March 2014 archive

Mar 19

3 DNSSEC Sessions At ICANN 49 Next Week In Singapore

ICANN 49 SingaporeNext week we’ll be at ICANN 49 in Singapore for several excellent DNSSEC-related sessions, two of which will also be streamed live for those who want to watch remotely.

DNSSEC For Everybody: A Beginner’s Guide

First up on Monday, March 24, 2014, in the late afternoon from 17:00 – 18:30 Singapore time will be the DNSSEC For Everybody: A Beginner’s Guide session where we start at the very basic level of why should anyone care about DNSSEC and get into what kind of problem we are trying to solve.  This session includes a skit (seriously!) where we act out DNS and DNSSEC transactions.  We even have some newer props this time around… so it will be a bit of fun and our feedback has been that this helps people greatly in understanding what DNSSEC is all about.

You can listen remotely via an audio stream or listen and view the slides via a a virtual meeting room.  Details are on the program page.

DNSSEC Workshop

The BIG event of the week is the DNSSEC Workshop on Wednesday, March 26, where we meet from 8:30 – 14:45 Singapore time for this detailed session diving into many different aspects of DNSSEC.  I’m on the Program Committee for the workshop and I can tell you that there will be some excellent presentations at this session.  The slides and full agenda will be available soon, but the major areas of discussion will include:

  • Introduction and DNSSEC Deployment Around the World
  • DNSSEC Activities in the Asia Pacific region
  • Guidance for Registrars in Supporting DNSSEC
  • The Operational Realities of Running DNSSEC
  • Preparing for Root Key Rollover
  • Implementing DNSSEC Validation At Internet Service Providers (ISPs) DANE and DNSSEC Applications

[UPDATE: The slides and full agenda are now available.]

The workshop continues to attract some of the best technical people involved with DNSSEC and the conversations and discussions that happen there provide outstanding value to those interested in these topics.  If you’re interested in DNSSEC and how it can make the Internet more secure, I highly recommend you tuning in!

You can listen remotely via an audio stream or listen and view the slides via a a virtual meeting room.  Details are on the program page.

DNSSEC Implementers Gathering

Finally, Wednesday evening from 19:30-21:30 (or later) some of us will join in an “informal gathering of DNSSEC implementers” at a nearby restaurant/bar. This is a time to share experiences, exchange information and just generally interact with other people involved with deploying DNSSEC.  As ICANN’s Julie Hedlund wrote in a note to various email lists:

This is a unique opportunity to meet with and talk to key implementers, such as CNNIC, JPRS, NZNIC, CIRA, CZNIC, Nominet UK, SIDN, and others. We do ask that in order to participate you should come prepared to say a few words about your experiences.

It’s been a fun time at past events and generated both good conversations and connections for future work activities after the meetings are over.

It should perhaps be obvious but this event will NOT be available for remote participation.  If you will be in Singapore, though, and are interested in interacting with others who are deploying DNSSEC, you are welcome to join us.  As Julie requests, please RSVP by close of business on this Friday, March 21, 2014.

Say Hello!

I will be there in Singapore as will Chris Grundemann from our team.  Please do say hello – you can find me at any of these events and also around other areas of ICANN. You can also email us at deploy360@isoc.org if you’d like to meet with us.  You can also contact us via Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Mar 19

TDYR #132 – And On The 77th Day, The Streak Endeth …

TDYR #132 - And On The 77th Day, The Streak Endeth ... by Dan York

Mar 18

Dramatic IPv6 Growth Now Visible Via Trend Charts On World IPv6 Launch Measurements

Here’s something very cool… you can now see the dramatic growth in IPv6 usage seen in the World IPv6 Launch measurements by way of new trend charts provided for the top 10 networks.  Here’s an example of the chart for Verizon Wireless:

Verizon IPv6 growth

 

The graphs for Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Deutsche Telekom and others in the top 10 are equally compelling, although a couple do admittedly show less dramatic (or even almost flat) growth.  Our colleague Mat Ford announced these new trend graphs in a post to the World IPv6 Launch blog yesterday, along with some other info about some of the growth in individual networks.  He also includes a graph showing the strong growth in IPv6 deployment from the Cloudflare CDN.

Keep in mind, as we wrote about last month, that as mentioned on the bottom of the World IPv6 Launch measurements page, the measurements are for the % of IPv6 deployment that is seen from each registered network by the four companies participating in the measurements program:  Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Akamai. The various methodologies used by the four companies are explained at the bottom of that page.

