Over $1 Billion in Payments Made on Venmo in January 2016

I was fascinated to read today that over $1 billion (USD) in payments were made on Venmo in January 2016. What is Venmo, you might ask? Essentially it is a mobile app (on both iOS and Android) that provides an easy payment system, in many ways like a "digital wallet" where you can securely reach in and pull out some cash to give to someone... more

Broken Policies

As an email policy wonk, I think a lot about how specific policy implementations can go wrong. Sure, every policy can go wrong, or not fit a common case. A lot of people only write polices that address common cases and don't worry about the rarer cases. The problem is there are some rare cases that may cause significant harm and those cases should be addressed. Consumerist has a case up about email policy gone wrong with a clear path to harm but no policy for handling the issue. There are a couple places I see where this policy hole can be fixed. more

From ICANN57 Hyderabad to the 3rd WIC Wuzhen Summit: A Moment of Consensus on Internet Governance

Two events that happened last month deserve an additional note. One is the ICANN57 conference held in Hyderabad on November 3-9. The other is the 3rd World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit held in Zhejiang Province on November 16-18. Though being completely overwhelmed by the result of President election in the United States, both events mark the victory of non-state actors and serve as good news for the community. more

Activist Hackers Target Government Websites Amid Escalating Israel-Hamas War

Hackers have intensified attacks on government websites and media outlets, both on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. more

In Whose Language? Cybersquatting by Foreigners

There are no gatekeepers to prevent registrants from acquiring domain names incorporating marks that potentially violate third-party rights. Anyone anywhere can acquire domain names composed of words and letters in languages not its own through a registrar whose registration agreement is in the language of the registrant. For example, a Chinese registrant of a domain name incorporating a Norwegian mark as in <statoil.store> in which Complainant requests the proceeding be in English notes that Chinese is not an official language in Norway. more

Cutting Through the Twitter DDoS Hype

There are a lot of theories flying around about why Twitter and other social media services got knocked offline yesterday. I've heard rumors about it being linked to political tension between Georgia and Russia. Others blame Iran for the outages. I'm not a political commentator, therefore I cannot comment on anyone's political views -- but I have some logic and common sense, and I can draw some objective conclusions. more

New TLD Applications: What’s the Status of the Next Round?

For many industry participants, the timing around opening the next round of new Top-Level Domain applications has been frustrating, to say the least. However, with the recent ICANN Marrakech meeting now complete, we thought it timely to provide an update for those who may be interested to apply in the next round or for those merely following the journey. more

Hacker Has Released Close to a Billion User Records Over the Past Two Months, Reports ZDNet

A hacker by the name of Gnosticplayers has claimed responsibility for the hacking of 44 companies resulting in over a billion user data. Hacker also gotten dangerously close to releasing the records, ZDNet reports. more

Pre-Registrations of .NYC Domain Names and the Shattered Dream

In response to United Domains pre-registration of .nyc domain names, we posted the below on our blog and the NARLO sites yesterday. While United Domains pre-registration service is free and non-binding, the North American Regional At Large Organization, part of the ICANN governance ecology, is concerned that "the offer of such a service could create artificial demand..." more

Trusting Zoom?

Since the world went virtual, often by using Zoom, several people have asked me if I use it, and if so, do I use their app or their web interface. If I do use it, isn't this odd, given that I've been doing security and privacy work for more than 30 years, and "everyone" knows that Zoom is a security disaster? To give too short an answer to a very complicated question: I do use it, via both Mac and iOS apps. Some of my reasons are specific to me and may not apply to you... more

Why 5G Won’t Be Here Tomorrow

I just saw another article yesterday written by a major-city newspaper telling the public that 5G is coming in 2020. I hate to see reporters who have accepted the nonsense being peddled by the carriers without digging a little deeper to find the truth. At some point in the near future, the public will finally realize that the 5G talk has mostly been hype. more

Cable Customers Plummet in 2019

The final numbers are in for 2019 and the largest cable providers collectively lost over 5.9 million customers for the year - a loss of almost 7% of customers. The numbers below come from Leichtman Research Group which compiles these numbers from reports made to investors, except for Cox which is estimated. The numbers reported are for the largest cable providers, and Leichtman estimates that these companies represent 95% of all cable customers in the country. more

DNSSEC Activities at ICANN 57 in Hyderabad on 4-7 November 2016

Friday marks the beginning of the ICANN 57 meeting in Hyderabad, India. As per usual there will be a range of activities related to DNSSEC or DANE. Two of the sessions will be streamed live and will be recorded for later viewing. Here is what is happening. All times below are India Standard Time (IST), which is UTC+05:30. Please do join us for a great set of sessions about how we can work together to make the DNS more secure and trusted! more

First Root Zone DNSSEC KSK Ceremony

ICANN will hold the first Root Zone DNSSEC KSK Ceremony on Wednesday 2010-06-16 in Culpeper, VA, USA. ... Attendance within the key ceremony room itself will be limited to just those with an operational requirement to execute the ceremony. However, since this event has generated significant interest, we have made additional space available in an adjacent room for observers who wish to attend the event. more

Cuban Professors Get Laptops But No Wifi Capabilities

Late last year, we learned that China's 90,000 employee Haier Group would be producing laptops and tablets in partnership with GEDEME, a Cuban manufacturer that will assemble the machines using Haier parts, equipment, and production processes. Last week, a friend who is a professor at the University of Havana told me that he and other professors have been given GDM laptops. more