High Performance DNS Needs High Performance Security

There's been a lot of emphasis on DNS performance lately because faster DNS contributes directly to a better user experience. There's an interesting flipside to DNS performance though, higher performance DNS servers may be better targets for cache poisoning attacks. Faster servers give attackers more opportunities to insert fake entries into the DNS - speed can kill (or at least inflict a nasty wound!) so it's important to understand the security implications if you're looking to upgrade DNS performance. more

A Peek Inside the FCC

I write a lot about the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but I imagine a lot of folks don't realize the many functions the agency handles. Like any regulatory agency, the FCC staff and Commissioners have been tasked by Congress with a wide range of responsibilities. The public gets to hear from the FCC formally once each month ... more

Internet Commerce Association Calls for ICANN to Withhold Approval of .Org Sale

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) in an open letter issued today, has asked ICANN to withhold the approval of the assignment of the .ORG top-level domain to the private equity company Ethos Capital. more

Baltic Sea Infrastructure Targeted Amid Rising Geopolitical Tensions

An underwater data cable linking Sweden and Latvia was damaged early Sunday, marking the fourth such incident in the Baltic Sea, fueling concerns within NATO regarding the security of critical infrastructure. more

U.S. Intends to Remain in Full Control of Internet Root Zone, Says Letter from NTIA

In a letter sent by bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to ICANN, the department has made it clear that despite recent discussions in Paris meetings, the U.S. department intends to remain in full authority over the Internet root zone. more

Two Approaches to Routers in Space: SpaceX and OneWeb

Two companies hope to revolutionize the Internet by providing global connectivity using constellations of low-earth orbit satellites -- Elon Musk's SpaceX and Greg Wyler's OneWeb. It seems that SpaceX gets a lot more publicity than OneWeb, but both are formidable... SpaceX is integrated -- building the rockets, satellites and ground stations themselves -- while OneWeb has a number of collaborators and investors, including Bharti Enterprises, Coca-Cola, Intelsat, Hughes, Totalplay Telecommunications, Virgin Galactic and Softbank. more

Advantage of Commercial Clouds vs. HPC for Scientific Research

The Department of Energy (DoE) recently came out with an excellent report, called the Magellan report, on the advantages and disadvantages of using commercial clouds versus in house High Performance Computers (HPC) for leading edge scientific research. The DoE probably supports the largest concentration of HPC facilities in the world. I agree with the report that for traditional applications such as computational chemistry, astrophysics, etc. will still need large HPC facilities. more

Are You Prepared for a New Turkish Delight? .TR Domain Name to Be Released

In the last year, the company that runs the Turkish Domain Registry has made many changes to how the extension is run. First, it has a brand new portal for registrars to interact with, liberalizing the extension .COM.TR, so registrants are no longer required to meet local presence rules, and it has launched a new dispute process to help brand holders recover domain names.  more

Interest Grows for Video-On-Demand Opportunities

With the DVD rental market continuing to dwindle, we are again seeing interest emerge for online video-on-demand, with both the large Hollywood Studies and online content distributors making recent strategic moves in this direction. ... A sign of the times came with the 2010 bankruptcy of Blockbuster, once one of the largest move rental companies. more

Former ICANN Board Member to Congress - ICANN Needs Oversight

Karl Auerbach has written a quite long but very detailed and well thought out letter to Congress. It's not clear which members of Congress were sent the letter. Karl Auerbach is a former member of ICANN's board and is probably best remembered by many as having taken ICANN to court (and winning) in order to gain access to the organisation's financial records. more

New gTLDs and Children

At first blush most are unlikely to see the relationship between new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) and children. However, as a father and someone that has worked with approximately 50% of all new gTLDs approved by ICANN over the last decade, I have a unique perspective that may shed some light on this analogy. Hopefully, as the ICANN community begins to seek closure in connection with the new gTLD implement process, this article may offer one perspective as to what lies ahead. more

Internet Pioneers, Company Founders, CEOs Send Letters to FCC in Support of Open Internet Initiative

A group of 24 CEO's and Internet company founders submitted a letter today to the Federal Communications Commission in support of the Net Neutrality initiative. Also last week, in a similar letter, Vinton Cerf, Stephen Crocker and other Internet pioneers spoke out on Net Neutrality supporting FCC's recent open Internet initiative. more

COVID-19, WHOIS, and the Pressing Need for Help With Domain Name System Abuse

As widely reported, and not surprising, the internet is swimming in COVID-19 online scams. Criminals, accustomed to rapidly grabbing online territory during times of crisis and profiting from public fear, are working overtime in the face of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, ICANN's failure to enforce its minimal WHOIS and DNS abuse requirements has resulted in delayed mitigation efforts at a time when swift responses are needed to protect the public from COVID-19 scams. more

Why It Doesn’t Matter That the Virginia Anti-Spam Law was Struck Down

If the headlines are to be believed, spam is now entirely legal in Virginia and anyone can send whatever they want without any fear of reprisal, ever. Looking beyond the headlines, it appears that the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling in AOL's case against formerly convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes declares that the Virginia anti-spam law violates the Constitutional protection of anonymous speech, and thus is null and void. more

Public Sharing and a New Strategy in Fighting Cyber Crime

A couple of years ago I started a mailing list where folks not necessarily involved with the vetted, trusted, closed and snobbish circles of cyber crime fighting (some founded by me) could share information and be informed of threats. In this post I explore some of the history behind information sharing online, and explain the concept behind the botnets mailing list... we may not be able to always share our resources, but it is time to change the tide of the cyber crime war, and strategize. One of the strategies we need to use, or at least try, is public information sharing of "lesser evils" already in the public domain. more