tech-ed collisions

Only 10% of IPV4 addresses remain unallocated!

From the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU), comes this important message: 'ISOC-AU has been requested to help publicise the following announcement from the Number Resource Organisation, that the Internet has reached the point where less than 10% of IPv4 remain unallocated. Please circulate this announcement as widely as possible.' 'ISOC-AU has taken a leading role nationally and internationally in raising awareness of IPv6 and supporting discussion since we established the ISOC-AU IPv6 Special Interest Group in 2005. Since then, it has pursued the following major activities to help build understanding of IPv6:

  • annual Australian IPv6 Summits - http://www.ipv6.org.au/summit/
  • IPv6 for e-Business - http://www.ipv6.org.au
  • supporting development of the Australian Government IPv6 transition strategy which will provide for full implementation of IPv6 on Australian Government services by 2012
  • participation in the international IPv6 Forum and global IPv6 Summits and events representing Australia
  • membership of the Asia Pacific IPv6 Task Force representing Australia
  • regular updates to the National ICT Industry Alliance on IPv6 - see http://nictia.org.au'
So.... what to do about it. There is quite a bit of information on the Web about IPV4 and IPV6. TCP-IP is the commincations protocol that the Internet uses - you may have occasionally seen numbers like http://66.102.11.99 appear in your browser instead of domain names (www.google.com). IPV4 is the addressing system in place at the moment and what the Number Resource Organisation is telling us is that only 10% of those addresses are left available. What is potentially problematic is determining exactly when they will run out. Geoff Huston has developed an interesting model for predicting when we will run out and you can see the updates on that prediction here. So, at the time of this post, it appears to be somewhere between 8th September 2011 and 31st August 2012. This isn't an exact science though and there are many factors that could impact this. Governments and other important Internet related organisations around the world have been working on this problem for a long time and are looking at implementing a new addressing scheme (IPV6) which greatly expands the number of available addresses. What we need to do now is start monitoring these developments and planning migrations to the new environment. Most likely your technology providers will know about this and have strategies or plans in place. You might like to check with them at some point though.

Filed under  //   Internet  

Google's view on ISP filtering

Maybe I should rename my blog to 'Google Watch' or something like that because I often find myself commenting on them. Anyway, here's their view on the proposed ISP filtering. My first reaction was it's great to see a measured response on what is a very heated subject for many. We seem to hear lots of views expressed about the Government's heavy handedness approach in this area and how its easy to play the child safety line (after all, who can possibly argue against that). Looking at Google's views though, without all the emotion that you see in other posts, it does seem that the government is going beyond that of other Western democracies. I just hope this isn't the thin end of the wedge. Education, as often stated, is the answer, not the type of regime that could find its way in if this approach is expanded.

Filed under  //   Google   Internet  

We need more pidgeons

A great little story on Reuters about a pidgeon transferring data quicker than the country's leading telecommunications provider in South Africa. I think it would be interesting to do some similar comparisons in parts of our own country at the moment. How good is your broadband connection?

Filed under  //   Internet   general  

a little bit of domain name history from techcrunch

Interesting story from techcrunch today on the first domain name to be registered has changed hands. It's a nice article on an interesting piece of history for those interested in Internet/www history and especially for those of us in the Registrar area. Maybe I am just in a melancholy mood at the moment but I can't help but agreeing with the sentiment expressed by the author of the post in the end of the article.

To quote Samwise Gamgee in Lord Of The Rings: “I don’t know why, but it makes me sad.”

Filed under  //   Internet  

As the Web turns 20, ISOC reflects on the age of the Internet

ISOC (the Internet Society) has just issued a press release reflecting on the age of the Internet (about 35) and highlighting the values of the open Internet. From the post:

"People often confuse the Internet and the Web," explains Lynn St.Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. "The Internet is a vast network of networks, interconnected in many different physical ways, yet all speaking a common language, specified by standardised protocols. The Web is one - albeit, the most influential and well known - of many different applications which run over the Internet." Part of the genius of the Internet is that it allows anyone to create new applications and to deploy them without needing the permission of any central authority. It achieves this through a unique model of development, relying on inclusive processes and open, freely accessible standards. This has become known as the Internet Model, and it has always been crucial in bringing to fruition the vision of the Internet's founders for globally interconnected and accessible information.
"The Internet Society is an international, non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy." Many countries (including Australia) have local chapters for the Internet Society. Information about ISOC-AU can be found here.

Filed under  //   Internet  

r u an Internet bully?

Over the last six months or so a couple of students I know have sadly been subjected to bullying and intimidation at school. It's quite distressing to see the effect that this has on them and their families. Bullying and intimidation, it seems, goes on overtly and perhaps subconsciously in all areas of society both in the online and physical world. I refrain from using real and virtual here because more and more the 'virtual' world is the 'real' world for many people. So, what's the point of this post? Well, as it happens, on reflecting on bullying in the school yard I can't help but see comparisons in the behaviour of many Web citizens. Just recently I have heard of someone bragging about how they shamed some other poor person on the Web by exploiting their own Web presence which just happened to be a lot more powerful than their 'victims' (although they didn't call them or think of them as a victim - they were just asserting their 'rightful' position and 'moral' superiority). You can see examples of this behaviour in many, many online forums where so called 'power' users perhaps think they are doing the right thing by ripping apart someone's opinion but are really not giving much thought to their behaviour and its consequences. How many 'power' twitterers or bloggers do you refrain from responding to because you have seen them ride roughshod over less prominent Web users. It is easy for them to use their presence on the Web to wreak havoc with your digital identity. That's intimidation! They may not mean to be negative at all but as their reputation grows, so should their responsibility and their awareness of how they treat others. This is especially the case in those networks where we are trying to encourage and nurture others in their journey to become more digitally literate and empowered.

