Public participation site

Google plans to upgrade its YouTube video streaming Web site to provide support for IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol. Google already supports IPv6 with its Search, Alerts, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, News, Reader, Picasa, Maps and Wave products. Google's Chrome operating system—whose source code was released this week—supports IPv6, as does its Android platform for mobile devices.

Read full story: Network World

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: IPv6

Gadi Evron reporting today on Dark Reading: "A National Journal Magazine article called "The Cyberwar Plan" has been making waves the last few days in our circles—it's about how cell phone and computer attacks were used against Iraqi insurgents by the National Security Agency (NSA). Its significance is far more than just what's on the surface, however. The article describes several issues and that in my opinion confuses what matters..."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cyberattack, Security

Geoff Daily reports today on the App-Rising.com: "A new model is emerging in Brigham City, a city of less than 20,000 in northern Utah, for how user-owned open fiber networks can be financed and deployed. It used to be that the only way you could get fiber was if you were lucky enough to have a private provider lay it or to live in a city that did it itself. Today in Brigham City, for $3,000 you can buy your own fiber. And in fact more than 1,600 local residents have already bought in to this new opportunity."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Broadband, Telecom

The fifth-annual survey of domain name servers (DNS) on the public Internet—called a "Pandora's box of both frightening and hopeful results"—was released today by The Measurement Factory in partnership with Infoblox. Cricket Liu, Vice President of Architecture at Infoblox and author of O'Reilly & Associates' DNS and BIND, DNS & BIND Cookbook says: "Of particular interest is the enormous growth in the number of Internet-connected name servers, largely attributable to the introduction by carriers of customer premises equipment (CPE) with embedded DNS functionality. This equipment represents a significant risk to the rest of the Internet, as without proper access controls, it facilitates enormous DDoS attacks."

Following are the key 2009 DNS survey results from the survey—along with positive, negative, or neutral "consequence" ratings—based on a sample that included 5 percent of the IPv4 address space, nearly 80 million addresses.

• NEUTRAL: There are an estimated 16.3 million name servers on the Internet; this represents a 40% increase in 2 years likely due to an explosion in the population of "non-traditional", proxy DNS servers embedded in broadband access devices or customer premises equipment (CPE).
• VERY DISTURBING: 79.6% of the name servers are open to recursion; this represents a 27% increase in the last 2 years, likely related to the increase in proxy DNS servers in CPE. Unfortunately, all these name servers can be used maliciously to execute DDOS attacks, posing a significant threat to the Internet.
• POSITIVE: Percentage of Microsoft DNS Servers is now almost negligible at .37%; this is likely due to greater awareness of the risks of exposing Windows computers to the Internet.
• POSITIVE: Percentage of zones with one or more name servers open to zone transfers decreased to 16% from 31% (in 2008); administrators are paying closer attention to configuration of external DNS servers, realizing that they need to configure ACLs to prevent zone transfers, which can leave them open to DOS attacks.
• POSITIVE: The number of DNSSEC signed zones increased significantly—by approximately 300%; this indicates that momentum in DNSSEC adoption is increasing. This could be the result of greater awareness and adoption due to the Kaminsky vulnerability last year and support for DNSSEC signed in parent zones (.org).

Related Links: Executive Summary, Press Release

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: DNS, DNSSEC, Security

Reported today on BBC: "Police chiefs are urging people looking for work during the recession to be alert to online scams that trick them into laundering money. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) says websites are currently being used to recruit 'money mules'. The 'mules are ordinary people who send and receive payments through their bank accounts to facilitate business."

Neil Schwartzman has also informed us of a related report by RSA FraudAction Research Lab based on several months of tracking various reshipping scams engineered by online fraudsters.

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cybercrime, Law, Security, Spam

Internet security experts say that misconfigured DSL and cable modems are worsening a well-known problem with the Internet's DNS (domain name system), making it easier for hackers to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against their victims.

