Emoji in Domain Names Bad Idea Warns ICANN Security Advisory Group

Coca-Cola received a fair amount of press for using a number of emoji domains for its 2015 marketing campaign in Puerto Rico. And other companies including Budweiser, Honda and Ray-Ban followed suit, registering various emoji domains to tap into the youth market. However, the increasing interest in their use has raised some questions and concerns. more

Minding the Gap at the ITU-T

In 1992, Theo Irmer who had served as the organization's director for the previous eight years during its glory days, wrote that if there was any hope of saving what was left of the body, it must be privatised. That never occurred. Everyone pretty much left and migrated to dozens of other venues where all the world's information and communication technology standards have long been created and evolved. Essentially every major nation moved to competitive, private, marketplace-driven provisioning of communication products and services. more

“Toll Free” Broadband Service: Double Billing Ripoff Or Better Than Best Efforts Premium Option?

Representatives of both AT&T and Verizon have stated that their companies will soon offer "toll free" broadband services. So far they have not provided much detail, but the prospect for customer and content provider surcharges should trigger concern, even outside the context of the network neutrality debate. First let's consider the frame the carrier reps use: "Toll Free." This is an old school "Bellhead" reference... more

Cybersquatter Hit With Maximum Penalty

Defendant Shui registered the domain name citybank.org and established a site there promoting financial services, sometimes using the mark CITIBANK. The real Citibank, armed with its trademark registrations in over 200 countries and over 50 years of use of its CITIBANK mark, filed suit against Shui under the Anticybersquatting and Consumer Protection Act, 15 USC 1125(d) ("ACPA")... Citibank sought $100,000 -- the maximum amount of statutory damages available under the ACPA, plus payment of Citibank's attorneys' fees... more

Five Thousand SpaceX Starlink Terminals for Ukraine

On March 1, I wrote that a small number of SpaceX Starlink terminals had arrived in Ukraine, and they would be an important asset for distribution to selected government and resistance leaders and journalists. I didn't know who would get the terminals or how many there were, but it was a single truckload. A week or so later, we learned that two more shipments of terminals had arrived and fifty of them went to DTEK, a company struggling to repair Ukrainian electrical infrastructure. more

Internet Society CEO Responds to Concerns Raised Over the .ORG Sale

Internet Society CEO Andrew Sullivan released a statement today in response to the recent concerns raised by the community with regards to the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG operator, to Ethos Capital. more

Good is Better than Perfect in ICANN Accountability

In the next few months, ICANN will have a concrete opportunity to improve its accountability and transparency by enacting the recommendations of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT). Those recommendations may not be perfect, but if the history of the ICANN process is any indication, we can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the very good. more

The Challenge of DNS Security

When the domain name system (DNS) was first designed, security was an afterthought. Threats simply weren't a consideration at a time when merely carrying out a function - routing Internet users to websites - was the core objective. As the weaknesses of the protocol became evident, engineers began to apply a patchwork of fixes. After several decades, it is now apparent that this reactive approach to DNS security has caused some unintended consequences and challenges. more

The Sportsmanship of Cyber-warfare

As a bit of a history buff I can't avoid a slight tingling of déjà vu every time I read some new story commenting upon the ethics, morality and legality of cyber-warfare/cyber-espionage/cyberwar/cyber-attack/cyber-whatever. All this rhetoric about Stuxnet, Flame, and other nation-state cyber-attack tools, combined with the parade of newly acknowledged cyber-warfare capabilities and units within the armed services of countries around the globe, brings to the fore so many parallels... Call me a cynic if you will, but when the parallels in history are so evident, we'd be crazy to ignore them. more

AT&T CEO Confident Trump-Appointed FCC Will Scrap Net Neutrality Regulations

AT&T's regulatory problems are melting away as the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump draws near. more

HD Voice Really is Great

Listen for half a minute to a demo of a high-bit-rate codec and you expect they will transform our industry. The difference is like a CD with great headphones versus a little transistor radio. Suddenly, you realize just how awful the sound is on your regular telephone. Who wouldn't want their call to sound dramatically better was my first reaction. When Thomson and some of the cable folks discussed plans, I was enthusiastic. Years later, nearly no one is taking advantage... more

Nominations Open for 2024 Public Interest Registry (PIR) Board of Directors

Are you interested in helping guide the future of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit operator of the .ORG, .NGO and .ONG domains? (and more) Or do you know of someone who would be a good candidate? If so, the Internet Society is seeking nominations for two positions on the PIR Board of Directors. The nomination deadline is 31 January 2024. more

Starlink Making a Space Grab

SpaceNews recently reported that Elon Musk and his low-orbit space venture Starlink have filed with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to launch an additional 30,000 broadband satellites in addition to the 11,927 now in the planning stages. This looks like a land grab and Musk is hoping to grab valuable orbital satellite paths to keep them away from competitors. more

A Look at Mail Patterns from Legitimate Webmail Sources

For many years, I have tracked spam from botnets and reported on it. I have analyzed those botnets' distribution patterns by number of IPs, number of messages per email envelope and geographical distribution. While spam from botnets is interesting, and the main source of spam, it is not the only source of spam. What about spam that originates from the MAGY sources? more

Are Domain Names Contract of Services or Property Rights?

There are several perspectives from which one can give various answers to the question of 'what are domain names?'. Originally the domain name system started and continues to be a human-friendly way of addressing to a set of machines or specific machine connected to the Internet. Hence, from the technical perspective, a domain name is simply an address consisting of a combination of alphanumeric and symbols to communicate with a machine which also happens to be hosting certain services in form of data and information on it. more