The Human Factor in DDoS Attacks

Ripped from the headlines: A recent DDoS attack lasted an entire 60 days. In other news, a single site was attacked 218 times in Q2 alone. To those of us in the business of protecting Web infrastructure, these stories are hardly surprising. What's notable, though, is where they were reported, in The Financial, whose focus is banking and financial services, not technology. The reporters used the term "DDoS" as if it were as common as "hedge fund," something everyday business people, not just techies, grasp. It's this human element that caught my interest and got me thinking a little. more

Email Portability Approved by Knesset Committee

The email portability bill has just been approved by the Knesset's committee for legislation, sending it on its way for the full legislation process of the Israeli parliament. While many users own a free email account, many in Israel still make use of their ISP's email service. According to this proposed bill, when a client transfers to a different ISP the email address will optionally be his to take along, "just like" mobile providers do today with phone numbers. more

“The Broadband Revolution”

The International Telecommunications Union recently issued a press release announcing with joy the release of "the first set of global standards for Internet Protocol TV (IPTV)." A key sentence: "A combination of voice, Internet and video services over a single broadband link and from a single provider is foreseen as the ultimate goal of the broadband revolution." Those of you who lived through 'What Is Broadband Good For?' with me last summer, know that the word "broadband" is a pet bugaboo of mine. It's a word that answers a lot of policy questions in a particular way. more

The TPP and the DNS

On November 5, 2015 the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released the official text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That text consists of 30 separate Chapters totaling more than 2,000 pages, and is accompanied by four additional Annexes and dozens of Related Instruments. Only those who negotiated it are likely to have a detailed understanding of all its provisions, and even that probably overstates reality. more

Comparative Broadband Ideas

The primary reason that Japan and Korea do so much better than the U.S. on any measurement of broadband (availability, penetration, price, speed) is that there is fierce competition in the market for broadband internet access in these countries. ...How do you increase competition in the U.S. for broadband access? Right now, we have giants fighting with each other -- cable and telephone companies. Small numbers of these companies control 80%-90% of the market for broadband access... more

VeriSign Director Charged with Securities Fraud

Bloomberg is reporting that Gregory Reyes is facing criminal and civil charges in relation to securities fraud. Reuters and the Mercury News also have coverage. "Former Brocade Communications Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Gregory Reyes became the first CEO charged in the U.S. probe of the backdating of stock option grants to create lucrative employee pay packages." more

IBM’s $34B Red Hat Aquisition Makes It the World’s Largest Hybrid Cloud Provider

International Business Machines Corp (IBM) on Tuesday announced the completion of its $34 billion acquisition of the software company Red Hat Inc making it IBM's largest acquisition ever in its 100-year-plus history. more

FBI Takes Down ‘Genesis Market’ Cybercrime Store: Dozens Arrested Worldwide

Today's FBI action against Genesis Market is the latest in a string of coordinated efforts to take down bot shops and other services that enable cybercrime. Earlier this year, the FBI seized Webstresser.org, a DDoS-for-hire service that was thought to be responsible for launching a massive attack against the City of Atlanta in 2018.  more

Dictionary Words Alone or Combined Functioning as Trademarks Are No Less Dictionary Words

By definition "any word" or "any combination of words" can function as trademarks, but whether alone or combined for that purpose no use can overrule their ordinary meanings, support their removal from the public domain, or prevent speculation or use of identical or confusingly similar words by businesses other than rights holders. The fact is, all words that are not coined found in dictionaries, word lists, and circulating in world cultures are generic. more

ECFiber: Building a Fiber-to-Premises Network in the Rural United States

Nestled in the northeastern part of the United States is the small state of Vermont, the 14th State to join the United States in 1789. Its name comes from the French, in which 'vert montagne' means 'green mountain.' and it is known as the Green Mountain state. With only about 625,000 inhabitants, it is the 45th state out of 50 in size, and 49th of 50 in number of people, even less populated than Alaska. more

Vint Cerf Has Tested Positive for Coronavirus

Internet pioneer and vice president of research at Google, Vint Cerf, said in a tweet this morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19). more

Will the Cloud Kill Telecom Vendors?

There are many big questions in telecom these days, and this is one that's on my mind right now. Over the past few months, I've participated in events or briefed with leading vendors in our space, namely Avaya, ShoreTel, BroadSoft, Aastra, Metaswitch, Mitel, Interactive Intelligence, and this week Cisco. Every analyst has their own core circle of vendors they stay close to, but I'd say that's a pretty fair representation of who's driving telecom. To varying degrees, all of these vendors have a cloud story, and the more I hear it, the more I start to wonder what it really means. more

Amazon’s Orbiting Infrastructure

I have been following satellite Internet service since the 1990s, but I was surprised when I learned last week that Amazon had filed an application for a 3,236-satellite constellation of low-earth orbit Internet service satellites - Project Kuiper. I shouldn't have been surprised - Amazon was an infrastructure company from the start. In his first post-IPO letter to shareholders in 1997, Jeff Bezos pointed out that their distribution center capacity grew from 50,000 to 285,000 square feet and said their goal remained... more

ICANN’s New TLDs: Of Course There Will Be an Auction - Part 1

The process for ICANN's new TLDs says that if there are several equally qualified applicants for a TLD, and they can't agree which one gets it, ICANN will hold an auction to decide. Recently some people have suggested that the applicants could use a private auction instead. Well, of course. In a situation like this, the question isn't whether there will be an auction, but only who will keep the money. more

Advancing Cyberstability: Protect the Public Internet Core and Improve Cyber Hygiene

The Paris Peace Forum (PPF), established by the French president Emanual Macron, was picked by the Global Commission for Stability in Cyberspace (GCSC) to launch its final report "Advancing Cyberstability" for good reasons: The Internet isn't just a purely technical issue with some political implications anymore. On the eve of the 2020s, the management of cyberspace is a global problem, a matter of international security, a question of war or peace. more