Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Jul 11
A Hosting Provider Marketing “Secure Hosting with SSL, DNSSEC and DANE / TLSA”
I have no idea whether “dotplex” is a good web hosting provider in Germany and I know absolutely nothing about them as a company, but as a DNSSEC advocate I was absolutely thrilled to see dotplex marketing the fact that you could have DNSSEC and DANE if you host with them:
Pure awesomeness!
Of course, they may not be the first to do this but they are the first I personally have seen (and please feel free to leave us comments telling us that your hosting provider has done this for a while).
Now… if we can just get every other web hosting provider to do this then we’d wind up with a much more secure Internet! (And we could take away the argument by critics that there aren’t a lot of people providing DANE/TLSA records.)
Kudos to dotplex for marketing DNSSEC/DANE and I wish them all the best with their secure hosting offering!
If YOU would like to get started offering DNSSEC and DANE, please see our START HERE page to find resources for your type of organization – and please let us know if you can’t find resources that will help you.
Jul 11
ACM: Python Now The Most Popular Intro Language At Top US Universities
As a long-time fan of the python language, I was intrigued by this post on the ACM’s blog: “Python is Now the Most Popular Introductory Teaching Language at Top U.S. Universities“. The post begins with a summary:
At the time of writing (July 2014), Python is currently the most popular language for teaching introductory computer science courses at top-ranked U.S. departments.
Specifically, eight of the top 10 CS departments (80%), and 27 of the top 39 (69%), teach Python in introductory CS0 or CS1 courses.
… and then goes into greater detail. Of course, the moment you publish one of these “XXXXXX language is the most popular programming language” type of posts, you immediately get reflexive reactions from programmers who favor all the other languages out there… and this Hacker News thread with 357 comments (so far) shows exactly that, with people either supporting the idea or ripping apart the article’s methodology and explaining why the author is wrong, wrong, wrong… 🙂
The programming language wars will always continue. In the meantime, though, as someone who likes the python language, I’m pleased to see the uptake at universities around the U.S. (and, as noted in the HN thread, by other universities around the world, too).
Jul 11
Live In 2 Hours – Today’s VUC Call About The Future of Video With Bernard Aboba and Emil Ivov
You can watch today's call on the Google+ Page or directly on YouTube:
It's probably best to also join the IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur.
If you won't be at your computer, you can also call in via:
- sip:200901@login.zipdx.com
- +1 (646) 475-2098
- Skype:vuc.me
The session will of course be recorded so you can listen/watch later.
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- following me on Twitter;
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Jul 11
New IPv6 Case Studies Out… But None From Application Developers!
As part of my job at the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, we recently published a whole new batch of IPv6 case studies during the 2nd “Launchiversary” of World IPv6 Launch. However, if you scan down that list of case studies you’ll see one interesting omission:
There are NO case studies from application developers!
None. Zilch. Zero.
This needs to change! If you are an application developer and have migrated your application over to work on IPv6, my colleagues and I at the Internet Society would love to write up a bit about what you have done. PLEASE CONTACT US!
It doesn’t have to be anything gigantic. It could just be a simple article explaining what you did to make your application work over IPv6. Or it could be a paragraph linking to a video of a presentation you gave or a set of slides. We are glad to “interview” you, too, via email or a voice/video call to capture information that we will then write up. All we need is your interest and willingness to be included. Please do let us know.
Separately from that, I am still interested in including some case studies in the next version of this “Migrating Applications To IPv6” book that I’m targeting for early 2015. I have a list of questions that I’d like to ask some of you and include in the book. The benefit to other developers will be that they will get to learn about how to move to IPv6 based on your experience. The benefit to you is that I’ll mention your application and name and give you the added publicity from being in the book. The benefit to the Internet is that we’ll get more people moving over to IPv6 sooner rather than later! If you are interested in being considered for the book, please contact me directly!
Jul 11
TDYR #164 – Name Problems – And The Challenges Of Designing Web Forms For Global Names
How do you best design web forms for the many different kinds of "personal names" that are used all over the world? In this episode I talk about a personal example of mine and also about this page at the W3C's website and a recent discussion on Hacker News:
http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names.en.php
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8003686
Jul 11
New IPv6 Case Studies Out… But None From Application Developers!
