Real Connection Speeds for Internet Users Around the World

Royal Pingdom takes a look at real-world connection speeds for people in the top 50 countries on the Internet, i.e. the countries with the most Internet users. This list of countries ranges from China at number 1 with 420 million Internet users, and Denmark at number 50 with 4.75 million Internet users. We've included this ranking within parenthesis next to each country in the charts below for those who want to know. These 50 countries together have more than 1.8 billion Internet users. more

Data Based Decision Making

A new report was released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the US Department of Commerce... It is a 68 page report with a wealth of data to help understand the factors that differentiate levels of adoption and to try to understand the reasons for non-adoption of residential broadband. In the US, people who don't use the internet represent two thirds of non-users of broadband... more

Dan Kaminsky Releases Phreebird for Easy DNSSEC

Today marks another key step in DNSSEC deployment. Congrats to Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist at Doxpara and one of our partners on the Practice Safe DNS campaign, on the release of his new code Phreebird. Announced today at Black Hat Abu Dhabi, Phreebird Suite 1.0 is a free, easy-to-use toolkit that lets organizations "test-drive" DNSSEC deployment. more

Vertical Integration of gTLDs Registries and Registrars Now Permitted

While many were expecting a decision of strict Registry/Registrar separation, in an unexpected ruling, it was announced that ICANN will not restrict cross-ownership between Registries and Registrars. While the current set of agreements prohibits Registries from acquiring Registrars, they do not prohibit Registrars from applying for or operating TLDs. The Board Resolutions also made note of the fact that while individually negotiated contracts have included restrictions on Registry ownership of Registrars, cross-ownership provisions have varied over time and no formal "policy" on this topic has ever been recommended by the GNSO or adopted by ICANN. more

ICANN Board Gets Decisive, Vertical Integration Debate Killed Off

Michele Neylon writes: "Earlier this morning ICANN made public the resolutions from the most recent board meeting of November 5th 2010. The meeting was not a "normal" meeting - it was deemed a "special meeting" and its sole topic was vertical integration and cross-ownership between registrars and registries. This topic, often simply referred to as VI, has been a subject of debate - often very heated - for the last 12 months." more

AOL Issues This Week to Look Out For

A few issues may affect some senders/outbound mail across the email industry this week... A few folks in the industry said they saw false positives of RLY:B1 blocks since Monday the 8th. If you notice these, ensure you follow necessary procedure: check to see all is good on your end, and then submit a support ticket to AOL's postmaster group. more

FISMA Focus: Continuously Monitoring the Cyber-Levee

NIST's release of their initial public draft of SP 800-137, Guide for Continuous Monitoring of Information Systems and Organizations will create a set of challenges for the federal cybersecurity community. Agencies and contractors will need to shape the document through the multi-stage revision process while continuing to implement their own continuous monitoring measures. more

Yet Another Unfortunate CAN SPAM Case

The case Melaleuca v. Hansen has been moving slowly through Idaho federal court since 2007. On Sept 30 the court decided in favor of the defendants. Although the outcome is probably correct, the court's decision perpetuates the misreading of CAN SPAM from the infamous Gordon case that makes it in practice impossible to win a CAN SPAM case in the 9th Circuit. more

Big Rumble in Tokyo Over JPRS’s Announcement to Offer gTLD Domains

In an announcement at a registrars meeting in Tokyo on October 19th 2010, JPRS announced that they would be offering generic Top-Level Domains (.com, .net, .org, etc.) to their .jp accredited registrars in the near future. JPRS is already famous for their double-dipping practices, acting as both registry and registrar for .jp domains, for their dubious "campaigns" which are aimed at being dis-advantageous to smaller registrars and for their famous registrar back-end "system" which is circa 1995 technology and even prone to accidental DOS attacks by registrars trying to simply drop-catch domains. more

China and Taiwan to Lead the Development of 4G

China missed out on playing a leadership role in the development of 3G and as we predicted at that time, China would most certainly start looking at 4G for a major involvement in developing the technologies for it. more

How Not to Get Your Mail Delivered

A small company in suburban Philadelphia called Holomaxx recently filed two lawsuits against large webmail providers, complaining that they weren't delivering mail from Holomaxx. The first suit is against Microsoft and Return Path, and the second suit is against Yahoo and Cisco/Ironport. Neither is going anywhere. more

GFC Slows Down Cloud Computing Developments

The ongoing Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has also had a significant impact on some of the developments in our industry -- for example, cloud computing. It looks as though the GFC is the key reason that developments in cloud computing have not happened more quickly. Industry evidence suggests that shifting to the cloud saves 20%-50% off current IT deployments, and, according to its advocates, it can be many times more than that. more

Ed Felten Named FTC’s First Chief Technologist

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has named Edward Felten, a Princeton professor of computer science and public affairs, as its Chief Technologist, effective January 1. Felten's main role will be to provide advice on technology policy issues. more

4% of Americans Online Use Location-Based Services, According to Pew Survey

In its first report on the use of "geosocial" or location-based services, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services. more

Myanmar Internet Down from Massive DDoS Attack

Craig Labovitz of Arbor Networks reports: "Back in 2007, the Myanmar government reportedly severed all Myanmar Internet connectivity in a crackdown over growing political unrest. Yesterday, Myanmar once again fell of the Internet. Over the course of the past several days, Myanmar's main Internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (or PTT for short), suffered a large, sustained DDoS attack disrupting most network traffic in and out of the country." more