The Silent Librarian advanced persistent threat (APT) actors have been detected once again, as the academic year started in September. With online classes increasingly becoming the norm, the group's phishing campaigns that aim to steal research data and intellectual property could have a high success rate. Dozens of phishing domain names have been reported, although some may have already been taken down. more
Mary Meeker delivered her Internet Trends Report, tech communities most anticipated slide deck at the Code Conference 2019 in Arizona today. more
DNSSEC adoption has been slow, but is now picking up speed, thanks to organizations leading the way. ... While some registries have already signed, some have announced plans to sign and others are still trying to figure out their plan. Either way, DNSSEC is here. How can we make DNSSEC adoption quicker and easier not only for the registry but for individual name owners? more
The essay outlines the necessary success factors for a niche search engine and raises doubt regarding the role of .Branding in niche engines' success. Some search engines want to target a niche market, not Google. Unlike Google, they're targeted and they are profitable that way. Consider Kayak (travel), Zillow (real estate), Yelp (reviews), and .xxx (adult websites). more
Since Verisign published its second SSR report a few weeks back, recently updated with revision 1.1, we've been taking a deeper look at queries to the root servers that elicit "Name Error," or NXDomain responses and figured we'd share some preliminary results. Not surprisingly, promptly after publication of the Interisle Consulting Group's Name Collision in the DNS [PDF] report, a small number of the many who are impacted are aiming to discredit the report. more
For a brief moment earlier this week, I thought my days spent dreaming of hover-boards, flying cars and Biff's elusive Sports Almanac were finally over. From reports circulating online, we had finally reached "Back to the Future Day". Those movie buffs out there will know exactly what I'm referring to... But it got me thinking. What would the Domain Name world look like if that crazy cat Doc Brown swung past in his DeLorean, with a fully-charged flux capacitor and a return ticket to October 21st 2015? more
A timely article in The Wall Street Journal (that I only recently got around to reading): "The future's not here." American business people once saw China as dynamic, exciting and wide open. Not anymore. To which I ask: When was China ever "wide open?" Let's not blame the recent trade and tariff issues. China is a ruthlessly competitive market that, like so many countries, tilts the playing field in favor of its home-grown companies. more
The merits of a Registry Service Provider accreditation programs have been debated across the Domain Industry since the most recent round of Domain Name Registries were introduced starting in 2012. This post discusses the early reasoning in support of an accreditation program; changes in the policy considerations between 2012 and now; the effects of competition on the landscape; a suggestion for how such a program might be implemented; and why such a program should be introduced now. more
M-commerce (mobile e-commerce) incorporates a range of mobile-driven applications, including payments for parking and theatre tickets (m-payments) to mobile banking (m-banking). M-commerce is a broad field incorporating a large variety of services and business models. In 2011, according to Gartner Group, over 15 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide via app stores. They also estimated app store revenues alone reached over $5 billion in 2010 (incorporating revenue generated from both apps purchases and advertising). more
You wake up, make coffee, sit down by the computer and start reading your favorite web sites. You fire up your favorite browser and type 'www.site.com' on the address bar, hit enter and continue sipping on that coffee. You wait for the page to load, sipping some more coffee - a few seconds later you get the Google search results for 'www.site.com'. You scratch your head, sip some more coffee, and start wondering if you did a typo, but no it is correct - Google is not correcting your spelling. more
The recent adoption at the end of December of the new EU Directive for a high level of cybersecurity across the Union -- commonly referred to as "NIS2" - paved the way for important updates to the domain name system (DNS). Most significantly, Article 28 of NIS2 and its related recitals resolved any ambiguities about the public interest served by a robust and objectively accurate WHOIS system that permits legitimate access by third parties to data... more
The recent launch of a new internet exchange point in Saint Martin has propelled the territory towards a better, faster and more resilient Internet. The French Caribbean territory's new IXP, called Smart-IX, was launched in October under the auspices of a recently launched CaribIX project, which is coordinated by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), supported by the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), funded by the INTERREG Caraïbes programme... more
Loon, formerly a Google X project and now an independent Alphabet company, reveals that it successfully transmitted data over a 1000 kilometers (621 miles) via a network of 7 balloons. more
Ok, so I had a day in Wellington that was not busy with other things so I thought I'd wander over to the ICANN venue and sit in on the PUBLIC Forum... I saw friends on the walk over and we entered the venue, chatting about several different things. They pulled out their badges. I didn't have one. They were admitted, I was denied entrance... more
A name collision occurs when a user attempts to resolve a domain in one namespace, but it unexpectedly resolves in a different namespace. Name collision issues in the public global Domain Name System (DNS) cause billions of unnecessary and potentially unsafe DNS queries every day. A targeted outreach program that Verisign started in March 2020 has remediated one billion queries per day to the A and J root name servers, via 46 collision strings. more