Warning, Danger Lurks Here: Exploring DKIM/ADSP Edge Cases - Missing message-id

This article is the first in an occasional series on DKIM/ADSP edge cases that may not be generally recognized or understood. Many people advocate DKIM/ADSP adoption without fully recognizing potential implementation and operational issues. The fact is that the email messaging environment is fraught with opportunities for poor outcomes because of common practices that need to be considered or poorly understood implementations that are not considered... more

Vint Cerf Comments on Government’s Role in Internet Broadband Access

Some offhand comments by Google's Vint Cerf at a recent event seem to have a triggered a panicky "Vint Cerf proposes nationalizing the Internet" buzz that's been ramping up fairly rapidly. Holy BitTorrent, Batman! Army paratroopers seen dropping into parking lots at AT&T and Comcast, while the Transportation Security Agency orders us all to remove our shoes before surfing the Web! Settle down, everyone. As usual with these kinds of stories, the truth is significantly different from the breathless buzzing. Here's how Vint described his thinking on this issue to me... more

Declaring IPv6 an Internet Standard

I've already shared my thoughts following a session of the IPv4 Sunset Working Group at IETF 95 that considered whether to declare IPv4 an "Historic" specification. Of course, as one would expect for a meeting of a Standards Development Organization (SDO), that wasn't the only standards process discussion through the week. Another session, this time in the IPv6 Maintenance Working Group, considered the related topic of whether to make the IPv6 specification a full Internet Standard. Let's look at that proposal. more

How Ignorance Can Lead Mark Owners Astray in UDRP Proceedings

The great problem with ignorance is that it leads to disaster when one acts in the belief that he (and not infrequently a corporate "it") is invulnerable to error. The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is fundamentally a straightforward rights protection mechanism, but as in all clearly written laws, ignorance of its application and of its evidentiary demands can (and generally does) lead to disaster. more

ICANN Explains “Brazil Meeting” Initiative

Given the post-Prism political climate, it should come as no surprise that the 8th edition of the UN-initiated Internet Governance Forum (IGF), currently happening in Bali (Indonesia), is showing record-braking attendance with more than 2,000 delegates. With a byline of "building bridges: enhancing multistakeholder cooperation for growth and sustainable development", the meeting's main theme is clearly the need to evolve the current model for Internet Governance. But not quite everyone has the same view on exactly how that should happen.  more

Verisign’s Preliminary Comments on ICANN’s Name Collisions Phase One Report

Verisign posted preliminary public comments on the "Mitigating the Risk of DNS Namespace Collisions" Phase One Report released by ICANN earlier this month. JAS Global Advisors, authors of the report contracted by ICANN, have done solid work putting together a set of recommendations to address the name collisions problem, which is not an easy one, given the uncertainty for how installed systems actually interact with the global DNS. However, there is still much work to be done. I have outlined the four main observations... more

Who Are the Major New gTLD Applicants and… (Part Six: Starting Dot)

Starting Dot ("SD") is a French new gTLD applicant which applied for five strings: .ARCHI, .BIO, .DESIGN, (which has been withdrawn) .IMMO and .SKI. It is the only French applicant to have applied for several open new gTLDs. Some French brands have applied too but as closed Top-Level Domains... While Starting Dot may be one of the smaller portfolio applicants, there is a considerable difference here in the way their projects are handled when compared to some of the larger applicants. more

Florida Cities Are Paying Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Ransom to Get Their Data Back

Lake City became the second Florida city to pay a substantial ransomware demand to hackers in less than a week. more

Chinese Internet Research Conference: Getting beyond “Iron Curtain 2.0”

At last week's Chinese Internet Research Conference, much discussion of the "myths and realities" of the Chinese Internet revolved around images, metaphors, and paradigms. In his award-winning paper titled The Great Firewall as Iron Curtain 2.0, UPenn PhD Student Lokman Tsui argued that "our use of the Great Firewall metaphor leads to blind spots that obscure and limit our understanding of internet censorship in the People's Republic." more

Google as DNS, Wikileaks as PoC

Wikileaks is still accessible -- via Google. Does that change anything? For many Internet users IP addresses as well as domain names are completely transparent. Further, Google (and other search engines) and often the first stop when these users wants to find a service, or a web site. Thus, many of us discussed over the years the eventual viability of Google (... and other search engines) as "DNS" (note the "'s). Now, don't jump at my throat quite yet... more

Government Regulation of Cybersecurity: Partnership (or Power Grab) in the Making?

A cybersecurity bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on April 1st, 2009 would give the United States federal government extraordinary power over private sector Internet services, applications and software. This proposed legislation is a direct result of a review ordered by the Obama administration into government policies and processes for defending against Internet-born attack. The focus of the bill, according to a summary released by the sponsoring senators, is on establishing a new partnership between the public and private sectors in a joint effort to bolster Internet security... more

7 Tips to Boost BYOD Security

The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend continues to make corporate inroads. According to Security Intelligence, more than 60 percent of enterprises now allow or "tolerate" employee mobile device use in the workplace. But companies still have significant security concerns, especially when it comes to the specter of lost data. Here are seven tips to boost BYOD security in 2015. more

Chuck Norris Botnet and Broadband Routers

Last week Czech researchers released information on a new worm which exploits CPE devices (broadband routers) by means such as default passwords, constructing a large DDoS botnet. Today this story hit international news... The spread of insecure broadband modems (DSL and Cable) is extremely wide-spread, with numerous ISPs, large and small, whose entire (read significant portions of) broadband population is vulnerable. more

Domain Pulse 2008: Internet Governance the Focus of Day One

Around 350 attendees came from Russia in the east to Ireland in the west, as well as a few people from elsewhere around the globe, to attend Domain Pulse 2008 in Vienna on February 21 and 22. Day one's focus was internet governance. The future of the DNS was one of the key issues addressed by Michael Nelson of Georgetown University in Washington DC, with domain names becoming less important, but their numbers still increasing, as online access by a myriad of devices skyrockets connect -- everything from the television, refrigerator, washing machine, pets, sprinkler systems and cars. more

Another Free Registry Software Option

Google has recently announced the release of Nomulus, its free, open source registry software, triggering discussion of its impact on the industry. Afilias has over 15 years of experience in registry operations, and offers the following initial thoughts... First, free registry software is not new.CoCCA has offered this option for years, and TLDs such as .CX (Christmas Island) and .KI (Kiribati) use it. It is supported on a "best efforts" basis and appears to meet the limited needs of a few small operators. more