U.S. Bypassing ICANN on Whois Privacy With Closed-Door Meeting in Paris

Despite positive discussions currently underway at the ICANN54 meetings in Dublin regarding protection of privacy services for domain name registrants, another meeting in Paris seems to be contradicting the efforts. more

Whither Passwords

The primary means of authentication on the Internet is the password -- a half-century old, shared secret mechanism that is difficult to use (especially on mobile devices) and has acknowledged security flaws including attacks at scale. Even so, passwords remain the most prevalent form of authentication with efforts to enhance security typically relying on "bolt on" solutions that increase user friction. more

New Report on “State of DNSSEC Deployment 2016” Shows Continued Growth

Did you know that over 50% of .CZ domains are now signed with DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)? Or that over 2.5 million .NL domains and almost 1 million .BR domains are now DNSSEC-signed? Were you aware that around 80% of DNS clients are now requesting DNSSEC signatures in their DNS queries? And did you know that over 100,000 email domains are using DNSSEC and DANE to enable secure email between servers? more

NTIA Asks for Input from Organizations That Have Implemented IPv6

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a stement today seeking input as part of its efforts to increase IPv6 adoption. more

Networks - The Next Challenge in Digital Transformation

As digital transformation has been picking up momentum, leading analysts such as 451 Research have suggested that hybrid multi-clouds and automated DevOps will become key constituents powering enterprises in the new era. At the heart of these enabling technologies lies Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) designed for near-autonomous application deployment across hybrid infrastructures consisting of traditional on-premise data centers and public clouds. more

DNS Tunneling: Is It a Security Threat?

DNS tunneling -- the ability to encode the data of other programs or protocols in DNS queries and responses -- has been a concern since the late 1990s. If you don't follow DNS closely, however, DNS tunneling likely isn't an issue you would be familiar with. Originally, DNS tunneling was designed simply to bypass the captive portals of Wi-Fi providers, but as with many things on the Web it can be used for nefarious purposes. For many organizations, tunneling isn't even a known suspect and therefore a significant security risk. more

Spamhaus Motion to Reconsider

A few weeks ago, Spamhaus filed a motion to have the judge reconsider his recent $27,002 award to e360. Their brief hangs on three arguments. ... it's clear Spamhaus is prepared to take this to the Court of Appeals (again) if the judge doesn't reconsider. In my lay reading of the law, and the memo in support of motion to alter judgement I don't think Spamhaus is out of line in asking for the judge to reconsider. I expect that if the judge doesn't reconsider, then we'll see an even more aggressive filing taking it up to the Court of Appeals. more

Three New Cyber Security Threats in One Day

Internet crooks never cease to surprise me. The inventiveness in being bad is super. If these guys lent their thinking power to the economy, the economic crisis would be solved within a week. Today I ran into three brand new cyber security threats that were reported on. In one day. So I thought to share them with you. more

NTIA’s FOIA Disclosures Shed Limited Light on IANA Transition Decision

On March 27, 2014, shortly after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) March 14th announcement of its intent to transfer its counterparty status on ICANN's IANA functions contract to the global multistakeholder community, the conservative advocacy organization Americans for Limited Government (ALG) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with NTIA. ALG's request was for disclosure of "All records relating to legal and policy analysis developed by or provided to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that support its decision to "transition key internet domain name functions," including any analysis showing whether the NTIA has the legal authority to perform the transition." more

Examining the Reality of Convergence

If there is one word in the telecommunications that has suffered from over-abuse for many years now, it's convergence. The term has been liberally applied to each successive generation of communications technology for their supposed ability to solve a myriad of service delivery problems within a single unifying converged carriage and service delivery solution. Unfortunately, the underlying reality has always been markedly different from these wondrous promises, and we continue to see an industry that deploys a plethora of service delivery platforms and an equally diverse collection of associated switching and service delivery technologies. One can't help but wonder at the collective gullibility of an industry that continues to herald the convergent attributes of each new generation of communications technology, while at the same time being forced to admit that previous convergent promises have never been realized. more

The Standards Myth That Does Not Stop

The latest iteration of the most expansive, omnipotential cybersecurity legal regime ever drafted appeared a few days ago. The European Union (EU) Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is attempting to assert jurisdiction and control over all "products with digital elements" defined as "any software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components to be placed on the market." more

Open Source Software Is the Worst Kind Except for All of the Others

Heartbleed, for anyone who doesn't read the papers, is a serious bug in the popular OpenSSL security library. Its effects are particularly bad, because OpenSSL is so popular, used to implement the secure bit of https: secure web sites on many of the most popular web servers such as apache, nginx, and lighttpd. A few people have suggested that the problem is that OpenSSL is open source, and code this important should be left to trained professionals. They're wrong. more

What’s Wrong With the FCC’s Consumer Broadband Test?

The FCC recently published some tools to let consumers measure some internet characteristics. The context is the FCC's "National Broadband Plan". I guess the FCC wants to gather data about the kind of internet users receive today so that the National Broadband Plan, whatever it may turn out to be, actually improves on the status quo. The motivation is nice but the FCC's methodology is technically weak. more

DNS Abuse: A Litmus Test for ICANN

For a long time, arguments about the meaning of "DNS Abuse" prevented fruitful discussions within the ICANN community on when and how it is appropriate to act at the level of the DNS to address abuses online. The proposed amendments to RA and RAA agreements represent a significant and welcomed step in the right direction. As Secretariat of the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network (I&JPN), we strongly encourage their adoption... more

Booksellers Weigh In On Amazon’s New TLDs

Some pretty big companies are beginning to show an active interest in ICANN's new TLD project. The most recent of them is bookseller Barnes & Noble. The letter, which is available both on the ICANN website, is quite narrow and pointed in its scope and focusses on the perceived competition issues with Amazon's bids for several "closed generics". more