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November 25, 2008

Phishing Attacks and Domains

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) have published their report covering the first half of 2008.

The report is quite detailed, but some of the major points may be garnered from the first page introduction:
Our major findings are:

1. Phishers continue to target specific Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and specific domain name registrars, and shift their preferences over time. Metrics that measure the pervasiveness of phishing in TLDs provide a valuable way to identify exploitation by phishers who register domain names.

2. Anti-phishing programs implemented by domain name registries can have a noticeable effect on the up-times (durations) of phishing attacks. We see some direct correlation between the efforts of several large gTLD and ccTLD operators and the amount of time that phishing sites remained live within their TLDs.

3. Phishers are engaged in the large-scale use of subdomain services to host and manage their phishing sites. Such attacks even account for the majority of attacks in certain large TLDs.

The report also concludes that the number of phishing attacks using IP addresses has dropped, while the number using domains has increased, which would be a logical enough progression.

Business Wire has some coverage here, while you can read the entire report here:
APWG_GlobalPhishingSurvey1H2008.pdf
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November 20, 2008

Camera.co.uk Sells For 35k

aftermarket domain auctions
I've mentioned TRAFFIC Down Under a couple of times over the last few weeks - mainly because I wish I was there! (More on my personal domain blog admittedly!)

Yesterday's main event was the Aftermarket.com auction which you could have followed live online.

Why do I mention it?

Well unlike a lot of the other domain auctions which tend to focus on .com domains, this one had a nice mix of ccTLD names in there, including camera.co.uk.

Camera.co.uk had a reserve of $15k and finally went under the hammer for $35k!

What a great domain! If I was Pixmania (or similar) I'd love to get my hands on that domain.

Adam Strong has a couple of posts about the event over on DNN including the full results of the auction

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November 18, 2008

Yet Another Domain Renewal Scam

Domain Renewal Group seem to be using the same modus operandi as Domain Registry of America (DROA) - they may even be the same company for all I know!

In any case here's a sample letter (click to enlarge):

domain renewal scam letter


Notice the pricing on a .org domain - €28 per annum!!!! We charge less than €6 at the moment and I honestly can't understand why anyone would even dream of paying more than €10.

In any case if you get any of these letters I suggest dumping them - I've had a nice thick pile of them to date!


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Single Character dotMobi Domains Coming Soon

Short domains are better, but even more so when you're trying to tap in the address with one hand on your mobile device.

Caroline has posted on the DotMobi blog that they'll be making available single character dotMobi domains very soon (ie. a.mobi, 1.mobi etc.,) in a similar fashion to their city domains applications process ie. via proposals NOT auctions.

It will be interesting to see who gets the domains and what they do with them.


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November 17, 2008

Dottel Coming Soon Covered in Sunday Business Post

I've mentioned the upcoming launch of .tel a couple of times in recent months.

If you're interested in playing around with .tel domains, then head on over to their "playground", where you can signup for a free vip.tel subdomain.

The VIP program allows you to see how a .tel domain can work and some of the things that you can do with it, though with something as flexible as a domain name it's impossible to know what people may get up to in the end.

In any case I had a chat with Adrian Weckler in The Sunday Business Post last week, which led to this article in the Sunday Business Post. Just to clarify one point, as some people seem to have misunderstood me, I never suggested that .tel would be a flop - I'm just naturally cautious about how quickly it will be adopted. I hope the takeup is huge, because I love the concept.

dottel article in Sunday Business Post

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Keeping In Touch

keeping in touch - communicatingOver the last few months we've expanded the number of contact points available to people who want to find out what we're up to, or simply want to ask a question or get help.

So, to make my life that bit easier, I thought I'd put up a brief summary of how to contact us and find out what we're up to.




Buying Stuff / Information on Products / Services:

Our main website (obviously!)

Our sales team can be contacted via email or phone (during office hours). We currently have several numbers - a locall one, a "normal" one and both UK and US telephone lines (and faxlines)

We also offer livechat for both technical queries and sales queries during office hours Monday to Friday

This blog tends to be the main place where we'll talk about new stuff or try to give you greater insight into what we currently offer

We're also on twitter (which hooks into both this blog and the technical one) (if you're bored I twitter here)

You can also post queries over on our forum (if it's a technical emergency please contact support - seriously!)

