A group of over 190 Internet engineers, pioneers, and technologists today filed joint comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explaining "Technical Flaws in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rule-making and the Need for the Light-Touch, Bright-Line Rules from the Open Internet Order." more
In mid-August China launched "QUESS" (Quantum Experiments at Space Scale), a new type of satellite that it hopes will be capable of "quantum communications" which is supposed to be hack-proof, through the use of "quantum entanglement". This allows the operator to ensure that no one else is listening to your communications by reliably distributing keys that are then used for encryption in order to be absolutely sure that there is no one in the middle intercepting that information. more
Recently Google Labs added the Ookla Speedtest data set to their wonderful Public Data Explorer so I just had to try it out. These are not bogus statistics. These graphs show the average of all the millions of actual speedtests run in the respective countries over the past 4 months. more
There was a period of time not long ago in which signature-based threat detection was cutting-edge. Antivirus, intrusion detection systems (IDS), data leakage prevention (DLP), content filtering and even anomaly detection systems (ADS) all continue to rely heavily upon static signatures. In recent years vendors have shied away from discussing their dependence on such signatures -- instead extolling supplemental "non-signature-based" detection technologies. more
Over at the site V3.co.uk, they have an article up today alleging that since the Rustock takedown two weeks ago, the bagle botnet has moved to take over as the botnet that is responsible for sending the most spam. They have not replaced Rustock's total spam volume, only that they are now the number one spam sending botnet. more
With the end of March upon us already, we take a fresh look at .kpmg and its ongoing .brand usage strategy in our first quarterly report of the year. A review of Alexa.com rankings for .brands and other new gTLDs is included as well as an examination of the factors that have affected registration rates for new gTLD launches from 2019 and 2020. Our MarkMonitor team of experts also analyzes the ICANN Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process... more
I was just asked the question: How many of the new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) will fail? This poor listener might have hoped for one sentence as response, but that subject is too interesting to be brief. In this scenario you can't look to historical data to measure or predict the success rate of the new TLDs because past new TLDs have been largely managed by big businesses who have strong revenue streams from other business lines that they could use to support a slacking TLD. more
I joined the ICANN board during the December 2004 ICANN meeting in Cape Town. I served for a three year term and stepped down at this last meeting in Los Angeles and didn't run for another term... Before joining ICANN, I thought that ICANN was the only part of the Internet that wasn't really working. I knew that there must be a better way to do what ICANN does, but I couldn't be bothered to figure it out. I'd agree with people who said things like, "it should just be distributed" or "it should just be first come first serve" or "we should just get rid of it." People from ICANN would say, "it's more complicated than that" or "at this point that would be impossible." After being part of the process for three years, I find myself saying those same things... more
The modus operandi of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is achieving consensus. This also holds true for the principal rights protection mechanism that emerged from a two-year round of debates organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that ICANN implemented in 1999 as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Consensus rules; not precedent, although consensus inevitably becomes that. more
Washington may be the first state to approve a net neutrality law that applies to all wired and wireless Internet providers in the state. more
In 2010, ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) published SAC045 [PDF], a report calling attention to particular problems that may arise should a new gTLD applicant use a string that has been seen with measureable (and meaningful) frequency in queries for resolution by the root system. The queries to which they referred involved invalid Top-Level Domain (TLD) queries (i.e., non-delegated strings) at the root level of DNS, queries which elicit responses commonly referred to as Name Error, or NXDomain, responses from root name servers. more
A split Panel in an early decision under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) held that parties deserve more than "[i]t depends [on] what panelist you draw." Time Inc. v. Chip Cooper, D2000-1342 (WIPO February 13, 2001). That's one side of the paradigm; the other side makes demands on the parties to prove their contentions, either of cybersquatting (one element of which is proving that respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests) or rebutting the claim (one element of which is respondent demonstrating it has rights or legitimate interests). more
Domain blocking mechanisms are an important element of an organization's defensive domain strategy. With the introduction of the New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2013, brand owners were faced with a new challenge -- protecting their marks without overburdening their budgets. Defensive domain registrations were and still are an effective way in which a brand can protect itself in domain namespaces. more
Internet Society CEO Andrew Sullivan released a statement today in response to the recent concerns raised by the community with regards to the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG operator, to Ethos Capital. more
The UN Broadband Commission -- which I assisted in establishing and to which I am special advisor -- is now in its fifth year. Set up by the two UN agencies, UNESCO and ITU, it received the support of 50 leading international people such as government ministers, heads of a range of UN and associated organisations, and CEOs of leading private industry companies. Overall it is a public-private partnership. It is chaired by the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and Carlos Slim from Mexico. more