DNS

7th Registration Operations Workshop (ROW), Vancouver, Thursday May 17th 2018

The Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) was conceived as an informal industry conference that would provide a forum for discussion of the technical aspects of registration operations in the domain name system. The 7th ROW will be held in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday, May 17th 2018 in the afternoon, at the end of the GDD Industry Summit, in the same venue. more

.Org: ICANN’s Betrayals and its Opportunity to Act Now in the Public Interest

ICANN's repeated betrayals of the public interest have created the conditions for Ethos Capital's proposed purchase of .Org. The growing outrage directed at ICANN is raising questions about ICANN's legitimacy and the wisdom of having entrusted ICANN with oversight over the domain name system ("DNS"). ICANN has shown itself to be out of touch with and unresponsive to the public interest. ICANN now has an opportunity to remember its mission... more

A Balanced DNS Information Protection Strategy: Minimize at Root, TLD; Encrypt When Needed Elsewhere

Over the past several years, questions about how to protect information exchanged in the DNS have come to the forefront. One of these questions was posed first to DNS resolver operators in the middle of the last decade, and is now being brought to authoritative name server operators: "to encrypt or not to encrypt?" It's a question that Verisign has been considering for some time as part of our commitment to security, stability and resiliency of our DNS operations and the surrounding DNS ecosystem. more

.ONEWORLD .SOMEINTERNET: New gTLD Registries and Sanctioned Countries

Imagine that you run an organization out of a building. Imagine that the landlord comes one day and says, "Oh I didn't know you are a resident of country X or dealing with anybody from country X. I have to close this place down right now." And then you are done. You don't have an organization anymore. This very scenario happens on the Internet. more

Verisign’s Role in Securing the DNS Through Key Signing Ceremonies

Every few months, an important ceremony takes place. It's not splashed all over the news, and it's not attended by global dignitaries. It goes unnoticed by many, but its effects are felt across the globe. This ceremony helps make the internet more secure for billions of people. This unique ceremony began in 2010 when Verisign, ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration collaborated... more

Senate and House Hearings on New Top Level Domains Not Likely to Delay Launch

Yesterday, the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held hearings on ICANN's expansion of top level domains. Next week the House Energy and Commerce committee will also conduct their hearings on this same topic. more

ICANN Releases Fourth Version of the New gTLD Draft Applicant Guidebook

A fourth draft of ICANN's New gTLD Draft Applicant Guidebook has been released. In addition to the Applicant Guidebook, ICANN has also published summaries and analysis of the public comment period. The latest version includes... more

US House Committee Announces Oversight Hearing on DNS and Search Engine Blocking

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa today announced that the Full Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on security, jobs and the Internet community. The Committee will hear testimony from cybersecurity experts and others from the technology community. more

The Internet Isn’t Privatized Until .com Is Put Out for Bid

Previously, this series tackled the terribly awful Amendment 35 to the NTIA-Verisign cooperative agreement and also made the case that the tainted presumptive renewal currently included in registry agreements is inherently anti-competitive. But renewing legitimacy and integrity of Internet governance requires accurately understanding the unique and significant role retained by the U.S. government following the IANA transition. more

The Public Interest and the Root: Why the Next Round Demands a Public Law Approach to DNS Governance

As ICANN prepares to expand the domain name space, calls grow for a public-law framework to govern the DNS root, ensuring global equity, transparency, and accountability in managing the Internet's core infrastructure. more

Wither WHOIS!: A New Look At An Old System

No, that title is not a typo. The WHOIS service and the underlying protocol are a relic of another Internet age and need to be replaced. At the recent ICANN 43 conference in Costa Rica, WHOIS was on just about every meeting agenda because of two reasons. First, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee put out SAC 051 which called for a replacement WHOIS protocol and at ICANN 43, there was a panel discussion on such a replacement. The second reason was the draft report from the WHOIS Policy Review Team. more

U.S. Government Announces Intent to Transition DNS Functions to Global Community

U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) took a historic step today announcing "its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community." more

Can We Really Blame DNSSEC for Larger-Volume DDoS attacks?

In its security bulletin, Akamai's Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT) reported on abuse of DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) when mounting a volumetric reflection-amplification attack. This is not news, but I'll use this opportunity to talk a bit about whether there is a trade-off between the increased security provided by DNSSEC and increased size of DNS responses that can be leveraged by the attackers. more

An ITU Cut and Paste Job for New TLDs Could Cost $150k

It was with great interest that I read a recent announcement about a plan by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to publish template answers on a wiki for the 22 questions relating to registry technical operations contained within ICANN's new Top-Level Domain Applicant Guidebook. As someone who has spent the best part of six years following the development of the program (witnessing first-hand each evolution of the Applicant Guidebook) my first thought was one of bemusement... more

IANA Contract Extended by One Year, Announces Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce on Monday announced the official date for privatization of the DNS to be September 30, 2016 -- formerly set to expire on September 30, 2015. more