May 2012 archive

May 18

Deploy360 To Present On Accelerating DNSSEC Deployment at ENOG3 in Odessa, Ukraine, Next Week

ENOG LogoWill you be at the third meeting of the Eurasia Network Operators Group (ENOG) on May 22-23, 2012, in Odessa, Ukraine?

If so, you’ll get to hear me (Dan York) speaking about “Key Steps to Accelerating DNSSEC Deployment“.  The abstract of my session is:

Everyone wants a more secure Internet and DNSSEC provides a level of additional security that allows a web browser to make sure the DNS information is correct and unmodified. So why is it taking so long to get DNSSEC deployed?

What needs to be done to get more domains signed with DNSSEC? How can DNSSEC validation be built into more applications? Are there technical issues or are the issues more of communication and awareness? How can we as a community address these challenges to increase the usage and availability of DNSSEC?

In this session, Dan York will explain some key deployment challenges and offer suggestions for how to overcome them, including more education for consumers, businesses, developers and network operators, and steps registrars can take to make the process of signing domains easier for the end-user. In addition, Dan will facilitate an audience discussion on what other resources are needed to help move the DNSSEC deployment needle.

Over 80 top-level domains (TLDs) and thousands of second- and third-level domains have now been signed with DNSSEC. The Internet Society Deploy360 Programme plans to build on this success and expand DNSSEC deployment by providing detailed, technical how-to resources and educational articles, case studies, and other in-depth information to help organizations of all sizes.

I’m very much looking forward to attending the session and meeting with the network operators from around the region. The ENOG 3 program agenda looks quite excellent and the attendee list already shows 275 people!  This is a regional meeting for the RIPE NCC and is the first time that an ENOG meeting has been held in the Ukraine.

My colleague Andrei Robachevsky will also be presenting on the topic of World IPv6 Launch and I’m looking forward to meeting up with him as well, given that he’s based in Amsterdam and I’m here in New Hampshire in the USA.

It will be interesting for me on a personal level, too, as the conference is in both English and Russian (with simultaneous translation) and my ability with the Russian language sadly doesn’t go much beyond “Nyet“!  I’m looking forward to being there and perhaps learning a few phrases along the way.  Getting to Odessa, though, turns out to be a bit entertaining for me… I’m flying Boston -> London -> Istanbul -> Odessa and basically losing Monday and Thursday to travel!  If you don’t see any blog posts from me on next Friday, you’ll know I’m caught somewhere in the air transport system! :-)

Anyway, if any of you are going to be at ENOG 3 next week I look forward to meeting with you!

May 18

Bombay Exhibition Center


09:30 -09:30 Bombay Exhibition Center
,

May 18

Can You Add A World IPv6 Launch Badge/Banner To Your Blog Or Website?

World IPv6 Launch bannerWorld IPv6 Launch is only 19 days away – can you help us promote the event and get more people aware of the impending change to the Internet?

If you have a blog or website, and it would be appropriate for your audience or content, can you add one of our 3 different badges to a sidebar (as we’ve done on this site), footer or other appropriate location?

Even if your site/blog doesn’t yet support IPv6, putting the badge on your site can help raise awareness around the need for IPv6. We’d like to get as many people as possible aware of the upcoming event… and the fact that this time it’s for real!  IPv6 will not be turned off on June 7th.  This year it is all about permanently enabling IPv6 wherever possible.

If you go to the World IPv6 Launch downloads page at:

http://www.worldipv6launch.org/downloads/

you’ll see that we have a variety of options with either a transparent or velvet background.  The badges are also available in widths of 128, 256 or 512 pixels – and the transparent background images have SVG vector files as well.

Those 3 images with transparent backgrounds also have easy embed codes for the 128px images. For instance, here’s the code for the “Launch Badge”:

<a href=”http://www.worldipv6launch.org” ><img title=”WORLD IPV6 LAUNCH is 6 June 2012 – The Future is Forever” src=”http://www.worldipv6launch.org/wp-content/themes/ipv6/downloads/World_IPv6_launch_badge_128.png” alt=”WORLD IPV6 LAUNCH is 6 June 2012 – The Future is Forever” width=”128″ height=”128″ /></a>

Just copy that code, drop it on a web page, in a blog post or article, or in a sidebar widget and… ta da… you’ll have a World IPv6 Launch image!  As in the embeddable code, we’d obviously love it if all the images can link back to:

http://www.worldipv6launch.org/

so that more people can learn about the event and learn how they can participate.

Note, too, that the World IPv6 Launch badges/logos are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, so you can remix/re-use/resize the images to fit whatever dimensions you need.

