July 2014 archive
Jul 30
The Mobile Messaging Wars – and Why Facebook Is Forcing Users to Use Its Messenger App (Featured Blog)
In the ongoing war for mobile messaging dominance and "what will replace SMS", Facebook has decided to annoy a serious part of their user base and force all mobile users to move to Facebook's separate Messenger app. In a short period of time, you will be forced to install the Messenger app if you want to send messages to Facebook friends while using your iOS or Android mobile phone. More...
Jul 30
Heading To A "Junior Curling Camp" This Weekend
Yes, curling... that winter sport.
In July. :-)
And yes, I'm excited! I'm taking two vacation days to bring my 12-year-old daughter Chloe down to this Junior Curling Camp sponsored by the Grand National Curling Club (GNCC), the organization that helps coordinate the sport of curling along the eastern coast of the USA.
Chloe absolutely loves the sport and has been curling for the past three years in the Petersham Curling Club youth curling program down in Petersham, MA, about 45 minutes south of where we live in Keene, NH. This past year she was a skip (captain) for one of our Petersham "Little Rocks" teams (ages 7-11) and did quite well in a couple of bonspiels (tournaments).
Now as a 12-year-old she'll be going into the "Juniors" program and playing at a more serious level with kids ages 12 up to 21-ish. When we were talking earlier this year about what to do this summer, this curling camp rose right to the top of her choices. :-) So we're heading down to join 31 other kids from around the region for what should be a couple of pretty intense days. It starts tomorrow (Thursday, July 31, 2014) afternoon and goes through Sunday mid-day. Lots of practice sessions, individual coaching, classroom work and some games.
The fun part for me is that I also get to join in the action as a coaching assistant. The camp will have some high-level coaches and instructors from the US Curling Association and from national teams, but they invited other club coaches to help... and I jumped right in. I'm very much looking forward to learning a great deal over the next few days from the other coaches that I can bring back to our Petersham CC youth program, as well as for the Monadnock Curling Club effort we are trying to start up in Keene.
So that's the plan... curling... in July... in Pennsylvania! :-)
Jul 30
Call For Proposals: DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 51 in L.A. on October 15, 2014
Do you have an idea for a better way to work with DNSSEC? Have you created a new tool or service for DNSSEC or DANE that you would like to present to the wider community? Could you provide a “case study” of how you implemented DNSSEC within your organization? Have you started using DANE to secure your email communication?
If you would be interested in speaking about any of those points – or any of the other topics we have listed below, WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU! We’re working on creating the program for the ICANN 51 DNSSEC Workshop that will be held in Los Angeles on October 15, 2014. As you’ll note in the full call for participation included below, we are in particular seeking participants on three topics:
- DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email
- Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover
- Experiences from new gTLD registries and administrators
If you have any ideas, or would like to ask questions about what is involved with the workshop, please email us at dnssec-losangeles@isoc.org. Initially, we don’t need a full abstract – just a couple of sentences about what you would like to speak about is perfectly fine.
Thanks,
Dan
Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop 15 October 2014
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 51 meeting in Los Angeles, California, on 15 October 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 London on 25 June 2014. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://london50.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.
We are seeking presentations on the following topics;
1. DNSSEC activities in the North America region
For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in the North America 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?
- What did you learn in your deployment of DNSSEC?
We are interested in presentations from both people involved with the signing of domains and people involved with the deployment of DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers.
2. DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email
The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. We are both pleased and intrigued by the growing usage of DANE and DNSSEC as a means of providing added security for email. Multiple email servers have added support for DANE records to secure TLS/SSL connections. Some email providers are marketing DNSSEC/DANE support. We would like to have a panel at ICANN 51 focusing on this particular usage of DANE. Are you a developer of an email server or client supporting DANE? Do you provide DANE / DNSSEC support in your email service? Can you provide a brief case study of what you have done to implement DANE / DNSSEC? Can you talk about any lessons you learned in the process?
3. Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover
Given many concerns about the need to do a Root Key Rollover, we would like to bring together a panel of people who can talk about what the potential impacts may be to ISPs, equipment providers and end users, and also what can be done to potentially mitigate those issues. In particular, we are seeking participation from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys. We would like to be able to offer suggestions out of this panel to the wider technical community. If you have a specific concern about the Root Key Rollover, or believe you have a method or solution to help address impacts, we would like to hear from you.
4. New gTLD registries and administrators implementing DNSSEC
With the launch of the new gTLDs, we are interested in hearing from registries and operators of new gTLDs about what systems and processes they have implemented to support DNSSEC. As more gTLDs are launched, is there DNSSEC-related information that can be shared to help those launches go easier?
5. 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?
6. 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 are the best opportunities for automation within DNSSEC signing and validation processes?
- What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?
7. 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?
8. DANE and DNSSEC applications
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 use 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.
