Centre for Internet and Society

SOPA: The bill that could kill the Internet

praskrishna — 2011-11-18T07:26:30Z

As the US government’s House Judiciary Committee begins hearings on the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, (SOPA), both supporters and opponents are ramping up their campaigning, with big names getting involved. And so they should. SOPA’s stakes are no less than the future of the Internet itself.

The key problem with SOPA is that it seeks to allow any copyright holder to sever any website’s relationship with online advertising networks or credit card processing services, simply by pointing the finger. As Ars Technica explains:

Calling its plan a “market-based system to protect US customers and prevent US funding of sites dedicated to theft of US property,” the new bill gives broad powers to private actors. Any holder of intellectual property rights could simply send a letter to ad network operators like Google and to payment processors like MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal, demanding these companies cut off access to any site the IP holder names as an infringer.

[…] So long as the intellectual property holders include some “specific facts” supporting their infringement claim, ad networks and payment processors will have five days to cut off contact with the website in question.

The bill also gives the government the power to get an injunction against foreign sites which would force ISPs to, within five days, ”prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site.” Essentially, it obliges ISPs to break their own DNS servers by filtering or redirecting users who try to access an accused site. It would also ban any tools which allow circumvention of such blocks.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how this could be abused: An aggrieved party accuses a site of infringement, with or without reliable evidence, and suddenly that site can no longer accept credit cards or PayPal payments and its advertising revenue dries up completely. And we know that the IP industry isn’t above false accusations of copyright infringement. It’s not just business websites that could be affected, but open source projects too.

Opponents currently include businesses such as Google, Facebook, Zynga, eBay, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, and LinkedIn who, together, sent a letter; advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch; as well as eleven members of the House of Representatives who have also written a letter to the House Judiciary Committee. Another letter from human rights groups includes India’s Centre for Internet and Society as well as the Church of Sweden.

There are also complaints that the House Judiciary Committee is trying to push the legislation through with undue haste. Says PCWorld:

Critics of the legislation also complained that the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee appears to be fast-tracking the bill before opposition can build. At a 10 am hearing Wednesday, five of six witnesses are likely to speak in favor of SOPA, with only Google opposed. Witnesses the Motion Picture Association of America, trade union the AFL-CIO and pharmaceutical company Pfizer have all voiced support for the bill.

No public interest groups, Internet engineers or human rights groups have been invited to the hearing, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights group. “This is really being railroaded, without a full public debate,” she said.

Indeed, the tone of the Committee’s so-called fact sheet, which lays out a series of ‘myths’ and ‘facts’, gives cause for concern, implying as it does that they have already decided which side of the fence they will land on. What is also disturbing is that the US Copyright Office — which as a part of the Library of Congress, one would expect to be impartial and evidence-led — will be offering an “unqualified endorsement“:

“It is my view that if Congress does not continue to provide serious responses to online piracy, the US copyright system will ultimately fail,” [Copyright Office director Maria] Pallante’s testimony says.

Pallante and representatives from Pfizer, the Motion Picture Association of America, the AFL-CIO, and Mastercard, all of whom support the bill, will be testifying tomorrow before the House Judiciary committee.

For Americans who are unimpressed by this latest move from the content industries to control the Internet, there is a letter writing campaign encouraging people to contact their congressperson. For non-Americans, Avaaz has set up a Save the Internet petition which currently has 70,000 signatures and is racking up hundreds of new signatures every minute.

There’s no doubt that tech journalists, free software advocates and digital rights campaigners and internet businesses worldwide will be glued to coverage of today’s Judiciary hearing. But, given the power of the copyright industry’s lobbying arms, it is hard to expect discussions to conclude satisfactorily. It may just be that the entire Internet will have to rely on the strength of the US Constitution, which SOPA may contravene, to save it.

