A common security prediction for 2010 is the continued rise of malware and phishing attacks on mobile phones. The MarkMonitor Security Operations Center recently detected an interesting twist on this theme involving a popular smartphone and the latest smart technologies used by cybercriminals. In this case, instead of compromising a smartphone to steal its information, cybercriminals used phishing techniques to clone smartphones. more»
Over time, people have grown accustomed to most Web site addresses ending in .com, .edu or .gov. Yet a proposed expansion of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will change the way we look at domain names forever... For businesses, this change means that protecting their trademarks and searching for and watching gTLDs will become increasingly complex. more»
Mobile operators face soaring data demand. The natural evolution of 2G/3G/4G infrastructure delivers about 2X additional capacity every 24 months. That's a major disconnect! (At least) two solutions are on the table, Femtocells and Wi-Fi offload. Both approaches solve the backhaul issue by using customer or 3rd party links (DSL, DOCSIS, T1/E1, WISP or otherwise)... As a solution for mobile data capacity, Wi-Fi wins, for many reasons. more»
This is a new development in the VoIP market. This is how one of my colleagues, Cullen Jennings explained it to me. Today we have two widely deployed global identifiers for reaching people. One is delegated address out of DNS and the other is phone numbers. So I consider an address like email: carol@johnson.com or xmpp:john@gmail.com to roughly be out of the DNS namespace and phone number to be out of the E.164 name space. Phone numbers have lots of parts that are not cool, but they also have some cool parts... more»
Maybe you saw the stories recently about comments that were made at a recent World Economic Forum debate on cyberwarfare. As one of them notes, Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, proposed a treaty in which countries would pledge not to attack each other without having been attacked. This post isn't about Mr. Toure's proposal. It's about a comment the story attributes to Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft. According to The Raw Story, Mundie "called for a `driver's license' for internet users." more»
SWITCH, the registry for .CH and .LI domain names, enabled DNSSEC on day two of the annual Domain Pulse conference in Luzern yesterday. SWITCH became the third ccTLD registry to enable DNSSEC giving registrants of .CH domain names added security following .SE (Sweden) and .CZ (Czech Republic). more»
The 2010 Domain Pulse, hosted by SWITCH (the .CH registry) was held in the snowy Swiss city of Luzern. Domain Name Security (DNS) was of particular importance in this year's meeting with DNSSEC being implemented in the root zone in 2010 by ICANN, and by many registries in the next few years. ICANN plan to have all root servers signed with DNSSEC by mid-2010 Kim Davies, Manager, Root Zone Services at ICANN told the meeting, starting with the L root server, then A root server with the last being the J root server as all are gradually signed. more»
The arrival of the iPhone, Android and iPad will raise the stakes higher in the mobile broadband market. The fact that iPhone alone has over 140,000 Apps over sort of open networks, not portals, shows the demand for mobile applications. This will put an enormous strain on the infrastructure of the mobile operators and will require them to build fibre networks to all mobile stations, as well as invest in more spectrum and new technologies such as LTE. At the same time the mobile subscriber markets are becoming saturated and competition is driving margins down. more»
Again on the subject of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) ... One of the "issues" that concerned a number of people is the concept of "vertical separation". The basic idea is that domain name registries and registrars should be kept separate. While that is a wonderful Utopian ideal, the reality is that in the real world companies own other companies, people trade in stocks and shares etc., etc. So it's far from being a simple "cut and dried" situation. more»
I have previously pointed out the shortcomings of good and user friendly support for DNSSEC in Microsoft's Server 2008 R2. During the period just after I wrote the post, I had a dialogue with Microsoft, but during the last months there has been no word at all. The reason I bring this up again is that more and more Top Level Domains (TLDs) now enable DNSSEC and also the fact that within six months the root will be signed. more»
Former Southwestern Bell CEO, now General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre famously accused Google of free-riding his network, despite the obvious truth that Google pays for traffic delivery to peering points and ISPs gladly enter into reciprocal peering agreements in lieu of cash transactions that would likely result in a near zero payment as roughly equivalent traffic balances out. Mr. Whitacre did raise a legitimate question whether there are free riders and I'm seeing one darling and one unexpected group flying below the radar. more»
