Poll on New TLDs Shows Value of Brand Loyalty, Willingness to Try New Equivalents to .COMs

Internet users are willing to navigate to, use, and trust new web addresses that will be flooding the Internet later this year, and brand name websites will carry more weight with Internet users than generic sites. These are among the results of a public opinion survey commissioned by FairWinds Partners. The poll also found that the owners and operators of these new addresses should be technically prepared or risk driving away or losing traffic intended for their sites. more

Intelligence Exchange in a Free Market Economy

The U.S. Government is causing a huge disservice to protection and defense in the private sector (80%+ of CIKR) by creating an ECS that contains monetary incentive for a few large players to exert undue control over the availability, distribution, and cost of security threat indicators. While there may be a legitimate need for the federal government to share classified indicators to entities for protecting critical infrastructure, the over-classification of indicator data is a widely recognized issue that presents real problems for the private sector. ECS as currently construed creates monetary incentives for continued or even expanded over-classification. more

A Primer on IPv4, IPv6 and Transition

There is something badly broken in today's Internet. At first blush that may sound like a contradiction in terms. After all, the Internet is a modern day technical marvel. In just a couple of decades the Internet has not only transformed the global communications sector, but its reach has extended far further into our society, and it has fundamentally changed the way we do business, the nature of entertainment, the way we buy and sell, and even the structures of government and their engagement with citizens. In many ways the Internet has had a transformative effect on our society that is similar in scale and scope to that of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. How could it possibly be that this prodigious technology of the Internet is "badly broken?" more

ICANN Auctions or Private Auctions?

By this time next year the allocation of the new Internet namespace will be complete. Several hundred contention sets, ranging from likely blockbusters like .WEB to somewhat less obvious money-makers like .UNICORN, will be decided by some method. One way to resolve contention is to form a joint venture... That works well when there are only two competitors and there's a good basis of trust, and it's a great solution because there are no losers. But if there are three or more competitors, or if you don't like and trust your prospective partner-to-be, this really isn't an option. more

Moving Beyond Telephone Numbers - The Need for a Secure, Ubiquitous Application-Layer Identifier

Do "smart" parking meters really need phone numbers? Does every "smart meter" installed by electric utilities need a telephone number? Does every new car with a built-in navigation system need a phone number? Does every Amazon Kindle (and similar e-readers) really need its own phone number? In the absence of an alternative identifier, the answer seems to be a resounding "yes" to all of the above. more

Liberty Reserve Now, Bitcoin Next?

The papers have been abuzz with the shutdown of Liberty Reserve, an online payments system, due to accusations of large scale money laundering via anonymous transactions. Many people have noted similarities between LR and Bitcoin and wonder whether Bitcoin is next. I doubt it, because with Bitcoin, nothing is anonymous. more

IPv6: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

The theory put forward by the IETF was simple enough... while there were still enough IPv4 addresses, use transition technologies to migrate to dual stack and then wean IPv4 off over time. All nice and tidy. The way engineers, myself included, liked it. However those controlling the purse strings had a different idea. more

How to Stop the Spread of Malware? A Call for Action

On Webwereld an article was published following a new Kaspersky malware report Q1-2013. Nothing new was mentioned here. The Netherlands remains the number 3 as far as sending malware from Dutch servers is concerned. At the same time Kaspersky writes that The Netherlands is one of the most safe countries as far as infections go. So what is going on here? more

ICANN at the Inflection Point: Implications and Effects Of the GAC Beijing Communique

Although this article was first published just a few days ago, on May 8th, there have been several important intervening developments. First, on May 10th ICANN released a News Alert on "NGPC Progress on GAC Advice" that provides a timetable for how the New gTLD program Committee will deal with the GAC Communique. Of particular note is that, as the last action in an initial phase consisting of "actions for soliciting input from Applicants and from the Community', the NGPC will begin to "Review and consider Applicant responses to GAC Advice and Public Comments on how Board should respond to GAC Advice... more

What New gTLD Applicants Need Is a Quick, Lightweight Answer to the World’s Governments. Here It Is.

It's safe to say that with just a week to go before ICANN intended to sign the first contract for a new gTLD, the last thing anyone wanted was a 12-page document from the world's governments with 16 new "safeguards", six of which it wants to see applied to every new extension. But what the industry shouldn't overlook, especially in the face of the expected critical responses this week and next, is that the Governmental Advisory Committee's (GAC's) formal advice from the ICANN Beijing meeting represents an opportunity for the domain name industry to lock-in self-regulation at a critical point in its evolution. more

America Closing Down Its Copper Network - So What’s Next?

We have reported in the past on the rapid decline of the copper telecoms network in the USA. A decade ago BuddeComm predicted that it would be impossible to move two customer access networks in parallel towards the new fibre future, the one operated by the telcos and the other operated by the cable companies. At that stage we indicated that a possible outcome could be that the telcos would upgrade their networks to FttH and that the cable companies would become the key tenants on that network. more

New Registry Agreement, All Good?

In the run-up to the launch of new gTLDs, ICANN has been negotiating both of its main supplier contracts. The registrar contract (Registrar Accreditation Agreement or RAA) negotiations are now all but complete. A new contract draft has been posted for public comment and it now seems likely that in little over a month, this will become the official new 2013 RAA. more

US Smart Grid Networks Exploiting Infrastructure to Provide Wireless Broadband

The USDA Rural Development's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has now spent the $250 million committed for smart grid technologies. To this has been added an additional $201 million in funding approved by the Agriculture Secretary to electricity utilities in eight states to install smart grid technologies and improve their generation and transmission facilities. The beneficiaries are spread among a large number of states. more

Different Focus on Spam Needed

It is surprisingly difficult to get accurate figures for the amount of spam that is sent globally, yet everyone agrees that the global volume of spam has come down a lot since its peak in late 2008. At the same time, despite some recent small decreases, the catch rates of spam filters remain generally high... A world in which email can be used without spam filters is a distant utopia. Yet, the decline of spam volumes and the continuing success (recent glitches aside) of filters have two important consequences. more

Can’t Sell Your IPv4 Numbers? Try Leasing Them

In a "policy implementation and experience report" presented at ARIN 31 in Barbados, ARIN's staff noted that they are seeing "circumstances" related to the leasing of IPv4 number blocks. At the recent INET in Denver, ARIN's Director John Curran alleged that there is a "correlation" between address leasing activity and organizations that have been unable to complete specified transfers through the ARIN process, which requires needs-based justification. more