IGF Meeting Blacklisted

I got an e-mail from someone currently attending the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting in Geneva. The e-mail ended up in my spam folder because the IP address used for the wireless LAN at the meeting is on a spambot/virusbot blacklist, namely cbl.abuseat.org. Apparently some guy there has his computer infected by a spambot or a virusbot... more

Triple Challenge of Network Transformation

Following my comments about the iPhone VoLTE announcement I had an interesting conversation with Andy Huckridge from Gigamon, a company that provides intelligent traffic visibility networking solutions for enterprises, datacentres and service providers around the globe. An interesting concept that we discussed was the 'triple challenge of network transformation'. The three elements of this challenge are... more

Server-Side Mobile Web Detection Used by 82% of Alexa Top 100 Sites

About 82% of the Alexa 100 top sites use some form of server-side mobile device detection to serve content on their main website entry point. As you descend from the top 10 to the top 25 and top 100 sites the percentage of sites using server-side detection falls from 100% to 96% to 82%. This is an interesting fact given that all the recent discussion in the blogosphere is of responsive design using client-side techniques such as media queries. more

Rumblings for an In-Session Recommendation Engine at Email Service Providers (Part I)

Email Campaign builders (marketers) are flying blind. I know ESPs are genuinely timely about rolling out new products for their marketers, but there is a colossal gap in adopting data science and MLops into the email campaign building workflow.  Even MailChimp does not seem to have the answer just yet, and half-baked attempts over the years to optimize the subject line haven't been inspiring. more

Catalan Government Claims Spanish Online Censorship Breaching EU Laws

The Catalan government has written to the European Commission claiming that the Spanish government is in breach of EU law. In a letter from Jordi Puigneró Secretary of Telecommunications, Cybersecurity and the Digital Society at the Government of Catalonia addressed to Andrus Ansip, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, the Catalan government calls out the moves by the Madrid government as censorship. more

How the End of IPv4 Affects Email and Hosting

Anyone who has been watching the technology industry for more than a couple of years quickly learns to recognize FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD is (apparently) widely believed to be an effective marketing technique, especially when it comes to security, privacy, or scarcity. But the FUD often falls flat. Scarcity, in particular, is rare on the internet -- even rarer than privacy or security. There's constant FUD about scarcity of bandwidth, but the pipes get upgraded. Attempts to impose artificial scarcity through paywalls or other devices inevitably fail in the face of free alternatives. Even the scarcity of IPv4 addresses, which have indeed run out at the top, hasn't affected end users at the bottom yet -- and probably won't, for a long time. more

Donuts Completes the Acquisition of Afilias

Donuts stated today that it has completed the acquisition of Afilias announced on November 19. Donuts' CEO Akram Atallah says the company is now ready to begin the integration plan promising minimal disruptions to customers. more

Kodak Announces a Blockchain Platform Initiative for Image Rights Management

Kodak today revealed the launch of a blockchain-based platform called KODAKOne which is aimed to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control of image rights management. more

Let’s Face Facts: We Need a New Industrial Internet

The Internet is a great success and an abject failure. We need a new and better one. Let me explain why. We are about to enter an era when online services are about to become embedded into pretty much every activity in life. We will become extremely dependent on the safe and secure functioning of the underlying infrastructure. Whole new industries are waiting to be born as intelligent machines, widespread robotics, and miniaturized sensors are everywhere. more

The Internet and the Cloud Are Going Into Space

Unlike Bezos and Branson, they're going to stay there. Today we have space-based internet access and a terrestrial internet; within ten years, we'll have a space-based internet. Internet traffic will travel more miles in space than on terrestrial fiber. By that time, the great cloud data centers of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and their competitors and successors will mostly be in orbit as well. Five years from now, this transition will be obvious, accepted, and well underway... more

Our Vision for Advancing and Growing the Domain Industry

ICANN 54 is upon us, and to commemorate it, we've got www.dublin.pub loaded up with friendly places to network, take advantage of the city's comedy and music scene, and possibly even enjoy a pint. With so many issues to discuss and address this week, a .PUB address wouldn't be the appropriate destination for the entire conference, but for a microsite discussing the cultural and social opportunities that Dublin has to offer, we happen to think it's perfect, especially in the place that gave the world the Irish pub. more

Site Finder: The Technical, Legal & Privacy Concerns

It is openly admitted , in the same Implementation PDF file, that all accesses to the Site Finder service are monitored and archived. A further worry for users is the privacy policy and terms of service posted on the Site Finder service. Not only does the simple act of mistyping a URL implicitly cause you, the end user, to accept VeriSign's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy without the chance to review and accept or decline either, but critical information as described above is not disclosed in either policy (as of this writing). The Privacy Policy clearly states... more

IETF Looking at Technical Changes to Raise the Bar for Monitoring

During a speech last week at the Internet Governance Forum in Bali, Jari Arkko, IETF's chair, re-emphasized it's efforts to ramp up online security in light of recent revelations of mass internet surveillance. "Perhaps the notion that internet is by default insecure needs to change," Arkko said. Significant technical fixes "just might be possible." more

GoDaddy Lists Controversial ‘.sucks’ Domain: Brands Advised to Bolster Monitoring

The '.sucks Top Level Domain (TLD), by Vox Populi, which initially faced criticism from brands due to its launch fee of $2,499 is now listed on the world's largest domain registrar, GoDaddy. more

Hong Kong Billionaire Richard Li Becomes First Person to Own a TLD Matching His Name

The new top-level domain (TLD) .richardli secured for the Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li went live on the internet today. Kevin Murphy reporting in Domain Incite: "The registry is Pacific Century Asset Management (HK) Limited, a subsidiary of PCCW, the Hong Kong telecomms and internet giant of which Li is chair... The gTLD is a pure brand-protection play, according to the 2012 application" more