gTLD Applicant Strategy: Clarifying Financial Questions (Part 1)

It is certainly proving to be a long and winding road for the 1923 gTLD applications submitted to ICANN. Glitches, delays and now a very high percentage of applications will very shortly be receiving clarifying (financial) questions on 26 November. Currently a very high percentage of applicants have not scored the required 8 points to pass financial evaluation. This is the next huge challenge for applicants. more

Google Discloses Rising Number of Government Requests

In the spirit of shining more light on how government actions could affect users, Google Inc. in early 2010, began periodically sharing number of government requests received in what it calls the "Transparency Report." more

Is ICANN Entering a Bold New Era?

When Barack Obama succeeded George W Bush and became America's 44th president, it seemed he could do no wrong. But this was arguably more a consequence of the perceived inadequacies of his predecessor than a realistic reflection on his own abilities. A fact highlighted by Obama being awarded the Nobel peace prize a mere nine months after taking office, before he'd had any real chance of having an impact on America or the world. When Fadi Chehadé was formally introduced as ICANN's next CEO, at the organisation's 44th international meeting in Prague last June, there was an undeniable Obama effect... more

INET New York: Open Forum of the Copyright Alert System - Thursday 11/15

The Copyright Alert System, the result of a deal between big content and big ISPs, is a graduated response program - popularly known as the six strikes - that escalates from nastygrams, to copyright school, to Internet throttling. Just like SOPA/PIPA, enforcement targets will be arbitrarily selected by the content owners, but unlike SOPA/PIPA there will be no appeal via the courts - only to an arbitration firm hired by the program. more

Who Is Going to Dominate the Internet?

While the internet has brought about the transformation of whole industry sectors and generated thousands of business models, as well as changing social behaviour, it is at the same time creating its own giants and dominant players. Does this mean that while certain vested interests are demolished, and others transform themselves into smaller sectors and organisations, new conglomerates will surface? Only time will tell more

When Businesses Go Dark: A DDoS Survey

In February 2012, Neustar surveyed IT professionals across North America to better understand their DDoS experiences. Most were network services managers, senior systems engineers, systems administrators and directors of IT operations. In all, 1,000 people from 26 different industries shared responses about attacks, defenses, ongoing concerns, risks and financial losses. more

ICANN Clarifying Questions - How to Respond (Part 2 of 3)

In the first part of this series on ICANN's impending Clarifying Questions period, I outlined what you can expect in terms of question structure. Here I would like to outline how the points work and provide some advice on how to answer questions for best success. more

LegitScript to Release Monthly Data on Rogue Internet Pharmacy Registrar Clustering

One of the most important debates in the realm of Internet governance pertains to when, how and how much voluntary action registrars can and should take to prevent the use of their registration platforms in furtherance of criminal activity. In the Internet pharmacy world, the trend over the past four years has been unmistakable: A growing number of registrars worldwide, large and small, recognize the value of prohibiting the use of their registration services... more

The Recent DDoS Attacks on Banks: 7 Key Lessons

Starting in mid-September, one of the largest and most sophisticated DDoS attacks ever targeted the titans of American banking. Initially, victims included Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC Bank, and U.S. Bancorp. In the weeks to come, others would also feel the pain. Websites crashed, customers were unable to make transactions and IT professionals and PR gurus went into panic mode. Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of Defense, said the attacks foreshadowed a "Cyber Pearl Harbor." more

Hurricane Sandy Had Surprising Impact on Global Internet Traffic Flow

In addition to knocking out power and Internet connectivity in a significant part of the New York metropolitan area, Sandy also had a surprising impact on the world's Internet traffic, traffic that neither originated from nor was destined to areas effected by the storm, Renesys reports. "From locations around the globe as varied as Chile, Sweden and India, some Internet traffic was forced onto alternate paths, avoiding failures at critical transit points in the NYC area." more

Persistent Threat Detection on a Budget

If there's one simple - high impact - thing you could do to quickly check whether your network has been taken over by a criminal entity, or uncover whether some nefarious character is rummaging through your organizations most sensitive intellectual property out of business hours, what would it be? In a nutshell, I'd look to my DNS logs. It's staggering to me how few security teams have gotten wise to regularly interrogating the logs from their recursive DNS servers. more

Brussels Mandate: Community-Developed Tmch Gains Ascendancy

ICANN has tentatively agreed to proceed with the community-developed Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) model following two days of discussions at a specially organised informal meeting in Brussels last week. I believe this is an important breakthrough for the intellectual property, registry and registrar communities as it provides the best harmony between technical implementation and best practice trademark protection policy. more

ICANN Clarifying Questions - How Are They Structured? (Part 1 of 3)

Several weeks ago ICANN issued clarifying questions to approximately 50 of the 1,930 new gTLD applications submitted last spring. Some of our clients were selected for this pilot effort and we've had the opportunity to review seven sets of clarifying questions totaling approximately 30 individual questions. ICANN has indicated that in late November they will begin issuing Clarifying Questions to the balance of applicants. more

Watch The IGF 2012 Live From Baku

The Seventh Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is underway now in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 6-9, 2012. Very appropriately, it is possible to listen in to any of the sessions remotely across the Internet. Details can be found here... more

Internet Connectivity: Toward a Sustainable Funding Model

I'm writing this in the midst of policy discussions between the Internet world (as embodied in ISOC) and the Telecommunications industry (ITU). The Internet and Telecommunications are very different concepts. The Internet allows us to focus on the task at hand. That's why it is so exciting. Historically telecommunication assumed value was created inside the network and this creates conflict with creating value outside the network. more