Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

The Voice Over IP Security Alliance (VOIPSA) has published a VOIP Security and Privacy Threat Paper which provides a good overview of the various types of security threats facing VOIP communications. According to the VOIPSA, this VoIP Security Threat Taxonomy is meant to define the many potential security threats to VoIP deployments, services, and end users. Part of the challenge of devising effective VoIP security protections requires identifying these threats in the first place. The overall goal of this project is to help ground VoIP security awareness in the industry, press, and general public.

The National Security Agency has developed and published configuration guides for securing various operating systems. These guides are currently being used throughout the government and by numerous entities as a security baseline their systems.

Security Configuration Guides - Operating Systems (PDF)

Go Daddy Group Inc. filed patent application number 20050216288 on September 29, 2005. The patent claims as a patentable invention the offering the following services to a customer in a single package: (a) registering a new domain name; (b) setting up a hosted website using such domain name; and (c) submitting an application to the trademarks office in order to trademark the selected domain name. There may also be an additional service of submitting the URL of the hosted website to various serach engines. Obviously, offering these services as a package with only one set of forms that need to be filled out may result in some rekeying of data. Also, performing all of these steps, and within a shorter rather than longer timeframe, may provide better legal protection. However, is offering this combination of services as a package, even if not offered by others, something that would not be obvious to someone skilled in the art?

USPTO - Patent Application No. 20050216288

Apparently, Go Daddy employs two full time patent attorneys and has over 50 patent applications pending. Another patent application covers the process of combining the designing a website with an application to the US copyright office.

Just in time for Halloween, a number of Blogs ran back-track parties.

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The Anti-Spyware Coalition has released its Final Working Report of the Spyware Definitions and Supporting Documents.

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One big problem holding back widespread implementation of VOIP is the lack of encryption for SIP-based VOIP solutions (including those provided by Vonage, local telephone companies and others). It is comforting to know that a third party security consultant has given a passing grade to Skype following a review of the Skype source code and encryption system.

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A federal judge has rejected the US Government’s request to track the location of a mobile phone user without a warrant. Federal Magistrate James Orenstein in New York reaffirmed an earlier decision that tracking cell phone users in real time required a showing of probable cause that a crime was being committed.

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So there’s a domain name you’ve always wanted. It looks like it might expire soon. What should you do?
Mike Davidson has the scope in How to Snatch an Expiring Domain. This great article, although now a little dated, describes the entire process.