Dan York

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

Author's posts

May 16

Experimenting With SoundCloud For Audio Podcasting

SoundcloudAs I've mentioned on my last several reports into the For Immediate Release podcast, I've been experimenting over the past few weeks with SoundCloud as a platform for posting and sharing audio recordings.  If you are a SoundCloud user, you are welcome to follow along with my experiments at:

soundcloud.com/danyork

So far I have been mostly posting my weekly FIR reports and a few other samples... but over the next bit I'm intending to post some more audio recordings as I try out a number of different applications.

I was toying with using SoundCloud for a bit... and then was inspired by what C.C. Chapman did with the platform for his audio reports from his recent trip to Ghana.

I've been looking for a bit for a place to just post random audio commentary that didn't fit into FIR or other sites. We'll see what precisely I do with it over the weeks and months ahead.

If you'd like to try it yourself, signing up for an account is free - there is just a limit on how much audio you can post with the free account.

And as to how SoundCloud is different from Audioboo or the many other similar services, I would direct you to my latest report into FIR #651 where I covered this precise question!

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

May 16

2 Days Left To Comment to FCC About Ham Radio Usage In Emergency Communications

FCC logoTo all my friends and readers who use amateur (ham) radio, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on the use of Amateur Radio in emergency communications such as disaster response.

THE DEADLINE FOR COMMENT IS TOMORROW - May 17, 2012.

As the FCC public notice states:

the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau seek comment on the uses and capabilities of Amateur Radio Service communications in emergencies and disaster relief. As set forth below, comment is sought on issues relating to the importance of emergency Amateur Radio Service communications and on impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications. Stakeholder entities and organizations, including the Amateur Radio, emergency response, and disaster communications communities, are particularly encouraged to submit comments.

The public notice goes on to pose a series of questions around the importance of amateur radio in emergency communications - and a series of questions around the impediments to enhanced amateur radio communications.

Later in the document it explains the filing process, including the manner in which comments can be filed electronically over the Internet.

I'm not a ham radio user myself, although I've always had an interest but just never made the cycles to go through the process. I have, though, seen the incredible use that has been made of ham radio in emergency situations.

If any of you have opinions on the questions raised by the FCC, they'd like to hear from you!

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

May 16

DNSSEC Used In 2012 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition

Our friends over at the DNSSEC Deployment Initiative published the great news that DNSSEC was involved in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) held in April 2012.  This annual event, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology division, involved this year 126 schools and over 1,500 competitors.  The important part to us was this quote:

According to organizer Dwayne Williams, roughly 80% of the competitors had heard of DNSSEC before, but less than 10% had ever actually used or implemented it prior to NCCDC. While two of the teams noted that they would like to see simpler, step-by-step instructions for implementing DNSSEC, all of the teams ultimately thought DNSSEC was a technology they planned to look at more in the future.

That’s 1,500 more people who can be out there able to deploy DNSSEC!  And since these competitors are students who will be going on into industry this is excellent news for the future of DNSSEC.

We also understandably liked this part of the quote:

While two of the teams noted that they would like to see simpler, step-by-step instructions for implementing DNSSEC…

That is precisely the type of content we’re aiming to build here for DNSSEC, and our new DNSSEC content roadmap identifies further tutorials we’d like to add.  By the time the 2013 NCCDC event rolls around, these students will be able to find many more simpler tutorials out there!

Kudos to all the 2012 NCCDC teams for working with DNSSEC – and we look forward to learning what DNSSEC challenges will be part of the next NCCDC event.

May 16

One Year Ago Today, The Big C Changed Everything…

BigcToday is a somber anniversary in our household. One year ago today, we sat down with a doctor here in Keene to go over the results of some tests on my wife. He came into the room and went immediately to the point... hardly even saying hello. I don't remember his exact words, but they were basically:
"I have some bad news. You have cancer."

He may have said it differently... but that was the core message. Simple. Direct. To the point.

And everything changed for us.

The rest of that appointment and indeed the year has become a blur of learning more about cancer, medicine and the medical system than I ever expected to learn at this age.

My wife, who at the time was in the best physical shape she'd ever been in, proceeded down a path where she lost her breasts, lost her mane of hair, lost parts of her memory, lost her stamina, lost her ability to quickly process things in her mind, lost her physical health... and basically lost a year of her life.

