When ISOC, PIR and Ethos announced the sale in November they hoped for a quick transaction. PIR CEO Jon Nevett announced the same week that PIR would be going on a buying spree. This was optimistic. Six months, if at all, is now the more likely outcome. How many times in recent history have companies surprised stakeholders with their best-laid plans, only to discover we no longer live in a world where business has free reign. The glory days of the 2000s died with Lehman Brothers. more
Given all the clueless, nonsensical assertions coming out of Washington these days about 5G and purported leadership, it seemed time to do another reality check. It was timely at the moment because, with the Coronavirus concerns, the massive 3GPP 5G industry collaboration engine switched to virtual meeting mode for February. Thus – with travel barriers to participation completely absent – the participation metrics represent a real litmus test for even nominal engagement in global 5G industry collaboration and technology development. more
OpenVault Just released its Broadband Industry Report for 4Q 2019 that tracks the way that the US consumes data. The results of the reports are as eye-opening as OpenVault reports for the last few years. OpenVault has been collecting broadband usage for more than ten years. As usual, the OpenVault statistics are a wake-up cry for the industry. more
On 11 February, I participated in a discussion about the pending sale of PIR at American University Washington College of Law, appropriately titled, The Controversial Sale of the .ORG Registry: The Conversation We Should Be Having. It was great to have a balanced discussion, free of some of the emotions that have often made it hard to discern the realities of the transaction. Certain misapprehensions arose in the discussion that we lacked the time to explore fully, so I want to take those up here. more
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced that its ICANN67 Public Meeting, which was to be held in Cancún, Mexico, will now be held via remote participation-only. This decision was made as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. more
ICANN's request for comment on amending the .com registry agreement to restore Verisign's pre-2012 pricing flexibility ended last Friday and, with 8,998 responses submitted by stakeholders, may have been a multistakeholder version of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Public interest in .com pricing is understandably high but the sheer volume of responses – nearly three times the number of comments submitted this summer on deregulating .org pricing – also suggests a show of force... more
Earlier this month, Elon Musk tweeted an invitation to a job fair at the new SpaceX production and launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas. As shown here, the tweet says they want hard-working, trustworthy people with common sense. They are not looking for specific skills or education, but certain character traits – "the rest we can train." That tweet reminded me of hiring practices when I graduated from college. more
Last month INHOPE, a global trade association of child abuse reporting hotlines, rejected a joint call from Prostasia Foundation, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Article 19, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, that its members should stop treating cartoons as if they were images of child sexual abuse. As our joint letter pointed out, INHOPE's conflation of offensive artwork with actual abuse images has resulted in the misdirection of police resources against artists and fans... more
The last few years have proven to be a crucial moment for cryptocurrency security. The more cryptocurrency has risen in popularity, the more high profile security breaches have occurred, and the more key institutions have been targeted. The young cryptocurrency industry has always been brimming with opportunity, but with this comes risk, especially when there are lapses in security. more
It must have been a galling experience for President Trump when his good mate British Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to step in line with Trump's demand that the UK should also boycott the Chinese firm Huawei by not allowing them to be involved in the rollout of 5G in Britain. However, the involvement of Huawei will be limited. It further proves that boycotting Huawei is a political and not a technical issue. more
No, this topic hasn't yet been exhausted: There's still plenty more conversation we can and should have about the proposed sale of the .ORG registry operator to a private firm. Ideally, that conversation will add more information and more clarity about the issues at stake and the facts that underpin those issues. That's why I'm planning to attend today's event at American University where the sale's proponents, opponents and undecideds will have a tremendous opportunity to better understand one another. more
Israel's entire voter registry was recently uploaded to a vulnerable voting management app which effectively left the data wide open for days. more
The American University Washington College of Law announced it will be hosting a fireside chat on the sale of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) to the private equity firm Ethos Capital. more
Very few African states today have developed a national cybersecurity strategy or have in place cybersecurity and data protection regulations and laws. Yet, the continent has made major headway in developing its digital ecosystem, and moreover, it is home to the largest free trade area in the world, which is predicted to create an entirely new development path harnessing the potential of its resources and people. more
Fallen into the wrong hands, corp.com can be an extremely dangerous domain name providing a doorway to hundreds of thousands of corporate PCs. more