For two things that would seem to be completely unrelated there is an interesting parallel between IPv6 and DNSSEC. In both cases there is a misalignment of interests between content providers and service?providers. Content providers aren't highly motivated to deploy IPv6 because only a small proportion of users have v6 connectivity and even fewer only have v6. Service providers aren't anxious to deploy IPv6? because there isn't a lot of content on v6, and virtually none exclusively on v6 - so they don't expand the universe of interesting stuff on the web by deploying IPv6. Basically the same things could be said about DNSSEC. more
Only two years after signing the DNS root zone, the powerful lure of a secure global infrastructure for data distribution is starting to reveal itself. It is illustrated clearly by two proposed technical standardizations that seek to leverage secure DNS. To some degree these developments highlight the strength of DNS institutions and how they might fill gaps elsewhere in the Internet's governance. But an increasing reliance upon and concentration of power in the DNS also makes getting its global governance correct even more important. more
I first became familiar with DNSSEC around 2002 when it was a feature of the Bind9 server, which I was using to setup a new authoritative DNS platform for customers of the ISP I was working for. I looked at it briefly, decided it was too complex and not worth investigating. A couple of years later a domain of a customer got poisoned in another ISPs network. And while the DNS service we provided was working properly, the customers impression was we hadn't protected them. more
DNSSEC continues to gain momentum as network operators and domain owners watch and learn from early adopters. The learning process is made easier by efforts such as the ongoing work conducted by researchers at Sandia labs to methodically identify and categorize the kinds of problems that are occurring. more
The sixth annual Counter-eCrime Operations Summit (CeCOS VI) will engage questions of operational challenges and the development of common resources for the first responders and forensic professionals who protect consumers and enterprises from the ecrime threat every day. This year's meeting will focus on the shifting nature of cybercrime and the attendant challenges of managing that dynamic threatscape. more
DNS is not something that most people think about when using the Internet. Neither should they have to: the DNS is just part of the infrastructure in the same way that IP addresses are. The only time a user ought to notice the DNS is when it breaks (and it should never break). If that's true, then we ought to expect any Internet client - including web browsers - to use the very same infrastructure as everything else and for the DNS resolution mechanisms to be the ones offered by the operating system. What makes browsers different? more
As regular readers know, ICANN holds lengthy, in-depth discussions devoted to DNSSEC at each of its three annual meetings. The half-day session held at ICANN 43 in Costa Rica last month was particularly interesting. What became clear is that the industry is quickly moving into the end-user adoption phase of global DNSSEC deployment. more
On January 18, 2012, Comcast customers found they could not access the NASA.gov website. Some users assumed that Comcast was deliberately blocking the website or that NASA, like Wikipedia and Reddit, was participating in the "blackout" protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) going on that day. As it turned out, the truth was much less exciting, but it offers important lessons about DNSSEC. more
Since 2005, Infoblox has commissioned a survey by The Measurement Factory, a research firm that specializes in performance testing and protocol compliance. The studies examine key aspects of the Internet's Domain Name infrastructure with results that uncover trends in DNS server configuration and deployed features. Some topics that have helped define the survey over the years have been arguably more leading edge (DNSSEC), while others are best described as quotidian (lame servers). more
As the WHOIS debate rages and the Top-Level Domain (TLD) space prepares to scale up the problem of rogue domain registration persists. These are set to be topics of discussion in Costa Rica. While the ICANN contract requires verification, in practice this has been dismissed as impossible. However, in reviewing nearly one million spammed domain registrations from 2011 KnujOn has found upwards of 90% of the purely abusive registrations could have been blocked. more
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