Trump Expected to Name FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai as Chairman

"Pai, a Barack Obama nominee who has served as the senior FCC Republican for more than three years, could take the new role immediately and wouldn't require approval by the Senate because he was already confirmed to serve at the agency," Alex Byers and Tony Romm reporting in Politico. more

Legal Threats Should Not Diminish ICANN’s Resolve

Guidebook for all interested parties. The best way to start this process would be to give conditional approval to the proposed final AGB next week. This may in fact involve acquiescing to the specific requests placed before it by litigious special interests, but those requests should be granted because they are reasonable and in the best interests of the program and its participants and stakeholders, not because ICANN feels it has to cave at the first sign of a gTLD opponent lawyering up. 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

Coronavirus Online Threats Going Viral, Part 4: Phishing

In part four of this series of posts looking at emerging internet content relating to coronavirus, we explore phishing. In times of crisis, cyber criminals invariably take advantage of the growing concerns of the public. In the case of the coronavirus, they have done so by sending phishing emails that play on the fears surrounding the spread of the illness. A number of reports have emerged of emails purporting to provide advice or assistance relating to COVID-19... more

“Open” or “Closed” Generic TLDs: Let the Operators Decide

(The following is an edited version of comments I submitted to ICANN regarding "closed" generic TLDs.) On February 5th, ICANN solicited comments on whether ICANN should determine the circumstances under which a generic TLD operator is permitted to adopt "open" or "closed" registration policies. Allowing gTLD operators to make these determinations, as opposed to ICANN, will promote innovation on the Internet to the benefit of consumers. more

What’s in a Name? The Power to Reach a Global Audience.

I've been asked a number of times recently which new gTLDs are working well. What's popular and where are some examples of them being used. Another question I have been hearing recently is what are some good examples of marketing activities that are working. We have seen a handful of examples of names with websites. Just enter site: favourite gtld in the search bar and you'll get a list of live sites for a given TLD... more

Don’t Break out the Champagne Just Yet: More Work to Do Before IANA Transition Occurs

After two years of meetings, comment periods, and more meetings, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers submitted its IANA transition proposal to the US Department of Commerce last week at the end of the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrakech. While this is a critical milestone and the multi-stakeholder community should be commended for its efforts, several concerns still remain. more

When ‘Confusing Similarity’ in UDRP Cases Gets Confusing

The first element of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) requires a complainant to prove that the disputed domain name "is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights." It's unusual for a complainant to fail on this first of three prongs, but one recent case demonstrates just how uncertain the UDRP can be sometimes. more

South Korean Ruling Party Chief Offers Resignation Amidst DDoS Scandal

South Korea's ruling party chairman has offered to resign over a cyberattack reported to have been orchestrated by an aide to one of the conservative party's lawmakers. The move comes after police concluded the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the election watchdog's website on the day of by-elections in October was masterminded solely by a 27-year-old aide to the ruling Grand National Party. The aide has also admitted to orchestrating a similar cyberattack on the website of Park Won-soon, who was elected Seoul mayor in the Oct. 26 elections. more

Efficient Threat Intelligence: Learning the Secrets

How can our threat intelligence platform deliver more? This is a question many business professionals employing threat intelligence practices are asking themselves as their companies continue to fall short against the machinations of modern-day cybercriminals. The truth is that while threat intelligence is certainly not a silver bullet, organizations often make a mistake when they opt for a platform without considering several important factors that can help them evaluate the market better and deploy the practice more effectively. more

First gTLD Auction Settled; Next Auction Will Be on August 13th

We're pleased to announce that the first Applicant Auction has come to a successful finish! As of this morning, the winners are now the only remaining applicants for the six contested strings... The winning prices totalled $9.01 million, which we have distributed to the other applicants after confirming that their ICANN applications have been withdrawn. more

Do Your Analytics Efforts Expose Your SQL Data Sources to Attacks?

Structured Query Language (SQL) continues to be quite relevant today. Many organizations still use SQL database systems, and it still ranks as the top in-demand language in tech job postings -- even in 2020. Companies are also increasing their analytics and business intelligence efforts, where SQL skills come in as quite handy. SQL queries allow you to pull key information from databases quickly. more

Microsoft’s Brad Smith Calls for a ‘Digital Geneva Convention’ to Protect Civilians

In a blog post published today on Microsoft's website, company President and Chief Legal Officer, Brad Smith, has raised concerns over escalating cyberattcks over the past year and the need for a Digital Geneva Convention. more

Why We Need Broadband Regulation

Anybody that reads my blog posts knows that I am in favor of broadband regulation. I'm sure ISPs read this and wonder why -- because who doesn't like being unregulated? My feelings on this go back to basic economics - monopolies must either be regulated or split up. By definition, monopolies always end up taking advantage of consumers - unregulated monopolies really can't help this behavior because employees and management of monopolies will inevitably take advantage of monopoly market power. more

US Congress Website Recovers from a Crippling 3-Day DNS Attack

A number of websites owned and operated by the United States Congress are recovering from a three-day DNS attack. more