Have you ever sold a domain name that was just sitting in your registrar account? Maybe it was for that idea you had, but never found the time to develop. Perhaps it was for a business or website you once ran and then let go by the wayside. Then one day, out of the blue, that dormant domain turned into a winning lottery ticket. You got a random call or email from an interested party and the next thing you know that domain (which you've forgotten why you even renew it each year) is sold for $3,000 or $30,000 or more. more
While it is a known fact that mobile phones are giving away the approximate location of users' whereabouts for better call quality and emergency calls, security reporter Brian Krebs says major mobile providers in the U.S. are overstepping the boundaries. more
On Friday I was on a surprisingly interesting session at Rightscon 2018 in Toronto about GDPR and WHOIS. The panel consisted of Eleeza Agoopian from ICANN staff; Avri Doria who was recently appointed to the ICANN board; Elliot Noss who runs large registrar Tucows; Stephanie Perrin who has done a lot of privacy work for the Canadian government and as an ICANN volunteer, and me; Milt Mueller, who is now at Georgia Tech, moderated. more
Data privacy will be among the items topping the agenda at an upcoming Caribbean Internet Governance Forum to be held by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) in Suriname this month. The meeting is part of an effort by several Caribbean countries to establish and strengthen policies to ensure that Internet users' personal information is collected, shared and used in appropriate ways. more
"The digital information ecosystem farms people for their attention, ideas and data in exchange for so called 'free' services," says Giovanni Buttarelli, the European data protection supervisor. more
Well, here we are on Friday the 13th and I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day than providing an update on GDPR, WHOIS and ICANN. There's lots to cover, so let's dive right in. As we have been talking about for a number of months now, the EU's new General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) will become enforceable on May 25th. The ICANN community has been struggling with how GDPR will impact the WHOIS system. more
Many administrators misconfigure cloud storage, such Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets, resulting in the contents being publicly-accessible. more
"ICANN could invoke emergency powers in its contracts to prevent Whois becoming 'fragmented' after EU privacy laws kick in next month," reports Kevin Murphy in Domain Incite. more
The smartphone has effectively transformed us into cyborgs, we have in our hands a highly efficient computing device equipped with a photo and video camera, microphone, GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, light and proximity sensors, as well as other features that allow creation of increasingly useful, impressive and addictive applications. more
The recent news that Mozilla and Cloudflare are deploying their own DNS recursive resolver has once again raised hopes that users will enjoy improved privacy, since they can send DNS traffic encrypted to Cloudflare, rather than to their ISP. In this post, we explain why this approach only moves your private data from the ISP to (yet another) third party. You might trust that third party more than your ISP, but you still have to trust them. In this post, we present an alternative design -- Oblivious DNS -- that prevents you from having to make that choice at all. more
Close to 20% of popular VPN services are reported to be leaking customer's IP address via a WebRTC bug known since January 2015, and which "some VPN providers have never heard of." more
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
Barely a week passes without something in the news that reminds us of the critical role encryption plays in securing our data. It is a technology that protects so much of what we rely on, as individuals protecting our privacy, as companies securing our business assets and transactions, and as governments responsible for critical national infrastructure. ... The request Kathy mentions came after the San Bernardino shootings in California... more
WHOIS access and development of an interim GDPR compliance model remains THE hot topic within the ICANN community. Developments are occurring at a break-neck pace, as ICANN and contracted parties push for an implementable solution ahead of the May 25, 2018 effective date of the GDPR... ICANN is now poised to formally publish the convergence model, although the community continues to discuss and seek a solution that is acceptable for all stakeholders. more
With GDPR coming into effect this May, it is almost a forgone conclusion that WHOIS as we know it today, will change. Without knowing the full details, how can companies begin to prepare? First and foremost, ensuring that brand protection, security and compliance departments are aware that a change to WHOIS access is on the horizon is an important first step. Just knowing that the ability to uncover domain ownership information is likely to change in the future will help to relieve some of the angst that is likely to occur. more