December 2013 archive

Dec 31

Revisiting My 3 Words For 2013 – How Did I Do?

3 words for 2013

As 2013 draws to an end, I thought it might be appropriate to reflect quickly upon how I did with my "three words" for 2013.

EXECUTION

I wrote in part:

this year I want to execute on some of the plans I have had for some time. There are some things I have been thinking about, talking about and even writing about for several years... but have yet to actually start. Not so much in my professional/work life, as I have been all about executing plans there, but rather in my personal life with some of my various side projects.

My record is a bit mixed here. I did dive more deeply into activities with a couple of boards that I'm on. I did start a few of the projects that I'd wanted to... but then others like rebooting VOIPSA are still out there lingering.

AUDIO

Here things have gone quite well! I've actually launched two new podcasts in 2013, experimented with another and have another couple of projects underway:

THE DAN YORK REPORT - What began as purely experimentation with SoundCloud as a platform for audio hosting has turned into a fairly regular podcast, "The Dan York Report", where I am commenting on a wide range of issues. I've recorded 55 episodes so far (and there were some before I formally had the name that could qualify, too), and I have ideas for doing more with this in 2014.

FIR ON TECHNOLOGY - Coming in just under the wire, I launched "FIR On Technology with Dan York" as part of the "For Immediate Release Podcast Network" and published the first full episode today where I interview a friend of mine, Randy Resnick, about how Google+ Hangouts On Air can be used by communicators. It was a great interview and I look forward to doing more of these in 2014. Having been a regular weekly contributor to the main For Immediate Release podcast since 2005, it's fun to expand out into some deeper episodes.

DEPLOY360 ON SOUNDCLOUD - In the "continued experimentation" stage, I started posting audio updates for the Deploy360 Programme on SoundCloud related to our work with IPv6, DNSSEC and other topics. I have some ideas of where I want to take this and am looking forward to it!

Beyond that, I confirmed a couple of people for some future Blue Box Podcast interviews, so there are some good things brewing there. And... well... suffice it to say I have some other ideas in the works. :-)

TRANSFORM

On this topic I wrote:

In a 2012 leadership workshop for one of the boards I am on, we were asked some questions that could perhaps best be summarized as "how are you using your life to transform the world?" To make it a better place? To bring people together? To strengthen connections and build stronger communities?

Here things have gone well. I've become much more active in a way that I'll write more about tomorrow. Our family is now helping out with some community breakfasts that are a very tangible way to feel that we're helping people in our community. And I've been helping out in some other ways that I'm starting to see are making a difference. And... I love that a large part of what I do for work is based on a clear mission focused on helping people out!

There's much more I'd like to do on this topic (and more on that tomorrow)... but I feel that I did make a solid start on this in 2013.

So that's a wrap for 2013... what will I aspire for in 2014? Find out tomorrow... :-)

Dec 30

Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2013: IPv6 (and this time we mean it)

Deloitte IPv6As we close out 2013, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that we were very pleased to see that IPv6 was included the “Tech Trends 2013″ report issued by the giant global consulting organization Deloitte earlier this year.

In their report section “IPv6 (and this time we mean it)“, they talk about how critical it is for businesses to start planning now for the transition to IPv6.  Here is Bruce Short, a director at Deloitte Consulting LLP, offering his view on IPv6:

Deloitte has made their report chapter on IPv6 available for download and conclude their IPv6 page with this “bottom line” (my emphasis added):

As connected computing has become a ubiquitous part of business and leisure, part of the Internet foundation is faltering. Internet Protocol has become a universal address scheme for networking, but we’ve run out of new addressable space. With the explosion of mobile devices – especially with asset intelligence and machine-to-machine embedded connectivity in literally everything – unique IP addresses are becoming a scarce resource. The implications are many. Constraints on innovation, unwieldy network management and security concerns, such as the deployment of v6/v4 bridges in Asia that strip identity and allow for true anonymity. The IPv6 standard has existed for decades, but we’re at a point of finally having to take the issue seriously.

IPv6 is a bit like Y2K – with an ironic twist. A looming-but-unknown deadline, but where the repercussions of no action are precise and potentially catastrophic. Each piece of the migration is manageable. It’s the scope that is complex, as every piece of your IT footprint is potentially affected.

Organizations that start now will likely have time to take a measured approach, limiting risk without dominating the entire IT agenda. Those that wait may be forced to scramble – or get left unconnected.

