.Org and .EU now configured with DNNSEC

The Public Interest Registry and EURid, operators of the .org and .eu domain names respectively, announced the deployment of DNNSEC on the two gTLDs this week at the 38th ICANN meeting. The domains are the largest yet to adopt the new standard, which will bring greater security to Internet users.

As boring as it sounds, DNSSEC makes domains more secure by verifying and validating name server responses as they cross the Internet. It makes intercepting web traffic harder and can even stop hackers from redirecting visitors to fake sites.

The technology was expensive for the .org and .eu registries to implement, but I think it was worth it. It remains to see whether the general public is aware enough about the technology for it to have an effect on consumer choice for the extensions.

Source | Domain News
Photo | Flickr

The internet and the third world: NGO blogging and tweeting from Bangladesh

ActionAid is running a blogging and tweeting educational campaign for the third world, teaching people in poor communities how to use social media to tell their stories through .org sites. The project is called TOTO and is an ActionAid Australia initiative which puts bloggers in poor communities for one to two weeks to teach the locals the how-tos of social media.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s just another nice idea for people wanting to make a contribution to the third world in projects whose benefits to these poor communities are difficult to measure. In any case, the idea behind the initiative is as follows:

Poverty is too often hidden from view, but through Project TOTO, ActionAid is helping to shine a light on issues of injustice and human rights violations on the world stage.

Read More >>

Zeal.com sells for $50,000

Zeal.com sold to a developer last week for right around £30,597, or $50,000 USD.

Zeal refers to a “passionate devotion to or interest in a cause or subject,” so the name has a lot of potential applications.

In addition, NewYorkMortgage.com went for £7,955 ($12,877 USD) at auction. New York is a big city with very high real estate prices, so no doubt a lender would be eager to get its hands on a name like that.

A two-letter domain, KL.org, also sold for a paltry $7,000 USD. Usually names this short sell for much more.

Photo | jynmeyer

Internet Engineers to Open Source Secure DNS

In an effort to speed up adoption of DNSSEC, a group of interested Internet engineers has created the OpenDNSSEC project with the intention of creating an open source version of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). The project leaders hope that this will make it easier for organizations to adopt DNSSEC, relying on a commercial friendly license and Unix-like operating system support.

The project is a collaborative effort of .SE (The Internet Infrastructure Foundation), NLNetLabs, Nominet, Kirei, SURFnet, SIDN, and John Dickinson. A preview is available for download from OpenDNSSEC.org. Web hosting providers will be able to easily deploy DNSSEC using open source software, when the project is completed.

In recent months, PIR, the organization responsible for .ORG top-level-domains (TLD) announced their plans to adopt DNSSEC. Prior to that the U.S. government rolled out their own DNS security upgrades to all of their .GOV TLDs. OpenDNSSEC is being released under a version of the BSD license.

Source: Business Wire

PIR to test new security implementation

In early June, we reported about the Public Interest Registry (PIR) and their plans to introduce new security to .org top-level domains (TLD). After a month of preparing, PIR is ready to move some 18 live domains to the security extensions for testing. The official launch of the new system, called DNSSEC, will take place next year.

DNSSEC, which stands for Domain Name System Security Extensions, allows DNS queries and responses to be digitally signed, making them more difficult to exploit and falsify. PIR, a non-profit organization, is responsible for the management of all .org infrastructure, and took over operations of the .org TLD in 2003.

Alexa Raad, chief executive officer of PIR, said implementation of DNSSEC is an essential part of the process of upgrading the Internet infrastructure to provide the security that users of this critical utility require.
“There is a responsibility for the current generation to ensure that the infrastructure is upgraded,” Raad said.

The U.S. government has implemented DNSSEC security with its .gov TLDs, but the .org implementation will be much larger and more involved. The .org TLD is the third largest behind .com and .net, boasting more than 7.5 million domains, compared to 3,700 .gov domains.

Source: Government Computer News

Not-for-profits push for .ngo domain

Citing the rampant abuse of the .org TLD, London charity Article 25 is putting together a consortium of like-minded organisations to create a new extension, .ngo.

Victoria Harris, Chief Executive of Article 25, talked about the problems of .org:

Lack of regulation has meant that commercial entities, individuals and even professional criminals have been able to register websites with .org suffixes quite legally, with no check on their identities or intentions.

The consortium will submit an application to ICANN next year for rights to the extension. If approved, only genuine charitable organisations would be allowed to register a .ngo name.

