Scott Fogarty

The NTIA/Verisign Cooperative Agreement for .Com impacts the fundamental workings of the Internet infrastructure and US digital sovereignty. This article in Circle ID from last week sums up the problems of the Internet Plumbing Monopolies. Is Verisign a Monopoly? Does It Matter? https://lnkd.in/eQ2UrGu4 Here is my response to the article: Your arguments regarding the price of .com are logical; however, the issue of Verisign’s monopoly extends beyond just .com pricing. It also concerns the monopoly power that Verisign holds within the DNS ecosystem, a power given it through the NTIA Cooperative Agreement and Amendment 35 without any US public or Congressional input or oversight. This monopoly power has significant implications for undermining ICANN’s “multi-stakeholder” process. We have seen this in several instances, such as Verisign’s failure to implement a “Thick WHOIS,” despite being an agreed-upon consensus “multi-stakeholder” policy of ICANN back in 2016 (and now required as part of NIS2). Furthermore, Verisign has collaborated with other “contracted parties” to narrow the definition of DNS Abuse by excluding CSAM and IP violations even though the US and EU DNS Abuse definitions include both. Even more troubling is that Verisign has been colluding with ICANN to secure its policy objectives that are counter to the protection of US cybersecurity and consumer/child protection. This has occurred through bilateral contract negotiations - such as those involving .com price increases, DNS Abuse definition, and blocking efforts to ensure an open, accurate, and accessible WHOIS - and ICANN policies involving NIS2 and the US cybersecurity reporting law (CISA). #versign #icann #whois #darkwhois #internetplumbingmonopolies #nationalsecurity #cybersecurity  

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"The smaller players in the defense-tech ecosystem have been rooting for a Trump victory, seeing him as the kind of disruptor who could give them a bigger share of the Pentagon’s budget. For years, defense officials have said they have a strong appetite for cheaper, more nimble defense technologies — but new players have found it challenging to carve out a space under the Pentagon’s rules. Many venture capitalists and defense tech entrepreneurs bet early on Trump’s campaign, convinced he could reform the Pentagon’s arcane budgeting system in ways that will push it to adopt their cutting-edge innovations faster. “The single biggest thing that will make the difference is the amount of investment that the next administration puts into these advanced capabilities, and when I say investment, I mean procurement dollars to buy them at scale,” Chris Brose, Andruil’s chief strategy officer, told DFD. Defense tech startups have long struggled to persuade the DOD to buy from them. Venture-backed defense tech companies took less than 1 percent of the $411 billion in federal defense contracts awarded last fiscal year. That’s even as the department increasingly seeks out AI-enabled systems, defense venture funding continues to pour in and new global conflicts have stoked calls to modernize military arsenals." https://lnkd.in/gPT23qmt

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https://lnkd.in/dDGfRVai "The amendments can be broken down into five core components, and while they don’t actively advance the fortunes of AI companies, they do make their lives easier. For example, one amendment will replace criminal penalties for perjury with civil ones, meaning the act now invokes no criminal charges for any violation and the legal repercussions of stepping out of line are significantly reduced.  The amended bill now also cuts the Attorney General’s ability to seek civil penalties “unless a harm has occurred or there is an imminent threat to public safety.” The amended bill makes the Attorney General’s office the main regulatory body for AI, rather than an originally proposed state regulatory body."

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🗞️ Breaking News: Red Ventures Selling CNET at a huge Loss❗️ Context: Red Ventures, the privately held digital media and marketing juggernaut based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, is selling CNET, one of the largest tech publishers on the web, to Ziff Davis for just $100 million. For context: Red Ventures bought CNET for approximately $500 million. Reason for the Sale: Total traffic to CNET has dropped by a staggering 50% over the last three years. The main driver behind this decline is a 68% drop in organic traffic (loss off Google rankings and traffic). Tables turned: This sale is a stunning turn of events for CNET, which once bought Ziff Davis (then a tech magazine firm) in a deal worth roughly $1.6 billion - more than two decades ago. Catch Up: - Ziff Davis trades publicly with a market value of $1.94 billion. The company lost about half of its marketcap over the course of the last 48 months. Strategic rationale: If Ziff Davis is able to ink a content licencing deal with Google, Bing/Microsoft or ChatGPT (or else e.g. X.AI) - like Reddit did - it might turn out to be a very smart deal …