Filed under  //   Internet  

.tel the world a little bit more about yourself

ok - so this is for those of you who just love having an online presence and don't mind being quite public about how people can contact you. In the next few months we are going to see the launch of a new Top Level Domain (TLD) called '.tel'. Unlike websites, this will be only be available to companies and individuals to store and manage all their contact information and search keywords. Think of it as a global contact directory. The types of information you may wish to store includes:

  • phone numbers
  • mobile numbers
  • IM details
  • content links (websites, blogs, social networks)
  • identities (games, social networks)
  • geolocations (maps for work, home, interests)
  • search text
That sounds like a whole lot of really useful information that could be used by others for good and bad so obviously there will be functionality available for you to decide which of this information you want to make public or private. Friends can ask to see information about you via 'friending' requests. To see your private data, they will also need to be logged in. You will also be able to control at a more granular level, which bits of your private data certain people can see. So now, with your .tel name, all you need to give anyone is your url (eg jerry.tel) and all that information is available from any Web browser. There will be a directory that others can search but you will also be discoverable through search engines. All this information and more is available on the telnic website. There is some great information for businesses as well as individuals in a number of short videos on the site. There will be a brief period available where entities with strong claims (like trademarks) can apply for .tel names and then it will be opened up to anyone. Could this be a useful service to incorporate into an e-Portfolio? For example, applying for jobs - it is common practice now for recruiters, potential employers etc to 'google' you to find out a bit more about you. Why not help them along by putting the online bits about yourself that you want them to see into your .tel profile. This may help some of the confusion over identity that I have commented on before and would be a bit similar to claimid. It will be interesting to see how successful this domain becomes (hopefully more successful than id.au). Cheers, Jerry.

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Filed under  //   Internet  

content rating system for Aussie websites

From the Ars Technica site is the article 'Australian websites to get ratings for content, age'. I am not sure what to make of this one. It seems that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has approved a 'Content Services Code'. The code was developed by the Internet Industry of Australia (IIA). It looks like it will align content ratings with that which we are used to for film (MA15+ etc). From the article:

As part of the code, service providers must use access controls in order to host content rated MA15+ or R18+ (content for those over 18)
This is to apply to content originating in Australia. In adopting this there would seem to be some interesting challenges for a number of different types of sites. Many education related sites cater to ages that span the different age rating systems. The article also states that:
According to the ACMA, any content that is likely to be rated MA15+ (for mature audiences over the age of 15) must be assessed and classified by "trained content assessors." The purpose of this is, of course, to assist parents and children to decide what is appropriate for them
Where does this leave educators and the education system? I am not sure who these trained assessors are but will they be familiar with different State's and school systems curriculums etc? While much content for school systems is sourced from within the system's own networks it is clear that students also have access to content on the wider Web. I started to look further into this and had a browse around the IIA website looking for this code. There is a great deal of stuff there and I am currently looking at the Internet Industry Codes of Practice (2005). There is a link to what looks like a really interesting document called 'Guide for Internet Users: Information about online content'. Good luck accessing that one - unfortunately it seems you need to be an Industry member to access it yet the title suggests it should be available to all users. It might still be a 'work in progress' but it clearly looks like it will be useful to parents, teachers etc. Hopefully I can find a link to it elsewhere. The Ars Technica article goes on to highlight some difficulties this initiative may face. Most Internet content originates outside Australia so the rating system, while useful, can only apply to a small amount of content. I like the idea of general ratings systems - they give me a rough idea of what to expect when watching a television program or a film but I think they are much easier to apply to those types of static content. Internet content is dynamic and changes (in some cases, very) rapidly so accurate ratings will be more difficult to apply. To be accurate, they will need to be applied at a very granular level however I expect the overheads on that will mean that ratings will be applied at a less granular level. I look forward to hearing more news and commentary about this one.

Filed under  //   Internet  
Posted July 18, 2008

Domain name big bang solving lack of addresses?

Over the last few days I have seen this reported in newspapers and online (here's a couple of online ones - ABC, ZDNet). The articles generally say that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is set to remove restrictions on domain name suffixes. Currently we are restricted to suffixes that denote countries (eg .au) and a some generic types (.com, .net etc). The new regulations will open this up to allow suffixes such as .pepsi, .paris etc which certainly allows a massive increase in the numbers of useful names that could be created. These articles then go on to imply that this will solve the problem that we have with domain addresses set to run out in 2011 or thereabouts. It's my understanding that this is not the case. Domain names are not Internet addresses. Internet addresses are the numbers we often see in our browsers such as 123.456.789.098. It is these numbers which are set to run out. These numbers use an addressing system called TCP/IPv4. IPv4 is running out of available numbers. Numbers are released in blocks to regions around the world and available blocks of numbers are becoming a scarce commodity. Many of these numbers that have been allocated are not in use and it would be useful if there was some way of recovering these unused ones. Many organisations and governments are working on a numbering system called TCP/IPv6 which dramatically increases the number of available Internet addresses. It is the implementation of IPv6 that will solve the problem of lack of Internet addresses - Domain names are simply aliases for these numbers. These aliases make it easier for us to navigate around the Web as they are meant to be easier for us to remember than the numbered addresses. Cheers, Jerry.

Filed under  //   Internet  
Posted June 30, 2008

Have your say on the future of the Internet

The OECD is having a Ministerial meeting in Seoul on June 17-18 on 'the future of the Internet economy'. Can't afford to get on a plane and head over there to give your opinion? Well, they're offering you the chance to have your say via YouTube. There is a YouTube channel inviting people to send their opinion/question in and there's a chance that these leading policy makers will respond to it as part of the conference. If you've got something to say that you think will make a difference, why not give it a go?

Filed under  //   Internet  
Posted June 6, 2008