This article by Suw Charman-Anderson was published in Firspost.Technology on November 16, 2011. The original can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bill-could-kill-internet

International human rights community vs SOPA

praskrishna — 2011-11-28T10:15:11Z

The Centre for Internet and Society was mentioned in a news story published in BoingBoing. Cory Doctorow wrote the story published on November 17, 2011.

An enormous, diverse global coalition of press freedom and human rights groups have signed onto a letter (PDF) opposing America's Stop Online Piracy Act, the worst proposed Internet law in the USA's legislative history. Included signatories are as varied as India's Center for Internet and Society, the Church of Sweden, Colombia's Karisma, the UK Open Rights Group, and Reporters Without Borders. The letter itself is a great piece of writing: "This is as unacceptable to the international community as it would be if a foreign country were to impose similar measures on the United States." (Thanks, Alan!)

Read the original published in BoingBoing here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sopa

The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series — A Post-event Report

praskrishna — 2011-11-17T10:25:56Z

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), organised the 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series on the 21st and 22nd of May 2011 at the National Law School of India University, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore. The main theme for this year was Emerging Issues in Privacy Law: Law, Policy and Practice.

Speakers and Topics

Spread over two days, the National Law School hosted six speakers who held forth on the different aspects of privacy law, speaking from perspectives that were grounded in theory and actual practice and some that were India-centric while others applied equally to any jurisdiction.

Vivek Durai, Partner, Atman Law Partners, addressed the gathering and gave the general introduction to the need for a discussion relating to privacy and the law. He spoke of technology and certain current events, including technological advances, have made privacy an issue with which serious engagement of the law has become imperative.

Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher, spoke of the Unique Identity Project (Aadhar) launched by the Government of India and its implications on the privacy and data relating to the citizens. Ms. Ramanathan was critical of the Government’s plans on the basis that an ill-planned and executed project that sought to collect data such as this could provide easy fodder for data-mining. The latest 2011 rules that outline the relationship between the citizen and the state and the extent of privacy the citizen has in respect of this relationship.

Hamish Fraser, a leading Australian practitioner in the field of technology law, addressed the gathering via video conference and spoke about cloud computing and privacy of parties using such facilities. He highlighted how technology such as cloud computing where the storage of data is almost fully virtual, with only the weakest of links to any physical storage space, were being increasingly widely used. He helped provide a practitioners perspective to the lecture as well by discussing how companies and individuals seeking to utilise cloud computing facilities, particularly for business purposes, must check for some essential legal provisions that would allow them to retain control over their data and prevent their data from being misappropriated by the provider of the virtual storage space in the cloud. He briefly also discussed the draft Australian privacy legislation.

Sean Blagsvedt, founder of Baba Jobs, discussed the interplay between privacy and transparency and argued convincingly that under certain circumstances, transparency holds greater value than blind protection of privacy. He spoke of his experience in setting up Baba Jobs that seeks to act as a job portal-cum-social networking site for persons providing essential services such as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, house painters, etc. Rather than seeking to strictly protect the details and identity of these persons, Blagsvedt found that one of the most important factors for future employers while considering hiring such service personnel were the details of their previous assignments and testimonials from previous employers – the transparency that Baba Jobs offered became its USP. Blagsvedt talked of how a misplaced over-emphasis on privacy could often lead to greater detriments than benefits and prevent trust due to a lack of information. He concluded by predicting that as people increasingly shifted social and commercial transactions to the online world, the demands for privacy online would soon be offset by demands for greater transparency.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Professor of Law at the Azim Premji University, Bangalore delivered a lecture on the state and privacy in India illustrating the development of the law on the matter. He also discussed about the balance that needs to be struck between the individual’s requirement for privacy and the state’s desire for secrecy. He also spoke about two manners in which to conceptualise privacy — recognising privacy as an inherent right that may be at times restricted to a certain extent, vis-a-vis seeing privacy as a right that the state grants to a citizen.