Exactly! The time for waiting is over. It is great to see a large firm like Deloitte out there advising their clients and we hope that many enterprises will take this advice seriously and start making the move now.

How about you?  If you haven’t already made the move to IPv6, how about making 2014 the year that you at least start (if not hopefully complete) your transition?  Don’t wait.  Don’t be left behind.

P.S. And check out our list of IPv6 resources if you need some help getting started!

Dec 30

FIR #736 – 12/30/13 – For Immediate Release

FIR Presents Higher Education joins the network; LinkedConversations episode 4 is up; FIR on Technology coming soon; our 10th year; Quick News: how the weather affects social media engagement, all about LinkedIn Endorsements, McDonald's axes employee site, 10 ingredients for the perfect presentation; Ragan promo; News That Fits: a holiday wish for social media speakers in 2014, Michael Netzley's Asia Report, teens opting out of Facebook, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, startups can't rely on traditional PR, Dan York's Tech Report; native advertising's big challenges; music from Katie Dare and the Bad Luck Charms; and more.

Dec 27

Free Ebook: IPv6 for IPv4 Experts (in English and Russian)

IPv6 for IPv4 Experts bookLooking for some reading over the holiday break? Want to learn more about IPv6 and how you can be a part of the ongoing transition of the Internet?

If so, Yar Tikhiy has written a free ebook, “IPv6 for IPv4 Experts” that is available from:

https://sites.google.com/site/yartikhiy/home/ipv6book

The book is available in English in two forms of PDF and in Russian in PDF, HTML and EPUB.

I’ve not had a chance to thoroughly review the document yet, but on an initial glance through it looks to be quite an excellent resource for people looking to learn more about IPv6.  We’ve added it to our list of IPv6 resources and encourage you to check it out.

At a very high level, the overall structure of the book is:

Preface

1. Defining the Problem

2. IPv6 Address

3. IPv6 Packet

4. IPv6 in the Protocol Stack

5. Neighbor Discovery Protocol

6. Advanced IPv6

Conclusion

Bibliography

If you look at one of the PDF files, you can see from the table of contents that there is a good amount of detail included in the ebook.

It’s great to see this kind of content being made available and we thank Yar Tikhiy for writing this!

Dec 26

TDYR #055 – On Remembering Those Who Are Struggling At This Time Of Year

TDYR #055 - On Remembering Those Who Are Struggling At This Time Of Year by Dan York

Dec 23

Follow Deploy360 On SoundCloud To Hear Our Audio Updates And Event Recordings

soundcloudAre you following Deploy360 on SoundCloud?  We’re posting there occasional audio updates about our activities as well as the audio recordings from our ION conferences and other events we attend.  You can find our profile there at:

http://soundcloud.com/deploy360/

Our SoundCloud account is enable for podcasting and so there is also an RSS feed to which you can subscribe using whatever podcast client you prefer.

You can see an example of the types of event recordings we’re doing in our ION Krakow “set” on SoundCloud.  The cool thing is that you can start the set playing and basically listen through the entire ION Krakow event.  It’s a great way to listen to what you missed if you weren’t able to attend or listen live.

In the new year I plan to get the audio recordings up there for ION Toronto as well as some of the recent ICANN DNSSEC Workshops.  Plus, we’ll continue to provide audio updates from time to time to let people know what is going on with our activities within the Deploy360 Programme.

We’d love to have you follow us there and comment on and share our audio recordings.  While you’re there on SoundCloud, perhaps you might also be interested in following the Internet Society SoundCloud account where we share some of the other audio content created at various Internet Society events.

The great thing about SoundCloud is it makes it extremely easy to create, upload and find audio recordings.  The only down side from our perspective is that it is not yet available over IPv6. :-(   If anyone knows of a similar service for audio hosting and sharing that does work over IPv6, we’d love to hear about it.  We haven’t found one yet.

Dec 23

Dell: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love IPv6

dell-3Dell gets my vote for best IPv6-related blog post title in a while with “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love IPv6“. And yes, I know it’s a play on Dr. Strangelove and yes, I also realize that the post is ultimately an ad for Dell’s SonicWALL routers (which, I also admit, I didn’t realize Dell had acquired back in 2012).  Still, it’s great to see a company like Dell writing about IPv6 and author Wilson Lee is right on target with his final paragraph:

So how did I learn to stop worrying learn to love IPv6? It wasn’t to stick my head in the sand or to sweep the inevitable migration under the rug.  Rather, as a Dell SonicWALL technologist, it was to make sure that our customers establish the best practices in preparing for IPv6 by deploying security policies on their firewalls, secure remote access appliances, and email security appliances that are tuned for IPv6.  And as consumers of technology, it’s all of our jobs to insist that companies design technology with built-in IPv6 security measures. The Internet of Everything promises to revolutionize our lives; let’s work together to ensure a secure Internet, stop worrying, and learn to love IPv6. 

