It is interesting to see telecommunications policy issues being covered by the general media. Of course, we expect to see coverage of communications issues in the business press. The sector is a large employer, makes massive investments in infrastructure and virtually every citizen buys communications products and services every month. Still, covering the sector in the business section is different from seeing coverage move to the front page or the general editorial pages. more
The other day on Facebook, one of my friends mentioned that today (i.e., that day) was a good day to update his passwords. But he then lamented that some web sites don't allow you to create more than a 12-character password! He was incensed! Well, maybe not incensed but showed contempt for the fact these sites restricted password length. more
In a bipartisan effort to address the growing threat of deepfakes, U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) have introduced the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act). more
Walden Savings Bank will be the fifth bank in New York state to switch its domain name from a .com top-level domain (TLD) to the new .bank TLD in May of this year. more
Controversy over .WEB auction takes a new turn as various sources today pointed to a lawsuit filed against ICANN by Ruby Glen LLC, a subsidiary of Donuts Inc. -- the largest registry for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). more
The victory of Trump left the world perplexed, it did not take long to appear texts blaming Facebook and its bubble for the unexpected result. The "bubble", a theme that circulated more for the academic and technical spheres gained an unusual popularity in the last days, never saw so many texts on the subject published in such a short space of time, and in the recognized spaces of global journalism. more
On March 2, Russia covered the US flag on the Roscosmos Space Agency rocket that was scheduled to launch 36 OneWeb broadband satellites on March 5. The Russians made two obviously untenable demands -- that OneWeb guarantee that the satellites would not be used for military purposes and the United Kingdom government remove its investment in the company. OneWeb declined, and the satellites were removed from the rocket. more
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today opened the new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) — a 24-hour, DHS-led coordinated watch and warning center that will improve national efforts to address threats and incidents affecting the nation's critical information technology and cyber infrastructure. more
My colleague, Robert Smallwood in Geraldton, WA at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (WA Government), has been testing Starlink now since March 2022 and he reports on his experience and in general, provides updates about Starlink and its mother company, SpaceX. He allowed me to use his report to write this article. more
The worst thing about Brexit wasn't the referendum. It was the fallout. David Cameron decided that the best way to manage a small risk was to take a big one. Finally, over three agonizing years later, the UK looks set to move on. The Internet Society – which has run the .ORG domain since 2002 – was in the same position as Cameron. They became convinced that it was worth dealing with a small risk by taking a huge one. more
A new publication of Afnic deals with the overall trends of the Domain Name market in 2018. The publication of ICANN statistics as at the end of last year allows a quantified assessment of 2018, a period of moderate upswing after the "set-down" of 2017. The data on which this study is based come from ICANN reports from information provided by registries in certain frameworks. more
Most service providers are aware that there needs to be a simple, fast way to identify subscribers. Unfortunately, in reality, mapping IP addresses back to subscribers for identification purposes - such as lawful interception requests or acceptable use policy violations - can be complicated. It usually involves analyzing data sets, completing manual audits, or reliance on multi-step solutions. more
"Peak telecom" is described as the maximum point of expansion reached by the traditional telecommunications industry before the internet commoditized the industry to a utility pipe. I had to think of this when I read the recent outcomes of the famous Ericsson Consumer Lab survey. The company used the result of the survey to counteract market criticism regarding the viability of the telco business models in the deployment of 5G. more
The telecoms industry has two fundamental issues whose resolution is a multi-decade business and technology transformation effort. This re-engineering programme turns the current "quantities with quality" model into a "quantities of quality" one. Those who prosper will have to overcome a powerfully entrenched incumbent "bandwidth" paradigm, whereby incentives are initially strongly against investing in the inevitable and irresistible future. more
For email usage, abuse reporting requires cooperation between senders and receivers. That's why RFC 5965 specified a standard format for it. However, Wikipedia lists only 18 feedback providers today. It is often said that the number of legitimate mailbox providers in the world is rather small, possibly some hundreds of thousands, but certainly more than that. more