It’s great to see these graphs and to see the ongoing rise of IPv6 deployment!  How can we help you get started?  (Tip: You may want to start by looking at our IPv6 resources.)

P.S. If any of you will be at the IPv6 World Congress happening in Paris, France, this week, our colleague Phil Roberts will be presenting there tomorrow, Wednesday, March 19, at 5:10pm CET on this topic of measuring IPv6 deployment.  You are welcome to meet him there and talk more about these measurements.

 

Mar 17

TDYR #131 – The Big Fail In Getty Images’ “Free” Embedding

Getty Images recently announced that 35 million of their highly acclaimed images would be available for "free" embedding... the only problem is that the actual implementation doesn't allow social sharing - a major requirement for most people using images today. I wrote more about this on my Disruptive Conversations blog at: http://www.disruptiveconversations.com/2014/03/one-screenshot-to-show-how-getty-images-free-offer-fails-and-why-i-will-not-use-it.html

Mar 17

One Screenshot To Show How Getty Images’ "Free" Offer FAILS – And Why I Will Not Use It

Much has been made over the past few weeks about Getty Images allowing the free embedding of over 35 million images from Getty's vast library. The Verge ran a glowing piece and Neville Hobson summarized a good bit of the early coverage. While I commend Getty Images on trying to evolve their business model in the era of the Internet, here's the reality:

I will NOT use this service - and I can't imagine why anyone else would who wants their content found via social networks.

Here is one screenshot to show why Getty Image's service fails.. I used a Getty Images embed in my last post here and this is what happened when I tried to share the link on Facebook:

Getty embed facebook 2

Here's a second screenshot of sharing the post out in Google+:

Getty embed googleplus

Do you see the problem?

WHERE IS THE IMAGE FROM GETTY IMAGES???

That's right... IT'S NOT THERE!

The image appears in the post itself, of course, but it doesn't appear when you try to share the image out in social networks.

Which is... often... THE ENTIRE POINT of why I am including an image in a blog post. I want something visual that will illustrate the points I'm making in the post - but also that will be attractive when the post is shared out on social media.

So for me this is a reason why I will pretty much never use this new offer from Getty Images.

There are host of other issues, as well, as outlined by Brian Krogsgard in a recent post, but for me the one that kills the whole deal is the lack of the ability for the image to appear in social sharing.

Again, I commend Getty Images on trying to figure out how to evolve their business in the Internet age, but this implementation needs to evolve before it will be useful for people like me.

What do you think? Are you planning to use this new service?

I recorded an audio commentary on this issue as well:

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

Mar 17

What Is A TLD? gTLD? ccTLD? newgTLD? IDN?

What is a "TLD"? How does a "gTLD" differ from a "ccTLD"? And what is a "newgTLD" all about? These are some of the questions I've encountered as I've been talking to people both in person and via the FIR podcast about the "newgTLD" program that is bringing hundreds of new top-level domains into the domain name system (DNS). To have an article I can point to, here are the basic things you need to know (and ICANN regulars will realize I am glossing over some of the nuances... but I'm trying to provide a simple view):
TLD = Top-Level Domain

Whenever you use a domain name, in a web address(URL), email address, or wherever, it ends in a "top-level domain" or "TLD". This is the last part of the name. We often thing of .COM, .ORG, .NET, etc., as in:

  • www.disruptiveconversations.COM
  • www.forimmediaterelease.BIZ
  • internetsociety.ORG

(I've capitalized and made the TLDs bold here, but in the DNS case doesn't matter.)

TLDs are broadly classified into two categories:

  1. generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
  2. country code top-level domains (ccTLDs)

The entity responsible for the administration of these TLDs in the "root" of the Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) that is currently operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). You can see the full list of current TLDs at:

https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db
Second-Level Domain

The next part of the domain name to the left of the TLD (and separated by a dot) is the "second-level domain". These are the domains that you are typically able to register with a registrar. Examples include:

  • www.disruptiveconversations.com
  • www.forimmediaterelease.biz
  • internetsociety.org

The next part of the domain name to the left ("www" in the first two examples above) would be called the "third-level domain", and so on.