Technical Queries / Updates

If you've got an issue then feel free to contact our support team (you can also email support@blacknight.com). If you are contacting our support staff try to give them as much information as possible (see previous post) - it makes life easier for everyone!

We post details of any scheduled maintenance or issues on our offsite technical blog

Dedicated and colocation clients - you should have an out of hours contact number - if you don't let us know

We're also over on:
Facebook
Boards.ie

Have I forgotten anywhere?

Posted by Michele Neylon at 12:34 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 14, 2008

Big ccTLD Auction From CoCCA

CoCCA members have got together to offer a very cool set of name bundles - 100 in total!

Most of the names being bundled are generic terms, so there are groups like:
bargain.cx (Christmas Island)
bargain.gs
bargain.ht
bargain.ki
bargain.na
bargain.nf
bargain.tl
bargain.as (American Samoa)
bargain.pe

I've no idea how much they'll sell for, but if I had money to play with I'd be more than happy to gamble on a couple of these bundles.

There's more info on the CoCCA site, while Antony Van Couvering has a look at the offering as well

The auction neatly coincides with Traffic Down Under


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November 13, 2008

A Bit Of Local Press Coverage

Since our offices are based in Carlow getting some coverage in the local media was bound to happen at some point.

This week's Carlow Nationalist has a short piece on the Net Visionaries (click to enlarge):

carlow nationalist press coverage


Of course they spelt my name incorrectly, ,but we'll forgive them for that

Posted by Michele Neylon at 10:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 11, 2008

Blacknight On Facebook

facebook logo
I've been playing around with Facebook for the last months and noticed that a lot of companies we deal with on a regular basis have a "presence" on there. Companies and organisations like dotMobi, PIR, DomainsBot and thousands of others are "on" Facebook in some shape or form.

We are too, but we haven't been promoting it actively, as I wasn't really sure what to do with it! (I'm not suggesting I've "seen the light" or anything, but I thought we might as well just "dive in" and see what happens)

Once we get enough fans I'll probably throw out a few promotion codes to our fans (ie. you'll have to be a fan via facebook to get one)

Over the last few days I've uploaded a few photos of our offices and some of the team to our "gallery" and tried to get a few more people involved.

If anyone has any crazy suggestions on how to use Facebook for business please let me know - I'm still trying to work it out!

You'll find the Blacknight page here - come say "hi"!

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November 9, 2008

Publish Information People Want

Some websites are wonderful. Some aren't.

You don't need to have a beautiful website for it to be useful.

If you are promoting a physical shop use some common sense.

Let people know the two key things that they want to know most:

  1. Where is your shop? Telling me it's in London isn't particularly helpful. Giving me an indication of how to get there including tube stops etc., would be a lot more useful. Don't assume I know what UK postcodes mean (not everyone is English!)
  2. Publish your opening hours clearly. (Argos - I'm looking at you!)

Why people forget these basic things is beyond me.


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November 8, 2008

Phishers Targetting Domain Owners

I mentioned that phishers were targetting eNom quite recently, but it seems that eNom was not alone. We've also been informed that some of the other registrars, including Network Solutions, are being targetted.

If you get a suspicious email purporting to be from your domain registrar please let us know.

Take a few simple precautions.

DO NOT send credit card information via email.

If you are being asked to login to a registrars site to verify data DO NOT use the link in the email. Go directly to the registrar's site in your browser ie. type the link in yourself

If I get hold of any of the phishing emails I'll try to post screenshots

Update: To learn more about the email targetting Network Solutions' users and to see a sample check out their blog post.

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November 5, 2008

US Election Online Post-Mortems

You can expect to read quite a bit over the next few days about the major differences in tactics and media used by both camps in the 2008 US presidential elections.

One of the posts that caught my rather bleary eyes this morning (not my fault that election watching until 4am is so addictive!) was over on the Nominet management blog. Phil is interested in how the candidates used domains and points to two other articles on the New York Times and Network World

The basic analysis, which wasn't that scientific, shows a much higher concentration in Obama land (Obama was incredibly active on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter as well, while McCain's attitudes towards the internet weren't exactly "progressive")

A couple of weeks ago Entertainment Earth was reporting a much higher level of interest in its Obama gear than their McCain stuff.

