Happy Decade!

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Joe Alagna

The new year, and especially a new decade, has me thinking about time and its passing. 

Living on the west coast of the United States is a funny thing.  You always feel late.  If you call someone in the Midwest or on the East Coast, they’re two or three hours ahead of you. It’s hard to tell them anything new.  They’ve already seen the news of the day and read their email.  They’re thinking about lunch by the time you get to your desk.  If you call someone in Europe or Africa, they’re at least seven hours ahead of you; and least of all, if you call someone in Australia or Asia, they’re living in tomorrow. 

But many years ago, I dreamed of living in California, so living here is part of a dream made true.  I thank God to be here.  

What are your dreams? 

Today we enter a new decade and no matter where you live, I wish you a decade full of dreams made true, and not just made true, but made true in time for you to enjoy them. 

Happy New Year!  Happy Decade!

Joe

Wishing You a Great Decade!
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DNS Week: Puerto Rico Welcomes the Regional Internet Community

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Joe Alagna

DNS Week is a four-day week of events organized by LACTLD(1) and .PR Top Level Domain (Manager of .PR) that will take place in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from August 20th to 23rd, 2019. Within the framework of .PR Top Level Domain’s 30th Anniversary, the initiative aims to bring together the Caribbean ccTLD (Country Code Top-Level Domain) community with stakeholders and representatives from the regional Internet ecosystem in order to address and discuss different topics related to the Domain Name System (DNS).

The DNS Week will begin with an IPv6 training hosted by .PR Top Level Domain and the Internet Society Puerto Rico Chapter. This first event will take place on August 20-21 and it will be opened to all interested parties. The LAC DNS Forum will be the second event held during the DNS Week, on August 22. The Forum, organized jointly by ICANN, LACNIC, Internet Society, Public Interest Registry, .PR Top Level Domain, and LACTLD, will be focused on issues related to the domain name industry and its commercial opportunities. Stakeholders from the industry, the technical community and the Internet policy field are invited to participate.

The DNS Week will close with a training for regional Top Level Domain registries, on August 23. Organizations and stakeholders interested in learning and discussing the different issues that affect the Domain Name System are invited to participate in the DNS Week and share their regional perspectives and experiences.

The DNS Week is an initiative organized by LACTLD and .PR Top Level Domain with the support from ICANN, Afilias, Public Interest Registry, LACNIC, Internet Society and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU). All the information on the DNS Week is available at https://dnsweek.pr

1 Latin American and Caribbean ccTLDs Organization

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Ontario Town Invests $15,000 in Cyber Insurance

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Joe Alagna

A new business line is being created within the insurance industry related to the costs of recovery related to cyber attacks. Consider that it cost over $2.5 million dollars for the city of Atlanta to recover from their cyber attack in 2018.

The Center for Strategic International Studies lists 112 major incidents perpetrated against governments, utilities, military, and large corporate entities since August of 2018. The majority of them have been recorded in 2019 so this problem is accelerating.

In April, 2019, hackers stole roughly $498,000 from the City of Tallahassee, FL. Other U.S. cities attacked in the past year include Lake City and Riviera Beach in Florida, the city of Baltimore and the city of Albany, New York. City and local government attacks often ask for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most cities and local governments are not yet prepared. The idea of cyber-insurance for cities sounds like a good idea for me.

From my perspective though, it underlines the importance of robust DNS management at the root level for generic and country code Top Level Domains. We need to make sure our roots are signed and educate registrars, and end users on the importance of a secure website.

Read the article… | Source: Insurance Business Canada | Date Posted: 8/13/2019

References:
https://www.wired.com/story/atlanta-spent-26m-recover-from-ransomware-scare/
https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/significant-cyber-incidents
https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-breaches-and-attacks/ransomware/attack-list-cities-government-agencies/

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How Well Do You Know Your Country Codes?

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Joe Alagna

I’ve been in the domain industry now for nineteen years but the last six have been spent primarily focused on country-code Top Level Domain Names. When I worked at 101domain, that was our primary business. We helped brands around the world to protect their valuable intellectual property by defensively reserving their brand names in ccTLDs from around the world. It’s a specialized and difficult task to register domain names all around the world but 101domain was (is still) good at helping brands to do so.

Now, at Afilias, we help many ccTLDs to reach out to global audiences. It’s the opposite side of the equation. Many country-code registries still use antiquated and obscure methods to offer and maintain their ccTLD databases (aka “registries”). They also, often have special rules that must be complied with. This makes it tough for mainstream registrars to do business with them. Registrars like Godaddy and Namecheap offer domain names to the public but often overlook ccTLDs because they don’t have time to build the special systems needed to connect.

Afilias offers registries a high quality, inexpensive way to connect to registrars and open up the global markets to their ccTLDs because we use standard connection protocols and business rules. Most large registrars are already doing business with us so adding ccTLDs becomes a simple check-the-box and market the domain exercise for them.

Working with ccTLD registry operators has been challenging – but also a lot of fun. I’ve met hundreds of people from every culture and country imaginable. I’ve also learned a lot about country codes.

I recently developed a free ccTLD training tool using Brainscape and wanted to share it with you here. It’s a simple flashcard learning system that allows you to monitor and improve your progress. It’s also a game worth playing if you are in the industry or have employees in the industry. It’s a lot of fun to compete with it.

There are two exercise sets:

  1. Do You Know Your Country-Code Top Level Domains?
  2. Have You Mastered Your Domain(s)?

The first one is focused primarily on the ISO 3166 2-character country codes. The second one is more geared to learning about domain names around the world and includes new a few generic TLD questions. Test your skills and learn. I hope you will enjoy them. Just click on the image below to play and to learn.

Note: You will need to set up a free account there to play (but it’s worth it).

Learn your country codes.

Posted in ccTLDs, Country Code People, ICANN, New Top Level Domains, Registries | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on How Well Do You Know Your Country Codes?