Internet Governance

Wireless Innovations for a Networked Society

Last week, I had the honor of moderating an engaging panel discussion at Mozilla on the need for community networks and the important role they can play in bridging the digital divide. The panel highlighted the success stories of some of the existing California-based initiatives that are actively working toward building solutions to get under-served communities online. more

Country Internet Registries: One African Perspective

Paul Wilson, Secretary-General of APNIC, was correct when he reminded the panelists of the IGF2009 workshop "Adopting IPv6: What You Need To Know" that "countries don't typically get IP address allocations, network service providers do". The ITU stills seems to cling to the notion that countries get IP blocks... more

New gTLD Expressions of Interest: Proceed with Caution

The ICANN Board, at its October 2009 annual meeting in Seoul, passed a resolution directing staff to prepare an analysis regarding the feasibility of ICANN soliciting Expressions of Interests (EOIs) from prospective applicants for new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs)... While this latest initiative should not distract ICANN from the remaining four overarching issues, if well executed, this EOI initiative could provide valuable insights into two of the four overarching issues: economics and root scaling. more

Playing the Long Game at the Internet Governance Poker Table

Poker players say if you can't spot the fish within your first 15 minutes at the table, you're the fish. With that in mind, I'm tempted to ask ICANN President Fadi Chehade who's the fish in the high-stakes game of global Internet governance we're now playing. In 2013, ICANN dramatically changed its course in the global Internet governance debate. For a decade ICANN largely stayed out of the game, allowing stakeholders to defend the multi-stakeholder model where private sector and civil society are on equal footing with governments. But in 2013 ICANN went on the offensive... more

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee Is Investigating Google’s Plans to Implement DNS Over HTTPS

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is investigating Google's plans to implement DNS over HTTPS (DoH) in Chrome according to a report by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. more

IS3C Report: Socio-Political and Technical Impacts of Post Quantum Cryptography Policies

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 ETNO Proposal: Unintended Consequences

In the run up to the WCIT negotiations in December, the most talked about proposed change to the ITRs (International Telecommunications Regulations) is the ETNO proposal... Much of the discussion has focused on how this would deter innovation, hamper start-ups and make Internet access much more expensive. Overlooked thus far are the unintended consequences of how this proposal will affect the Content Distribution Network (CDN) industry while simultaneously making cybercrime much easier. more

ICANN@15: Born in the USA - But Will It Stay?

This article was originally intended to be a short one focused on indications that ICANN was exploring the establishment of a legal nexus outside the United States and discussing what that might mean - and whether it was consistent with the Affirmation of Commitments (AOC) entered into with the United States in 2009. Then, as completion neared, came the sudden and nearly simultaneous release of the October 7th Montevideo Statement and the announcement two days later of a proposed 2014 Brazil "Summit" focused on restructuring Internet governance. At that point the task vastly expanded. more

The Meeting That Changed the DARPA Datagram Internet

The National Science Foundation awarded a small contract to the IEEE to host a small two-day meeting on 30 Sept 1994 of selected invitees at the IEEE's Washington DC 18th Street offices on "Name Registration For The '.COM' Domain." Being part of the InterNIC contract oversight committee, I was one of the eight invitees. It turned out in many ways to be the single most important meeting in the long, checkered history of what is today referred to as "the internet," that made an extraordinarily bad decision. more

SECSAC Special Meeting on Site Finder: A Technical Analysis

After attending the afternoon ICANN Security & Stability Committee meeting, I realized that the issues involved fall into several related but independent dimensions. Shy person that I am *Cough*, I have opinions in all, but I think it's worthwhile simply to be able to explain the Big Picture to media and other folks that aren't immersed in our field. In these notes, I'm trying to maintain neutrality about the issues. I do have strong opinions about most, but I'll post those separately, often dealing with one issue at a time. more

The Evolution of the ITU’s Views on Internet Governance (2006-2012)

Someone was talking the other day about the ITU and what they think about the issue of Internet Governance. I know what the ITU Secretariat wrote in a paper some years ago (Bulgaria was one of the governments heavily criticizing the errors and flaws in the ITU paper), but also decided it might be interesting to show how this question has evolved in the words of the ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure, by finding out how his positions on that issue, and on the role of the ITU have changed through the years. more

What’s New In the Field of Cybersecurity Cooperation

The last few months have shown a number of signs that cooperation in cyberspace is not just necessary, but it is vital for the survival of the Internet as we know it. There is no need to provide links to all the articles and news stories that talk about the dangers of cyberattacks on the infrastructure in the USA or other countries - you can find plenty of them. ... What misses really in these stories is the answer to the question "So, what?" more

Emergence, Rise and Fall of Surveillance Capitalism, Part 2: Rise and Fall

One of the consequences of the Jan 6th events is a renewed attention towards Surveillance Capitalism as a key doctrine undermining democracy.2 This part 2 of the 2 part series of discusses the 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

The Road Less Traveled: Time Is Running Out for NTIA-Verisign Cooperative Agreement

It is remarkable? - ?for all the wrong reasons? - ?that only two months remain before the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) must make a fateful decision on how it will address its' long-standing Cooperative Agreement with Verisign? - ?the private-sector corporation that edits the authoritative address book of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), maintains two of the DNS root servers, and operates the .com and .net registries of the Internet, undoubtedly one of the most lucrative concessions ever granted. more

Zero Rating, a Poisoned Chalice for the Developing World

A very Interesting meeting The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) with an ambitious theme of connecting the worlds next billion people to the Internet took place in early November 2015 in a beautiful resort city of João Pessoa in Brazil under the auspice of the United Nations. Few citizens of the world paid attention to it yet the repercussions of the policy issues discussed affect us all. more