Comcast’s Impressive System for Notifying Infected Users

Pretty much as long as there've been computers, one of the biggest challenges has been user education. How do you create software smart enough to inform a user when they're about to do something potentially disastrous - or, worse, when something disastrous has been done to them? As one of the world's largest access providers, Comcast has put a ton of thought into developing a notification system for their users. The solution Comcast developed involves, in effect, hijacking HTTP requests... more

Blacklist Operations and Practices: Excerpts from an ASRG Draft

The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) published a draft for an Overview of Email DNSBL Best Practices. We can take a step back and review paragraph 2.2.5 (Conflict of Interest)... Some DNSBLs used for blocking/negative reputation have had a practice of requiring fees or donations to charities from the listee for delisting. It is generally considered entirely appropriate for a DNSBL to charge for access to it by its users -- the definition of a commercial DNSBL. more

NTIA Request for Comments on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions

On Feb. 25, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration released the following request for comments concerning the USG's contract for the IANA function. As indicated, the USG's contract for the IANA function with ICANN expires later this year. Interested parties can file comments with NTIA by March 31, 2011. more

Whois Scared?

Every time I witness another argument about changing the rules of the Whois system I marvel at how such an important core internet protocol could be so widely misunderstood. I don't mean that the protocol's technical details are not well understood -- it's a very simple device, easy to implement correctly and easy to use even for new users. I mean that the Whois system itself and its purpose in the Internet ecosystem is widely misunderstood. Everybody uses Whois and lots of people argue about Whois but precious few folks know why Whois exists in the first place. more

Caidagram: Visualising Geographically Annotated Internet Measurements

With measurement networks rapidly evolving up to hundreds of nodes, it becomes more and more challenging to extract useful visualisations from tons of collected data. At the same time, geographical information related to Internet measurements (either known or inferred with state-of-the-art techniques) can be exploited to build tools based on geography as a common knowledge base. We wanted to develop a tool to visualise different classes of geographically annotated Internet data, e.g., topology, address allocation, DNS and economical data. more

A Politically Incorrect Guide to IPv6

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've doubtless seen reports that the supply of IPv4 addresses is running out. Earlier this month IANA, the master allocation authority, handed out the last so-called /8, a large chunk of 16 million addresses, to one of the regional address registries... Then what? The conventional wisdom is that everyone needs to support IPv6, a mostly compatible upgrade to IPv4 with much larger addresses, by the time the v4 space runs out. But I'm not so sure, particularly for e-mail. more

Making IDN gTLDs Attractive and Safe

The primary focus of this article is to illustrate that the Applicant Guidebook is not supplying sufficient protection mechanisms, and creates too high financial barrier for those who are interested in applying for multiple Top-Level Domains (TLDs) that are translations/transliterations of each other and/or of an existing generic Top-Level Domains (tt-gTLDs). more

New gTLDs and Children

At first blush most are unlikely to see the relationship between new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) and children. However, as a father and someone that has worked with approximately 50% of all new gTLDs approved by ICANN over the last decade, I have a unique perspective that may shed some light on this analogy. Hopefully, as the ICANN community begins to seek closure in connection with the new gTLD implement process, this article may offer one perspective as to what lies ahead. more

Registries, Registrars, Resellers and the Fight Against Cyber Crime: The EU-US Meeting

On 24 and 25 February 2011 the European Commission, DG Home Affairs, organised a meeting on cyber crime in cooperation with the US government, Department of Justice, with representatives of the law enforcement community, registries and registrars. The basis of the discussion was the RAA due diligence recommendations (hence: the recommendations) as presented by LEAs in the past years during ICANN meetings. The meeting was constructive, surprising and fruitful. I give some background, but what I would like to stress here is what, in my opinion, could be a way forward after the meeting. more

ICA Tells DOC of Concerns Over USG and GAC “Scorecards”

The ICA has just dispatched a letter to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling in advance of the talks scheduled in Brussels on February 29-March 1 between ICANN's Board and its Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). Our letter expresses strong concerns that the positions being advocated by the U.S. government and the GAC regarding the proposed Final Applicant Guidebook (AG) for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) would be detrimental to ICANN's multi-stakeholder policy process and would undermine the rights of legitimate registrants at new gTLDs. more