Indeed!  All of us need to do what we can to make the move to IPv6!  Have you viewed our IPv6 resources?  Looked at our IPv6 basics page?  How can we help you make the move?  Please let us know!

Dec 20

Ebook: IPv6 for IPv4 Experts (Available In English And Russian)

IPv6 for IPv4 Experts bookIn September 2013, Yar Tikhiy released a free ebook titled “IPv6 for IPv4 Experts” available at:

https://sites.google.com/site/yartikhiy/home/ipv6book

The ebook is available in English in multiple PDF sizes and in Russian in PDF, EPUB and HTML.  In an A4 paper size the document comes in at 402 pages and at a high level has this structure:

Preface

1. Defining the Problem

2. IPv6 Address

3. IPv6 Packet

4. IPv6 in the Protocol Stack

5. Neighbor Discovery Protocol

6. Advanced IPv6

Conclusion

Bibliography

The ebook is marked as a draft and some errata have been noted.

 

Dec 20

Call For Participation – Submit Your Idea For The ICANN 49 DNSSEC Workshop In Singapore

ICANN 49 LogoDo you have an idea for a great presentation you’d like to give around DNSSEC?  Perhaps a demonstration of a new tool or service?  Or new DNSSEC statistics or measurements?  Or a new application that works with the DANE protocol?

If you’re going to go the ICANN 49 meeting in Singapore in March 2014, there will be another DNSSEC Workshop happening on Wednesday, March 2014 and the program committee is actively looking for proposals for presentations.  We’d particularly be interested in including some demonstrations this time now that DNSSEC and DANE are getting more widely deployed.

The full Call for Participation is included below.  If you have an idea, please email a couple of sentences about your idea to dnssec-singapore@shinkuro.com.

Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop 26 March 2014

DON’T READ THIS MESSAGE!  We know it’s the holiday season and many of you will ignore this message completely, so we’ll be sure to send another message in early January – but  for those of you who might have some time over the holidays to think about ideas for a presentation related to DNSSEC, please read on…

The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative and the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, in cooperation with the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), are planning a DNSSEC Workshop at the ICANN meeting in Singapore on 26 March 2014.  The DNSSEC Workshop has been a part of ICANN meetings for several years and has provided a forum for both experienced and new people to meet, present and discuss current and future DNSSEC deployments.  For reference, the most recent session was held at the ICANN meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 20 November 2013. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://buenosaires48.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.

We are seeking presentations on the following topics:

1.  DNSSEC Activities in the Asia Pacific region:

For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in the Asia Pacific region and also from those who have not deployed DNSSEC but who have a keen interest in the challenges and benefits of deployment.  In particular, we will consider the following questions:  What can DNSSEC do for you? What doesn’t it do?  What are the internal tradeoffs to implementing DNSSEC?

2. The Operational Realities of Running DNSSEC

Now that DNSSEC has become an operational norm for many registries, registrars, and ISPs, what have we learned about how we manage DNSSEC? What is the best practice around key rollovers? How often do you review your disaster recovery procedures? Is there operational familiarity within your customer support teams? What operational statistics have we gathered about DNSSEC? Are there experiences being documented in the form of best practices, or something similar, for transfer of signed zones?

3.  Implementing DNSSEC Validation At Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a critical role by enabling DNSSEC validation for the caching DNS resolvers used by their customers.  We have now seen massive rollouts of DNSSEC validation within large North American ISPs and at ISPs around the world.  We are interested in presentations on topics such as:
* What does an ISP need to do to prepare its network for implementing DNSSEC validation?
* How does an ISP need to prepare its support staff and technical staff for the rollout of DNSSEC validation?
* What measurements are available about the degree of DNSSEC validation currently deployed?
* What tools are available to help an ISP deploy DNSSEC validation?
* What are the practical server-sizing impacts of enabling DNSSEC validation on ISP DNS Resolvers (ex. cost, memory, cpu, bandwidth, technical support, etc.)?

