Working in the anti-spam and online malware fight can be depressing or at best invoke multiple personality disorder. We all know things are bad on the net, but if you want a dose of stark reality, check out Brian Kreb's fantastic 'Security Fix' blog on the Washington Post site... Speaking to an old friend who asked me what I was doing these days, I recently likened the fight against this relentless onslaught to having one's pinky in a dyke, and there are days when I don't even think we have a dyke! more
The termination of ICANN-accredited registrar EstDomains is to go ahead, effective 24 November 2008. On 28 October 2008, ICANN sent a notice of termination to EstDomains, Inc. based on an Estonian Court record reflecting the conviction of EstDomains' then president, Vladimir Tsastsin, of credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery. Pursuant to Section 5.3 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN may terminate the RAA before its expiration when, "Any officer or director of [a] Registrar is convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor related to financial activities..." more
Well, at this point, the government is well on its way to bailing out Wall Street from its own incompetence, putting taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion. The worst part is that as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson puts it, "You're worried about taxpayers being on the hook? Well, guess what? They're already on the hook!" I read that and said "Aw, crap..." Anyhow, Wall Street should maybe learn something from botnet operators. For you see, botnets are not just for sending spam anymore. The bots have diversified their holdings... more
As opposition grows against the Government's controversial plan to censor the internet, the head of one of Australia's largest ISPs has labeled the Communications Minister the worst we've had in the past 15 years. Despite significant opposition from internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators and online rights activists, the Government is pressing ahead with its election promise of protecting people from unwanted material, this week calling for expressions of interests from ISPs keen to participate in live trials of the proposed internet filtering system. Michael Malone, head of iiNet, Australia's largest ISP, said he would sign up to be involved in the "ridiculous" trials, just to show how impractical it is. more
My friend Om Malik, dean of the telecom bloggers, posted on the importance of the Federal Communications Commission Chair appointment Obama will make as President... Om is dead on about the importance of this appointment. Decisions made by the five member FCC commission have had and will have an enormous effect not only on the tech sector but on the entire US and even the global economy. more
Massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against ISPs and their customers have almost doubled over the past year, according to a new security report. Attacks on networks making them unavailable to intended users -- also known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- exceeded 40 gigabits in the last year according to Arbor Networks' annual survey of ISPs from North America, South America, Europe and Asia. more
A recent study has revealed some of the economics behind junk mail and spam conversion rates conducted in early 2008 by computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD). The analysis has suggested that spam operations are able to remain profitable and generate millions from minute response rates. The study is described as the first large-scale quantitative study of spam conversion. more
In the past year ICANN has been putting a lot more effort into its compliance activities, which is a good thing, since the previous level was, ah, exiguous. That's the good news. The bad news is that while they're paying more attention to misbehaving registrants, the registrars, gatekeepers to the world of domains, have serious issues that ICANN has yet to address. more
According to a report by the Defense Science Board, the President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a cybersecurity infrastructure that is ill-prepared for advanced cyberattacks which will be of particular challenge for the new leaders... Reporting today on eWeek, Roy Mark writes: "The Bush administration has been widely criticized by security experts as de-emphasizing cyber-security and hamstringing the authority of officials in charge of government-wide cyber-security" said Roy Mark in a report eWeek." more
The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) recently released a statement that implied that cybersquatting is a criminal activity. It said, "CADNA has been working diligently to further international and national policies that combat the practice of cybersquatting... As brands continue to learn about the prevalence and practice of online criminal activities..." While, Internet Commerce Association (ICA) vigorously opposes cybersquatting, it is important to note that cybersquatting is a civil matter, not a criminal one. There is a good reason that cybersquatting is a civil matter... more
Following up on the big decision at the Paris ICANN meeting in June to make new Top-Level Domains available, there's lots of activity at the ICANN conference in Cairo, Egypt this week. A few of the hot topics of discussion that we are following are the applications process for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), Registry/Registrar Cross Ownership, and restructuring of the ICANN Board. more
Yesterday, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to allow qualified devices to operate on a license-exempt basis in unused portions of TV channels 2-51, spectrum commonly referred to as "TV white spaces." A lot has already been written about this move... But what is missing in these discussions is the bigger picture. more
According to a report released today by market research company Point Topic, consumers worldwide are getting better deals on broadband. Out of the three main broadband technologies, DSL, Cable, and Fiber, DSL has seen the largest worldwide fall in average price for a subscription which dropped from $66.75 in first quarter of this year to $53.32 in third quarter. That is a 20% drop in the first 3 quarters of the year. In comparison average subscription prices for cable are down just over 12% and for different versions of fiber (often called FTTx) down by 6.5%. more
Yesterday will go down in history as a bellwether moment. Few among us will soon forget the excitement of Obama's election. But there was an equally historic vote yesterday that for geeks, policy analysts, and technologists represents an entirely new trajectory in telecommunications. In essence, the FCC has begun the transition from command-and-control, single-user spectrum licensure to a more distributed system that holds the potential to eliminate the artificial scarcity that prevented widespread access to the public airwaves since 1927. more
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved, in a 5-0 unanimous vote, the plan to open up unused, unlicensed portions of TV white space spectrum for wireless applications and devices. However, to prevent interference, FCC has also placed some "rigorous certification process" which device offered by a technology company for use on the white spaces will have to go through. more
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