Drumming Up More Addresses on the Internet - New York Times

Certainly not Vint Cerf.

In 1976, Mr. Cerf and his colleagues in the R.& D. office of the Defense Department had to make a judgment call: how much network address space should they allocate to an experiment connecting computers in an advanced data network?

They debated the question for more than a year. Finally, with a deadline looming, Mr. Cerf decided on a number — 4.3 billion separate network addresses, each one representing a connected device — that seemed to provide more room to grow than his experiment would ever require, far more, in fact, than he could ever imagine needing. And so he was comfortable rejecting the even larger number of addresses that some on his team had argued for.

“It was 1977,” Mr. Cerf said, in an interview last week. “We thought we were doing an experiment.”

“The problem was, the experiment never ended,” added Mr. Cerf, who is a former chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit corporation that coordinates the Internet naming system. “We had no idea it would turn into the world’s global communications network.”

Today, the Internet that Mr. Cerf helped create more than 30 years ago is about to max out. Within the next 12 to 18 months, or perhaps sooner, every one of the 4.3 billion Internet Protocol addresses will have been allocated, and the Internet, at least as it exists today, will have reached full capacity.

I.P. addresses are the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each Web site, computer, game console or smartphone connected to the Internet. They are distinct from domain names, which identify Web sites, like nytimes.com.

“There are 4.3 billion addresses, and a lot of people have more than one,” said Leo Vegoda, manager of number resources at Icann. “And there are seven billion people on the planet. That’s a big mismatch.”

The rapid expansion of Internet adoption in Asia has sped things up even more.

Experts saw this problem coming years ago, and the transition to a new system, referred to as Internet Protocol version 6, is well under way. This new standard will support a virtually inexhaustible number of devices, experts say. But there is some cause for concern because the two systems are largely incompatible, and as the transition takes place, the potential for breakdowns is enormous.

“This is a major turning point in the ongoing development of the Internet,” Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s president and chief executive, said. “No one was caught off guard by this.”

Still, the question looms, is the Internet industry prepared?

The answer depends on whom you ask. While it is true that no one has been caught off guard, some parts of the industry responded faster than others, leaving some technology companies scrambling to catch up. Software companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook, along with PC makers, say they have been taking the problem seriously for years in hopes of thwarting any major calamities. The major operating systems — like Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Apple’s Mac OS X — have already incorporated the new system. And providers, including Comcast, say they are ready to make the switch.

But Mr. Cerf is critical of Internet service providers, along with the manufacturers of Internet devices, for not addressing the problem sooner, saying that many chose to wait until customers started asking for the new system.

“How can customers be expected to know what they need?” Mr. Cerf said. He compared Internet protocols to the internal workings of a car engine. “It’s like changing a gear in a car’s transmission,” he said. “People shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

I.P. addresses are allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is operated by Icann, to five registries representing regions of the globe. Those registries distribute the addresses to Internet service providers like cable and phone companies, universities, governments and large corporations. Millions of new devices will be attached.

At a ceremony early this month in Florida, the last block of addresses based on the original standard, known as IPv4, were allocated to the five registries.

Comcast began working on the problem nearly six years ago, and last year began customer trials nationwide. Jorge Alberni, a Comcast spokesman, said the trials so far had gone smoothly.

Comcast is now beginning to distribute dual-mode cable modems, for example, that support both the original and the new Internet Protocol versions. By the time the transition is fully under way, Mr. Alberni said, most Comcast customers will already be using cable boxes and modems that support IPv6, as the new version is commonly called. In some case, customers with older equipment will have to make a swap.

“We don’t foresee any problems for our customers,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 14, 2011

Because of an editing error, a previous version of this story misstated Vint Cerf's relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann. He is a former chairman, not the current chairman.

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Comcast subscribers suffer another Internet outage - Digitaltrends.com

A similar DNS-related issue caused Comcast subscribers on the East Coast to lose Internet connectivity one week ago.

For the second time in a week, Comcast customers found themselves unable to connect to the Internet. This time, it was Comcast subscribers in the Midwest who had to endure a Sunday evening without being able to use their Internet service. Portions of four states were affected: Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota.  The outage began around 8:30 PM on Sunday and lasted until around midnight. Comcast apologized for the problem through a customer service Twitter account.

