March 2016 archive

Madagascar Signs .MG With DNSSEC As Part Of “Internet Day”

Madagascar DNSSEC

Last week the island country of Madagascar became the latest country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) to sign their .MG domain with DNSSEC.  As we note in the steps for signing a domain, having a signed TLD is critical so that your domain can tie into the global “chain of trust” that provides the added security of DNSSEC.

Now that this step has been completed, the next steps will involve the registrars and DNS hosting providers for .MG domains making DNSSEC signing accessible to .MG domain registrants.

I’ll note that the DNSSEC signing of .MG was part of a broader set of activities that took place on March 17, 2016, as part of “Internet Day 2016” withing Madagascar.  My colleague Michuki Mwangi was there and wrote about the activities that also included the launch of an Internet exchange point (IXP).  Judging by his photos, it looks like an interesting event!

We congratulate the .MG team for the signing!  It’s great to see the Africa part of our DNSSEC Deployment Maps get a bit more green – and we look forward to seeing even more ccTLDs sign their domains.

If you are interested in gaining the added level of trust in your domain that comes with DNSSEC, please visit our Start Here page to begin!

P.S. Madagascar will start appearing in our weekly DNSSEC deployment maps as green beginning next Monday, March 28, 2016.

Want To Learn To Curl? Try out curling on March 26 in Petersham, MA

curlingrocks

Want to give curling a try?  On this coming Saturday, March 26, 2016, the folks down at the Petersham Curling Club, about 45 minutes south of Keene, NH, in Petersham, MA, will be offering two 3-hour “Learn To Curl” clinics fro 10am – 1pm and from 2-5pm.

SPACE IS LIMITED!

From the post to the Petersham CC Facebook page:

They are happening March 26th and there are 2 slots — 10AM-1PM and 2PM-5PM. You get on-ice instruction from experienced curlers, use of curling equipment and a lot of fun (even get in a game!). Just remember to wear sneakers or shoes with a sturdy flat sole. The cost is just $40, and if you decide to join the club, this amount will be deducted from your membership dues. Respond to this post and I’ll put you on the list, as each slot is limited. Feel like an Olympian for a day — try out curling! See you on the ice!

For $40 you get 3 hours of instruction and the chance to try out the sport!

To sign up you can reply to the post on the Petersham Curling Club Facebook page or send an email to Ted Paul.

We hope some folks from the Monadnock region will try it out!  And if you’re excited about curling, please let us know you are interested!  We’ve got some ideas for the future…

Want To Learn To Curl? Try out curling on March 26 in Petersham, MA

curlingrocks

Want to give curling a try?  On this coming Saturday, March 26, 2016, the folks down at the Petersham Curling Club, about 45 minutes south of Keene, NH, in Petersham, MA, will be offering two 3-hour “Learn To Curl” clinics fro 10am – 1pm and from 2-5pm.

SPACE IS LIMITED!

From the post to the Petersham CC Facebook page:

They are happening March 26th and there are 2 slots — 10AM-1PM and 2PM-5PM. You get on-ice instruction from experienced curlers, use of curling equipment and a lot of fun (even get in a game!). Just remember to wear sneakers or shoes with a sturdy flat sole. The cost is just $40, and if you decide to join the club, this amount will be deducted from your membership dues. Respond to this post and I’ll put you on the list, as each slot is limited. Feel like an Olympian for a day — try out curling! See you on the ice!

For $40 you get 3 hours of instruction and the chance to try out the sport!

To sign up you can reply to the post on the Petersham Curling Club Facebook page or send an email to Ted Paul.

We hope some folks from the Monadnock region will try it out!  And if you’re excited about curling, please let us know you are interested!  We’ve got some ideas for the future…

“… that tiny pea, pretty and blue…”

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
– Neil Armstrong

US Congress Hearing on “Privatizing IANA” – Thursday, March 17 (Live Video Feed Available) (Featured Blog)

On Thursday, March 17, 2016, a U.S. Congressional committee will hold a hearing on the topic of "Privatizing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) starting at 10:15am US EDT (UTC-4). You can learn about the hearing and view the written testimony at and watch live on the included pages. The hearing is before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. More...

