Domain Registrars Fined Over $2M for Scamming Australians

The Federal Court has penalized two related companies, Domain Corp Pty Ltd and Domain Name Agency Pty Ltd, for tricking Australians out of a total of $2.3 million. more

How to Prepare for the Day When Your Domain(s) Are Misbehaving

For a number of years, there have been many different high profile incidents where major websites were defaced, taken offline, or crippled due to issues related to their domain registration. Last night, there was an incident where several high profile domains went offline due to issues at their registrar, and they are now coming back online after what I am sure was a few crazy hours for their operations teams and management. more

Canada’s Electronic Spy Agency Makes Its Malware Analysis Tool Public

Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) which rarely discloses detail of its activities has taken the "unprecedented step" of releasing one of its own cyber defense tools to the public, in a bid to help companies and organizations better defend their computers and networks against malicious threats. more

Out of Office Alerts are So Out of Here

Do Out of Office alerts these days serve a purpose anymore? They seem to work well a decade ago when you were really out of the office and your computer sat under your desk and you couldn't check email till you got to it. Today, we as an industry and as individuals now have laptops, iPads, Smartphones, Wifi, WiMAX, etc. keeping us 100% of the time on the Internet at one time or another. And you know we all at one point throughout our days whether or not on vacation or after 5 PM check email as part of our everyday lives. more

Unfamiliarity and Unpreparedness in Proceedings Under the UDRP

There is a difference, of course, between asserting a claim that cannot possibly succeed in an administrative proceeding under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and being unprepared to prove a claim that may have merit with the right evidence. Still, there is also an overlapping similarity in that complainants are either shockingly unfamiliar with UDRP procedures and jurisprudence... more

Website Usage Analysis in the New gTLDs

A recent study, by EURid and the Leuven Statistics Research Centre, set out to better understand the most common usage of websites that are linked to domains, and we thought it would be an interesting exercise to extend similar analysis to the new gTLD market. So, we analyzed all second-level domains registered in new gTLDs according to published zone files on June 29, 2014.  more

Widespread Network Outages Disrupt AT&T Services Across the US

In a significant service disruption early Thursday, AT&T's network experienced widespread outages, affecting cellular service and internet connectivity for users across the United States. According to the tracking site Downdetector, the issues began around 4 a.m. ET, with over 32,000 reports of outages, which surged to more than 71,000 by 8 a.m. ET. more

Cuba’s New WiFi Regulations – Good, Bad or Meh?

Soon after ETECSA began rolling out WiFi hotspots for Internet access, people began linking to them from homes and community street nets. These connections and importing the WiFi equipment they used were illegal, but generally tolerated as long as they remained apolitical and avoided pornography. Regulations passed last month legalized some of this activity in a bid to boost connectivity by allowing Internet access from homes and small private businesses like restaurants and vacation rentals that are located close enough to a hotspot to establish a WiFi connection. more

Growing Interest Abroad for Cloud-Based Email Infrastructure

Between September of 2015 and May 2016, (last 8 months) Port25 saw almost a 30 percent jump in new cloud-based email infrastructure interest outside the United States... While most of the influential senders are not abandoning on-premises mail transfer agent (MTA) solutions, many are looking to cloud infrastructure for managing higher-volumes by bifurcating individual email streams to the cloud. more

Why African Telecom Union (ATU) Proposal Should be Rejected

My attention was drawn to the recent African Telecom Union (ATU)'s proposal for the modification and expansion of Resolution 47... As an affected party to the proposal, I feel obliged to make a comment: Recalling my last article to The Hill titled "ICANN is already under the influence of Foreign Governments", I drew an example of how ICANN allowed the African Union Commission, an Intergovernmental body to heavily interfere in the .Africa application so as to delegate it to itself, which led me to take ICANN to Court. more

Security Experts, Privacy Advocates Hopeful Rollout of 5G Can Eliminate Surveillance Vulnerabilities

Security experts and privacy advocates see the rollout of the new 5G wireless network as a possible solution to eliminate surveillance vulnerabilities that allow spying on nearby phone calls. more

Making a Strategic Decision: URS or UDRP?

A discussion is presently underway about the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) (and in Phase 2 next year of the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP)), whether it is performing as intended. The URS is less than five years old, and there are not an overwhelming number of decisions. Since 2013, rights holders have filed less than one thousand complaints (with three providers, the Forum being the most active), which translates into less than 170 decisions annually... more

Mueller Report: Russians Used Spear Phishing, SQL Injection to Penetrate US Election Administration

The nearly 400-page copy of the Mueller report released on Thursday includes some details on how Russia's foreign military intelligence agency (GRU), targetted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the U.S. elections. more

Usenet, Authentication, and Engineering (or: Early Design Decisions for Usenet)

A Twitter thread on trolls brought up mention of trolls on Usenet. The reason they were so hard to deal with, even then, has some lessons for today; besides, the history is interesting. (Aside: this is, I think, the first longish thing I've ever written about any of the early design decisions for Usenet. I should note that this is entirely my writing, and memory can play many tricks across nearly 40 years.) more

Framing New gTLDs’ Marketing Message

In an earlier essay, I outlined a focused, cooperative marketing strategy that would be a first step for marketing new gTLDs. After that first initiative, gTLD registries' marketing strategy must focus on the complementarities between .com, and new neutral (such as .global and .web) and branding and labeling gTLDs. The legacy domains and the newcomers can work together nicely. If we don't realize this, all Internet users will lose out. more