The Australian has a good article describing the efforts some of their ISPs are making in an attempt to clean up their act: the government is encouraging ISPs to detect computers on their network that are infected and part of botnets, and to communicate to the customer that their system is compromised... Unless the customer feels a little bit of pain they will not change their ways. more»
While I was giving my .music presentation at ICANN Studenkreis in Barcelona, Spain last week, it dawned upon me. There was not one single ICANN staff member sitting in the room taking notes on any of the presentations given by TLD applicants. I was convinced that it would be beneficial to ICANN staff to observe our presentations and perhaps receive useful feedback from TLD applicants that could be used to better draft the Expressions of Interest recommendation. more»
Before, during and after his inaugural speech (January 2009) President Obama spoke of the national benefits of broadband, and the changes which have been set in motion in the US telecoms market that were unheard of even a year ago. During the previous administration the incumbent telcos and cable companies had been given more freedom. As a consequence, innovation and competition dwindled and the US was no longer a leader in telecoms... However, since that time, the White House has lost some of its initial leadership. more»
There have been a number of reports recently about customer lists leaking out through Email Service Providers (ESPs). In one case, the ESP attributed the leak to an outside hack. In other cases, the ESPs and companies involved have kept the information very quiet and not told anyone that data was leaked. People do notice, though, when they use single use addresses or tagged addresses and know to whom each address was submitted. Data security is not something that can be glossed over and ignored. more»
New York Times – US house today approved the Cybersecurity Act that reauthorizes several National Science Foundation cybersecurity programs. Janie Lorber of the New York Times reports: "The House today overwhelmingly passed a bill aimed at building up the United States’ cybersecurity army and expertise, amid growing alarm over the country’s vulnerability online. The bill, which passed 422-5, requires the Obama administration to conduct an agency-by-agency assessment of cybersecurity workforce skills and establishes a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students who agree to work as cybersecurity specialists for the government after graduation."
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Washington Post –
Google and NSA, a leading electronic surveillance organization, are said to be entering a partnership where the two organizations could share critical data without violating Google's policies or other privacy laws, according to sources. Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reports: "Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google -- and its users -- from future attack." ›››
Joe Schoenmann of the Las Vegas Sun reports: "The Las Vegas City Council will debate today whether to strike a deal with an Internet entrepreneur who seeks to use the Internet suffix .vegas -- over the objections of Clark County officials and one local company who say the city is jumping the gun and in the process likely shortchanging Las Vegas and county taxpayers. The council will consider endorsing a proposal by Dot Vegas Inc., to create the top-level Internet domain ".vegas" -- a new suffix that could be used in addition to the familiar .com, .net, .gov or .org suffixes that end most Web addresses." ›››
For the upcoming 25th anniversary of .com Top-Level Domain, VeriSign, the registry operator of the domain will launch a year-long initiative to celebrate the event. From the announcement: "In March 1985, the first .com domain was registered, igniting the birth of the consumer Internet that, 25 years later, continues to transform communications, commerce and our society as a whole. Beginning in March 2010, VeriSign, the long-time operator of the .com domain, will lead an industry-wide initiative to recognize the innovators and leaders that have shaped the first 25 years of .com and in doing so transformed our economy and society. The celebration of "25 Years of .com" will kick off with a policy-focused event in Washington, DC on March 16." ›››
Network World – ISP's are seeing a large amount of inbound IPv6 traffic originating from Google. Carolyn Marsan of Network World writes: "Google has quietly turned on IPv6 support for its YouTube video streaming Web site, sending a spike of IPv6 traffic across the Internet that has continued from last Thursday until Monday. Industry observers say YouTube appeared to be supporting IPv6 in production mode, as opposed to running a test of the next-generation Internet protocol." ›››
Following his State of the Union Speech last week, Obama was asked a number of user-submitted questions via prepared via YouTube. Popular questions included the issue of open internet and neutrality, to which Obama responded: "I'm a big believer in Net Neutrality. I campaigned on this. I continue to be a strong supporter of it. My FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has indicated that he shares the view that we've got to keep the Internet open..." ›››