Just a week before, on the eve of Cyber Monday, Comcast subscribers in areas in and around Washington, D.C. and Boston found they were unable connect to the Internet for several hours throughout the evening.

Both of the outages are blamed on glitches with Comcast’s Domain Name System (DNS), the system which translates IP addresses into their corresponding domain names. In both cases, users were able to reconfigure their Internet settings to use a alternative DNS settings — like OpenDNS or Google’s Public DNS, — in order restore connectivity. Comcast subscribers already configured to use different DNS settings were not affected by the outage. Cable TV and phone service were also unaffected.

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FTC Proposes 'Do Not Track' Option For Internet - InformationWeek

The Federal Trade Commission has made a potentially far-reaching proposal that would give web users the option of shielding personal information from advertisers, retailers and other companies while browsing the Internet.

The FTC gave its blessing to the so-called "Do Not Track" approach in a proposed framework for consumer privacy released Wednesday. The proposal would apply to all commercial organizations that collect or use data that can be linked to a specific consumer, computer or other device.

The commission favored giving consumers a simple mechanism for disallowing data gathering. To do that, the FTC recommended adding a button to browsers that would activate technology to prevent people from being tracked or receiving targeted advertising. The proposal would be an alternative to current browser privacy settings, which a recent study by Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon found inadequate to shield people's viewing habits.

The need for such simplicity stems from the fact that the voluntary approach -- in which organizations set their own privacy policies and notify consumers of the rules in advance of collecting information -- has failed. "Specifically, the notice-and-choice model, as implemented, has led to long, incomprehensible privacy policies that consumers typically do not read, let alone understand," the FTC report said.

The Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, agreed with the FTC and praised the report. "Today's FTC report identifies the most pressing privacy issues facing consumers today," the group said in a statement. "They correctly recognize that the current framework needs to be updated to reflect consumers' ongoing concerns about how their data is being collected and used."

The commission's proposed privacy framework would have companies build consumer privacy protection into every stage of development of products and services. In addition, organizations would offer a clearly defined no-tracking option at the time a consumer is making a decision that would set data gathering in motion. Finally, companies would increase transparency of their data practices through clearer, shorter and more standardized privacy notices and by providing access to consumer data they maintain. If a company planned to use data for something other than its originally stated purpose, then consumers would have to agree to the new use in advance.

Advertisers have been adamantly against government-imposed privacy regulations, preferring a self-regulatory approach instead. In an appearance this year before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, Mike Zaneis, VP of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, argued that the industry "has a long and successful history of protecting consumers' privacy rights through effective self-regulation."

"Given the free content and services that consumers enjoy because of advertising revenue, it is imperative that any new laws be carefully tailored," Zaneis said.

Shar VanBoskirk, analyst for Forrester Research, said the firm's studies have shown that consumers are generally willing to share information with marketers if there's a valuable payback for doing so. Consumers are more concerned about the lack of control they have over their data, and VanBoskirk said she doesn't have a lot of faith that legislation would effectively address those concerns.

"Consumers need education to understand how their data is used, when data sharing has a benefit for them, where their data goes, who knows what about them, and then how to elect out of data sharing if they choose," VanBoskirk said in an e-mail sent to InformationWeek.

The FTC does not have the authority to require companies to follow its framework, much of which would require an act of Congress. The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection is scheduled to consider on Thursday the feasibility of a universal method for opting out of being tracked online, according to The New York Times.

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Mixed Reaction to FCC Internet Plan - New York Times

WASHINGTON — The plan from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to ensure an open and neutral Internet drew mixed reviews on Wednesday from consumer advocates and Internet service providers, presenting the agency with an uncertain way forward as it considers new broadband regulation.

The proposal, by Julius Genachowski, would forbid both wired and wireless Internet service providers from blocking lawful content. It would also require broadband Internet service providers to give consumers basic information about how the companies manage their networks and would forbid discrimination in transmitting lawful content.

But it relies in part on a novel legal interpretation of how much authority the agency has over the Internet, one that some critics think is almost certain to invite Congressional opposition and court challenges. And it drew lukewarm support from one of the most important voices in the debate, Michael J. Copps, an F.C.C. commissioner, who has advocated stricter regulation and whose vote the chairman will need in order to get an order approved by a majority vote of the five-member commission.

