Why We Need Broadband Regulation

Anybody that reads my blog posts knows that I am in favor of broadband regulation. I'm sure ISPs read this and wonder why -- because who doesn't like being unregulated? My feelings on this go back to basic economics - monopolies must either be regulated or split up. By definition, monopolies always end up taking advantage of consumers - unregulated monopolies really can't help this behavior because employees and management of monopolies will inevitably take advantage of monopoly market power. more

WHOIS Database Download: Proactive Defense Against the Rising Tide of BEC Fraud

How many times have you heard that humans are the weakest link in cybersecurity? The headlines have proven that over and over again. In particular, business email compromise or BEC (also known as email account compromise or EAC) scams, which typically target an employee with access to the financial resources of his company -- this could be a C-level executive or any high-ranking officer -- for fraud are still on a constant uphill trend. more

One Week Left for the Upcoming Brands and Domains Conference

There is only less than one week left for the second edition of the Brands and Domains conference to take place in The Hague, Netherlands, at the Amrath Kurhaus. The domaining conference will be held during the 2nd and 3rd of October, 'the place to be' for all those whose companies are interested in developing the so-called dotBrands. More than 500 companies have already requested their dotBrand domain, and many of them are already using it, but it is 'together' how we can move forward... more

The Sharing Economy and Sec. 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act

The sharing economy is a challenge for local communities. On the good, it creates economic opportunity and reduces the price. On the bad, it circumvents public safety and welfare protection. Such is the clash between Airbnb and local jurisdictions. San Francisco implemented a local ordinance that permits short-term rentals on the condition that the rental property is registered. In order to register the property, the resident must provide proof of liability insurance... more

When CDA Immunity is Not CDA Immunity

Here's a question: If 47 USC 230(c) (the Good Samaritan provision of the Communications Decency Act) says that online services are not liable for third party content, then can you even sue the online service? Shouldn't the online service be immune from lawsuit? Because, after all, what would be the point of being sued for something for which you cannot be liable? more

U.S. Senator Inquiring Into Friday’s Crippling Cyberattack

U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and co-founder of the bipartisan Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, has released a letter asking three federal agencies for information on the tools available that prevent cyber criminals from compromising consumer products, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. more

Differing UDRP Decisions Show That Facts Matter

"Past performance does not necessarily predict future results." That's what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires mutual funds tell investors. But it's also true about domain name disputes. Cases in point: In four recent proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the operator of a large bank won two decisions but lost two others, despite a track record of having won more than 30 previous UDRP disputes. more

In Search of the Killer 5G App

AT&T and Comcast recently joined forces and joined the 5G Open Innovation Lab. This is a venture that has been funding start-ups and others working in 5G research. Along with looking to improve 5G edge technology, a primary goal of the OAI Lab is to search for killer apps for 5G. The two big companies join the other founding members of the effort, which includes Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Deloitte, and Nokia. more

Disinformation and Our Technology Industries

It was interesting to see that, albeit belatedly, the American media started to stop giving Trump opportunities to spew out his lies across the country and beyond. It obviously had now reached a point where the media realized that if they continued to provide Trump with their avenues, this would make them accomplices in inciting violence. Is this going to be a turning point? more

Call for Participation – ICANN DNSSEC and Security Workshop at ICANN67, Cancun, Mexico

The ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) and the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme are planning a DNSSEC and Security Workshop during the ICANN67 meeting held from 07-12 March 2020 in Cancun, Mexico. The original DNSSEC Workshop has been a part of ICANN meetings for many years and has provided a forum for both experienced and new people to meet, present, and discuss current and future DNSSEC deployments. more

U.S. Government Officials Raise Concerns Over Intel’s Long Delay Informing Government on Chip Flaws

Latest reports suggest Intel Corporation did not inform U.S. cyber security officials about the so-called Meltdown and Spectre chip security flaws until they were leaked to the public six months after Intel was notified about the problem. more

Hearing on “Preserving the Multistakeholder Model of Internet Governance”

Kevin Murphy reporting in DomainIncite: "The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will meet this Wednesday at 1000 local time to grill Chehade and others on the plan to remove the US government from the current triumvirate responsible for managing changes to the DNS root zone under the IANA arrangements..." more

Entrenched Decision Makers Won’t Hold Back IaaS Adoption

In an interesting article on Information Week, Jonathan Feldman makes the argument that because of entrenched attitudes and established practices among "IT infrastructure gurus," Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will fail to gain traction, forcing developers to turn towards Platform as a service (PaaS) as the route of least resistance. Feldman is not anti-IaaS, he makes it clear that he thinks enterprise infrastructure managers are making a mistake, but believes they'll continue to make it anyway. more

Do Your Analytics Efforts Expose Your SQL Data Sources to Attacks?

Structured Query Language (SQL) continues to be quite relevant today. Many organizations still use SQL database systems, and it still ranks as the top in-demand language in tech job postings -- even in 2020. Companies are also increasing their analytics and business intelligence efforts, where SQL skills come in as quite handy. SQL queries allow you to pull key information from databases quickly. more

How the Internet Grew in 2009

Internet 2009 in numbers as reported by Royal Pingdom: In 2009 there were 90 trillion emails sent; 100 million new email users; 24 percent increase in spam; 47 million new websites; 8 percent increase in domain names with the total reaching 187 million; 18 percent increase in overall Internet users with the worldwide total reaching 1.73 billion; and new zombie computers created reach 148,000 per day. more