Thou­sands of domains owned by Comcast have been cryp­to­graph­i­cally signed according to a recent blog post by the company announcing the completion of its deployment of DNSSEC, or Domain Name System Security Exten­sions.  This is good news for busi­nesses that want to begin signing their domain names, espe­cially those dealing with credit card trans­ac­tions and financial account infor­mation.  It is also good news for consumers, as this is a big step on the road toward safer online commerce.

However, as an in-depth article by McAfee article points out, this could be bad news for author­ities looking to redirect traffic destined for sites with illicit content, such as pirated software and movies.  The level of trust and authority that would need to be granted to agencies looking to protect such copy­righted material would have to be extended across geo-political borders.  This higher level of over­sight could put agencies at odds with foreign govern­ments and free speech advo­cates who may view this attempt to suppress the exchange of certain material as an infringement on their sover­eignty or on the freedom of citizens.

It will be inter­esting to see if 2012 finds Comcast in the vanguard as other ISPs begin adopting this new layer of security, or standing alone as others take a different approach.