In a move that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, the EU Commission has given a rather mixed welcome to the IANA bid. While they obviously like a lot of what they are seeing, they're also not overly impressed with the contract only being open to US companies. more
In politics, as in Internet policy, the most effective weapons are also the oldest. So when it came time for hard-line intellectual property advocates to make a desperate last stand against the new gTLD program, it came as no surprise they turned to the atomic bomb of rhetorical devices: FUD. FUD stands for "fear, uncertainty and doubt" and it is the tool of last resort when change is coming and you want to stop it. The theory is simple: the human response to fear is to cling to what's familiar and oppose what's new. So if you can scare enough people about the potential effects of a new policy or law, you stand a pretty good chance of preventing it from ever going into effect. more
The ITU launched its latest statistics report, the World in 2011: ICT Facts and figures, which revealed impressive growth in a number of areas such as global internet use, particularly in developing countries. The report included further key details such as: "One third of the world's population are forecast to be online by the end of 2011..." more
It is an open secret that the current state of IPv4 allocation contains many accidental historical imbalances and in particular developing countries who wish to use IPv4 are disadvantaged by the lack of addresses available through ordinary allocation and are forced into purchasing addresses on the open market. As most of the addresses for sale are held by organisations based in the developed world, this amounts to a transfer of wealth from the developing world to the developed world, on terms set by the developed world. more
Law enforcement demands to domain name registrars were a recurring theme of the 42d ICANN public meeting, concluded last week in Dakar. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) took every opportunity at its public meetings with GNSO and Board, and in its Communique to express dismay, disappointment, and demands for urgent action to "reduce the risk of criminal abuse of the domain name system." more
Among the hottest topics at the Broadband Leadership Summit, which was held during the ITU Telecom World 2011 in Geneva, were the issues in relation to the security of the various aspects of the digital economy. The key issue in relation to the governance of the internet relates to the many political, social and cultural differences between countries. This is one of the most contentious issues. more
Just back from a week of ICANN meetings in Dakar. Is it just me, or is the new top-level domain program starting to feel like a TLD triathlon, where everyone's now jockeying for position in the final stage -- a grueling marathon? When ICANN's board approved the new gTLD plan in Singapore, it came with the promise of small but substantive changes to improve the program. I hope that wasn't empty rhetoric... more
Cybersecurity regulation will take its place alongside environmental regulation, health and safety regulation and financial regulation as a major federal activity. What is not yet clear is what form the regulations will take. FISMA controls, performance standards, consensus standards and industry-specific consortia standards are all possible regulatory approaches. What is not likely is an extended continuation of the current situation in which federal authorities have only limited, informal oversight of private sector cyberdefenses (or lack thereof). more
There may be no better illustration of how far we've come in Internet governance, than this: twice in the past 30 days, the global Internet community has gathered in sub-Saharan Africa to plot a path to bring the Internet to its next billion users. Just weeks after wrapping up the sixth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Kenya, Internet stakeholders from around the world traveled back to Africa for ICANN's 42nd meeting in Dakar, Senegal. more
A reader recently brought to my attention an upcoming conference in London in the UK -- The Oil and Gas Cyber Security Forum. Here's a little blurb: "Despite investments into state of the art technology, a majority of the oil and gas industry remain blissfully unaware of the vulnerabilities, threats and capability of a malicious cyber attack on control systems..." I bring this up because it is relevant to the trends in cyber security that we see this year - that of the Advanced Persistent Threat. more
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