Featured Blogs

Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies Honors Leading Companies at ICANN

Last week the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP Global; www.BuySafeRx.pharmacy) presented its inaugural Internet Pharmacy Safety E-Commerce Leadership Award to two organizations during the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Joint Meeting of the Registries and Registrars Stakeholder Groups at ICANN58 in Copenhagen, Denmark, it was announced on Tuesday. more

Application Delivery Controllers as Safety Net for Ad Servers

Ad serving platforms drive a lot of web site revenue. These software platforms grant a site manager control over local or remote ads appearing on his web site. Over the years these platforms grew in functionality and today they offer diverse functions... Performance issues on such a platform can take down the ads on dozens of different sites, causing massive loss of revenues to the site and the platform owners. more

A New Cellular Carrier?

One of the most interesting aspects of the proposed merger of Sprint and T-Mobile is that the agreement now includes selling some of Sprint's spectrum to Dish Networks to enable them to become a 5G cellular provider. This arrangement is part of the compromise required by the Department of Justice to preserve industry competition when the major wireless carriers shrink from four to three. more

Carpet Bombing in Cyber Space - Say Again?

I was pointed to an article in the Armed Forces Journal where Col Charles W. Williamson III argues that the US Air Force needs to develop a BOTnet army as part of the US military capability for retaliatory strikes. The article brings up some interesting issues, the one that I believe carries the most weight is the argument that we (well, people living on the Internet) are seeing an arms race. It is true that more and more nations are looking into or developing various forms of offensive weapons systems for the use on the Internet... more

Attacking DNS Abuse: The Next Amendments Needed

Abusive behavior that leverages the domain name system (DNS) continues to be a problem, with a reach that has been widely and credibly documented. There is little doubt that bad actors continue to use the DNS for nefarious and costly purposes. While the amendments made in 2024 to ICANN's Registry Agreement (RA) and Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) were a step in the right direction, more advanced tools are needed to bring abuse rates down. more

The Fibre Optic Path

In August 1858, Queen Victoria sent the first transatlantic telegram to U.S. President James Buchanan. The cable system had taken a total of four years to build and used seven copper wires, wrapped in a sheath of gutta-percha, then covered with a tarred hemp wrap and then sheathed in an 18-strand wrap, each strand made of 7 iron wires. It weighed 550kg per km, with a total weight of over 1.3Mkg. more

Correlation Between Country Governance Regimes & Reputation of Their Internet Address Allocations

We recently analyzed the reputation of a country's Internet (IPv4) addresses by examining the number of blacklisted IPv4 addresses that geolocate to a given country. We compared this indicator with two qualitative measures of each country's governance. We hypothesized that countries with more transparent, democratic governmental institutions would harbor a smaller fraction of misbehaving (blacklisted) hosts. The available data confirms this hypothesis. A similar correlation exists between perceived corruption and fraction of blacklisted IP addresses. more

Green Revolving Funds Can Help Fund Costs of Cloud Computing and R&E Networking

There have been some interesting new developments in university Green Revolving Funds (GRF) that I believe could be a significant revenue opportunity for cloud suppliers and R&E networks. In this age of severe financial constraints and cutbacks for universities, new revenue models are needed to sustain advanced cyber-infrastructure in support of research and education. more

Taking Permission

Permission is always a hot topic in email marketing. Permission is key! the experts tell us. Get permission to send email! the ISPs tell us. Marketers have responded by setting up processes to "get" permission from recipients before adding them to mailing lists. They point to their privacy polices and signup forms and say "Look! the recipient gave us permission." In many cases, though, the permission isn't given to the sender, permission is taken from the recipient. more

VoIP Security FUD

I'm continually amazed by the amount of FUD being spread with regard to VoIP security threats. People...the sky is not falling. VoIP isn't e-mail. It isn't implemented like e-mail, it won't be implemented like e-mail (maybe "it shouldn't be implemented like e-mail" is a more appropriate statement). Following best security practices will ensure at least a level of security equivalent to current TDM systems. Best FUD I've heard this week: VoIP is insecure because you can simply put a bridge on an ethernet line and capture a stream. Hey, has anyone ever heard of alligator clips? more

Moving ICANN Meeting from Marakech Would Send the Wrong Message

Reports of the cancelation of the ICANN 52 meeting in the Moroccan town of Marrakesh appear to be exaggerated. They did, however, force the organization to issue a statement on Sunday confirming that while "no decision had been taken yet" ICANN was considering postponing the meeting in Marrakech scheduled for 8-12 February, 2015. This would a mistake, in our opinion... more

Banks Under e-Pressure

Back in the early 1980s we witnessed the launch of the first e-payments systems by French banks in Biarritz. A similar project was launched in Japan and a year or so later Berlin also launched their pilot service. In Biarritz the whole town received smartcards and all the shops were given devices to handle e-cash. Over the next 30 years very little happened -- nowhere did banks build on this initiative to take a leadership role in e-payments. more

A Look at ICANN’s Creation

My story begins in ancient times when dinosaurs ruled the earth. It was a time when you could download a movie onto your desktop computer through your 56k dial-up connection if you had a few days. It was a time when more people were on the Minitel in France than on the Internet globally and when the Republic of Korea could fit all of its internet users into one small hotel room. I know because I met them all in that room. more

A Glance Back at the Looking Glass: Will IP Really Take Over the World?

In 2003, the world of network engineering was far different than it is today. For instance, EIGRP was still being implemented on the basis of its ability to support multi-protocol routing. SONET, and other optical technologies were just starting to come into their own, and all-optical switching was just beginning to be considered for large-scale deployment. What Hartley says of history holds true when looking back at what seems to be a former age: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." more

Internet Politics: Developed vs Developing

It is not so convincing how the developed world looks at the rest of the hemisphere with the same attitude of equality and control. On one hand there are voices of equality where as in the other there is greed of power and control that lures them with an unending fight of power vs power in safeguarding their own survival. From the participation and development of policies to running the concept of any kind of technology platform, the sense of control and collaboration that catalyzes and leads the overall process. more