Which Domains Stand the Strongest Against Phishing Attacks?

The latest Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) Global Phishing Survey, which analyzed over 100,000 phishing attacks in the first half of 2014, examines the progress that top level domains (TLDs) are making in responding to phishing attacks that use their TLDs. The report finds the .INFO domain has the lowest average phishing uptimes as compared to other TLDs, such as .COM and .NET. more

Inside Bitcoins

Electronic money is not a new idea. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter 35 years ago (1978). Other forms of electronic money include payment processors, direct deposit, and digital currencies such as Bitcoin. What distinguishes Bitcoin from other electronic money is that it is a cryptocurrency... Will Bitcoin replace the dollar, euro, yen, franc, kroner, et al? Possible, but most authorities seem to be saying it is doubtful. more

ICANN and Your Internet Abuse

In spite of the material we were presented with in Durban something has gone very wrong inside of ICANN Compliance. KnujOn has published a report which demonstrates that ICANN Compliance appears to completely collapse between September 2012 and December 2012. Following December 2012, ICANN seems to stop responding to or processing any complaints. It is around this time certain compliance employees start disappearing. This was not limited to the Sydney office as some would have us believe... more

Plural TLDs: Let’s Stop Throwing Spanners in the Works!

I don't have strong religion on plural TLDs. For that matter, I don't have strong feelings for or against closed generics either, an other new gTLD issue that has recently been discussed even though it is not mentioned in the rules new gTLD applicants had to rely on. What I do care about is predictability of process. Yet, as Beijing showed, the ICANN community has an uncanny ability to throw last-minute wrenches at its own Great Matter, as Cardinal Wolsey called Henry VIII's plan to divorce Catherine of Aragon. more

DNS Reflection/Amplification Attack: Proved

Last year there was a "threat" by anonymous group to black out Internet by using DNS Reflection/Amplification attack against the Internet DNS Root servers. I even wrote a little article about it: "End of the world/Internet". In the article I was questioning if this was even possible and what was needed as general interest and curiosity. Well, looking at the "stophaus" attack last week, we are getting some answers. more

Borders, In Bankruptcy, Aims To Sell 65,536 IPv4 Addresses at $12/Address

With IPv4 address exhaustion upon us, it appears that the going market rate for IPv4 addresses is now $12/address. Over at the Register, Kevin Murphy reports on a bankruptcy filing from Borders seeking to sell a /16 block of to healthcare software vendor Cerner for a total of $786,432. At $12 per IPv4 address, this sets a new public record given that the previous high was Microsoft's acquisition of a block of Nortel IPv4 addresses... more

Why Brands Need Their Own TLD - The Mulberry-Sale Site that Scammed Me

As a seasoned internet user, even an old 'Domainer', I was there when ICANN launched the first round of New TLDs. I remember the criticism we received from the media back then. We were invited to countless roundtable discussions, press conferences, and local internet events at which we were expected to answer the key media question: "Why are new TLDs necessary?" Dot BIZ, .INFO, and four more were the test bed new TLDs -- I represented .BIZ in EMEA. more

Comparative Broadband Speeds - US Loses Again

Recently Google Labs added the Ookla Speedtest data set to their wonderful Public Data Explorer so I just had to try it out. These are not bogus statistics. These graphs show the average of all the millions of actual speedtests run in the respective countries over the past 4 months. more

Will Blocking a TLD Fracture the Internet?

In his eloquent dissent against approving .XXX, ICANN Board member George Sadowsky talked about blocking and filtering top-level domains. It's a concise statement of a concern that has been identified by various people, including members of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), as an impediment to the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program. It's a thorough defense of a common point of view about blocking TLDs, but while no-one can disagree about the fact of blocking, what is the actual effect? more

A New Internet Extension Can Compete with .COM

The king of extensions is .com, and dethroning it won't be easy. But one day soon .com will have a genuine competitor, and there are two things we already know about the competition. First, the newcomer will have been sold as an underdog. Second, it will have attracted businesses that are passionate about being content-quality leaders. more

DNSSEC is But One Link in the Security Chain

As the implementation of DNSSEC continues to gather momentum and with a number of ccTLDs, and the '.org' gTLD having deployed it into their production systems, I think it is worth pausing to take a look at the entire DNSSEC situation. Whilst it is absolutely clear that DNSSEC is a significant step forward in terms of securing the DNS, it is but one link in the security chain and is therefore not, in itself, a comprehensive solution to fully securing the DNS system. more

American National Broadband Plan Good First Step

The National Broadband Plan that the FCC will present on 17 March will set the USA on a completely different telecoms path. This plan will hopefully show Congress that it is worthwhile making the legislative changes that will deliver the social and economic benefits of a national broadband infrastructure. more

Realizing There’s More to Life Than .COM, Europe and Asia Already Do

It's getting so hard to find a decent .COM domain name that a big weed patch of businesses has grown up hawking really terrible names for enormous prices -- and they're finding buyers. They're catering to people who are just trying to find something -- anything! -- that will work for their new web site. The problem is especially acute for those who are trying to start a business. more

Turn the Table on Content Filtering

Why do we run content filters at the recipient's side? Paul Graham's Plan for Spam introduced them that way. After several years, we can say that plan doesn't work very well. Email has become much less reliable. One way to recover reliability, at least between trusted parties, is to run filters at the sender's side. Let's look at the diagram in more detail... more

ICA Anti-Phishing Victory Might Be a Curse!

A triumph by the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) over tactics and legislation detrimental to domain name owners might end up being a case of winner's curse, a triumph bought at the expense of the industry. In picking this one battle to win, the association ignores a broader war, the range of issues our industry needs to address. more