Abhayraj Naik, Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, gave a lecture on informational privacy in comparative contexts. The discussion centred on information surveillance in different jurisdictions and how the values attached to the attribution of information reflects in the laws relating to privacy in those different jurisdictions. His approach included mathematical modelling of information attribution and provided an interdisciplinary approach.

Participation

The lecture series saw registration from over 50 people, including students from law schools all over the country, practitioners, and even educators. Since the lectures were streamed live online, and this was only the second event in NLS to use this facility apart from the Annual Convocation, many more people listened to the lectures online. The lectures were available online for a period of one week after the conclusion of the lecture series.

IJLT-CIS Lecture Series 2011 Registration

The following people participated in the event:

Adithya Banavar, Akanksha Arora, Anand VJ, Aniket Singhania, Ankit Verma, Anupama Kumar, Aparna Gokhale, Arjun Krishnamoorthy, Arjun Sharma, Arun Menon, Asif Ayaz, B. N. Vivek, Batool, Chirag Tanna, Deepakar Livingston.P., Deepthi R, Dheer Bhatnagar, Dinesh Subramany, Esha Goel, Gopalakrishnan R., J Suresh, Jamshed Ansari, Kanti Jadia, Khadeeja Nadeem, Khumtiya Debbarma, Mani Bhushan, Manish, Nayan Jain, Neha Baglani, Panduranga Acharya, Partha Chakravarty, Parul Bali, Prashanth Ramdas, Prateek Rath, Preyanka Sapru, Prianca Ravichander, Priytosh Singh, Purushotham.G, Ralph A, Ruhi Chanda, S. Badrinath, S. Bhushan, S. K. Mohanty, Sahana Manjesh, Sanjana Chappalli, Santosh Dindima, Shalini Iyengar, Shalini S, Sibani Saxena, Spoorthy M. S., Tarang Shashishekar, Tarun Kovvali, Tejaswini Rajkumar, Vaishali Kant, and Y. Shiva Santosh Kumar.

See the Letter of Agreement [PDF, 1 MB]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ijlt-cis-lecture-series-report

Broadband user base still has a long way to go

praskrishna — 2011-11-16T02:59:38Z

Internet users in India have crossed the 100-million mark, still distant from China’s nearly 500 million and the 250 million or so in the US, but experts are buoyant about prospects in cyberspace even as low broadband penetration and poor online payment and distribution channels persist as hurdles.

Abhishek Goenka, partner, BMR Advisors, who leads the firm’s real estate and information technology practice, agreed.
"While the over 100 million users comprise less than 10% of India’s population, it is 20-30% of the urban population, which is an exciting enough number," he said.

India and China are strengthening their position in the global Internet ecosystem rapidly, a May 2011 McKinsey report had noted.

"Both countries show growth rates of over 20%," said the report, even as it pegged the total (estimated) worldwide contribution of the Internet at $1.67 trillion (2.9% of total gross domestic product).

It added that public expenditure on the Internet—including spending for consumption and investment by the government on software, hardware, services and telecoms—ranged widely from 5% of the total GDP contribution in India to more than 20% in the UK, the US, Brazil and Russia.

Despite the optimism in the industry, there is a consensus that unless broadband numbers and speeds increase, meaningful commerce on the Internet will not happen in India.

Broadband subscriber figures stood at a mere 12.69 million in August, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). In contrast, China had around 364 million broadband users (98.1% penetration) in 2010, according to InternetWorldStats.

This has a bearing on growth—a 2009 World Bank report suggested that GDP expansion in developing countries gets a boost of 1.38 percentage points for every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration.

An October 2011 report by Ericsson, Arthur D Little and Chalmers University of Technology in 33 Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, confirmed that doubling the broadband speed increases GDP by 0.3% which, in the OECD region, is equivalent to $126 billion. The study also revealed that further doubling speed can yield growth in excess of 0.3%.

Kartik Hosanagar, an associate professor at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and co-founder of Yodle Inc., agreed that the definition of broadband in India (256 kbps and above) should be upgraded to international standards (1 Mbps and above) while adding that the 100 million mark "is a very important number, since it provides a big enough market for large firms wanting to play in it".

Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre For Internet and Society said the broadband volume was small and that India was not a big market like China.

He rued that the government had not done enough to facilitate broadband adoption, the way it did for mobile phones. There were around 866 million wireless connections till this August and 70% of them were active, according to Trai.

Shree Parthasarathy, senior director, Enterprise Risk Services, Deloitte India, listed weaknesses in the 100 million-plus Internet user base, with most people still using it to check email and social sites.

In the 30 urban cities where the survey was conducted, 89% use it to access email, 71% for social networking, 64% to search education-related content, 55% for chat and 49% to access video, music and images, according to the latest IAMAI report.

Online transactions are not a significant part of this as yet. "It will increase in years to come, particularly when people begin to see more value in e-stores than brick and mortar stores," Parthasarathy said.

Murthy of Pinstorm offered a different perspective—the reach of the Internet now rivals television, he said. "To reach an upscale audience in India, the Internet is now the only mass medium—TV is a niche medium here. This is a reversal of traditional roles."

Goenka of BMR Advisors, however, said the comparison of Internet penetration with the reach of TV sets was unfair and that the two markets were very different. "TV units are also found in semi-urban and rural areas, whereas the 100 million Internet (users) are indicative of the spending powers of these users. It is a good indication for e-commerce companies."

Analysts like Goenka of BMR Advisors and Raghav Anand, associate director, Ernst and Young India, contended that smartphones and 3G networks would accelerate the growth of the user base.

“The 120 million Internet user base indicates that the run rate is good, and it could be 200 to 250 million in two to three years,” Anand said. “The numbers are significant and anyone looking at investing or scaling up should do it now. The growth rates are making Internet play very interesting.”

Since 75% of the users are young, adult males, “it is a very attractive segment for advertisers also”, he said. Of the 250 million Internet users in three years that he predicts, “120-130 million would be through phones.

This article by Leslie D’Monte & Deepti Chaudhary was originally published in Livemint on 15 November 2011. It can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/broadband-long-way-to-go

The Write Stuff

praskrishna — 2011-11-14T03:32:00Z

“Digital natives are no longer those youngsters who fit in the bracket of a Harvard return professional, glued to their PC all day,” says Nishant Shah, director of research, Centre for Internet and Society, a Bengaluru-based organisation. For Nishant, and many youngsters across the globe, digital natives are not any of those secluded geeks who spend hours on the Internet. “I am a homemaker, yet I am a digital native,” says Nilofer Ansher, a community manager who manages members from across three continents.

A housewife, a young college graduate, a freelance writer, an NGO professional and many other individuals are behind the Internet activist flurry. Digital Natives, Fair Observer, PC Tech Magazine are just a few of the newsletters and forums that are connecting youngsters from across the globe and are mobilising them to do something beyond information gathering.

Youth-related discussions, inventions in make-shift laboratories from the backyards of homes in Nigeria and action against corruption across the globe; these are just some of the activities that these netizens are involved in. “The idea was to build a network of people from across the globe who are passionate about what they do. We are not talking countries, it is all to do with people with similar interests,” says Shah, who collaborated with Hivos to create the online platform called Digital Natives.

The members collaborate online to write about various issues. But these online movements can have serious repercussions, “In fact, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, one of Egypt’s most vocal activists and bloggers, has been detained. He is our team member. We are now running a campaign supporting his early release,” says Ansher who doubles up as a co-editor of one of these newsletters. Various discussions have led to solutions. “My first challenge was to create a communication system for illiterate farmers. But I wanted a definite solution. So another member from mobile active community sent a message and it worked and we are following the same system,” says Ajay Kumar, manager, ICT operations.