9. DNSSEC and DANE in the enterprise
Enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the domains owned by the enterprise. We are seeking presentations from enterprises that have implemented DNSSEC on validation and/or signing processes 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?
10. Guidance for Registrars in supporting DNSSEC
The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for registrars and resellers requires them to support DNSSEC from 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.
11. 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.)?
12. 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. Currently, the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, often occurs 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.
13. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) use cases and innovation
We are interested in demonstrations of HSMs, presentations of HSM-related innovations and real world use cases of HSMs and key management.
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-losangeles@isoc.org by Friday, 13 August 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
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society
Jul 30
Call for Participation: DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 51 on 15 Oct 2014
The call for participation is now out for the DNSSEC Workshop to be held on October 15, 2014, at ICANN 51 in Los Angeles.
If you have any ideas, or would like to ask questions about what is involved with the workshop, please email us at dnssec-losangeles@isoc.org. Initially, we don’t need a full abstract – just a couple of sentences about what you would like to speak about is perfectly fine. We are asking that all proposals be sent to us by no later than Friday, August 13, 2014 (but sooner is better as we expect this program to be quite full and we may not be able to accommodate all proposals).
Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop 15 October 2014
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 51 meeting in Los Angeles, California, on 15 October 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 London on 25 June 2014. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://london50.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.
We are seeking presentations on the following topics;
1. DNSSEC activities in the North America region
For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in the North America 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?
- What did you learn in your deployment of DNSSEC?
We are interested in presentations from both people involved with the signing of domains and people involved with the deployment of DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers.
2. DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email
The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. We are both pleased and intrigued by the growing usage of DANE and DNSSEC as a means of providing added security for email. Multiple email servers have added support for DANE records to secure TLS/SSL connections. Some email providers are marketing DNSSEC/DANE support. We would like to have a panel at ICANN 51 focusing on this particular usage of DANE. Are you a developer of an email server or client supporting DANE? Do you provide DANE / DNSSEC support in your email service? Can you provide a brief case study of what you have done to implement DANE / DNSSEC? Can you talk about any lessons you learned in the process?
3. Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover
Given many concerns about the need to do a Root Key Rollover, we would like to bring together a panel of people who can talk about what the potential impacts may be to ISPs, equipment providers and end users, and also what can be done to potentially mitigate those issues. In particular, we are seeking participation from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys. We would like to be able to offer suggestions out of this panel to the wider technical community. If you have a specific concern about the Root Key Rollover, or believe you have a method or solution to help address impacts, we would like to hear from you.
4. New gTLD registries and administrators implementing DNSSEC
With the launch of the new gTLDs, we are interested in hearing from registries and operators of new gTLDs about what systems and processes they have implemented to support DNSSEC. As more gTLDs are launched, is there DNSSEC-related information that can be shared to help those launches go easier?
5. 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?
6. 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 are the best opportunities for automation within DNSSEC signing and validation processes?
- What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?
7. 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?
8. DANE and DNSSEC applications
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 use 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.
9. DNSSEC and DANE in the enterprise
Enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the domains owned by the enterprise. We are seeking presentations from enterprises that have implemented DNSSEC on validation and/or signing processes 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?
10. Guidance for Registrars in supporting DNSSEC
The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for registrars and resellers requires them to support DNSSEC from 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.
11. 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.)?
12. 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. Currently, the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, often occurs 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.
13. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) use cases and innovation
We are interested in demonstrations of HSMs, presentations of HSM-related innovations and real world use cases of HSMs and key management.
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-losangeles@isoc.org by **Friday, 13 August 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
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society
Jul 29
The Mobile Messaging Wars Continue – Facebook Forces Separate Messenger App On Mobile Users
In the ongoing war for mobile messaging dominance and "what will replace SMS", Facebook has decided to annoy a serious part of their user base and force all mobile users to move to Facebook's separate Messenger app. In a short period of time, you will be forced to install the Messenger app if you want to send messages to Facebook friends while using your iOS or Android mobile phone.
Here's the thing... I already tried Messenger on my iPhone a while ago... AND I *UNINSTALLED* IT!
I don't want a separate messaging app. I already have a ton of those. When I am in Facebook I want to do all my Facebook activities and messaging within the one app. I tried Messenger and found the switching between the apps to be painful enough that I wanted nothing to do with it.
Now... in fairness, being someone who tends toward the "early adopter" stage, it was a while ago that I tried Messenger and before their "big update", so presumably they've made improvements. As Facebook so helpfully tells me, 190 of my friends use Messenger already. Knowing some of the people whose images I see on that ad Facebook show me, I can't imagine them tolerating a poor user experience... so yes, perhaps I should try it again.
But it's annoying to be forced to do so. Basically what it says to me is "we (FB) have tried every incentive possible to get people to move, but they aren't, so now we're going to make them move." Facebook already forced most of their European users to make the switch - but now they are making everyone switch.
