Patrik Wallström writes to report that as of today, IIS (The Internet Foundation In Sweden) has made the zone files for .se and .nu domain names publicly available for the first time. "The underlying reason for making the zone files for .se and .nu available is our endeavour at IIS to promote transparency and openness. IIS has made the assessment that the zone files do not contain any confidential information and, therefore, there is no reason not to make this information available." more
This morning I was forwarded a link to the Business2.0 article on domainer Kevin Ham about a half-dozen times and one sent the reddit comment thread on it (titled "This guy is a piece of s**t") and I had to chuckle and replied "I see Techno-Pinkos are out in full force". Some of the comments are just classicly clueless: "He's just a parasite. Someone gaming the system for their own financial ends without providing a useful service to anyone, and making it worse for many." ...Newsflash: Speculation is any time you choose one path, good or service over another in the hopes that you will do better... more
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to attend the The Emerging Communications (eComm) 2009 conference in San Francisco which was packed with 3 days of fascinating conversations about the future of communications. I absolutely enjoyed talking to various speakers and attendees giving me a deep level of appreciation and perspective on technical, commercial and political issues at hand -- and what is likely to come in the next few years. And speaking of politics, Lee Dryburgh, who founded eComm in early 2008, has generously allowed us to share with you a fascinating panel discussion which took place on day 3 of the conference called "Spectrum 2.0 - What's really happening?" more
According to National Journal, Susan Crawford is joining the Obama administration in a significant new role... This does not make me happy. Crawford is not a technologist, and the job that's been created for her needs to be filled by a person with deep knowledge of technology, the technology business, and the dynamics in research and business that promote innovation... more
I'm an engineer, and I firmly believe that Internet matters and, in general, Information Society, should be kept separate from politics, so usually, I'm very skeptical to talk about those and mix things. Let's start by saying that I'm Catalonian. Despite the dictatorial regime when I was born, forbidden teaching Catalonian, I learned it, even despite, initially for family reasons and now for work reasons, I live in Madrid. However, I keep saying everywhere I go, that I was born in Barcelona... more
This is the 10th edition of my annual Internet Governance Outlook. The first one was published on CircleID on January 3, 2013, just a couple of weeks after ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). I wrote: "Anyone who expected that with the end of the Dubai Conference, the heated debate on the future regulation of the Internet will slow down should remember the fairytale of the knight's battle with the seven-headed dragon. Hardly a head is cut off, another one is growing." more
OECD, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, has released a report for policy makers assessing the level of IPv6 deployment around the world. "[T]he timely deployment of IPv6 by network operators and content/application providers is an increasing priority for all Internet stakeholders. In terms of public policy, IPv6 plays an important role in enabling growth of the Internet to support further innovation. In addition, security, interoperability and competition issues are involved with the depletion of IPv4." more
Good taste has never been a criterion in ICANN's new domains program, and domains including .fail and the remarkably vulgar .wtf have become part of the DNS with little comment. Now we have .sucks, which is intended to empower consumers, but does so in a way so clumsy that ICANN is asking regulators in the U.S. and Canada for an excuse to shut it down. more
Earlier this year, ICANN began to seriously consider the various effects of adding DNS protocol features and new entries into the Root Zone. With the NTIA announcement that the Root Zone would be signed this year, a root scaling study team was formed to assess the scalability of the processes used to create and publish the Root Zone. Properly considered, this study should have lasted longer than the 120 days -- but the results suggest that scaling up the root zone is not without risk -- and these risks should be considered before "green-lighting" any significant changes to the root zone or its processes. I, for one, would be interested in any comments, observations, etc. (The caveats: This was, by most measures, a rush job. My spin: This is or should be a risk assessment tool.) Full report available here [PDF]. more
A recent study by researchers at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) at the San Diego Super Computer Center (SDSC) revealed that a staggering 98% of the global Internet queries to one of the main root servers, at the heart of the Internet, were unnecessary. This analysis was conducted on data collected October 4, 2002 from the 'F' root server located in Palo Alto, California.
The findings of the study were originally presented to the North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) on October 2002 and later discussed with Richard A. Clarke, chairman of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and Special Advisor to the U.S. President for Cyber Space Security. more
Hong Kong domains are the most dangerous in the world; this little factoid from a recent McAfee report generated quite a bit of media coverage, and even made TIME magazine's top stories list. But all is not as it seems, and aspects of the report may have been out of date before the report was even published. McAfee's study seems to be based on a year's worth of data, and last year was a particularly bad year for the Hong Kong domain, thanks to a gang of botnet spammers registering thousands of domains under the .hk ccTLD. These domains were most likely registered using stolen credit cards... more
The debate continues as to whether ISP's can effectively filter DNS results in order to protect brand and copyright holders from online infringement. It's noteworthy that there is no argument as to whether these rights holders and their properties deserve protection - nobody is saying "content wants to be free" and there is general agreement that it is harder to protect rights in the Internet era where perfect copies of can be made and distributed instantaneously. What we're debating now is just whether controlling DNS at the ISP level would work at all and whether the attempt to insert such controls would damage Secure DNS (sometimes called DNSSEC). more
Almost every country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) has had some kind of rough and clumsy start at its sunrise. Internet was young, everything was new, and whoever took the national TLD first, got power over it. The situation eventually sorted out, and now most ccTLDs are drama free, well-operated for the benefit of people and the Internet communities in those countries. Unfortunately, not in Slovakia. more
While Canada was dragging the chain when it came to introducing anti-spam legislation, it is now making up for lost time. Ottawa's new law -- expected to be operational early this year -- has severe fines for violations and is viewed by some as too tough. Known as CASL, the new law aims to crack down on spammers and mailing list companies but in doing so, tightly regulates the way businesses can market to prospective customers via email and online. more
Cybercrime is costing businesses close to $600 billion, or 0.8 percent of global GDP, according to a report released today by McAfee, in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). more
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