IPv6: Extinction, Evolution or Revolution?

For some years now the general uptake of IPv6 has appeared to be "just around the corner". Yet the Internet industry has so far failed to pick up and run with this message, and it continues to be strongly reluctant to make any substantial widespread commitment to deploy IPv6. Some carriers are now making some initial moves in terms of migrating their internet infrastructure over to a dual protocol network, but for many others it's a case of still watching and waiting for what they think is the optimum time to make a move. So when should we be deploying IPv6 services? At what point will the business case for IPv6 have a positive bottom line? It's a tough question to answer, and while advice of "sometime, probably sooner than later" is certainly not wrong, it's also entirely unhelpful as well! more»

Putting Multiple Root Nameserver Issue to Rest

I am often asked what I think of multiple root nameserver systems -- sort of like the Public-Root or the Open Root Server Confederation (ORSC) pushed by others in the past years. Whenever some well meaning person asks me for multiple roots in DNS, I answer: "DNS is a distributed, coherent, autonomous, hierarchical database. It is defined to have a single root, and every one of the hundreds of millions of DNS-speaking devices worldwide has the single-root design assumptions built into it. It would theoretically be possible to design a new system that looked superficially..." more»

Shambles at the .Pro Registry

Registration of .Pro domains has descended into shambles as the Registry responsible for their administration has allowed a flood of domain registrations which appear to be in breach of the strict rules restricting who can register a .pro domain and the certified credentials required before any such domain can work. more»

Whois Privacy vs. Anonymity

The Internet is often a lawless place. Everyone knows that there are many tricks and traps lurking on the Internet, just waiting to prey on unsuspecting and innocent users. Some of these traps will trash your computer while others will turn your PC into a zombie that will broadcast messages at the virus writer's command. ...The list of annoyances and downright criminal activities seem endless. ...To make the Internet a safer place both legislators and law enforcement are now focusing on the Internet. In the crossfire that's taking place there are many ideas that are being offered up. Some of them are good and some are not. One bad decision that was recently forced upon the Internet community (without hearings -- more on this later) was to eliminate private domain name registrations for .US domain names. ...It's important to understand the difference between privacy and anonymity. more»

Quantifying SiteFinder Traffic

Want a sense of just how much traffic VeriSign is receiving from its SiteFinder service? Alexa, with its Alexa Toolbar and associated traffic tracking services, makes it easy to find out...Over the past three months, taken as a whole, VeriSign had traffic rank 1,559. But today its traffic rank is 19, meaning... more»

Non-Commercial Website Domain Names Using Trademarks

There are now several different courts of appeals that have upheld the right of individuals to post a non-commercial website using the domain name www.company.com, and there are as yet NO appellate decisions that forbid such websites outside the context of the serial cybersquatter who tries to erect a so-called gripe site as a CYA measure after being sued. In fact, it seems to me that we are getting close to the point where companies that sue over such websites have to consider seriously the possibility that they will not only lose the suit, but face a malicious prosecution action... more»

Splitting the Root: It's Too Late

One of the consistent chants we've always heard from ICANN is that there has to be a single DNS root, so everyone sees the same set of names on the net, a sentiment with which I agree. Unfortunately, I discovered at this week's ICANN meeting that due to ICANN's inaction, it's already too late. Among the topics that ICANN has been grinding away at is Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) that contain characters outside the traditional English ASCII character set... ICANN has tied itself with the issue of homographs, different characters that look the same or mean the same thing. Once people noticed that IDNs let you register different names that look the same, the intellectual property crowd that has always had a mysteriously great influence on ICANN went into a tizzy and they went into lengthy discussions on what to do about them... more»

Moving Target: Spammer Using Over 1000 Home Computers as DNS

Some individual appears to have hijacked more than a 1,000 home computers starting in late June or early July and has been installing a new Trojan Horse program on them. The Trojan allows this person to run a number of small websites on the hijacked home computers. These websites consists of only a few web pages and apparently produce income by directing sign-ups to for-pay porn websites through affiliate programs. Spam emails messages get visitors to come to the small websites.

To make it more difficult for these websites to be shut down, a single home computer is used for only 10 minutes to host a site. After 10 minutes, the IP address of the website is changed to a different home computer... more»

Report on Distribution Analysis of Internationalized Domain Names

In December 2003, the testing phase of Multilingual domains also known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), went live with the addition of over 350,000 multilingual domains to the .com and .net registries. As of 1st January 2004, the .com registry contained 300,409 IDN's, whereas the .net registry had 79,630 IDN's, representing around 1.25% of the total .com and .net domains. WebHosting.Info has analyzed these 380,039 IDN domains that are now live, and provided a detailed insight on trends and patterns across these domains. more»

Fight Spam With the DNS, Not the CIA

It seems like spam is in the news every day lately, and frankly, some of the proposed solutions seem either completely hare-brained or worse than the problem itself. I'd like to reiterate a relatively modest proposal I first made over a year ago: Require legitimate DNS MX records for all outbound email servers.

MX records are one component of a domain's Domain Name System (DNS) information. They identify IP addresses that accept inbound email for a particular domain name. To get mail to, say, linux.com, a mail server picks an MX record from linux.com's DNS information and attempts to deliver the mail to that IP address. If the delivery fails because a server is out of action, the delivering server may work through the domain's MX records until it finds a server that can accept the mail. Without at least one MX record, mail cannot be delivered to a domain.
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The Closing Window: A Historical Analysis of Domain Tasting

I wrote this history and analysis of domain tasting for the ICANN Business Constituency membership. It's by no means perfect but I thought I'd share it with those who would like a bit more color on the subject. "Present day 'Domain Tasting' has its roots in 2001 and 2002 when a small group of ambitious domain registrants persuaded two registrars to allow them to register large blocks of domain names for the purpose of establishing which names garnered type-in traffic..." more»

Domain Registry Models: Thin or Thick?

The domain registrars discussion -- despite the occasional bizarrity -- mostly demonstrates that there is no unanimity among registrars on this issue. So, what arguments can be made in favor of either model, from a registrant's point of view? The thick domain registry model -- under the assumption that registries are more diligent with registrant data than some registrars may be -- helps take care of escrow concerns... more»

New Instance of DNS Root Server Makes Internet History

For the first time in Internet history the number of instances of DNS root servers outside the United States has overtaken the number within. The balance was tipped by the recent launch in Frankfurt of an anycast instance of the RIPE NCC operated K-root server. The K-root server is one of the 13 DNS root servers that resolve lookups for domain names all over the world and form a critical part of the global Internet infrastructure. The K-root server has been operated by the RIPE NCC since 1997 when the first server was installed at the London Internet Exchange (LINX) in London, UK. more»

Internationalizing the Internet

One topic does not appear to have a compellingly obvious localization solution in the multi-lingual world, and that is the Domain Name System (DNS). The subtle difference here is that the DNS is the glue that binds all users' language symbols together, and performing localized adaptations to suit local language use needs is not enough. What we need is a means to allow all of these language symbols to be used within the same system, or "internationalization". more»

The Site Finder Reprise

I have been attending the Icann conference in Malaysia this week. One of the key events was the submission of the report from the Security & Stability Advisory Committee regarding Site Finder. In reading the committee's report I discovered what I believe is an incredible breakdown in logic and as a consequence, a very mistaken, or at least confused, set of conclusions. So, why do I say that? more»