Dan York

Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...

Author's posts

Oct 30

Finally! Google+ Starts Rolling Out Custom URLs To Regular Users

Dan York About Google 2Finally! We can now get "custom URLs" for our Google+ accounts! As of this morning you can now find me at the nice and easy URL of:
https://plus.google.com/+DanYork/
One of the supreme annoyances of using Google+ has been the horribly ugly long URLs you have had to use for your profile. You couldn't give people an easy URL to find you on the service and there was no way that normal people would realistically remember the long numbers. Google rolled out "custom URL" support for some brands and celebrities earlier but all of us "regular users" were left with the ugly URLs.

That changed yesterday and was noted with a post on Google+, "Expanding the availability of custom URLs". Tipped off to the change by Neville Hobson's post on G+, I went into my Google+ profile and nicely found this message waiting for me at the top of the page

Google custom url 2

I was delighted to see that "+DanYork" was being offered to me and so I clicked the "Get URL" button to see this screen:

Google get custom url 2

One more click brought me to a confirmation screen nothing that I can't change the URL or transfer it to anyone else:

Google custom url confirm 2

And that was it! My Google+ profile now is at https://plus.google.com/+DanYork/.

Very cool to see and this will definitely make it so much easier to refer people to my profile on the service (and therefore will make it much easier for people to find me and use Google+).

Now, what I really want is this kind of custom URL for my Google+ Pages, and I'm seeing from comments on G+ that some people have this for their pages already. The post from Google says the criteria for custom URLs will be:

If your profile meets the following criteria, you’ll now be able to claim a custom URL:
- Has a profile photo, and
- Has at least 10 followers, and
- Has an account that's at least 30 days old

Meanwhile, any brand or business that has a linked website or is a verified local business can claim a custom URL for their Google+ page.

I do have linked websites for some of my Google+ Pages ... but I'm not yet seeing the option to get a custom URL. As Google indicates, this feature is being rolled out this week, so hopefully I'll see it soon.

I've been using Google+ a great amount these days, and so I'm thrilled to see this new feature that will make it much easier to find people and to refer people to my profile and content.

What about you? Have you been offered a custom URL on Google+ yet? Have you claimed it?

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Oct 30

Linphone On iOS Now Supports The Opus Codec

Linphone opus 2When updating my iPhone this week, I was extremely pleased to see the message in the attached screenshot that Linphone now supports the Opus audio codec. Somewhat strangely, I don't see any mention of this Opus support (or even the 2.1 release for iOS) on the Linphone news page or even on the Linphone features page, but the mention of a "Linphone Web" release does also mention Opus, so I'll assume this is real.

I've written before about why the Opus code is so incredibly important if we want to truly deliver a richer and better communications experience than we've had with the traditional PSTN and so it is great to see this support coming in to Linphone. Linphone is certainly not the first SIP softphone to support Opus - there are a number of others out there, including Jitsi and Counterpath's Bria (and X-Lite) - but it's definitely great to see another softphone added to the mix. Hopefully we'll also see this Opus support move to the desktop versions of Linphone (for Windows, OS X and Linux) as well.

Congrats to the Linphone team on making this happen!

P.S. Linphone also supports IPv6, ensuring that it will continue to work on all future networks.

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Oct 28

Video: Requirements for IPv6 in ICT Equipment — a tale of RIPE-554 (PLNOG 11)

What is the story behind the creation of the RIPE-554 document specifying IPv6 requirements for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment? At the recent PLNOG 11 event (where we also ran our ION Krakow event), our own Jan Zorz and Sander Steffann spoke about how RIPE-554 came to be and what the next steps are:

Oct 28

TDYR #044 – A Crazy Busy Week Preparing For IETF 88 In Vancouver (Next Week)

This week will be a crazy one for me getting ready for the IETF 88 meeting happening next week in Vancouver. Some of the links I mention are: Intro to the IETF video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpuzl9lvOSM IETF 88 page: http://www.ietf.org/meeting/88/index.html IETF on Google+: https://plus.google.com/115114278816279309050/posts IETF on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ietf.org

Oct 28

FIR #727 – 10/28/13 – For Immediate Release

FIR On Strategy 5 is up; listener survey early results; Neville saw Byan Person and missed Michael Netzley; upcoming Scoble-Israel appearances; Quick News: the role of news on Facebook, Ryanair looks serious about customer service, native advertising gets regulator attention, Twitter keeps IPO communications in-house; Ragan promo; News That Fits: Knight Frank pays price of ignoring social web, the power of the logo, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, the decline of Wikipedia, Dan York's report, everyone is ignoring mobile messaging apps; music from Night's Bright Colors; and more.

