Comcast’s Demand for a Video Surcharge From Its Level 3 “Peer”

According to Level 3, a major long haul Internet Service Provider, Comcast has demanded a "recurring fee" when Level 3 hands off movie and other high capacity video traffic for delivery by Comcast to one of the cable company's subscribers. This demand warrants scrutiny, perhaps less in the context of Network Neutrality and more in terms of further diversification (unraveling) of the peering process. more

DNS: The Basis for Billions

In the midst of "Cyber Monday", the day traditionally seen as one of the year's busiest days for online shopping, it is only appropriate to examine the importance DNS plays for online economies. With DNS being at the heart of Internet connectivity it is easy to understand why DNS is important to the growing health of economies whose online health in dollars and euros rest in the billions. more

Domain Registrations Reaching 202 Million World Wide, 3.8 Million Growth Since Last Quarter

The third quarter of 2010 closed with a base of more than 201.8 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), an increase of 3.8 million domain names, or 2 percent over the second quarter. According to VeriSign's latest Domain Name Industry Brief released today, domain name registrations have grown by 13.3 million, or 7 percent over the past year. The base of Country Code Top Level Domains (such as .us, .ca, and .uk) was 79.2 million domain names, a 1.4 percent increase quarter over quarter, and 2.4 percent year-over-year. more

Why DNS Blacklists Don’t Work for IPv6 Networks

All effective spam filters use DNS blacklists or blocklists, known as DNSBLs. They provide an efficient way to publish sets of IP addresses from which the publisher recommends that mail systems not accept mail. A well run DNSBL can be very effective; the Spamhaus lists typically catch upwards of 80% of incoming spam with a very low error rate. DNSBLs take advantage of the existing DNS infrastructure to do fast, efficient lookups. A DNS lookup typically goes through three computers... more

Phishing Attack: An Open Letter to the Anti-Spam and Mailbox Operator Community

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the targeted ESP phishing attack that has been ongoing for almost a year now and has led to multiple known ESP system breaches. Return Path was recently a victim of this same attack... In short, a relatively small list of our clients' email addresses was taken from us, meaning those addresses are now the targets of the phishing campaign that are intended to compromise those client systems. more

The End is Nearly in Sight for New gTLDs

A little over two weeks from now the ICANN meeting in Cartagena de Indias will be over and, if ICANN has the courage of its convictions, the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program should be on the home stretch, heading towards its official May 30 launch. The ground rules will be clear, the process predictable, and applicants will be able to begin to implement their strategies with confidence. As Elvis Presley once sang, it will be a time for "a little less conversation, a little more action, please". more

U.S. Homeland Security Launches Website Crackdowns, A Dozen Sites Already Seized

TorrentFreak reports: "Following on the heels of this week's domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it's clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods. more

Asia and Africa Top Mobile Web Usage

Highest share of mobile web usage isn't in the most developed nations, but rather in the developing nations of the world, based on StatCounter's October 2010 data. "The reason these countries have such high mobile web usage compared to desktop web usage (for lack of a better name) is very much a result of economics," says RoyalPingdom. "A relatively cheap mobile phone (most often from Nokia, as we have seen) will then be a much more realistic option, and it therefore becomes the way to reach the Web for many. " more

Outlawing Botnets

The European Commission is apparently considering the promulgation and adoption of a directive that would, at least in part, criminalize botnets. As I understand it, the premise behind adopting such a directive is that since botnets are capable of inflicting "harm" on a large scale, we need to separately criminalize them. I decided to examine the need for and utility of such legislation in this post. more

Report on Governments Involved in Edited DNS Responses

Earl Zmijewski reporting in Renesys Blog: "There's been sudden interest recently in a Chinese route hijacking incident that occurred way back in April, brought about by a new report to the US Congress that highlighted the event. A second Chinese event, also in the report, has received almost no attention despite being much more interesting (technically, anyway). A Chinese DNS censorship incident occurred just one month earlier, in March..." more

IANA and the Automation of the Root Zone Management

As an unwavering stalwart of ICANN's obligation to honor its commitments under the bylaws to "operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner" I make it a point to read the minutes of its board and committee meetings in large part because I spent most of my three years on the ICANN Board trying to get these documents timely published. In reviewing the recently published IANA Committee minutes the following item caught my attention. more

FISMA Standards Could Have a Major Impact on the Private Sector

The public is taking an increasing interest in ensuring that IT assets of federal agencies are protected from cybersecurity attacks. FISMA is addressing this concern, in part, by initiating a standard setting process for continuous monitoring. The actions taken by NIST for the federal sector could have a very significant impact on the private sector because pending legislation would provide the federal government with the authority to mandate cybesecurity measures on the private sector. more

UK Ponders Net Neutrality, Overstating Broadband Competition

The recent declaration from the UK’s minister for communications that the Internet should be tiered, thereby allowing ISPs to charge for prioritised traffic (either rated by speed delivered or by content provider) is a knee-jerk response to network strain masking as a necessary network management tool, and is a potential threat to the concept of net neutrality. ...developments in the mobile data sector make it clear that capacity constraints are appearing on mobile networks as well, long before the anticipated launch of LTE-based services in the UK in 2013. more

How Complete is the RIPE Routing Registry?

The Internet Routing Registry (IRR) is a globally distributed routing information database. The IRR consists of several databases run by various organisations in which network operators can publish their routing policies and their routing announcements in a way that allows other network operators to make use of the data. In addition to making Internet topology visible, the IRR is used by network operators to look up peering agreements, determine optimal policies and, more recently, to configure their routers. more

Mandatory Provision of Abuse Contact Information in WHOIS

An industry professional at Abusix is the backbone behind a proposal to improve and create better mitigation of abuse across different global internet networks. Basically, this introduces a mandatory "abuse contact" field for objects in global Whois databases. This provides a more efficient way for abuse reports to reach the correct network contact. Personally - as a Postmaster for a leading, white-label ISP, I applaud this with great happiness for multiple reasons. I also feel people who handle abuse desks, anti-abuse roles, etc. should closely follow this. more