Regulating Big Tech. This Time, for Sure!

United States President Biden has recently commented: “But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. […] So, we know we’ve got a problem — a major problem.”…


Another DNS OARC Meeting

These are some notes I took from the DNS OARC meeting held in September 2021. This was a short virtual meeting with six presentations, but for those of us missing a fix of heavy-duty DNS, it was very welcome in any case! DNS Security Mechanisms There isn’t a single approach…


TLS with a side of DANE

Am I really talking to you? In a networked world that’s an important question. For example, where I’m located, when I look up the DNS name www.google.com I get the IPv6 address 2404:6800:4006:813::2004. This implies that when I send an IPv6 packet to this destination address I will reach a…


Running Code

There was an interesting discussion in a working group session at the recent IETF 111 meeting over a proposal that this working group should require at least two implementations (presumably independently developed implementations) of a working group draft before the working group would consider the document ready for submission to…


Some not-DNS Topics at IETF 111

I’ve already scribed my thoughts on the DNS-related topics that were discussed at the July 2021 IETF 111 meeting. It may be surprising to the DNSphiles out there but there really are other topics that are discussed at IETF meetings not directly related to the DNS! These are some notes…


DNS at IETF 111

IETF 111 was held virtually in July 2020. These are some notes I took on the topic of current activities in the area of the Domain Name System and its continuing refinement at IETF 111. DNSOP – DNS Operations DNSOP is the general working group for most DNS topics and…


Outage Reporting

Much has been said about the criticality of the small coterie of large-scale content distribution platforms and their critical role in today’s Internet. These days when one of the small set of core content platforms experiences a service outage then it’s mainstream news, as we saw in June of this…


Another Portent of the Decline and Fall of the Telco

The Swedish carrier group Telia has recently announced the sale of its international wholesale business to Polhelm Infra, an infrastructure investment manager jointly owned by a number of Swedish pension funds. Why would a telco operator sell off what was a core part of its operation to a pension fund?…