Time to Redelegate IE Namespace?

I've written extensively about Ireland's country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) '.ie' and its current registry operator IE Domain Registry (IEDR) in the past. While I've always tried to be fair and balanced in my coverage of the issues facing the IE namespace, I'm afraid my patience with the current registry operator has worn thin. While things may have improved over the course of the last few years, it is becoming abundantly clear that the current registry operator is probably not the best organisation to manage the ccTLD in the future. more

Comcast is Right, the FCC is Wrong

A fellow named Paul Korzeniowski has written a very good, concise piece on the Comcast action at the FCC for Forbes, Feds And Internet Service Providers Don't Mix. He manages to describe the controversy in clear and unemotional language, which contrasts sharply with the neutralists who constantly use emotionally-charged terms such as "blocking," "Deep Packet Inspection," "forgery," and "monopoly" to describe their discomfort. more

IPv6… Finally Getting Closer to Home

resentations at successive IPv6 related forums, summits and other conferences tend to become rather repetitive and some even in need of an urgent slide dust-off. Luckily some fresh perspectives emerge occasionally such as at the Taiwan IPv6 Summit early September. Being in the market for a new home router, I could not but pay attention to a presentation by D-Link extolling their IPv6 support for home routers! more

Kentucky Governor: All Your Gambling Sites Belong to Us

According to news reports, the governor of Kentucky has filed a suit in state court to seize 141 gambling domain names. His claimed authority is a 1974 law against "gambling devices", on the theory that a domain is a "device", and online gambling is taking money away from in-state horse racing and the lottery. The judge sensibly has said that he doesn't understand all the issues, and has given all sides a week to submit briefs. more

A Link to Eternity

While Google is as secretive about its internal processes and systems as Apple is about product development, every now and then senior people post articles on the official Google blog and offer their thoughts on the development of the web. In the latest posting, two Google engineers, Alfred Spector and Franz Och, look at how search strategies will benefit from the faster computers, greater volumes of data and better algorithms we are likely to see in the next decade, speculating that "we could train our systems to discern not only the characters or place names in a YouTube video or a book, for example, but also to recognise the plot or the symbolism." more

RIAA Loses Again: No Legal Wins Against P2P File Sharers So Far

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been taking a lot of people to court -- basically, harassing folks in an attempt to curb file-sharing. The $220,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas got a lot of news (and probably worried a lot of folks). However, on appeal (i.e., after a new court not cherry-picked by the RIAA to try the case looked things over), the RIAA lost... again. ...At its heart, the verdict reaffirms that simply making a copyrighted work available is not the same as actually distributing the work. more

Internet Vigilantism

Atrivo (aka Intercage), a Concord, California-based Internet hosting service, disappeared from the Internet for around two days recently. They didn't go bankrupt or suffer a physical catastrophe. Their providers simply shut them down by refusing their traffic. This might very well be the first time in history that the Internet community, a cooperative association of networks with no governing body, has collectively put someone out of business, if only briefly. more

Do the IM Protocol Wars Even Matter?

Do you care any more about zillion different IM services? Do you care about the IM protocol wars that have plagued the usage of IM for the last years? Odds are that if you are an IM user like me, you probably don't. Why not? Simple... we've unified the IM services on the client side and basically stopped caring about the various services and protocols. I was reminded of this fact this morning when I received a message saying that an update was available for Adium on my Mac that solved a really annoying disconnection problem with Yahoo!Messenger. more

DNSSEC Rally

In late August the White House mandated that all of the agencies in the US government have functioning DNSSEC capabilities deployed and operational by December 2009. I am suggesting here that we, as a community, commit to the same timetable. I call upon VeriSign and other registries to bring up DNSSEC support by January 2009. more

Estonian Cyber Security Strategy Document: Translated and Public

The Estonians have a public version of their cyber security strategy translated into English (currently available offline only). The concept of a national strategy for cyber security is one which I am particularly fond of... The following is the Summary section from the document which might be of interest... more