Sensitive personal info Seisint unit of LexisNexis at least 310,000 users [complaints came in during FEB 2005 when users noticed big bills for access caused by unauthorized use of their accounts, Choicepoint, Bank of America data tape on all users of its credit cards who are FEDERAL workers was stolen and Mastercard-Visa info of customers of Ralph Lauren Polo was compromised.

*HOT SPOTS* NYC JUN 2007 free wi fi by NOKIA at Lincoln Ctr plaza and Harmony Atrium. Free public 802.11b wi fi access outdoors at mid town remains Bryant Park [-sponsored by Google] and some other public spaces [--don't count on a fast connection], but fall 2008 Wifi Salon contract expired and due to lack of sponsors its equipment was removed by early 2009 from NYC parks areas covered. New at NYC Verizon phone "booths" mostly in Manhattan free access for Verizon online [DSL] subscribers. BUT NYC metro is way behind other major US cities in wifi and broadband. Nine international telecoms companies applied to ICANN for a new web domain for sites and web services for mobile-wireless devices [name could ".mob" to be determined + a new registrar will probably include these telecom companies] in London Mar 10 2004. It could be implemented by 2005.

First New Top-level Domains Approved Nov. 2000

The NSI top level domain [.com .net .org] monopoly was granted in 1993. In 1999 companies such as register.com can offer registration in the other domains plus hosting and other services to businesses getting on the web. AOL, and 3 others chosen participated in a "pilot' round of this new competition, but were basically inactive compared to register.com. Another 52 companies worldwide were accredited to provide registration after this pilot phase.

Lawsuit delays .biz registration, some .info registrations also delayed. ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, created in 1998] created seven [7] top-level domains with their numbering systems - .info, .biz, .aero, .coop, .museum, .pro, .name. ICANN has been moving towards competition and breaking the former monopoly registrar since 1998, of the .com, .net, and .org top level domains. ICANN announced in May 2001 agreements with two companies for registrars for .info and .biz. NeuLevel, the "[c]ompany that manages the .biz database", among 60 accredited to register the new domain, was stopped on Oct. 11 in Los Angeles from "...awarding any .biz addresses being contested by more than one applicant" and because it took these as advance registration fees and then awarded registrations randomly as in an illegal lottery [supposed to be first-come, first served]. Disputes continue into 2002 and VeriSign is a gatekeeper for availability of expiring top-level registrations. There is a significant decrease in no. of new domains but trading and $peculation over existing names as a valuable commodity is increasing. In Oct. 2001 VeriSign continued as registrar of the three top-level domains as it bought Network Solutions in March 2000 and also operates the master database. It has 40% of these registered domains as its clients, with the next competitor [register.com] having only ten percent.

Contract agreement of April 2001 with ICANN provided that .org registry will go to a not-for-profit org on Dec. 31, 2002. Open registration for all '.biz' accredited registrars was sched. for Oct. 23 2001 is delayed to Nov. 7 2001. The new '.info' is actively being registered but there were disputes that the awarding of the names-IPs for these was not an equitable process. The .net agreement will expire on Jan. 1 2006 and the .com agreement will expire on Nov. 10 2007, 4-year renewal possible on new approval. All proposed new top-level domains-.firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, and .nom. etc. from a list of 37, were *not* approved. ICANN declined to consider .kids, or .xxx to mark children's sites or adults-only sites. Of the many left out organizations and corporations, who paid $50,000. fees to consider their proposals, some are so upset by the process that they are suing ICANN.

Vint Cerf elected chairman of ICANN; a one-year, unpaid position. In the 1970s, he helped create the TCP/IP protocol for Internet communication as a Stanford University professor.