When it was created in 1985, .org was meant for non-profit entities. Since then, it seems to have forgotten its original intended purpose. Anyone- individuals and companies included- can register a .org domain. As a result, only a very small minority of the TLD’s registrations are owned not-for-profits. Many charitable organisations also register.coms.

Via | Third Sector

Woman changes name to Princess-Rainbow.com

A twenty-four-year-old woman in Manchester, formerly known as Claire Forshaw, has officially changed her name to Princess-Rainbow.com. She had apparently been contemplating such a move for quite some time, but her boyfriend dissuaded her, arguing that it would cost a lot of money. She finally investigated and found that she could do it for only £10.

The young woman does own the domain name princess-rainbow.com and plans to use it to sell her art online. Her reason for changing her name, however, is quite simple. She wanted to be the first to have a domain name as her name.

“When I realised it actually cost as little as £10 my boyfriend said that Princess-Rainbow.com was ideal for me because I am mad on rainbows!”

While it is amusing, the story does raise some questions. As the legal owner of princess-rainbow.com, which she intends to make a business, does she also have some right to the name? Can another person change her name to Princess-Rainbow.com? What about Princess-Rainbow.net or .org? Furthermore, it does open up a whole range of possibilities about other domains. Can I change my name to Internetblog.org.uk?

Source: The Independent
Photo: Flickr

PIR advocates to keep registries and registrars separate

The Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit organization responsible for the management of .ORG top-level domains (TLD), is raising its voice to advocate registry-registrar separation. The organization is concerned that ICANN is moving toward removing restrictions that prevent a registry, responsible for maintaining the infrastructure and management of a Top-level domain, from simultaneously owning registrars, the companies that sell domains.

Among the problems such cross-ownership could cause are that registries that are also registrars could provide domains at lower prices and thereby give themselves an unfair advantage over competing registrars. Another possible negative outcome is that information that a registrar gives to the domain registry could be used for their own registrar’s business, thereby once again giving them an unfair advantage.

PIR believes that these safeguards must stay in place and be more thoroughly defined when the new gTLDs are implemented. ICANN will be presenting information about cross ownership to a panel in Sydney on June 22. This will also undoubtedly raise questions about ICANN’s future. While the U.S. government believes it should maintain oversight over the organization, the E.U. wants oversight to be handed over to a collective committee of nations. ICANN itself, however, has expressed wishes to become an independent organization.

Source: CircleID

Pfizer wins domain dispute

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has scored a victory over a man from Bangladesh who registered the domains pfizer.org and celebrex.org. The WIPO, an international organization that hears domain disputes, ruled that the defendant, Samir Kumar, failed to prove that he did not register the domains in bad faith.

Both names are trademarks of the corporation, and the organization jointly challenged the registration with its subsidiary, G D Searle. According to some reports, Pfizer had previously registered the domains, along with approximately 50 others, only to allow the domains to expire. The domains were then placed on an auction list. While some names, such as Viagra.org, were returned to Pfizer, others were snatched up by people like Kumar.

The WIPO ordered Kumar to turn over the domains to Pfizer. It is unclear why Pfizer allowed their .org domains to expire only to re-register and raise disputes over them later on. Registering domains similar to registered corporate trademarks and then selling them for profit is an illegal practice known as cybersquatting. Pfizer is one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies, with offices in 150 countries.

Source: Sify
Photo: Flickr

PIR to introduce new security for .ORG

The Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit organization responsible for managing .org top-level domains (TLD), will announce today that it is adopting DNS security extensions called DNSSEC. Domain Name System Security Extensions is a set of extensions that helps domain name systems (DNS) verify the integrity and security of data.

There are over 7.5 million registered .org domain names, and .org will become the largest TLD to implement DNSSEC. Other DNSSEC users include country code domains for Sweden, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Brazil, and the Czech Republic. The United States is planning to deploy the extensions for the .gov domain this year.

“DNSSEC is a needed infrastructure upgrade,” says Alexa Raad, CEO of the Public Interest Registry (PIR). “It has passed the threshold of being a theoretical opportunity to being a practical necessity. The question then becomes: How do we make it work?”

PIR took over the management of .org TLD from VeriSign on January 1, 2003. Since then it has contracted the technical management of .org to Afilias, a registry responsible for .info, .asia and .mobi, among others.

Source: NetworkWorld