What’s Up With WEIRDS?

The IETF WEIRDS working group is defining a follow-on to WHOIS. Since this is the IETF, it's working on the technical issues about which it can deal with, not policy which is up to ICANN and the country registries. Somewhat to my surprise, the group is making steady progress. We've agreed that the basic model is RESTful, with queries via http, and responses as JSON data structures. The protocol is named RDAP for Registration Data Access Protocol, or maybe RESTful Data Access protocol. more

Whose Network Is It?

A reader sent me a link last week to a piece that doesn't speak highly of net neutrality. Clyde Wayne Crews wrote an article called "Dumb Pipes, a Dumb Idea: Net Neutrality as 21st Century Socialism" that calls for legislators to reject "nut" neutrality. "Elevating the principle of mandatory net neutrality above the principle of investor ownership and wealth creation in pipes and spectrum deflects market forces away from the infrastructure development that we need..." Did anyone else see a touch of irony in a letter to the editor... more

New Publication on Updating the Anti-Cybersquatting Regime and Ad-Based Cybersquatting

Sealing the cracks: a proposal to update the anti-cybersquatting regime to combat advertising-based cybersquatting is the title of an article by Christopher Varas in the April issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice. In this article, the author labels "modern cybersquatting" the monetization of domain names through PPC advertisements, and says that brand owners lack effective tools to combat this practice... more

Who Cares About 50,000 .CAT’s?

This past May 19th, 5 years after its sunrise, puntCAT arrived at the 50,000 domain names landmark. We know that, nowadays, 50,000 domain names may hardly be described as shocking news, and, certainly, this is not our limit, and we believe there's still plenty of room for .cat to grow. Then, who and why should care about this number? more

The Rotten Roots - Summary of Issues and Sources on Net Neutrality

The timeline of the Net Neutrality issue has been detailed here. And quoting from Vox: 'Wheeler said that peering is "an issue that we are investigating, it's an issue we are very interested in, but it's not the issue here today."' more

Close to 3.1 Million Domain Names Registered in the Third Quarter of 2015

Approximately 3.1 million domain names were registered in the third quarter of 2015, bringing the total number of registered domain names close to 299 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Sept. 30, 2015, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief by Verisign. more

Are Phishing and Malware Separate Threats?

Phishing is when bad guys try to impersonate a trusted organization, so they can steal your credentials. Typically they'll send you a fake e-mail that appears to be from a bank, with a link to a fake website that also looks like the bank. Malware offers another more insidious way to steal your credentials, by running unwanted code on your computer... I like VeriSign's characterization of this kind of malware as an insecure endpoint, the PC which is the endpoint of the conversation with the bank isn't actually under the control of the person who's using it. more

NATO Announces 58 Million Euro Investment in Cyber Defence

The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) has announced the award of a contract for upgrading the NATO cyber defence capabilities. The award to private industrial companies will enable the already operating NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC) to achieve full operational capability by the end of 2012. At approximately 58 million Euro, it represents NATO's largest investment to date in cyber defence. more

The Real Work Starts After WCIT12

The really important part of the World Conference on IT (WCIT) is not the internet battles that have caught the interest of the press - it is what will happen after the conference has ended. Membership of WCIT is on a per-country basis... Each country is free to make up its own delegation and these delegations can therefore represent a large variety of social, economic, business, legal, technical and other interests - as large and as wide as each country decides its delegation will be. more

NANOG 95: From Faster Fibre to Route Leaks, Operators Face Old Problems with New Tools

The NANOG 95 conference spotlighted breakthroughs in fibre optics, wireless technology, routing security, and quantum computing, offering a forward-looking assessment of internet infrastructure and its vulnerabilities, as reported by APNIC's Geoff Huston. more

Broadband Companies Take Connectivity Pledge Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Broadband and telephone service providers of all sizes in the US have signed on to a "Keep Americans Connected Pledge" aimed at maintaining connectivity for citizens amid disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. more

Today Marks a Giant Step Towards DNSSEC Deployment

The global deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) is charging ahead. With ICANN 38 Brussels just around the corner, DNSSEC deployment will inevitably be the hot topic of discussion over the next few days. Case in point, today, ICANN hosted the first production key ceremony at a secure facility in Culpepper, Va. where the first cryptographic digital key was used to secure the Internet root zone. The ceremony's goal was simple: for the global Internet community to trust that the procedures involved with DNSSEC are executed correctly and that the private key materials are stored securely. more

No Dates for the Next gTLD Round Yet, Says ICANN

According to a letter sent from ICANN's chair to the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) this week, the agency will not be setting a date for the next round of new gTLD applications anytime soon despite keen interest from registry operators. more

President Díaz-Canel, Cuban Internet Is More Than Facebook on Cell Phones – Don’t Be Afraid of It

As a result of Internet service interruption during the recent anti-government protests in Cuba, Florida Senator Rubio and Governor DeSantis and President Biden have called for measures to strengthen and guarantee Cuban Internet connectivity, but that won't happen until the Cuban government recognizes that doing so is in its long-run interest. I have seen several suggestions that we smuggle end-user satellite terminals from services like SpaceX Starlink into Cuba but attempts to... more

Restraining Order Filed by US States’ Attorneys in the Final Hours of IANA Transition

With less than 24 hours to go before the historic contractual relationship between the US government and ICANN is set to expire, a motion hearing is expected to be held today based on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas by four states' attorneys general which could lead to NTIA facing the possibility of a temporary injunction. more