Featured Blogs

ICANN’s Rocky Beginning - When Friends Were Scarce

In ICANN's earliest days, it had very few friends, or so it seemed to the initial Board members. There were none of the compliments and congratulations that normally accompany the creation of a new corporation. There was great hesitancy among potential donors over the fact that we did not yet have (and would not have for nine long months), a federal tax exemption number. There was also a poisonous open Board meeting in December 1998 in Cambridge, Massachusetts... more

Would You Fly an Airplane That Had a Pre-flight Checkout That Was Only 40 Percent Complete?

In the aviation world safety is paramount. Commercial airlines go to major lengths to make sure that their planes are fully up to code and can fly safely in the air. The risks - loss of human lives - are far too extreme to take any chances. One result of this diligence is the fact that travel by plane is far safer than any other method - nearly 40 times safer per mile than travel by car. While application security risks are not as dire, research shows CSOs fail to use the same stringent level of safety to secure their Internet-facing applications. more

The Next International Policy Battlefield Will Be ICT Policy

I am currently in Hyderabad, attending the Internet Governance Forum, IGF. With hours before the official opening, it might be worth reflecting a bit on Internet Governance and the general discussion on the role of international policy and ICT (information and communication technologies). I have several times before said, and written, that the real difference that governments could make (assuming that Governance is in relation to Governing) in Internet policy is close to their traditional roles.  more

Gall’s Law and the Network

In Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail, John Gall says: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system." In the software development world, this is called Gall's Law... more

The Data Divide

A report from the Center for Data Innovation warns of a new broadband gap they call the data divide, which is when some parts of society are not sharing in the big societal advantages that come from using and understanding the huge amounts of data that are being generated today. The report includes examples of the data divide that make the concept easier to understand. more

Give Network Administrators a Zero-Impact Firmware Update Solution

Struggles with the firmware update process are well known by Network Administrators in the cable industry. The copious tasks required to complete an end-to-end firmware update are painstaking and error-prone, often making the investment not worth the time it takes to complete the work... imagine doing these manual tasks over and over for hundreds to thousands of devices, many from different vendors, each with its own unique device update path! Clearly, this complex challenge needs a solution. more

Affordable Starlink Prices Coming to Low and Middle-Income Countries

SpaceX first departed from its uniform Starlink pricing policy when it offered a reduced price for throttled service in France two years ago. Since then, many new, higher-capacity satellites have been launched, enabling SpaceX to reduce prices in low and middle-income countries like Kenya. Kenya had 405 geostationary satellite internet subscribers when Starlink became available in July 2023. more

Domain Name Association Supports IANA Transition, Petitions Congress to Move Forward

I recently sent a letter to congressional leaders including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid expressing the Domain Name Association's support of the U.S. Administration's planned transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to the global multi-stakeholder community under the stewardship of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). more

Security Against Election Hacking - Part 1: Software Independence

There's been a lot of discussion of whether the November 2016 U.S. election can be hacked. Should the U.S. Government designate all the states' and counties' election computers as "critical cyber infrastructure" and prioritize the "cyberdefense" of these systems? Will it make any difference to activate those buzzwords with less than 3 months until the election? First, let me explain what can and can't be hacked. Election administrators use computers in (at least) three ways... more

Flying the Flag for the Technical Community: CENTR Provides Feedback to the United Nations’ Initiative on a Global Digital Compact

CENTR, the association which represents European country code top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs), such as .de for Germany or .no for Norway, has provided feedback to the United Nations' initiative on a Global Digital Compact (GDC). The GDC seeks to "outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all", and invites multistakeholder participation in the consultation phase. more

Starlink Service Is Great on (Some) Cruise Ships

I recently used Starlink on a cruise along the coast of Northwest Africa, and I'll summarize my experience below, but first let me explain why I put some in the title of this post. I posted the following request on the Reddit Cruise group: "What has been your experience of Starlink Internet service on Seabourn or other cruise lines? How was latency? Do video chats work smoothly? Games? etc." more

Call for Participation - ICANN DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN63 Barcelona

Do you have a great idea about DNSSEC or DANE that you'd like to share with the wider community? If so, and you're planning to be in Barcelona, Spain for ICANN63 in October 2018, submit a proposal to present your idea at the DNSSEC Workshop! Send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to [email protected] by Friday, 07 September 2018. more

Human Rights and the Digital Domain Primer - Part 3

The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, as the globally accepted standard, should serve us as the guiding light when it comes to striking the delicate balance between our rights and responsibilities on and off-line. more

Fixing the Supply Chain

Almost everybody in the broadband industry is now aware that the industry is suffering supply chain issues. ISPs are having problems obtaining many of the components needed to build a fiber network in a timely manner, which is causing havoc with fiber construction projects. I've been doing a lot of investigation into supply chain issues, and it turns out the supply chain is a lot more complex than I ever suspected, which means it's not going to be easy to get the supply chain back to normal. more

5G and the Health Scare

Having been involved in the telecommunications industry for a long time, I followed many of the discussions involving health concerns when the 3G and 4G mobile technologies were introduced. This time, with 5G, the situation is no different. Again, there are many communities worried about the potential negative health effects of the radiation that emanates from mobile communications. more