Senate Oversight Hearing Explores “Test Drive” of IANA Transition

The IANA transition still appears to be on track for consummation at the end of the September 30th expiration date of the current contract between NTIA and ICANN in the wake of the May 24th Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing on "Examining the Multistakeholder Plan for Transitioning the Internet Assigned Number Authority". That is, while there are clearly some concerns on both sides of the aisle about terminating the remaining U.S. government ties to ICANN... more

Walks Like a Telco, Yalks Like a Telco… Must be a Telco

Vonage's latest woes are written up by Om Malik in Vonage: How Low Can You Go. More interesting than Om's reportage (Sprint wins case, Vonage ordered to pay damages, stock drops to $1.30) is the commentary afterward, in which one reader takes Om to task for the "gleeful" way in which he reports the demise of the VoIP companies... Boosters made the argument that VoIP was fundamentally cheaper than the TDM systems that phone companies deploy, and so therefore they enjoyed a price advantage in the market place. Anyone in the business of supplying telecom equipment, however, will tell you that the argument is flawed... more

Crawford Likes Aussie Utility Network

Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy and a member of the National Economic Council, is reported to be favorably inclined towards a U.S. network much like Australia's recently announced $33B broadband plan. Of course, the U.S. is some 15 times bigger than Australia, and that'd make the price tag closer to $500B by straight multiplication. But the U.S. would get a fiber network done right... more

Cable’s Move Into Mobile: Calculated and Deliberate

If you believe Cable Operators are not thinking about Mobile Networks and what kind of synergies could bring them increased cash-flow in the future, then you've probably missed the obvious signs laid out since 2008. ... Starting with their investment in Clearwire in 2008, companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House have upped their anti in wireless and mobile strategies. more

The Blackout: Preventing Network Domino Effects

After a widespread blackout hit the United States and Canada, the so-called network domino effect attracted high public attention. Modern physicists have paid attention to the effect of network dominos. Especially, scientists who have studied complex systems have warned that a network domino effect, if it occurs, will bring chaos to a society that is well connected through the Internet. The cause of the blackout in the United States and Canada was not traced down quickly. But it apparently shows a typical network domino effect.  more

FCC Proposes Framework for Direct Satellite Access to Cell Phones - Setting the stage for ‘Single Network’ Connectivity

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed rules and guidelines to enable satellite companies like SpaceX, T-Mobile, AST Spacemobile, and Lynk to offer satellite services directly to cell phones. more

100 Years of Monopoly Phone Service

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Kingsbury Commitment which effectively established AT&T, a.k.a. The Bell System, as a government sanctioned monopoly. It was on December 19, 1913 that AT&T agreed to an out-of-court settlement of a US Government's anti-trust challenge. In return for the government agreeing not to pursue its case, AT&T agreed to sell its controlling interest in Western Union telegraph company... more

Moving from 4G to 5G

A great deal of hype is out there, as vendors talk up the next development in mobile technology, known as 5G. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made a good comparison. He said that one person looking at the paintings by the Master in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona sees a different picture to the person next to them. That's what 5G is all about at the moment -- a great picture with lots of different interpretations. more

Greylisting Still Works - Part II

In my last post I blogged about greylisting, a well-known anti-spam technique for rejecting spam sent by botnets. When a mail server receives a an attempt to deliver mail from an IP address that's never sent mail before, it rejects the message with a "soft fail" error which tells the sender to try again later. Real mail senders always retry, badly written spamware often doesn't. I found that even though everyone knows about greylisting, about 2/3 of IPs don't successfully retry. more

Solving the Spam Problem

Last week, I read Ed Falk's blog post where he commented on a possible solution to the spam problem. He himself was commenting on a study done by researchers out of the University of California where they discovered that credit card transactions for stuff bought in spamvertisements are handled by three companies: one in Azerbaijan, one in Denmark and one in the West Indies. Presumably, if security experts and law enforcement went after these companies, spammers would have their financial supply cut off. No money = no incentive to spam. more

It’s Safe to Be a Dog on the Internet Again: Lori Drew Prosecution Terminated

"On the Internet, no one knows whether you're a dog." Of course, if you are a dog, and you are fibbing about it, according to the US Attorneys Office out in California you're a felon and should be sent to the dog pound. Fortunately, there's a new dog in town who seems to be howling a different tune. Bad facts make for bad law. The unfortunate alleged facts of this case involved fibbing about actual identities, playing with a young girl's emotions, and the girl's eventual suicide. more

Cuba’s Internet Connection to the World Worse Than Expected

Inspired by expansion announcements from companies such as Netflix and Airbnb into Cuba, Fabián E. Bustamante, professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the McCormick School of Engineering, and his graduate student Zachary Bischof, conducted research examining feasibility of the business ideas given the region's notoriously weak network infrastructure. more

DNS Amplification Attacks: Out of Sight, Out of Mind? (Part 2)

This post follows an earlier post about DNS amplification attacks being observed around the world. DNS Amplification Attacks are occurring regularly and even though they aren't generating headlines targets have to deal with floods of traffic and ISP infrastructure is needlessly stressed -- load balancers fail, network links get saturated, and servers get overloaded. And far more intense attacks can be launched at any time. more

Asking a Better Question to Uncloak the Online Copyright Debate

The proverbial Pandora's box that is opened whenever the topic of online copyright infringement is raised throws into sharp relief a host of challenges that have confounded policy makers, internet service providers and consumers for many years. Chief amongst them is how to strike an appropriate balance between protecting the rights of content owners while continuing to promote the interests of the public and preserving the benefits of the internet, given its unprecedented ability to facilitate the rapid dissemination of copyrighted content. more

Managing (in)Security Through Regulation: A Key Phase for Nation States

Not so long ago, the notion of introducing laws and other regulatory responses to address cyber security issues was regarded with significant hesitation by governments and policy makers. To some extent, this hesitation may well have stemmed from a general perception by those who do not work directly in the field that the world of cyber security is somewhat of a 'dark art'. More recently, however, there has been a substantial shift in this attitude, with proposals to regulate a range of cyber security related matters becoming increasingly numerous. more