Breaking Ground: Historic Launch of UN Global Mechanism for Cyberspace Governance

The international community has long struggled with the challenge of translating international law into actionable norms and practices in cyberspace. The conclusion of the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on the security of and in the use of information and communications technologies 2021-2025 marks a vital milestone in that ongoing process.  more

The Great Domain Correction of 2017?

There were only 1.8 million registered .com names when I joined the NSI (Network Solutions) Marketing Team in the summer of 1998. ICANN was formed just a few months later. By the time we were acquired by Verisign in June of 2000 there were roughly 14 million names in the .com database. I recall predictions that one day there would be 100 million registered .com names. Some thought that was a craaaazy number and wanted to know what we were smoking. more

Fair Notice and Applying for a New gTLD

Applying for a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) will be expensive and complex. ICANN's Applicant Guidebook comprises 350 pages of dense instructions, spelling out the procedures to apply for a gTLD and to comment or object to the gTLDs applied for by others. Hidden among the forest of criteria and procedures is a problem that, unless solved, could deny good faith applicants the fair notice they deserve. more

.COM - The Riskiest Top-Level Domain? (Part 2)

Following up from my post yesterday, I thought I would take a look at how spammy each particular TLD is. At the moment, I only track 8 TLD's - .cn, .ru, .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .name. To check to see which one is the spammiest, I took all of our post-IP blocked mail and determined how many times those messages occurred in email, and how many times that email was marked as spam... more

Secondary DNS Service for ccTLDs

One of the hot topics at this year's Internet Governance Forum was the continuing development of the infrastructure of the Internet in emerging markets. For example, in a workshop entitled "Strengthening ccTLDs in Africa", attendees debated the drive for technical excellence, better policy structures and enhanced quality of service for the continent's ccTLDs. ... To support this development, we provide a secondary DNS service to not-yet-established ccTLDs, free of charge. more

Berners-Lee Warns Rise of Dominant Platforms has Resulted in Weaponization of the Web at Scale

The World Wide Web turned 29 today and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, web inventor, has shared some stern warnings about the direction it is headed. more

The Economics of Magic

Arthur C. Clarke said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Milton Friedman said there's no such thing as a free lunch. The validity of the former statement does not invalidate the later. From this we can see that even magic has a price. Hence, its application is subject to cost-benefit analysis. There are many developing technologies that may eventually qualify as magic. more

“Is DSL Finally Dying?” No!

Jeff Heynan at Infonetics reported a double-digit drop in DSL equipment sales, inspiring Dan O'Shea at Telephony to headline "Is DSL Finally Dying?" Both note that DSL sales in Q1 were actually ahead of the same quarter last year. Yet Dan writes "Fiber is the future." more

More Mysterious DNS Root Query Traffic from a Large Cloud/DNS Operator

With so much traffic on the global internet day after day, it's not always easy to spot the occasional irregularity. After all, there are numerous layers of complexity that go into the serving of webpages, with multiple companies, agencies and organizations each playing a role. That's why when something does catch our attention, it's important that the various entities work together to explore the cause and, more importantly... more

Huawei Files Motion in US Federal Court Calling Ban Unconstitutional, an Assault on Human Rights

Huawei has filed a legal motion in the United States federal court calling for the ban to be declared unconstitutional and deemed an assault on global human rights. more

The Next Stage of the Broadbanding of the World

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

Telegeography’s Submarine Cable Map Now Lets You Link to Specific Cables or Landing Points

Want to easily show people where a specific submarine cable goes? Or what cables terminate in a particular location? Last year I wrote about Telegeography's cool interactive submarine cable map and how useful it is to understand the submarine cable side of Internet infrastructure. In that article I mentioned how great it would be if you could get a link for a particular cable or location that you could pass along to other people. more

WCIT Denouement

It is midnight in Dubai and I am listening to the final readings of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). This instrument is the final output of two weeks of negotiations at the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT), a gathering of the world's nations to update the the ITRs. The Chair goes through the document article by article, section by section, and with each passing "thank you", this Conference draws to a close. Many in the room are elated. more

2nd Annual RIPE NCC - LEA meeting: Cooperation Unfolds

On Wednesday 16 March the Serious Organised Crime Agency organised a meeting in London with the RIPE NCC. For the second time law enforcers from the whole world met with the RIPE NCC and RIPE community representatives to discuss cooperation. RIPE NCC staged several very interesting presentations that showed the LEAs the importance of the work done within RIPE and ARIN, the information RIPE NCC has and the relevance of all this to LEAs. Also issues were addressed that can potentially be harmful to future investigations. more

Building a Brand for an Entire Industry: Q&A With Glenn Ruscoe of .physio

Success has many definitions. For many within the TLD community, it is a question of volume - domains under management, revenue and so on. For others, it's more long-term - renewal rates, utilization, and year-on-year growth. For Glenn Ruscoe, the physiotherapist behind the .physio TLD, success is far grander. His 'philanthropic' approach to the world of new domain extensions stems from a desire to create a global identity for the world's third-largest health profession. more