The good news, of course, is that she didn't lose her life, and that as a result of the treatments she's undergoing and the fact that they caught the cancer early, she's got a very strong chance of being around for many more years. Her cancer was "only" Stage 1 Invasive Breast Cancer, and could have been so much worse had it not been detected.

Intellectually, that's easy to say. Emotionally, it's a lot harder. It's been a hell of a year.

And the journey is not over. She's still got another 7 months of Herceptin treatments... and another 4 years after that of daily Tamoxifen pills (that she is also taking now), both of which have their own troubling side effects. And as we've learned, you're never really "cured" of cancer. You win battles, but the war inside your body continues.

A year ago, the big C invaded our life and became a thoroughly unwelcome houseguest. Now we just have to continue learning to live with it...

Some of the articles I've written about our journey with cancer, in chronological order:

May 15

Want To Tell Us Where To Go? View Our IPv6 and DNSSEC Roadmaps…

road pictureWhat type of IPv6 and DNSSEC
articles, tutorials, and other content do we need to add to this Deploy360 website? What areas need more attention? Have you looked for some topic here and not found it?

Since we launched Deploy360 four months ago, we’ve been collecting feedback through comments to this site; through interactions on Twitter, Facebook and Google+; from email sent to our deploy360@isoc.org address; from feedback form submissions; from conversations at various events … and even before our launch from attendees at our two ION conferences last year.

You have given us a great amount of feedback, and we’ve summarized all of that into two “roadmap” documents that outline what we believe we need to add to the site. They can be found here:

Now we’d love to hear from you again… have we captured your feedback accurately? Can you see other areas that we need to add? Other topics or tutorials?

How else can we help you with information about how to deploy IPv6 and DNSSEC rapidly?

Please note that these roadmap pages will be “living documents” in that we’ll be constantly updating them as we add items to the site (and remove them from the roadmap), find new items we need to add, and generally get more feedback from you about where you think we need to focus.

With these roadmaps published, we will start adding the listed resources to the site. We will be finding these resources out on the Internet where we can – verifying their accuracy and then reviewing them here on the site. Where needed resources don’t yet exist in a free and open form, we’ll create those resources in conjunction with our partners and volunteers.

To that end, if you know of a great tutorial or article (including one you’ve written) that fits an item on the roadmap, please let us know so that we can consider it for inclusion in the site. If you are looking for a specific topic and it’s not on this site or on the roadmap yet, let us know so we can add it to the roadmap.

Many thanks again to everyone who has given us feedback on the site over the past four months. We’ve been very pleased by the response so far and are looking forward to growing this site to help many more people deploy IPv6 and DNSSEC!

Please let us know how we can help you!

May 14

DNSSEC Roadmap for the Deploy360 Programme

The Deploy360 Programme staff has been collecting requirements and feedback for DNSSEC-related content from the community here at the Deploy360 site, from within social networks and at our ION conferences.

Based on that feedback, this document is an analysis of the IPv6-related content that needs to be added to the Deploy360 Programme website. Each section lists two areas of content:

  • Requirements – content that must be added to the site for this section to be “complete” in terms of meeting the section’s education goal.
  • Enhancements – content that we would like to add to each section. This content may be added after the required content is complete or if additional funding, staff or volunteers can be found to assist with this content.

This is a living document that will be continually updated and changed as we complete listed items, discover new items we believe need to be added and/or receive feedback from the larger community about items that need to be added or removed from the list.  (And we welcome your feedback on these documents.)

The content listed below will either be curated (i.e. found on the Internet, verified for accuracy and pointed to with a review from the Deploy360 site) or will be created by the Deploy360 team in conjunction with partners and volunteers.

Separate from the content identified here, there is also the need to translate the content on the Deploy360 site into other languages.

Feedback on this roadmap is definitely welcome. Thank you.

DNSSEC Basics

Requirements:

  • Intro document – What DNSSEC is, why it matters, etc.
  • Information about how to ensure your local DNS server will pass along DNSSEC records
  • More information about the role of DS records within parent domains
  • Information about DANE and the value it brings
  • More information about the business reasons for using the added security of DNSSEC
  • Information about how SSL and DNSSEC can work together
  • Tutorials for how to use DNSSEC at various registrars (expanding the current list)
  • Guidance on DNSSEC key rollover
  • Information about establishing a DNSSEC Policy and Practice Statement (DPS)
  • DNSSEC RFC review

Enhancements:

