Featured Blogs

Optimistic Speculation on What Elon Musk Might Do With Twitter

Elon Musk is a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" which leads some to worry that Twitter will be open to the sort of thing one finds at gab.com if his purchase of the company is completed. I have no idea what Musk plans to do with Twitter but let me offer some optimistic speculation. For a start, I don't believe Musk will use Twitter to advance right-wing candidates or policy. more

The WSIS+10 Outcome Document - Some Initial Thoughts

The final outcome document of the WSIS +10 Review was released late last night. I thought I would give you some initial impressions as we enter the week of the WSIS+10 Review at the United Nations in New York. The text endorses the central tenet of the multistakeholder model of governing ourselves on the Internet and re-commits to the Tunis agreement. It extends the mandate of the IGF for 10 years recognizing the role that this Forum plays in bottom up governance processes. more

New EU WHOIS Verification Recommendations Take Center Stage

The EU has once again turned its attention to domain name registration data (WHOIS) -- this time reinforcing requirements to collect, maintain, verify, and disclose WHOIS for IP enforcement purposes through its "Commission Recommendation" on measures to combat counterfeiting and enhance the enforcement of IP Rights. Published last month, this regulatory action demonstrates the EU's commitment to restore WHOIS despite... more

Satellite Cell Service: What’s Coming

T-Mobile and Starlink made a joint announcement recently about an arrangement where Starlink will enable voice and texting capabilities to T-Mobile cellphones by the end of 2023. This is a service that would work with existing cell phones and would supposedly kick in when a phone can't find a signal from a cell tower. Starlink said the technology would be enabled by new satellites that have significantly larger antennae than the current satellites in the constellation. more

Facebook Size Estimates

At a staggering $100 billion dollar valuation and reported 900 million users, Facebook represents a massive presence in the global economy. From an Internet infrastructure perspective, Facebook also ranks amongst the largest of the "hyper giants" generating a significant share of daily global Internet traffic. This blog explore Facebook's size in terms of its Internet traffic contribution. more

When You Hear “Security,” Think “National Sovereignty”

These days you can hardly talk about Internet governance without hearing about security. DNSSEC is a hot issue, ICANN's new president is a cyber-security expert, and cyberattacks seem to be a daily occurrence.
This reflects a larger shift in US policy. Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration is making security a high priority for the US. Only now the emphasis is on security in cyberspace. The outlines of the new policy were published in the recent US Cyberspace Policy Review, which even recommends a cyber security office directly in the White House. more

The Illusion of Internet Governance

There's been a lot of controversy over the U.S. Government's proposal to give up their supervisory role over ICANN. This lead Karl Auerbach, one of the only people ever elected to represent end-users in cyberspace, to write this letter to Congress. Karl did an excellent job as North America's first elected representative in cyberspace. He fought for things that would have made Internet governance more representative, and more transparent. more

The Great Firewall of China

Are you suffering delays in your recent emails to china? It may be because of "series of disruptions to cross-border email traffic on adjustments to the country's vast Internet surveillance system," Reuters reports today. The delays have been going on for four days now. But, of course, there is no way to get official confirmation. The symptom seems to be an error message that is returned to the sender... more

The Rise of WiFi Sensing and Its Implications for Home Security and Surveillance

It's incredibly hard to keep things private in the new digital age. There are far too many stories circulating about people who talked to a friend on the phone or texted about something and almost instantly got hit with ads for the subject of the conversation. And that happens without malware - no telling what information you're giving out if your devices have been infected with malicious software that is spying on you. more

Stop Propagating False Information About the .ORG Transaction

We were disappointed to see The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette publish a recent editorial on February 13 about the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR, the company that operates .ORG) that propagates false information about the transaction, including runaway prices, censorship and lack of experience. Runaway prices? Ethos Capital and PIR have committed to capping price increases to no more than ten percent per year on average. more

Measuring Digital Rights for the Attainment of Internet Universality

Measuring the information society in order to achieve development goals is a challenge and a necessity to ascertain progress made in terms of ICT sector development and socio-economic growth. Many intergovernmental, governments, non-profit and private organisations have sought to tackle the challenge through setting targets, defining indicators, and applying research methods to measure progress. Nevertheless, ambitious goals and targets relate mostly to the achievement of physical connectivity to ICT... more

Starlink’s New Business Broadband

Starlink has quietly updated its business broadband offerings. The original plan for businesses was $500 per month with a two-terabyte data cap. If a customer exceeded the data cap, the speed reduced to 1 Mbps for the remainder of the month unless a customer bought additional broadband at $1 per gigabyte. Starlink business comes with a premium antenna from HP at a one-time cost of $2,500. more

A Simpler Approach to an Email Deliverability Metric

The term Email Deliverability is used to describe how well a mail flow can reach its intended recipients. This has become a cornerstone concept when discussing quality metrics in the email industry and as such, it is important to understand how to measure it. Email Deliverability is considered to be affected by a mythical metric, the reputation of the sender, which is a measure of that sender behavior over time -- and the reactions of the recipients to his messages. more

The ICANN Experiment: Lessons From NewCo

As ICANN turns 25 and I turn 51, I realize that I have literally spent more than ½ of my life working in the domain name industry and with the first multistakeholder experiment originally called NewCo (later called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"). My first interaction with NewCo, after the Green Paper, White Paper, Internet Forum for the White Paper, etc., was an Intellectual Property attorney at the law firm of Arter & Hadden. more

On the Way to the G7 ICT Ministers’ Meeting in Japan

This week in Japan I have been invited to address the Multi-Stakeholder Conference that will officially open the G7 ICT Ministerial summit in Takamatsu. The focus of the ICT Ministerial will be on four distinct areas: (1) Innovation and economic growth; (2) Unrestricted flow of information, and ensuring the safety and security in cyberspace;
(3) Contributing to the resolution of global issues, including digital connectivity; (4) International understanding and international cooperation in the future. more