DNS

Researchers Detail Faster Methods to Defeat Botnets Like Conficker and Kraken

Michael Cooney reporting in NetworkWorld: "Security researchers this week will detail a prototype system they say can better detect so-called Domain Name Generation- (DGA) based botnets such as Conficker and Kraken without the usual labor- and time-intensive reverse-engineering required to find and defeat such malware. The detection system, called Pleiades, monitors traffic below the local DNS server and analyzes streams of unsuccessful DNS resolutions..." more

Top Level Domains and a Signed Root

With DNSSEC for the root zone going into production in a couple of weeks, it is now possible for Top Level Domain (TLD) managers to submit their Delegation Signer (DS) information to IANA. But what does this really mean for a TLD? In this post we're going to try to sort that out. more

The .ORG Debate Should be About What Its Users Want

I watch the controversy over the proposed sale of the .ORG domain with a mixture of bemusement and concern. Some in the ICANN community – mostly those who resent that the Internet ever became commercialized – oppose the sale of the Public Interest Registry to the for-profit company Ethos for $1.1 billion. The basis of their concern is that the domain for non-profits should be in the hands of a non-profit and that the new owners might increase the current $9.93 fee PIR charges for a domain. more

Canadian International Pharmacy Association Calls for Ban of Online Sale of Opioids

The wide availability of dangerous and addictive drugs is ravaging society. Such devastation is bringing ever-increasing attention from legislators, regulators and from families who have lost loved ones. The Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) believes that the online marketing and sales of such products should be banned immediately. We call on governments, technology platforms, and the ICANN community to act quickly and bring an end to opioid sales online. more

6th Registration Operations Workshop (ROW), Madrid, Friday May 12th 2017

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 6th ROW will be held in Madrid, on Friday May 12th 2017 in the afternoon, immediately after the GDD Industry Summit and prior to ICANN DNS Symposium and OARC 26, using the same venue as all above-mentioned events. more

Decentralizing Cybersecurity Via DNS

Decentralization is a big trend in IT, and everyone has their own definition of what "decentralization" really means. With more organizations fully embracing a work-from-anywhere culture, decentralization has moved past being a fad and turned into a necessity. Decentralized cybersecurity is nothing new. Many of us have been doing it since before the pandemic. more

Newer Cryptographic Advances for the Domain Name System: NSEC5 and Tokenized Queries

In my last post, I looked at what happens when a DNS query renders a "negative" response -- i.e., when a domain name doesn't exist. I then examined two cryptographic approaches to handling negative responses: NSEC and NSEC3. In this post, I will examine a third approach, NSEC5, and a related concept that protects client information, tokenized queries. The concepts I discuss below are topics we've studied in our long-term research program as we evaluate new technologies. more

At the NCPH Intersessional, Compliance Concerns Take Centre Stage

The non-contracted parties of the ICANN community met in Reykjavík last week for their annual intersessional meeting, where at the top of the agenda were calls for more transparency, operational consistency, and procedural fairness in how ICANN ensures contractual compliance. ICANN, as a quasi-private cooperative, derives its legitimacy from its ability to enforce its contracts with domain name registries and registrars... more

New Report on Performance Measurements of the DNS Root Service in China

Zhiwei Yan writes to report: "CNNIC recently lunched a monitoring to measure the performance of the DNS root service in China (mainland). The results reflect that the service diversity from different ISPs and different geographical locations is obvious for different root servers. Besides, the stability of the DNS root service is directly affected by the BGP routing system. CNNIC will continue this work and anticipate the wide participation from the community." more

Change of Leadership at ICANN as Cerf Makes Way for Intellectual Property Expert

Intellectual property and computer law barrister Peter Dengate-Thrush has been elected as new Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The former chairman of InternetNZ, the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry for New Zealand (.nz), and cofounder of the Association of Asian Pacific ccTLDs, succeeds the legendary Vinton Cerf... more

Suggestions on IDN Variant Management

To some applicants, ICANN's variant management policy in DAG4 has become a big obstacle to the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) application. The policy is to delegate the string while reserving the variants, and these variants will not be delegated until a sound mechanism is developed and the desired variants are evaluated. But for some languages, Chinese for example, the so called string and its variant, namely simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, are equivalent and must be simultaneously delegated. more

It’s Time for a Referendum on Orgxit

The worst thing about Brexit wasn't the referendum. It was the fallout. David Cameron decided that the best way to manage a small risk was to take a big one. Finally, over three agonizing years later, the UK looks set to move on. The Internet Society – which has run the .ORG domain since 2002 – was in the same position as Cameron. They became convinced that it was worth dealing with a small risk by taking a huge one. more

Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance Is Captured and Presumed Dead

Technical management of the Internet was delegated to ICANN by the U.S. government because it was believed that the private sector would be more agile and responsive to the needs of globally distributed stakeholders. However, this optimism and the faith it has produced has proven to be misplaced since ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance continues falling far short of the basic expectations set when it was created. more

A Look at the Rapid Evolution of the World’s DNS Infrastructure

A recent report by Pingdom looks at the booming growth of Internet's DNS infrastructure. From the article: "Five years ago there were 123 DNS root server sites (the "backend" of DNS) spread out on the Internet. Today there are more than twice as many, over 300. Five years ago, 46 countries had root servers. Today, 76 have them. In other words, not only has the number of root servers grown tremendously, but their geographical spread has increased as well. This is good news for the overall stability and performance of DNS worldwide." more

GNU C Library Found Vulnerable to Rogue DNS Server Attacks

Security experts from Google's Project Zero along with researchers from Red Hat, have identified and helped patch a security flaw in the GNU C Library (glibc) that could be exploited via rogue DNS servers, reports Catalin Cimpanu from Softpedia. more