Featured Blogs

Why Can’t We Make the Internet Secure?

In a discussion about a recent denial of service attack against Twitter, someone asked, "Some class of suppliers must be making money off of the weaknesses. Anybody out there have a prescription for the cure?" Sure, but you're not going to like it. The Internet was originally a walled garden, where its operators knew who all the users were and could eject anyone who misbehaved... more

The Future of the Internet Economy: Chapter 2

The OECD held a "high-level" meeting in June 2011 that was intended to build upon the OECD Ministerial on The Future of the Internet Economy held in Seoul, Korea in June 2008. I was invited to attend this meeting as part of the delegation from the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC), and here I'd like to share my impressions of this meeting. This 2 day meeting, "The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth", had the objective of exploring a number of current issues in the public policy space... more

Domain Name System (DNS) Security Should Be One of Your Priorities

Most people, even seasoned IT professionals, don't give DNS (the Domain Name System) the attention it deserves. As TCP/IP has become the dominant networking protocol, so has the use of DNS... Due to the reliability built into the fundamental RFC-based design of DNS, most IT professionals don't spend much time worrying about it. This can be a huge mistake! more

Is the Risk Real With the New gTLD Program? (An Interview with Verisign)

It's late in the new gTLD day and the program looks to be inching ever closer to the finish line. Yet last minute hiccups seem to be a recurring theme for this ambitious project to expand the Internet namespace far beyond the 300 odd active TLDs in existence today (counting generics and country codes). A drive for growth which is already underway, with 63 gTLD contracts now signed as of mid September... But will those users find themselves at greater risk because of this namespace expansion? That's what several parties have been asking in recent months. more

Would the Real Network Neutrality Please Stand Up?

I'm sure this is something that's been raked over before, but I don't see a common understanding of what 'Net Neutrality' actually is. Despite many of the Internetorati demanding it by law. There appear to be several different camps, which you could paint as "bottom of IP", "middle" and "top". The bottomistas would see enforced Internet Protocol itself as a premature optimisation and violation of the end-to-end principle. Unhappy that you only get IPv4 or IPv6? Still grumpy that you only have IPv4 and not even IPv6? Really miserable that your VoIP packets are staggering under the poisonous load of IPv6 headers? You're a bottomista. more

Domain Owners Lose Privacy

As facts unfold, and the NTIA's decision to take away our privacy comes to light, it is interesting to see the NTIA struggling to explain its decision. Keep in mind that an "as yet to be identified" bureaucrat made this decision to take away your privacy, did it without notice, and without holding hearings. Those affected were not given an opportunity to explain how the loss of privacy would negatively affect them. Quite simply, this is NOT how our government is supposed to work. We should be outraged... more

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Industry Soon to Be Largest Source of Co2 Emissions

Although on the production side the tar sands are one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry, globally is the fastest growing and soon will be the largest source of CO2 emissions on the consumption side of the equation. ICT emissions are produced indirectly from the coal generated electricity that is used to power all of our devices. Currently it is estimated that ICT consumes around 10% all electrical power growing at about 6-10% per year. more

The Non-Parity of the UDRP

The UDRP is obviously not working. Two websites, fundamentally the same (criticism at trademark.tld), two opposite decisions, both within weeks of each other! A Complainant (Biocryst Pharmaceuticals Inc) initiated a complaint to WIPO about one of my criticism websites (biocrystpharmaceuticals.com). The Panel found in my favour. Another Complainant (Eastman Chemical Inc) meanwhile made a complaint to NAF regarding another of my criticism websites (eastman-chemical.com). The Panel found against me. The two websites are fundamentally the same, both websites in criticism of the practices of the individual companies concerned... more

Challenges in Anti-Spam Efforts

Without commenting on the particulars as they relate to Goodmail -- especially since I am on the advisory board for Habeas, a competitor -- let me note that public discussion is largely missing the nature of the current Internet mail realities and the nature of the ways we can deal with them. There are two articles in the current issue of the Internet Protocol Journal, of which I wrote one, that provide some useful background about this reality. Simply put, Internet mail needs to sustain spontaneous communications... more

Multistakeholderism Is Working: Even in Exile

I'm happy to report (mostly) positive feedback on my last article that examined how the multistakeholder model tackled, and tackled well, Phase 1 of the review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms. While bad news may sell more clicks, a little good news from time to time also appears to be welcome. Good news also reminds us of how fortunate we are to have a private sector ICANN with a multistakeholder model of policy development... more

Ye Olde DNS

I've been writing about the intrinsic problem with the use of the DNS as both a technical mechanism and as a source of unambiguous meaning and authority. The problems are much worse than most of the posters seem to note. The current approach assures that the Internet will unravel and worse, that URLs become perversely reused. The commercial terms of service associated with the use of ".com" names exacerbates the problem by imposing arbitrary social policies into the plumbing of the Internet. more

Policy Failure Enables Mass Malware: Part II (ICANN and OnlineNIC)

On Wednesday September 29th at 1PM there will be a meeting in the Old Executive Building in Washington D.C. with Registries and domain Registrars to discuss illegal Internet sales of prescription drugs. ICANN was originally invited but declined because citing "inappropriateness" . One "U.S." Registrar who definitely will not be in attendance is OnlineNIC more

Putting a Spammer in Jail

The country's first criminal trial about spam ended in Leesburg, Virginia earlier this month with a conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, better known under his nom de spam of Gavin Stubberfield. I was an expert witness for the prosecution, the Commonwealth of Virginia. The case was brought under Virginia's state anti-spam law, not the weaker Federal CAN-SPAM act... more

Damaging Malware Uncovered in the Google Play Store

Android users can choose from 3.718 million applications in the Google Play Store. When installing applications, the majority of consumers trust Google to keep their devices safe from hackers. However, the reality is different. Just back in May 2023, researchers discovered over 101 infected applications in the Android store. Many of these apps counted over 400 million downloads. more

Microsoft Choking Domain Parking Business Practices?

In a follow up to Microsoft's Strider URL Tracer tool released a few months ago, SecurityFocus is running an article which takes a closer look at how Microsoft's free Strider URL Tracer with Typo-Patrol is aimed at fighting typo-squatters and domain parking abuse. From the article: "In most cases, the typo domain is not even selling a product or service itself. The typo domain makes its money from syndicated advertising such as Google's AdSense program. The typo-squatter simply parks the domain and the only content on the site ends up being the ads served from a syndicated advertising program..." more