Making Sense of MIIT’s Category of Telecommunications Services

This morning I read a catchy titled article on CircleID "China Closing the Door to New Technologies". I was trying to make sense of what all the fuss is about... So I called up my friends in Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT) for lunch to find out what's going. more

Predicting Domain Name Trademark Infringement

Legal trademark issues related to domain names will take a long time to resolve. Meanwhile, using a statistical model to determine infringement benefits all parties. The legal system has not yet established comprehensive and easy to understand rules under which a domain name is considered to infringe on a third party's trademark. The vacuum allows trademark owners and their agents, such as the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), to sue domain name owners pretty much at will, but doing so is not always in the best interest of trademark holders. more

The Other Vote on November 4th

The vote that Federal Communications Commissioners are planning for November 4 is not as important as the voting we'll do on that day, but it does matter a lot to the future of the United States. Unless the forces opposed to progress manage to postpone FCC action (which they are trying very hard to do), the FCC could decide to set the stage for another generation of innovative products with which the US will strengthen its competitive position in global markets... more

EFOW Wants Total Protection for Geographical Indications Domains in .VIN, .WINE and All Other TLDs

This is a letter sent from the European Federation of Origin Wines (EFOW) to the courteous attention of Dr Steve Crocker, Chair of the ICANN Board , Mr Cherine Chalaby, Chair of the new gTLD Program Committee Board, Mr Fadi Chehadé, CEO of ICANN and Mr Akram Atallah, COO of ICANN. This letter, sent by its President Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, was sent today to ICANN and is entitled "ICANN initiatives for the attribution of new generic top-level Internet domains -- PDO and PGI wines' concerns". more

New gTLD Auctions and Potential Unintended Consequences

Auctions will play a critical role in ICANN's new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) process, the only question is whether they reinforce ICANN's position as a steward of a global public resource, or undermine it. Auctions are one of two widely used mechanisms used in the allocation of scarce global resources, the other being a comparative analysis (aka beauty contest). ... This paper seeks to highlight those potential unintended consequences and propose a more equitable model consistent with ICANN's role as a steward of public global resource. more

DNSSEC Becomes a Reality Today at ICANN Brussels

Attendees at the public ICANN meeting in Brussels today heard from over two dozen companies that have implemented or are planning to support DNSSEC, the next-generation standard protocol for secured domain names. It is clearer than ever before that DNSSEC is becoming a reality. more

Project 2025: The Internet and Cybersecurity

As the saying goes, elections have consequences. The consequences are underscored in the recent U.S. Presidential election and the potential impact on the Internet, infrastructure and cybersecurity. In the context of the CircleID global community, it seems worth asking where things are headed? It does beg for an analysis of what is actually proposed in Presidential Transition Project 2025 related to things internet and cybersecurity. more

Is the Web a “Communications Medium”?

I've been having a short Twitter exchange with Paul Downey (@psd), someone who I hold in high intellectual and personal regard. I've made an assertion that has Paul snorting his coffee back up through his nose and into his keyboard: that the Web is not a communications medium. Justifying this claim can't be done in 140 characters. Now, there is a sleight of hand I'm pulling off here. You can build communications media on the Web, but my claim is that the Web itself is not one, and that has subtle but significant consequences. more

Dot UK, A No-Brainer!

British registry Nominet has launched a consultation on whether .UK should be opened up at the top level under a scheme called direct.uk. Currently, registrations are only allowed at the second level, .CO.UK being Britain's main Internet suffix. The question really isn't should this be done. The question is: why has it taken so long to get here? more

What’s the Right Definition of Upload Speed?

I read a blog on the WISPA website written by Mark Radabaugh that suggests that the best policy for broadband speeds would be met by asymmetrical architecture (meaning that upload speeds don't need to be as fast as download speeds). I can buy that argument to some extent because there is no doubt that most homes download far more data than we upload. But then the blog loses me when Mr. Radabaugh suggests that an adequate definition of speed might be 50/5 Mbps or 100/10 Mbps. more

Majority of Popular Mobile-Only VPNs Are Run by Chinese Nationals or Located in China

While the current VPN market appears to be filled with numerous products by various companies, recent research that took a closer look into the market revealed very unexpected results. more

Cyber Terrorism Is a Real Threat, and for the First Time Both Russia and the US Acknowledge It

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Internet security giant Kaspersky Lab said last week that "terrorists could build a botnet that could bring down the entire Internet structure". Mr. Kaspersky ended his speech with the statement that "a global cyber police force, and global cooperation between law enforcement agencies and governments is needed". This goes very much in accordance with some of the conclusions in the Cyberspace Policy Review more

Fifty Years On – What to Expect in the Next 50 Years of the Internet

When did the Internet begin? It all gets a bit hazy after so many years, but by the early 1970s, research work in packet-switched networks was well underway, and while it wasn't running TCP at the time (the flag day when the ARPANET switched over to use TCP was not until 1 January 1983) but there was the base datagram internet protocol running in the early research ARPA network in the US. Given that this is now around 50 years ago, and given that so much has happened in the last 50 years, what does the next 50 years have in store? more

Microsoft’s New Study Reports Over 162 Million in US Lack Broadband, FCC Says Only 24.7 Million

A new study by Microsoft researchers suggests the actual use of high-speed internet across the US is quite different than those of from the FCC. more

ICANN to Hold First-Ever Remote Public Meeting

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced that its ICANN67 Public Meeting, which was to be held in Cancún, Mexico, will now be held via remote participation-only. This decision was made as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. more