Way back in 1995, Wired reporter Simson Garfinkel gave Jeff Slaton the name "Spam King." Less than a year later, Sanford Wallace earned the title -- and soon had to share it (and his upstream provider) with Walt Rines. Others have come and gone; Sanford and Walt reappear every few years, together or separately, only to be sued away again... it seems as if any spammer noticed by law enforcement is immediately crowned "the Spam King," even when there are multiple such crownings happening at the same time. more
Use of search engines on a daily bases has been steadily rising from about one-third in 2002 to current rate of just under 50% according to a recent report by Pew Internet & American Life Project. With this increase, the search engine use will soon be reaching that of email which is currently 60% of internet users. The study also points out that these "new figures propel search further out of the pack, well ahead of other popular internet activities, such as checking the news, which 39% of internet users do on a typical day, or checking the weather, which 30% do on a typical day." more
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, in negotiations with other Internet companies and human rights organizations, have reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other countries that censor the Internet. The participants are reviewing the agreement for final approval. more
U.S. consumers lost almost $8.5 billion over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes according to latest projections from the Consumer Reports State of the Net survey. Additionally, report estimates that American consumers have replaced about 2.1 million computers over the past two years because of online threats. Survey has also reveals some hopeful signs such as declining chances of becoming a cybervictim -- consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. more
In light of today's FCC ruling against Comcast, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a software tool dubbed, "Switzerland," for internet users to check ISP interference of their connections. Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney says: "The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection. It's up to concerned Internet users to investigate possible network neutrality violations, and EFF's Switzerland software is designed to help with that effort. Comcast isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, ISP to meddle surreptitiously with its subscribers' Internet communications for its own benefit." more
In a letter sent by bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to ICANN, the department has made it clear that despite recent discussions in Paris meetings, the U.S. department intends to remain in full authority over the Internet root zone. more
An acquaintance asked whether there's been any progress in the oft-rumored project to come up with a more secure replacement for SMTP. Answer: No. Truly, spam isn't a technical problem, it's a social one. If we could figure out some way to make mail recipient networks and hosts willing to shun known bad actors, even at the cost of losing some real mail for a while until the bad actors cave, it would make vastly more difference than any possible technical changes. more
Today X-Force, IBM's security research and development arm, released its 2008 Midyear Trend Statistics report that indicates cyber-criminals are adopting new automation techniques and strategies that allow them to exploit vulnerabilities much faster than ever before. The new tools are being implemented on the Internet by organized criminal elements, and at the same time public exploit code published by researchers are putting more systems, databases and ultimately, people at risk of compromise. more
Some think IPv6 with its myriad addresses will accelerate the evolution of a hyperconnected world. But could a world where everything and everybody is sensed, monitored, located, to augment our quasi real-time interaction with the world outside our little selves, lead to total dependency, if not to gradual stupidity of the human race? Not surprisingly, a favourite topic for (late night) Internet Conference bar discussions... more
So I wrote earlier that I though it was good stuff when ICANN released a paper on DNS Security. Yes, I think it was good this paper was released, and yes it points out correctly how important DNSSEC is. But, now when reading it in detail, I find two things that troubles me. And it has to do with management of .ARPA. A top level domain that is used for infrastructural purposes. Like IP-addresses and E.164 numbers... more
Worldwide consumer broadband connections will grow from 323 million connections in 2007 to 499 million in 2012, according to latest research by Gartner. Worldwide consumer broadband connections penetrated 18 percent of households in 2007, and by 2012, households with a broadband connection are expected to reach 25 percent. Five countries exceeded 60 percent broadband penetration into the home in 2007; and, this is expected to grow to 17 countries by 2012. The five countries with broadband penetration into the home above 60 percent are Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland, South Korea and Hong Kong. more
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has acknowledged that they are aware of the publicly available exploit code for a cache poisoning vulnerability in common DNS implementations. US-CERT is re-emphasizing the urgency of patching vulnerable DNS systems. more
Today ICANN releases a paper with the title "DNSSEC @ ICANN - Signing the root zone: A way forward toward operational readiness". The paper explains in more detail than earlier documents what ICANN view on signing of the root zone is. I think the key points mentioned in this paper are true, and in general, I think this document is a good read. It is not long, and summarizes what I would call the current view is. more
A new nonprofit organization called the Open Web Foundation (OWF) launched today with a mission to be an independent non-profit dedicated to the development and protection of open, non-proprietary specifications for web technologies. "The Open Web needs Open Data, Open Date needs Open Specifications," is one of the statements used in today's opening presentation. With backing from some of the biggest companies including Google, MySpace, Facebook, and Yahoo, the foundation plans to serve as a placeholder for "all the legal dirty work that needs to happen in order for data portability to become a reality." more
As warned by Dan Kaminsky, Paul Vixie, and numerous other experts experts, it was just a matter of time before an exploit code for the now public DNS flaw would surface. An exploit code for the flaw allowing insertion of malicious DNS records into the cache of target nameservers has been posted to Metasploit, a free provider of information and tools on exploit techniques. According to reports Metasploit creator, H D Moore in collaboration with a researcher named "|)ruid" from Computer Academic Underground, created the exploit, dubbed "DNS BaliWicked Attack", along with a DNS service created to assist with the exploit. more