  • Videos/screencasts of securing and signing your domain using various registrars
  • Animated video (Common Craft-style) that explains DNSSEC to regular audience
  • Assistance in editing/updating the DNSSEC HOWTO maintained by NLnet Labs
  • Marketing-type materials for internal advocates to champion DNSSEC

Case Studies

Requirements:

  • Case study (text) with a registry
  • Case study with a registrar making DNSSEC available to customers
  • Case studies with ISPs deploying DNSSEC-validating name servers
  • Case studies with multiple developers of different types of applications

Enhancements:

  • Video case studies with all of the above
  • Design and publish “deployment scenarios” for DNSSEC that are suited to specific industry segments rather than rely solely on case studies

Tools

Requirements:

  • Tutorial on how to add CZ.NIC DNSSEC extension to Microsoft IE
  • Tutorial/info about how to configure DNSSEC using
    • BIND
    • PowerDNS
    • Unbound
    • Windows 8
    • (other servers)
  • Pointers to more of the existing videos/screencasts about DNSSEC tools

Enhancements:

  • Videos/screencasts of adding DNSSEC extensions to Chrome, Firefox, IE
  • Videos/screencasts of configuring DNSSEC using the various nameservers

Training

Requirements:

  • Identification of further courseware available for open/free usage
  • Further identification of additional train-the-trainer courseware

Enhancements:

  • Creation of additional written courseware
  • Creation of deployment-focused e-learning / video tutorials
  • Ongoing webinar series offering IPv6 education
  • Develop and standardize a training package for DNSSEC that trainers and consultants can use as a base for educating their customers

Network Operators (including registries and registrars)

Requirements:

  • Guidelines for considerations for supporting DNSSEC
    • Include information about whether or not to validate at ISP-level
  • Case studies (previously covered above)
  • Questions to ask vendors regarding DNSSEC support
  • Pointers to databases of DNSSEC-enabled software and services
  • Information about DNSSEC automation software
  • Tutorial on DNSSEC deployment at the gTLD/ccTLD level

Enhancements:

  • Commissioned analyst whitepapers on DNSSEC
  • Videos/screencasts related to DNSSEC implementation at operator level
  • Funding to assist in adding DNSSEC capability to registry/registrar software

Developers

Requirements:

  • Guidelines/best practices for adding DNSSEC support to applications
  • Case studies (previously covered above)

Enhancements:

  • Videos/screencasts showing use of DNSSEC libraries
  • Creation of additional open source test tools and/or libraries

Content Providers

Requirements:

  • Case studies
  • Information about business case / value in using DNSSEC
  • Information about how to work with registrars in signing domains
  • Information about using content delivery networks (CDNs) that support DNSSEC
  • Information about DANE and other uses of DNSSEC

Enhancements:

  • (Same video screencasts as under DNSSEC Basics)

Consumer Electronics Manufacturers

Requirements:

  • Case studies
  • Information about business case / value in using DNSSEC
  • (similar information as with Developers in how to add DNSSEC support to a device)

Enhancements:

  • (Same video screencasts as under DNSSEC Basics and Developers)

 

Enterprise Customers

Requirements:

  • More material helping C-levels understand the need to deploy DNSSEC
  • Business case / cost benefit analysis support for DNSSEC
  • Case studies
  • (Tutorials on DNSSEC configuration as referenced earlier)

Enhancements:

  • Commissioned analyst whitepapers on DNSSEC
  • Videos/screencasts related to enterprise usage of DNSSEC
  • Slides / materials to help enterprise advocates promote DNSSEC within their enterprise

May 14

IPv6 Roadmap for the Deploy360 Programme

The Deploy360 Programme staff has been collecting requirements and feedback for IPv6-related content from the community here at the Deploy360 site, from within social networks and at our ION conferences.

Based on that feedback, this document is an analysis of the IPv6-related content that needs to be added to the Deploy360 Programme website. Each section lists two areas of content:

  • Requirements – content that must be added to the site for this section to be “complete” in terms of meeting the section’s education goal.
  • Enhancements – content that we would like to add to each section. This content may be added after the required content is complete or if additional funding, staff or volunteers can be found to assist with this content.

This is a living document that will be continually updated and changed as we complete listed items, discover new items we believe need to be added and/or receive feedback from the larger community about items that need to be added or removed from the list.  (And we welcome your feedback on these documents.)

The content listed below will either be curated (i.e. found on the Internet, verified for accuracy and pointed to with a review from the Deploy360 site) or will be created by the Deploy360 team in conjunction with partners and volunteers.

Separate from the content identified here, there is also the need to translate the content on the Deploy360 site into other languages.