As part of my job at the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, we recently published a whole new batch of IPv6 case studies during the 2nd “Launchiversary” of World IPv6 Launch. However, if you scan down that list of case studies you’ll see one interesting omission:
There are NO case studies from application developers!
None. Zilch. Zero.
This needs to change! If you are an application developer and have migrated your application over to work on IPv6, my colleagues and I at the Internet Society would love to write up a bit about what you have done. PLEASE CONTACT US!
It doesn’t have to be anything gigantic. It could just be a simple article explaining what you did to make your application work over IPv6. Or it could be a paragraph linking to a video of a presentation you gave or a set of slides. We are glad to “interview” you, too, via email or a voice/video call to capture information that we will then write up. All we need is your interest and willingness to be included. Please do let us know.
Separately from that, I am still interested in including some case studies in the next version of this “Migrating Applications To IPv6” book that I’m targeting for early 2015. I have a list of questions that I’d like to ask some of you and include in the book. The benefit to other developers will be that they will get to learn about how to move to IPv6 based on your experience. The benefit to you is that I’ll mention your application and name and give you the added publicity from being in the book. The benefit to the Internet is that we’ll get more people moving over to IPv6 sooner rather than later! If you are interested in being considered for the book, please contact me directly!
Jul 08
Now Available – A Trend Chart Tracking DNSSEC Validation Globally (Featured Blog)
How can we track the amount of DNSSEC validation happening globally? Is there a way we can see the trend over time to (we hope!) see validation rise? At the recent excellent DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 50 in London Geoff Huston let me know that his APNIC Labs team has now created this exact type of trend chart. More...
Jul 07
TDYR #163 – SoundCloud Removes Record Capability From Its Mobile Apps
SoundCloud removed the ability to record tracks from its iPhone and Android apps with its new 3.0 release, instead pointing audio creators to third party apps instead. In this episode I discuss my thoughts on that change. Links discussed include:
http://help.soundcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1606516-what%E2%80%99s-new-with-the-iphone-app-
http://retronyms.com/audiocopy/
http://hindenburg.com/products/hindenburg-field-recorder
Jul 07
Finally! A DNSSEC Validation Trend Chart – Up And To The Right!
Finally! What I’ve always wanted for tracking the growth of DNSSEC validation by DNS resolvers is some kind of “trend chart” along the lines of Google’s IPv6 Statistics page that could show the growth in DNSSEC validation. At the recent ICANN DNSSEC Workshop in London Geoff Huston of APNIC provided to us that exact kind of chart at the URL:
http://gronggrong.rand.apnic.net/cgi-bin/ccpage?c=XA&x=1&g=1&r=1&w=1&g=0
Sure, the URL is not exactly very typing-friendly, but a quick bookmark can solve that (and we’ve added it to our DNSSEC Statistics page to help in that regard). The chart looks like:
Which shows the nice upward trend. Geoff’s team includes some other tools so that, for instance, you can set the “average interval” to 7 days and get a much smoother line:
This is what I intend to start using now to show the growth in DNSSEC validation as we continue to see further deployment happening within networks around the world.
Speaking of geography, Geoff’s site also has a “world map” view showing DNSSEC validation by country at the URL:
Right now, of course, the map shows a whole lot of red for low levels of DNSSEC validation:
Let’s see if we can make that change! (Deploy DNSSEC-validating resolvers on your network today! 
)
A cool feature is that below the world map you can get individual trend charts for both various regions and even for individual countries. It also shows the ranking of countries in terms of DNSSEC validation (click/tap the image to get to the page – and then scroll down to see):
Our colleague Jan Žorž may be pleased to see how high his home of Slovenia is ranking!
All of this is based on the measurements Geoff’s team has been doing using Flash-based advertising using Google’s advertising network, something he explained in a recent talk at the RIPE 68 event.
While obviously the various charts show how far we have to go in getting DNSSEC deployed, at least now we have some solid measurement charts we can use to track the progress! Many thanks to Geoff and his team for making this site possible.
We’re looking forward to continuing to see the DNSSEC validation chart grow up and to the right!
P.S. If you want to understand how to get started with DNSSEC, please visit our Start Here page to find resources focused on your type of organization.
