DTI Award leads to partnership between Nominet and Oxford Brookes University to develop anti-abuse technology for the fight against fraudulent use of the .uk national registry.

25/04/2007

25th April 2007 - Nominet, the .uk domain name registry, has announced a partnership with Oxford Brookes University to develop anti-abuse technology that will help protect more than 5.5 million UK domain names, registrant data and the UK Internet as a whole. The partnership is being supported by the Department of Trade and Industry through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) award. It will see the creation of two new anti-abuse posts.

Taking advantage of Oxford Brookes' highly respected research and academic experience in knowledge discovery and data mining, Nominet will utilise advanced data mining and visualisation techniques to develop algorithms and software tools that can help detect fraudulent use of the .uk national registry.

"As the organisation responsible for the management of the national .uk registry, Nominet plays a key role at the heart of the UK e- economy. It is essential that we remain ahead of those who wish to exploit the registry," argues Jay Daley, Nominet’s Director of IT.

"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. 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".

Commenting on the partnership John Corlett, KTP Manager for Oxford Brookes University says, "Oxford Brookes is currently 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."

Notes to Editors

About Nominet

Nominet is the national registry for all Internet domain names ending in .uk. Its purpose is the careful and impartial management of this central database, providing stability, security and accessibility for all users of .uk domain names. Nominet is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. It has members not shareholders, pays no dividends and its charges only cover its running costs. Anyone with an interest in the Internet may become a member. Nominet has over 2,800 members representing all areas of the Internet industry and is recognised as the .uk domain name registry by the Internet industry and the UK Government. It is not a governing or regulatory body, but provides a public service for the .uk namespace on behalf of the UK Internet community.

About Oxford Brookes

Oxford Brookes University is widely acknowledged to be the UK's leading modern university, surpassing many older institutions in newspaper league tables. The University has a longstanding reputation for employability, and is host to two national centres of excellence in teaching and learning.

For the last five years, Brookes has been named best new university by the Sunday Times University Guide. The Guide's authors say: 'Oxford Brookes offers the most diverse range of combined honours courses in the UK, and this has helped it to be consistently the top- performing modern university in our league table. Oxford Brookes already enjoys a formidable reputation for undergraduate teaching. No other modern university can match the 24 subjects rated excellent. Its research record is also among the best in the sector.'

Having achieved international status in research in the Humanities, Oxford Brookes is further developing research capacity in the Social Sciences, Computer Science, the Arts, and in Health. Most of its science-based research has direct application in the spheres of biotechnology, medicine, engineering, computing, architecture, construction, agriculture and environmental planning. Business, Education, Tourism, and Hotel and Restaurant Management are other areas of research strength.

Almost 19,000 people study at Oxford Brookes, on courses that range from foundation to postgraduate level. Over 20% are international students coming from over 110 countries worldwide. Around 25 of the degree courses are recognised by a professional body, including accounting, architecture, business, law, mechanical engineering, media technology, occupational therapy, real estate management and sound technology and digital music.

For further information, please contact:

Katie Judge / Blaise Hammond / Yusuf Moosajee
Fuse PR
Tel: 020 8752 3200
Email: nominet@fusepr.co.uk

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