Phishing in the New gTLDs

The new Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) Global Phishing Survey has just been released. Written by myself and Rod Rasmussen of IID, the report is the "who, what, where, when, and why" look at phishing, examining the second half of 2014. The report has many findings, but here I'll concentrate on the new gTLDs. The second half of 2014 was when an appreciable number of new gTLDs entered general availability and started to gain market share. more

Stopping Illegal Activity Online - It’s More Complicated Than It Seems

There was a compelling article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the other day about ICANN and illegal online pharmacies. The result of a six-month investigation, the reporter, Jeff Elder, calls into question ICANN's effectiveness in investigating complaints of suspected illegal activity on domain names it has a contractual relationship with. Elder cites a recent incident where Interpol and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tried to have 1,300 websites shut down because they were suspected of selling drugs without a prescription. more

Apple Setting Up First Data Center in China to Comply with Tougher Cybersecurity Laws

Apple today reported it is constructing its first data center in China, in partnership with a local internet services company, in order to comply with the tougher cybersecurity laws enacted last month. more

Lessons to Be Learned from the Armada Collective’s DDoS Attacks on Greek Banks

'It could've been worse' is a fascinating expression. It implies that the incident in question obviously could have been worse than expected, however it also implies that it could have been better, ultimately leading to the conclusion that it was at least somewhat bad. So both fortunately and unfortunately for three Greek banks, the ransom DDoS attacks levied against them by hacker group the Armada Collective could have been worse. more

The Association of National Advertisers Blinders on New TLDs

I read with interest the piece by the Chairman of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Garry Elliot, in Advertising Age, which was partly prompted by my commentary in the same publication describing why new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) could be an opportunity for some brands. He says: "From all I've seen, no matter how one tries to justify ICANN's process or the benefits it speculates will occur, it is simply impossible to defend the economics of the ICANN proposal. That is the Achilles' heel of this entire exercise. To paraphrase an old saying, 'It's the economics, stupid.'" more

Voluntary Collective Licensing of Brand-Sharing Domain Names

The essay outlines a market-driven and value-adding solution to brand use in domain names. The solution relies heavily on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's remedy to music file sharing. I propose its adoption for new registrations and renewals. Brand sharing in domain names is here to stay; desperate attempts to stop it through legal action are ineffective and will do nothing but destroy value. more

U.S. Complaint to WTO on China VPNs Is Itself Troubling

On 23 February, the U.S. Administration had the chutzpah to file a formal communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO) complaining about "measures adopted and under development by China relating to its cybersecurity law." However, it is the U.S. complaint that is most troubling. Here is why. The gist of the U.S. complaint is that China's newly promulgated directive on the use of VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypted circuits from foreign nations runs afoul of... more

Lessons from .Build One Year After Launch: Q&A with CEO and Founder George Minardos

The .build domain namespace opened in General Availability in April 2014, as a domain name designed specifically for the online needs of the building industry and beyond. As the appointed technical provider for .build, ARI Registry Services powered the launch and continued technical operations for this global domain name. A year into the life of the namespace, ARI Registry Services' Head of Global Consulting Tony Kirsch caught up with George Minardos, CEO of .build to talk about his insights to date, what he's learnt about the domain name industry, and a look at where he thinks it is heading. more

Port 43 Failures Continue to Haunt

On February 16, 2012 ICANN took the new step of suspending the Registrar Alantron's ability to register new names or accept inbound domain transfers. This new compliance tool was used following Alantron's apparently inadequate response to a breach notice issued November 7, 2011. The issue in part concerns Alantron's perpetual problems with Port 43 WHOIS access which is required by the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. more

Australia Launches Major Cybersecurity Revamp Following Recent Major Cyberattacks

Australia is set to enhance its cybersecurity framework in response to recent widespread cyberattacks. The government has released its 2023 -- 2030 Cyber Security Strategy, aiming to position Australia among the top cyber-secure nations by 2030. more

Euro 2020 Part Two: eCommerce Marketplace Activity

Following our previous article on the Euro 2020 football tournament that looked retrospectively at domain name registrations relating to the competition, this article considers activity on eCommerce marketplaces. For this study, our Discovery Engine technology was used to conduct a regular series of scans across key international online marketplaces. We monitored for listings (offers of sale) relating to Euro 2020 clothing and merchandise. more

China Blocks WhatsApp, Says Messaging Service Should Stop Spread of “Illegal Information”

WhatsApp is now broadly disrupted in China including text messages which were going through despite China's censorship of the app beginning mid-July which only effected photographs and video chats. more

Ten Years of Passive DNS

The report, "A Decade of Passive DNS" provides a longitudinal analysis of the use and popularity of top-level domains over a ten-year period. The findings are based on what Farsight Security has seen in passive DNS from 2010-2019 based on a ten-year data rollup, excluding DNSSEC-related records. This study allows us to report on four measures for that period for each of the 1,576 IANA-recognized TLDs. more

Eureka! We’ve Struck ... Consensus

It took a trip to California - the land of the gold rush - to discover that most elusive of ICANN aspirations: consensus. ICANN kicked off this week's meeting in San Francisco with a parade of Internet pioneers discussing the past, present and future of ICANN. ... ICANN insiders might focus on points of contention that came out of this morning's comments -- whether on new gTLDs or the future of the IANA functions -- but I was more interested by those areas where ICANN pioneers clearly agreed. more

Internet Vigilantism

Atrivo (aka Intercage), a Concord, California-based Internet hosting service, disappeared from the Internet for around two days recently. They didn't go bankrupt or suffer a physical catastrophe. Their providers simply shut them down by refusing their traffic. This might very well be the first time in history that the Internet community, a cooperative association of networks with no governing body, has collectively put someone out of business, if only briefly. more