Would the Internet Survive a Trump Apocalypse?

Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his supporters are pursuing platforms to create an altered America in a different world that is profoundly different in almost every respect from what has existed until now -- it is a new world best described as the Trump Apocalypse. Would the Internet as we have known it continue to exist? The short answer is probably not. Here is why. more

Nigerian Scammer, Ringleader of International Criminal Network Arrested

The 40-year-old Nigerian national, ringleader of a global network believed to be behind scams totalling more than USD $60 million has been arrested in a joint operation by INTERPOL and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). more

Losing and Reclaiming Domain Names

For registrants who are not trademark owners losing their domain names can be an irretrievable loss; and for trademark owners, perhaps not irretrievable but fraught with uncertainties of recovery. ICANN attempted to solve the problem of inadvertent lapses of registration in the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) and its companion the Expired Domain Name Deletion Policy (EDNDP), implemented in 2013. more

U.S. Court Urged to Reverse Net Neutrality Rules, FCC Chair Says Petition ‘No Surprise’

Several wireless, cable and broadband trade associations today called on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse the net neutrality ruling that passed last month in a 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel. more

ICANN Confirms: .WEB Sold for Record Breaking $135 at Auction

"NU DOT CO LLC prevailed in the auction for the price of $135 million to operate the .WEB gTLD, announced ICANN today confirming earlier unofficial reports suggesting the amount. more

U.S. Issues Cyber Incident Coordination Policy

White House has issued new directive spelling out how the Federal government will coordinate its incident response activities in the event of a large-scale cyber incident. more

German Police Force Shifts More Focus to Darknet After Mass Shooting

"German police will do more to fight crime committed on the dark net'," was the announcement days after mass shooting by a gunman with weapon bought from the darknet. "We see that the darknet is a growing trading place and therefore we need to prioritize our investigations here," said Holger Muench, head of Germany's Federal Police (BKA). more

WiFi QoE Assurance with TR-069 - Part 1: The Toolbox

Subscribers today expect to be connected at all times with exceptional service quality. For communication service providers operating in urban environments, multi-dwelling units (MDUs) are a big cause for concern. Delivering consistently high WiFi service quality in high-density environments is a challenge. The sheer number of nearby access points, electronics, and outside influences can result in a host of WiFi service quality issues... more

ICANN Report Shows Few Trademark Holders Using gTLD Sunrise Period

ICANN has released Draft Report of an Independent Review of the Trademark Clearinghouse. Key findings include the fact that "across eligible trademark holders, fewer than 20 percent have used the Sunrise period to date." more

Astronomical Increases in Domain Names: Low Constancy of Abusive Registrations

When ICANN implemented the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in 1999, the number of registered domain names were in the low eight digits. Registered domain names passed the first million in 1997. Today, they are in the first third of nine digits, and continuing to grow. In its newly released publication gTLD Marketplace Health Index (Beta) (July 21, 2016) ICANN offers through a couple dozen metrics a picture of the multiple parts that corporately go into making a healthy marketplace. It's "Beta" because the Health Index is a work in progress. more

China Orders Sites to Halt Original News Reporting

"China Clamps Down on Online News Reporting," reports Andy Wong of Associated Press via New York Times: " China has ordered several of the country's most popular internet portals to halt much of their original news reporting..." more

Pro-Trump Russians Accused for Democratic National Committee Email Hack, FBI Investigating

"DNC Hack Prompts Allegations of Russian Involvement," Damian Paletta and Devlin Barrett reported in the Wall Street Journal today: "U.S. authorities said they are still investigating who perpetrated the hack, but cybersecurity experts said the email release resembled past examples of political interference that other countries have tied to Russia." more

Hyperconvergence, Disaggregation, and Cloud: The Foggy Future of Network Engineering

The world of networking tends to be bistable: we either centralize everything, or we decentralize everything. We started with mainframes, passed through Lotus 123 hidden in corners, then to mini's and middleware, then to laptops, and now to the cloud, to be followed by fog. This particular cycle of centralization/decentralization, however, has produced a series of overlapping changes that are difficult to decipher. You can somehow hear someone arguing about disaggregation and hyperconvergence through the fog -- but just barely. more

It’s Auction Time Again

This week ICANN will auction off .WEB or .WEBS. There are seven live applications for .WEB and one for .WEBS. The string contention process decided that the two names are so similar that they'll only assign one of them, so all eight applications are in one auction... There are some deep pocketed bidders in this round including Google, Donuts, web.com which owns Network Solutions and a lot of other web properties, and Schlund which owns the largest web hoster 1&1. more

The Next Development in Wireless Broadband

In the USA the FCC has started the discussion on the next level of telecoms in the wireless market, aimed at making spectrum in bands above 24GHz available for flexible-use of wireless services, including next-generation, or 5G networks and technologies. New technologies such as massive-MIMO are going to make it possible to deliver 'fibre-like' speeds over short distance wireless networks operating in the 24+GHz bands. This will make the technology especially useful for high-speed broadband services in densely populated areas. more