Internet’s New “Big Bang” Creates Chance to Put Down Roots

The Internet has done as much as the jet engine to shrink the distance between where we are and where we want to go. Even the propeller-type connectivity of dial-up was a giant leap forward. But as much as the technology has allowed us to go with ease to any place we choose - to learn, to be heard, to promote - equally powerful is the platform's ability to help us gather. The phenomena of social media services like LinkedIn and Facebook are present day proof of this human urge. more

The Broadband Numbers Racket

Financial Times has an article called The broadband numbers racket, by former FCC chief economist Thomas Hazlett, now a professor of law and economics at George Mason University. Hazlett points out that too many people use superficial selection of statistics to bolster questionable policy positions. more

Is the UN Assailing Internet Governance?

The coven of UN bodies with a hand in internet governance keeps getting bigger: not only is the General Assembly intending soon to decide the fate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), but if the decision coming out of New York does not give them enough of a role, the UN has a back-up plan. In May of 2011, no less than four specialized UN agencies, UNESCO, UNCTAD, UNDP and (perhaps most legitimately) the ITU, are planning a Conference what will allow them to insert themselves still further into the matter. more

LunaNet – Developing the Internet for the Moon

The NASA-sponsored Artemis program is the first step in the next era of human exploration. Together with a large number of international government and academic partners as well as businesses -- and based on international standards -- NASA will establish a sustainable presence on the Moon. more

The Meanings of Network Neutrality

Ed Felten has posted a nice taxonomy of the several meanings people take when they use the term Network Neutrality, briefly: End-to-End Design; Nonexclusionary Business Practice; Content Nondiscrimination ... I've been developing a taxonomy of issues that interact with and are bound with Network Neutrality. So far there are six items... more

Do Cable Companies Have a Wireless Advantage?

The big wireless companies have been wrangling for years with the issues associated with placing small cells on poles. Even with new FCC rules in their favor, they are still getting a lot of resistance from communities. Maybe the future of urban/suburban wireless lies with the big cable companies. Cable companies have a few major cost advantages over the wireless companies, including the ability to bypass the pole issue. The first advantage is the ability to deploy mid-span cellular small cells. more

Domain Name Registrations Reach 209.8 Million, 2.2 Percent Increase over 2010 Q4

The latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by Verisign reports 4.5 million domain names were added to the Internet in the first three months of 2011. According to the report, the first quarter of 2011 closed with a base of more than 209.8 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), or a 2.2 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2010. Registrations grew by 15.3 million, or 7.9 percent year over year. more

US Senators Move to Shield Undersea Internet Cables from Global Threats

A bipartisan Senate bill seeks to strengthen U.S. oversight and global coordination to protect undersea fiber-optic cables, vital infrastructure increasingly targeted by geopolitical adversaries, natural disasters, and cyber or physical sabotage. more

The Internet Is for All

Over the past fifty years, participants in what began as the DARPA internet community have been turning out diverse technical specifications for TCP/IP network architectures and services. The first twenty years under government agency sponsorship were marked by rather free-wheeling sharing of ideas and collegial accommodation of divergent views typically found in most professional, academic activities. more

I Needed Music ‘cos I Had None…

The latest report on young people's online music-finding habits from consumer research company The Leading Question has attracted a fair amount of coverage for its headline finding that UK teenagers use of filesharing services has dropped by a third... Music industry pollsters will inevitably look for a silver lining in the cloud of consumer behaviour, and a focus on the growth of legal services is to be expected. But even with that caveat in mind, there has clearly been a shift in behaviour as more young people find licensed ways to listen to the music they want, watching YouTube videos, streaming songs through MySpace and Spotify and generally using legal avenues to find and enjoy the music of new bands like Florence and the Machine. more

“Bitcoin and Internet Payment Systems” - IETF 89 Technical Plenary (Live Video Stream Available)

Are you interested in learning more about Bitcoin, cybercurrencies and Internet payment systems? On Monday, March 3, 2014, at 5:50pm UTC (London, UK) the Technical Plenary of the 89th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will be streamed live. The presentations during the "technical topic" part of the plenary will include... more

Article 28 of the NIS2 Directive and the DNS Industry

At a workshop on the implications of Article 28 for the DNS industry organized by eco -- Association of the Internet Industry in October 2023, stakeholders from the DNS industry, the European Commission, national governments, and the ICANN community convened to discuss the challenges facing the DNS industry and to work together on avoiding fragmentation as much as possible. more

Telecoms as a Spying Tool

With more and more stories coming in from all over the world about the prolific use of telecommunications to spy on what people are doing, the ball has been thrown back into the industry's court, to do something about it. In principle, ever since telecoms came into existence in the 1850s spying was high on the agenda of the people who started to use the new technology. In 1865 countries formed the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). This later became the first institution under the UN and all countries in the world are a member. more

Standing Up for a Safe Internet

Back when I started working in this industry in 2001, ICANN was small, the industry was tight, and things moved slowly as interest groups negotiated a balance amongst the impacts of change. Change often meant added overhead and, at the very least, a one-time cost effort to implement on the commercial side. Registries and registrars preferred to be hands-off when it came to how their domains were being used. But e-crime became big business during the 2000s. more

A Cynic’s View of 2015 Security Predictions - Part 4

Lastly, and certainly not the least, part four of my security predictions takes a deeper dive into mobile threats and what companies and consumer can do to protect themselves. If there is one particular threat category that has been repeatedly singled out for the next great wave of threats, it has to be the mobile platform -- in particular, smartphones... The general consensus of prediction was that we're (once again) on the cusp of a pandemic threat. more