Featured Blogs

From “Network Neutrality” to “Sender Pays”, the Principles Remain Much the Same

The entire set of issues of network neutrality, interconnection and settlements, termination monopolies, cost allocation and infrastructure investment economics is back with us again. This time it's not under the banner of "Network Neutrality" but under a more directly confronting title of "Sender Pays." The principle is much the same: network providers want to charge both their customers and the content providers to carry content to users. more

Brand Protection Beyond the “Whack-a-Mole” Approach

I recently shared at a conference how a seasoned brand and fraud expert from one of the world's largest global financial institutions lamented a major attack where multiple fraudulent websites would pop up every single day. All attacks were launched from the same registrar and web hosting company, and no matter how much they reached out to these providers, they received the same reply: "we will pass on your request to the registrant or site owner," and then nothing happened. more

International Fibre Bandwidth Hubbing, a Lucrative Business

The small West African country of Benin has been working quietly over the past few years to become a regional hub for international fibre bandwidth. The national telco, Benin Telecoms (BT) has been building terrestrial fibre routes to landlocked neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger, allowing them to connect to its landing station for the SAT-3/WASC cable, the only one serving the region. more

Explaining the Legal Enforceability of the PIC Proposed by Ethos for .ORG

Ethos Capital has recently announced that it has voluntarily proposed to add an amendment to Public Interest Registry's (PIR) .ORG Registry Agreement with ICANN in the form of a Public Interest Commitment, also known as a "PIC." In the press release Ethos indicated that the PIC would become "legally binding" and "enforceable" both by ICANN and by members of the community. I anticipate that some would ask a number of logical questions: How would that work in practice? more

Bug Bounty Programs: Are You Ready? (Part 1)

The premise of crowdsourcing the task of uncovering new bugs and vulnerabilities in an organization's web applications or consumer products sounds compelling to many. What's not to like with the prospect of "many eyes" poking and prodding away at a corporate system for a minimal reward -- and preemptively uncovering flaws that could have been exploited by hackers with nefarious intent? more

ICANN, Ukraine and Leveraging Internet Identifiers

Ukraine's representative to ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) has sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to remove Russian-administered top level domains (.RU, .SU and .рф) from the DNS root zone. In a separate letter, Ukraine's representative also asked RIPE NCC to withdraw the right to use all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses by all Russian members of the regional IP registry for the European region. more

.ORG and Change

The .ORG domain is at a crossroads: What will it be? A simple registry offering domain names for organizations, individuals and others? Or something bigger, as Ethos Capital and the Public Internet Registry propose? Will proposed changes make .ORG better? Or worse? There are valid points on both sides, but as an Internet safety advocate who for two decades has worked to teach children how to be safe online, stop the next young girl from being sex trafficked, and... more

DCA’s Submission to Congressional Hearing on “Stakeholder Perspectives on the IANA Transition”

This is the advance submission that DotConnectAfrica Trust sent to the Chairman of the House Sub-Committee hearing on Communications and Technology, Energy and Commerce Committee, United States House of Representatives, 114th United States Congress in advance of the Congressional Hearing on "Stakeholder Perspectives on the IANA Transition", on May 13, 2015. more

Internet Week Guyana Advances Caribbean Tech Development Agenda

Around the world, the growing sophistication of cyber criminals is challenging the capacity of governments, businesses and individuals to defend themselves. In the Caribbean, governments are forging strategic partnerships with regional actors like the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) and the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), the region's largest volunteer-based community of network engineers, computer security experts and tech aficionados. more

Which Direction Will the Internet Go? Take Our Survey and Help Us Explore the Forces at Work

In the past seven years, the number of people online has essentially doubled, from 1.7 billion in 2009 to about 3.4 billion today. New and innovative services have also emerged and people and companies around the world are using the Internet in ways barely imagined at the turn of the decade. Looking ahead to the next five to seven years, there are many forces at work that could have a significant impact on the Internet. more

Cloud Marketplaces Help Cut Through Confusing IaaS Pricing

A recent study from 451 Research reveals some interesting facts about the nature and complexity of cloud pricing. In theory, one of the major benefits of using the cloud is that on-demand pricing makes it easy to know exactly how much a company will be spending and avoid large-scale capital expenditure. That's certainly true, but the cloud space has yet to develop into a fully mature market, which means that companies have to tangle with wildly different pricing models and the cost itself can vary between vendors. more

Strengthening Caribbean Internet Capacity to Support Local Online Services

The Caribbean needs more robust infrastructure to support the delivery of local online services during the COVID-19 pandemic and for crises to come. Public health and safety mandates, from social distancing and quarantines to stay-at-home orders and curfews, have confined an estimated one billion persons to their homes globally. The sudden restrictions on social movement have created a reliance on the Internet and technology-enabled services. This should come as no surprise. more

Deadline of Friday, Dec 15, for Nominations to Internet Society Board of Trustees

As I noted last month, this Friday, December 15, 2017, at 15:00 UTC is the deadline to nominate someone for the Internet Society's Board of Trustees. Anyone who supports the mission of the Internet Society is welcome to submit a nomination (for yourself or for someone you think should be considered). The Internet Society serves a pivotal role in the world as a leader on Internet policy, technical, economic, and social matters, and as the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). more

Is Booking.com a Generic Term?

A fundamental rule of trademarks is that they have to be distinctive, and that nobody can register a trademark on a generic term like "wine" or "plastic." In a case decided today by the U.S. Supreme Court, the court decided 8-1 that online travel agent Booking.com could register its domain name as a trademark. In this case, I think the majority got it wrong, and Justice Breyer's lone dissent is correct. more

Ailing ETO-2002 and the Demise of PKI

The only Cyber law passed in Pakistan till date is the famous ETO-2002 (Electronic Transaction Ordinance - 2002). It required Ministry of IT&T to set up a Central Repository for all digital certificates and in addition to set up a body to be named as Electronic Certification Accreditation Council (ECAC) to accredit Electronic Certification Authorities to be established in the country... In this regard, government has not only closed its eyes and has blindly trusted the only certificate authority (CA) in the country operated by a private business group, it has also mandated the citizens and business to trust it. Case in point is Central Board of Revenue (CBR) that has told all taxpayers to digitally sign the emails using the certificates issued by this private party... more