If you have a web site and have a spare moment today, this weekend, or anytime soon to add a World IPv6 Launch badge or logo to your web site it would definitely help us get the world out!

On June 6, the Internet is changing and IPv6 will be turned on for real!  Please help us spread the word!

May 18

Video: Internet Society CITO Explains World IPv6 Launch (June 6, 2012)

Are you ready for World IPv6 Launch on June 6, 2012?  Or are you trying to figure out what’s going and what all the excitement is about?  Would you like to learn how you can participate?

In this short video, the Internet Society’s Chief Internet Technology Officer, Leslie Daigle, explains how “This Time It’s For Real!” and how World IPv6 Launch marks the historic beginning of a new era for the Internet.  This is not a one-day event… as of June 6th, IPv6 will be permanently enabled on websites and on access networks.  (Read more in our earlier post.)

Watch Leslie’s explanation … and then head over to www.worldipv6launch.org to find out more about how you can participate! And if you need help, check out our list of IPv6 tutorials, whitepapers, videos and more…

May 18

I Love Seeing How Companies Are Promoting World IPv6 Launch!

Okay, I have to admit that as an advocate for World IPv6 Launch on June 6th, I absolutely loved opening up Tweetdeck this morning and seeing a “promoted tweet” advertising World IPv6 Launch activities at the top of the my Twitter search on IPv6:

And here it is in the Twitter web interface:

Twitter search with promoted tweet

Now usually I thoroughly dislike the promoted tweets and wish they would stop “polluting” my Twitter stream, but in this case I was thrilled to see them!     Kudos to Cisco SP Mobility for taking the World IPv6 Launch message out into the Twittersphere in the form of advertisements.  And while I may or may not personally attend Cisco’s webcast, I’m glad to see them out there doing it.

I’ve also been very pleased to see a number of email messages promoting webinars or other events that other companies are doing in the run up to June 6th. Which raises the question:

What are YOU doing to help promote World IPv6 Launch?

Are you hosting any webinars/webcasts in the remaining 3 weeks? Are you talking to your clients or customers about how they can get started with IPv6?  Have you talked to internal teams about IPv6?  Have you added a World IPv6 Launch badge / banner to your website or blog?

How will you help people be part of this historic event?

May 16

Experimenting With SoundCloud For Audio Podcasting

SoundcloudAs I've mentioned on my last several reports into the For Immediate Release podcast, I've been experimenting over the past few weeks with SoundCloud as a platform for posting and sharing audio recordings.  If you are a SoundCloud user, you are welcome to follow along with my experiments at:

soundcloud.com/danyork

So far I have been mostly posting my weekly FIR reports and a few other samples... but over the next bit I'm intending to post some more audio recordings as I try out a number of different applications.

I was toying with using SoundCloud for a bit... and then was inspired by what C.C. Chapman did with the platform for his audio reports from his recent trip to Ghana.

I've been looking for a bit for a place to just post random audio commentary that didn't fit into FIR or other sites. We'll see what precisely I do with it over the weeks and months ahead.

If you'd like to try it yourself, signing up for an account is free - there is just a limit on how much audio you can post with the free account.

And as to how SoundCloud is different from Audioboo or the many other similar services, I would direct you to my latest report into FIR #651 where I covered this precise question!

If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:

May 16

2 Days Left To Comment to FCC About Ham Radio Usage In Emergency Communications

FCC logoTo all my friends and readers who use amateur (ham) radio, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on the use of Amateur Radio in emergency communications such as disaster response.

THE DEADLINE FOR COMMENT IS TOMORROW - May 17, 2012.

As the FCC public notice states:

the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau seek comment on the uses and capabilities of Amateur Radio Service communications in emergencies and disaster relief. As set forth below, comment is sought on issues relating to the importance of emergency Amateur Radio Service communications and on impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications. Stakeholder entities and organizations, including the Amateur Radio, emergency response, and disaster communications communities, are particularly encouraged to submit comments.

The public notice goes on to pose a series of questions around the importance of amateur radio in emergency communications - and a series of questions around the impediments to enhanced amateur radio communications.

Later in the document it explains the filing process, including the manner in which comments can be filed electronically over the Internet.

I'm not a ham radio user myself, although I've always had an interest but just never made the cycles to go through the process. I have, though, seen the incredible use that has been made of ham radio in emergency situations.

If any of you have opinions on the questions raised by the FCC, they'd like to hear from you!

