Find: Russia, China, and other nations draft proposal to give ITU greater influence over the internet

Individual countries with control of their domain naming?

Russia, China, and other nations draft proposal to give ITU greater influence over the internet

A proposal introduced Friday at the World Conference on International Telecommunications would lend the ITU and its member states greater control over the internet. Changes outlined in the document would transfer many duties related to the web's backend — IP address and domain name allocation, for example — away from ICANN. Instead, that power would be placed in the hands of individual governments. A leaked copy posted on WCITLeaks reveals that Russia, a longtime proponent of such ideas, has also rallied the support of the United Arab Emirates, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt in drafting the document.

"Member states have the right to manage all naming, numbering, addressing and identification resources used for...

Find: Security breach briefly hijacks connections to Google.ie and Yahoo.ie

Security breach briefly hijacks connections to Google.ie and Yahoo.ie.

The outfit that manages Internet addresses for Ireland’s national .ie domain has temporarily taken some of its systems offline while officials investigate a security breach that temporarily hijacked the Irish websites for Google and Yahoo.

A short note on the homepage of the IE Domain Registry said the move followed a "security incident on Tuesday 9th October, involving two high profile .ie domains that has warranted further investigation and some precautionary actions on the part of the IEDR." Several independent Web posts, including those on Twitter and the site of a .ie domain registrar (Google cache here) identified the sites as Google.ie and Yahoo.ie. People trying to visit those addresses were briefly redirected to a fraudulent server as a result of "unauthorised access to one Registrar's account which resulted in the change to the DNS nameserver records for the two .ie domains," the latter blog post reported, citing IEDR CEO David Curtin.

Both of the affected sites, according to whois records, are managed by MarkMonitor, a company that protects the online brands of its customers. Sophos security expert Graham Cluley reported that the breach caused the IEDR to incorrectly point users to domain name system name servers at farahatz.net, which appear to be located in Indonesia.

Find: Congress members question Homeland Security over domains seized 'without sufficient due process and transparency'

Congress members question Homeland Security over domains seized 'without sufficient due process and transparency'

Members of United Stated Congress have approached the Department of Homeland Security in regards to domains that have been seized by the agency. In a letter directed to Attorney General Holder and Secretary Napolitano, the members question Homeland Security's procedures and jurisdiction when action is taken to bring down sites that may violate copyright laws.

The letter specifically references one case involving hip hop website Dajaz1, which was taken down by the Department of Homeland Security after being accused of linking to copyrighted songs. Over a year later, the domain was restored, but little to no information regarding the seizure was ever provided by Homeland Security either during or after the case.

Unsurprisingly, Dajaz1's...