DNS

Institutionalizing Consumer Trust and Public Interest at ICANN

For an organization where people argue for hours over arcane minutiae, it's remarkable that virtually everyone agrees that ICANN should serve the "global public interest" and build "consumer trust" in the Internet. Although it's only three pages long, ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) cites "public interest" five times and "consumer trust" eight times. So at the ICANN meeting today in Cartagena, Colombia, a group of participants explored ways to "institutionalize" these concepts within the organization. more

Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (Milton Mueller, NYU 12/14)

The Internet Society's NY Chapter (ISOC-NY) is delighted to present Milton Mueller's first full exposition of his new book Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance at NYU on Tuesday December 14 2010. Prof. Mueller is a co-founder of ICANN's NonCommercial User's Constituency and a renowned cyberlibertarian. more

Tough Questions for ATRT

Public comments on the Proposed Recommendations published by the Accountability and Transparency Review Team ("ATRT") have now been submitted, and it is worth stepping back to evaluate ATRT's work in the context of ICANN's larger challenges. ATRT was constituted to carry out ICANN's commitments under the AoC. Yet at times ICANN acted as if ATRT were an adversary rather than a partner... more

Google as DNS, Wikileaks as PoC

Wikileaks is still accessible -- via Google. Does that change anything? For many Internet users IP addresses as well as domain names are completely transparent. Further, Google (and other search engines) and often the first stop when these users wants to find a service, or a web site. Thus, many of us discussed over the years the eventual viability of Google (... and other search engines) as "DNS" (note the "'s). Now, don't jump at my throat quite yet... more

US Government Waves the Caution Flag at ICANN

This month, ICANN is driving hard to get two of its horses to the finish line. The first is barely a year old - it's the first formal review of ICANN's accountability and transparency. The second horse is going on 4 years old: ICANN's plan to introduce hundreds of new top-level domains (TLDs) for the Internet. Just as these horses have entered the home stretch, one of the racecourse officials is vigorously waving the yellow caution flag. And ICANN would do well to pull back on the reins. more

A Tale of Two Governance Models

As many of us in the Internet community gear up for the ICANN meeting in Colombia next week, it's important to remember that not everybody embraces the multi-stakeholder approach that we've gradually learned to love. Just a month ago, a group with a very different vision of how to run things wrapped up their own Internet governance meeting in Latin America. Their meeting was three times as long and accomplished about a third as much, but they'd still like to see their model replace the ICANN model. more

Is Bulgarian Cyrillic .?? (.bg) Really Similar to Other Latin ccTLDs?

Bulgaria has proposed for an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) ccTLD string .?? (Cyrillic for .bg, or U+0431 U+0433), but the proposal was turned down by the ICANN DNS Stability panel in May 2010 without any arguments or an option for appeal. The proposed string is composed of two characters... more

DNS: The Basis for Billions

In the midst of "Cyber Monday", the day traditionally seen as one of the year's busiest days for online shopping, it is only appropriate to examine the importance DNS plays for online economies. With DNS being at the heart of Internet connectivity it is easy to understand why DNS is important to the growing health of economies whose online health in dollars and euros rest in the billions. more

Why DNS Blacklists Don’t Work for IPv6 Networks

All effective spam filters use DNS blacklists or blocklists, known as DNSBLs. They provide an efficient way to publish sets of IP addresses from which the publisher recommends that mail systems not accept mail. A well run DNSBL can be very effective; the Spamhaus lists typically catch upwards of 80% of incoming spam with a very low error rate. DNSBLs take advantage of the existing DNS infrastructure to do fast, efficient lookups. A DNS lookup typically goes through three computers... more

The Three Lessons We Can Learn from gTLDs’ Past

History is a great teacher, we are told. So, on the cusp of an explosion in new top-level domains, what can we learn from the two previous expansions of the Internet's naming space? And what are the pitfalls to avoid? Let's just assume the fundamental and obvious lessons of realistic expectations, a solid business plan and prudent resource management, and instead focus on the little talked about but still critical lessons that will separate the winners and the losers in this race. But first - a caveat! more