Internet technologies are essential for enabling the Internet to continue growing, evolving, and meeting the changing expectations of users. Enabling technologies contribute to improved Internet scalability, security, trust, and availability.
Technologies that Help the Internet Grow
IPv6
IPv6 is the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP) address standard intended to eventually replace IPv4. Every device connected to the Internet needs a numerical IP address to communicate with other devices. The original IP address scheme, called IPv4, is running out of numbers.
Internet Society Pulse tracks IPv6 adoption in different countries and networks around the globe to encourage greater adoption of this enabling technology.
Open Fiber Data Standard (OFDS)
The availability of adequate data on existing telecom infrastructure, particularly fiber optic infrastructure, can support decisions for more targeted and cost-efficient infrastructure investments by the private and public sectors.
The Open Fiber Data Standard (OFDS) addresses the challenge of inadequate data on fiber optic infrastructure by proposing a solution that aims to establish a global open standard for fiber optic infrastructure data.
Technologies that Improve Security Online
Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Many popular Internet applications, such as email and web browsers, use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to secure traffic against eavesdropping and data tampering while in transit between clients and servers. People are generally familiar with TLS from the “https” and lock icons seen in web browsers.
The latest version, TLS 1.3, offers enhanced security and reduces the opportunities for attackers to discover new vulnerabilities. It has also been shown to improve performance, with secure connections establishing more quickly.
Internet Society Pulse tracks the global adoption of each version of TLS to showcase the improving security of the Internet.
DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
The DNS is an essential piece of Internet infrastructure that translates human-friendly names (e.g., internetsociety.org) into computer-friendly numbers (e.g., 2001:41c8:20::b31a). DNS Security (DNSSEC) is designed to authenticate DNS response data.
Internet Society Pulse presents indicators of DNSSEC adoption by registries for country-code domain names (ccTLDs) and a measurement of DNSSEC validation use by Internet hosts globally.
HTTP/3
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a fundamental part of the World Wide Web, used to transfer data between various Internet-connected devices. The latest version of HTTP (HTTP/3) marks a radical departure from the past by adopting a completely new transport protocol (QUIC).
The ability for the Internet to embrace HTTP/3 indicates the Internet’s capacity to evolve and support new applications. You can track its adoption via Internet Society Pulse.
Domain Name System (DNS) Privacy
The Domain Name System (DNS) was originally developed without consideration for user privacy and may therefore leak information about DNS queries and responses that can be correlated with specific network activity.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are a growing threat to the availability of the Internet. Anti-spoofing technologies are one mechanism that network operators can implement to mitigate against these attacks.
The MANRS initiative outlines concrete actions that networks should take to prevent traffic with spoofed source IP addresses.
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the language spoken by routers on the Internet to determine how packets can be sent from one router to another to reach their final destination.
The challenge with BGP is it does not directly include security mechanisms and is based largely on trust between network operators that they will secure their systems correctly and not send incorrect data. Mistakes happen, though, and problems could arise if malicious attackers were to try to affect the routing tables used by BGP.
We support the MANRS initiative, which calls for simple yet concrete actions to reduce the most common routing threats, including BGP hijacking.
Latest Updates
Latest Updates
Explore the news and resources on Internet technologies. You can also visit Internet Society Pulse blog to find more data-driven news and insights.
We received the following guest post from Henri Wahl in the IT Department of the Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- u.Werkstoffforschung (IFW) in Dresden, Germany …
