UN Cyberdiplomcy I: PoC, Cybercrime and the Global Digital Compact

Despite global polarization, recent UN cyber diplomacy has achieved three significant agreements in 2024: a cyber attack reporting system, a convention against cybercrime, and a "Global Digital Compact." These successes show that consensus on global issues is possible, though the vague wording of agreements raises concerns about their long-term effectiveness in ensuring security and peace. more

Unregistered Gems Part 4: Other Brandable Domain-Name Styles

In the fourth in this series of articles exploring how the application of appropriate tools, algorithms and analysis techniques can identify the existence of attractive, unregistered brandable domain names, I consider the prevalence of a few additional styles of name. more

FBI Takes Down China-Backed Botnet, Facilitates Ransomware Negotiations

The FBI and international partners dismantled a China-backed botnet run by the Integrity Technology Group, a company linked to Chinese government espionage. more

Internet Domain Shutdowns: Ineffective and Risky, Experts Warn

Efforts to curb illegal online content through domain shutdowns are proving ineffective and carry significant risks, according to a new report by eco and its topDNS initiative. more

Unregistered Gems Part 3: Keeping Your -ize on the Prize

The previous two articles in this series have outlined techniques for 'mining' brandable domain names -- that is, domain names of potential interest to entities looking to launch a new brand name and associated website -- from the enormous dataset of unregistered names (determined via zone file analysis). The key element of the identification process is the implementation of filtering techniques to identify... more

Book Review: Forks in the Digital Road - Key Decisions in the History of the Internet

At first glance, this book looks like another history of the Internet, but it is much, much more. The authors use their engineering and scholarly understanding of what constitutes Internet history to identify forks in the digital road and key past decisions that shaped the Internet's path. The first part of the book maps out the core technical and policy decisions that created the Internet.  more

White House Launches AI Datacenter Task Force to Boost Policy Coordination

The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to maintain U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) with a new initiative aimed at bolstering AI infrastructure while addressing national security and environmental concerns. more

Affordable Starlink Prices Coming to Low and Middle-Income Countries

SpaceX first departed from its uniform Starlink pricing policy when it offered a reduced price for throttled service in France two years ago. Since then, many new, higher-capacity satellites have been launched, enabling SpaceX to reduce prices in low and middle-income countries like Kenya. Kenya had 405 geostationary satellite internet subscribers when Starlink became available in July 2023. more

Google Partners with Internet Archive for Historical Web Context in Search Results

Google Search is rolling out a new feature that allows users to access historical versions of websites directly through The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. more

Brazil Enforces Fines for VPN Use to Access Elon Musk’s Platform X

As of September 6, Brazilians caught using VPNs to access Elon Musk's social media platform X will face fines of up to 50,000 reais ($8,943.74) per day, despite false claims online suggesting otherwise. more

Russia Invests $660 Million to Boost Internet Censorship and Block VPNs

Russia's Ministry of Digital Development is set to invest nearly 60 billion rubles ($660 million) over the next five years to enhance its internet censorship system, according to a government proposal revealed by Reuters. more

Further Explorations in Brandable Domain Names: Sensational Spellingz

My previous article on brandable domain names1 -- that is, available (unregistered) domain names which may be appealing to any entity looking to identify a potential name for a new brand launch -- focused on the use of phonotactic (i.e. 'readability') analysis techniques to identify candidate names. more

Malaysia Reverses Decision on Controversial DNS Redirection Policy

The Malaysian government has backtracked on its recent decision to require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to redirect Domain Name System (DNS) traffic away from third-party servers like Google Public DNS and Cloudflare. more

Navigating the Multistakeholder Approach: The ICANN Community’s Role in Global Internet Governance

In a world where the internet is central to communication, innovation, and economic growth, governing this vast digital ecosystem is a complex challenge. The multi-stakeholder approach, which involves governments, private entities, civil society, technical experts, and end-users, has long served as the cornerstone of Internet governance, ensuring that decision-making remains open and inclusive. more

Internet Archive Loses Their CDL Appeal

The Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) lends out scans of physical books, ensuring that each scan is lent to one person at a time. Publishers sued, and the Archive lost thoroughly in April 2023. The Archive appealed the decision to the Second Circuit court in New York. As I said at the time, the appeal seemed like a long shot since that is the same court that said that Google Books was OK, mostly because it didn't provide full copies of the books. more