Feedback on this roadmap is definitely welcome. Thank you.

IPv6 Basics

Requirements:

  • Introductory video explaining what IPv6 is all about (created or curated)
  • Simplified roadmap for how to deploy IPv6
  • Instructions for how to configure IPv6 on different operating systems and mobile devices
  • Suggestions to help validate the accuracy of IPv6 capability claims of vendor products
  • Pointing to existing lists of equipment known to work with IPv6
  • Basic guidelines for IPv6 security (open up a separate section on the site?)
  • Information on network planning with IPv6
  • Guidelines for IPv6 address allocation planning
  • IPv6 routing best practices
  • IPv6 RFC review
  • How to obtain IPv6 address allocations from the RIRs
  • IPv6 diagnostic and troubleshooting tools
  • Tutorial on how to set up an IPv6 test lab using tunnelbrokers and other systems

Enhancements:

  • Videos of IPv6 configuration on different operating systems and mobile devices
  • Video/screencast of setting up an IPv6 test lab
  • Pointers and reviews to books/ebooks related to IPv6
  • Animated video (Common Craft-style) that explains IPv6 to common audience
  • Videos/screencasts related to IPv6 security

IPv6 Case Studies

Requirements:

  • Case study (text) with a large ISP
  • Case study with a wireless ISP
  • Case studies with multiple developers of different types of applications
  • Case studies with multiple content providers
  • Case studies with consumer electronics manufacturers
  • Case studies with enterprises who have moved their networks to IPv6

Enhancements:

  • Video case studies with all of the above
  • Audio versions of the case studies
  • Slide presentation(s) summarizing these case studies
  • Webinars with case study participants
  • Design and publish “deployment scenarios” for IPv6 that are suited to specific industry segments rather than rely solely on case studies

IPv6 Training

Requirements:

  • Identification of courseware available for open/free usage
  • Further identification of IPv6 courses available
  • Train-the-Trainer courseware

Enhancements:

  • Creation of additional written courseware
  • Creation of deployment-focused e-learning / video tutorials
  • Ongoing webinar series offering IPv6 education
  • Develop and standardize a training package for IPv6 that trainers and consultants can use as a base for educating their customers

Network Operators

Requirements:

  • Guidelines for considerations for moving networks to IPv6
  • Case studies (previously covered above)
  • Questions to ask vendors regarding IPv6 support
  • Pointers to databases of IPv6-enabled equipment

Enhancements:

  • Commissioned analyst whitepapers on IPv6 migration
  • Videos/screencasts related to IPv6 transition
  • Materials related to IPv6 multihoming
  • Maintaining actual database of IPv6-enabled equipment
  • Marketing materials to help operators promote IPv6 to their customers

Developers

Requirements:

  • Guidelines for migrating applications or services to IPv6
  • Case studies (previously covered above)
  • Pointers to open source or reference implementations of IPv6
  • Pointers to IPv6 test tools and sites
  • Tutorials/considerations for operating in a dual-stack environment
  • Information about IPv6 transition mechanisms
  • Information about use of “Happy Eyeballs” (RFC 6555)

Enhancements:

  • Videos/screencasts showing use of IPv6 libraries
    • Commissioning of IPv6 shows on existing developer-focused video podcasts
  • Creation of open source test tools and/or libraries

Content Providers

Requirements:

  • Case studies
  • Information about using hosting providers that support IPv6
    • Listings of IPv6 hosting providers
    • Questions to ask your current hosting provider
  • Information/tutorials about using content delivery networks (CDNs) that support IPv6
  • Information/tutorials about using relay/proxy services to IPv6-enable content
  • Information/tutorials about transition technologies identified in RFC 6589

Enhancements:

  • Videos/screencasts demonstrating IPv6 at hosting providers
  • Videos/screencasts demonstrating use of CDNs with IPv6
  • Videos/screencasts demonstrating relay/proxy services
  • Videos/screencasts demonstrating transition technologies

Consumer Electronics Manufacturers

Requirements:

  • Case studies
  • Information about business case / value in using IPv6
  • (similar information as with Developers in how to add IPv6 support to a device)

Enhancements:

  • (Same video screencasts as under IPv6 Basics and Developers)

Enterprise Customers

Requirements:

  • More material helping C-levels understand the need to deploy IPv6
  • Business case / cost benefit analysis support for IPv6
  • Case studies
  • Practical guide to IPv6 address management tools
  • Information about different types of IPv6 address blocks (PA vs PI)

Enhancements:

  • Commissioned analyst whitepapers on IPv6 migration
  • Videos/screencasts related to enterprise usage of IPv6
  • Slides / materials to help enterprise advocates promote IPv6 within their enterprise

Additional Content

The following content was requested at ION events and does not currently have a section within the Deploy360 site.