This article was published in the Deccan Chronicle on 14 November 2011. It can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff

The Book of Jobs

praskrishna — 2011-11-14T03:27:19Z

The man who made the computer personal, who changed the face of the digital media industry, who was inspired by Zen philosophy to create an eight-billion-dollar empire, Steve Jobs, died last month. Just a few weeks before his death, in the midst of his painful illness, he told Walter Isaacson, the man chosen to write his authorised biography, “I really want to believe that something survives”. And Isaacson wrote him a fairy tale which will make sure that Jobs will be remembered beyond the gizmos and gimmicks.

The biography is an anecdote-filled tale, well told, even though familiar for having been told quite often. It gives you a glimpse of Jobs, who began his life as an adopted child who had discovered early in life that “he was smarter” than his parents. For those who think of Jobs as an icon of our times, the book is filled with delicious tidbits of a life that has been kept fiercely private: his relationships (the story of a 23-year-old woman who he got pregnant and abandoned), his friendships (including how he parted ways with his first business partner Steve Woznaik), his inspirations (how did the name Apple come about, and what exactly is a MacIntosh?), his confrontations (especially the rivalry with Bill Gates), and his roller-coaster ride with Apple (founder-president-poster-boy, who was sent into exile and welcomed back as reigning monarch). Some of the stories are a part of popular lore, some of them will surprise you, some will enthrall you, and yet others, harsh and unflinching, will give you a dekko into what being Steve Jobs meant. Especially to Steve Jobs.

“Abandoned. Chosen. Special”. For Isaacson, these three concepts shape and define the life of Steve Jobs, and it might be a good idea to break this review under these three heads, only in the reverse order.

Special: Isaacson, in his introduction, talks about how, following his biographies on Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, he did not immediately see Jobs too as a figure at the intersection of technology and creativity, someone who changed the world. As he admits, it was only when Jobs revealed his fatal illness that Isaacson decided to join the throngs of people who have admired and accepted Jobs as “special”. But while many believe that Jobs changed the world by making the world of the digital seductive, accessible and friendly, Isaacson himself remains unconvinced. It is this lack of conviction that perhaps produces a jarring note in what would otherwise have been a fitting eulogy to a man who remained a bundle of paradoxes, who saw the world in neat binaries of “gods and shitheads”.

Isaacson does a fantastic job of charting the histories that produced Jobs – the confluence of technology, creativity, hippie lifestyles, fruitarian diets and Zen philosophy that marked his formative decades. He captures the different temporalities, geographies, people and places marked with Jobs’ presence. And yet, when it comes to Jobs himself, there is a wariness, a reluctance to be sucked into his famous “reality distortion field”. Just when an interesting anecdote grabs your attention, Isaacson holds you down and states how special Jobs was. So even when he recounts the famous Xerox PARC raid that Jobs conducted, stealing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) technologies, Isaacson has to come to his rescue and point out that Jobs was a visionary. It tells us as much about history writing — the fact that it is written by winners — as much about Isaacson’s own discomfort with his subject.

Chosen: Steve Jobs believed throughout his life, even as he transformed from an LSD-consuming, acid-dropping hacker into one of the most notorious businessmen and advertisers in the world, that he was chosen to do something special. He saw himself as a rebel pitched against the big establishment (largely IBM) and till the end of his days, continued to believe in the idea that he was here to change the world — and hey, if messianic activities were accompanied with a multi-billion dollar industry, that’s just god working in mysterious ways, right?

Isaacson suffers from Jobs’ “chosen” complex differently. He was singled out by Jobs to write this story. He saw himself as “suitably positioned” to tell the tale. And yet, because he brings to the table the keen reflexivity of a historian, he is uncomfortable with this chosen position. As a result, what you get is an extraordinarily rich set of resources which variously endorse, question, challenge and provide alternative viewpoints to the one expressed by Jobs. With more than 100 sources of interview, an incredibly rich survey of the literature about Apple and Jobs, and long hours spent in conversation with Jobs, Isaacson builds for us a book that might be loved or hated but can never be ignored. He goes into the controversies, digs out the dirt, ferrets out little-known encounters, fights and accusations that have hounded Jobs’ personal and professional life, and never hesitates to call a spade a spade, even if he sometimes finds the need to put a little glitter on it.