“It’s no secret that I am looking for the strongest protections we can get to preserve an open Internet, built on the most secure legal foundation, so we don’t find ourselves in court every other month,” Mr. Copps said. Noting that this is only the beginning of discussion about the proposal, which is likely to change before it becomes final, Mr. Copps added: “At issue is who will control access to the online experiences of consumers — consumers themselves or Big Phone and Big Cable gatekeepers.”

The proposal received strong support from prominent venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and there was both praise and complaint among companies that would be affected. The wireless phone company Sprint said that it “commends the F.C.C. for the careful and deliberate approach it has taken on this issue.”

Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless phone company, was less impressed. Thomas J. Tauke, a Verizon executive vice president said, “The F.C.C.’s authority to act in this area is uncertain, and Congress has indicated a strong interest in addressing this issue.” Mr. Tauke said any new rules should be temporary, which would “encourage Congressional action, while showing appropriate deference to Congress.”

In aiming to enforce the nondiscrimination and no-blocking rules, which together make up a concept known as net neutrality, Mr. Genachowski is wading back into an area where a federal appeals court said in April that the agency has limited authority.

Because broadband service is classified as a loosely regulated information service, the F.C.C. had to prove that any regulation of it supported an expressly designated power of the agency, something that the court said the F.C.C. had failed to do.

Now, Mr. Genachowski thinks he has found a way around the court’s ruling, according to a senior F.C.C. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the chairman’s proposal was subject to change.

The official said that the proposal relied in part on what is known as the F.C.C.’s Section 706 authority, which requires that the commission report to Congress each year whether broadband service is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely manner, and if not, to take steps to make it so.

In July, after the commission issued its National Broadband Plan, it cited that report’s finding that roughly 14 million Americans do not have broadband Internet service as evidence that broadband is not being adequately deployed.

Therefore, the official said, it is within the F.C.C.’s power to take steps that will promote the spread of broadband. Putting so-called net neutrality rules in place would help ensure that content providers can reach Internet users, which will increase the output of Internet companies, thereby increasing demand for Internet services and increasing deployment of broadband service.

There are problems with that theory, said Aparna Sridhar, policy counsel for Free Press, a nonprofit group that supports net neutrality rules. Among them, the F.C.C. has to make a Section 706 report to Congress each year. That need for annual reconsideration might not provide the certainty that Internet companies need to encourage them to commit the capital to produce new innovations, she said.

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Plan could charge some users higher Internet fees - USA Today

People who spend a lot of time watching videos or downloading files from the Internet could pay higher prices as part of a controversial proposal that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled Wednesday.He will ask the five-member regulatory agency to vote on Dec. 21 on rules that he says would "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." President Obama has said that protecting what's known as net neutrality would be a top goal.

Genachowski said that his proposal would bar "unreasonable" efforts by Internet providers — led by cable and phone companies — to help some services and hurt others. For example, providers couldn't provide smooth and uninterrupted transmissions for communication services that they own, and jittery or delayed transmissions for competitors such as YouTube or Skype.

But Genachowski apparently hopes to win cable and phone company support by endorsing their right to make heavy Internet users pay more. It's been unclear whether the FCC would deem such pricing plans to be discriminatory: For example, consumers might favor unlimited conventional cable TV over a Web video service such as Netflix if broadband prices were tied to how many minutes or megabytes they use.

"The thrust of the proposal has shifted from purely preserving 'openness' to now simultaneously acknowledging the need for broadband rationing," says analyst Craig Moffett of financial services firm Bernstein Research.

Genachowski also made a concession to cable and phone companies by abandoning his effort to reclassify the Internet as a regulated communications service, similar to telephone connections.

Internet providers vigorously objected to that effort, launched in May following a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling. Justices said the FCC lacked authority to set rules for the Internet because the agency has classified it as an unregulated information service.

Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell challenged the FCC's authority to adopt what he called an "ill-advised" and "highly interventionist" plan. House Republicans are "promising to attack the FCC move to write rules," says analyst Rebecca Arbogast at financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.

Net neutrality supporters were divided. Free Press CEO Josh Silver called the proposal "disappointing." Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said it would "help ensure certainty in markets while also preserving the openness ... of the Internet."

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