Oct 25

TDYR #043 – IPv6: The Coolest Part Of My Switch To An iPhone On Verizon Wireless

I recently made the switch from AT&T to Verizon Wireless and in doing so the very first website I visited over Verizon's LTE network was... http://www.test-ipv6.com :-) I was thrilled with the results and very happy to have a smartphone that works natively over IPv6. (For more on why this is important, see http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/ipv6/ )

Oct 24

Watch LIVE at 1:00pm US EDT today – ICANN’s DNSSEC Key Signing Ceremony XV

icann-at-15-logoIn about 15 minutes, at 1:00pm US EDT, you can watch live as members of the DNS/DNSSSEC community engage in a “Key Signing Ceremony” that will result in the generation of new keys used for managing DNSSEC at the root of the Domain Name System (DNS).  The live stream will be at:

http://dns.icann.org/ksk/stream/

The schedule, list of attendees and other information can be found at:

http://dns.icann.org/ksk/upcoming-ceremonies/cer15/

The ceremony begins at 1:00pm and is scheduled to end at 4:00pm US EDT. The script that is being followed during the ceremony is available at:

http://data.iana.org/ksk-ceremony/15/KC15_Scripts.pdf

These documents may also be helpful in understanding what happens:

Essentially what is going on is the creation and signing of new “zone-signing keys (ZSKs)” that are being signed by ICANN’s “key-signing key (KSK)” and then deployed by the ZSK operator.

As you will see if you watch, there is a very specific process that is used to ensure the integrity and security of the key signing process.  It is all documented and then archived so that there is full transparency about what goes on.

If you are interested in understanding how DNSSEC works at an operational level, you may find watching today quite informative. If you are unable to watch the stream live, it will be recorded and made available from the archive link for this 15th key signing ceremony.  (And as these key signing ceremonies happen quarterly, the next will be along in just a few months.)

Oct 24

4 NewgTLDs Launched Yesterday Marks Dawn of “DNSSEC From The Start” TLDs

dnssecYesterday was a big day for the Domain Name System (DNS). After a long process, ICANN formally delegated the first four of the “new generic top-level domains (newgTLDs)”, marking the beginning of the largest expansion of the domain name space ever. In addition to the existing “generic TLDs” like .com, .org, .net, etc., and the existing “country code TLDs (ccTLDs)” like .nl, .cz, .tv, etc., over the months and years ahead there are some 1,400 newgTLDs that are expected to be launched.

These first four newgTLDs are interestingly not English-language names like “.shop” or “.bank”, but instead what are called “Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)” in non-Latin alphabets:

  • شبكة (xn--ngbc5azd) – Arabic for “web/network”
  • онлайн (xn--80asehdb) – Cyrillic for “online”
  • сайт (xn--80aswg) – Cyrillic for “site”
  • 游戏(xn--unup4y) – Chinese for “game(s)”

Yesterday’s “delegation” means that these TLDs now appear in the root zone of the DNS and the registries who operate these TLDs can now begin the process of selling domain names underneath these TLDs.  There is a formal process the registries have to go through to get started, but soon we should see these TLDs available as options for registration at the registrars who are supporting these TLDs.

Now, the exciting aspect of this news from a Deploy360 point of view is simply this:

All of these newgTLDs MUST be signed with and use DNSSEC!

From the very beginning of their operation these newgTLDs are already starting out with more security enabled than many of the existing country-code TLDs (ccTLDs).  If you look at ICANN’s “TLD DNSSEC Report” you can see that pretty much all of the existing major “generic TLDs” (ex. .com, .org, .net, .edu) are signed with DNSSEC.  Similarly over 100 of the existing ccTLDs are signed with DNSSEC.  These four newgTLDs can also be found in that report, with a nice green bar showing that they are all signed with DNSSEC.

The key point here is that these new registries must:

1. Keep the TLD signed with DNSSEC from an operational point of view.
2. Accept DNSSEC records (DS/DNSKEY) from registrars (or domain registrants depending upon the business model).

One important point:

Support of DNSSEC by a newgTLD does NOT mean that ALL domains registered under the newgTLD will be secured with DNSSEC!

But it means that all domain names registered under the newgTLD CAN be secured with DNSSEC – and that is a great step forward!

Furthermore, the new ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) will require all “ICANN-accredited registrars” to support the passing of DNSSEC records from a domain name registrant up to the TLD registry. This means we should be seeing a great amount more of DNSSEC support from within the registrars.  Hopefully the DNS operators (which are sometimes part of registrars) will follow with making it easy for domain name holders to sign their domains.

