News Briefs

CNN Live Interview on Internationalized Domain Names

CNN Live interviews ICANN Senior Director of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) on issues related to new IDN developments. The interview includes overview of extending top-level domains to enable TLDs such as .com, .cn (for China), and .gr (for Greece) available in their native languages and scripts. more

UK’s Government Websites Infected by Cryptocurrency Mining Malware

Thousands of websites are reported to have been infected by malware over the weekend forcing visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency while using the sites. more

Cablecos Continue to Gain Telcom Market Share; Now at 15% and Growing

In a report released today by the research group, TeleGeography, Executive Director, John Dinsdale says, "traditional telcos have been losing substantial market share while leading cablecos have succeeded in transforming their businesses to the point where almost 40% of their revenues now come from telecoms. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global all now feature in the top 15 ranking of broadband internet service providers, and telecoms remains an engine for growth for many cablecos around the world." more

Donuts to Acquire Afilias

Donuts and Afilias announced today that Donuts is acquiring Afilias in a deal that is expected to close in December 2020 for an undisclosed amount. The combined entities will support over 25 million domain names spanning well over 400 TLDs. The deal will not include certain Afilias businesses, such as the mobile software and registrar businesses, which will remain with Afilias' original group of investors. more

IPv6 Adoption Brings New Security Risks

Although IPv6 DDoS attacks are not yet a common occurrence, there are indications that malicious actors have started testing and researching IPv6 based DDoS attack methods. more

FUD for Thought: ARIN Releases Comic Books

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has launched a comic book series to further help raise awareness for the adoption of IPv6 and other matters dealt by the organization. The comic books, called "Team ARIN", are fictionalized views of the organization, its processes, and the whole concept of Internet governance. "Though our heroes are fictional, the issues they face are very real," says ARIN. more

Verizon to Stop Issuing New Public IPv4 Addresses

Verizon has announced that starting June 30, 2017, it will stop issuing new Public Static IPv4 addresses due to a shortage of available addresses. more

Study Reports on Baseline of Global IPv6 Adoption

A new research on native IPv6 traffic across six large providers in North America and Europe suggest that despite fifteen years of IPv6 standards development, vendor releases and advocacy, only a small fraction of the Internet has adopted IPv6. "The slow rate of IPv6 adoption stems from equal parts of technical/design hurdles, lack of economic incentives and general dearth of IPv6 content." more

Demand for Online Video Drives Akamai Single Day Traffic to 3.45 Tbps

Leading Internet content distribution service provider, Akamai, has announced that its global network is now serving as much as 3.45 Terabits per second (Tbps) of content per day. "The traffic peak of 3.45 Tbps is roughly equivalent to the capacity needed to download the entire printed contents of the U.S. Library of Congress in less than a minute," says the company. Paul Sagan, Akamai's President and CEO, says increasing demand for high definition video streaming is a key factor in these recent delivery milestones. more

ICANN Receives 67 Unique Applications for Chinese gTLDs

At the press conference held in London on June 13, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) officially announced a list of 1930 applications for the new generic top level domain (gTLD). During the 40 years since the launch of the Internet, there are only 22 gTLDs such as .com. The 1930 applications represent a historical change to the Internet; For the first time, Chinese gTLDs will become available and there are 67 unique applications for Chinese gTLDs. more

Free Pool of IPv4 Addresses Drops to 8.5 Percent

A new report issued by the Number Resource Organization (NRO) has found that demand for both IPv4 and IPv6 address space is continuing to grow. The Internet Number Resource Status Report for the first quarter of 2010 is based on data collected by the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) that oversee the allocation of all Internet number resources, and outlines RIR allocation of IP address space (IPv4 and IPv6), as well as AS number assignments. In the report, the NRO notes that allocations of IPv4 addresses in Q1 have reduced the IANA free pool of IPv4 addresses to 8.5 percent. more

UPDATEDThe Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress Announces Keynote, Speakers, Initial Partnerships

The Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress has made the following announcement for the keynote, speakers, initial sponsors, partners and dates for the inaugural event taking place March 11 & 12, 2013 in New York City. more

FBI Pushing Plans to Force Surveillance Backdoors on Social Networks, VoIP, and Email Providers

Declan McCullagh reporting in CNET: "The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require the firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities..." more

Botnets Shift Focus to Credential Abuse, Says Latest Akamai Report

Akamai's Fourth Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet, was released today in which it states that the analysis of more than 7.3 trillion bot requests per month has found a sharp increase in the threat of credential abuse, with more than 40 percent of login attempts being malicious. more

FCC Approves White Space for Broadband in Unanimous Vote

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved, in a 5-0 unanimous vote, the plan to open up unused, unlicensed portions of TV white space spectrum for wireless applications and devices. However, to prevent interference, FCC has also placed some "rigorous certification process" which device offered by a technology company for use on the white spaces will have to go through. more