Cryptocurrency Mining Attacks for the First Time Detected on Industrial Control Systems

A water utility in Europe was compromised by cryptocurrency malware mining attack; the attack is the first public discovery of an unauthorized cryptocurrency miner impacting industrial controls systems. more

Verisign Should Clear Up the Paid “Analysts” Controversy

In recent days it was revealed that analyst Zeus Kerravala, who had written a dozen-some articles, over many years, for Network World promoting Verisign's pro-.COM point of view and disparaging new top-level domains as a bad idea, was in fact a paid Verisign consultant. None of that was disclosed when Mr. Kerravala wrote these articles from January 2013 through October 2015. more

Cloudflare Challenges Google’s AI Dominance With New Web Content Policy

Cloudflare's new policy challenges Google's AI practices, giving website owners legal tools to control how their content is scraped, used, and monetised by AI systems. more

CENTR Reports on Latest ccTLD Stats

The Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) has released its 7th edition of DomainWire Stat Report with special focus on European country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs). According to the report, the top 20 largest ccTLDs currently represent roughly 82% of all ccTLD registrations globally and 37% of all domain names globally (gTLDs, ccTLDs etc). more

Who Are the Major New gTLD Applicants and… (Part Three: Minds + Machines)

Minds + Machines was the first "new gTLD portfolio applicant" I spotted early in 2008, when .PARIS started being mentioned. Then came a few other projects like .HORSE and later .VODKA. Being French, my vision of good new gTLD suffixes may be slightly different to those native English speakers. Therefore, I favour some TLDs such as .SURF and .ART over some clearly English terms others such as .HORSE. more

The Satellite Broadband is Heating Up

There is a lot of news recently about low-orbit satellite broadband. There is recent news concerning the three primary companies that will be vying in the space. First is Jeff Bezos Project Kuiper, which is still likely to get a brand name at some point. Project Kuiper has contracted with United Launch Alliance, a joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture, for the first nine broadband rocket launches. more

Learning from History: The Potsdam Call on Autonomous Weapon Systems

Eighty years ago, in August 1945, the world saw hope and horror. On August 1, 1945, just weeks after the adoption of the UN Charter, the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union signed the Potsdam Agreement, which produced hope for a peaceful post-war world. Only some days later, the world saw the horror of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A cold war followed. more

2012: The Year of the New gTLD Program and the Year to Support ICANN - Part I

The ICANN new gTLD program began today, 12th January 2012, with the application round now open and this important activity will make 2012 a very memorable year. It is expected that a minimum of 500 fresh applications for new generic Top Level Domains will be received by ICANN through the online TLD Applications System (TAS) by April 12 when the round closes, for processing and evaluation afterwards. This promises to be a hectic and engaging period for new gTLD applicants, and also for ICANN. more

More Stepping Stones Before This Summer’s Seminal DNSSEC Events

The deployment of Domain Security Extensions (DNSSEC) has crossed another milestone this month with the publication of DURZ (deliberately unvalidatable root zone) in all DNS root servers on 5 May 2010. While this change was virtually invisible to most Internet users, this event and the remaining testing that will occur over these next two months will dictate the ultimate success of DNSSEC deployment across the Internet. more

The Long Gestation and Afterlife of New gTLDs

ICANN continues to flail, pointlessly. The latest in a series of missteps that could easily have been avoided is its recommendations on what to do about a report on the potential for confusion and misaddressing when someone's internal network names match the name for a new gTLD, and they have misconfigured their routers and/or DNS to the extent that someone typing in a new gTLD name might end up in the middle of someone else's network. more

ICANN IRT Report Open for Comment With Short Timeframe?

The Intellectual Property Constituency's draft report on trademark issues is now available for comment. The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying. Its contents, however, are even more disturbing... more

Internet: Government Dominance or Governance?

In an age where the world has gone global in many forms and guises, the political attention is more and more focussed on national, populist issues, that arise from fear for the unknown. I can't deny it: the future undoubtedly contains many uncertainties. This usually comes with a general public that's afraid and in fear of things they cannot oversee. Thus it is easily aroused by a populist leader who feeds on this fear and throws flammable material on the already smouldering fire. In a time where leadership is called for, it seems lacking. The Internet governance discussion demands visionary leadership on a cross border level and it needs it soon. more

Multistakeholderism Is Working: A Short Series of Articles

I was in a conversation with a close friend the other day, you know the kind where you have been friends for so long that you have endured each other experimenting with changed politics, evolving religion, and if you are unlucky, flirtations with multilevel marketing. We were discussing politics that day, which is not unusual given our ancient friendship and the recent change at the helm of the United States. more

DNSSEC Adds Value?

The recent news that .uk, .arpa and .org may sign their zones sometime this year is indeed good news. Each domain is highly significant... As the DNSSEC registry infrastructure moves inexorably forward -- primarily driven by top level pressure and considerations of National Interest -- it now behoves us to clearly articulate the benefits of DNSSEC to domain owners and registrars. In particular I want to focus on the vast majority of us to whom cold, hard cash is important and parting with it requires as a minimum tangible benefits or, in extreme cases, surgical intervention. more

Russia Appears to Have Begun Providing an Internet Connection to North Korea

Network experts monitoring North Korea have detected activation of a new internet path out of North Korea. Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, along with North Korea expert Martyn Williams, report that at 09:07:51 UTC on 1 October 2017, the country's single internet provider, Star JV (AS131269), gained a new connection to the global internet through Russian fixed-line provider Transtelecom (AS20485), often referred to as TTK. more