According to research set to be released in the next few days, part of the problem is blamed on the growing number of consumer devices on the Internet that are configured to accept DNS queries from anywhere, what networking experts call an "open recursive" or "open resolver" system…

Read full story: PC World

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cybercrime, DNS

In a recent blog post, Google engineers have revealed information about an early stage project called SPDY (pronounced "SPeeDY"), aimed at significantly boosting Web download speeds. According to the post, SPDY is an application-layer based protocol designed for minimizing latency. It says: "So far we have only tested SPDY in lab conditions. The initial results are very encouraging: when we download the top 25 websites over simulated home network connections, we see a significant improvement in performance - pages loaded up to 55% faster. There is still a lot of work we need to do to evaluate the performance of SPDY in real-world conditions."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Internet Protocol, Web

Last night millions of people were left without electricity in two of Brazils' biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as a result of a massive power failure. Consequently the outage has also had a significant impact on telecommunications and the Internet routing system in a number of South American regions. According to a related report released today by Renesys, while Brazil took the largest hit, Paraguayan and Uruguayan networks also went out "as a result of the largest regional power outage to hit Brazil and its neighbors in several years."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Telecom

Managing Intellectual Property, in association with Finnegan, has released an article based on a recently hosted discussion regarding ICANN's approved plans to open the domain name system to an unlimited number of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and how the Implementation Recommendation Team's (IRT) recommendation will affect brand owners.

Topics included the main concerns with new gTLDs from a brand owner's perspective, the role of IRT, enforcement issues, and navigating the new domain name space. Finnegan partners David Kelly and Jonathan Gelchinsky participated with J Scott Evans of Yahoo! Inc., Elisabeth Roth Escobar of Marriott International, Inc., Erik Wilbers of WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, and Kurt Pritz of ICANN for the roundtable.

To download a full PDF copy of the article, click here.

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cybersquatting, Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance, Law, Top-Level Domains

A class action lawsuit was filed today in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court on behalf of lead Plaintiff Carlos A. Cueto and others who participated in online auctions for domain names. In the lawsuit, Mr. Cueto alleges that an executive of the company conducting the auctions acted as a shill bidder to manipulate bids. The domain names were auctioned online by Oversee.Net, Inc. subsidiary SnapNames.Com, Inc.

"The domain name industry is the wild west of intellectual property because it remains unregulated. The online community has been up in arms over what they feel has been an opaque system that just begs for transparency. It is impossible to know whether you are bidding against someone that isn't working or affiliated with the company conducting the auction," said attorney Santiago A. Cueto.

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Domain Names, Law, Policy & Regulation

CBS's 60 Minutes aired a special report last night investigating how hackers can get into the computer systems that run crucial elements of the world's infrastructure, such as the power grids, water works or even a nation's military arsenal. From the report: "At the Sandia National Laboratories, Department of Energy security specialists like John Mulder try to hack into computer systems of power and water companies, and other sensitive targets in order to figure out the best way to sabotage them. It's all done with the companies' permission in order to identify vulnerabilities. In one test, they simulated how they could have destroyed an oil refinery by sending out code that caused a crucial component to overheat."

Full text and video of the report available here.

Related:
• 60 Minutes coverage "served a purpose: educating the mainstream audience about the seriousness of cyber crime and espionage" NextGov, Nov.9.2009
• Cyber Attacks Caused Power Outages in Brazil Wired, Nov.7.2009

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cyberattack, Cybercrime, Malware, Security

In a report released today by the research group, TeleGeography, Executive Director, John Dinsdale says, "traditional telcos have been losing substantial market share while leading cablecos have succeeded in transforming their businesses to the point where almost 40% of their revenues now come from telecoms. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global all now feature in the top 15 ranking of broadband internet service providers, and telecoms remains an engine for growth for many cablecos around the world."

