EFF Resigns from World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) over EME Decision

In an open letter to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced on Tuesday that it is resigning from World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in response to the organization publishing Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a standard. more

The Christmas Goat and IPv6 (Year 8)

This is the eighth year we measure IPv6 on the Christmas Goat. And with the crazy climate we have to live in now where there is no snow on the goat or ground. But IPv6 is doing better than the climate this year. This year we increased from 27% 2016 to 40% 2017. In Sweden Tele2, Tre and Comhem are still the only major ISPs with IPv6 enabled. Tele2 (with IPv6 since ~three years) and Tre is mostly mobile operators, and Comhem has enabled IPv6 in their Docsis network. 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

NSI: “Don’t Taunt Them, Kill Them”

Clearly whatever it is that Dutch politician Geert Wilders wants to talk about in his film is going to be the end of the internet. The news that Network Solutions decided to pre-empt his use of a domain name registered through them for the purpose of promoting his film need not be re-hashed here. However, before bemoaning yet another registrar freely deciding, as is its right, with whom it chooses to do business, it's important to look at the big picture. No, it is not "censorship" for Network Solutions to decide how it wants its services to be used... But, perhaps we might understand Network Solutions policy more clearly by looking at domain names registered through NSI... more

P2P as a New Spam Medium, Moving From PoC to Full Operations

Spam on P2P networks used to be mainly with advertising inside downloaded movies and pictures (mainly pornographic in nature), as well as by hiding viruses and other malware in downloaded warez and most any other file type (from zip archives to movie files). Further, P2P networks were in the past used for harvesting by spammers. Today, P2P has become a direct to customer spamvertizing medium. This has been an ongoing change for a while. As we speak, it is moving from a proof of concept trial to a full spread of spam, day in, day out... more

Why is ICANN Tax Exempt?

ICANN, as we all know, is a California non-profit that is tax exempt in the US as a charity, under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code. But it's a rather unusual charity. Typical charities support the arts, or education, or sports, or relief for the poor. ICANN doesn't do anything like that. So what's the basis for its tax exemption? We don't have to guess, it's all in the application they filed in 1999. more

The Defense Department Opening Large Areas of Mid-Band Spectrum to Help US Compete With China in 5G

On Monday, the Trump administration announced plans to auction off 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum dedicated initially to military purposes for commercial use starting in mid-2022 to fuel 5G network deployment in the United States. more

Quintessential and Other Acts of Bad Faith in Acquiring Domain Names

There are two essential differences between the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), one procedural and one substantive. The procedural difference is quite minor, a mere quirk that Panels adopted by consensus in the early days of the UDRP and deserves no more than a footnote. Under the UDRP, complainants have standing on proof that they have trademark rights when they file their complaints... more

The “Internet of Things,” the Internet and Internet Governance

As the second Internet Governance Forum approaches, it is an appropriate moment to take stock of how the Internet Governance dialogue has evolved since the conclusion of the WSIS Summit in 2005. One year after the first IGF in Athens, it is clear that government, industry and civil society stakeholders are still grappling over the direction and focus of the IGF... There is little doubt that some governments will choose to borrow concepts from the IGF when developing law and policy and will ultimately apply them to the Internet within their respective jurisdictions. Given the global nature of the Internet, this should be a fundamental concern. While this important dialogue about the Internet continues at the IGF in Brazil next month, another no less important debate is emerging with regard to RFID technology and the so-called "Internet of Things." The Internet of Things is a term coined to describe a future ubiquitous sensor network that collects commercial and personal data in public and private settings created, in part, through the rollout of RFID technology... more

Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 8: Articles 22-25

This article is Part 8 of the series of articles discussing human rights in the digital age and published here on CircleID.2 When we commenced this analysis of the UDHR, and the relevance of its principles to our rights and duties within the Internet ecosystem, we committed ourselves to work through the UDHR one Article at a time. With this Part 8 we are four-fifths through that task. more

UDRP Panelists: Getting the Standard Right Where No Response is Filed

Over three-quarters of the more than 55,000 UDRP cases decided since 1999 have been undefended. Requiring adequate evidentiary support of the complainant's allegations in disputes where the respondent has not filed a response, is therefore critical for producing just outcomes under the UDRP. While most UDRP disputes involve clear cybersquats that are indefensible, a significant number involve domain names that are not clearly cybersquats... more

Russia Wipes Out Over 17 Million IP Addresses In Efforts to Block Telegram

Post Russia's April 4th blockage of Telegram, increasing number of users in the country are turning to VPNs and proxies to continue their access to the messaging platform. As a result, the government has gone a step further and started blocking every possible way of connecting to Telegram. more

The Web is Dead: What This Means to ICANN, New gTLD Program and the Domain Industry

While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important. more

Lessons Learned from Harvey and Irma

One of the most intense natural disasters in American history occurred last week...You may wish to donate or get involved with hurricane Harvey relief to help the afflicted. That's great, but as we all know, we should be wary of who we connect with online... The FTC warned last week that there are many active relief scams in progress and noted that there always seems to be a spike in registration of bogus domains. more

The Search for Net Neutrality

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, freely available version) examines the growing trend toward a two-tiered Internet, which upends the longstanding principle of network neutrality under which ISPs treat all data equally. I argue that the network neutrality principle has served ISPs, Internet companies, and Internet users well. It has enabled ISPs to plausibly argue that they function much like common carriers and that they should therefore be exempt from liability for the content that passes through their systems. ...Notwithstanding its benefits, in recent months ISPs have begun to chip away at the principle. more