P2P: Boon, Boondoggle, or Bandwidth Hog? (The Dark Side)

Yesterday's post explained how peer-to-peer (P2P) applications use the processing power, bandwidth, and storage capacity of participants in a service rather than centralized resources. This makes such applications generally less subject to catastrophic failure, much less subject to running out of resources (since each new user brings new capacity as well as new demand), and much cheaper FOR THE PROVIDER of the application in terms of hardware and bandwidth required. It's the FOR THE PROVIDER part that's the rub. Let's consider the case of BBC's iPlayer service... more

Fashion of the Moment: The “Pioneer Program”

I have had the question recently with several new gTLD applicants. I think this is a good subject for applicants with the intention to sell domain names AND who are alone to apply for their string. A Pioneer program allows to: Find good partners to developp a TLD; once the program is signed, it is an insurance they will have a good use of the requested domain name... 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

The Root of the DNS

Few parts of the Domain Name System are filled with such levels of mythology as its root server system. Here I'd like to try and explain what it is all about and ask the question whether the system we have is still adequate, or if it's time to think about some further changes. The namespace of the DNS is a hierarchically structured label space. Each label can have an arbitrary number of immediately descendant labels, and only one immediate parent label. more

New gTLDs - Preparing for March Madness

If you are a new gTLD applicant, or if you follow ICANN, or if you just like being in a constant state of confusion, then the recent barrage of ICANN activity has probably been enough to make your head spin. Let's take a look at what we have hurtling towards us, like an out-of-control asteroid, in the next month. more

Protecting Yourself from Spear Phishing

One of the big trends this year is spear phishing. These are phish attacks that are frequently (though not always) against high profile users. The purpose of these attacks is to steal sensitive data or get elevation of privilege inside the service by exploiting a software vulnerability within the user's computer that transmits usernames and passwords back to the phisher. more

Com Laude Acquires Markmonitor in $450M Deal

London-based Com Laude, owned by PX3 Partners, will acquire Markmonitor from Newfold Digital for $450 million, merging two long-established firms in the corporate domain management sector. more

Ukraine Arrests VPN Operator Facilitating Access to Russian Internet

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man in Khmelnytskyi for running an illicit virtual private network (VPN) service that enabled access to the Russian segment of the internet, known as Runet. more

.WTF Domain Being Used In Privacy Campaign

ICANN comment periods on policy proposals don't normally garner much attention. In the case of the current comment period on proxy/privacy services, however, things are very different. To date several thousand comments have been filed, while the topic of the policy proposals has received media attention across hundreds of outlets. more

Where Is Net Neutrality When We Need It?

Just in the last two weeks, two stories in the United States hit the press that highlight behavior from ISPs that would have likely have violated the Net Neutrality rules that were killed by Ajit Pai's FCC. The big ISPs have been surprisingly quiet and have not loudly violated those rules, even though they are no longer in effect. The industry speculation is that the big ISPs are treading lightly because they don't want to trigger a regulatory overreaction should there be a change of party in the administration or Congress. 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

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

FCC: We Will Regulate Broadband

Since the dust has settled from a stinging defeat in federal court, the FCC has decided to move on its own to settle the broadband regulation dispute. With a 3-2 vote the commission issued a Notice of Inquiry that would set the stage for more regulatory authority of broadband. It seems ironic that the motivating factor was the court case brought by Comcast in Federal District Court to immobilize the FCC's efforts to sanction the service provider from throttling Bit Torrent, file sharing customers. more

Your Comments Front and Center in ICANN New gTLD Process

ICANN published the second version of its Application Guidebook for new generic top-level domains earlier today (late evening Los Angeles time). Alongside version two of the Guidebook – published by module and in a red-line version – are explanatory memoranda, the opening of a second public comment period (closing 13 April) and an extensive summary and analysis of the public comments made to the process so far. more

Criss-Crossing AI With the Future of Work

Every few years; some self-proclaimed academic imparts an article on the future of work, with conflicting information from various experts leaving many uncertain about its impact on jobs, skills, and wages. In less than a year, these same scholars will be writing about the "future of labor," and given the speed of innovation, by the time these articles are published, they will be made obsolete. more