gTLD = Generic Top-Level Domain

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are TLDs that are not tied to any specific country and are "generic" in terms of being able to be used (in theory, anyway) by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world. The "original" TLDs such as .COM, .ORG, .NET, .GOV, .MIL are all classifed as "generic TLDs"[1]. There were a couple of rounds of "expansion" of the gTLDs that brought the total to 22 gTLDs prior to the "newgTLD" expansion currently underway

ccTLD = Country Code Top-Level Domain

Country code top-level domains(ccTLDs) are two letter TLDs that are assigned to countries based mostly on the ISOC 3166 list of country codes. Some countries have chosen to operate their ccTLD exclusively for domains within their country or geographic territory. Some do not allow people to register "second-level domains" under the TLD and instead require people to register third-level domains under one of several different second-level domains. For example, the .UK domain as to date required registrations to be under domains such as ".co.uk" and ".org.uk", basically duplicating part of the original gTLD scheme inside their ccTLD.

Many ccTLDs have chosen NOT to restrict their ccTLD to people in their country and have in fact marketed their domains very widely encouraging everyone to use them. Some prominent examples of this include Columbia(.CO), Montenegro(.ME), Tuvulu(.TV), Federated States of Micronesia(.FM) and many more.

Essentially, any time you are using a two-letter TLD, it is a ccTLD for some country. (With a few exceptions.)

newgTLD = Top-Level Domain

After many years of discussion, ICANN's board voted in 2011 to allow the creation of new generic TLDs using almost any text string (and in multiple character sets) and began the "newgTLD" program. This resulted in 1,930 applications by various companies to operate new gTLDs. These newgTLDs are now being rolled out in phases and people are able to register second-level domains under many of these domains. More newgTLDs are being made available pretty much every week - and the expansion will continue for many months and years ahead of us. I recently wrote on CircleID about how to keep track of all the newgTLDs.

At a technical level, "new gTLDs" are effectively the same as "gTLDs"... the designation is just really that these new gTLDs are coming out in this current round of expansion.

IDN = Internationalized Domain Name

The original TLDs were all in the ASCII character set, but over time ICANN decided to allow the creation of "internationalized domain names"(IDNs) that use other character sets such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, etc. The first IDN for a country code TLD appeared in 2010 and the newgTLDs contain many IDNs. (In fact, the very first of the "newgTLDs" were four IDNs.)

These are the basic terms you will hear for domain names when you are talking about the newgTLD program. There are a host of other issues, topics and discussion points that can be discussed in future posts... but I wanted to get these basic terms out there as a baseline.

Comments are, of course, welcome.

[1] - Some of these "generic" TLDs are now formally classified by ICANN as "sponsored" when the registration of domain names is restricted to a particular type of user. For example, registrations in .GOV are restricted to US government entities and registrations in .MUSEUM are restricted to museums. In these cases there is a sponsoring organization or government who manages the TLD.

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

Mar 17

FIR #747 – 3/17/14 – For Immediate Release

Quick News: Top 10 companies making employees happy, Wikipedia considering change to paid-advocate rules, why every employee should build weak ties at work, reasons to spend time on Reddit; Ragan promo; News That Fits: Deloitte study says employees are overwhelmed, Dan York's Tech Report, how to compete against Accenture or Deloitte in a pitch, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments; PR tips from Facebook's head of tech communications, Michael Netzley's Asia Report, last week on the FIR Podcast Network, social media marks the end of the focus group as we know it; music from City and Colour; and more.

Mar 16

TDYR #130 – On The Beauty Of Musicians’ Impromptu Jam Sessions

TDYR #130 - On The Beauty Of Musicians' Impromptu Jam Sessions by Dan York

Mar 16

Video: IPv6 featured on “This Week In Enterprise Tech” (TWIT TV)

We were pleased to see IPv6 featured in this past week’s “This Week In Enterprise Tech” episode #82, where host Robert Ballecer and his crew interviewed John Curran, CEO of ARIN, the Regional Internet Registry for North America, and also Brandon Ross of Network Utility Force. It was an enjoyable interview that covered a wide range of topics related to IPv6.  You can watch the show here – and the IPv6 section starts about 17 minutes into the show:

If you are looking for help getting started with IPv6, please check out our IPv6 resources – and don’t hesitate to let us know if you have more questions or resources you would like to find.

Mar 15

TDYR #129 – In Praise Of Public Libraries, And Doing Reports The Old-fashioned Way

TDYR #129 - In Praise Of Public Libraries, And Doing Reports The Old-fashioned Way by Dan York