Meet "The Bunker"

Last week, I covered what is undoubtedly one of the most secure data centers in the United States, if not the world. But a UK facility, dubbed “The Bunker,” may give the Americans a run for their money.

The government-owned data center is located in Kent and sits 30 meters underground below a secure fenced-in area. Like the American facility, it features guard dogs, cameras, and armed guards. Routine patrols and encrypted keys are also used to prevent unauthorized access. Oh, and did I mention that the whole place is designed to survive a nuclear blast?

Triple redundancy ensure the power never goes out. Air-tight doors and thick steel walls are also present to prevent any type of electronic eavesdropping equipment from monitoring the facility. Is it me, or is the government a bit paranoid?

The Internet is big, really big

According to new Internet data, there are now more websites than people in the world — over 1 trillion. With such large numbers, there are 150 domains per person, and it would take 31,000 to read all of them, even if you spent only one minute on each and never slept. Still, just 1.46 billion out of 6 billion people in the world use the Internet, meaning it would take a long time even for all of them combined to see all websites.

China leads the list with 338 million users, with the US trailing at 227 million. Japan, India, and Brazil round out the top five. The UK is a bit lower with 48 million users, reflective of its smaller population. The interestingly neglected part of this data and most raw data like it, is that there is no analysis of the website content.

Of the 1 trillion websites out there, how many are made up of malware, spam harvestors, phishing, fraud, schemes, ad portals, parked domains, and cybersquatting? Furthermore, of the sites that are none of the above mentioned, how many are actually useful and worth visiting? While it may be the job of Google and Bing to index legitimate sites, it will be up to someone else to catalog and evaluate them. As the Internet continues to grow, so does the need for some time of organization.

Source: News.com.au
Photo: Flickr

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

UK to get its own "Cyber Czar"

Following suit with the American announcement of a new cyber security advisor position, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to announce the creation of Britain’s own cyber security chief. The new chief will be responsible for protecting the country from hackers, cyber spies and every other sort of tech baddie out there.

Brown’s plan was endorsed by the Cabinet, and sources anticipate that he will name Neil Thompson to the position. His biggest concern, upon taking the position will be hackers in China and, to a lesser degree, Russia, where the cyber worlds are essentially lawless by UK standards. He will also have to tackle the possibility of terrorists who decide to attack through viruses and network security breeches rather than conventional means.

A lesser publicized role of a nation’s cyber chief might also be developing cyber warfare to attack enemy infrastructure, as the U.S. has used in the past to disable Taliban anti-aircraft systems. One can only imagine how many other countries will soon have their own cyber chiefs, which does raise a question. Will the “cyber czars” of the world’s nations have their conferences on Twitter, or will they start a Facebook group?

Source: Independent
Photo: Flickr

UK government to restrict Internet access of pirates

The British government has announced plans to curb Internet piracy by restricting access of repeat offenders. In collaboration with the entertainment industry and Ofcom, Britain’s broadcasting regulator, the plan includes sending letters to customers who have been suspected of downloading illegal files, such as movies. Internet service providers would be required to send information collected about the offenders to media companies who could threaten them with legal action.

Ultimately, if a year passes without a cease of pirating activities, Ofcom would have the authority to order ISPs to cap the user’s Internet usage. The film and music industries around the world has long called for stricter measures to stop piracy, particularly with the advent of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing system without any centralized servers. The law still has to pass through Parliament, and there will undoubtedly be serious concerns about privacy.

This move is part of a larger £200 million plan being initiated to connect everyone in the UK to high-speed Internet access by 2012. In the United States, bandwidth capping has been met with staunch opposition, forcing service providers to change their planned restrictions. A law is now moving through U.S. Congress that would place regulations on capping. France has announced plans to completely ban Internet pirates from access after three offenses. In Sweeden, owners of the popular torrent sharing site The Pirate Bay were convicted of copyright infringement and sentenced to prison, pending appeal.

