The Abandoned Side of the Internet: Hijacking Internet Resources When Domain Names Expire

The vulnerability of the Internet has been demonstrated by prominent IP prefix hijacking events. Major outages such as the China Telecom incident in 2010 stimulate speculations about malicious intentions behind such anomalies. Surprisingly, almost all discussions in the current literature assume that hijacking incidents are enabled by the lack of security mechanisms in the inter-domain routing protocol BGP. In this paper, we discuss an attacker model that accounts for the hijacking of network ownership information stored in Regional Internet Registry (RIR) databases. We show that such threats emerge from abandoned Internet resources (e.g., IP address blocks, AS numbers). When DNS names expire, attackers gain the opportunity to take resource ownership by re-registering domain names that are referenced by corresponding RIR database objects. We argue that this kind of attack is more attractive than conventional hijacking, since the attacker can act in full anonymity on behalf of a victim. Despite corresponding incidents have been observed in the past, current detection techniques are not qualified to deal with these attacks. We show that they are feasible with very little effort, and analyze the risk potential of abandoned Internet resources for the European service region: our findings reveal that currently 73 /24 IP prefixes and 7 ASes are vulnerable to be stealthily abused. We discuss countermeasures and outline research directions towards preventive solutions.Comment: Final version for TMA 201

Gen.com: Youth, Civic Engagement, and the New Information Environment

What follows is an exploratory examination of the current disengagement of young Americans from public life, some thoughts on the roots of this disengagement, and speculations on the ways in which new technologies such as the Internet might be used to improve this state of affairs. It is meant to be a starting point for discussion

Infrastructural Speculations: Tactics for Designing and Interrogating Lifeworlds

This paper introduces “infrastructural speculations,” an orientation toward speculative design that considers the complex and long-lived relationships of technologies with broader systems, beyond moments of immediate invention and design. As modes of speculation are increasingly used to interrogate questions of broad societal concern, it is pertinent to develop an orientation that foregrounds the “lifeworld” of artifacts—the social, perceptual, and political environment in which they exist. While speculative designs often imply a lifeworld, infrastructural speculations place lifeworlds at the center of design concern, calling attention to the cultural, regulatory, environmental, and repair conditions that enable and surround particular future visions. By articulating connections and affinities between speculative design and infrastructure studies research, we contribute a set of design tactics for producing infrastructural speculations. These tactics help design researchers interrogate the complex and ongoing entanglements among technologies, institutions, practices, and systems of power when gauging the stakes of alternate lifeworlds

Borsa Parole – A Market for Linguistic Speculation

This article describes a novel approach to linguistic field research consisting in exploiting the self-regulation of a market for collecting data on language use. The market is conceived as an output-agreement game with a purpose called Borsa Parole. The agreement can be traded with by the players what makes it adjustable. Borsa Parole has been conceived and is deployed for a linguistic study on the divergence of Italian dialects and vernaculars

ICANN : guilty as charged

Discusses the role of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a private not-for-profit California corporation created to manage the Internet domain name system and take the regulatory action that the US Department of Commerce (DoC) was unable or unwilling to handle directly. Considers ICANN's legal status and policy-making activities. Explores the criticisms that have been levelled at ICANN, relating to: (1) the DoC's relationship with ICANN; (2) the violation of competition laws; and (3) the effect of ICANN's actions in Europe

Is a Technological Singularity near also for bots in MMOGs?

Using the idea of the Technological Singularity this essay offers some reflections on the possible future of bots in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). The paper starts by briefly introducing the notion of Technological Singularity as the advent of a super-intelligent Artificial Intelligence that could threaten human existence. Bots are computer programs that automate repetitive and time consuming activities for the Internet user. In MMOGs, bots are often used to cheat and could have nefarious effects on the gameplay. Assuming that bots are rudimentary forms of Artificial Intelligence that also pose a threat to MMOGs and their players, the paper presents some evidence-based trends of the future evolution of bots and the implications of these for Virtual Worlds research

Both sides of the story: Addiction is not a pastime activity

The proposed inclusion of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) into the upcoming ICD-11 has caused mixed reactions. Having a sound diagnostic framework for defining this new phenomenon has been applauded but concerns have risen regarding overpathologizing a mere pastime activity. The review by Aarseth et al. (2016) provides a fine but one-sided impression on IGD. What has been totally left out in the argumentation is the clinical perspective. Although the concerns depicted must not be ignored, the conclusion provided by the authors is reflecting quite subjective speculations while objectivity would rather be needful