The Three-Character Question at the Heart of Single-Character .COMs: W-H-Y?

In the matter relating to O.COM, I've focused on the fact that VeriSign has -- in correspondence to the organization that is counter-party to its .COM and transliterated .COM IDN Registry Agreements, in earnings calls with its investors and financial analysts, and in policy published on its website for every innocent and unsuspecting Tom, Dick, and Harry in the world to be duped by -- stated an unequivocal and unwavering commitment . more

U.S. Senate Declares “Internet Governance Awareness Week” Coinciding with ICANN 52 Singapore

On February 5th, while many (including the author) were on route to ICANN 52 in Singapore, the U.S. Senate passed S.Res. 71, a non-binding, "Sense of the Senate" Resolution declaring February 8th–14th as "Internet Governance Awareness Week". Those dates overlap the now ongoing ICANN meeting in Singapore, and the congruence is intentional. more

My Broadband Predictions for 2022

It's that time of the year for me to get out the crystal ball and peer into 2022... I have no idea why it took a year for the administration to tee up a new Chairman and recommend a fifth FCC Commissioner. But once a new Commissioner is seated, the new FCC will tackle reinstating some version of Title II regulation, accompanied by net neutrality regulations. For yet another year, this won't come from Congress, which is the only permanent solution. more

US Department of Homeland Security Issues Emergency Directive Ordering Agencies to Audit DNS Records

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a rare "emergency" directive ordering federal agencies to audit all DNS records within ten days. more

What is the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC)?

As a longtime member of ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC), I'm impressed by the important work that this group does on behalf of trademark owners worldwide (as I've written before). While some die-hard IPC members spend countless (and, often, thankless) hours working virtually and in-person (at ICANN's global meetings) for the constituency, I find it very educational and worthwhile to participate on an ad-hoc basis. more

Competition Is Sexy - Separation or Integration of the Domain Name Sales Channel?

Back in the early days of the public Internet, Network Solutions had a monopoly on .com, .org., and .net domain registrations and charged $100 per domain for a 2-year registration. Growing complaints about that predatory pricing was one of the factors that led to ICANN's creation. NetSol established an internal "firewall" in 1998 and its wholesale prices soon dropped to $6 per domain. VeriSign acquired NetSol for $21 billion in 2000, and then sold off the registrar side of the business to private equity in 2003. more

New German Legislation Provides Copyright-Related Internet Platform Obligations

Recently, there has been an interesting development in the liability of Internet intermediaries in Germany, and I will comment here in this text. The "Act on Copyright Liability Online Content Sharing Service Providers" began to apply on August 1, 2021 in the country. This act is a German attempt to deal with the controversy generated by the approval in 2019 of the new European directive on copyright, specifically with article 17. more

Republican Presidential Candidate Upset With ICANN CEO

Republican senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz is not very happy with ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade. In a letter dated today, Cruz along with two other senators, have dropped some pointed questions for Chehade in relation to his involvement with a recent meeting in China... "As you must know, the World Internet Conference is not a beacon of free speech..." more

DDoS Attack Size Breaks 100 Gbps for First Time, Up 1000% Since 2005

"2010 should be viewed as the year distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks became mainstream as many high profile attacks were launched against popular Internet services and other well known targets," reports Arbor Networks in its just released Sixth Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report. According to the report, the year also witnessed a sharp escalation in the scale and frequency of DDoS attack activity on the Internet. The 100 Gbps attack barrier was reached for the first time while application layer attacks hit an all-time high. Service providers experienced a marked impact on operational expense, revenue loss and customer churn as a result. more

Open Broadband Infrastructure… And Why There’s No Business Case for FttH to Sell TV

Those advocates of a free market approach to fiber to the home (FttH), rather than a utilities-based one, often point to entertainment as the way to make that happen. And they then immediately point to the USA, where FttH rollouts have indeed been driven by competition between the cable TV companies... The telcos who were initially less enthusiastic about broadband (because it required them to abandon their lucrative ISDN services and replace them with the simpler and cheaper DSL technology) suddenly found themselves bested in the broadband market by the cable TV companies - a trend we also saw in some of the European markets - for instance, the Netherlands... more

National Telcos Can and Will Change Their Behaviour, Case in Point: Telstra

When discussions with overseas colleagues made it clear to me how fast things are changing here in Australia compared with the rest of the world, I was prompted to write this update about the developments in Australia, particularly in relation to its incumbent telco, Telstra. Most people overseas have not yet fully caught up with the fact that the destructive regime of Telstra's former CEO is well and truly over -- in the past there has been plenty of international reporting of the shocking behaviour of Telstra under Sol Trujillo (former US West) and his persistent attacks on the government included suing Ministers and abusing the Regulator. more

The Incredible Value of Passive DNS Data

If a scholar was to look back upon the history of the Internet in 50 years' time, they'd likely be able to construct an evolutionary timeline based upon threats and countermeasures relatively easily. Having transitioned through the ages of malware, phishing, and APT's, and the countermeasures of firewalls, anti-spam, and intrusion detection, I'm guessing those future historians would refer to the current evolutionary period as that of "mega breaches" (from a threat perspective) and "data feeds". more

Verizon, AT&T Speeds Slow After Unlimited Data Plans Launch

Verizon and AT&T re-introduced their unlimited data plans earlier this year, and as a result, studies show that the providers' 4G speeds and overall speeds have fallen due to increased data demand on their networks. more

Still No Access to WHOIS Data

The ICANN 64 meeting in Kobe concluded two weeks ago, and we are no closer to accessing WHOIS data critical for law enforcement, cybersecurity threat investigators, intellectual property owners, or other consumer protection advocates who rely on the data to act quickly against online abuse in the domain name system. Instead of a balanced approach to WHOIS that serves the public interest, the ICANN Board is set to approve a new global policy that fails to even fully acknowledge critical... more

Password Leaks

The technical press is full of reports about the leak of a hashed password file from LinkedIn. Worse yet, we hear, the hashes weren't salted. The situation is probably both better and worse than it would appear; in any event, it's more complicated. more