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How Decades-Old Decisions Left U.S. Networks Vulnerable to Chinese Cyberintrusion

It seems like there is more disturbing news every day about Chinese infiltration of our telecommunications networks. A recent headline said that nine large ISPs have now been infiltrated. Tom Wheeler, a previous Chairman of the FCC, recently wrote an article for the Brookings Institute that speculates that the ability of the Chinese to infiltrate our networks stems back to decisions made decades ago that have never been updated for the modern world of sophisticated hacking.

Nominations Open for 2025 Public Interest Registry (PIR) Board of Directors

Are you interested in helping guide the future of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit operator of a number of domains that serve the public interest, including .ORG, .NGO and .ONG? Or do you know of someone who would be a good candidate? If so, the Internet Society is seeking nominations for three positions on the PIR Board of Directors. The nomination deadline is 14 February 2025.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Content Moderation Overhaul: Prelude to a Fragmented Internet and a Threat to Truth

Mark Zuckerberg's recent announcement of sweeping changes to Meta's content moderation policies marks a pivotal moment for the internet, democracy, and truth itself. The decision to replace third-party fact-checking with a decentralized "Community Notes" system and relocate trust and safety operations to Texas signals a shift in Meta's governance approach. This move is not only politically expedient but also a troubling prelude to the tech industry bowing to the political priorities of the incoming Trump administration.

Unregistered Gems Part 5: Using Groupings to Find Brandable Domains

The initial instalment of my recent series of articles on domain name discovery1 considered the use of phonotactic analysis - that is, the measure of the similarity of a string to the 'corpus' of other words in a language - to identify available unregistered candidate domains which may be of interest for potential brandability.

Is Your Router Spying on You?

If you've followed the telecom industry at all, you've heard of the effort to rip-and-replace Chinese network gear used mostly in cellular networks and in some fiber networks. The U.S. government ordered that such equipment be replaced, although it has funded the replacement in dribs and drabs. There has been heightened scrutiny of Chinese electronics since the recently discovered Beijing-sponsored cyberattacks that have been reported to have infiltrated the networks of major U.S.

Guowang Finally Launches Ten Large Production Satellites

In April 2020, The Chinese State Council's executive meeting declared information technology, including satellite Internet, an important part of the "new technology," and in October, China applied for Guowang, a 12,992-satellite Internet service constellation. Subsequently, a few Guowang test satellites were launched, and two other large Chinese constellations were announced, and one, Thousand Sails, already has 54 satellites in orbit. (Thousand Sails launches have had problems with debris and orbit raising, which attests to the immaturity of the Chinese space industry). Finally, Guowang has launched its first production satellites.

IGF 2024 in Riyadh: AI, WSIS+20 and the Global South

"Building our Multistakeholder Digital Future" was the theme of the 19th edition of the UN-based Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It attracted more than 11.000 participants (Offline and Online) from all over the world in Riyadh/Saudi Arabia, December 15-19, 2024. In the 307 plenaries, workshops, open fora, lightening talks and other conversations in the meeting rooms and the lobby halls of the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center (KAICC), nearly everything...

The Christmas Goat and IPv6 (Year 15)

The Christmas Goat attracted 809 unique AS numbers this year, with IPv6 usage led by the USA and Finland. Despite a rise to 39% IPv6 adoption, challenges like outdated routers persist. As this 15-year tradition concludes, the holiday Goat highlights the progress and hurdles of IPv6 integration.

ICANN CSG and NCSG Make Progress at ICANN81

The Commercial Stakeholder Group and Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (together, the Non-Contracted Party House, or NCPH) met for a daylong Day 0 session on 8 November 2024, immediately prior to the opening of the ICANN81 meeting in Istanbul. This meeting follows one of a similar nature conducted prior to ICANN78 in Hamburg, which was the first joint NCPH meeting following the pandemic.

Why Most People Haven’t Heard of the DNS Root Server System

At the ICANN 81 meeting in Istanbul on 10 November 2024, I gave a presentation about the DNS Root Server System, in an effort to increase understanding of the Root Server System (RSS) and Root Server Operators (RSOs). The talk was intended for the members of the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), but much of this explanation may be of interest to general audiences.