Security is great when all the green lights are shining brightly and everything validates as intended, but what happens when you encounter failure? In this work we examine the behaviour of the DNS when security, in the form of DNSSEC is added, and we look at what happens when things do not happen as intended. What triggered this examination was a sudden increase in the traffic generated by secondary servers for the in-addr.arpa reverse zones in December 2009. more
The UK government on Wednesday announced plans to introduce new laws for internet connected devices to better enforce the inclusion of basic cybersecurity features into IoT devices. more
One of the ongoing recommendations to improve deliverability is to send email that is timely and relevant to the recipient. The idea being that if you send mail a recipient wants, they're more likely to interact with it in a way that signals to the mailbox provider that the message is wanted. The baseline for that, at least whenever I've talked about timely and relevant, is that the recipient asked for mail from you in the first place. more
The website designated by Dell Inc. to help customers recover from malicious software and other computer maladies may have been hijacked for a few weeks this summer by people who specialize in deploying said malware, reports Brian Krebs in KrebsOnSecurity. more
As previously noted, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today held a full committee hearing on ICANN's expansion of top level domains (TLDs). The hearing was held to examine the merits and implications of the program and ICANN's efforts to address concerns raised. ICANN will begin accepting applications for new TLDs on January 12, 2012. more
Anyone who works in privacy is familiar with the term "data shadow": the digital record created by our transactions, our travels, our online activities. But where did the phrase come from? Who used it first? A number of authors have attributed it to Alan Westin, whose seminal book Privacy and Freedom (largely a report on the work of the Committee on Science and Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York) set the stage for most modern discussions of privacy. more
Earlier today Google announced the launch of their new DNS service. They're pushing it as part of their "better experience" and "speed" drive that Matt Cutts and Co have been harping on about for the last while. OpenDNS, however, has been offering a similar service for quite some time... So it was quite interesting to read OpenDNS' response to the Google service. more
Microsoft has placed an experimental data center the size of a shipping container on the seafloor near Scotland's Orkney Islands to test the feasibility of saving energy by naturally cooling it in the sea. more
The trademark rights required for standing under paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) refer to both registered and unregistered rights. Complainants with registered trademarks satisfy the requirement by submitting their certificates of registration. However, and not surprisingly, complainants with unregistered trademarks have to demonstrate that the alleged marks qualify as such, which requires that complainants prove both secondary meaning of the marks and their distinctiveness prior to the registration of the domain name. more
Popular email editors today have no way to optimize for text length. An email marketer may attempt to build her content but has no idea whether that content is optimized related to word count for a specific industry/client. As it relates only to text length, does the email have too many or too few words. Currently, there is no built-in predictive model to inform her. Well, until now. Last month we described an evolutionary real-time data-driven process for email campaign builders to have at their disposal. more
U.S. senators on Tuesday announced plans to introduce legislation seeking to address vulnerabilities in IoT devices. more
New top-level domain applicants are getting plenty of advice nowadays about how to launch their new Registry. In addition to thinking about their branding and distribution, they should also be thinking about their business practices with Registrars. What many of them do not realize is that their cash flow practices, with respect to Registrars, may be a factor of whether ICANN Registrars even support their Registry. more
Apple CEO, Steve Jobs today announced the highly anticipated iPad and told the crowed that the company is now a $50 Billion a year company -- the majority of it being from sales of mobile devices including iPod, iPhone, and laptops. Now with the introduction of iPad, Jobs calls apple a mobile device company: "Apple is a mobile devices company. This is what we do." Jobs says Apple is the number one mobile devices company in the world. more
In a new documentary, filmmaker Ben Mendelsohn, takes a look at New York City's 60 Hudson Street as one of the world's most concentrated hubs of Internet connectivity. "Set in the dense, mixed-use neighborhood of Tribeca, the building's nondescript brick exterior conceals several network interconnection facilities where huge amounts of data are exchanged," writes Mendelsohn. The short documentary titled, "Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors," takes a look at the history behind the building and a peak at the hidden infrastructure within. more
The mainly politically-driven debate - FttH versus wireless broadband - is spreading uninformed messages and half-truths in the market. And confusing messages from mobile operators are also blurring the picture. All well-informed people confirm that this is a nonsensical debate -- both infrastructures will coexist with, and supplement, each other. more