News Briefs

Upcoming Latin America and Caribbean DNS Forum

The Latin America and Caribbean Domain Name System (LAC DNS) Forum will be held on November 15, 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This follows on a similar initiative that took place at ICANN 47 in Durban, South Africa. The event's global, regional and local organizers plan to address key online issues, including more regional involvement with Internet governance. more

Simple Overview of ICANN and the IANA Transition by Vint Cerf

Google has released a Doodle Video Animation of its VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, explaining inner workings of the Internet, formation of ICANN and the IANA transition. more

Beavers Chewing Through Fiber Cable Cause Hundreds Lose Internet in a Canadian Remote Community

Internet service was down for nearly 900 customers in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, over the weekend after beavers chewed through a crucial fiber cable, resulting in "extensive" damage. According to a statement from the area's telecom provider, Telus, the outage also affected some cable TV customers and caused disruptions to local cell phone services. more

Russia in Talks to Create Independent DNS

The Russian Security Council has proposed development of an independent DNS which would continue to work in the event of global internet malfunctions, according to a report from RT. more

UPDATEDICANN Asked to Delay New gTLD Expansion at the House of Representatives Committee Hearing

ICANN's expansion of top-level domain program faced a second hearing today (see last week's Senate Committee hearing here), this time by the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. During the hearing critics once again warned that ICANN's January roll-out of the program is not adequately developed and it should be delayed. "I don't think this is ready for prime time," said Representative Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. more

Skype Now Officially Part of Microsoft

Microsoft formally announced the closure of its acquisition of Skype originally announced on May 10, 2011. Microsoft and Skype have declared to remain focused "on their shared goal of connecting all people across all devices and accelerating both companies' efforts to transform real-time communications for consumers and enterprise customers." more

SEC Reinforces and Expands Its Cybersecurity Guidance for Public Companies

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an updated guidance for public companies in preparing disclosures about cybersecurity risks and incidents. more

Pentagon Gave Control of 175M Dormant IP Addresses to Florida Company Right Before Trump’s Departure

The US Department of Defense gave a small unknown Florida company control to millions of its dormant IP addresses, minutes before President Trump left office. According to reports, the unknown Florida company, Global Resource Systems LLC, initially obtained control of 56 million Pentagon-owned IP addresses on January 20 and later increased to near 175 million IP addresses. more

Google Beats Facebook in Popularity Because it Supports More Languages (For Now)

John Yunker co-founder of Byte Level Research and author of The Web Globalization Report Card writes: "The big story this year is that Facebook and Google finished in a numerical tie. But because Google supports more languages (for now), it edged out as the winner. ... Even as we look across all 225 web sites, the number of languages continues to increase. Although the rate of language growth slowed over the past two years -- due in large part to the global recession -- growth continues. This year, the average number of languages increased to 22, up from 20 languages in 2008." more

IPv4 Market Heats Up While Supply Dwindles

Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn reports that while the available supply of IPv4 addresses is in sharp decline, the market for these virtual commodities is heating up. In recent months, the pace of the address transfers has greatly accelerated as evidenced by RIPE's table of IPv4 transfers, as well as the increasing number of IPv4 brokers facilitating the exchange of IPv4 address space. more

Pew Looks at the State of Online Music Ten Years After Napster

Pew Internet reporting on the 10th anniversary of the Napster's launch: "As researchers look back on the first decade of the 21st Century, many will no doubt point to the formative impact of file-sharing and peer-to-peer exchange of music on the internet. Distributed networks of socially-driven music sharing helped lay the foundation for mainstream engagement with participatory media applications. Napster and other peer-to-peer services "schooled" users in the social practice of downloading, uploading, and sharing digital content, which, in turn, has contributed to increased demand for broadband, greater processing power, and mobile media devices." more

Susan Crawford, Kevin Werbach Named Obama’s FCC Review Team Leads

We'd like to congratulate our long time CircleID participants, Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach for being named today as Obama-Biden FCC Transition Team Leads. Susan Crawford, is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School who recently ended her term as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN and is the founder of OneWebDay. Kevin Werbach, is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also the founder of the Supernova Group and the organizer of Supernova, a leading executive technology conference. more

DDoS Attacks Are Surging Both in Frequency and Sophistication

Cloudflare's new report warns about the significant increase of DDoS attacks and their level of sophistication. The numbers doubled from Q1 to Q2 and doubled again in Q3, resulting in a four-fold increase compared to the pre-COVID level in the first quarter. more

Russian Behind Massive LinkedIn, Dropbox Hack Subject of Extradition Fight Between US and Russia

A young Russian alleged to have masterminded a massive hacking of social networks including LinkedIn and Dropbox is now at the center of an extradition struggle between the United States and Russia. more

U.S. Critical Infrastructure Will Be Attacked Within 2 Years, According to 2017 Black Hat Survey

According to a 2017 Black Hat Attendee Survey, cyberattacks on U.S. enterprise and critical infrastructure are coming soon, and in most cases defenders are not prepared. more