/ Recently Commented

Death of the PKI Dragons?

The recent attack on the Comodo Certification Authority has not only shown how vulnerable the current public key infrastructure is, but also that the protocols (e.g., OSCP) used to mitigate these vulnerabilities once exploited, are not in use, not implemented correctly or not even implemented at all. Is this the beginning of the death of the PKI dragons and what alternatives do we have? more

Old Cloud vs. New Cloud

Images of clouds have been used when discussing networks for quite some time. When traditional telecoms companies were selling point-to-point circuits a drawing of a cloud was sometimes used. The cloud symbol helped indicate the provider?s domain of responsibility, effectively hid the internal complexity of the network and focused on the end user. This was all fine when the product offered was an end-to-end circuit. more

Microsoft Offers $7.5 Million to Buy 666,624 IPv4 Addresses

Jaikumar Vijayan reporting in InfoWorld: "Microsoft has agreed to pay $7.5 million to purchase a block of 666,624 IPv4 addresses from bankrupt Canadian telecom equipment maker Nortel in a move that some see as a signal of the increasing value of IPv4 addresses. Last week, Nortel filed a motion seeking approval for the sale from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. If the deal is approved, Microsoft would assume control of the IPv4 addresses, currently owned by Nortel, for about $11.25 a piece." more

ICANN and the GAC - Lessons Learned Since Cartagena

Experience is the best teacher. In the interest of capturing lessons learned (and avoiding the repetition of hard experiences needlessly), it is worth highlighting what the interactions between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) since Cartagena have taught. more

Digging Through the Problem of IPv6 and Email - Part 2

We have seen that spammers already possess the ability to hop around IP addresses quickly. They do this because once an IP gets blocked, it is no longer useful to them. There are only so many places they can hide, though - 4.2 billion places they can hide. However, in IPv6, if they are able to do the same pattern of sending out mail and hopping around IP addresses the same way they do in IPv4, then there is virtually unlimited space they can hide in. more

The CSTD WG on IGF, Multi-Stakeholderism, and Short Deadlines

One of the many Internet governance discussions currently taking place is at the CSTD Working Group on improvements to the IGF, which is due to have its second and final meeting on 24 and 25 March 2011. Despite an unpromising beginning, with only governments on the Working Group (WG), it is now a multi-stakeholder environment, with the technical, business and civil society represented at the WG and genuinely welcomed by governments to participate in the WG's deliberations. more

2nd Annual RIPE NCC - LEA meeting: Cooperation Unfolds

On Wednesday 16 March the Serious Organised Crime Agency organised a meeting in London with the RIPE NCC. For the second time law enforcers from the whole world met with the RIPE NCC and RIPE community representatives to discuss cooperation. RIPE NCC staged several very interesting presentations that showed the LEAs the importance of the work done within RIPE and ARIN, the information RIPE NCC has and the relevance of all this to LEAs. Also issues were addressed that can potentially be harmful to future investigations. more

Do Not Enter, It’s .XXX Again

There soon will be a central place for Web surfers to dwell in a forbidden cyber land of adult fantasies, sex, dark rituals and total taboos. Finally, ICANN has given in to the pressure and has tossed a big rock across the turbulent e-commerce ocean. It has approved a new suffix, .xxx, for adult-only porn sites, creating ripples and debates in ever so confusing global cyber branding times when cyber global domain name challenges are being fought in the complex earthly trademark realities. Three things are bound to happen. more

ICANN Approves .XXX

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in its board meeting in San Francisco on Friday, approved the .xxx Top-Level Domain. The ICANN board members voted 8 for, 3 against, 4 abstain. While the decision still has to undergo final review with IANA and the US Department of Commerce, it appear that ICANN's decade-long, most controversial Top-Level Domain application to date has now concluded. more

Microsoft, Federal Agencies Take Down Rustock Botnet

Neil Schwartzman writes: "There is a lot of press on the profound effect the take-down of the Rustock botnet, affected by Microsoft, some U.S. federal agencies, and countless others working in the background to assist in the effort. CAUCE has aggregated a few of the best stories and data-points. A community congratulations, and thank-you to all those involved!" more

COICA and Secure DNS

As a strong proponent of the private right of action for all Internet endpoints and users, I've long been aware of the costs in complexity and chaos of any kind of "blocking" that deliberately keeps something from working. I saw this as a founder at MAPS back in 1997 or so when we created the first RBL to put some distributed controls in place to prevent the transmission of unwanted e-mail from low reputation Internet addresses. What we saw was that in addition to the expected costs (to spammers) and benefits (to victims) of this new technology there were unintended costs to system and network operators whose diagnostic and repair work for problems related to e-mail delivery was made more complex because of the new consideration for every trouble ticket: "was this e-mail message blocked or on purpose?" more

Quake Damage in Japan

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan rocked the northeastern portion of the coast. The quake was the strongest to hit Japan in at least a century, sending a tsunami that flooded northern towns and also reached portions of the United States, including Hawaii. The quake was followed by a 7.1-magnitude aftershock. Impact on Internet connectivity... Japan’s Internet performance seemed to have emerged largely unscathed, but concerns continue for the telecommunications infrastructure as the country struggles to meet power demands in a state-of-emergency. more

The Rest of the World Is Still Waiting…

Good news. In now my 15th ICANN meeting or so it's clear that the internet governance community is finally taking some real note of the rest of the world -- including the over 50% of humankind that doesn't use Latin script characters to communicate. In fact, talk of emerging markets is everywhere at the San Francisco ICANN meeting this week. The ICANN Board and Government Advisory Committee (or GAC, a group of government representatives that advise the Board) are talking about the needs of developing countries. more

IPv6 Address Allocations

Last year, we presented statistics on the number of RIPE NCC members and the resources distributed to them. Now, one year later, we revisit the topic and look at how things evolved in 2010. We were particularly interested to see how the number of IPv6 allocations increased over time. more

DNSSEC - Let’s Stay the Course!

I don't know about you, but I'm starting to think that DNSSEC being so hot these days is a mixed blessing. Yes, it's wonderful that after so many years there is finally broad consensus for making DNSSEC happen. But being so prominent also means the protocol is taking shots from those who don't want to make the necessary software, hardware and operational modifications needed. And DNSSEC has taken some shots from those who just want to be contrarian. more