Did embracing the internet and "new media" make the difference? Possibly. McCain's very gracious speech last night noted that Obama had managed to reach out to the "marginalised" and give them the impetus to actually exercise their constitutional right to vote.

It's a pity that most politicians can't inspire that level of interest ....


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November 4, 2008

Following the US Elections Online

Unless you've been hiding under a stone for the last few weeks (and months) you'll know that today, November 4th 2008, is the official US Presidential election.

The candidates and their parties have been using the internet a LOT more than during any other US election to date (Obama's probably more "connected" than most politicians have ever been)

So what if you want to follow the progress of the big vote online?

Irish sites that promise to have good coverage would include the likes of RTE, who have a dedicated mini-site and The Irish Times.

Spain's El País usually does fantastic multimedia stuff, but you'll need to speak Spanish to understand it obviously.

The BBC will probably have good coverage, as that seems to be one of their many fortes.

Of course all the US media outlets will be swamped with coverage, though they are going to be very careful about making predictions until the polls have all closed.

So who is planning on staying up all night to follow it?


Posted by Michele Neylon at 10:04 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 3, 2008

Blacknight Makes Tophosts List

TopHosts UK Top 25 Hosting Providers 2008
TopHosts contacted me just over a week ago to let me know that we'd made their Top 25 list for the UK (and Ireland / EU)


Of course I wasn't allowed to say anything until November 1st, so here I am now!

We're currently ranked 25th, which is fantastic (not because it's the bottom of the list, but because so many other companies aren't on the list at all!)

And yes I am aware that we aren't based in Germany!

I've been in touch with them to get the listing updated, so hopefully it will be sorted out before the end of today


Posted by Michele Neylon at 11:25 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Blacknight Blog Shortlisted For Golden Spiders

goldenspiders logo
I guess I should have mentioned this last week when I first found out, but I was a little bit distracted by other things!



The Golden Spiders Awards have been around for quite a long time and this year's event is being held on November 20th in the Burlington, Dublin.

The shortlist was announced late last week and we've been shortlisted in the "Best Blog" category.

Unlike the Net Visionary Awards, the Golden Spiders does not have public voting on most categories and relies instead on a panel of judges.

Suffice to say that I am delighted to see us shortlisted for yet another award


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Posted by Michele Neylon at 10:57 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So Which Domain Extensions Are Popular?

ICANN has made available a range of statistics and pretty graphs that allow you to see easily what's going on with the various registries it is responsible for. (ccTLDs such as co.uk and .fr are not included for this reason)

Full details of the updated system they've made available may be found on the ICANN site, but if you just want to "jump right in" then you may want to go here.

All of the data regarding registry statistics is made available in other formats, but having it all nicely prepared and graphed helps get to grips with it.

NB: You'll need Flash to view the graphs and there doesn't seem to be any way of re-using the data at present

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November 2, 2008

Website Advice in Sunday Business Post

There were a couple of interesting articles in this month's edition of Computers in Business on websites and how people should set them up, how much they should spend etc., :

Website investment is shrewd marketing

Put Your Business In Plain Site

The articles, which include a few quotes from me and other people in the Irish internet industry, have a couple of very simple messages.

A website can be an excellent investment, but you need to make it work for you and your clients.

If people can't find the information they are looking for quickly and easily they won't hang around - they'll go somewhere else to get it.

And I am more than happy to stand over my comment on Flash intros. They are a total waste of time!









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November 1, 2008

Net Visionary Awards 2008 Followup and Thanks

2008 Best Online Marketer2008 Best Business Blogger

I am humbled. Deeply humbled.

Anyone who knows me would find the idea of me being left "stuck for words" as being a very odd idea - it normally does not happen.

However the IIA Net Visionary Awards left me more than a bit stuck for words.

To be shortlisted in 3 categories this year was pretty amazing, but I was totally blown away when I won not one, but two awards on the night.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me, everyone who has helped both me and the company over the last few years and of course a big thanks to the event organisers and sponsors (Newsweaver and IrishTimes.com). Also a really big thanks to Colm and the gang in Realex for acting as our hosts on the evening.

I am still more than a bit lost for words.






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