Innovation and Cybersecurity Regulation

The market has failed to secure cyberspace. A ten-year experiment in faith-based cybersecurity has proven this beyond question. The market has failed and the failure of U.S. policies to recognize this explains why we are in crisis. The former chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, a longtime proponent of deregulation, provided a useful summary of the issue when he said, "The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work."... more

The New gTLD Program Now Needs Momentum and Focus

Once again, and hopefully for the final time, the internet community has an official time-line for the arrival of new generic top-level domains. ICANN's recent decision to publicly name May 30, 2011 as the planned launch date for new gTLD program was courageous, welcome, and absolutely necessary. The ICANN Board and staff alike should be congratulated for their bold commitment to opening the first-round application window less than seven months from now, and for providing the community with visibility into its working plan. more

Summary Report Now Posted of W3C/IAB “Strengthening The Internet (STRINT)” Workshop

Given that I've written here about the original call for papers for the W3C/IAB "Strengthening The Internet Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)" Workshop and then subsequently that the STRINT submitted papers were publicly available, I feel compelled to close the loop and note that a report about the STRINT workshop has been publicly published as an Internet-draft. more

ICANN 53 - Guaranteeing Accountability in Internet Governance

I recently attended the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) 53rd meeting in Buenos Aires to further discuss the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition process. During the meeting, public and private Internet stakeholders made important strides on a transition timeline, accountability planning and future management of the Internet that supports global creativity and innovation. more

Global Domain Name Registrations Reach 276 Million, Increase of Over 19M From Last Year

Five million domain names were added to the Internet in the first quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 276 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign. more

ICANN Announces Blocking Usage Review Panel

Culminating a year-long policy development process, ICANN today launched its new Blocking Usage Review Panel (BURP). The BURP provides long-needed oversight over services that block Internet traffic. "While everyone understands that national laws such as the U.S. CAN SPAM define what traffic is or is not elegible to block, legal processes can be slow and cumbersome," said a spokeswoman. "Since the Internet is global and traffic often traverses multiple countries, the array of different laws cause uncertainty." more

3 DNSSEC Sessions Happening At ICANN 50 Next Week in London

As I mentioned in a post to the Deploy360 blog today, there are three excellent sessions relating to DNSSEC happening at ICANN 50 in London next week: DNSSEC For Everybody: A Beginner's Guide; DNSSEC Implementers Gathering; DNSSEC Workshop. Find out more. more

Conflict Over Efforts to Develop a Best-Practices Document for Blacklist Operators

Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "Ken Magill covers the current rake fight on the IRTF's Anti-Spam Research Group mailing list concerning anti-spam DNS Blacklist, or Blocklist, (DNSBL) operators charging for delistings, that is well worth a read, he has quotes from many experts and leaders in the industry who are decidedly against the practice." more

Suggestions for the Cuba Internet Task Force

The Cuba Internet Task Force (CITF) held their inaugural meeting last week. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs John S. Creamer will chair the CITF, and there are government representatives from the Department of State, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agency for International Development. Freedom House will represent NGOs and the Information Technology Industry Council will represent the IT industry. more

The Free Internet in Jeopardy

The venerated BBC World Service recently commissioned a polled involving more than 27,000 people across 26 countries. The findings are unremarkable: some 87% of Internet users believe that Internet access should be a basic right, and more than 70% of non-users believe that they should have access to it. more

The Cyberthreats and Trends Enterprises Should Watch in 2016

Every year, Verisign iDefense Security Intelligence Services produces its Cyberthreats and Trends Report, which provides an overview of the key cybersecurity trends of the previous year and insight into how Verisign believes those trends will evolve. This report is designed to assist in informing cybersecurity and business operations teams of the critical cyberthreats and trends impacting their enterprises, helping them to anticipate key developments and more effectively triage attacks and allocate their limited resources. more

Nominet/SOCA Cyber Crime Proposal: Allow Cross Border Reactions

Reading the policy proposal of Nominet, I get the feeling that something is overseen here. Putting all the jurisdictional hassle aside for a moment, cyber crime is international, cross-border. So what happens if a UK domain is used for criminal activity outside the UK only? more

Geeks All Trust Each Other But Not in China

Brian Krebs has a post up the other day on his blog indicating that the amount of spam ending in .cn has declined dramatically due to steps taken by the Chinese government making it more difficult to get a domain ending in .cn... A cursory glance seems to confirm that the amount of spam from .cn as opposed to .ru has switched places. Indeed, if the CNNIC requires people to start writing in application forms, with a business license and identity card, that is seriously going to slow down the rate at which spammers can sign up and register new domains. more

BGP Hijacks: Two More Papers Consider the Problem

The security of the global Default Free Zone (DFZ) has been a topic of much debate and concern for the last twenty years (or more). Two recent papers have brought this issue to the surface once again - it is worth looking at what these two papers add to the mix of what is known, and what solutions might be available. The first of these traces the impact of Chinese "state actor" effects on BGP routing in recent years. more

The Ultimate Differentiator: Reliability!

Every company that monitors their site or application performance focuses on two key metrics Availability and Speed. However, there is a third metric, Reliability, which is often misunderstood or in some cases ignored by companies. Reliability measures availability, accuracy, and delivery of a service within a time threshold. Reliability is difficult to define and measure as it is different for each company and service. To simplify it, you can think of Reliability as how consistent are you in delivering the "service". more