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🌟 Join Our Panel Discussion on Licensing vs. Manufacturing: Are you navigating the decision between licensing and manufacturing for your software, hardware, or physical product? I'll be speaking from the US Government Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today at 11 AM virtually: 🔗 Event Link: https://lnkd.in/g3VTnCvq What you'll learn: - Pros and cons of licensing vs. manufacturing - What companies need to see to license your product - What can and cannot be licensed - What you need to know to manufacture Thank you Larry Udell for organizing this wonderful event! #Engineering #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #USPTO #IntellectualProperty

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If you live inside someone else's semantic landscape, you will undoubtedly lose. Thank you to Carl Franzen @ VentureBeat for letting me discuss how New Industry VC's Narrative Command thesis is applicable to elections. What is Narrative Command? Narrative Command is the concept that in every new market there is a startup that defines a vision of the future…which becomes the default future for that vertical. They define the language of the vertical, forcing everyone else to use that language. They define the seminal experience, and then give audiences or customers a taste of that experience. They boundary the discourse, forcing everyone into it. Once a company seizes Narrative Command in a new vertical, competitors — whether pre-existing or new — must live inside that narrative. Taken to its logical conclusion, Narrative Command becomes self-sustaining, where stakeholders, fans, customers, allies, investors — AND EVEN COMPETITORS — perpetuate the narrative. The best example of this is, of course, Tesla, which possesses Narrative Command of both electric and autonomous vehicles. NIVC invests in seed-stage Deep Tech startups with Narrative Command potential: www.nivc.us And if a startup just wants help with NC, my advisory firm is ready to help: www.johnson-roy.com

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One of the things we see quite often at Grit Capital Partners, is a newly minted CEO. We see a big difference in the transition to CEO based upon the historical lane the CEO is coming from. There are different new muscles if you are coming from Product, Engineering, Finance, etc. In this article, we go deep on the CRO to CEO transition, which includes some thoughts from Rosie O'Meara, a particularly fine example of someone who has made the transition quite well. What were your biggest transition moments? https://lnkd.in/eEB-K2ZU

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This week Mikal Ventures brings you a 4-week breakdown of the non-US capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. The 4-week period ending November 25 saw just over 1,300 new companies added, bringing the total to 112,141 companies included in the non-US Health Tech, Med Tech, AI Tech Fin Tech and Ed Tech verticals. Non-US AI Tech again saw the greatest percentage growth in new companies at 16%, vs. the vertical average of 12% for the period. Non-US HeathTech led the group in transactions. Non-US Med Tech led in SEC Filings and news articles.   Mikal Ventures publishes these stats on a rolling 4-week basis to provide a perspective on how the verticals and new startups move through time. We hope you find them informative and thought-provoking. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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There is so much that is so damn impressive about Nominal's execution. The team identified a truly needed product in the world. More than that... They serve their customers. Sometimes Nominal is saving days of work for an engineer detangling the performance of new hardware in an autonomous fixed wing drone. Other times, helping implement a transformational change for engineering orgs, delivering iteration speed from simulation to range to unlock an RFP goal and contract win. They are building dual use -- powering the best of commercial and public sector teams. Whether a government contractor delivering on a $12b contract. A scaled public company, integrating AI into your roadmap on to your existing HW platform. A startup which is willing a first product into existence. Nominal is there for all the dual use hardware builders who live real time, live in physical world time. The real world runs real time. The real world runs Nominal and so excited to be on the journey. Also, hiring, https://www.nominal.io/, kind of a lot. If you are awesome, they want to talk to you.