According the report, in the first half of 2009, broadband Internet and telephony services have generated over USD30 billion for cable companies around the world. "The sales were derived from a customer base that includes 82 million broadband internet subscribers and 49 million telephony subscribers. The revenue figure may seem relatively small compared to a global wireline services market of well over USD700 billion per year, but cablecos' telecoms revenues have grown 28% per annum since 2003, while the aggregate wireline market has grown at just 4% annually."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Broadband, IPTV, Telecom, VoIP

"What Will the Internet of the Future Look Like?," was the subject of a panel discussion held this week in Washington, DC, organized by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The discussion was aimed at examining pending Internet regulations in the U.S. and their impact on packet discrimination, traffic shaping, network management, and carrier business models. The panel, moderated by Robert Atkinson, included: Richard Bennett; Dr. David Farber; Charles Jackson; and Jon Peha. Further details as well as video and audio recording of the event is available here.

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Broadband, Cloud Computing, Net Neutrality, P2P, Policy & Regulation, Telecom, Wireless

The average handset has evolved from the humble voice-box, to the total media centre. As a result thousands of start-up companies are profiting out of the Telecom sector's advances, supplying the various add-ons which inevitably accompany any new wave of technology. Such innovations were used by the operators to supplement the pricey voice packages. However, the operators are now finding themselves in the hands of the ever-creative software/hardware companies and the changing consumer culture. iPhone appstore was the first to take advantage and make millions from the operators' customers, creating a financial redistribution within the Telecom industry. With the telecom giants left to maintain the costly infrastructure that supports this ever growing new-media industry, the outlook for today's communication service providers is set to get worse in a new 4G world where broadband is everywhere (LTE, WiMax, FTTX and cloud services). How can the giants sustain such costs and avoid being relegated to the sidelines as bit-pipe providers?

To answer this question visionaries such as Zhang Fan, CTO of China Unicom, Anil Tandan, CTO of Idea Cellular, Ravinder Jain, CIO of Aircel, Michael Kuehner, CEO of AXIATA Bangladesh and Mu Piao Shih, President of Chunghwa Telecom are all set to attend what is a closed meeting at the NGT APAC summit in Sentosa, to discuss a unified investment strategy to provide Long Term Evolution (LTE) across the existing 3G network. Such increased download speeds will allow the telecom industry to capitalize on the change in consumer habits and provide wider service offerings.

"Asia's innovative technologies have inspired the western world and with economic pressures alleviating, we are now looking to invest in 4G to capitalize on the 'Prosumer' market." Said a spokesman for the fifty strong consortium at the NGT APAC Summit

This most elite of delegations led by Kyle Whitehill, COO of Vodafone India, are set to discuss the rapid pace of communication, transforming from the one-to-one (direct) voice communication to the fast, informal & responsive, opinion and thought exchange we have today.

"Such a meeting has been a long time coming, large operators have been losing revenue as the communication market has diversified, network optimization should lend to them finding new revenue streams as the level of service can expand"—Nick York, NGT Summit Director Asia Pacific.

Such consumer & technology transformation has distorted the way 'Prosumer' consume their products & services, and interact with their mobile devices. The industry awaits to see if Asia's Top Telecom guns can decide on a unified approach to map revenue streams back to the operators.

Submitted by Emma Naylor, Press Officer, NG Online News

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Mobile, Telecom, Wireless

Kevin J. O'Brien reporting in the New York Times: "European lawmakers on Thursday agreed on new protections for Internet users, striking a compromise between national governments seeking to impose tough anti-piracy laws and consumer organizations that wanted to enshrine Internet access as an unassailable right. The agreement removes the last hurdle to passage of sweeping changes to European telecommunications law, which had been held hostage for six months by the standoff over Internet access..."

Read full story: New York Times

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Law, P2P, Policy & Regulation

According to a recent security report, Spain and the United States are the leading countries when comes to bot-infected computers. Based on data compiled from October by PandaLabs, the research arm of Panda Security, an alarming 44.49% of computers in Spain are infected with bots and United States—a long way behind—at 14.41%, followed by Mexico 9.37% and Brazil 4.81%. Countries least infected include Peru, the Netherlands and Sweden, all with ratios under 1 percent.

