Verisign Should Clear Up the Paid “Analysts” Controversy

In recent days it was revealed that analyst Zeus Kerravala, who had written a dozen-some articles, over many years, for Network World promoting Verisign's pro-.COM point of view and disparaging new top-level domains as a bad idea, was in fact a paid Verisign consultant. None of that was disclosed when Mr. Kerravala wrote these articles from January 2013 through October 2015. more

Signposts in Cyberspace: An NRC Report on the DNS and Internet Navigation

In light of the recent decision by the United States government to "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file" and ICANN's recent decisions to add more gTLDs (including .xxx), and to renew VeriSign as the .net registry, readers may be interested in the just-published report of the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation. ...a comprehensive policy-oriented examination of the Domain Name System in the broader context of Internet navigation. more

“Internet Drivers License” - A Short History Lesson

The press, the blogosphere, CircleID - everybody has been discussing Craig Mundie's comment on the need for an "Internet Driver's License". Most of the reaction has been from privacy advocates fearing that this is simply another way to kill anonymity on the Internet. Oh well... that's the usual set of reactions. Now... the fun part is, a driver's license also shows that you have the competence to drive... more

What’s ARC?

DMARC is an anti-phishing technique that AOL and Yahoo repurposed last year to help them deal with the consequences of spam to (and apparently from) addresses in stolen address books. Since DMARC cannot tell mail sent through complex paths like mailing lists from phishes, this had the unfortunate side effect of screwing up nearly every discussion list on the planet. Last week the DMARC group published a proposal called ARC, for Authenticated Received Chain, that is intended to mitigate the damage. What is it, and how likely is it to work? more

Russia Appears to Have Begun Providing an Internet Connection to North Korea

Network experts monitoring North Korea have detected activation of a new internet path out of North Korea. Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, along with North Korea expert Martyn Williams, report that at 09:07:51 UTC on 1 October 2017, the country's single internet provider, Star JV (AS131269), gained a new connection to the global internet through Russian fixed-line provider Transtelecom (AS20485), often referred to as TTK. more

Evolving From an Internet Registry to IoT Registry

As the name indicates, the Internet of Things (IoT) should be an extension of the Internet. However, in reality, most IoT applications are Siloed infrastructures. We will analyse the main challenges in the IoT and explain how an Internet registry could be evolved to provide a secure and privacy integrated Identity and access management service for IoT. more

Apple’s PR Nightmare: Open and “Fragmented” vs. Closed and “Integrated”

Over the weekend, I opined that closed app stores - meaning app stores, like iTunes, that restrict users from loading software from other sources (known as sideloading) - would not survive in a market where comparable alternatives, such as Google's Android OS, exist in an open ecosystem. In Apple's Q3 earnings call yesterday, Steve Jobs addressed the issue square on. more

Cyber-Terrorism Rising, Existing Cyber-Security Strategies Failing, What Are Decision Makers to Do?

While conventional cyber attacks are evolving at breakneck speed, the world is witnessing the rise of a new generation of political, ideological, religious, terror and destruction motivated "Poli-Cyber™" threats. These are attacks perpetrated or inspired by extremists' groups such as ISIS/Daesh, rogue states, national intelligence services and their proxies. They are breaching organizations and governments daily, and no one is immune. more

U.N. Approves Resolution to Combat Cybercrime Despite Opposition From E.U., the U.S. and Others

The U.N. General Assembly has approved a resolution to start the process of drafting a new international treaty against cybercrime despite objections from the European Union, the United States and other countries. The Russian-drafted resolution received approval from a 193-member world body with a vote of 79-60 and 33 abstentions. more

Closed Generic TLDs - The Final Battle?

Over the past couple of years I've posted several times on the issue of "closed generics". In essence these are new TLD applications where the string is a "generic term" AND the applicant wanted to keep all domains in the registry for their own use. The baseline registry agreement with ICANN now contains language that resolves the issue, or at least it would appear to do so. more

DNSSEC Adds Value?

The recent news that .uk, .arpa and .org may sign their zones sometime this year is indeed good news. Each domain is highly significant... As the DNSSEC registry infrastructure moves inexorably forward -- primarily driven by top level pressure and considerations of National Interest -- it now behoves us to clearly articulate the benefits of DNSSEC to domain owners and registrars. In particular I want to focus on the vast majority of us to whom cold, hard cash is important and parting with it requires as a minimum tangible benefits or, in extreme cases, surgical intervention. more

Microsoft Files Three More Cybersquatting Cases

Microsoft has filed 3 cybersquatting cases at the beginning of September 2007, as reported in an Inside Indiana Business article. I took the liberty of accessing the cases via the PACER system, and posted the major documents... It looks like they're stepping up efforts to defend their trademarks, and seeking big damages in court, rather than go the way of the UDRP. These cases demonstrate that new TLDs should not be a priority with ICANN until the problems in existing TLDs are addressed. more

DomainTools Sued for Misusing New Zealand’s .NZ Domain Name Registration Information

Domain Name Commission Limited ("DNCL"), New Zealand's overseer for the country's .NZ domain, has filed a lawsuit against the domain name service company DomainTools. more

Internet Will Split Into Chinese-Led and US-Led Versions Within the Next Decade, Says Eric Schmidt

Speaking at a private event hosted by Village Global VC, tech luminary and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that the internet will split into Chinese-led and US-led versions by 2028. more

Attacking the Multi-Stakeholder Model

"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." A famous saying, that some within the ICANN world seem to think actually means: "if at first you don't get what you want, try and try again." The basic premise of the ICANN system is simple and fair: get all parties to work together, give everyone an equal voice, and act on whatever consensus emerges. ICANN insiders have coined this the "multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, policy development process". more