US Congress Hearing on “Privatizing IANA” – Thursday, March 17 – Live video feed available (Featured Blog)

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Watch Live – Thursday, March 17 – Sally Wentworth Testifying at US Congressional Hearing on Privatizing IANA

On Thursday, March 17, 2016, our VP of Global Policy Development, Sally Shipman Wentworth, will be testifying before the U.S. Congress on the topic of "Privatizing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) starting at 10:15am US EDT (UTC-4).  You can learn about the hearing at:

and watch live at:

Sally's written testimony is available in advance from our site at:

Dan York

Instagram Embraces The Algorithm – Switches From Showing Newest First

Instagram

Some big news in the social media world this morning was that Instagram is embracing the algorithm. Instead of seeing posts from Instagram accounts you follow in "reverse chronological order" (newest updates first) you now will see them in an order determined by Instagram. As the company wrote in a blog post today (my emphasis added):

You may be surprised to learn that people miss on average 70 percent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most.

To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.

The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.

Note that important part:

To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.

Your feed will "show the moments WE believe".

Instagram decides.

You have no say in the matter.

Now, of course, Instagram's parent Facebook has been doing this for years now. Twitter, too, has recently embraced the algorithm saying in February that users would start seeing "the Tweets you’re most likely to care about" at the top of your timeline..

Algorithms are not necessarily bad.

I wrote about this topic over on Ello a month ago in a post "Sometimes Algorithms Help Us" [1].

The reality is that algorithms can help us sort through the deluge of content that is exploding on all the social services. As I wrote in that Ello post referencing first blogging and then Twitter:

The deluge of content became too hard for one person to handle

Algorithms can help us sort through the deluge and try to bring to the surface the most interesting and useful items.

The big question is - who is in control of the algorithm?

Is it ME, the user?

Or is it the service/platform?

And in that case how will they potentially manipulate the algorithm toward their own ends?

The problem is that there is a great potential for abuse on the part of the service/platform. As I noted in my recent post about Facebook Reactions, Facebook manipulated users newsfeeds back in 2012 as part of an experiment about moods.

Beyond that, I know many folks, myself included, who just assume that Facebook and now Twitter (and now Instagram) will use the algorithm to manipulate our feeds to show us more advertising and sponsored posts.

They have to, really, in order to pay their investors given that advertising is really their only revenue source.

And this is the problem - the algorithm is a "black box". We, the users, have no idea what is inside of it or how it works.

The corporation is entirely in control.

They are the gatekeeper of the content we see.

Ideally we would have some degree of transparency and control. We would at least know how the algorithm is affecting what we see. But we don't for most of these services.

In their blog post today, the folks at Instagram write:

We’re going to take time to get this right and listen to your feedback along the way. You’ll see this new experience in the coming months.

I hope they do listen - and I hope they do help us at least understand how the algorithm will shape what we see.

Perhaps they'll take some inspiration from Facebook that still provides (at least for the moment) the option to change to see the most recent updates:

Facebook news feed

Although I thought I saw somewhere some stat that only a very few people actually use that option.

Meanwhile, all we can do is embrace the algorithm ourselves... we have no control over the Instagram platform. That is entirely in the hands of the corporation (Facebook) behind it. If we are to continue using it, we are subject to their whims and desires.

Welcome to our brave new world where the corporations are the gatekeepers of what we see.

And, in truth, the algorithm just may help us find more interesting and relevant images within the deluge of Instagram photos.

What do you think? Will embracing the algorithm help make Instagram more interesting and useful? Or do you see this as a cynical attempt to merely get more advertising visible to us?

P.S. Many more stories about this change are appearing on Techmeme.


[1] Note to self: need to pull that post out of Ello's walls and publish it here on the open web.

DNSSEC Workshop Streaming Live from ICANN 55 in Marrakech on Wednesday, March 9, 2016 (Featured Blog)

What is the current state of DNSSEC deployment around the world and also in Africa? How can you deploy DNSSEC at a massive scale? What is the state of using elliptic curve crypto algorithms in DNSSEC? What more can be done to accelerate DNSSEC deployment? Discussion of all those questions and much more can be found in the DNSSEC Workshop streaming live out of the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, on Wednesday, March 9, from 9:00 to 15:15 WET. More...

DNSSEC Workshop Streaming Live From ICANN 55 In Marrakech On Wednesday, March 9, 2016 (Featured Blog)

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