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.

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After Winning Independence, First Space CountryPlex, Layla, is Issued New ISO country code “LL”.

Posted on February 16, 2019 by Joe Alagna

Hold For Release Until October 11, 2050

Space CitiPlex, ISS, Space CountryPlex, Layla – October 11, 2050 – On October 10th, 2050, the space territory of Layla gained its new constitutional status as an autonomous CountryPlex.

After 30 years of international space colonization aboard hundreds of space CitiPlexes, recognizing their special needs and status, over 120,000 space Crewtizens have voted and declared independence and formed the first independent space CountryPlex, Layla.

The new CountryPlex was named in honor of space pioneer Bernadine Layla. She was the first human being born in outer space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. One of space’s first decorated Space Patrol Officers and a hero, she died at a young age in a space crash.

Votes were tallied at the new country’s oldest Space CitiPlex, ISS, which was first populated in 2001 by ISS crew members William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev, and which has since grown into the most populated CitiPlex in space.

Space's First CitiPlex, ISS
Space’s First CitiPlex, ISS

As a result, Layla was officially assigned the following two-letter country code under the ISO standard: 3166-1: LL. 

ISO 3166 country codes have traditionally been used on Earth as abbreviations to identify countries in contexts such as postal addresses, Internet domain names, and more.

Along with the assignment of the new LL country code to Layla comes the first specific Space country code, Top Level Domain (SccTLD) .LL (“dot LL”).

The Bureau of Space Communications (BSC) has commissioned Alagna Space Corporation (Alagna S.C.) to operate .LL from their corporate space and data center on the industrial CitiPlex of Spacecorp. Since space offers the ultimate cooling systems, most data centers now operate there, but this will be the first Space country code Top Level Domain (SccTLD) operated directly in and from space.

This process has been duly coordinated and authorized by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which are now the Solar System’s entities responsible for top-level domain name management.

The Bureau of Space Communications (BSC) has requested that all international organizations, businesses, and parties utilizing drop-down lists for the selection of countries on their websites or forms update their lists by adding Layla and .LL as a space CountryPlex. Please refer to the official updated ISO 3166 list at www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/country_codes.htm.

For questions or additional information, please contact the new Commissioner of the BSC, Mr. Leonid Todorov III, at:
Space PH#: 0x2DFDC1C35

or via e-mail at: [email protected]

This story is just a press release exercise for the Dubai APTLD meeting – Enjoy and learn

Note/Update – 2023: When I wrote this post in 2019, I used it as a (fictional and futuristic) training exercise for APLTD related to how ccTLDs and country codes could be issued. At that time, the company I worked for didn’t approve, so I unpublished this. But now that time has passed, and I don’t work there anymore, I released it again. I had fun writing this article. 🙂

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