Netkeepers		Internet Week NY [1st week of June]
Gov't Broadband Report DNS servier list Registry Rocket Internic Directory of Directories Internet Protocol vers. 6 Forum ICAAN Internic Directory of Directories EVDO wireless	IP v.6 The Internet Society FBI Internet Crime Ctr Usenet newsserver guide Network Solutions Inc. blue[tooth] stumbler US Domain registration ".us" Internet Ad-Hoc Committee	Internet Engineering Task Force Internet '2' Routing and Network Statistics Internet Software Consortium North American numbering plan area codes Lightreading the telecom industry SecurityFocus T[est]OAST

Can everyone be connected?...as fast as people get computers or access. In the US, there is much cable ('pipes') and massive amounts of fiber interlinking to keep up for the corporate and government power users. However, for the regular end users there are bottle-necks in the 'last mile' to OUR doors. The US is a leader, a growing majority of home will have the potential to be connected to cable and DSL broadband, but lags behind some other smaller [i.e. S. Korea, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands..] nations in broadband and overall internet use.[HEY but in 2007 CANADA and Japan are just starting CELL phone no. portability.] **study link "the current generation of broadband technologies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully insufficient to carry many of the advanced applications driving future demand. Today’s broadband will be tomorrow’s traffic jam, and the need for speed will persist as new applications and services gobble up existing bandwidth. While long-haul data transport capacity exploded in the 1990s,[2] last-mile capacity upgrades have proceeded much more slowly. Estimates for new investments needed to build out a significantly more robust and capable national broadband Internet range from $100 billion conservatively estimated by the National Research Council to $200 billion according to Bear Stearns.. ." Highspeed connection reached about 50% in USin 2004.

Staking your claim on the 'net? Network Solutions can't even keep up with domain name demand (or billing for it) which reached 400,000 a month in summer 1999, and demand for IP numbers. ICANN usually decides trademark-domain name disputes in favor of the established trademark holders. Registrars such as Verisign abet continuing speculation and profiteering on names by some individuals. Corporate America has dibs on other desirable names, protected through legal precedent. So, don't "cybersquat" using any name that resembles a corporate trade or service mark, even if its your real name, or have used it in business - even though some big cash was paid out to a lucky few first with a hot name. The Domain Name Rights Coalition tried to change the policy for resolving disputes over Internet names. There was also an earlier attempt by the 'alternic' - with their own root name servers, which did not succeed.

Free .us domain registration is little used outside of some government sites. You may have noticed it, though, for some UK sites. A number of ISPs tried to have an alternate scheme to that - Enhanced Domain Name Service (eDNS) - requiring several new atop-level- additional domain name server IP addresses to be added to their TCP/IP DNS set-up files [Communications Week 3-31-97], but this was not implemented amid conflicts among participants.

To get an overview...without techno-pain...of the various Internet backbone operators and a little Internet history, the BOARDWATCH Internet Service Providers Bi-Monthly Directory [was] tops. Besides, it has the most detailed listings for ISP's you will find. The details about the Backbone Operators are most interesting, though. It only starts with 11 (eleven) major interconnection points. There are very important but little known (outside the business) NAP's etc. The number one point of interconnectivity is perhaps MAE East "which handles at least one-third of all Internet traffic worldwide, is located in an underground parking garage in McLean, Va." See a link the table above about a new "5th Tier-one NAP in the world" and is "carrier neutral" in Miami in late 2001 to handle interconnectivity with US s and traffic to Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and S. Europe and was designed from scratch for that use. There is crowding of equipment, software/routing problems, and various physical and electronic security issues threatening the integrity of the network at all times.

Each special issue of the guide profiled major backbone operators that would provide information, alone! Interesting to note that [with former UUNET] MCI was the largest national backbone operator w/32% of the market into 1998 until the Worldcom merge and a sale of their Internet backbone to Cable and Wireless. MCI/WorldCom provided backbone services to Microsoft Network, EarthLink, GTE internet and DataXchange resells MCI WorldNet network access to 150 ISP's. PSINet (no more direct consumer service) provided service to IDT, Delphi, EarthLink and others. And 3,640 ISP's counted and growing were listed for the rest of us! And I have not kept up with the situation much since then.

Net Mags
Communications Week InfoWorld >BroadbandWeek	BrowserWatch Today (plug-ins!!) digg.com C|Net online	WebWeek lightReading Network World

[BOTTOM]

OTHER 'NETS...

