» Enhanced stainless steel ground rods
February 12, 2008 -- Harger Lightning & Grounding's stainless steel enhanced grounds rods contain special salts that help lower soil resistivity and are used in conjunction with ground enhancement material such as Ultrafill.

» 10 Things IT Needs to Know About Ajax
Web development expert says watch for security, network performance issues in new Ajax applications.

» Greenlee develops cable pull tension estimator
July 22, 2008 -- Textron's Greenlee has introduced its PF8 Pull Force Estimator. The company says the product provides a quick and easy way to estimate in advance the pulling force required for cable pulling jobs.

» 3M adds Fibrlok splices for fast, on-site analog video installations
October 24, 2008 -- 3M Communication Markets Division recently introduced two new Fibrlok products in its Angle Fiber Splice AS Series for on-site installation of 250 micron and 900 micron fiber in analog video applications.

» ADC adds FTTP in-hub splicing option
June 16, 2008 -- At NXTcomm 2008, ADC introduced an in-hub distribution splice option for its OmniReach Fiber Distribution Hub (FDH) 3000.

» Dyneon eliminates PFOA/APFO from fluoropolymer production
November 6, 2008 -- The chemical, used as a polymerization aid in the production of certain fluoropolymers, has come under study by the Environmental Protection Agency.

» Experts to Feds: Sign the DNS root ASAP

Internet security gurus and leading vendors are urging the U.S. federal government to rapidly deploy security and authentication mechanisms at the top level of the DNS hierarchy, which is known as the root zone.

In recent weeks, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has received 30-plus comments in favor of securing DNS root zone data.

[ For more on the topic, see "U.S. gov't proposes digital signing of DNS root zone file" | Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

These comments are from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Society as well as ISPs and domain name operators such as PayPal, Akamai Technologies, NeuStar, Comcast, and Afilias.

The "rapid adoption of DNSSEC and signing of the root zone is an urgent requirement," wrote Michael Barrett, CISO with PayPal. "We applaud NTIA for initiating this inquiry, and urge it to move with all possible speed to implement DNSSEC [DNS Security Extensions]. Inaction or further delay would be detrimental to the interest of consumers and other Internet users and to the healthy growth of electronic commerce."

"Comcast is strongly in favor of the global adoption of DNSSEC, starting with the signing of the root," said a letter from Kathryn Zachem, vice president of regulatory and state legislative affairs, and Jason Livingood, executive director of Internet systems engineering with Comcast. "Until the root is signed, signatures for a top-level domain such as .net or .com, and signatures in domains like Comcast.net are of limited utility."

While the majority of the comments received by NTIA recommend deploying DNSSEC across the root zone, many of them prefer that this is done by the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rather than a for-profit corporation such as VeriSign, which operates root servers A and J.

The Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, a regional Internet registry, said it supports "ICANN's proposals to sign the root zone using the DNSSEC framework in a timely manner."

IAB chairman Olaf Kolkman similarly proposed that details about DNSSEC implementation on the root zone "should be decided upon within the context of the multi-stakeholder process, as currently embodied in ICANN. This would ensure involvement of all stakeholders through well established mechanisms."

The NTIA also received letters discouraging DNSSEC deployment from two lesser-known organizations -- PublicRoot Consortium and AV8 Internet -- as well as a few crackpot comments that are typical of any open Internet-based process.

The DNS root zone is deployed on 13 server clusters worldwide. These servers are operated by U.S. federal agencies such as the Defense Department and NASA, corporations including VeriSign and Cogent Communications, and universities including the University of Southern California and the University of Maryland, under the direction of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. The root servers make it possible for top-level domains, including ".com," ".net," and ".org," to match domain names with corresponding IP addresses and Web sites.

DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. The Internet standard prevents spoofing attacks by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption.

DNSSEC is viewed as the best way to bolster the DNS against vulnerabilities such as the Kaminsky bug discovered this summer. It's because of threats like these that the U.S. government is rolling out DNSSEC across its ".gov" and ".mil" domains.  

The U.S. federal government issued a request for public comments about DNSSEC deployment on the root zone on Oct. 9.

Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate.

» Extricom intros 802.11n WLAN system
March 31, 2008 -- The company says that its WLAN system enables disruption-free introduction of full-performance 802.11n wireless connectivity in enterprises, for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi bands.