Financial Times – Reported in the Financial Times: "Persistent illegal downloaders face having their internet links disconnected under a secret trade deal being negotiated by developed nations this week, according to activists and industry groups. Leaked drafts of the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement [ACTA] say the world's biggest developed nations want internet service providers to be more responsible for the content they distribute -- and even cut off repeat infringers of copyright legislation. ›››
January 28 is marked as International Data Privacy Day in order to help raise awareness and generate discussions about information privacy. This year companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, AT&T, LexisNexis and The Privacy Projects are sponsoring Data Privacy Day efforts. ›››
External Source – Loic Damilaville writes: "From May 2010, all the root servers on which the working of the domain name system depends, will be giving DNS responses signed by using the DNSSEC protocol. This evolution aims for increasing the confidence in DNS responses (by authenticating their origin); administrators of networks connected to Internet should be aware that this evolution could cause some service disruptions. In fact, the changes in the root server configuration could lead to a DNS disconnection risk, and therefore disruption of Internet service in certain cases..." ›››
A proposal to extend the DNS protocol has been submitted by Google and other DNS and content providers such as Neustar/UltraDNS. Wilmer van der Gaast and Carlo Contavalli on behalf of the Google Public DNS team said: "Our proposed DNS protocol extension lets recursive DNS resolvers include part of your IP address in the request sent to authoritative nameservers. Only the first three octets, or top 24 bits, are sent providing enough information to the authoritative nameserver to determine your network location, without affecting your privacy." The proposal aims to ultimately help send users to nearby servers in order to improves speed, latency, and network utilization. ›››
Comcast today announced plans to conduct production-network trials of IPv6 technology this year. The trials are aimed at helping identify and solve any areas of difficulty involved in the transition to IPv6, and to determine what approach will be the easiest and most seamless for its customers, says Jason Livingood, Comcast's Internet System Engineer. ›››
The deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the root zone got an official start today with its public signing for the first time. DNSSEC for the root zone is a joint effort between ICANN and VeriSign, with support from the U.S. Department of Commerce to improve security of the Internet's naming infrastructure. Kim Davies, ICANN's Manager of Root Zone Services, says: "What happened today was the deliberately un-validatable root zone started being published on l.root-servers.net. It is anticipated this will be rolled out across the other root servers over the coming months. This phase is designed to identify any issues with the larger DNS response sizes associated with DNSSEC data." ››› Updated: Jan 27, 6:17 PM
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. ›››
New Scientist – Jeff Hecht of the New Scientist writes: "There are few facets of society that have remained untouched by the internet. From business communication to leisure activity, the net has transformed the way we behave. Yet at its heart the internet has stagnated. As a slew of bandwidth-hungry services come on-stream, the fibre-optic backbone that forms its trunk routes are at risk of becoming overwhelmed by too much data. It's due for an upgrade." ›››
NPR – Garth Bruen writes: "The Food and Drug Administration is reporting that some people have gotten fake Alli that contained twice the recommended dose of sibutramine (aka. Meridia), another diet drug. The issue is possible heart problems. The FDA discovered the illegal Alli-Meridia switch when otherwise healthy people reported feeling anxious, shaky, nauseated, and sleepless after taking the bogus Alli. Some even had heart palpitations. No deaths have been reported." ›››
Royal Pingdom has put together a list of top ten places with designated country code Top-Level Domains that are barely inhabited. The list starts off with '.hm' for Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australlian territory, with zero population. Others include '.pn' for Pitcairn Islands (Population: 50), '.tf' for French Southern and Antarctic Lands (Population: 140), '.cc' for Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Population: 596) and '.va' for the Vatican City (Population: 826). ›››
Telegraph.co.uk – The denial was issued as the US administration continues to demand that Beijing provides an official "explanation" for the attacks which White House officials said had "troubled" the President Barack Obama."Any accusation that the Chinese government participated in cyber attacks, either in an explicit or indirect way, is groundless and aims to discredit China," said a spokesman for China's ministry of industry and information technology. ›››
Gadi Evron writes: "China responds to Google's accusations on its CNCERT web site, here. Johannes Ullrich just brought this to my attention on Facebook. In short, CNCERT wrote that China is the biggest victim of cyber attacks, and that Google lacks evidence to link the recent attacks to China as the perpetrator. I am certain more details and analysis will become available soon." ›››