...are out there. NET III in 2007-8 GOOGLE? It's hinted with 450,000+ servers and growing, they are building amongst the most advanced networks in the world. Noted in Village Voice Sept 13-19 2006 on news of Google's 2 floor server farm etc coming up in 111 Eighth Av. Back to 'INTERNET II'. "Abilene" [a few years ago already-]Some 34 Universities were connected to the Very-High Performance Backbone Network Service. Also around 8% of secondary schools and 1,500 public libraries are connected[-NYTimes, Circuits 8-14-03]. This replaced NSFnet of 1985 connecting the five National Supercomputing Centers. Also sponsored by NSF, and built by MCI. More bandwidth will be there for the scientists and researchers. Of course this ol' internet isn't good enough for the Pentagon, either. Beside the system(s) for sending unclassified e-mail, there's a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, and a worldwide Defense Information Systems Network (DISN). An article in Federal Computer Week described the advanced systems deployed to hook up the troops in Bosnia. They got em' wired (!), and will leave a network infrastructure in place. Yes, BIG business has been waiting for the chance to rebuild $$$ASAP--- remember the group that went down with Ron Brown? (with the plane...)

2010: [announced APR 2009 e Bay to spin off Skype in a public offering..

2009: YAHOO annonuced purchase of Masktoob.com [of Jordan]-major protal of Arab-world.

2008: Dec eToys Chapter 11..CBS acquired cNet July to bolster CBS/Interactive. AOL buys 'Bebo' $850mil to enhance AIM/ICQ. Mar1-AOL cut off support for Netscape, faded down to way less than 1% of browser users.

2007: GOOGLE announced acquisition of DOUBLECLICK for $3.1Bil will 'close'by fall 2007 "The whole system will run faster," -the chair of Google said. "Users will benefit from more targeted ads.- last sale of DoubleClick was to a private equity firm and a management company in 2005 for $1.1Bil!"

2006: PRONTO.com [an IAC brand] shopping svc. launched from NYC NOV 20..Shopping search-marketing site Blingo.com was acquired by Publishers Clearing House..June 2006 VERIZON to market FiOS hi TV and internet service to take back share from cable digital tv and internet..GOOGLE checkout launched.. May AOL let go most of its help desk people, fall 2005 they closed the ORLANDO call center, way down from he 2002 peak they still they have a huge membership..APRIL 2006 ShopWiki launched.

2005: eBay Sept announced to buy SKYPE min for $2.6Bil cash and stock plus up with $1.5Bil more..June-Jul 2005 Ebay bought Shopping.com..AOL enhanced IM with free email etc..MAR 2005 Barry Diller s IAC buys out ASK JEEVES for $1.85Bil*..*Feb 2005 ebay "KIJII"..JAN 25 2005 AOL cut off USENET newsgroups, well AOL newbies first really trashed that up in 93-95 when they got access and no of users grew greatly. Well I first saw newsgroups on Pipeline NYC late 1994 and then Interport till it was swallowed by RCN].

2004: SprintNextel DEC announced merge completed in AUG 2005, data networks longer period to be consolidated..Oct Cingular acquired ATT wireless..Sept 2004-YAHOO [Sept 14] announced $160 mil buy of Musicmatch..Aug eBay bought 25 percent of Craigslist..June TiVo internet services announced. AOL agreed to buy out Advertising.com, a notable spam-enabler, but AUG AOL also purchased Mailblocks who do anti-spam. Fed announced AOL software engineer Jason Smathers took "92 million" screen names and sold them to spammers in 2003-Smathers and purchaser runs online gambling site are "among' first to be prosecuted under new "Can-Spam" law of Jan 2004..April new free Google "g mail" scan-data mines users e mail to send related ads, Google retains the right to save the email for its own internal purposes...Mar AskJeeves [CA] to acquire Interactive Search Holdings [iWon, Excite, My Way.] Jan 2004 Canada can blame US - YAHOO announced Rogers Cable agrees be paid to offer Yahoo broadband to its subscribers and in 2002 Bell Canada made a deal with MSN to provide broadband..Early 2004 EarthLink closing 4 of 5 US call ctrs- 1,300 cut, much of rest of jobs outsourced.

