Should “Fake” Oakley Websites Be Insulated From UDRP Law?

Oakley, Inc. ("Oakley"), the maker of some very popular and trendy sunglasses, has also become a trend-setter in the area of UDRP law where it has been involved in two important decisions in the last few weeks. First, Oakley lost a UDRP decision last month for the domain name www.myfakeoakleysunglasses.com. In that case, the panelist Mr. Houston Putnam Lowry denied Oakley's Complaint on the basis that the domain was not confusingly similar to the OAKLEY mark. more

Worm Propagation Strategies in an Ipv6 Internet

A recent paper called "Worm Propagation Strategies in an IPv6 Internet", written by Steven M. Bellovin, Angelos Keromytis, and Bill Cheswick, examines whether or not the deployment of IPv6 will in fact provide a substantial level of barrier against worms. Shared below are the introductory paragraphs from this paper. "In recent years, the internet has been plagued by a number of worms. One popular mechanism that worms use to detect vulnerable targets is random IP address-space probing..." more

Potential Impacts of Large-Scale Metaverses on Internet Governance: Bandwidth

Neal Stephenson’s foundational cyberpunk novel Snow Crash brought to the public the concept of a metaverse, a virtual reality in which people interact using avatars in a manufactured ecosystem, eschewing the limitations of human existence. More recently, Ready Player One capitalized on that idea and brought it back to prominence with a bestselling novel and subsequent film adaptation. Amid rebranding efforts and seeking a new way forward, Mark Zuckerberg has made it Facebook’s (now Meta Platforms) priority to build a platform that could enable the metaverse to become a mainstream technology with the sort of reach that their social networks and WhatsApp have. more

Elon Musk Interview: SpaceX, Starlink and His Motivation and Philosophy

Elon Musk packed a lot about SpaceX and Starlink into a 32-minute interview at the 2021 Mobile World Congress and ended with a discussion of his motivation and the roles of his three companies - SpaceX, Starlink, and Neuralnk. Let's start with the SpaceX and Starlink update and conclude with the philosophy and motivation. (Scroll to the end of the post for the video of the interview). more

Chinese Alternate Root as a New Beginning and Real Internet Governance

I suppose not many have been listening to Paul Vixie or surfing from China, I have done both. The Chinese "alternate root" has been going on for a while. China is creating an alternate root, which it can control while using the Chinese language. I doubt I need to tell any of you about ICANN, VeriSign, Internet Governance, alternate roots or the history of these issues. Everyone else will. Unlike most of my colleagues, I hold a different opinion on the subject and have for some time. China launches an alternate root? It's about time they do, too! more

Verisign Doesn’t Think the Net Is Ready for a Thousand New TLDs

Yesterday Verisign sent ICANN a most interesting white paper called New gTLD Security and Stability Considerations. They also filed a copy with the SEC as an 8-K, a document that their stockholders should know about, It's worth reading the whole thing, but in short, their well-supported opinion is that the net isn't ready for all the new TLDs, and even if they were, ICANN's processes or lack thereof will cause other huge problems. more

Caribbean Peering Forum Brings Dream of Better Internet Closer

The dream of a faster, safer, more affordable Internet in the Caribbean sometimes seems elusive. One group of Internet pioneers is taking steps to make it a reality. The Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum, or simply CarPIF, is an annual event that brings together the people responsible for delivering Internet services to the region, including internet service providers, internet exchange point operators, content delivery networks, data centre managers and other computer network professionals. more

China Launches World’s First Underwater Data Center

China has achieved a world first by starting the assembly of an underwater commercial data center off the coast of Sanya, on Hainan Island, according to China Daily. more

Demystifying Premium Domain Names

For the purpose of this article it is not necessary to concentrate too much on defining what a Premium domain name is and what it is useful for: all that we need to know is simple, a premium domain name is often a memorable generic name, short or medium in length and highly valuable due to its relevance in search. However, when it comes to finding out how to register a premium domain name then it becomes much more difficult because you won't necessarily know where to go. more

Trend Towards Liberalization Of Country Domain Names: Enters .CN

On Monday 17 March, domain name registrations under the new Chinese Internet address, .cn, were available for the first time to registrants both inside and outside of China. As China's equivalent of .uk, or .us, the .cn domain space will be the Internet address of choice for Chinese consumers and for corporations interested in operating in one of the largest Internet markets. more

Comcast-TWC: Why Compete and Innovate When You Can Buy Market Share?

Expect a charm offensive as Comcast and scores of sponsored researchers explain how acquiring Time Warner Cable will promote competition and enhance consumer welfare. You might not hear too much about two traditional concerns remedied by actual facilities-based competition: incentives to innovate and reduce prices. Comcast will frame its acquisition as necessary to achieve even greater scale to compete with other sources of video content and maybe to compete with the limited other sources of broadband access. more

African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) Streaming Live This Week From Dakar, Senegal

The 5th African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) gets underway today, August 26, 2014, in Dakar, Senegal, with a packed agenda full of sessions focused on the future of peering and interconnection in Africa. There are sessions targeted at Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), infrastructure providers, content creators and policy makers and regulators. The event goes through Thursday, August 28, 2014. more

Most Abused TLDs Put Under Spotlight by Spamhaus

TLDs such as .men and .loan are listed as some of the most abused domains in the world. Spamhaus says some domain name registrars and resellers knowingly sell high volumes of domains to bad actors for profit, and many registries do not do enough to stop or limit this endless supply of domains. more

A Clear Case for ISP Regulation: IP Address Logging

Over on the Network Neutrality Squad yesterday, I noted, without comment, the following quote from the new Time Warner Cable privacy policy bill insert: "Operator's system, in delivering and routing the ISP Services, and the systems of Operator's Affiliated ISPs, may automatically log information concerning Internet addresses you contact, and the duration of your visits to such addresses." Today I will comment, and explain why such logging by ISPs creates a clear case for regulatory intervention, on both privacy and competition grounds. more

When Did We Give Away the Internet?

I've been following the recent news on the World Summit on the Information Society, and it's getting really bizarre. The Wired article is one example of out of the out-of-this-world coverage on the World Summit; I heard a similar spin yesterday on a radio show that often shares material with the BBC. What king or dictator or bureaucrat has signed the document giving power over the Internet to one organization or another? Did I miss the ceremony? One laughable aspect of news reportage is that the founders and leaders of ICANN always avowed, with the utmost unction, that they were not trying to make policy decisions and were simply tinkering with technical functions on the Internet.  more