ICANN Explains Why Judge Should Dismiss VeriSign’s Lawsuit

In a 33-page motion filed on Monday, April 5, 2004, ICANN has asked a federal judge in Los Angeles to dismiss VeriSign's recent lawsuit filed against the non-profit organization. More specifically, the filed motion has asked the court to "dismiss VeriSign's first six claims for relief with prejudice," which are... more

The Internet of Things: When Sci-Fi Becomes Reality

In my last blog post I shared some of the general security challenges that come with the Internet of Things (IoT). In this post, I will focus on one particular security risk: distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Even before the age of IoT, DDoS attacks have been turning multitudes of computers into botnets, attacking a single target and causing denial of services for the target's users. By "multitudes" we can be talking about thousands or even millions of victim devices. Now add IoT into the equation... more

The Internet’s Climate Quandary and the Inconvenience of Practicing What We Preach

It all started earlier this year in June. I was coding transcripts of the past global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meetings as part of a data mining exercise for DiploFoundation's Geneva Internet Platform (GIP). Pouring over transcript after transcript, the work was tedious, but I was learning a great deal about the Internet governance community as well. My interest was piqued by the conversations, the familiar names I came across, and the multi-stakeholder manifestation of politics, perspectives, and positions. more

Fitting .JOBS Into the Marketplace

There have been several posts over the last 48 hours in response to the new dot jobs domain on both sides of the argument. John Sumser from The Electronic Recruiting News provides a balanced view of the new domain and in the end determines that then new domain will not help job seekers. Gerry Crispin has a slightly different view on The CareerXroads, which is not surprising as Gerry was a advocate of the new domain from the beginning. Joel Cheesman provides a fantastic top 10 thoughts on the new domain as well... more

Crack the Code: That’s a Direct Challenge

I had quite an interesting experience recently. I was hired by a company to perform a vulnerability assessment and penetration test on their network. During the initial meeting, one of the key technical staff presented me with a challenge; He handed over the NTLM hash of the domain Administrator account and challenged me to decipher it. He explained that the complexity and length of the password would prevent me from deciphering it during the time allotted for the project. He was actually quite confident in my impending failure... more

EFF’s Emerging Alignment With Offshore Internet Pharmacies

The last few years have been challenging ones for members of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association. First, in 2010, they lost their ability to advertise in the US search space after the US Department of Justice noted that many seemingly "Canadian" pharmacy websites "sell drugs obtained from countries other than Canada" when shipping medicines into the US, and major search advertising programs tightened their policies, effectively excluding CIPA's members from advertising in the US. more

How to Build an Internet Governance Forum

Public consultations on the new "Internet Governance Forum" being created by the United Nations will be held in Geneva February 16-17. The Internet Governance Project has released a new discussion paper explaining how the Forum could work. The Forum must be as open as possible and give all stakeholders equal participation rights. Its deliberations must be wide-ranging and resist politically motivated barriers to discussion. And its products must feed into other, more authoritative Internet governance forums. more

Do Not Enter, It’s .XXX Again

There soon will be a central place for Web surfers to dwell in a forbidden cyber land of adult fantasies, sex, dark rituals and total taboos. Finally, ICANN has given in to the pressure and has tossed a big rock across the turbulent e-commerce ocean. It has approved a new suffix, .xxx, for adult-only porn sites, creating ripples and debates in ever so confusing global cyber branding times when cyber global domain name challenges are being fought in the complex earthly trademark realities. Three things are bound to happen. more

Gold Dragon Helps Olympics Malware Attacks Gain Permanent Presence on Systems, Reports McAfee

A report recently released by McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) revealed a fileless attack targeting organizations involved with the Pyeongchang Olympics. more

Contributory Cybersquatting and the Impending Demise of Domain Name Proxy Services?

This case involves an alleged domain name theft. Solid Host is a web host and initial owner of the domain name solidhost.com, which it registered through eNom in 2004. Solid Host claims that in 2008, a security breach at eNom allowed an unknown interloper (Doe) to steal the domain name and move the registration to NameCheap. Doe also acquired NameCheap's "WhoisGuard" service, a domain name proxy service that masked Doe's contact information in the Whois database. Solid Host contacted Doe and sought the domain name; Doe asked for $12,000, and Solid Host took a pass... more

Ukraine’s Leading Mobile Operator Struck by War’s Largest Cyberattack

In the largest cyberattack since Russia's invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's leading mobile network operator, Kyivstar, faced severe disruptions. more

Internet-Native Policies

Policies such as network neutrality and minimum speeds for broadband seek to limit the ability of carriers to favor some applications over others. Well-intended though these initiatives are, they still leave users negotiating for passage while confined to the carriers' "pipes". In this scenario, end users remain limited by how the incumbents choose to build their broadband content delivery networks. more

FCC Approves White Space Usage for “Super Wi-Fi” Technologies

In a unanimous vote today, the FCC has given a green light for the use of "white spaces" in order to deliver broadband connections as super "WiFi". From today's announcement: "The Federal Communications Commission today took steps to free up vacant airwaves between TV channels -- called "white spaces" -- to unleash a host of new technologies, such as "super Wi-Fi," and myriad other diverse applications. This is the first significant block of spectrum made available for unlicensed use in more than 20 years. TV white space spectrum is considered prime real estate because its signals travel well, making it ideally suited for mobile wireless devices." more

ICANN Moves Forward On New gTLDs

The introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet moved a step closer Friday, when the ICANN Board laid out its plan for the final stages of approving the new gTLD program. In a lengthy resolution, passed unanimously at the conclusion of a week of consultations in Cartagena, Colombia, the Board sought to draw a line under some policies where it believes the community has reached agreement, while highlighting others where further discussions are needed before the doors are opened to applications next year. more

Think ICANN Will End Up Rolling in New gTLD Cash? Think Again!

January 2014. The first registry contracts have been signed. The first Sunrise priority registration periods have been opened. The new gTLD program is well on the way. So maybe now, at last, we can start to find out the real costs of opening up the Internet root? And how much revenue doing so has brought ICANN! Short answer: ICANN has taken in USD 344.958 million from the first round of new gTLD applications. The figure comes from the first of ICANN's quarterly financial statements, covering the three months up until September 30th. more