2003: LEAP wireless files Chapter 11 4-13-03..YAHOO announced 7-14-03, deal to buy Overture search listings service. Earlier it swallowed Geocities, WebRings, E-Groups etc. but suffered losses, layoffs and mgmt. turnover in early 2001..Feb Google acquired Blogger.com Yahoo Platinum online video come and gone..[Oct 14 03-] AOL announced its new Netscape-branded economy online service for 2004 with basic features set. NAPSTER [2.0] back online OCT 2003 is a ROXIO service. ROXIO also acquired Pressplay.. Sept Weblogs, Inc..CANNED spam [?] first real attempts at relief underway. A new Virginia law, several different bills introduced in Congress and a cooperative effort by AOL, Yahoo, and MS [announced APR 2003] to develop new standards to id and singleout spam. AOL 9 out summer 2003.

2002: EarthLink filed fed lawsuit Aug 27 against big spammers - mostly in Alabama.. United Online to buy out K-Mart's Bluelight.com announced Sep. 2002. ..CompuServe UK shut down summer 2002 and users were migrated to it AOL parent EarthLink June acquired PeoplePC "using stolen credit card nos. and ID theft and also in Canada [!]

2001: AUG AOL Time Warner announced buyout of UK -publisher and online seller IPC for ~$1.66 billion US. Ricochet wireless was shutdown [Aug. 2001] by bankrupt parent Metricom.. CompuServe 7.0 launched [owned by AOL since 1998]..Excite@Home to shut in FEB also means 90% of ATT cable modem got access cut off, and many will still be if they cannot be migrated to other networks by ATT. ..Cisco wrote of $2.5 billion in inventory in April 2001..those routers became outdated fast. It has several direct competitors, some with other products nipping at the market for its technology - "[b]ut routers face increasing competition from switches that are integrating a layer 3 routing function into the normal layer 2 switching products. While there is no indication that routers are going away, the popularity of the multilayer switches could limit profits for router vendors that do not adapt."-by Faulkner Information Services at MarketResearch.com- Router Technology Market Trends. NetZero and Juno Online Services announced June 6 2001 a merger and to become subsidiaries of new United Online Inc., [becomes second-sized service in user base to AOL].. Free hours on NetZero were cut back to 10 monthly, with more time for a fee. EarthLink Network Inc. and Mindspring Enterprises merged is-was second largest service after AOL...Final Federal approvals Jan. 2001 for AOL's TimeWarner acquisition for $173 billion, in OCT. 99 it bought 5% - $800 million of Gateway, and provides Gateway's own-branded net access. AOL bought Netscape earlier. AOLtv-[CNET gave Phillips-AOLtv 2 out of ten in a Feb. 01 review] introduced to compete with WebTV. MAR 2001 NorthPoint DSL [SF. CA] ended network services after filing Chapter 11 in Jan. AUG 2001-DSL provider Rhythms NetConnections ended network services and filed chapter 11 and Covad Communications Corp.[Colorado] also filed chapter 11.

1999: Yahoo acquired Geocities.

1998: PRODIGY Classic replaced by Prodigy WEB service Oct. 1 99. Nov 98 AOL acquired Netscape Communications. Sept 1998 FCC approval of MC-Worldcom merger. Remember GEnie, Delphi? StarMedia [specializing in net access for Latin America] laid off 125 staff - 15% in Sept. 2000 and cut a further 25% in May - have staff at 111 8th Ave. in Manhattan, one of a few important telecom centers downtown.

1996: Network Solutions to have a public stock offering? [-NY TIMES 9-12-96] ..from .net magazine (UK) issue 17 Spring '96 p. 10..for more see also Wired 4.02 p.72 and also Boardwatch magazine- 1/96 p.90-92 about the national wiretap system authorized by HR 4922 - the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.