blogs
/ May 07, 2008 6:52 PM PST
I saw an interesting news item that broke Monday courtesy of DomainNameNews and SlashDot that hasn't been broadly covered yet. I'm surprised no one has posted on this yet on CircleID, so here goes. Apparently VeriSign has been awarded a patent for the resolution of mis-typed domain names. This was at the heart of the controversy back in 2003 around their SiteFinder Service. Amidst a storm of criticism ICANN insisted VeriSign shut down the service, and the company eventually agreed. ›››
blogs
/ May 07, 2008 10:11 AM PST
There are more than just blue, black and white hat hackers. There are a few more types of folks out there that don't fit into the above categories. This article is taken from Stratfor with some commentary by myself... Many of the hackers described in my previous post are also coders, or "writers," who create viruses, worms, Trojans, bot protocols and other destructive "malware" tools used by hackers... ›››
blogs
/ May 07, 2008 9:45 AM PST
One of the other web sites I subscribe to is Stratfor. It's a global intelligence website and doesn't really have much to do with spam. But I like politics so I read it. They have some articles which you can get for free, but the better stuff you have to pay for. About two weeks ago, they ran a three-part series on Cyberwarfare. The first article was the title of this post, which you can access here (requires registration). In the article they described different types of cybercriminals and not-so-criminals which they referred to under the umbrella as "hackers." ›››
blogs
/ May 04, 2008 12:44 PM PST
n 2004 Jaynes became the country's first convicted spam felon under the Virginia anti-spam law. He's been appealing his conviction ever since, most recently losing an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court by a 4-3 decision in February. As I discussed in more detail at the time the key questions were a) whether the Virginia law had First Amendment problems and b) whether Jaynes had standing to challenge it. The court answered No to b), thereby avoiding the need to answer a), the dissent answered Yes to both. ›››
blogs
/ May 02, 2008 11:54 AM PST
My weekly technology law column focuses this week on the new CIRA whois policy that is scheduled to take effect on June 10, 2008. The whois issue has attracted little public attention, yet it has been the subject of heated debate within the domain name community for many years. It revolves around the whois database, a publicly accessible, searchable list of domain name registrant information (as in "who is" the registrant of a particular domain name). ›››
news
/ Apr 30, 2008 11:28 AM PST
Internet address space long ago issued to San Francisco Bay Packet Radio, an organization that was involved way back in the 1970s in testing ARPANET, a predecessor to the global commercial Internet that we all use today. That organization was given the rights to do whatever it wanted with 134.17.0.0/16 address block. That entire swath of Internet space is now registered to an entity in Westminster, Colo., called SF Bay Packet Radio LLC, but except for a similar name, this company has no relation to San Francisco Bay Packet Radio... ? ›››
blogs
/ Apr 30, 2008 10:29 AM PST
The governor of Colorado recently signed a new anti-spam law [PDF] into effect. Since CAN SPAM draws a tight line around what states can do, this law is mostly interesting for the way that it pushes as firmly against that line as it can. Other observers have already done a legal analysis of the way it's worded to avoid being tossed out as the Oklahoma law was in Mummagraphics, and to make it as easy as possible for suits to meet the falsity or deception limits in CAN SPAM. To me the most interesting part of this law is its one-way fee recovery language... ›››
blogs
/ Apr 29, 2008 5:49 PM PST
There must be something in the air. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there are a lot of things going on in the ccTLD world at the moment. In the UK Nominet's Annual General Meeting (AGM) is being held this week. This would normally provoke a yawn from most people -- it's an AGM -- how exciting can that be? This year's AGM looks like it could be quite entertaining, although it probably isn't going to be particularly beneficial for its membership. ›››
blogs
/ Apr 28, 2008 10:02 AM PST
Is IPv6 a hot topic again in the wake of the increased coverage of the looming IPv4 address depletion? This was the theme of a coffee break discussion we had at the recent MENOG3 conference in Kuwait. With as many opinions as participants, I turned to "Google Trend" to help me get a better feel... Using IPv6 as search word and varying the time line indeed provided some interesting perspective and tidbits on when and where IPv6 seems to be or have been a hot topic indeed. ›››
blogs
/ Apr 26, 2008 12:25 PM PST
The essay expands a cooperative solution to third-party use of brands in domain names. Like any approach that depends on cooperation, the solution will require both sides to change behavior but also allow both sides to take credit for the resulting benefits, i.e. a triangular solution. If not immediately addressed, the problem of third-party use can become a major threat to the industry. But we already know one thing: when it comes to this issue, legal action and bullying don't work. ›››
news
/ Apr 25, 2008 12:20 PM PST
Thirty years ago next week, Gary Thuerk, a marketer at the now-defunct computer firm Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an email to 393 users of Arpanet, the US government-run computer network that eventually became the internet. It was the first spam email ever. That commercial message, sent on 3 May 1978, drew a swift and negative reaction. ›››
news
/ Apr 25, 2008 12:02 PM PST
The Internet is slowly inching closer to ratcheting up the security of its Domain Name System (DNS) server architecture: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) plans to go operational with DNSSEC later this year in one of its domains. ›››
blogs
/ Apr 25, 2008 11:41 AM PST
There's a fascinating blog discussion going on here, here and here. The conversation is around Marc Andreessen's refusal to trash Microsoft and Bill Gates on stage. Andreessen points to the way in which the company drove the industry forward in the 1990's, and Mathew Ingram says "love them or hate them, at least Microsoft standardized the operating-system market"... ›››
blogs
/ Apr 24, 2008 11:27 AM PST
One of the major principles of the architecture of the Internet was encapsulated in a paper by Saltzer, Reed and Clark, "End-to-End Arguments in System Design". This paper, originally published in 1981, encapsulated very clearly the looming tension between the network and the application: "The function in question can completely and correctly be implemented only with the knowledge and help of the application standing at the end points of the communication system. Therefore, providing that questioned function as a feature of the communication system itself is not possible." At the time this end-to-end argument was akin to networking heresy! ›››
blogs
/ Apr 23, 2008 11:16 AM PST
Once again I find myself thinking about the nature of the asymmetric warfare threat posed by politically motivated DDoS (Estonia in 07, Korea in 02, and now China vs. CNN in 08). I keep thinking about it in terms of asymmetric warfare, a class of warfare where one side is a traditional, centrally managed military with superior uniformed numbers, weaponry, and skill. On the other we have smaller numbers, usually untrained fighters with meager weapons, and usually a smaller force. Historical examples include the North Vietnamese in the 20th century and even the American Revolution in the 18th century. Clearly this can be an effective strategy for a band of irregulars... ›››
news
/ Apr 21, 2008 10:58 AM PST
Google, in partnership with DomainTools, is now offering a Whois search capability which allows users to find registration and expiration dates of domain names when followed by the word 'whois' in Google's search box. A similar short-lived service was offered by Google a few years ago. ›››
news
/ Apr 21, 2008 9:39 AM PST
Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has posted its Change of Privacy Status... "As of June 10, 2008 the dot-ca (.ca) WHOIS will no longer release information about individual Registrants and their Adminstrative and Technical contacts, providing more thorough privacy protection for many of our Registrants." ›››