mnot’s blog

Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Moving Control to the Endpoints

The introduction of encrypted DNS is a natural step in the process of securing the Internet, but it has brought a considerable amount of controversy, because it removes a means of control for network operators -- including not only enterprises but also schools and parents. The solution is to move control of these services to the endpoints of communication -- for example, the users’ computers -- but doing so has its own challenges.

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Thursday, 6 December 2018

Eight #aabill Predictions

As I write this, the Australian Senate is in the final stages of passing the Assistance and Access Bill 2018 (with some but not all amendments).

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Thursday, 6 December 2018

Australian Assistance and Access Bill 2018: Amendments

In a great hurry, Australia’s house of representatives today passed the controversial Assistance and Access Bill 2018. However, there were some last-minute amendments slipped in. Currently, it’s being debated in the Senate.

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Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Designing Headers for HTTP Compression

One of the concerns that often comes up when someone creates a new HTTP header is how much “bloat” it will add on the network. This is especially relevant in requests, when a little bit of extra data can introduce a lot of latency when repeated on every request.

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Thursday, 15 November 2018

Do you Trust Australia? Part Four

On 20 August, I went to Canberra to participate in an Internet Society experts' panel on encryption.

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Sunday, 19 August 2018

Do you Trust Australia? Part Three

Not that long ago, the US government attempted to compel Microsoft to reveal a customer's data that was located in Ireland.

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Thursday, 16 August 2018

Do you Trust Australia? Part Two

After a couple of sleeps, I think my concerns about the proposed Assistance and Access Bill 2018 have crystallised.

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Tuesday, 14 August 2018

Do you Trust Australia?

This morning, the Australian Department of Home Affairs released the Assistance and Access Bill 2018 for consultation.

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Tuesday, 31 July 2018

How to Read an RFC

For better or worse, Requests for Comments (RFCs) are how we specify many protocols on the Internet. These documents are alternatively treated as holy texts by developers who parse them for hidden meanings, then shunned as irrelevant because they can’t be understood. This often leads to frustration and – more significantly – interoperability and security issues.

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Wednesday, 7 June 2017

How (Not) to Control Your CDN

In February, Omer Gil described the Web Cache Deception Attack.

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