Neustar Announces Intention to Separate Into Two Independent and Publicly Traded Companies

This move will allow the company to separate its call routing services for telecom carriers from its marketing and security related services. Additionally the company has indicated that the latter unit, that is marketing, security, and data services, will be rebranded. more

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guliani Appointed to “Chair” Cyber Task Force

Transition spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters today that former New York City Mayo, Rudy Giuliani will "chair" the cyber task force that Trump announced last Friday. The task force is given three months from Trump's inauguration to deliver a cybersecurity plan. more

US New Cybersecurity Strategy Includes Military Option

Defense Systems reports: "The U.S. government's sweeping new cybersecurity strategy announced May 16 states that the country will respond to a major cyberattack using any or all of the means at its disposal, reports the Associated Press. Although military response to a cyberattack is one of the options listed in the International Strategy for Cyberspace, it will be considered only as a last resort, officials said." more

AFNIC CEO Elected as New CENTR Chair

CENTR is the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, gathering more than 50 registries such as DENIC for Germany (.de), Nominet for the United Kingdom (.uk) or Switch for Switzerland (.ch). The election took place during CENTR's General Assembly held in Warsaw on February 25 and 26. Mathieu Weill, AFNIC's CEO, replaces Andrzej Bartosiewicz, from the Polish registry, NASK, whose term was coming to an end. more

Jan 28: International Data Privacy Day

January 28 is marked as International Data Privacy Day in order to help raise awareness and generate discussions about information privacy. This year companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, AT&T, LexisNexis and The Privacy Projects are sponsoring Data Privacy Day efforts. more

WIPO: Disregard TLD in Trademark Dispute

There is a Dutch website which regularly publishes comments on rulings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration, Dutch court cases, and similar things. They have a newsletter which reports over the latest cases. It is really meant for people who are into the legal aspects of domain names. In the July "nieuwsbrief" newsletter, there was a remark (in Dutch) about a case that the top level ".nl" suffix to the name should not be considered relevant. more

Iran and the Internet: Uneasy Standoff

We've received enough interest about our previous notes on Iranian Internet connectivity that I wanted to give a brief update, and some reflections. In short: Iran is still on the Internet. As the crisis deepens, people are literally risking their lives by continuing to use the Internet for coordination and communication. more

Facebook Announces New Privacy and Security Settings Amid Outcry Over Data Collection Practices

In a blog post published today on its website, Facebook has announced it has adjusted its privacy settings in order to give its users more control over their information. more

BGP Security: A Gentle Reminder that Networking is Business

At NANOG on the Road (NotR) in September of 2018, I participated in a panel on BGP security -- specifically the deployment of Route Origin Authentication (ROA), with some hints and overtones of path validation by carrying signatures in BGP updates (BGPsec). This is an area I have been working in for... 20 years? ... at this point, so I have seen the argument develop across these years many times, and in many ways. more

Limiting Large Network Outages

As telecom networks grow more interconnected, local outages can now trigger regional or national disruptions. A recent article by Ookla outlines five critical steps operators must follow to prevent small faults from cascading into systemic failures. more

Mass-Produced Propaganda – A Cuban Example

Earlier this month, Google sent me several notifications for an article entitled "The Internet Is Widely Accessible in Cuba. Why Is the US Insisting It Isn't?" I checked it out and found that Reese Erlich had posted it on Truthout.org, a left-leaning Web site, on February 12. On the 13th, Cabasi.com published a shortened version of the article and Salon.com published the original version on the 17th. These were all in English, and both Salon and Cubasi credited Truthout. more

The Government Needs to Address the Homework Gap

I've been at a bit of a loss over the last few days on what to write about, because suddenly newspapers, blogs, and social media are full of stories of how impossible it is for some students to work at home during the COVID-19 shutdowns. I've been writing this topic for years, and there doesn't seem to be a lot I can add right now - because the endless testimonials from students and families struggling with the issue speak louder than anything I can say. more

Why Don’t We Have Peak and Off-Peak Pricing for Broadband?

I saw a poster on the London Underground yesterday, and as is often the case it got me thinking about the parallels with telecoms. The poster explains the peak and off-peak fare structure for tube travel. The purpose of this pricing system is to manage the relationship between supply and demand in a system that is capacity constrained. Over short and medium timescales the supply is essentially fixed, and demand can oversaturate that supply. more

We Blinked and the World Changed: Challenges of Generative AI to Internet Governance

The pace of generative AI development has been astonishing to the degree that the normative space has been unable to keep up. As governments start looking into some implementations of the technology, such as ChatGPT, more advanced techniques and products continue to emerge by the day. Society is changing in irrevocable ways, and it is paramount that the Internet Governance community turns its attention to this question. more

Recalling 2017: The Year in Domain Data

It is safe to say that 2017 was a turbulent year in more ways than one. There was the ongoing clash between WHOIS information and user privacy, the hope that top-level domains would finally take off and multiple hacks of large corporations that reignited talks about cybersecurity. While many of these topics are essential and will likely resurface again in the coming year, it is also important to look back at 2017 through unambiguous data. more