Enhancements:

  • Information about consultants
  • Online forum for user discussion at the portal

May 14

Roadmap for the Deploy360 Programme

The Deploy360 Programme staff has been collecting requirements and feedback from the community here at the Deploy360 site, from within social networks and at our ION conferences.

Based on that feedback, we have outlined the IPv6-related and DNSSEC-related content that needs to be added to the Deploy360 Programme website:

These are living documents that will be continually updated and changed as we complete listed items, discover new items we believe need to be added and/or receive feedback from the larger community about items that need to be added or removed from the list.  (And we welcome your feedback on these documents.)

Within each roadmap, the invidual sections lists two areas of content:

  • Requirements – content that must be added to the site for this section to be “complete” in terms of meeting the section’s education goal.
  • Enhancements – content that we would like to add to each section. This content may be added after the required content is complete or if additional funding, staff or volunteers can be found to assist with this content.

The content listed on these roadmaps will either be curated (i.e. found on the Internet, verified for accuracy and pointed to with a review from the Deploy360 site) or will be created by the Deploy360 team in conjunction with partners and volunteers.

Separate from the content identified here, there is also the need to translate the content on the Deploy360 site into other languages.

Feedback on these roadmaps is definitely welcome.

May 11

New Infographic on IPv6-Enabled Sites in Top 1 Million Alexa sites

How many of the top 1 million websites (according to Alexa) are using IPv6? Hackertarget.com, a provider of online security scanning services, released an infographic summarizing their research. As they say on their page:

Analysis of IPv6 enabled sites was conducted in March 2012. We have analysed the Alexa Top 1 Million sites and looked for the presence of AAAA DNS records indicating an IPv6 enabled site.

Once determined we then looked at the hosting locations, net block owners, web servers and operating systems in use. The following infographic summarises the results from the analysis.

I found a number of interesting points through the stats, such as the higher percentage of German websites with IPv6. In looking at the list of “number of IPv6 enabled site by netblock owner”, I found it interesting that the top 4 (on the bottom of the chart) seem to be two German hosting providers, a Russian hosting provider and then the Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN) – demonstrating, to me, the value of getting hosting providers and CDNs to deploy IPv6 connectivity.

It’s good that Hackertarget.com conducted this survey in March 2012 prior to World IPv6 Launch on June 6 and it would be great if they do this a month or two after World IPv6 Launch so that we could see a comparison.  We do know, for instance, that the number of sites in the Alexa top 1 million with IPv6-enabled corporate web sites will expand from the four listed here, purely based on the number of sites already signed up to participate in World IPv6 Launch.

Kudos to the Hackertarget.com team for putting this together… (and you can see the larger version by clicking on the image).

Browse more infographics.

 

May 11

Spelling Counts In Infographics!

Spelling counts! Always! Even in trendy things like "infographics"... you need to always check, check and re-check to make sure that things are spelled correctly[1].

Always.

Period. Full stop.

This morning brought a perfect illustration of this... a friend on Twitter pointed to an infographic about VoIP and telecom trends, another topic I'm interested in. I would have gladly retweeted the infographic - and would have perhaps embedded it in a blog post.

Except for one minor little detail in the headline:

Spelling counts

Oops. :-(

The problem is that misspelling "Telecom" as "Telecome" immediately makes the entire graphic suspect to me. If this is the level of error-checking they had in the graphic, what does this mean about their data?

Now granted, the data might be perfectly fine and this was just a case of someone not proofreading the headline... but it immediately makes me wonder... and makes me NOT want to retweet it or otherwise pass it along.

That includes not wanting to embed the graphic in a blog post... because I don't want typos on MY site!

And so one spelling error in the headline causes the creator of the infographic to lose the small bit of additional publicity I would have given it... and perhaps others will have the same reaction resulting in a larger loss.

Spelling always counts!

Always!

P.S. And no, I have not linked to the infographic in question from this post as I'd like to give them a chance to correct it... and I did send them a tweet about the typo, too.

[1] Unless, of course, the spelling mistakes are deliberate to illustrate a point or are part of a character in a story, etc.

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