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Attacking the Multi-Stakeholder Model

"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." A famous saying, that some within the ICANN world seem to think actually means: "if at first you don't get what you want, try and try again." The basic premise of the ICANN system is simple and fair: get all parties to work together, give everyone an equal voice, and act on whatever consensus emerges. ICANN insiders have coined this the "multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, policy development process". more

The Mainsleaze Blog

Mainsleaze is nerdy slang for spam sent by large, well-known, otherwise reputable organizations. Although the volume of mainsleaze is dwarfed by the volume of spam for fake drugs, account phishes, and Nigerian 419 fraud, it causes work for mail managers far out of proportion to its volume... The problem with mainsleaze is that it is generally mixed in with mail that the recipients asked for, and there's no way to tell the difference mechanically. more

RealNames’ Termination: More Catastrophic than Anticipated!

Microsoft is a special company. By definition, its operating systems and Internet browser are no longer just "applications;" they constitute a platform. They are - for 90 percent of Internet users - the sole interface to all Internet content and services. The browser is its own little monopoly. Such is its dominance that Microsoft has the power of life and death over innovation. more

Frequency of DDoS Attacks Risen by 40% While Duration of Attacks Decrease

The frequency of DDoS attacks has risen by 40% year on year while the duration of attacks decreased with 77% lasting ten minutes or less, according to a new report released by Corero Network Security. more

ICANN’s GDPR Compliance Model for Whois Unlikely to Be Implemented in Time for May 25 Deadline

Domain name registries and registrars will not be able to implement ICANN's proposed overhaul of the Whois system in time for the EU's General Data Protection Regulation according to an estimated timetable from ICANN. more

U.S. Government Strongly Affirms ICANN Model and New gTLDs

Larry Strickling, who runs the NTIA (the part of the U.S. Department of Commerce that handles ICANN), yesterday gave an important and remarkable speech to the Practicing Law Institute about Internet governance. His speech, timed to coincide with an orchestrated ICANN-bashing across town in the Senate, was a striking defense of the ICANN model and a repudiation of special pleading outside the process. more

Why DNS is Broken, in Plain English

At ICANN's meeting in Egypt last week, I had the opportunity to try and explain to various non-technical audiences why the Domain Name System (DNS) is vulnerable to attack, and why that is important, without needing a computer science degree to understand it. Here is the summary. more

OMB Focuses On Cybersecurity

Ensuring federal cybersecurity is essential to protecting national security. According to some media reports, recommendations have been made to the Bush Administration to "create a distinct administrative cybersecurity position within the Homeland Security Department to oversee progress in the federal government and act as a liaison with private industry." However, before new bureaucracy is created, it is important to recognize the practical cybersecurity policies and projects that are already being undertaken by the Administration. more

Internet Will Split Into Chinese-Led and US-Led Versions Within the Next Decade, Says Eric Schmidt

Speaking at a private event hosted by Village Global VC, tech luminary and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that the internet will split into Chinese-led and US-led versions by 2028. more

‘First True’ Native IPv6 DDoS Attack Reported

Possibly the first documented native IPv6 DDoS attack reported today suggests a DNS dictionary attack which originated from around 1,900 different native IPv6 hosts, on more than 650 different networks. more

ICANN’s Tax Exemption Requires Updated Review

In September 2015, John Levine asked why ICANN should be considered a tax-exempt organization following the completion of the U.S. government's transition of technical management of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) determined that ICANN was an exempt organization in 2000 and, inarguably, circumstances have evolved materially since then. more

Major Regulatory Changes Needed as Safety and Security Merge, Warns European Commission Report

As we increasingly move towards an IoT world, vendors of safety-critical devices will be patching their systems just as regularly as phone and computer vendors do now. Researchers warn that many regulators who previously thought only in terms of safety will have to start thinking of security as well. more

SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) Starts Tonight in Herndon, Virginia

Tonight begins the third annual SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) in Herndon, Virginia, where technical and operations staff from service providers around the world with gather to share information and learn about the latest trends in IP communications services - and specifically those based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Produced by the nonprofit SIP Forum, SIPNOC is an educational event sharing best practices, deployment information and technology updates. Attendees range from many traditional telecom carriers to newer VoIP-focused service providers and application developers. more

Measuring Root Server Performance

Root name servers are a core service of the Internet. As such they receive a huge amount of queries and need to answer reliably with acceptable delay. The RIPE NCC is responsible for operating one of the 13 DNS root name servers K-root which responds to 10,000 - 15,000 queries per second. Most root servers are operated as a network of distributed "instances" using anycast. more

What’s ARC?

DMARC is an anti-phishing technique that AOL and Yahoo repurposed last year to help them deal with the consequences of spam to (and apparently from) addresses in stolen address books. Since DMARC cannot tell mail sent through complex paths like mailing lists from phishes, this had the unfortunate side effect of screwing up nearly every discussion list on the planet. Last week the DMARC group published a proposal called ARC, for Authenticated Received Chain, that is intended to mitigate the damage. What is it, and how likely is it to work? more