NTIA Directs Smoke Signals Toward LA

On September 25th-26th the Cross Community Working Group developing enhanced accountability measures to accompany the IANA functions transition, and replace the "backstop" role played by the U.S., will meet in Los Angeles to review the 90 comments filed on their second draft Proposal and consider responsive modifications... As NTIA will be the primary evaluator of whether the transition & accountability package that is eventually forwarded by ICANN meets the criteria it set when it announced the transition in March 2014, CCWG participants in LA will be carefully reading the tea leaves of this latest NTIA statement. more

Authentication Methods Used in the RIPE Database

Objects in the RIPE Database can only be modified by those authorised to do so. For instance, an object representing a certain range of IP addresses assigned to an organisation by the RIPE NCC or a Local Internet Registry (LIR) can be modified by the organisation holding that address space. Each database object contains one or more attributes referencing the maintainer(s) of that object. In a maintainer (MNTNER) object, credentials are listed for those who are authorised to modify any object referencing that MNTNER object. more

ISOC-NY Event: dot nyc - How Are We Doing? (Sat Apr 10)

Joly MacFie writes: Last October the NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) issued a request for proposals for "services to obtain, manage, administer, maintain and market the geographic Top Domain name .nyc.". At ICANN's recent 37th meeting in Nairobi, consensus was reached on the "overarching" issue of intellectual property protection. This leaves only the issue of the final (4th) draft of the Applicants Guidebook, expected before the 38th meeting in Brussels in June 2010... more

Berkeley Lab: Electricity Consumption in U.S. Data Centers Plateaus

A new report, released today from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is reporting that electricity consumption by data centers nationwide, after rising rapidly for more than a decade, started to plateau in 2010 and has remained steady since, at just under 2 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption. more

What Will the Internet Look Like in the next 5 - 7 Years?

We all know that the Internet is one of the most important tools of our time, but we can't afford to take the Internet -- or its future -- for granted. There are uncertainties facing the Internet's future and how they evolve will have a profound impact on society and our ability to solve some of the world's biggest challenges... To help answer these and other questions, the Internet Society is embarking on a collaborative initiative to envision scenarios for the evolution of the Internet. more

June 8 Deadline for Survey on Recommendations for Future of the Internet

What do you think must be done to ensure the development of an open, trusted, accessible, and global Internet in the future? As part of the Internet Society's "Internet Futures" project, we'd like your input on recommendations for Internet leaders and policy makers. For more background, please read "Help Shape the Future of the Internet" by my colleague Constance Bommelaer, or browse through the Internet Futures pages. more

Healthy Domains Revisited: The Pharmaceutical Industry

Users scored an exciting victory over copyright-based censorship last month, when the Domain Name Association (DNA) and the Public Interest Registry (PIR), in response to criticism from EFF, both abruptly withdrew their proposals for a new compulsory arbitration system to confiscate domain names of websites accused of copyright infringement. But copyright enforcement was only one limb of the the DNA's set of Registry/Registrar Healthy Practices. more

Return of Net Neutrality: Discussion of European Net Neutrality Proposal Relevant for U.S. Broadband Market

There is an interesting recent discussion in Europe about net neutrality that has relevance to the U.S. broadband market. The European Commission that oversees telecom and broadband has started taking comments on a proposal to force content generators like Netflix to pay fees to ISPs for using the Internet. I've seen this same idea circulating here from time to time, and in fact, this was one of the issues that convinced the FCC first to implement net neutrality. more

Who Owns Your Connected Device?

It's been clear for years that IoT companies gather a large amount of data from customers. Everything from a smart thermometer to your new car gathers and reports data back to the cloud. California has tried to tackle customer data privacy through the California Consumer Privacy Act that went into effect on January 1. Web companies must provide California consumers the ability to opt-out from having their personal information sold to others. more

ICANN Shows Safe Decisions Aren’t Always the Right Decisions

When ICANN selected Deloitte and IBM to provide technical database administration services for a key part of its new gTLD program, it became quickly clear that the choice was not made on whose proposals scored highest, but rather it was based on which partner presented the least perceived business risk but at a much higher than necessary cost. I know this because I wrote a response to the original RFP and as a result am pretty familiar with what the original specification required. more

Don’t Blame Open Recursives For DDoS Attacks and Why You Should Implement BCP38

There has been plenty of buzz and chatter on the Internet recently concerning a very large DDoS attack against CloudFlare, with coverage on their blog, the New York Times, and the BBC, among many others. While attacks of this nature are certainly nothing new, the scale of this attack was surprising, reported to hit 120Gbps. For a sense of scale, your average cable modem is only about 20Mbps, or about 0.016% of that bandwidth. more

Internet Watch Foundation Uses Hashes to Block Child Abuse Material

Last week during the ICANN meeting in Barcelona I attended a short presentation from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Their mission is pretty simple: ...eliminate child sexual abuse imagery online. Fortunately, the presentation I was at did not include any of the actual material (which would have been illegal anyway) but even without seeing any of it the topic is one that I think most people find deeply disturbing. more

UK: Barely One in Ten Users Are Satisfied With Mobile Broadband

A web-based poll on the Mobile Broadband Genie site had participants 1160 who were asked: "Is your mobile broadband fast enough?" 133 yes; 740 no; 287 don't know. Perceptions of the term "mobile broadband" appear to far exceed what is being delivered. While operators have been competing to offer cross-subsidized laptop and netbook deals with higher usage caps and ever cheaper mobile Internet deals, they seem to have overlooked the quality of the service. more

FAKE45: Trump Administration Illegitimacy Under International Law

The FAKE45 sign in the photo lower right corner appearing on the front page of today's Washington Post -- ironically in front of the Department of Justice headquarters -- captures a result of yesterday's events that may have far-reaching consequences. About 4.5 million people -- including a million in Washington DC alone -- spontaneously came together from every corner of the nation and world to question the legitimacy of a Trump Administration, express disdain for its actions, and assert the repugnancy of its positions. I was there. more

Swiss Sanctuary for “International Organization Refugees”

Over the past year as the impending doom of a potential Trump installation in the U.S. WhiteHouse pervaded the international organization community, my former chief-of-staff at the ITU found consolation in Swiss history. Now retired with his wife formerly with the World Health Organization in the mountains near the tranquil Canton Vaud municipality of Château-d'Oex, he pointed his old friends to its heritage site. more