As we start the new year, it is worth noting some of the major events and news in 2008 that shaped the industry and fueled considerable discussions. Last year's occurrences made for a very historic year, bearing the seeds of future changes for the DNS and domain name industry. more
There was one message which overshadowed all discussions at the 5th Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) in New Delhi in November 2017: Instability in cyberspace is as dangerous as climate change. With four billion Internet users and five trillion dollars annually in digital transactions, instability in cyberspace has the potential to ruin the world. more
In a letter released on Monday, the Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. "Policies mandating DNS filtering undermine the open architecture of the Internet and raise human rights and freedom of expression concerns," says Internet Society (ISOC). more
I'm in attendance at the the TRAFFIC EAST 2006 show, in Hollywood [Miami], Florida. There has been a lot of buzz here about the .Mobi top level domain, ranging from the talk of early registrants hoping to create the next big mobile portal to those that were keen to see implementations of mobile content. There was a domain name auction this evening where flowers.mobi sold for $200,000.00 (USD), and fun.mobi for $100,000.00 (USD) from a long list of domain names in the com, net, info, org, us and mobi extensions. more
The presidents of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia have criticized the recent ICANN decision to grant global retailer Amazon the rights to the .amazon top-level domain. more
This post was co-authored by Sarah McKune, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. Public attention to the secretive world of cyber espionage has risen to a new level in the wake of the APT1: Exposing One of China's Cyber Espionage Units report by security company Mandiant. By specifically naming China as the culprit and linking cyber espionage efforts to the People's Liberation Army, Mandiant has taken steps that few policymakers have been willing to take publicly, given the significant diplomatic implications. more
Many of my friends in the civil-liberties and Internet-law communities have been criticizing the Internet Society's agreement to sell the Public Interest Registry, which administers the .ORG top-level domain. I'm a free-speech guy, so I support their right to raise all these criticisms. But they often ask me directly – knowing that my track record as an Internet civil-libertarian is longer than most – why as a member of the Internet Society (a.k.a. ISOC) board I decided to join the board's unanimous approval of the deal. more
ICANN's chairman says meetings offer special "circumstantial opportunity"; recent estimates peg average annual expense for attending at $30,000 per person. Oops - he's done it again. The latest blog update from ICANN's current board chair needs - no, it demands - a spotlight on what is revealed in plain and unashamed language. Indeed, this communique - along with another recent blog post that I've previously commented on - captures in exquisite relief what has gone terribly, horribly wrong at ICANN. more
The joint statement was released on Monday at the United Nations ahead of the UN General Assembly's General Debate calling on all states to support the evolving framework and to join in ensuring "greater accountability and stability in cyberspace." more
One of the consequences of the Jan 6th events is a renewed attention towards Surveillance Capitalism as a key doctrine undermining democracy. This 2-part series of articles discusses the emergence, rise, and fall of Surveillance Capitalism under the premise that the better we understand the danger at the door, the better we are able to confront it. more
A cranky letter from the NTIA to ICANN, submitted in late December during ICANN's comment period for new top-level domains, has encouraged the awkward coalition of those opposed to new TLDs. The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), a division of the Department of Commerce, is the agency tasked with being ICANN's watchdog. So a letter from them carries some weight, though not as much as some people think... more
Malaysia is advancing legislation for an internet “kill switch” aimed at curbing online abuse and illegal activities. This initiative, spearheaded by the country’s Law and Institutional Reform Minister Azalina Othman Said, seeks to hold social media and messaging platforms accountable for content disseminated through their services. more
Contrary to concerns regarding the effect of GDPR, "not only has there not been an increase in spam, but the volume of spam and new registrations in spam-heavy generic top-level domains (gTLDs) has been on the decline." more
At the 20th Internet Governance Forum in Lillestrøm, Norway, the UN Internet Governance Forum's dynamic coalition Internet Standards, Security and Safety (IS3C) released its new report on post-quantum policies. This report presents the findings of a collaborative study undertaken by IS3C and the French domain name registry Afnic and examines the critical need for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to achieve greater security in the ever-expanding global IoT landscape. more
The background is of course quite interesting, given how soon it has followed Microsoft's seizure of several domains belonging to Dynamic DNS provider no-ip.com for alleged complicity in hosting trojan RAT gangs, a couple of days after which the domains were subsequently returned -- without public comment -- to Vitalwerks, the operator of No-IP. This is by no means a new tactic for Microsoft, who has carried out successful seizures of various domains over the past two or three years. more