There has been a great amount of media attention to this move today, and I received the email directly this morning:
The text itself says:
We wanted to let you know that messages are moving out of the Facebook app to our Messenger app, a free app that's faster and more reliable for everyday messaging. Messenger also includes: new ways to send photos and videos, voice calls, stickers, group conversations and more.Soon, we'll start guiding you to get started with Messenger. After a few days, you'll also see a reminder notice in the Facebook app, where you'd normally see your messages. At that point, we'll ask you to install Messenger or go to the Facebook website to view and send messages. You'll still see new message notifications in the Facebook app, and it'll be easy to switch between Facebook and Messenger.
We appreciate your taking the time to install Messenger and know it will take a little while to adjust to using a second app. We look forward to sharing this fast, fun and reliable way of messaging with you. You can learn more here.
Where the "Soon, we'll start guiding you..." is really just marketing-speak for "Soon, you'll have no choice if you want to continue using Facebook messaging on your mobile phone."
The Bigger Picture
I understand why Facebook is doing this. They want a separate, lean "messaging" app that integrates tightly with your mobile phone operating system (iOS or Android). They want it so integrated that eventually you use it only and stop using the messaging app that is part of your o/s.
On my iPhone Apple has done a brilliant job with the "Messages" app integrating Apple's iMessage service in with regular SMS text messages. By default Apple tries to send your message via their OTT messaging service (iMessage) and then falls back to SMS when the recipient isn't registered with iMessage.
Facebook wants you to use their Messenger app as your default messenging app. They would like me to replace Apple's "Messages" with their "Messenger" app as my place to go do send a message. So they need a lean and focused messenging app to do this.
The OTT War For Mobile Messaging Dominance
And this IS the end-game. The war now is for which of the many "Over-The Top" (OTT) apps will be the replacement for the dying world of SMS messaging. People aren't sending as many actual SMS messages and are instead using:
- iMessage from Apple
- Facebook Messaging
- WhatsApp (also now from Facebook)
- Line from NHN
- WeChat from Tencent
- Hangouts from Google (as part of Google+ or separate)
- Skype from Microsoft
- Viber
- Blackberry Messenger (BBM - see update note below)
and probably another hundred smaller ones.
[UPDATE: A Canadian friend noted that I missed Blackberry Messenger (BBM) in the list and while I admittedly don't think about BBM that much these days, he's right that there is still a population that uses it on their smartphones.]
And yes, these are all separate "walled gardens" of propriety messaging (as I wrote about back in 2007, although the names have changed substantially). You can't message someone on a different system. You both have to be part of the same system - or potentially the system may fall back to sending a SMS message as iMessage does.
The attempts to lock Internet users into closed, proprietary walled gardens continues.
Make your app easy and simple to use... and get the most people using your app so that they won't want to switch to some other app.
The Broader OTT War For Mobile Communications
Notice, too, that Facebook mentions using Messenger for "voice calls". With this on iOS they are clearly aiming to take on Apple's "Facetime Audio" that Apple now presents as an option each time you make a call. And they can take on Microsoft's Skype and Google's Hangouts.
Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
All trying to be THE app/service that you use for communication on your mobile device. (And you can probably expect folks like Amazon to enter the game at some point, too.)
Giants on the playground.
And who is missing are the past giants of telecom. The "telcos"... the "carriers"... the "service providers". They are well on their way to being commoditized down to "big, fat, dumb pipes" of data... and they don't like that.
Hence you see them trying to coming out with their own apps and services (as Telefonica has done) or trying to come out with a rival offering such as Joyn (which Dean Bubley rips apart while pointing out the fallacy of talking of the "messaging market")... or using their control of the underlying data network to slow or block services... or using their powerful lobbying capabilities to attempt to get governments to regulate or intervene.
THIS is why so many of the upcoming ITU events matter. THIS is why the discussions on "network neutrality" matter.
The war for the future of mobile communications is well underway... and Facebook's move this week is just part of that much larger battle.
Even if that move will severely annoy Facebook users like me... most of whom will, of course, suck it up and install Messenger... because whether we like it or not we do want to communicate with Facebook users while mobile.
You can also listen to audio commentary on this topic:
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Jul 29
TDYR #168 – Facebook Messenger and the Mobile Messaging War
Today Facebook notified its users that all iOS and Android mobile users will soon have to install Facebook's separate Messenger app to be able to send messages to other Facebook users. In this episode I talk about why this is just part of the broader war for dominance of mobile messaging and mobile communication...
Jul 28
Recovering From The Wonderful Insanity of IETF 90
Today is the Monday after an IETF meeting. For those who were following our “Deploy360@IETF” and other posts last week or are following us on social media, you know how insanely busy it was for us all. Today I think many of the 1200+ “IETFers” at IETF 90 in Toronto last week are getting back to our respective offices all around the world and “decompressing” from the wonderful craziness that makes up an IETF week.