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Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy, and other execs are accused of using the ephemeral messaging app for months after the feds notified Amazon of the antitrust investigation. FTC lawyers submitted a filing on Thursday that claims Amazon’s top execs used Signal’s disappearing messages feature to destroy evidence relevant to the agency’s massive antitrust lawsuit. (You remember the one? The FTC accused Amazon of creating a secret “Project Nessie” pricing algorithm that may have generated more than $1 billion in extra profits.) Now, The Washington Post (which is owned by Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos) reports that Amazon is just one of several companies recently accused of turning to encrypted messaging apps like #Signal that can permanently erase messages automatically. https://lnkd.in/gs_U85fE #recordkeeping #whatsapp #compliance #sec #text #texting #imessage #textmessaging #SMS #MMS #imessage #recordkeeping #whatsapp #compliance #sec #text #texting #textmessaging #SMS #MMS #facetime Apple Google Meta Facebook #Android #apple #google #meta #facebook #compliance #financialservices #technology #whatsapparchiving WhatsApp #business WeChat

Guarding #governmentdata starts at your fingertips. Unlock how CHERRY's #encryptedkeyboards, #TAA compliant gear and #CACreaders help fortify #SLG and #federal agencies against #cyberthreats. https://bit.ly/44oqvot

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Guarding #governmentdata starts at your fingertips. Unlock how CHERRY's #encryptedkeyboards, #TAA compliant gear and #CACreaders help fortify #SLG and #federal agencies against #cyberthreats. https://bit.ly/44oqvot

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On the back of the article from The Guardian “Banks, airlines and media outlets hit by global outage linked to Windows PCs,” it got me thinking… What would happen if AI services like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., went down? Why can’t we use these offline instead of being connected to the Internet? Many organisations are becoming dependent on AI, raising concerns around security and privacy. We would witness significant disruptions across various sectors. Customer service, healthcare, finance, and logistics heavily rely on AI to optimise operations, provide insights, and enhance user experiences. The absence of AI would slow decision-making processes, reduce efficiency, and potentially lead to increased errors. This scenario underscores the critical importance of AI in our modern infrastructure and the need for robust contingency plans to mitigate such risks. https://lnkd.in/e8KFV6QK #AI #Technology #BusinessContinuity #RiskManagement Whitespace

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“True DCRs should deliver both privacy and performance where privacy-enhancing technologies are the default and not an option – this is non-negotiable.” Commenting in AdExchanger on the FTC’s recent article on data clean rooms, InfoSum CEO Lauren Wetzel explains why privacy-enhancing technologies are the default, never an afterthought or an add-on in true data clean rooms. As Lauren explained in a LinkedIn post last week (link in the comments), PETs are embedded into our infrastructure at InfoSum. This means it is impossible to misconfigure in the platform, and they can’t be turned off. Additionally, no permission ever grants access to another company’s personal data. Companies investing in DCRs should heed this as a warning not to settle for “DCR-lite” solutions. Link to AdExchanger article: https://hubs.la/Q02Yvv770 #InfoSum #DataCollaboration #DataCleanRooms #DataPrivacy

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This analysis, at least anecdotally makes sense to me. In many situations, infringe and holdout is the least painful option for large infringers. The system enables it. - The plaintiff must allocate the time and $$ to assert, taking time and $$ away from selling and developing products. Even if they engage litigation financiers they are limiting their upside potential. - The infringer continues to infringe while employing stall tactics or simply relying on the painfully slow, overburdened legal system. - The cost benefit analysis for infringers - "infringe and pay lawyers" typically outweighs the cost of design around or license. - Enhanced damages and injunctions are rare. - Litigation insurance products reduce risk all around. "The Marcum report shows that there is indeed something wrong with the patent system in the United States but it’s not excessive litigation or patent trolls. The real problem is the inability of patent owners to enforce their rights against infringers. Given the difficulty of obtaining injunctive relief and the limited enhancement of damages, it is unsurprising that predatory infringement has become a standard business practice when, at worst, all an infringer can be expected to pay is a reasonable royalty and, at best, nothing at all."

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STARTUP NEWS: Several emerging private cybersecurity firms have gained attention for their innovation and strong investor interest in the past year, including Wiz, SandboxAQ, Tanium, Arctic Wolf, and Snyk. According to a report by Gartner end-user spending on information security will reach $212 billion by 2025, a 15% increase from 2024. By 2027, 17% of cyber threats are expected to involve #AI, requiring a significant boost in cybersecurity resources. Learn more about these cybersecurity firms at https://lnkd.in/e2T3X2xe #ForgeGlobal #privatemarkets #startups #techstartups

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This is quite interesting advice and also quite a non-consensus view in the B2B software world. Cross-border founders who are considering the US vs International incorporation question should consider this as valuable input.

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