Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Did Michael Dell just back ICANN’s DNS-CERT?

Kevin Murphy, May 5, 2010, Domain Policy

Michael Dell may have just backed ICANN’s call for a global DNS Computer Emergency Response Center, in a speech at a security conference.
Techworld is reporting that Dell and/or his CIO, Jim Stikeleather, referred to ICANN’s role in security during an address at the EastWest Institute Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit.
It’s not entirely clear whether the following quote is attributable to Stikeleather or Dell himself; my guess is Stikeleather:

ICANN manages the assignment of domain names and IP addresses, headquartered in California, is heavily US centric. There is a need to have more global participation on domain management as well as the future planning and next generation infrastructure needed to address the changes that will affect the Internet usage in years to come.

On the surface, it looks like a criticism of ICANN, but it could quite easily be interpreted as backing ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom’s recent call for the establishment of a global DNS-CERT to coordinate threats to the domain name system.
The quote immediately preceding it in the Techworld article is starkly reminiscent of Hot Rod’s controversial comments at the Governmental Advisory Committee at the Nairobi meeting in March.
“There is a preponderance of evidence that indicates cybercriminals could inflict major outages to portions of our critical infrastructure with minimal effort,” Jim Stikeleather reportedly said.
He was speaking at a session entitled “How do we build international cybersecurity consensus?”, which is a question Beckstrom has been asking in relation to the DNS-CERT idea.
A public comment forum on the DNS-CERT business case ICANN had presented ended a couple of weeks ago.
If I were to go out on a limb, I would say that a rough consensus emerged that such an entity was probably a good idea, and that ICANN could play a role, but that other bodies, such as DNS-OARC, might do a better job of coordinating it.

Verizon seeks another registrar scalp

Kevin Murphy, March 21, 2010, Domain Registrars

After killing off small Indian registrar Lead Networks last week, Verizon wasted no time in gunning for a larger target, DirectNIC.
The carrier sued DirectNIC on Friday, claiming the company has been involved in the systematic typosquatting of hundreds of thousands of domains, including at least 288 belonging to Verizon.
There appears to be at least two things going on here.
First, Verizon is claiming that the common registrar practice of parking expired, pre-delete domains, somehow falls foul of US anti-cybersquatting laws if the parked domains are typosquats.
DomainNameWire addresses the possibly discomforting precedents this could set over here.
Second, the Verizon complaint resurrects the theory that DirectNIC’s owners, including CEO Sigmund Solares, are or were themselves typosquatters, using shell (continue reading)