If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:

May 16

DNSSEC Used In 2012 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition

Our friends over at the DNSSEC Deployment Initiative published the great news that DNSSEC was involved in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) held in April 2012.  This annual event, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology division, involved this year 126 schools and over 1,500 competitors.  The important part to us was this quote:

According to organizer Dwayne Williams, roughly 80% of the competitors had heard of DNSSEC before, but less than 10% had ever actually used or implemented it prior to NCCDC. While two of the teams noted that they would like to see simpler, step-by-step instructions for implementing DNSSEC, all of the teams ultimately thought DNSSEC was a technology they planned to look at more in the future.

That’s 1,500 more people who can be out there able to deploy DNSSEC!  And since these competitors are students who will be going on into industry this is excellent news for the future of DNSSEC.

We also understandably liked this part of the quote:

While two of the teams noted that they would like to see simpler, step-by-step instructions for implementing DNSSEC…

That is precisely the type of content we’re aiming to build here for DNSSEC, and our new DNSSEC content roadmap identifies further tutorials we’d like to add.  By the time the 2013 NCCDC event rolls around, these students will be able to find many more simpler tutorials out there!

Kudos to all the 2012 NCCDC teams for working with DNSSEC – and we look forward to learning what DNSSEC challenges will be part of the next NCCDC event.

May 16

One Year Ago Today, The Big C Changed Everything…

BigcToday is a somber anniversary in our household. One year ago today, we sat down with a doctor here in Keene to go over the results of some tests on my wife. He came into the room and went immediately to the point... hardly even saying hello. I don't remember his exact words, but they were basically:
"I have some bad news. You have cancer."

He may have said it differently... but that was the core message. Simple. Direct. To the point.

And everything changed for us.

The rest of that appointment and indeed the year has become a blur of learning more about cancer, medicine and the medical system than I ever expected to learn at this age.

My wife, who at the time was in the best physical shape she'd ever been in, proceeded down a path where she lost her breasts, lost her mane of hair, lost parts of her memory, lost her stamina, lost her ability to quickly process things in her mind, lost her physical health... and basically lost a year of her life.

The good news, of course, is that she didn't lose her life, and that as a result of the treatments she's undergoing and the fact that they caught the cancer early, she's got a very strong chance of being around for many more years. Her cancer was "only" Stage 1 Invasive Breast Cancer, and could have been so much worse had it not been detected.

Intellectually, that's easy to say. Emotionally, it's a lot harder. It's been a hell of a year.

And the journey is not over. She's still got another 7 months of Herceptin treatments... and another 4 years after that of daily Tamoxifen pills (that she is also taking now), both of which have their own troubling side effects. And as we've learned, you're never really "cured" of cancer. You win battles, but the war inside your body continues.

A year ago, the big C invaded our life and became a thoroughly unwelcome houseguest. Now we just have to continue learning to live with it...

Some of the articles I've written about our journey with cancer, in chronological order:

May 15

Want To Tell Us Where To Go? View Our IPv6 and DNSSEC Roadmaps…

road pictureWhat type of IPv6 and DNSSEC
articles, tutorials, and other content do we need to add to this Deploy360 website? What areas need more attention? Have you looked for some topic here and not found it?

Since we launched Deploy360 four months ago, we’ve been collecting feedback through comments to this site; through interactions on Twitter, Facebook and Google+; from email sent to our deploy360@isoc.org address; from feedback form submissions; from conversations at various events … and even before our launch from attendees at our two ION conferences last year.

You have given us a great amount of feedback, and we’ve summarized all of that into two “roadmap” documents that outline what we believe we need to add to the site. They can be found here:

Now we’d love to hear from you again… have we captured your feedback accurately? Can you see other areas that we need to add? Other topics or tutorials?

How else can we help you with information about how to deploy IPv6 and DNSSEC rapidly?

Please note that these roadmap pages will be “living documents” in that we’ll be constantly updating them as we add items to the site (and remove them from the roadmap), find new items we need to add, and generally get more feedback from you about where you think we need to focus.

With these roadmaps published, we will start adding the listed resources to the site. We will be finding these resources out on the Internet where we can – verifying their accuracy and then reviewing them here on the site. Where needed resources don’t yet exist in a free and open form, we’ll create those resources in conjunction with our partners and volunteers.

To that end, if you know of a great tutorial or article (including one you’ve written) that fits an item on the roadmap, please let us know so that we can consider it for inclusion in the site. If you are looking for a specific topic and it’s not on this site or on the roadmap yet, let us know so we can add it to the roadmap.

Many thanks again to everyone who has given us feedback on the site over the past four months. We’ve been very pleased by the response so far and are looking forward to growing this site to help many more people deploy IPv6 and DNSSEC!

Please let us know how we can help you!