Mostly, we’re just trying to recover from the pace. Figure out what it is we need to do next… and start doing that.
There are so many action items I wrote down. So many articles I want to write for here on Deploy360 and on other sites. So many Internet Drafts I want to review. So many drafts I want to write.
It will take a while.
Right now I find myself still caught up in all that happened. IETF 90 was an excellent event. Extremely productive on issues around IPv6, DNSSEC, TLS, routing security … and more. Like all IETF meetings it is a study in contrasts. The large plenary sessions seating 1,000+ people:
And the smaller, more intimate working group rooms that seat far fewer:
It’s the long microphone lines:
… and the passionate discussions that sometimes happen at those microphones:
It was presenting our work in one session:
… and sitting in one of the most ornate conference rooms I’ve ever been in (owing apparently to the history of the Fairmont Royal York):
It was going to completely packed sessions at 9:00am in the morning:
… and being amused to find that the Terminal Room contained an actual terminal :
It was smiling when I saw this slide (in an excellent presentation about calculating where to locate authoritative DNS servers for a TLD registry operator) and realizing that my own knowledge of some types of mathematics is so rusty that my brain didn’t think of this as “simple”:
… and it was laughing when I saw that some IETFer modified the Fairmont Royal York’s warning that long dresses could get caught in an escalator to be a bit more appropriate for the audience:
It was getting up for 7:30am breakfast meetings and not getting back to my hotel room until 11:30pm and then realizing on Thursday evening that I hadn’t left the hotel since Tuesday evening…. and it was going for a 6:00am run with 3 other IETFers on Friday morning:
It was a crazy, busy … and wonderful week. Full of all the conversations, discussions, arguments, presentations… and random meetings… that move the open Internet standards along. Full of the amazing people that make the IETF the truly amazing organization that it is – all gathered together, and attending remotely… all trying to make the Internet work better!
And now… as we all return to our homes and offices… the next step is to translate all the work that happened last week into actions over the weeks and months ahead…
Jul 28
Code.DanYork.Com Now Back Available Over IPv6
After a Reddit thread started up that briefly referenced a 2011 post I wrote about adding IPv6 to Node.js apps, I was contacted by a Redditor who was surprised that my site wasn’t available over IPv6!
HUH???
I was surprised, too, because this site is hosted on a dual-stack server at Hurricane Electric and has been accessible over IPv6 since June 7, 2011, right before the World IPv6 Day event.
But in checking into it… there was no AAAA record in DNS for “code.danyork.com” that would point to the server, so the report was indeed accurate. For regular users this site was not available over IPv6.
It turned out to be one of those system administration issues that can bite you. A month or two ago, TypePad, the provider I still use for my personal DanYork.com site, experienced a severe DDoS attack that took many sites offline. They recovered but in doing so changed the way that sites were referenced a bit. I had to switch to using a CNAME instead of an IP address as I had been doing. The problem there is that due to the “no CNAME at zone apex” rule of DNS, I could no longer use just “http://danyork.com” – I would have to switch to using “http://www.danyork.com/”.
The episode highlighted to me, though, the need to be sure I have “Test over IPv6” in my list of things to check after making any major changes to any of my sites!
I didn’t want to switch and so I moved the DNS for “danyork.com” over to CloudFlare to make use of their “CNAME Flattening” so that I could still use “danyork.com”.
However, in moving the DNS info from my previous DNS hosting provider to CloudFlare, I messed up. I didn’t bring across the AAAA record for code.danyork.com. Also, very bizarrely, I didn’t have the “Automatic IPv6” setting enabled for danyork.com – even though it is now supposed to be on by default for all new domains.
So the fix was simple – I added the AAAA record for code.danyork.com, and I also flipped the switch on the Automatic IPv6 gateway. Now both code.danyork.com and danyork.com are fully available over IPv6.
Jul 28
FIR #766 – 7/28/14 – For Immediate Release
Intro: Two interviews and an FIR Live are coming; Quick News: Scott Monty joins SHIFT, Reddit Live is open, Facebook's mobile future, relevance is key to native advertising; Ragan promo; News That Fits: PRSA report on social and emerging media in PR practice, Michael Netzley's Asia report, robot-written news has arrived, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, Dan York's Tech Report, the top social media marketing trends of 2014, Igloo Software promo, the last week on the FIR Podcast Network, the slow adoption of internal social media; music from Winter Harvest; and more.
Jul 27
TDYR #167 – The Livestreaming Nightmare – What Do You Do When The Service Goes Down?
At IETF 90 last week in Toronto we had a live streaming nightmare - just as we were about to go live, Google's YouTube Live went "under maintenance" and wouldn't let us start a stream! Thankfully we had a backup...
