Featured Blogs

Keeping IT Industry Developments in Context

The announcement that Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt is standing down from the Apple board hardly came as a surprise. Google's Android is already powering smartphones that offer an open alternative to Apple's iPhone, while the recent announcement of plans for Chrome OS, an operating system that will directly challenge Mac OS, makes Google a direct competitor to Apple in its core market... more

The Jaynes Case is Finally Over

Last September the Virginia Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that reversed its previous decision and threw out the state’s anti-spam law on First Amendment grounds. The Commonwealth made a last ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court, which I predicted they’d be unlikely to accept. I guessed right... more

Perhaps It’s Time to Regulate Microsoft as Critical Infrastructure?

My main argument is about the policy of handling vulnerabilities for 6 months without patching (such as the Google attacks 0day apparently was) and the policy of waiting a whole month before patching this very same vulnerability when it first became an in-the-wild 0day exploit (it has now been patched, ahead of schedule). Microsoft is the main proponent of responsible disclosure, and has shown it is a responsible vendor... I simply call on it to stay responsible and amend its faulty and dangerous policies. more

How Domain Data Helps Thwart BEC Fraud

It's true, domain data has many practical uses that individuals and organizations may or may not know about. But most would likely be interested in how it can help combat cyber threats, which have been identified as the greatest risks businesses will face this year. Dubbed as the greatest bane of most organizations today, cybersecurity can actually be enhanced with the help of domain data. How? more

Brand Abuse and IP Infringements – Part 1: Brand Impact

In this two-part blog series, we take a closer look at brand abuse and intellectual property (IP) infringements. In this first article, we explore the components making up a company's IP and how online content can affect a brand's value, both actual and perceived... The IP held by an organization -- i.e., the portfolio of brands, trademarks, and other intangible assets that provide it with its distinctiveness, and protect it from unfair competition in the marketplace... more

Internet Governance Survey: What You Told Us

What do people perceive to be the top issues facing the Internet today? How can stakeholders work more effectively together to strengthen the governance mechanisms meant to address these issues? And when it comes to the Internet Society, what should our role be and where should we focus our attention? To help inform our work in Internet governance, we posed these and other questions to our community in February. We had an overwhelming response with over 800 people taking a few minutes of their time to answer our survey. more

Hundreds of “George Floyd” and “Black Lives Matter” Domain Names Appear in the DNS

Trending news and global events impact domain registration behaviors. We observed a slew of coronavirus-themed domain name registrations, for example, as early as January. George Floyd's death, which sparked several Black Lives Matter movements, is no different. Three days after George Floyd died, our data feed started detecting George Floyd-themed domain names... We retrieved all domain names that contain the strings "eorge," and "lackliv" from 28 May to 7 June and found 402. more

Experience ‘a Walk in the Shoes of a Registry Operator’ at ICANN 61

One of the ever-present questions in the domain name community is "have new TLDs been a success in the marketplace?" As many within the industry will appreciate, it's a difficult question to answer using traditional metrics (such as domain registration volumes), and it is important to remember that the new TLD expansion in 2012 was all about diversity, competition and choice. more

Software-Defined Networking: What’s New, and What’s New for Tech Policy?

The Silicon Flatirons Conference on Regulating Computing and Code is taking place in Boulder. The annual conference addresses a range of issues at the intersection of technology and policy and provides an excellent look ahead to the tech policy issues on the horizon, particularly in telecommunications. I was looking forward to yesterday's panel on "The Triumph of Software and Software-Defined Networks", which had some good discussion on the ongoing problem surrounding security and privacy of the Internet of Things (IoT)... more

The Latter is Coded to Criticize the New - Lessons from Depew

This month, we are seeing a very busy global ecosystem with the ICANN 51, UN General Assembly meeting to discuss ICT for Development in New York and now the 19th ITU Plenipotentiary in Busan. Pinktober, Oktoberfest has also become saturated with ICTober so it makes me more reflective. First I would like to make a massive shout out to all those battling cancer, survivors and families who wage war against cancer. May you all walk on and walk strong! more

Internet Control Without “Firewalls”

Open Society Fellow Evgeny Morozov and I have written an Op-Ed for Project Syndicate about how the future of Internet control is not "firewall" censorship but more subtle forms of manipulation and pressure. Recognizing that censorship is too heavy handed and imperfect to be successful on its own, the Chinese government's Internet strategy is placing increasing emphasis on corporate self-censorship... more

DMCA Reaches the Decade Mark

My friend Kevin Thompson over at Cyberlaw Central reminded me this morning in this post that President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ten years ago today. Tempus fugit. It's interesting to reflect on how this critical piece of legislation has affected (I think fostered) the growth of the online infrastructure with its safe harbor provisions found at 17 U.S.C. 512. more

Human Rights and the Digital Domain Primer - Part 4

The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, as the globally accepted standard, should serve us as the guiding light when it comes to striking the delicate balance between our rights and responsibilities on and off-line. more

The Incredible Leakyness of Commercial Mailers (Cont’d)

Last week I blogged about the way that lots of otherwise legitimate companies leak e-mail addresses to spammers. Here's a few more thoughts. One person asked how I knew that these were leaks, and not dictionary attacks, since the addresses I use are fairly obvious, the name of an often well known company @ my domain. It's a reasonable question, but the answer is simple... more

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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