Nominations Open for Public Interest Registry (PIR) Board of Directors

Would you be interested in helping guide the future of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit operator of the .ORG, .NGO and .ONG domains? Or do you know of someone who would be a good candidate? If so, the Internet Society is seeking nominations for four positions on the PIR Board of Directors. The nomination deadline is Monday, February 16, 2021, at 18:00 UTC. more

Free the Fiber Now

In a previous blog post I mentioned that the FCC had taken away restrictions to allow broadband supplied by E-Rate funding to be used to provide free WiFi for the public. That's a good idea that will provide some relief for areas with little or no other broadband. But the announcement raises a more fundamental question - why was such a restriction in place to begin with? more

Contention for Three More gTLDs Resolved in Fourth Applicant Auction

The Fourth Applicant Auction has concluded, resolving contention for three more strings. Donuts Inc. came away from the auction as the winner of all three strings: .LIFE, .CHURCH, and .LOANS. Life Covenant Church, Inc. will be compensated for withdrawing their application for .CHURCH, and Radix will be compensated for their withdrawal from .LOANS, while Xiamen 35.com Technology Co.,Ltd and CompassRose will be compensated for their withdrawal from .LIFE. more

Internet Governance in 2023

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for me, in mid-October 2023. I presented in a couple of panels at the 18th Internet Governance Forum meeting, held in Kyoto, Japan, and I also listened in to a couple of sessions in their packed agenda. The following week, I followed the presentations at NANOG 89, the meeting of the North American Network Operator's Group, and listened to a presentation by John Curran, the President and CEO of ARIN, where he gave his impressions of the current state of Internet Governance. more

Trust Binding

A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion that despite its claims, Zoom did not actually offer end-to-end encryption. They're in the process of fixing that, which is good, but that raises a deeper question: why trust their code? (To get ahead of myself, this blog post is not about Zoom.) If Zoom has the key but doesn't abuse it, there isn't a problem, right? Let's fast-forward to when they deploy true end-to-end encryption. Why do we trust their code not to leak the secret key? more

Sites Under gb.com Go Offline Amidst Legal Battle Over Domain

Kevin Murphy reporting in DomainIncite: "Thousands of companies that use the pseudo-top-level-domain .gb.com have gone offline due to a legal fight between the registry and its founder. CentralNIC sells third-level gb.com domains as a 'Great Britain' alternative to .co.uk. A Google search reveals a great many small businesses use the extension for their web sites. They're all out of luck today."
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Simplifying Legalese

I attended a conference last week on Data Protection and one of the prime issues that cropped was that on the immanent complexity of legalese that prevents users from understanding the Terms & Conditions for which they're signing up when they join a social network, use an app or visit a website. This led to the Users being disinterested in understanding the T&Cs. This had a huge impact on Data Protection Policies since Users were ignorant about how their data was being used... more

ICANN57 Preview: What to Expect in Hyderabad

The domain name industry descends on Hyderabad this week for ICANN's 57th annual public meeting, with a mixed sentiment of excitement and determination as ICANN stands on its own two feet absent US Government oversight. We'll have to get used some new acronyms as a result: PTI -- Public Technical Identifier; and the CSC -- Customer Standing Committee, but otherwise I don't think many of us will notice the difference. more

Are .Brand Applications Being Scared Off by Financial CQ’s?

There has been an upsurge in brands withdrawing their applications. The timing undoubtedly is due to the deadline of 70% refund of the $185k application fee. But why are so many of the withdrawals .brand/closed generics? Having been involved in drafting of financial projections for over 50 applications and having answered a number of financial Clarification Questions, I believe that the major reason why there is an acceleration in .brands, especially closed ones, is that they are receiving a large number of CQs... more

A New Low for the ICANN Multistakeholder Process

ICANN's dismissal of public comments submitted on the .COM Registry Amendment wasn't surprising given that it recently dismissed the public comments on the .Org Renewal Agreement, but the speed and disdain which it demonstrated was. Despite public pronouncements by ICANN President and CEO, Gören Marby and assurances from ICANN Board Chair, Maarten Botterman, that public comments were welcomed and that ICANN would take them seriously... more

FCC Receives 3.7 Million Comments on Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission has finished accepting comments on the controversial net neutrality proposal closing out as by far the most-commented issue in agency's history with a total of approximately 3.7 million replies. The commenting period has been open for five months and was even extended for several days due to frequent issues with the agency's website. more

NASA Launching a Moon Satellite to Test 600 Mbps Laser Broadband

David Talbot reporting in MIT Technology Review: "A new communications technology slated for launch by NASA this Friday will provide a record-smashing 600 megabits-per-second downloads. The resulting probe will orbit the moon and send communications back to Earth via lasers. The plan hints at how lasers could give a boost to terrestrial Internet coverage, too. Within a few years, commercial Internet satellite services are expected to use optical connections -- instead of today's radio links -- providing far greater bandwidth." more

ICANN Gets an In-House Physical Security Operations Professional

ICANN has announced a new hire, Mark Jardina – an expert in global security and health and safety as Vice President of Security Operations. more

Low-Orbit Satellite Security

I've been watching the progress of the low-orbit satellite providers, which are promising to bring broadband solutions across the planet. There has been some serious movement since the last time I discussed their status. On January 29, Starlink launched its latest round of low-orbit satellites, bringing the number in space to 242. Not all of these will be delivering broadband. The first half dozen satellites were test units to try out various concepts. more

Africa, Let’s Embrace v6 Now!

AFRINIC is the regional Internet registry for Africa, and our core activity is to manage and distribute Internet numbers resources (IPv4, IPv6 and ASN's) to the 57 economies in Africa. IPv4 address scarcity is a very real issue worldwide, the internet keeps growing and the demand for Internet addresses will continue to grow. Africa has the lowest number of Internet users in the world. Internet's penetration in Africa jumped from very low level in 2009, to around 16% of individuals in 2013 and over 20% in 2015. more