Privacy

Law Requiring Sex Offenders to Hand Over All Internet Passwords Going Too Far?

Maybe you've seen one of the news stories about the revised Georgia statute (Georgia Code § 41-1-12) that now requires sex offenders to turn their Internet passwords, screen names and email addresses over to authorities. The purpose of the revised statute is to give authorities the ability to track what sex offenders are doing online, to, in the words of one news story, "make sure" they "aren't stalking children online or chatting with them about off-limits topics." more

Exploring the Impact of WHOIS Data Redaction on Unsolicited Emails

In the digital age, personal data protection has become paramount, with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) shaping global practices. One area significantly affected is the public availability of WHOIS data, a critical resource in the domain name system. WHOIS traditionally provided detailed contact information for domain registrants, but privacy measures have redacted much of this data in recent years. more

Privacy, Legal vs. Natural Persons, and the Never-Ending ICANN EPDP

It has been just over 3 years since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect, and the work within ICANN (type "EPDP 2a" into your acronym decoder ring) to develop a permanent Registration Data policy is progressing at a snail's pace. At issue is a proposed mandatory requirement for Contracted Parties (really just Registrars), to differentiate between "legal persons" (a fancy way of saying corporations and similar organizations) and "natural persons" (the kind that eat and breathe and schedule Zoom calls). more

An Internet Security Operations Viewpoint of IGF

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is an annual UN conference on Internet governance which was held this year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The topics discussed range from human rights online to providing Internet access in developing countries. A somewhat secondary topic of conversation is Internet security and cyber-crime mostly limited to policy and legislative efforts. Techies and Internet security industry don't have much to do there, but I have a few updates for us from the conference. more

Nom-Com Appoints Independent and Diverse Candidates to ICANN Leadership Positions

When 72 candidates vie for 8 positions, making tough choices are inevitable. ICANN's 2005 Nominating Committee (Nom-Com) on Friday announced the selection of a diverse and independent set of nominees for important roles in ICANN, including the Board of Directors, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), the At-Large Advisory Council (ALAC) and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). more

Apple Under Fire for Removing VPN Apps from Russia’s App Store

Apple has reportedly removed nearly 60 VPN apps from its Russia App Store, significantly higher than the 25 VPNs acknowledged by Russian authorities, according to a recent report by the App Censorship Project. more

Internet Governance: Analogue Solutions to Digital Problems

This is an overview of the booklet, "Internet Governance: Issues, Actors and Divides," recently published by DiploFoundation and the Global Knowledge Partnership. "Internet Governance is not a simple subject. Although it deals with a major symbol of the DIGITAL world, it cannot be handled with a digital - binary logic of true/false and good/bad. Instead, the subject's many subtleties and shades of meaning and perception require an ANALOGUE approach, covering a continuum of options and compromises." Update: This article was reposted with additional information and a new title. more

2018 Domain Name Year in Review

Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when I look back at all of the biggest domain news stories from the last twelve months, and also reflect on my predictions from last year. As expected, GDPR has had a major impact on the ability to access domain ownership information. And we did indeed see a number of M&A transactions over this last year. However, there wasn't a lot of new .Brand activity. This is one prediction where I may have missed the mark... more

IMP Continuing Despite Industry Backlash

Back in November 2008 a colleague of mine, Neil Watson (Head of Operations at Entanet International Ltd), published an article on Entanet's opinion blog about the government's proposed plans to centrally store records of all electronic communications throughout the UK. The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) will be the largest surveillance system ever created in the UK and calls for a 'live tap' to be placed on every electronic communication in Britain including telephone calls, emails and visited websites. more

Independence and Security Online Have Not Yet Been Won

As we, here in the United States celebrate our independence this Fourth of July, we are reminded that the liberties and freedoms that come with that independence have yet to be won online. As citizens of this country we are blessed with safety and security from threats both foreign and domestic, but those guarantees have not yet extended to our citizenship in the global Internet community. This is true not just for American citizens, but for all Internet users throughout the world. more

DNS and Stolen Credit Card Numbers

FireEye announced a new piece of malware yesterday named MULTIGRAIN. This nasty piece of code steals data from Point of Sale (PoS) and transmits the stolen credit card numbers by embedding them into recursive DNS queries. While this was definitely a great catch by the FireEye team, the thing that bothers me here is how DNS is being used in these supposedly restrictive environments. more

We Urgently Need a New Internet

Let's be honest about it. Nobody -- including those very clever people that were present at its birth -- had the slightest idea what impact the internet would have in only a few decades after its invention. The internet has now penetrated every single element of our society and of our economy, and if we look at how complex, varied and historically different our societies are, it is no wonder that we are running into serious problems with the current version of our internet. more

Whois: If You Want Privacy, Pay For It

Netchoice, a lobbying group for the e-commerce industry had a strange reaction on the failure of the GNSO working group on Whois to reach a consensus. After all, they say, "Privacy concerns with Whois that were identified years ago have already been addressed by in the marketplace"... more

Another Whois-Privacy Stalemate

The report of the Whois Working Group was published today. The Working Group could not achieve agreement on how to reconcile privacy and data protection rights with the interests of intellectual property holders and law enforcement agencies. So the Working Group Chair redefined the meaning of "agreement." See the full story at the Internet Governance Project site. more

Why Foldering Adds Very Little Security

I keep hearing stories of people using "foldering" for covert communications. Foldering is the process of composing a message for another party, but instead of sending it as an email, you leave it in the Drafts folder. The other party then logs in to the same email account and reads the message; they can then reply via the same technique. Foldering has been used for a long time, most famously by then-CIA director David Petraeus and his biographer/lover Paula Broadwell. Why is foldering used? more