WCIT Off to a Flying Start

This is the report on Day One of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), directly from Dubai. The conference started off in a positive way that did not reflect the sometimes bitter debate that has taken place in the press in recent months - although, of course, there was a great deal of discussion about the comments made in the press over that period. All comments were welcomed, as an indication of the importance of the internet and telecommunications; nevertheless the Secretary-General, Hamadoun Touré, was clearly critical of some of the deliberate misinformation that has been spread before the conference. more

Using Domain Name Privacy/Proxy Services Lawfully or to Hide Contact Information and Identity

Privacy/proxy services carry no per se stigma of nefarious purpose, although when first introduced circa 2006 there was some skepticism they could enable cybersquatting and panelists expressed different views in weighing the legitimacy for their use. Some Panels found high volume registrants responsible for registering domain-name-incorporating trademarks. Others rejected the distinction between high and low volume as a determining factor. more

White House Issues Cloud Computing Policy Standards

U.S. Office of Management and Budget released a memo today establishing a program to reduce "duplicative efforts, inconsistencies and cost inefficiencies when assessing and authorizing cloud systems." The initiative called, Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), is aimed to develop a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services through standardized security requirements and controls. more

The Modern Encryption Debate: What’s at Stake?

The debate around encryption has become a hot topic in a world where communications are increasingly becoming digital. The modern encryption debate is a complex and nuanced issue, with many players from different backgrounds trying to influence the conversation. The question of balancing the need for national security with the right to privacy has been a matter of public debate for years. Only recently has the issue been framed in terms of encryption, but the discussion is certainly not new. more

A Closer Look at the ‘Level 3 + Global Crossing’ Union

On Monday, 11 April 2011, Level 3 announced they had entered a definitive agreement to acquire Global Crossing. According to the Renesys Market Intelligence rankings, this merger would bring together the world's #1 and #2 global providers, with over half the Internet market on earth dependent on the combined entity. If the deal gained regulatory approval in the US and elsewhere today, how would the Internet provider landscape change? We'll answer that question in this blog, giving the proposed union a fictional name of Level Crossing for the purposes of our discussion. more

IPv6, Phone Numbers and Analogies

My local area code (814) is running out of phone numbers. When discussing IPv6 with non-technical folks, I frequently use the hypothetical scenario of running out of phone numbers as an analogy for IPv4 address depletion. The conversation usually goes like this: "Imagine if we were running out of phone numbers. One way of solving that problem would be to make them bigger. Instead of ten digits, what if we made then thirty digits? If we did that, how many other things would we have to change? Some mundane things like business cards, letterhead, and phone books. But also more substantial things..." more

Bell Canada Discloses Loss of 1.9 Million Email Addresses to Hacker, Says No Relation to WannaCry

Bell Canada, nation’s largest telecommunications company, disclosed late on Monday the illegal access of Bell customer information by an anonymous hacker. more

The Inextricable Issue of Internationalized Domain Names

ICANN has embarked on the IDN boat at the same time it wants to introduce DNSSEC and new gTLDs. This promises lots of fun. Or grey hair, depending how you look at it. First is the issue of country code IDNs. The ISO-3166 table, based on two letter codes, is a western convention. Some cultures do not use abbreviations or acronyms. Some do not use a character-based alphabet, but a syllabic one. Hence, the next logical step would be to represent the full country name in local script, rather than a transliteration of the ISO string... Imagine the case of India, where there are 1.652 languages, of which 24 are spoken by more than one million people... more

Internet Management and National Security: Time for a Federal Action Plan

Former CIA Director George Tenet recently gave a speech highlighting the need for federal action on internet management in order to protect national security. As reported by the online edition of Government Executive, Mr. Tenet explained that, "greater government regulation of the Internet and telecommunications networks is needed in order to guard against terrorist attacks." more

Canadian Regulator CRTC Issues $1.1 Million Penalty to Compu-Finder for Spamming

Neil Schwartzman writes: "The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC's) Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer today issued a Notice of Violation to Compu-Finder, which includes a penalty of $1.1 million, for breaking Canada's anti-spam law. Compu-Finder has 30 days to submit written representations to the CRTC or pay the penalty. It also has the option of requesting an undertaking with the CRTC on this matter." more

Dot SUCKS: The Ultimate Vanity Domain

When last we wrote, trademark lawyers had written an outraged letter to ICANN about the $2500 price to preregister trademark.sucks names, and ICANN, reliably panicking in the face of legal threats, wrote to the US Federal Trade Commission and Canadian Office of Consumer Affairs saying please tell us that's illegal so we can shut down this registry with whom we just signed a long-term contract. (The mysterious $1 surcharge turned out to be a weak attempt by ICANN to collect debts that affiliates of registry owner Momentous defaulted on long ago.) more

China’s Censorship Arms Race Escalates

Last week the China Digital Times reported that a photo (shown in the post) has been making the rounds in Chinese blogs and chatrooms. It is an image of a "computer science float" for Thursday's National Day parade, onto which somebody has photoshopped a screenshot of the Internet Explorer error message familiar to anybody who has ever tried to access a blocked website in China: "This page cannot be displayed." more

Is ICANN Stumbling Forward? GAC Advice and Shared Decision Making Procedures

When Bill Clinton addresses the 40th ICANN meeting in San Francisco in March 2010 he described Internet Governance as a process of "stumbling forward". Stumbling is good, he said, as long as it goes forward. Five ICANN meetings later - in the meantime ICANN adopted the new gTLD program, got nearly 2000 applications for Top Level Domains (TLDs) and has a new CEO - the "stumbling forward" goes into the next round. more

Webcast May 23: Finnish Internet Forum – ‘Internet and War’ Panel

On Monday May 23 2022 at 3 -- 5pm EEST (12:00 -- 14:00 UTC) the Finnish Internet Forum will convene a panel at the University of Helsinki with the topic 'Internet and War'. A panel of experts will address the question of how the war has affected the Internet and how the Internet has been used to influence Finland and elsewhere during the war. The event will be conducted in English. more

Deep Sea Diving: The State of Submarine Cable Technology

There is something quite compelling about engineering a piece of state-of-the-art technology that is intended to be dropped off a boat and then operate flawlessly for the next twenty-five years or more in the silent depths of the world's oceans! It brings together advanced physics, marine technology, and engineering to create some truly amazing pieces of networking infrastructure. more