Chinese sources report that the country's IP address (IPv4) resources can only sustain 830 days at current distribution rates if no measures are adopted. Li Kai, the director of IP team at China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said most of China is still using IPv4 (as opposed to the newer virtually unlimited IPv6) and the resource is 80% used up. China has been aggressively moving towards the adoption of IPv6 and is urging network operators around the world to implement the new addressing scheme as soon as possible. more»
A new open source alternative to the popular BIND domain name system (DNS) server makes its worldwide debut today with the public release of Unbound 1.0. From today's report: Released to open source developers by NLnet Labs, VeriSign, Nominet, and Kirei, Unbound is a validating, recursive, and caching DNS server designed as a high-performance alternative for BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain). Unbound will be supported by NLnet Labs. more»
We'd like to congratulate our long time CircleID participants, Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach for being named today as Obama-Biden FCC Transition Team Leads. Susan Crawford, is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School who recently ended her term as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN and is the founder of OneWebDay. Kevin Werbach, is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also the founder of the Supernova Group and the organizer of Supernova, a leading executive technology conference. more»
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has released the list of newly blacklisted websites by Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT). The list was leaked by advisory board member CJ Hinke, director of Freedom Against Censorship Thailand, according the WikiLeaks website. From WikiLeaks' announcement: "The 1,203 blocked websites are located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Vietnam..." more»
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the vast majority of business and IT executives report that cloud computing is a viable technology option that can improve a company's bottom-line results according to a new global survey conducted by an independent market research firm. However, despite growing evidence that cloud-based systems have the potential to lower costs, the majority of companies report no plans to integrate cloud computing in the next 12 months... more»
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced today its approval of non-Latin string evaluation of Iran. This approval will allow the availability of Iran's top-level domain in its own native language, Persian, also known as Farsi (that is, the domain name .IRAN, in non-Latin characters). According to ICANN, there are currently 33 requests for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) representing 22 languages out of which 18 countries/territories have so far been approved. Other countries that have also successfully passed this string evaluation by ICANN include: India, Republic of Korea, Syrian Arab Republic and Singapore. more»
ICANN is investigating complaints that insider information is being used to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them. The Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN termed the practice "domain name front running" and likened it to a stock broker buying or selling shares ahead of a client's trade, in anticipation of a movement in price. In the case of Internet addresses, many people who see a domain name available the first time they check find it already taken by the time they return to buy it. more»
Iran is reported to have started blocking access to websites that use HTTPS and as a result making popular and secure online services as well as online banking sites inaccessible. An Iranian news agency reports that over 30 million people in the country have lost access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail. Anything based outside the country that uses a secure connection via HTTPS is blocked, according to news reports and a thread on Hacker News. Secure sites based within Iran are reportedly still accessible. The shutdown is said to be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and is believed to be temporary. more»
Google Inc. and T-Mobile USA today unveiled the highly anticipated smart-phone G1, the first in the industry to be based on Android, Google's operating system for mobile phones. Currently available for T-Mobile customers only, the T-Mobile G1 combines full touch-screen functionality and a QWERTY keyboard with a mobile Web experience that includes popular Google services such as Google Maps Street View, Gmail, YouTube and others. The T-Mobile G1 is also the first phone to provide access to Android Market, where customers can find and download unique applications to expand and personalize their phone to fit their lifestyle. more»
A fundamental flaw in the design of the Domain Name System (DNS) was found earlier this year by security researcher Dan Kaminsky, renowned Internet Security expert. Researchers say they will fully describe the vulnerability in 30 days, after companies that operate web sites or Internet service providers can put the patches in place. The flaw is big enough that Kaminsky and other companies involved brought in government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team. Until the announcement today, experts had been quietly working of coordinating a massive patch affecting all types DNS implementation. Experts emphasized during the press conference today that the flaw is within the DNS protocol and in no way specific to any particular vendor. A DNS checker tool is available on Kaminsky's website located on the top right hand corner. more»
Computerworld reports that the number of phishing related URLs have nearly tripled from March to April as cybercriminals returned to a late-2006 tactic designed to do an end run around browser-based antiphishing filters. From the report: "In one month, the number of unique sites soared 166%, from 20,871 in March to 55,643 in April, said the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), an association of more than 1,600 companies and government agencies." more»
Just to inform the people who are interested in news about the prospective TLD candidate dotBERLIN: At the ceremonial awards for the eco Internet Awards, dotBERLIN GmbH & Co. KG won the special award of the German Internet industry. dotBERLIN aims to create a new domain ending .berlin (a top-level domain), which will result in a local identity for Berliners in the Internet, providing an alternative to addresses such as .de and .com. .berlin has become a trailblazer, setting a trend which has since been followed by other large cities such as New York and Paris. more»
At the request of ICANN, Paul E. Black, a computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed an algorithm that may guide applicants in proposing new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). As new TLDs are added to the familiar .com, .info, and .net, the algorithm checks whether the newly proposed name is confusingly similar to existing ones by looking for visual likenesses in its appearance. more»
Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications announced today that from July 2010, every person in the country will have a legal right to at least 1Mb of broadband connection. Finland is the first country to guarantee broadband access and has already initiated plans to increase the 1MB minimum to 100Mb by 2015. Communications Minister Suvi Linden says the universal service and Internet connection at the specified minimum speed will help improve the quality and availability of connections in sparsely populated areas. This will in turn contribute to maintenance of rural vitality, increase business opportunities and e-commerce. more»
Shortly before 11 p.m. EDT yesterday, Comcast users began noticing that Comcast.net had been hacked. More technically, early indications are that someone hacked Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions, changing the authoritative DNS servers for Comcast.net -- rerouting portal visitors to IP addresses in Germany or elsewhere. The front page of Comcast.net was replaced with a note saying the hackers had "RoXed" Comcast, according to postings at BroadbandReports.com. more»
DNSSponsored byNeustar UltraDNS | |
Top-Level DomainsSponsored byMinds + Machines | |
DNS SecuritySponsored byAfilias | |
SecuritySponsored byVerisign | |
MobileSponsored bydotMobi | |
IPv6Sponsored byNominum |
