Featured Blogs

Toxic Information

U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly worried that hackers could wreak havoc on the financial system. Read the story here in National Journal. Not that we need it, but here's yet another reason to worry about havoc in financial markets: U.S. intelligence officials increasingly fear that computer hackers could wreck banks and large financial institutions, or send stock markets into one more panicked frenzy, by covertly manipulating data and spreading false information. more

If It Doesn’t Exist, It Can’t Be Abused

A number of outlets have reported that the U.S. Post Service was hacked, apparently by the Chinese government. The big question, of course, is why. It probably isn't for ordinary criminal reasons: The intrusion was carried out by "a sophisticated actor that appears not to be interested in identity theft or credit card fraud," USPS spokesman David Partenheimer said. ... But no customer credit card information from post offices or online purchases at usps.com was breached, they said. more

How Long Does a URS Case Take?

The Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) -- which allows a trademark owner to suspend certain domain names, especially those in the "new" gTLDs -- was designed as a quicker and less-expensive alternative to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). As I've written frequently before, there are significant differences between the URS and the UDRP. One of those differences is how long a typical proceeding lasts. more

China and Taiwan to Lead the Development of 4G

China missed out on playing a leadership role in the development of 3G and as we predicted at that time, China would most certainly start looking at 4G for a major involvement in developing the technologies for it. more

EU Telecom Overhaul One Step Closer

Europe's electronic communications sector is currently governed by directives adopted in 2002. These stipulated that the directives and regulatory framework should be reviewed, a processed initialised in November 2007. Both the European Council and the European Parliament need to adopt the proposed changes, and none of the initial consultations conducted by the EC indicated that a major overhaul was on the cards, or even required. Yet this is what has transpired. more

Co-Operation to Make the Domain Business More Secure

In order to provide more security for the Domain Name System (DNS), a group of large domain-name registries and registrars has got together with IT security providers and government agencies to launch a new workgroup: the "Registry Internet Safety Group" (RISG). The announcement was made by the Public Internet Registry, which operates the .org domain, and its backend provider Afilias. more

The Early History of Usenet, Part VIII: The Great Renaming

The Great Renaming was a significant event in Usenet history since it involved issues of technology, money, and governance. From a personal perspective -- and remember that this series of blog posts is purely my recollections – it also marked the end of my "official" involvement in "running" Usenet. I put "running" in quotation marks in the previous sentence because of the difficulty of actually controlling a non-hierarchical, distributed system with no built-in, authenticated control mechanisms. more

CIDR in Networking: Improved IP Routing Efficiency

CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) is a routing system in which network engineers can distribute IP addresses based on the size of their specific network. This is more efficient than the previous system, which assigned IP addresses depending on whether the size of a network fits into one of only three sizes: Class A, Class B, and Class C. more

How Will Rural Chileans Use SpaceX Starlink?

The Chilean Undersecretary of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) has begun a year-long pilot study of SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service. I don't know how many test locations they are planning, but the first two have been selected. Last week I discussed the first, the John F. Kennedy school in Sotomó, an isolated town at 41.6° South on a fjord in Chile's Lake Region, and the second will be in Caleta Sierra on the coast about 1,200 miles north of Sotomó. SpaceX is also considering a European pilot study in Georgia and perhaps (hopefully) others. more

Just One Bit

I'm never surprised by the ability of an IETF Working Group to obsess over what to any outside observer would appear to be a completely trivial matter. Even so, I was impressed to see a large-scale discussion emerge over a single bit in a transport protocol being standardized by the IETF. Is this an example of a severe overload of obsessive-compulsive behaviour? Or does this single bit represent a major point of design principle... more

Is More Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Necessary on the Internet?

I firmly believe that we need to protect any form of intellectual properties (IP) built by one through hard and honest work. At the same time, I also believe that several of the current methods of protecting IP, such the as the copyright laws, patent systems and legislations, are not evolving fast enough in order to protect IP and avoid hindering the path of creativity and innovation. more

The Costs of a Dysfunctional Relationship - Part 2

Part 1 described the impasse between the ICANN board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) over the introduction of new gTLDs. This part analyzes the conflicts and offers suggestions for beginning to resolve them. ... Some of these conflicts turn out to have clear answers. Approving the DAG before public comments could be considered violated ICANN's bylaws, but the board has unmistakable authority to reject the GAC's advice. more

The Regulatory Arbitrage Lovefest

My day job, which includes finishing a book, updating a broadband law treatise, and trying to engage undergraduate students in the challenges of telecommunication and Internet policy, prevents me from weighing in each time I see yet another outrageous claim on such issues as network neutrality, broadband market penetration, and the competitiveness of U.S. telecoms markets. But I have to make time for this one. more

Why Does the Telco Industry Need to Change?

Over the last years the telecommunications market has been regulated on the basis of operating telephony services. Internet access has been added to this in recent years but it is still essentially linked to telephone line regulations. While major societal changes have been happening, since the 1980s at least, very few policy changes were made around the telecoms industry to enable it to play a key role in these changes. Key telecoms reforms in the mid- and late 1990s still refused to take a more multi-media -- or perhaps what we now call a trans-sector -- approach towards the industry. more

The Value of Community Broadband

There are many voices calling for increased initiatives by municipalities to build and operate broadband internet infrastructure as a public utility, but until this week, very little in the way of economic analysis to fully examine whether the benefits justify the costs. A paper released this week finds that local efforts produce small economic benefits, but cause a notable increase in the size of local government. more