A few years ago, there were a lot of predictions that we'd see broadband networks converting to quantum technology because of the enhanced security. As happens with many new technologies, quantum computing is advancing at a slower pace than the wild predictions that accompanied the launch of the new technology. more
The Uptime Institute (UI) is an IT industry research firm best known for certifying that data centers meet industry standards. UI issues an annual report that analyzes the cause of data center outages. The causes for data center outages are relevant to the broadband industry because the same kinds of issues shut down switching hubs and Network Operations Centers. more
Interested in learning more about routing security? How it can affect your connectivity supply chain? What are best practices for enterprises and organizations? What is the role of CSIRTs in securing routing? What are governments doing now, and planning to do in the future around routing security? more
ome 50 years ago, at the Palo Alto Research Centre of that renowned photocopier company Xerox, a revolutionary approach to local digital networks was born. On the 22nd of May 1973, Bob Metcalf authored a memo that described "X-Wire," a 3Mbps common bus office network system developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). more
Project Liberty's Institute sat down with Dave Clark, an early contributor to the TCP/IP protocols that built and run the Internet, and one of the expert advisors on DSNP, the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol. Dave Clark is Senior Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. more
The idea for Ethernet was born fifty years ago in May 1973 when Robert Metcalf coined the word Ethernet. He had been studying ALOHAnet, developed at the University of Hawaii in 1971 and was the first public demonstration of a wireless packet data network. Metcalf used the work Ethernet as a reference to luminiferous aether, a concept postulated in the 17th century to explain how light could be transmitted through a vacuum. more
At Verisign, we believe that continuous improvements to the safety and security of the global routing system are critical for the reliability of the internet. As such, we've recently embarked on a path to implement Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) within our technology ecosystem as a step toward building a more secure routing system. In this blog, we share our ongoing journey toward RPKI adoption and the lessons we've learned as an operator of critical internet infrastructure. more
Change is hard, and the larger the system, the slower the pace of change. There are just so many systems that need to change their behaviors, and the motivations of users, vendors, service providers, content generators and many others all vary. Getting all of us to change some aspect of our technology, platform or application set is hard, if not impossible, to orchestrate such that it happens at the same time. more
A little appreciated aspect of our digital infrastructure is just how dependent we are on access to time. Disrupting the time base can not only lead to disruption in communications but can result in various forms of compromise of the integrity of communications. Accurate time was all but unobtainable for centuries, and then, as we spent significant sums devising even more accurate timekeeping instruments, accurate time became a specialized service. more
Rudolph van der Berg presented on the latest updates from the ongoing tensions in the Internet industry between carriage infrastructure providers and content providers, with a European perspective. The carriage providers in the EU region are asserting that they're making major capital investments in augmenting the access network infrastructure to carry gigabit traffic volumes, which is largely streaming content, while at the same time the content providers were getting a free ride, or so goes the argument. more
In a recent workshop, I attended, reflecting on the evolution of the Internet over the past 40 years, one of the takeaways for me is how we've managed to surprise ourselves in both the unanticipated successes we've encountered and in the instances of failure when technology has stubbornly resisted to be deployed despite our confident expectations to the contrary! What have we learned from these lessons about our inability to predict technology outcomes? more
In a recent blog post, Amazon invited developers to test drive its gigantic IoT network. This network has been labeled 'Sidewalk' and was created by tying together all of Amazon's wireless devices like Amazon Echos and Ring cameras. Amazon claims this huge wireless network now covers 90% of U.S. households. Amazon created the network by transmitting Bluetooth and 900 MHz LoRa signals from its various devices. more
Caribbean islands are known for white-sand getaways, but one of the region's best-kept secrets remains buried under its picturesque beaches. That hidden treasure is the Caribbean's complex network of subsea Internet cables, worth their weight in gold because they connect these small-island nations to each other and to the global Internet. With that Internet connectivity comes the hope of a better life for millions of Caribbean citizens, and regional ambitions of global competitiveness. more
OARC held a 2-day meeting in February, with presentations on various DNS topics. Here are some observations I picked up from the presentations in that meeting... In a world where every DNS name is DNSSEC-signed, and every DNS client validates all received DNS responses, we wouldn't necessarily have the problem of DNS spoofing. Even if we concede that universal use of DNSSEC is a long time off ... more
The IETF met in November 2022 in London. Among the many sessions that were held in that meeting was a session of the Decentralised Internet Infrastructure Research Group, (DINRG). The research group's ambitions are lofty: DINRG will investigate open research issues in decentralizing infrastructure services such as trust management, identity management, name resolution, resource/asset ownership management, and resource discovery. more
Vint Cerf Receives IEEE Medal of HonorA World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.