IPv6: Bring on Your Content!

Late last year a colleague quipped: you spent one third of your time on IPv6 this year, yet it still only generates 1% or so of the traffic. What are the chances of him uttering the same sentence coming December with IPv6 traffic still hovering barely over the one percent mark? more

.Pharmacy Registration Policy Restrictions Harm Legitimate Pharmacies

The Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) recently commented on the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team (CCTRT) Draft Report of Recommendations for New gTLDs. In particular, on the primary questions posed: The CCTRT is seeking input on its Draft Report, which assesses whether the introduction or expansion of gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer trust and consumer choice in the DNS... more

Death and Your Online Identity

How large is your digital footprint? If you pulled together your email account, web site, blog, social networking accounts, and every other virtual identity you have online, just how well known are you on the Internet? Have you ever stopped to consider what happens to your online identity when you die? How would your online friends know? What would happen to your accounts and your content? more

Your Online Freedoms are Under Threat - 2017 Freedom on the Net Report

As more people get online every day, Internet Freedom is facing a global decline for the 7th year in a row. Today, Freedom House released their 2017 Freedom on the Net report, one of the most comprehensive assessments of countries' performance regarding online freedoms. The Internet Society is one of the supporters of this report. We think it brings solid and needed evidence-based data in an area that fundamentally impacts user trust. more

Vint Cerf: Ask Your ISPs What Their Plan Is for IPv6

Vint Cerf joined TWiT TV host Leo Laporte yesterday in Google+ Hangout urging that we need to stop running the experimental version of the Internet and move to the production version of the Internet running IPv6! He also made a great request to everyone watching to ask their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) about when the ISPs would have IPv6 available. more

Indian Government Proposes Vast New Powers to Suppress Internet Content

The Indian government has proposed a bill to suppress online content in the country, increase control over messaging and trace messages to their origin. more

com.google April Fools’ Is No Laughing Matter: What .google Could Mean for Other .brands

When April Fools' Day rolls around each year, Google is generally one of the front runners for jokes -- often making headlines for its quirky gimmicks. This year was no exception. On April 1st, Google launched its first domain name under the recently delegated .google Top-Level Domain (TLD), a massive milestone for all .brand TLD owners. Google is encouraging millions of people around the world to visit: www.com.google. more

The Importance of the FCC

My friend Om Malik, dean of the telecom bloggers, posted on the importance of the Federal Communications Commission Chair appointment Obama will make as President... Om is dead on about the importance of this appointment. Decisions made by the five member FCC commission have had and will have an enormous effect not only on the tech sector but on the entire US and even the global economy. more

The GNSO Review

The London School of Economics review of the GNSO was recently released by ICANN. ...The review is refreshing. But first, a pause: Do you know what the GNSO is or what it does? Do ICANN's processes seem difficult to understand? I bet (unless you've been going to ICANN meetings) you don't know much about this. And the focus of the report on the impenetrability of ICANN's work is refreshing and very useful. more

Should We Make the Possession of Malware a Crime?

In the U.S., it is a federal crime to use malware to intentionally cause "damage without authorization" to a computer that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce. Most, if not all, U.S. states outlaw the use of malware to cause damage, as do many countries. The Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, which the United States ratified a few years ago, has a provision concerning the possession of malware. Article 6(1)(b) of the Convention requires parties to the treaty to criminalize the possession of malware "with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing" a crime involving damage to a computer or data... more

Internet Society Calls the US Clean Network Program a Political Act, A Push Towards “Splinternet”

The Internet Society (ISOC) has condemned the U.S. Clean Network Program announced last week, which proclaims to safeguard America's critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure. more

The Design of the Domain Name System, Part IV - Global Consistency

In the previous installments, we've been looking at aspects of the design of the DNS. Many databases go to great effort to present a globally consistent view of the data they control, since the alternative is to lose credit card charges and double-book airline seats. The DNS has never tried to do that. The data is roughly consistent, but not perfectly so. more

The IPv4 Market: 2017 and Beyond

The IPv4 market has grown significantly in the last four years. It finished particularly strong in 2017, both in terms of the total volume of addresses traded and overall number of intra- and inter-RIR transactions in the ARIN region. Over the last four years, the steady and sometimes substantial growth in the number of transactions has been mostly attributable to a dramatic increase in small block trades of fewer than 4,000 addresses. more

The Multistakeholder Moment of Truth: Will Stakeholders Hold ICANN Accountable?

During the two-year period preceding the IANA transition in 2016, there was a near-superhuman effort put forth by the community of stakeholders to design, debate, and deploy an accountability framework for ICANN that would serve to check and balance the coordinator of the global DNS. One of the overriding concerns that stakeholders sought to address was the possibility of ICANN being captured, and it was argued that the global community of stakeholders would serve as a "backstop" that would hold ICANN accountable. more

The Pros and Cons of Introducing New gTLDs

Every time new concepts are introduced, much debate ensues as to the advantages and disadvantages such a change would bring forth. We've seen that happen with the launch of IPv6. Detractors and supporters rallied to make their respective arguments heard. One thing is sure though. The need for a much larger IP address space is something both parties are in agreement with. more