New research from the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) released on Wednesday reports that the use of freely available DNS firewalls could prevent 33% of cybersecurity data breaches from occurring. more
The Telecom World converged in greater numbers than ever before on Barcelona last week for the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC). This years' motto: Redefining Mobile. To see one of the worlds' leading automotive industry executives, Ford Motor's Bill Ford Jr. delivering a keynote was yet another illustration of the growing osmosis between Telecommunications and other industry verticals. more
Brands applied for their new gTLDs to protect their brand and ensure they didn't miss an important new opportunity, but few had a clear business case for how they would use the gTLD platform when they applied. As brands approach the July 29th contracting deadline, the inevitable question is arising: "What do we do with this?" more
In 2019, I wrote that Amazon would be a formidable satellite-ISP competitor. I still think so, but I didn't expect it would be over four years until they launched the first test satellites. In the meantime, SpaceX has put over 5,000 satellites in orbit and has over two million Starlink customers. Amazon has permission to launch 3,236 satellites. more
On September 24, 2015, the free supply of IPv4 numbers in North America dwindled to zero. Despite fears to the contrary, IPv4 network operators have been able to support and extend their IP networks by purchasing the IPv4 address space they need from organizations with excess unused supply through the IPv4 market. The IPv4 market has proved to be an effective means of redistributing previously allocated IPv4 numbers, and could provide enough IPv4 addresses to facilitate the Internet's growth for several more years while the protracted migration to IPv6 is underway. more
As the countdown for the ICANN gTLD program ticks away its final 100 days, potential dot Brand applicants have to make important decisions in a short space of time: whether to apply for a new TLD, how to best leverage a new top-level domain, and which gTLD partner to choose. Most dot Brand applicants have excellent IT departments, but these resources are already over-stretched with current projects, and they likely lack the specific skills and experience needed to meet ICANN's exacting standards in the highly specialized area of top-level domain registry technology. more
As a reader of this article, you are probably familiar with the DNS cache poisoning techniques discovered a few years ago. And you have most likely heard that DNSSEC is the long term cure. But you might not know exactly what challenges are involved with DNSSEC and what experience the early adopters have gathered and documented. Perhaps you waited with our own rollout until you could gather more documentation over the operational experience when rolling out DNSSEC. This article summarizes authors' experiences and learnings from implementing the technology in production environments as well as discusses associated operational issues. more
One of the fascinating parts of my job is seeing how different groups in email have radically disparate points of view. A current example is how much value senders put on spamtraps compared to ISPs and filtering companies. I understand why this is. In all too many cases, when a sender asks why they're mail is going to bulk or being blocked, the answer is "you're hitting spamtraps." The thing is, spamtraps are almost never the only reason mail is being blocked. more
We've all heard the term, "you're only as strong as your weakest link." Whether talking about a tug of war on the playground, a sports team, or a business, this rings as true as ever. Every business relies on a series of suppliers and vendors -- be it the dairy farm supplying milk to the multinational food manufacturer or the payment systems that retailers use. These links form supply chains that every business, large and small, deals with. There is simply no way around it. more
"The General Services Administration is analyzing what caused an outage of .gov websites for a few hours Wednesday morning," reports Federal Times. Officials said the problem involved so-called DNSSEC cybersecurity measures that affected access to certain .gov sites, according to GSA spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. more
If you follow the Internet governance world like I do, you've no doubt had time to ponder the news of former ICANN Board Chair Peter Dengate Thrush's appointment as Executive Chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (TLDH). This was a seemingly fast jump from the body that coordinates the Internet (whose most recent milestone was to approve the creation of new gTLDs) to one of the key companies that stands to actively benefit from this burgeoning part of the domain name industry. Further, he's taken up a position that, according to reports, will allow him to benefit substantially as well. more
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has made a long term commitment to taking the actions necessary to reform ICANN. Specifically, the Department of Commerce's Strategic Plan for FY 2004-2009 discusses the need for NTIA to take action to reform ICANN. The Strategic Plan details three Strategic Goals for the Department to achieve over the next five years. The second goal is to "Foster science and technological leadership by protecting intellectual property, enhancing technical standards, and advancing measurement science." more
In the first part of our interview with Michael Froomkin, a Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law and one of the founding members of ICANNWatch, several issues were discussed regarding his recent article in the Harvard Law Review called, "[email protected]: Toward a Critical Theory of Cyberspace".
Michael Froomkin, who has underlined several striking lessons to be learned from IETF/ICANN contrast, continues with us in the second part of this interview, addressing even deeper matters such as ICANN's institutional design. more
In a press conference on Thursday at the University of Chicago, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet. more
On the World Standards Day of 2013 it seems appropriate to recognize that on the Internet and throughout the Web, nothing goes anywhere without standards. These technical standards - communication protocols, data exchange formats, and interfaces - allow different computers and networks to talk to each other. They are the lifeblood around the world for multibillion dollar industries that didn't exist 20 years ago. They are born of a collaborative, open process that prides itself on technical expertise and measures success by the depth and breadth of their acceptance across a hodgepodge of vastly different technologies all interconnected to what we euphemistically call "the Global Internet." more