UK domain name registrar Nominet and Oxford Brookes University have teamed up to develop technology designed to stamp out fraudulent abuse of domain names in the UK.
The UK registrar will use advanced data mining and visualisation techniques researched by the university to develop algorithms and software tools that can help detect fraudulent use of the .uk national registry.
The partnership is being supported by the Department of Trade and Industry through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) award and will see the creation of two new anti-abuse posts to look at cases of potential misuse of domain names.
Jay Daley, IT director at Nominet said that as the organisation responsible for the management of the national .uk registry, it was essential that we remain ahead of those who wish to exploit the registry."
"We've developed sophisticated systems to protect the .uk registry; but as we know, we need to make efforts to stay ahead of the abusers by developing increasingly complex systems," said Daley. "The KTP with Oxford Brookes will allow Nominet to learn from respected academics at the University and develop tools to guard against those who seek to disrupt operations, take commercial advantage of the system or steal information".
John Corlett, KTP Manager for Oxford Brookes University said that the university was "making excellent progress in researching and studying the techniques associated with fighting fraudulent internet activity."
"The partnership with Nominet will allow us to build on our existing academic work and develop systems that will help protect the Nominet registry and create a safer UK internet," said Corlett.