A special board meeting was held today by ICANN in order to address the upcoming meeting in Nairobi and security concerns raised by the community as a result of recent events in the city. ICANN has reaffirmed it's commitment to the meeting in Nairobi and an announcement was made via a blog post by Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's President and CEO. ›››
CENTR, the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, has produced the following video to help explain the functioning of the Domain Name System (DNS). ›››
As we head into 2010, it's no secret that the issues of security and the prevention of internet identity theft in all its forms are of critical importance. .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, was honored to host the First .ORG Forum in Washington, D.C. more»
For those of you looking to donate to or find information on a particular charity or organization, we urge you to visit our .ORG community website directory and enter "Haiti earthquake" into the search box. more»
Neustar, Inc. today announced the debut of its UltraDNS Report Center. The new reporting tool identifies configuration issues, assesses the impact of changes, monitors resolution performance and isolates traffic problems across an entire DNS infrastructure. more»
Afilias has released the 2009 .INFO Annual Report illustrating .INFO's rise over the past eight years. .INFO currently ranks seventh among all 270+ Top Level Domains (TLD's) worldwide and first among all new TLDs introduced on the Internet since 2001. more»
Today ICANN published a draft model for soliciting Expressions of Interest for new generic top-level domains. According to the model, parties interested in submitting applications to acquire new gTLDs will be required to provide basic information about the application and a deposit of $55,000 which can be used as a credit against the full application fee of $185,000. more»
Neustar, Inc. announced today that it has implemented Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in the .US country-code top level domain registry. The technology uses public key cryptography and digital signatures to protect the Domain Name System (DNS) from attacks that hijack and redirect domain name requests. more»
MarkMonitor recently investigated to what extent popular product searches led to websites offering counterfeit and pirated goods via paid search ads. The research examined 20 of the top 1,000 product-related searches in 2008 and focused on paid search ads across the three major search engines -- Google, Yahoo! and Bing. more»
Neustar, Inc. and OpenDNS today announced the implementation of a Neustar-sponsored initiative that will provide near-real time updating of the Domain Name System (DNS) across the Internet, utilizing Neustar databases to form the DNS Real-time Directory. more»
Hostway Corporation announced today the expansion of its existing hosted storage solutions with the availability of an Enterprise-Class Shared SAN (storage area network) product. more»
During the past week, PIR has actively participated in several of the most important current policy proceedings at ICANN, and has joined in the comments filed by the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG). A brief summary of the issues, the comments, and the URLs for the full text, follows. more»
Kieren McCarthy
Internet consultant, journalist and authorJoined on Jul 09, 2006
Lauren Price
Sr. Product Marketing Manager, .ORG, The Public Interest RegistryJoined on Feb 28, 2009
Bill Thompson
Journalist, Commentator and Technology CriticJoined on Sep 09, 2004
Akash Kapur
Joined on Jun 14, 2003
Doug Mehus
Branch Customer Service Rep.Joined on Sep 19, 2003
John Levine
Author, Consultant & SpeakerJoined on Jun 14, 2004
Neil Schwartzman
Executive Director, CAUCE North AmericaJoined on Sep 15, 2003
Mark Goldberg
Telecommunications ConsultantJoined on Apr 24, 2007
Mark Partridge
Attorney & AuthorJoined on Aug 12, 2004
David Maher
Senior Vice President, Law and PolicyJoined on Mar 27, 2006
Paul Parisi
Chief Technology Officer at DNSstuff.comJoined on Oct 15, 2008
Earl Zmijewski
VP and General Manager, Internet Data ServicesJoined on May 19, 2008
Patrik Fältström
Joined on May 30, 2007
Geoff Huston
Author & Chief Scientist at APNICJoined on Sep 06, 2003
Chris Linfoot
IT Director @ LDV Group LimitedJoined on Jul 20, 2004
Daniel J. Weitzner
Technology and Society Policy DirectorJoined on Apr 09, 2004
Suresh Ramasubramanian
Head, Antispam OperationsJoined on Jun 21, 2004
Eric Brunner-Williams
CTO, COREJoined on Jan 22, 2005
Tom Evslin
Joined on Apr 24, 2007
Rob Frieden
Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and LawJoined on Nov 20, 2007
Venkat Balasubramani
Tech-Internet Lawyer at Focal PLLCJoined on Sep 10, 2007
Frank Michlick
COO at SharedReviews.com / CEO at Domain CocoonJoined on Jan 30, 2005
Rick Wesson
CEOJoined on Jun 14, 2003
Kevin Werbach
Professor at the Wharton School and Organizer of the Supernova ConferenceJoined on Oct 22, 2003
Mark Jeftovic
Co-Founder, easyDNS Technlogies Inc.Joined on Jul 09, 2003
David Isenberg
Principal Prosultant(sm), isen.com, LLCJoined on Apr 24, 2007
Timothy B. Lee
Adjunct Scholar at the Cato InstituteJoined on Nov 25, 2008
Edward Falk
Computer professionalJoined on Aug 07, 2007
Bill Nussey
CEO & AuhtorJoined on Feb 28, 2005
John Berard
FounderJoined on Nov 29, 2005