According to press reports, DHS is going to require federal computer contractors to scan for holes and start patching them within 72 hours. Is this feasible? It's certainly a useful goal. It's also extremely likely that it will take some important sites or applications off the air on occasion - patches are sometimes buggy (this is just the latest instance I've noticed), or they break a (typically non-guaranteeed or even accidental) feature that some critical software depends on. more
Previously, this series tackled the terribly awful Amendment 35 to the NTIA-Verisign cooperative agreement and also made the case that the tainted presumptive renewal currently included in registry agreements is inherently anti-competitive. But renewing legitimacy and integrity of Internet governance requires accurately understanding the unique and significant role retained by the U.S. government following the IANA transition. more
It is supremely ironic. A rogue national leader with the stroke of a pen, dictates that its companies will expose a foreign company's end users to cyberattacks. This is the net effect of denying security patches or operating system updates pursuant to Trump's order. In the US Great Rogue Leader's bizarro world, this is the very behavior that he claims makes his actions necessary. In fact, this Trump malware attack is worse because of the mass exposure to exploits. more
On the face of it, the answer is a rather obvious and simple "yes"! The Internet obviously works across borders. Technically, it is a global network servicing its users wherever they may be on the planet. But it is this very nature -- the fact that the Internet is not bound to a specific country or territory -- which has more and more people asking themselves whether it can really work across borders. more
It's remarkable to me that there are now two powerful agencies fighting to "govern" the Internet -- the ITU and the FCC. On any given day, it's hard to tell whether they are on the same side or different sides. The ITU process apparently began in earnest with the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) meetings, where the concept of "Internet Governance" became an urgent goal. The FCC process began when incumbent Internet Access Providers (IAPs) argued that "Net Neutrality" was a stalking horse for government control... more
The recent decision taken in the USA makes total sense. It has been ridiculous that the incumbent telecoms operators there could present themselves as ISPs and claim that broadband was a content service rather than telecoms infrastructure - by doing this successfully for 20 years, they have not been subject to a range of telecoms regulations. This in turn has stifled competition, innovation, good quality customer services and the development of fibre optic networks in the USA. more
Incumbent carriers, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, have made countless "curtains for the Free World" assertions in the Network Neutrality debate. They claim that if the FCC reclassifies as common carriage aspects of Internet access, it will create "regulatory uncertainty" and "disincentive investment." Not one of the countless sponsored researchers funded by incumbents has provided a shred of empirical evidence to support these assertions. more
Today, more than 80 organizations, represented by The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) and European Digital Rights (EDRi), sent a letter to the European Commission demanding the end of dangerous experimentation with the functioning of the Internet in Europe and the protection of the principles of openness and neutrality. more
The draft e-commerce policy paper of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India raises valid observations concerning some of the imbalances, such as, on the excessive advantages gained by the "first movers" in the private sector, which implies advantages gained by the first -mover States on the Internet, on some of the prevailing gaps in the space and also on concerns about the abusive practices by a few e-commerce platforms and vendors. Most of these concerns are best addressed globally... more
The idea behind my recent book "Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS" is to provide a unifying overview around the area of domains and naming where I think there exists an artificial divide, and that divide exists between domain policy, and managing ones' domain portfolio; and the DNS ops side of things: running your nameservers or outsourcing to a vendor, or both. I've been doing this for over 20 years, I've seen almost every failure condition that can happen to your domain or DNS... more
We need a positive strategy for assuring connectivity. Instead of trying to fix telecom we should be working to take advantage of what we have and build vital, even if mundane applications like telemedicine and broaden our access to information while empowering communities. By realizing the value in our existing infrastructure and encouraging the creativity we can provide immediate benefits to our economy and our safety. We need a "Connectivity Strategy" with a champion... more
In response to United Domains pre-registration of .nyc domain names, we posted the below on our blog and the NARLO sites yesterday. While United Domains pre-registration service is free and non-binding, the North American Regional At Large Organization, part of the ICANN governance ecology, is concerned that "the offer of such a service could create artificial demand..." more
In December 2018, a bill on the "stable operation" of the Russian segment of the Internet was introduced and got the title "Sovereign Runet" in mass media and among the public. It was adopted after 5 months later, despite doubts about the technical feasibility of its implementation. The law is very ambitious in its intent to simultaneously control Internet traffic and protect Runet from some external threats, but legislators still have no idea how it would actually work. more
To date, proponents of a neutral internet have had relatively scant reason to raise their voices beyond anything more than a murmur in Australia. While the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2015 has been hailed as a significant win for consumers in the US, and the wording of proposed legislation to institute ex-ante regulation of service providers is soon to be considered in the EU, Aussies have been quarantined from anything other than the fringes of the Net Neutrality debate. more
Not matter how much robustness and redundancy you build around your multi-tiered infrastructure you are bound to suffer outage(s). I'm not implying the failure of a single server, but a complex outage that's usually external to the operation of the infrastructure. What matters is how you communicate outage notification when things do go awry. I think the words that I'm searching for are transparency and openness. more
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