Dealing With DMARC

DMARC is an anti-phishing scheme that was repurposed in April to try to deal with the fallout from security breaches at AOL and Yahoo. A side effect of AOL and Yahoo's actions is that a variety of bad things happen to mail that has 'From:' addresses at aol.com or yahoo.com, but wasn't sent from AOL or Yahoo's own mail systems. If the mail is phish or spam, that's good, but when it's mailing lists or a newspaper's mail-an-article, it's no so good. more

2023 Routing Security Summit Starts July 17 - Participate Virtually

Interested in learning more about routing security? How it can affect your connectivity supply chain? What are best practices for enterprises and organizations? What is the role of CSIRTs in securing routing? What are governments doing now, and planning to do in the future around routing security? more

Lawful Registrations of Domain Names

Doug Isenberg notes in a recent CircleID essay that two records in domain name disputes were broken in 2017, namely number of cybersquatting claims (3,036 in 2016, 3,073 in 2017) and number of domain names implicated (5354 in 2016, 6370 in 2017). Fairly consistently from year to year, approximately twenty percent of filings are terminated (withdrawn): whether by settlement or nolo contendere we don't know. (All of these statistics come from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). more

How Many TLD Applications Will ICANN Receive?

This post could be subtitled: "The Wisdom of Elites." I polled some people I know in the domain field (plus Andrew Goodman, who wondered what the hell I was going on about). I asked them a simple question: "For the record, how many new TLD applications do you think there'll be?" Most of these people know the domain name world very well, but from different perspectives. Journalists, registrars, intellectual property attorneys, domainers, registry operators, TLD aspirants, entrepreneurs, domain aftermarket auctioneers, civil society activists... more

US Department of Homeland Security Issues Emergency Directive Ordering Agencies to Audit DNS Records

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a rare "emergency" directive ordering federal agencies to audit all DNS records within ten days. more

Competition Is Sexy - Separation or Integration of the Domain Name Sales Channel?

Back in the early days of the public Internet, Network Solutions had a monopoly on .com, .org., and .net domain registrations and charged $100 per domain for a 2-year registration. Growing complaints about that predatory pricing was one of the factors that led to ICANN's creation. NetSol established an internal "firewall" in 1998 and its wholesale prices soon dropped to $6 per domain. VeriSign acquired NetSol for $21 billion in 2000, and then sold off the registrar side of the business to private equity in 2003. more

BlackBerry Z10: New Products and Old Domains Don’t Mix

Type www.z10.com into your browser and you'll arrive at an Amazon page on which "Global Mobiles" sells unlocked BlackBerry Z10 phones. What? Did you expect to be directed to a BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) site just because the Z10 has been touted as the phone that will help make or break the struggling company? What happened? A savvy domain speculator realized that his or her domain name had become a hot commodity... more

Minding the GAC and the Heckler’s Veto

ICANN meetings sometimes congeal around a single theme. In San Francisco the theme was captured on clever t-shirts bearing the iconic symbol of the London Underground with the words, "Mind the GAC." Here was a succinct and timely plea for the ICANN Board to pay serious attention to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)'s concerns about new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), rather than to risk undermining the long-term viability of the multi-stakeholder model. more

How Accurate is the Routing Registry?

The Internet Routing Registry (IRR) is a globally distributed routing information database that consists of several databases run by various organisations. Network operators use the IRR to publish their routing policies and routing announcements in a way that allows other network operators to make use of the data. In addition to making Internet topology visible, the IRR is used by network operators to look up peering agreements, determine optimal policies and to configure their routers. more

Ranking Top Internet Service Providers in the World for 2008

In a post by Earl Zmijewski of Renesys, a number of observations have been made in the effort to rank all Internet service providers in the world for 2008 -- globally, geographically, as well as by market segment. Given the controversial nature of such a ranking in the industry, Zmijewski has pointed out that the changes in rank can be far more revealing than the actual rank itself. For instance it is noted that providers who are moving up in the rankings are doing so due, in large measure, to Asia. "China Telecom poised to enter the top-10 'global' providers, despite not being very global. Guess that is easy to do when you 'own' 1/6 of the world's population," says Zmijewski. Findings also include Sprint losing its long held #1 status to Level 3 and Global Crossing surging to #3, leaving their peers behind. more

My Broadband Predictions for 2022

It's that time of the year for me to get out the crystal ball and peer into 2022... I have no idea why it took a year for the administration to tee up a new Chairman and recommend a fifth FCC Commissioner. But once a new Commissioner is seated, the new FCC will tackle reinstating some version of Title II regulation, accompanied by net neutrality regulations. For yet another year, this won't come from Congress, which is the only permanent solution. more

Germany’s New Rules for Developing 5G Mobile Networks Will Not Exclude China’s Huawei Technologies

German regulators have released a set of guidelines addressing network security for companies wanting to help build next-generation 5G infrastructure. more

How Long Does a UDRP Case Take?

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) was designed as a quicker and less-expensive alternative to litigation. Although the UDRP policy and rules provide strict timelines for various stages of a UDRP case, how quickly a dispute is actually resolved can vary based on numerous factors. A typical UDRP case results in a decision in about two months, but the facts of each case -- including actions both within and outside the control of the parties -- may shorten or extend that timing. more

Yahoo Collaborating With US Intelligence Agencies

It was revealed yesterday that Yahoo has been scanning people's email for the federal government. This activity was, apparently, authorized by Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer but not the former CSO Alex Stamos. Mr. Stamos left Yahoo in June 2015. He also publicly disagreed with the director of the NSA back in February 2015 about the NSA having access to encrypted data. more

Four Steps to an Effective Brand Protection Program

Internet use has become ever more pervasive. With around five billion global users, it generates an economy of around 15% of global gross domestic product (GDP); that's around $15 trillion and is a figure that's growing 2.5 times faster than GDP itself. This makes the internet an attractive channel for infringers. Phishing and other fraud tactics, selling counterfeit goods online, and digital piracy are primary areas of concern. more