All in all this newgTLD launch is great news for those of us looking at add more security to the Internet through the use of DNSSEC.  From here on out all the newgTLDs will be launched with DNSSEC – and hopefully this will also put some competitive pressure on the lagging ccTLDs (and a few lagging gTLDs) to join the rest of the TLDs that have already signed their domains.

And in the end, we’ll have a more secure Internet protecting users from attackers and also enabling new an innovative forms of security such as DANE’s protection of SSL/TLS certificates.

Congratulations to all the teams at these four registries (and their operators) and also at ICANN on this launch of the first new – and secure – gTLDs!

P.S. Want to understand DNSSEC and how (or why?) you can get started?  Check out our DNSSEC Basics page…

 

 

 

 

Oct 23

One Image Showing Why I’ll Stick With Spotify Premium Over Apple’s iTunes Radio

Working in a home office, I often like having music playing softly (or sometimes loudly!) in the background. In the interest of hearing more music than just what I have in my own collection, I've been trying various streaming services and a while back started paying the $10/month for Spotify Premium. I've been generally rather pleased and have enjoyed discovering some new artists through both what friends are listening to as well as Spotify's "Discover" tab. (And yes, I've actually purchasedsome music via iTunes as a result of hearing it on Spotify.)

With Apple promoting their new "iTunes Radio" I naturally had to try it out. I listened to a couple of the default "stations" and was pleased by what I heard.

And then this...

ITunes

My nice stream of background music was interrupted by an ad for a new album available for purchase in the iTunes Store.

It's not this particular album being advertised that annoyed me... it was that there was an advertisement. I have background music playing that is, well, music, not people speaking. Music fades into the background and I find it strangely helps me concentrate. Speaking interrupts my concentration.

Looking into iTunes Radio more I noticed that the option to go "ad-free" is there if I want to subscribe to iTunes Match. Now at $25/year this is chaeper than Spotify Premium, but requires that I give Apple access to my entire iTunes library to store it up in "iCloud".

I'm not sure I really want to do this.

The paranoid-about-privacy side of me is leery of what information I'm giving to the big corporations out there, and I'm not sure I'm ready to embrace the convenience of having "all my music with me everywhere" while sacrificing the privacy of the info about all my music.

Of course, who knows... I may have already done this some time in the past with some various iTunes terms of service that perhaps said all my data would be sent to Apple. I don't honestly know.

In some digging around online, though, it appears that even if I gave Apple access to all my music, I'd still have a less-than-stellar user experience. As Alex Heath writes over at Cult of Mac about his disappointment with the service:

Apple still told me what station I was listening to over and over. I know I’m listening to the “Pure Pop” station, Apple. You don’t need to play a 9-second clip in between songs telling me so. What purpose does that serve the listener when they already know what station they chose?

and

When Katy Perry’s new “Dark Horse” single (which isn’t that good, by the way) came on for the first time, a 3-second chime played telling me that it was an official iTunes Radio “pick.” Okay. Why not just put that information in text form next to the album artwork? Do I really need my listening experience interrupted with that audio blurb?

Alex notes:

I’ve been a Spotify Premium subscriber for over a year now, and I love it because it I hear nothing but the music I want playing.

That's it in a nutshell.

I want music... pure, uninterrupted music.

That's all.

(And obviously I'm willing to pay for it.)

So for now I'll stick with Spotify... maybe in some future release I'll give iTunes Radio another try if they ever get to more of an "all music" experience.

What has your experience been? Obviously, based on stats from Apple's recent event that said over 1 billion songs have been played on iTunes Radio, people are using the service!

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Oct 22

APNIC Offering DNSSEC Training In Dhaka, Bangladesh, on November 8, 2013

APNIC logoAre you interested in learning about DNSSEC and live near Dhaka, Bangladesh? (or can get there?) If so, the folks at APNIC are offering a day of DNS/DNSSEC trainingon November 8, 2013. From the abstract:

This course will discuss the concept of DNS Security in detail, mechanisms to authenticate the communication between DNS Servers, mechanisms to establish authenticity, and integrity of DNS data and mechanisms to delegate trust to public keys of third parties.

The outline looks quite interesting:

  • DNS concepts
  • Forward and Reverse DNS
  • DNS Security concepts
  • DNS Protocol Vulnerabilities
  • Transaction Signatures (TSIG)
  • DNS security extensions (DNSSEC)
  • Setting up secure zones
  • DNSSEC Key management
  • DNS and IPv6

(I like that bit at the end about “DNS and IPv6″! ;-) )

For more information such as location and fees, as well as the link for registration, please visit the APNIC web page for this class.