US Congress Hearing on “Privatizing IANA” - Thursday, March 17 (Live Video Feed Available)

On Thursday, March 17, 2016, a U.S. Congressional committee will hold a hearing on the topic of "Privatizing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) starting at 10:15am US EDT (UTC-4). You can learn about the hearing and view the written testimony at and watch live on the included pages. The hearing is before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. more

The Jaynes Case is Finally Over

Last September the Virginia Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that reversed its previous decision and threw out the state’s anti-spam law on First Amendment grounds. The Commonwealth made a last ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court, which I predicted they’d be unlikely to accept. I guessed right... more

VoIP: Definitely Not Dead Yet, the Sequel

I don't usually write sequels to my articles, but this time, it's warranted. My last column, "VoIP in 2008 -- I'm Not Dead," served as a year-end review and, for me, there were a lot of interesting things in 2008 related to VoIP that formed the basis of that article. I did not intend to rattle cages, but it did, and set off a lot of subsequent conversation, primarily in the blogosphere. more

DDoS Attacks Getting More Powerful, ISPs Report Concern Over New Threats and Budget Pressures

Massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against ISPs and their customers have almost doubled over the past year, according to a new security report. Attacks on networks making them unavailable to intended users -- also known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- exceeded 40 gigabits in the last year according to Arbor Networks' annual survey of ISPs from North America, South America, Europe and Asia. more

Best Practices: A Meaningless Term

Chad White wrote an article for MediaPost about best practices which parallels a lot of thinking I've been doing about how the email marketing industry treats best practices. After several conversations recently about "best practices," I'm convinced that the term is now meaningless. It's been bastardized in the same way that the definition of "spam" has shifted to the point that it has very different meanings to different groups of people. more

Experience ‘a Walk in the Shoes of a Registry Operator’ at ICANN 61

One of the ever-present questions in the domain name community is "have new TLDs been a success in the marketplace?" As many within the industry will appreciate, it's a difficult question to answer using traditional metrics (such as domain registration volumes), and it is important to remember that the new TLD expansion in 2012 was all about diversity, competition and choice. more

Behind the Curtain: Making IPv6 Work

Wouldn't it be nice if turning on IPv6 really was 'press one button and the rest is magic' easy? For some things, it is. If you're talking about client-side, enabling an IPv4-only home service on DSL or fibre really can be this simple, because all the heavy lifting is being done inside your ISP: you're not enabling IPv6 in the network, you're turning on the last mile. It was knocking at your door and you just had to let it in. more

Deadline of Oct 31 to Register for IAB Workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet

Can we develop better transport protocols for communication across the Internet? In a world where the "end-to-end" principle is no longer certain and middleboxes are common, which paths through the Internet are actually available to applications? Which transports can be used over these paths? How can applications cooperate with network elements to improve path establishment and discovery? ... These are all questions posed for the Internet Architecture Board's (IAB) Workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet (SEMI). Taking place in Zürich, Switzerland from 26-27 January, 2015. more

The TikTok Ban in Context

Donald Trump recently issued an executive order banning TikTok on the grounds that it was necessary to deal with the national emergency he had declared in an earlier executive order. He says he is concerned that TikTok might turn user's "information such as location data and browsing and search histories" over to the Chinese government. Trump does not site evidence of TikTok having shared data with China and TikTok says they have never shared user data with the Chinese government... more

The Role of the Internet in the UN Sustainable Development Goals

We see the Internet as a critical enabler for sustainable development. Our vision is that it can unlock human capabilities and we are committed to working with all stakeholders to fulfill the Internet's development potential. To that end, next week in New York the United Nations will be convening an Expert Group Meeting on "Advancing a Sustainable Information Society for All". The Internet Society (ISOC) has been invited to participate to this discussion among other experts. more

The Latter is Coded to Criticize the New - Lessons from Depew

This month, we are seeing a very busy global ecosystem with the ICANN 51, UN General Assembly meeting to discuss ICT for Development in New York and now the 19th ITU Plenipotentiary in Busan. Pinktober, Oktoberfest has also become saturated with ICTober so it makes me more reflective. First I would like to make a massive shout out to all those battling cancer, survivors and families who wage war against cancer. May you all walk on and walk strong! more

Three Reasons Why CISOs Need to Know How Their Company Is Managing Their Domains

Companies today manage hundreds or even thousands of domain names that support their organization, their visitors from different countries, and their brands and trademarks. They register misspelling of their names as a defensive strategy to protect their brand from online fraud, or from losing traffic to simple user typos. more

Trump’s Strange WRC-19 Letter

The 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) is underway. It is the latest in a continuum of treaty-making gatherings that began in 1903 and is devoted to the now 116-year-old art of globally carving up the radio spectrum among designated uses that is instantiated in the Radio Regulations treaty agreement. Not unexpectedly, the event includes designation of 5G spectrum that flows from the requirements long set in 3GPP and GSMA. more

Will Telesat Survive?

In 2017, Telesat, an established Canadian geostationary satellite operator, announced a planned low-Earth orbit Internet service constellation. The plan called for 117 satellites with inter-satellite laser links in a mix of inclined and polar orbits, enabling global coverage. more

Governments Increasingly Trying to Control the Internet, Warns New U.S. Report

The U.S. Sate Department annual human rights report released on Friday has expressed concerns over the increasing trend among governments spending more time, money and attention in efforts to control their citizens access to the Internet and other communication means. To aid people seeking to speak out, the U.S. government is helping to finance circumvention technologies to avoid firewalls, reports the Associated Press. "To deal with governments hacking computers or intimidating dissenters, the U.S. government has trained 5,000 people from around the world on how to leave less of a trace on the Internet." more