DNS

Steering Website Traffic with Managed DNS vs. IP Anycast

I recently read an interesting post on LinkedIn Engineering's blog entitled "TCP over IP Anycast -- Pipe dream or Reality?" The authors describe a project to optimize the performance of www.linkedin.com. The web site is served from multiple web server instances located in LinkedIn's POPs all over the world. Previously LinkedIn used DNS geomapping exclusively to route its users to the best web server instance, but the post describes how they tried using BGP routing instead. more

Increasing DNSSEC Adoption - What if We Put DNSSEC Provision in the Hands of Registries?

There has been a lot of criticism about the worthiness of DNSSEC. Low adoption rates and resistance and reluctance by Registrars to take on the perceived burden of signing domains and passing-on cryptographic material are at the crux of the criticism. I'm a believer in DNSSEC as a unique and worthwhile security protocol and as a new platform for innovation. It's the reason I've long advocated for and continue to work toward a new model of DNSSEC provisioning. more

Confessions of an Ex-Opponent of Whois Privacy

The following is the easyDNS response to ICANN's public comment period on GNSO Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Working Group Initial Report. The public comment period is open until July 7, 2015. We strongly urge you to make your voice known by signing the petition over at Save Domain Privacy. I submit these comments as a CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar, a former director to CIRA and a lifelong anti spam contributor with an unblemished record of running a managed DNS provider that maintains zero tolerance for net abuse or cybercrime... more

Diving Into the DNS

If you are at all interested in how the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) works, then one of the most rewarding meetings that is dedicated to this topic is the DNS OARC workshops. I attended the spring workshop in Amsterdam in early May, and the following are my impressions from the presentations and discussion. What makes these meetings unique in the context of DNS is the way it combines operations and research, bringing together researchers, builders and maintainers of DNS software systems, and operators of DNS infrastructure services into a single room and a broad and insightful conversation. more

The Internet of Stupid Things

In those circles where Internet prognostications abound and policy makers flock to hear grand visions of the future, we often hear about the boundless future represented by "The Internet of Things". This phrase encompasses some decades of the computing industry's transition from computers as esoteric piece of engineering affordable only by nations, to mainframes, desktops, laptops, handhelds, and now wrist computers. Where next? more

Paul Vixie on How the Openness of the Internet Is Poisoning Us

In a video interview conducted during the NSCS ONE conference, Paul Vixie CEO of Farsight Security further discusses the topic of his presentation titled: "Defective by Design -- How the Internet's Openness is Slowly Poisoning Us". more

Black Helicopters for the DNS: What Happens In 2025?

When Steve delBianco from NetChoice testified (April 2, 2014) in the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the US House of Representatives on "Ensuring the Security, Stability, Resilience, and Freedom of the Global Internet", he proposed a stresstest for new mechanisms which could substitute the role of the NTIA in overseeing the IANA contract with ICANN. Stresstests are good. It is good for cars, it is good for banks and it is good for new mechanisms... more

What the US Government Said About IANA in Singapore

Two weeks ago, the US government announced it would transition its role in the IANA functions to the global Internet community. It tasked ICANN with the job of arriving at a transition plan and noted that the current contract runs out in 18 months' time, 30 September 2015. This week, ICANN started that process at its meeting in Singapore. And on the ground were the two key US government officials behind the decision. more

Playing the Long Game at the Internet Governance Poker Table

Poker players say if you can't spot the fish within your first 15 minutes at the table, you're the fish. With that in mind, I'm tempted to ask ICANN President Fadi Chehade who's the fish in the high-stakes game of global Internet governance we're now playing. In 2013, ICANN dramatically changed its course in the global Internet governance debate. For a decade ICANN largely stayed out of the game, allowing stakeholders to defend the multi-stakeholder model where private sector and civil society are on equal footing with governments. But in 2013 ICANN went on the offensive... more

Yet Another Embarrassing IDN Gaff from ICANN

Hot on the heels of other ICANN Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Top-Level Domain (TLD) launch errors, we now have another example of ICANN's failure to comprehend the differences between IDN and ASCII names, this time to the detriment of potential IDN registrants and the new IDN generic TLD (gTLD) Registries. This gaff really makes you wonder whether the SSAC and Multilinguism departments at ICANN have ever met. more

The Challenge of DNS Security

When the domain name system (DNS) was first designed, security was an afterthought. Threats simply weren't a consideration at a time when merely carrying out a function - routing Internet users to websites - was the core objective. As the weaknesses of the protocol became evident, engineers began to apply a patchwork of fixes. After several decades, it is now apparent that this reactive approach to DNS security has caused some unintended consequences and challenges. more

Name Collisions, Why Every Enterprise Should Care (Part 3 of 5)

Do you recall when you were a kid and you experienced for the first time an unnatural event where some other kid "stole" your name and their parents were now calling their child by your name, causing much confusion for all on the playground? And how this all made things even more complicated - or at least unnecessarily complex when you and that kid shared a classroom and teacher, or street, or coach and team, and just perhaps that kid even had the same surname as you, amplifying the issue! What you were experiencing was a naming collision (in meatspace). more

ICANN’s Noah: Chehade’s 40-Day Report Card

Forty days. That's how long Fadi Chehade has had to get a handle on the most complex, diverse and important non-profit corporation the world has ever known. The last guy to face such an unforgiving timeline was measuring timber in cubits. So if Cheade is Noah, I guess that makes ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker God, telling Fadi to wrangle all these diverse (and often diverging) constituencies and march them two-by-two into the boat, ahead of the coming storm. more

If You Build It, They Will Come.

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

Spam from Mobile Networks? Who Woulda Thought…

Mobile networks aren't usually thought of as sources of spam, but a quick look at some of the resources that track spam reveals they actually are. This is counter intuitive at first glance because when most people think of mobile they think of smartphones, and those aren't known to be sources of spam (at least not yet). What's really going on is PCs connected to mobile networks with air cards, or tethered with a smartphone where it's permissible, are the culprits more