Facebook Building Its Next Datacenter in Ireland, Most Advanced in the World Company Says

Facebook has announced the construction of a new $220 million (€200 million) data centre in Clonee, County Meath, Ireland. This will be Facebook's sixth data center worldwide and the company's second in Europe, after Luleå in Sweden. more

Brexit Likely to Pause U.K. Data Center Build-outs

Could Brexit spell turbulence for cloud computing? Larry Dignan reporting in ZDNet: "Get ready for the pause in U.K. data center build-outs. The only certainty about the United Kingdom's move to exit the European Union is the cloud computing ecosystem is going to see some turbulence and uncertainty ahead. more

A Brief History and Recent Developments in the Co-Existence of Web2 and Web3 Domains

The Domain Name System (DNS, aka Web 2) and Web3 platforms are two different naming systems available to internet users. While the DNS (Web2) has been a reliable and trusted internet standard for decades, Web3 platforms (such as ENS, Handshake and Unstoppable) are a relatively new technology deployment that presents unique and different features. more

Making Voting Easy is Scaring the Life Out of Security Experts

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight which landed the first two humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module, Eagle, on July 20, 1969. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours later, and Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later. The two astronauts spent about two and a quarter hours outside the spacecraft, and they collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back. more

World Internet Statistics December 2025

Global internet use has surpassed six billion users, yet stark divides persist between regions, genders and urban-rural populations. Meanwhile, download speeds have surged and smartphones now dominate how people access the web worldwide. more

Interoperability Testing Event for DMARC Email Anti-Spoofing Specification

At the end of January, the DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) specification was publicly announced and resulted in widespread media coverage, blog posts and discussion. Since that time various individuals and organizations have been working on writing code for DMARC validators and report parsers. The dmarc-discuss list has been fairly active as various questions and issues have been raised and clarified. Now it is time to see how well the various implementations play together in live testing. more

Economy-of-Scale for ISPs

I've worked with a number of small communities that want to explore the idea of having a community-owned ISP. My advice to small communities is the same as with all clients - economy-of-scale really matters for ISPs. Economy-of-scale is the economic term for describing how businesses get more efficient as they get larger. It's fairly easy to understand, and the classic example is to look at the impact of the salary and costs of the general manager of an ISP.  more

Are .Brand Applications Being Scared Off by Financial CQ’s?

There has been an upsurge in brands withdrawing their applications. The timing undoubtedly is due to the deadline of 70% refund of the $185k application fee. But why are so many of the withdrawals .brand/closed generics? Having been involved in drafting of financial projections for over 50 applications and having answered a number of financial Clarification Questions, I believe that the major reason why there is an acceleration in .brands, especially closed ones, is that they are receiving a large number of CQs... more

Shim6 Host-Based IPv6 Multihoming: Ready for Testing

During the last decade, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been designing IPv6 as a replacement for IPv4. Most of the initial benefits of IPv6 (security, QoS, autoconfiguration,...) have been ported to IPv4 and IPv6 deployment has been limited. However, thanks to the huge IPv6 addressing space, it is possible to design protocols and mechanisms that are more scalable and more powerful than with IPv4. A typical example is the multihoming problem. This problem occurs when a site is attached to several Internet Service providers... more

DOTZON Study: Digital City Brands 2022

The 2022 edition of the DOTZON study Digital City Brands has just been published. After having introduced the study in early 2017, DOTZON has mapped for the sixth year in a row how successful cities are in using their Digital City Brands. The Digital City Brand is the digital dimension of the City Brand and mirrors the "Digitalness" of a city. The advent of the Internet was the reason why Digital City Brands came into being in the first place. more

Africa, Let’s Embrace v6 Now!

AFRINIC is the regional Internet registry for Africa, and our core activity is to manage and distribute Internet numbers resources (IPv4, IPv6 and ASN's) to the 57 economies in Africa. IPv4 address scarcity is a very real issue worldwide, the internet keeps growing and the demand for Internet addresses will continue to grow. Africa has the lowest number of Internet users in the world. Internet's penetration in Africa jumped from very low level in 2009, to around 16% of individuals in 2013 and over 20% in 2015. more

New Products, Old Regulations: The Example of HTS

Every day, new technologies bring us closer to ubiquitous connectivity. If the capabilities of technology is advancing at a fast pace, the same is not always true of regulations; when creating or marketing a new technology, regulation is likely to act as a bottleneck. Understanding regulatory challenges is therefore the foundation that your next move rest on. Although the target may be a global or regional market, it's essential that strategies are designed both well in advance and target each jurisdiction individually. more

Approved: Apple Patent to Allow Disabling iPhone Cams via Infrared Emitters - Censorship Fears Ensue

The patent for a technology to disable iPhone cameras -- filed by Apple in 2009 -- won approval from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on Tuesday. While logical to counter bootlegging, idea has raised censorship concerns amongst groups such as freedom of expression advocates. more

Application for .gay TLD Rejected for the Second Time

ICANN has rejected the application from dotgay LLC for a second time, saying the .gay string does not match the community that dotgay claims to represent. more

Keys to Successful Collaboration and Solving Wicked Internet Problems

The incredible pace of change of the Internet -- from research laboratory inception to global telecommunication necessity -- is due to the continuing pursuit, development and deployment of technology and practices adopted to make the Internet better. This has required continuous attention to a wide variety of problems ranging from "simple" to so-called "wicked problems". Problems in the latter category have been addressed through collaboration. This post outlines key characteristics of successful collaboration activities. more