ICANN’s Noah: Chehade’s 40-Day Report Card

Forty days. That's how long Fadi Chehade has had to get a handle on the most complex, diverse and important non-profit corporation the world has ever known. The last guy to face such an unforgiving timeline was measuring timber in cubits. So if Cheade is Noah, I guess that makes ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker God, telling Fadi to wrangle all these diverse (and often diverging) constituencies and march them two-by-two into the boat, ahead of the coming storm. more

There Is No Artificial Intelligence

It seems like most new technology today comes with a lot of hype. Just a few years ago, the press was full of predictions that we'd be awash with Internet of Thing sensors that would transform the way we live. We've heard similar claims for technologies like virtual reality, blockchain, and self-driving cars. I've written a lot about the massive hype surrounding 5G -- in my way of measuring things, there isn't any 5G in the world yet, but the cellular carriers are loudly proclaiming its everywhere. more

Outsourcing and Registry Operations Present Challenges to New TLD Applicants

After ICANN announced in Singapore approval of the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) program, we heard many prospective applicants say they would start asking registry infrastructure providers to break down their costs into registration and resolution components. The last few TLD launches have shown that although you can achieve some respectable registration volumes for new TLDs, chances are it will take some time for content to be associated with the domain names, and hence, resolutions to pick up. more

A Thought About Not-Quite-ASCII Top Level Domains

ICANN has opened their new fast track process for "countries and territories that use languages based on scripts other than Latin" to get domain names that identify the country or territory in its own language. It's not clear to me what the policy is supposed to be for countries whose languages use extended Latin with accents and other marks that aren't in the ASCII set. more

Facebook Apps on Any Website: A Clever Move? Or a Security Nightmare?

Well, given the amount of malicious JavaScript, malware, and other possibilities to use Facebook (and other similar social networking platforms) for abuse, I certainly wouldn't categorize this news as a "clever move"... In fact, I foresee this as an extraordinarily short-sighted move with far-reaching security implications -- which will allow the levels of malicious abuse to reach new heights. more

2nd Round gTLDs: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This post outlines the advantages (good) and threats (bad) that can make or break a gTLD, and the eternal fact that some applications will doom themselves to failure (ugly). The Good... Waiting until the second round to apply for a gTLD may end up being a virtue for the following reasons... more

Ambient Connectivity: An Introduction

"Ambient Connectivity" is the ability to assume connectivity anywhere and anytime. Ambient Connectivity is the future of the Internet once we've removed the barriers we associate with today's telecom and extend the reach beyond the narrow confines of "broadband". The nuanced definition of Ambient Connectivity is that we can view connectivity as infrastructure but we need to take responsibility if we find ourselves disconnected. more

YouTube, the Government, and Privacy

It was just announced that every member of Congress will be able to create his or her own channel on YouTube. Viewers can go to the House or Senate home pages and navigate via a map to find the videos they're interested in. While it is good that citizens will have more insight into what their Senators and Representatives think, the way this is being done poses a serious privacy risk. more

Packet Loss: How the Internet Enforces Speed Limits

There's been a lot of controversy over the FCC's new Network Neutrality rules. Apart from the really big issues -- should there be such rules at all? Is reclassification the right way to accomplish it? -- one particular point has caught the eye of network engineers everywhere: the statement that packet loss should be published as a performance metric, with the consequent implication that ISPs should strive to achieve as low a value as possible. more

MMX Announces Acquisition of ICM Registry

Minds + Machines Group Limited (MMX), a leading operators of Internet Top-Level Domains, announced on Friday that it has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire the entire membership interests of ICM Registry LLC. more

Ethiopia’s Ban on Skype: An Excessive Stretch

Most international Medias picked the story wrong. And I see it being repeated. It is true that there is some legislative initiative regarding the regulation of VoIP calls and mainly the telecommunication sector in Ethiopia. But the initiative is just a draft, noting more. Besides there is no such a thing as 15 years punishment in the draft law for using Skype. Here are the provisions in the draft law that are stretched in many news headlines to bemoan that the use of Skype in Ethiopia entails 15 years punishment. more

COVID Domain Registrations Surged in March

The Internet and the domain name system (DNS) have become the mainstay of the new COVID sheltered world. Afilias looked at registrations in the unrestricted domain name space, with a special focus on the popular .INFO, .PRO, .MOBI and .IO domain name extensions. The data shows that the number of website and domain registrations related to COVID and Coronavirus in these extensions is flattening after a surge in March. more

Internet Security and the Multistakeholder Approach: Is It Attainable?

Internet Security is a topic that has drawn a lot of attention over the past year. As awareness grows that cooperation is necessary, it dawns on people that there are many and very different stakeholders involved, stakeholders that may never have met before. Let alone have cooperated. An example of an approach is the National Cyber Security Council (NCSC) that was installed in The Netherlands on 30 June. This is a high level council that will give advice to public as well as private entities on how to better secure themselves and society at large against cyber attacks and how to become more resilient. However, without the right approach it is doomed to become a talking shop. more

Internet’s 50th Anniversary Celebrated Worldwide with IEEE Event

On May 19, 2024, the Internet's 50th anniversary was celebrated in a virtual event named i50, drawing participation from 1,000 IEEE members and internet enthusiasts from 56 countries. The live-streamed event was a highlight in a series of celebrations marking this milestone. more

World’s Critical Infrastructure

After all the unexplainable outages that undersea cables have severed, I thought it would be essential to highlight a brief history about who owns the oceans including some pointers about global undersea communication cables aka world's critical infrastructure. more