Kleinwaechters Treasure Map

Wolfgang Kleinwaechters Internet Governance Outlook on CircleID each year sums up the drama of internet governance as it is played out on the global stage. We assume that all players on the internet governance stage work under the premise that despite all our differences, ultimately, we are united in our quest for "freedom from fear and want" based on the quality and dignity of all human beings, as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). more

World Economic Forum Announces Plans for Multilateral Architecture to Govern the Internet

The upcoming World Economic Forum (WEF), taking place 21-24 January, 2015 in Switzerland, is dubbed "The New Global Context". The theme aims at reflecting "the period of profound political, economic, social and technological change that the world has entered, which has the potential to end the era of economic integration and international partnership that began in 1989, says WEF's recent announcement." more

Further Explorations in Brandable Domain Names: Sensational Spellingz

My previous article on brandable domain names1 -- that is, available (unregistered) domain names which may be appealing to any entity looking to identify a potential name for a new brand launch -- focused on the use of phonotactic (i.e. 'readability') analysis techniques to identify candidate names. more

Content Policing Not Our Responsibility, Says ICANN CEO

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade, speaking in Dublin yesterday, warned that the organization should resist attempts to be turned into a content regulator responsible for fighting piracy, counterfeiting and terrorism. more

San Francisco Supervisor Working on Plan for Citywide High-Speed Internet

San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell has assembled a group of business, privacy and academic experts to discuss crucial, early-stage questions surrounding Farrell’s plan to wire the city with high-speed Internet service. more

NTAG Chair Blog: A Better Auction Framework

New gTLD Applicants now have a more fair and reasonable ICANN auction framework. A collaborative negotiation between the New TLD Applicant Group (NTAG) Auctions Working Group and ICANN Staff resulted in changes that improve the auction rules and bidder agreement. The indemnification and waivers in the agreement are now aligned with breaches that applicants can control. Applicants also now have an indemnification from Power Auction for third party claims related to IP infringement. more

Global IT Outage Disrupts Airlines, Businesses, and Hospitals

A massive IT glitch originating from a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has caused significant disruptions worldwide, impacting airlines, businesses, medical facilities, and broadcasters. The issue, identified as a faulty update in Microsoft cloud services, led to widespread outages early Friday. more

Taking It to the Streets

It is interesting to see telecommunications policy issues being covered by the general media. Of course, we expect to see coverage of communications issues in the business press. The sector is a large employer, makes massive investments in infrastructure and virtually every citizen buys communications products and services every month. Still, covering the sector in the business section is different from seeing coverage move to the front page or the general editorial pages. more

Will Broadband Go Wireless?

For years it's been impossible to go to any industry forum without meeting a few folks who predict that residential broadband will go wireless. This buzz has accelerated with the exaggerated claims that fast 5G broadband is right around the corner. I've seen even more talk about this due to a recent Pew poll that shows that the number of people that only use their cellphones for data has climbed significantly over the last few years – I'm going to discuss that poll in another upcoming blog. more

Largest Spam Gang Operation in the World Shutdown by U.S. and New Zealand Authorities

U.S. authorities announced today that they have shut down one of the largest spam operations in the world, an extensive network with ties to Australia, New Zealand, India, China and the United States. The group, dubbed 'HerbalKing' by spam fighting organizations, had been active as far back as 2005 and became notorious as the number one worst spam gang on the Internet for much of 2007 and 2008 according to Spamhaus, a non-profit anti-spam research group. more

Password Policies Need to Be the Same if We Want Users to Take Our Advice

The other day on Facebook, one of my friends mentioned that today (i.e., that day) was a good day to update his passwords. But he then lamented that some web sites don't allow you to create more than a 12-character password! He was incensed! Well, maybe not incensed but showed contempt for the fact these sites restricted password length. more

GNU C Library Found Vulnerable to Rogue DNS Server Attacks

Security experts from Google's Project Zero along with researchers from Red Hat, have identified and helped patch a security flaw in the GNU C Library (glibc) that could be exploited via rogue DNS servers, reports Catalin Cimpanu from Softpedia. more

Unexplained Glitch Disrupts Root-Server, Raises Security Concerns

For over four days, a crucial server within the Internet's domain name system (DNS) experienced an unexplained glitch, causing it to fall out of sync with its 12 peer root servers. The server, operated by Cogent Communications, is one of the 13 essential root servers that manage the Internet's root zone. more

China’s Draft Rule Targets Domain Name Supervision, Could Limit Access to Foreign Sites

China's government has proposed taking stronger steps towards accessing websites in the country as part of its latest push to set boundaries in the wider Internet. On March 25, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which oversees China's internet and telecommunications sectors, released a public draft regulation outlining rules on domain name registrations. more

Walden Savings Bank to Switch from .com to a .bank TLD

Walden Savings Bank will be the fifth bank in New York state to switch its domain name from a .com top-level domain (TLD) to the new .bank TLD in May of this year. more