Featured Blogs

DNS: The Proven, Eco-Friendly Alternative to Blockchain and NFTs

As the world races towards digital transformation, the technologies we choose will have a lasting impact on our planet. Blockchain, NFTs, and other crypto assets have garnered much attention for their ability to securely and immutably store records. However, the environmental cost of maintaining these technologies is often overlooked. The energy consumption required to sustain blockchains, particularly those using Proof of Work (PoW), is enormous... more

Goodbye Marilyn Cade

Marilyn Cade was an exceptionally hardworking, always gracious leader in ICANN and IGF. She was a strong supporter of U.S. interests at ITU and a member of the U.S. delegation at the WCIT. Dozens have spoken of her at a memorial site, including Vint Cerf: "Marilyn was an elemental force in the ICANN, IGF and policy worlds. She was an advocate who could be counted upon to speak passionately for the causes to which she was dedicated..." more

New Cyber Security Bill Could Increase Power of President and DHS

Introduced by ranking Senate members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, S.3480 is intended to create an Office of Cyber Policy in the executive branch of the government, confirmed by the Senate and ultimately reporting to the president. Senators Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln and Tom Carper introduced the bill publicly on June 10, and a critical part of the bill is that critical infrastructure networks such as electricity grids, financial systems and telecommunications networks need to cooperate with the Office of Cyber Policy. more

Hot Take on the Twitter Hack

If you read this blog, you've probably heard by now about the massive Twitter hack. Briefly, many high-profile accounts were taken over and used to tweet scam requests to send Bitcoins to a particular wallet, with the promise of double your money back. Because some of the parties hit are sophisticated and security-aware, it seems unlikely that the attack was a straightforward one directly on these accounts. more

NTAG Chair Blog: Singapore Mid-term Update

While the media spotlights the US role in Internet governance, the NTAG Executive Committee has been focussed on the daily business of ensuring the New gTLD programme is moving forward in the best interests of applicants. There are signs that ICANN is becoming more responsive to applicant needs. Quick action implementing GAC Advice once it was resolved by the New gTLD Program Committee, the recent name collision webinar, and an ongoing dialogue on new gTLD auctions procedures are all positive steps. more

APT: The Cancer Within

Unless you have a team employing the latest proactive threat-hunting techniques, the stealthy Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) hiding in your network can pass by completely unnoticed. There are as many definitions of APT as experts writing about the topic, so let's boil it down to the simple essentials: APTs are usually implanted and maintained by a team of malicious actors with the intention of living long term in your network while extracting valuable private information. more

The Changing World of Network Management in an Increasingly Cloud-Centric World

Over the past two weeks Andrew Lerner, Vice President in Gartner Research covering enterprise networking products, has put out two successive blogs that raise really interesting questions about the changing world of network management in an increasingly cloud-centric world. In "What Keeps Network Folks Up at Night?", Andrew writes about the worrisome challenges in the Banking/Financial industry related to frequent manual network configuration errors. more

Performance Test White Paper for SDN Controller Issued

Recently, BII-Global SDN Certified Testing Center (SDNCTC EN | CH) issued the Performance Test White Paper for SDN Controller (hereinafter Whitepaper) at China Future Network and Development Innovation Forum, which truly fills the vacuum in SDN controller performance testing at home. It, by means of elaborate results from the open-source controller tests, provides reliable analysis report to all corners within the industry, which has been highly thought of and widely supported by experts both at home and broad. more

Negotiating the WSIS+10 and the Future of the Internet

After two and a half years of technical analysis and discussions, six months of deliberations among all stakeholders, and intense negotiations at the United Nations, at three o'clock in the morning on December 12, 2015, the talented co-facilitators from the United Arab Emirates and Latvia dropped the gavel on the outcome document for the ten-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). That consensus document presents international principles that will guide the UN's work on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-related issues. more

Why Facebook Is Not a Common Carrier

The ever-entertaining Fifth Circuit has recently upheld a strange Texas law that forbids most kinds of social media moderation. (Techdirt explains many of the reasons the court is wrong, so I won't try.) This brings us to the trendy question of whether Facebook, Twitter, et al. should be treated as common carriers. You can make a good argument to separate the point-to-point data transport from the ISP and make the former common carriage. more

Facebook Stays, Everybody’s Happy, but Nothing Has Changed

After some turmoil, Facebook won the war with the Australian Government as the necessary changes were made to the legislation that avoided them needing to change their business model. Those subtleties are lost in the general press. What counts for the popular media is that they were able to spin some great stories around the fact that Australia stood up to the giants. That brought international attention, which boosted the ego of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. more

First .emarat Arabic Script Domain Name is Live!

The .emarat Arabic script Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) ccTLD for the United Arab Emirates has been entered into the DNS Root Zone and is therefore now resolving. This is a truly historic moment in the development of the Internet in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Arabic-speaking world as it removes the last hurdle preventing people without English-language skills from enjoying the full benefits that the Internet has to offer. more

An Easier Way to Define Broadband

Our broadband policies always seem to lag the market. If and when the FCC seats the fifth Commissioner, it's expected that the agency will raise the definition of broadband from 25/3 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps. That change will have big repercussions in the market because it will mean that anybody that can't buy broadband speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps would not have broadband. That's how an official broadband definition works -- you either have broadband, or you don't. more

State Department Should Return to Its Knitting

Having researched and written about the 100 year history of U.S. State Department's institutional machinations in the telecom/cyber sector, taught law school graduate courses, and worked with its bureaus and staff over the past 45 years, the latest twists and turns seem to repeat past mistakes. The fundamental problem is that the U.S. is the only country whose Foreign Ministry is given a significant role and engaged in telecom and cyber matters in global venues. more

In Response to Offensive Destruction of Attack Assets

It is certainly true that DDoS and hacking are on the rise; there have been a number of critical hacks in the last few years, including apparent attempts to alter the outcome of elections. The reaction has been a rising tide of fear, and an ever increasing desire to "do something." The something that seems to be emerging is, however, not necessarily the best possible "something." Specifically, governments are now talking about attempting to "wipe out" the equipment used in attacks. more