Source: Wall Street Journal
Photo: Flickr

Government to Bring Broadband to Rural Areas with Telephone Tax

To help pay for a government plan that would beef up the UK’s communications infrastructure and bring broadband Internet access to all homes by 2012, a 50p telephone tax will be charged to all landlines each month.

The new tax was just of many things discussed in “Digital Britain,” a report presented by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw to the MPs. Bradshaw said the improvements financed by the tax would “accelerate Britain’s recovery from the biggest economic shock the world has seen since the war.”

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both dismissed the plan, but Britain has a duty to make sure all of its citizens are able to get online. Over the last ten years, web access has transformed from a luxury into a necessity. Broadband in rural areas will benefit education, increase quality of life, and- as Bradshaw said- provide much-needed employment.

Source: The Independent

According to Survey, Most Businesses Unaware of Upcoming Domain Changes

In a not-so-surprising turn of events, a recent survey conducted in the UK found that 2/3 of businesses do not know about ICANN’s plan to allow businesses to create new domain extensions next year.

The study, conducted by The Future Laboratory, was in no way scientific, and tells us nothing new. It merely surveyed 100 UK e-commerce managers about the changes. The company concluded that since the news hasn’t hit mainstream media, no one knows about it. Go figure.

ICANN hasn’t done a good job about making the upcoming changes known to the public. Considering what a huge change this will be for the Internet, people have a right to know about it. But it seems as though the decision was made by a few businessmen behind closed doors in California…

Source: Reuters

183 Million Domains Now Registered

There are now 183 million domains registered on the web, according to The Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF), a quarterly report authored by Versign.

Last quarter, domain registrations rose 3%. So far this year, an average of 2.4 million new .com and .net registrations are made each month. These two TLDs alone account for a little under half (92.4 million) of all names registered.

There was also a 4% incease in ccTLD registrations, which account for 74.1 million of domains. The top 10 country extensions accounted for 64% of this number.

In all, 11.8 million registrations were made last quarter. A sign of the times, this was a 17% drop from the same time last year. Things are getting better, however, as the number marked an increase of 17% also from last quarter.
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UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) reveals some of its victories

SOCA released an annual report Wednesday that highlights some of their more memorable victories. In collaboration with the FBI, they made 60 arrests in the DarkMarket forum case, an online message forum where cyber criminals trade stolen credit cards and bank accounts. They have since recovered more than 16,000 stolen cards.

Then there was the group that attempt to transfer $347 million from Sumitomo Matsui Banking Corporation. SOCA thwarted this attempt, which was the largest attempt at bank theft in the UK. SOCA also worked with Nigerian authorities to intercept email containing Nigerian 419 scams.

SOCA underwent a complete IT overhaul, replacing an aging system with newer, more advanced technology. With these advancements, telephone conversations, emails, and even web browsing sessions can be intercepted and stored for surveillance. This has raised concerns over the right to privacy by ordinary citizens in the UK. It is a highly secretive organization that is exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. UK officials claim this is necessary in order to fight organized crime effectively.

Source: ZDNet Asia
Photo: SXC

Study: Other TLDs Important, .Com Still King

Domain giant Sedo recently conducted a survey at Internet World 2009. Out of the 100 participants polled, two-thirds said that a site’s domain extension says a lot about its credibility. While 90% of those surveyed own a .com domain, 45% said they use .uk as their main domain. In addition, more than half said they owned other TLDs such as .eu, .org, and .asia.

Nora Nanayakkara, the Director of Business Development at Sedo, had this to say:

Our research confirms what we’re seeing in our marketplace and is good news for the wider .uk brand. While .com continues to claim more than 75 per cent of all new TLDs sold, .co.uk is proving to be a sturdy investment, especially in representing a local trusted brand. Average sales are now valued at £1,004, making .co.uk a wise purchase from a branding perspective for those companies looking to establish themselves in the UK.

Keep in mind that though only 100 people were surveyed, none of the results are surprising. As more and more businesses and individuals plug into the web, .com domains are becoming harder and harder to come by and alternatives are becoming more desirable.

Source: DomainInformer