4.  DNSSEC and DANE In The Enterprise

Similar to ISPs, enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the enterprises’s own domains. We are seeking presentations from enterprises who have implemented DNSSEC on either or both validation and signing and can address questions such as:
* What are the benefits to enterprises of rolling out DNSSEC validation? And how do they do so?
* What are the challenges to deployment for these organizations and how could DANE and other DNSSEC applications address those challenges?
* How should an enterprise best prepare its IT staff and network to implement DNSSEC?
* What tools and systems are available to assist enterprises in the deployment of DNSSEC?
* How can the DANE protocol be used within an enterprise to bring a higher level of security to transactions using SSL/TLS certificates?

5.  DANE and DNSSEC Applications

The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entitites (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. There is strong interest for DANE usage within web transactions as well as for securing email and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). We are seeking presentations on topics such as:
* What are some of the new and innovative uses of DANE and other DNSSEC applications in new areas or industries?
* What tools and services are now available that can support DANE usage?
* How soon could DANE and other DNSSEC applications become a deployable reality?
* How can the industry used DANE and other DNSSEC applications as a mechanism for creating a more secure Internet?

We would be particularly interested in any live demonstrations of DNSSEC / DANE applications and services.  For example, a demonstration of the actual process of setting up a site with a certificate stored in a TLSA record that correctly validates would be welcome.  Demonstrations of new tools that make the setup of DNSSEC or DANE more automated would also be welcome.

6.  When Unexpected DNSSEC Events Occur

What have we learned from some of the operational outages that we have seen over the past 18 months? Are there lessons that we can pass on to those just about to implement DNSSEC? How do you manage dissemination of information about the outage? What have you learned about communications planning? Do you have a route to ISPs and registrars? How do you liaise with your CERT community?

7.  Preparing for Root Key Rollover

For this topic we are seeking input on issues relating to root key rollover.  In particular, we are seeking comments from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys.

8.  DNSSEC Automation

For DNSSEC to reach massive deployment levels it is clear that a higher level of automation is required than is currently available. Topics for which we would like to see presentations include:
* What tools, systems and services are available to help automate DNSSEC key management?
* Can you provide an analysis of current tools/services and identify gaps?
* Where in the various pieces that make up DNSSEC signing and validation are the best opportunities for automation?
* What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?

9.  Guidance for Registrars in Supporting DNSSEC:

The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for Registrars and Resellers requires the support of DNSSEC beginning on January 1, 2014. We are seeking presentations discussing:
* What are the specific technical requirements of the RAA and how can registrars meet those requirements?
* What tools and systems are available for registrars that include DNSSEC support?
* What information do registrars need to provide to resellers and ultimately customers?

We are particularly interested in hearing from registrars who have signed the 2013 RAA and have either already implemented DNSSEC support or have a plan for doing so.

10.  APIs Between the Registrars and DNS Hosting Operators

One specific area that has been identified as needing focus is the communication between registrars and DNS hosting operators, specifically when these functions are provided by different entities.  Right now the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, occurs primarily by way of the domain name holder copying and pasting information from one web interface to another. How can this be automated?  We would welcome presentations  by either registrars or DNS hosting operators who have implemented APIs for the communication of DNSSEC information – or from people with ideas around how such APIs could be constructed.

In addition, we welcome suggestions for additional topics.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@shinkuro.com by **Friday, 31 January 2014**

We hope that you can join us.

Thank you,

Julie Hedlund

On behalf of the DNSSEC Workshop Program Committee:
Steve Crocker, Shinkuro
Mark Elkins, DNS/ZACR
Cath Goulding, Nominet UK
Jean Robert Hountomey, AfricaCERT
Jacques Latour, .CA
Xiaodong Lee, CNNIC
Luciano Minuchin, NIC.AR
Russ Mundy, Sparta/Parsons
Ondřej Surý, CZ.NIC
Lance Wolak, .ORG, The Public Interest Registry
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society

Dec 18

Working On Restoring VOIPSEC Mailing List Archive Functionality

We are unfortunately aware that the mail archives for the VOIPSEC mailing list have not been functioning for a long time.  The list still does have occasional active conversations on it and anyone is welcome to subscribe. However, the archive on the list page as well as on the VOIPSA site page for the list has been broken for a while now.  As part of our work updating the VOIPSA website I’ve been in touch with our hosting vendor to see about getting the archives back in action.  Stay tuned….