The FCC Cyber Trust Label Gambit

Several weeks ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) embarked on one of the most far-reaching regulatory gambits in its 90-year history. It is formally known as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the matter of Cybersecurity Labeling for Internet of Things, Docket 23 -- 239. The FCC offers ICT product developers the use of its FCC trademarked cyber trust mark placed on their products in exchange for accepting open-ended Commission cybersecurity jurisdiction... more

The Results of the ICANN Bingo Are In!

A few early technical hiccups with the system streaming it live did not prevent ICANN's prioritization draw from running smoothly yesterday, December 17, 2012. All 1917 remaining applications (out of initial 1930 announced last June) were processed in one of the meeting rooms at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton, starting at 13:00 local time. Shortly before midnight, or more than 10 hours later, Google's Dot MBA was the last application to be pulled out of the box. more

Why Did Russia Test an Anti-Satellite Missile and Why Doesn’t China Condemn the Test?

On November 15th, Russia used an anti-satellite missile to destroy COSMOS 1408, a defunct spy satellite. The explosion quickly created over 1,500 pieces of trackable debris and will likely generate hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces. As a precautionary measure, the astronauts on the International Space Station, two of whom are Russians, took shelter in escape shuttles during two orbits. The anti-satellite test was widely criticized, but the Russian defense ministry released a statement saying... more

IBM’s $34B Red Hat Aquisition Makes It the World’s Largest Hybrid Cloud Provider

International Business Machines Corp (IBM) on Tuesday announced the completion of its $34 billion acquisition of the software company Red Hat Inc making it IBM's largest acquisition ever in its 100-year-plus history. more

Google Explains What They Mean by “Net Neutrality”

Google has launched a new Public Policy Blog focused on U.S. government legislation and regulation -- reported in the media as part of Google's efforts in setting up focus on the U.S. government since early 2005. In an entry posted over the weekend on the blog by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, key argument within the net neutrality debate is explained... more

A DNS View of Lockdown

At NANOG 79 earlier this month Craig Labowitz from Nokia Deepfield presented on the impact on the COVID-19 pandemic on Internet use. The approach to the analysis used real-time streaming telemetry from Communication Service Provider (CSP) backbone and aggregation routers, and the data analysis covered content provider networks in North America, Europe and parts of Asia. more

Next Steps in Preparing for Post-Quantum DNSSEC

In 2021, we discussed a potential future shift from established public-key algorithms to so-called "post-quantum" algorithms, which may help protect sensitive information after the advent of quantum computers. We also shared some of our initial research on how to apply these algorithms to the Domain Name System Security Extensions, or DNSSEC. In the time since that blog post, we've continued to explore ways to address the potential operational impact of post-quantum algorithms on DNSSEC, while also closely tracking industry research and advances in this area. more

Hong Kong is the Fastest Internet Region in the World

In Akamai Technologies' "State of the Internet" report for Q4 2010 Hong Kong (as a region/country) was identified as the market with the fastest average peak internet connection speed in the world. Hong Kong fixed line users can access the internet with an average peak speed of 37.9Mb/s, ahead of South Korea at 32.3Mb/s, Romania at 31.7Mb/s and Japan at 30.5Mb/s. more

Vint Cerf Has Tested Positive for Coronavirus

Internet pioneer and vice president of research at Google, Vint Cerf, said in a tweet this morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19). more

Old Dog, New Tricks: Gift Card Scams in Social Networks

In the past few months, a flurry of gift card scams leveraging such high-profile brands as Best Buy, Whole Foods and IKEA have emerged on Facebook. These scams often use the brand's logo, website URL, or general "look and feel" on Facebook "fan" pages to give the impression that these offers are legitimate. Some scams are even bold enough to include bogus, non-interactive fan comments to add a greater sense of authenticity to the gift card offer. To date, these scams have been successful at tricking tens of thousands of consumers. In just one day, for example, a fan page titled "IKEA Get a FREE $1000 IKEA Gift Card! (ONLY AVAILABLE 1 DAY)" registered 40,000 fans before being shut down. more

Study Finds IPv6 Adoption Still Lagging in U.S. Federal Agencies

IPv6 adoption across federal government websites has been less than aggressive across the survey period conducted by Oracle Dyn's Internet Research & Analysis Unit; many agencies failing to deploy public websites on IPv6 by the end of FY 2017. more

Long Live the Neodomainers: The Domain Game, Good or Bad

David Kesmodel's to be released book The Domain Game, irrespective of how it is received, will undoubtedly catapult the industry into a new era: that of the neodomainers, the super crunchers. To analyze the impact of the book on the industry, let's look at stylized exchange scenarios featuring a domainer as intermediary (an intermediary in that he or she acquires from the seller and then hopes to resell to the buyer)... more

Google Ends Domain-Fronting Feature Used by Censorship Tools

A recent change in Google's network architecture has put a stop to a so-called "domain-fronting" feature that allowed services use Google's network to get around state-level internet blocks. more

Cybersquatting and Geopolitics Heats Up

Cybersquatting is so 2000, or so we thought. The Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) at WIPO has been chugging along for several years now, methodically determining if complainants IP rights have been violated and reassigning "ownership" of domain names. Typically, the cases are fairly boring. But some recent developments in the world of 800 lb search gorillas, Google and Baidu, suggests that the regime could be faced with substantial pressure in the near future. more

Value or Love for New gTLDs?

ICANN has started its historic and controversial program to expand the number of generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). This essay outlines the factors needed for the program to create economic value, warns against a cognitive trap that complicates selection of a new gTLD and considers the value contribution of the registries. I will not go into relevant macro measures, but I examine the problems associated with the popular measure of simply counting the number of registrations. more