Generic Top Level Domain Insights for Q4 2015

2015 has been a busy year for the new gTLD industry and 2016 will undoubtedly, be another interesting year. Anticipation of the General Availability for some of the highly contentious TLDs, the development of existing generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) in terms of registrations, and business proposition with the majority of the first round of applicants reaching delegation by the end of the year. While 2015 had over 7 million new gTLD domain registrations, the top 25 Top Level Domains accounted for almost a half of both registration revenues and volumes highlighting the need for the industry to garner further momentum and fortune. more

Domains Should Be Complementary, Not Complicated

One of Rightside's missions is to help registrars, resellers, and domain specialists grow their business. As the domain industry once again convenes at NamesCon, it's important to discuss what we've been doing (what worked, what didn't) and still must do to build global awareness for new domain names. From a technological perspective, I think the tools and services being offered have never been faster, more stable, or secure. What I want to explore is not on the technical side of the business, but on the marketing side, and that's the opportunity presented by complementary domains. more

Which Way Does Your Data Flow?

Data may be moving to the cloud, but understanding the physical geography underlying the cloud is becoming increasingly critical. October's decision by the European Court of Justice, striking down key portions of the Safe Harbor rules that some companies had relied on to legally transfer personal data between Europe and the U.S., was only the latest example of the regulatory uncertainty involved in cross-border data flows. While Internet companies have begun to address challenges at the static geographic points where data is resident, understanding the actual paths that data travels is an important and sometimes overlooked part of the compliance analysis. more

Toward WSIS 3.0: Adopting Next-Gen Governance Solutions for Tomorrow’s Information Society

For the WSIS community to be effective in meeting its ambitious goals adopted in December 2015, it will have to become more evidence-based and innovative. At the beginning of the new millennium -- before the arrival of Facebook and Twitter -- Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, called for the creation of an inclusive "information society" -- "one in which human capacity is expanded, built up, nourished and liberated, by giving people access to the tools and technologies they need, with the education and training to use them effectively." more

A Free DNS Conformance Test Suite

The Domain Name System is now over 25 years old. Since the publication of RFCs 1034 and 1035 in 1987, there have been over 100 RFC documents published that extend and clarify the original DNS specs. Although the basic design of the DNS hasn't changed, its definition is now extremely complex, enough so that it's a challenging task to tell whether a DNS package correctly implements the specs. more

Proposed UK Bill Will Make it Criminal Offence for Tech Firms to Warn Users of Government Spying

Yahoo recently become the latest company to join Twitter, Facebook and Google for promising to alert users suspected of being spied on by state-sponsored actors. However UK ministers want to make it a criminal offence for tech firms to warn users of requests for access to their communication data made by security organizations. more

Experienced a Breach? Here Are Four Tips for Incident Response

The threat level has never been higher for organizations charged with protecting valuable data. In fact, as recent headlines will attest, no company or agency is completely immune to targeted attacks by persistent, skilled adversaries. The unprecedented success of these attacks against large and well-equipped organizations around the world has led many security executives to question the efficacy of traditional layered defenses as their primary protection against targeted attacks. more

The Shadow of the Web

I believe in the Internet As an ideal. As a web of human minds. As a wonder of the world, not built through totalitarian control but rather through fierce coopetition. As a technological pillar held up by a newer, better, governance structure. As the facilitator of knowledge sharing and communication on a level so advanced that it would appear supernatural to folks living just a century ago, or less. I worry for the Internet While it has been a major disruptive force, it is also susceptible to the existing paradigm. more

Performance Test White Paper for SDN Controller Issued

Recently, BII-Global SDN Certified Testing Center (SDNCTC EN | CH) issued the Performance Test White Paper for SDN Controller (hereinafter Whitepaper) at China Future Network and Development Innovation Forum, which truly fills the vacuum in SDN controller performance testing at home. It, by means of elaborate results from the open-source controller tests, provides reliable analysis report to all corners within the industry, which has been highly thought of and widely supported by experts both at home and broad. more

Negotiating the WSIS+10 and the Future of the Internet

After two and a half years of technical analysis and discussions, six months of deliberations among all stakeholders, and intense negotiations at the United Nations, at three o'clock in the morning on December 12, 2015, the talented co-facilitators from the United Arab Emirates and Latvia dropped the gavel on the outcome document for the ten-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). That consensus document presents international principles that will guide the UN's work on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-related issues. more

Hacking Group Anonymous Claims Responsibility for Massive Cyberattack on Turkey

The hacking group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for a massive cyberattack on Turkish internet servers over the past week, saying it will continue its assault if Turkey "doesn't stop supporting" Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). more

Cryptography is Hard

In the debate about "exceptional access" to encrypted conversations, law enforcement says they need such access to prevent and solve crimes; cryptographers, on the other hand, keep saying it's too complicated to do safely. That claim is sometimes met with skepticism: what's so hard about encryption? After all, you learn someone's key and just start encrypting, right? I wish it were that simple - but it's not. more

What’s in a Name?

What's the difference between .local and .here? Or between .onion and .apple? All four of these labels are capable of being represented in the Internet's Domain Name System as a generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), but only two of these are in fact delegated names. The other two, .local and .onion not only don't exist in the delegated name space, but by virtue of a registration in the IANA's Special Use Domain Name registry, these names cannot exist in the conventional delegated domain name space. more

Less is More – The Sales Boom in Short Character Domain Names

Much of the domain industry has seen a huge surge in sales of 2, 3 & 4 character sales. More specifically numeric domain sales are ever increasing mostly driven by Chinese buyers. As such domain marketplaces are utilizing and developing stronger connections in China to foster this growth even further while creating awareness for why this is occurring. When talk turns to economic and trade growth, China is never left out of the conversation. This talk extends to the domain market as well. more

IGF, WSIS 10+ & WIC: Three World Conferences for One Internet

In the last six weeks we could follow three world conferences on Internet issues. In November 2015 the 10th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) attracted nearly 5000 offline and online participants in the Brazilian Sea-Resort Joao Pessoa. In mid-December 2015, the governments of the 193 UN member states, together with a crowd of non-governmental stakeholders, finalized the review of the 2005 UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and adopted the WSIS 10+ outcome document. And nearly 2000 people from more than 100 countries did meet on December, 16 – 18, 2015 in the Chinese Water-Town of Wuzhen at the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC). more