is potentially a perpetuator of the limiting of free speech, and it could be seen as a break in the narrative that i2Coalition perpetuates, that the IANA transition is a positive step in strengthening multistakeholderism over dangerous multilateralism when it comes to Internet governance. more

Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion of Privacy” Being Investigated by Connecticut AG

What happens to companies when they get too big for their own good? Do they inadvertently do things that potentially harm our privacy (think Facebook)? Or, do they simply make mistakes that violate our privacy? Well, last month Google revealed that its Street View cars "mistakenly" captured content flowing over wireless networks -- a potential invasion of privacy. more

NJ Content Liability Law Ruled Inconsistent with Sec. 230 (just like in Washington and Tennesse)

Back in a time before most members of Congress or prosecutors knew that there was an Internet, there was Prodigy. Prodigy, as part of its service, ran family-friendly chat rooms that it moderated in an effort to keep kids protected from unfortunate content. In a different Prodigy chat room, some unknown third party said something apparently bad about an investment firm Stratton-Oakmont. Stratton-Oakmont didn't like that very much, and sued. more

A Civil Society Perspective on NETmundial Final Outcome: A Remarkable Achievement Despite Losses

few 'big picture' thoughts on the Netmundial meeting in Brazil this week and its final outcome document, adopted by its high level committee. Overall, there are some truly amazing and forward-looking principles supported in the "Netmundial Multi-Stakeholder Statement" that we as civil society should be proud of, and especially our civil society representatives who worked tirelessly for this achievement. more

UN Moves on Internet Governance: Latest Dispatch

Some unsettling plans declared themselves at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) this week as countries prepared for the up-coming treaty-making jamboree called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). This community will now have to decide what it does about them. ... It was significant to the CircleID community that the ITU's top dog -- the Secretary General - appeared in person before the assembled countries with a reassurance: the broad and unusual WCIT treaty negotiation, though it may treat many issues, would not take up Internet governance. more