According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, "Along with rogueware, botnets and zombie computers have increased by more than 30 percent so far this year. This is the simplest way for a hacker to take control of computers to distribute spam or malware, therefore making it more difficult to trace and detect the real culprit. The problem is that owners of these zombie computers will be committing crimes without realizing it, and could face having their services withdrawn by their ISPs or even prosecution."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Security

Sophie Curtis of eWeek reports: "Researchers have discovered a hole in the secure sockets layer (SSL) protocol, enabling man-in-the-middle attackers to hack into secure applications despite traffic encryption. According to security researcher Chris Paget, hackers can exploit this flaw by breaking into shared hosting environments, mail servers and databases, and inserting text into encrypted traffic as it passes between two end users. This could lead to fragmentation of SSL transactions, giving hackers the opportunity to inject false commands such as password resets into communications which are otherwise encrypted."

Related Links:
Security Researchers Uncover SSL Vulnerability eWeek, Nov.5.2009
Thoughts on the TLS bug Chris Paget, Nov.5.2009

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Security

According to a report released today by Nominet, UK's domain name registry, 77% of British consumers prefer to use a .uk rather than a .com when searching for information on the Internet. The report also indicates that despite the current economic climate, the global domain name industry has seen an 8% growth with 187.6 million domain names registered worldwide. "Generic top level domains (gTLDs), such as .org and .com, have grown on average by 6% whilst the country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) including .uk and .de (the German registry) fared slightly better and together generated a 10% average growth in registrations," says Nominet.

Phil Kingsland, Director of Marketing and Communications at Nominet, comments: "The findings show that businesses must now pay attention to Internet brand awareness and marketing strategies that are in line with consumer expectations. It is a global marketplace, but what we are seeing is that consumers trust and rely on a more local touch point with a brand."

For a full copy of the Nominet Domain Name Industry Report 2009, click here.

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Domain Names, Domain Registries, Top-Level Domains, Web

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today opened the new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) — a 24-hour, DHS-led coordinated watch and warning center that will improve national efforts to address threats and incidents affecting the nation's critical information technology and cyber infrastructure. From the official announcement released on Friday:

"The NCCIC provides an integrated incident response facility to mitigate risks that could disrupt or degrade critical information technology functions and services, while allowing for flexibility in handling traditional voice and more modern data networks. The new unified operations center combines two of DHS' operational organizations: the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), which leads a public-private partnership to protect and defend the nation's cyber infrastructure; and the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC), the operational arm of the National Communications System."

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Cyberattack, Security

During its board meeting today in Seoul, South Koria, the ICANN board has approved the Fast Track Process for Internationalized Domain Names which will enable Internet addresses to be completely made up of non-Latin characters—including Top-Level Domains (TLDs). The process is set to launch next month, November 16, 2009, after which nations and territories can apply for TLDs in their national language to be approved by ICANN.

"This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet ," said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's President and CEO. "The first countries that participate will not only be providing valuable information of the operation of IDNs in the domain name system, they are also going to help to bring the first of billions more people online—people who never use Roman characters in their daily lives."

The following video has been released by ICANN in follow up to the announcement:

Related Links:
Internet Addresses Can Use New Scripts New York Times, Oct.30.2009
ICANN Bringing the Languages of the World to the Global Internet ICANN, Oct.29.2009
Hebrew, Hindi, other scripts get Web address nod Associated Press, Oct.29.2009

Other sources: (UPDATED Nov 01, 2009 4:12 PM PST)
• ICANN Gives Green Light To .??, .??, .?????? , But No Timeline For New Top-Level Domains IP Watch, Nov.1.2009
• CNN's Pauline Chiou asks attorney Martin Schwimmer, Former Vice President of ICANN's intellectual property constituency, about the upside of internationalizing domain names (Video) CNN, Oct.29.2009

Follow CircleID on Twitter

More under: Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance, Multilinguism, Top-Level Domains