Spotlight on African Contributions to Internet Governance Discussions (Part 1: NETmundial)

The internet affects every individual in this world whether directly or indirectly. For example, a medical professional somewhere in Goma, Congo might access the internet to read and post reviews to current medication available and this might have an impact on the kind of medication that he/she recommends to the patient, whether the patient has access to affordable internet or not. Since the internet affects everyone, Africans citizens who are aware of internet governance discussions, expect African stakeholders to engage in these discussions. more

NTIA Releases Cybersecurity Road Map for “Building a More Resilient Internet”

U.S. Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security have released a road map setting out steps to stop the cyber threat to nations internet infrastructure, announced NTIA. more

An ITU Cut and Paste Job for New TLDs Could Cost $150k

It was with great interest that I read a recent announcement about a plan by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to publish template answers on a wiki for the 22 questions relating to registry technical operations contained within ICANN's new Top-Level Domain Applicant Guidebook. As someone who has spent the best part of six years following the development of the program (witnessing first-hand each evolution of the Applicant Guidebook) my first thought was one of bemusement... more

Time for Auction?

Today, Innovative Auctions announced the resolution of eight Top Level Domains in the second private auction commencing on August 13th for a total of $9,651,000. With the first and second auctions successfully completed and the third auction scheduled for September 10th is now a good time to resolve your contention set and jump on the next auction bus? more

Global Domain Name Market Reaches 372 Million Domains, 1.5% Growth in 2024

Afnic, the French association in charge of the .fr domain and several other Internet Top Level Domains, has published the 2024 edition of its annual analysis "The Global Domain Name Market". Here is a summary of the overarching trends and key figures. more

Digital Identity and Branding: The Five Most Common Mistakes in Naming

The U.S. is a total hotbed for Startups. Over the course of the last year, venture capital firms invested $69.11 billion in U.S. startups. Now is an exciting time where there is more ingenuity and entrepreneurial efforts than ever before. And of course every entrepreneur's dream is to have a successful idea and "make it". However, a startup's name and its associated digital identity are often not as thought out as they should be. more

Can We Really Blame DNSSEC for Larger-Volume DDoS attacks?

In its security bulletin, Akamai's Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT) reported on abuse of DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) when mounting a volumetric reflection-amplification attack. This is not news, but I'll use this opportunity to talk a bit about whether there is a trade-off between the increased security provided by DNSSEC and increased size of DNS responses that can be leveraged by the attackers. more

Registry Lock - or EPP With Two Factor Authentication

For the last couple of years, the most common attack vector against the DNS system is the attack against the registrar. Either the attack is on the software itself using weaknesses in the code that could inject DNS changes into the TLD registry, or social engineering the registrar support systems and the attacker receives credentials that in turn allows the attacker to perform malicious changes in DNS. DNSSEC is the common security mechanism that protects the DNS protocol, but by using the registrar attack, any changes will result in a proper working DNS delegation. more

Apple Under Criticism for Back-Pedaling on IPv6 Support

Apple Computer's AirPort Utility, Version 6.0 was criticized this week at the North American IPv6 Summit for no longer being compatible with IPv6. The previous Version, 5.6, offered IPv6 service by default. "Comcast, for example, is urging its subscribers that are interested in using IPv6 not to upgrade to AirPort Utility Version 6.0 if they use the OS X Lion operating system because of incompatibilities with IPv6." more

Google License to Operate in China Renewed

Google Inc. today announced via its official blog that the Chinese government has renewed its license and that it will continue to operate in China. Google further notes: "We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it's up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China." more

Australian Farms Get Connected to the Starlink Satellites

Last year, I reported on the possibility that LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite-based systems might be a gamechanger for the delivery of high-speed data services, including internet access, to people in regional and remote Australia. What has become clear with the rollout of the NBN is that the quality of data connections in metropolitan cities in many cases has improved, but that the rest of Australia doesn't have a similar experience. more

Is Defining Broadband by Speed a Good Policy?

I’ve lately been looking at broadband policies that have shaped broadband, and I don’t think there has been any more disastrous FCC policy than the one that defines broadband by speed. This one policy has led to a misallocation of funding and getting broadband to communities that need it. The FCC established the definition of broadband as 25/3 Mbps in 2015, and before then, the definition of broadband was 4/1 Mbps, set a decade earlier. The FCC defines broadband to meet a legal requirement established by Congress and codified in Section 706 of the FCC governing rules. more

Moving Towards a Better (Not Just a Bigger) Internet

Those of us who have been working on IPv6 for over 15 years know what it means to be an advocate for an infrastructure technology that cannot be easily tied to new revenue or short-term risks. It is a battle on an icy uphill slope with head winds and a gallery of skeptics who call themselves realists and cheer your every bruise. This has often made us cheer any news of a new IPv6 deployment, as a means to keep faith. However in doing so, it sometimes made us overlook the substance of that news... more

Google Reveals Top 10 Malware Sites From Its Index

While scanning its index, Google in the last two months reports to have found more than 4,000 different websites suspected of distributing malware by massively compromising popular websites. "Of these domains more than 1,400 were hosted in the .cn TLD. Several contained plays on the name of Google such as goooogleadsence.biz, etc.," says Google's security team member, Niels Provos, in a blog post today. more

ARIN Board Challenged to Diversify

Before the American Registry for Internet Numbers' 40th Public Policy Meeting closed last week, members were reminded that the elections for two seats on its Board of Trustees was an opportunity for needed change. The opening of polls last Thursday marked the end of an era. The clue was the candidates. For the first time in ARIN’s history, at least one seat on its board would not be filled by an elected white male. more