Businesses and Intellectual Property Owners Discuss GDPR and WHOIS Issues With ICANN and Community

On January 24, 2018, ICANN's Business Constituency (BC) and Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) co-hosted an event to discuss the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its implications on access to the WHOIS database. ICANN's CEO and General Counsel joined the discussion, as did stakeholders from across the ICANN community. The event was timely and well attended with over 200 participants attending in-person or virtually. more

‘Spam King’ Sanford Wallace Sentenced to 2.5 Years In Prison

The 47 year old Las Vegas man known as the "Spam King" has been sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison for sending over half-million spam messages to Facebook users resulting in over 27 million spam messages sent through social networking company's servers. He pleaded guilty last year to one count of fraud. more

The CCT Review Needs You!

Come join the discussion on Wednesday 17:15 UTC. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? As ICANN approaches its 18th birthday, it marks its ascension to adulthood and independence with a new framework of accountability. As we attempt to modernize and empower the organization with oversight of the DNS, the question of "who watches the watchmen?" is on the tip of everyone's tongue. more

Accreditation & Access Model For Non-Public Whois Data

In the current debate over the balance between privacy and Internet safety and security, one of the unanswered questions is: "How will those responsible for protecting the public interest gain access to the non-public data in the WHOIS databases post General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?" In an attempt to prevent WHOIS data from going "dark," several community members have been working for the past weeks to create a model that could be used to accredit users and enable access to the non-public WHOIS data. more

DNSSEC Adds Value?

The recent news that .uk, .arpa and .org may sign their zones sometime this year is indeed good news. Each domain is highly significant... As the DNSSEC registry infrastructure moves inexorably forward -- primarily driven by top level pressure and considerations of National Interest -- it now behoves us to clearly articulate the benefits of DNSSEC to domain owners and registrars. In particular I want to focus on the vast majority of us to whom cold, hard cash is important and parting with it requires as a minimum tangible benefits or, in extreme cases, surgical intervention. more

IPv6: Childhood’s End?

A few weeks ago, when I was lurking around IPv6, I found that my own www.ipv6.tk was my first ever IPv6 domain. A "whois" on the domain says that it was registered in 2005, but something told me that I actually started this earlier. ?I therefore logged in at www.nic.tk and could see that my first feeling was correct; the first invoice for ipv6.tk was actually paid in the year of 2002. Here are some of the key things that I have experienced and learned over my first ten years. more

Internet: Government Dominance or Governance?

In an age where the world has gone global in many forms and guises, the political attention is more and more focussed on national, populist issues, that arise from fear for the unknown. I can't deny it: the future undoubtedly contains many uncertainties. This usually comes with a general public that's afraid and in fear of things they cannot oversee. Thus it is easily aroused by a populist leader who feeds on this fear and throws flammable material on the already smouldering fire. In a time where leadership is called for, it seems lacking. The Internet governance discussion demands visionary leadership on a cross border level and it needs it soon. more

Monumental Cybersecurity Blunders

Two recent celebrated cybersecurity standards history events brought together sets of people who were intimately involved with some of the most significant network security standards work ever undertaken. These included the X.509 digital certificate standards at ITU X.509 Day, and the Secure Digital Network System (SDNS) standards at the NSA Cryptologic History Symposium 2022. more

Berkman Center Releases Broadband Study for FCC, Says Open Access Key to Competition, Performance

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University today announced the release of its 232-page study commissioned by the FCC examining global broadband deployment and usage. The draft of the study titled, "Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world," has now been posted for public comment. more

Why Government Agencies Use Ugly, Difficult to Use Scanned PDFs - There’s More Than Meets the Eye

Sometimes, a government agency will post a PDF that doesn't contain searchable text. Most often, it's a scan of a printout. Why? Don't the NSA, the Department of Justice, etc., know how to convert Word (or whatever) directly to PDF? It turns out that they know more than some of their critics do. The reason? With a piece of paper, you know much more about what you're actually disclosing. more

Preventing ‘Techlash’ in 2018: Regulatory Threats

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue on January 10, 2018, warned that "techlash" is a threat to prosperity in 2018. What was he getting at? A "backlash against major tech companies is gaining strength -- both at home and abroad, and among consumers and governments alike." "Techlash" is a shorthand reference to a variety of impulses by government and others to shape markets, services, and products; protect local interests; and step in early to prevent potential harm to competition or consumers. more

Verisign Should Clear Up the Paid “Analysts” Controversy

In recent days it was revealed that analyst Zeus Kerravala, who had written a dozen-some articles, over many years, for Network World promoting Verisign's pro-.COM point of view and disparaging new top-level domains as a bad idea, was in fact a paid Verisign consultant. None of that was disclosed when Mr. Kerravala wrote these articles from January 2013 through October 2015. more

Does the iPhone Keep dotMobi Awake at Night?

We've had a number of questions (and seen plenty of commentary) regarding the recent launch of the iPhone and how it might affect us and the mobile web in general. ...the iPhone changes the way that tastemakers think about their online existence. Interacting with the web, clearly, is no longer a solitary, sedentary and constrained activity.Now I've personally believed this for a while, so arguably it's no big deal -- the long-term evolution of the web to become a largely mobile (and, by the way, subtly different) medium is inevitable. more

New Zealand’s Domain Name Commission Wins Appeal in Lawsuit Against US DomainTools

New Zealand's Domain Name Commission (DNC) wins in court against the US company DomainTools for "illegally scrapping personal information" of .nz domain name owners. more

What Prevents IPv6 Deployment in Europe

ZDNet UK has an article on IPv6 and what may slow down its deployment. Jay Daley, from Nominet points out to the fact that the current IPv6 allocation policy used by RIPE NCC is geared towards ISPs. This is a complaint I have heard time and time again. Under the current policy, you have to show to RIPE NCC that you are going to allocate 200 address blocks to your customers before you are allocated a /32 block. Obviously, a large corporate network cannot afford to renumber every time it switches ISPs... more