Abandoned: Isaacson begins the book in a linear narrative, which, when describing Jobs’ early days, is easy because it takes the form of a pastiche, where different beginnings of people like Steve Woznaik, Bill Atkinson, Nolan Bushnell, Deborah Coleman, Mike Markkula, etc. intersect with Jobs’ life. However, in the second half of the book, especially when we see Jobs’ return to Apple and take over the reins, the book starts feeling abandoned. Isaascon seems overwhelmed by the material, where he has to take care not only of his multi-star ensemble but all the different less visible people — employees, shareholders, partners, enemies — and their reactions to and interactions with Steve Jobs. It was as if, with Next and Pixar on the verge of collapse and Jobs nearly bankrupt, Isaacson abandons his subject. He tries to gather the fairy dust that surrounds Jobs’ ascendance, but the narrative remains lacklustre. The rich anecdotes — Jobs stealing the idea of a tablet from a Microsoft employee — and wrenching interviews with Jobs’ final battles with illness remain, but somewhere the narrative momentum seems to have floundered, and unlike Jobs’ fortunes, never pick up.

All in all, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs remains faithful to everything that one can expect of a biography of the true computing rock-star who shaped the collective futures of people. It is rigorous, honest, poignant and romantic. There will be many debates about how much Jobs’ reality distortion field affected Isaacson’s own rendering of his life. But those debates are futile. Because, despite the names, dates, figures, the agonising over-accurate perspectives and the attempt to write a history, the book , like Steve Jobs himself, is best read as a fairy tale — a mixture of the real, the imagined, the plausible, the probable and the possible.

This article by Nishant Shah was published in the Indian Express on 12 November 2011. The original can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs

The Wikimedia India Program Trust

praskrishna — 2011-11-13T07:58:38Z

A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has now been formed and registered (in Delhi.) This will be the organization that will eventually drive India programs and house the team in India.

For some time, efforts have gone into creating an organization that would provide an appropriate structure to support Wikimedia program activities in India. Aspects such as the current regulatory framework (regarding funding, taxation, etc.) as well as the legal protection for the India team have been considered to determine this structure. In this context, a host of options (e.g. subsidiary, branch, Section 25) were evaluated and a determination was made towards an independent non-profit public trust. Legal advice has been taken at every stage in this decision.

Why an Independent Public Trust?

The Trust will provide an effective vehicle within India to marshal resources to support programs and partner with local institutions. The objective of the Trust is to promote the objectives of the Wikimedia movement and work closely with the Wikimedia community on various projects with an India focus. It is important to understand that the Trust will not have any editorial control over content on any of the Wikimedia projects. The Trust is a not for profit organization.

Introduction of Trustees

Trustees have been identified based upon their support for Wikimedia movement's principles and plans in addition to having reputations for good governance and management. Sunil Abraham and Rahul Matthan have been requested to be the initial Trustees. Both are friends of Wikipedia and have extensive experience.

Sunil is Executive Director of the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), is a long term advocate of free software and IP reform and has been supporting the Wikimedia community and movement for some time now.

Rahul is a partner and heads the technology practice at Trilegal. He brings deep expertise and relationships that will be valuable for the Trust.

These initial Trustees will serve for a term of three years at the maximum. All additional or subsequent Trustees will serve on rotation in accordance with a trustee selection plan that will be prepared.

Trustees will not be compensated for their services. Governance, Funding, Financial Standards & Communications of the Trust. The Trust will be governed by Trustees who will provide oversight and guidance regarding the operations and governance of the Trust. Since the Trust is an independent organization, it will require funding for its operations which is in compliance with the legal and regulatory framework in India. It will seek funding from private donors within India as well as external sources.

The Trust has the support of the Wikimedia Foundation which is a United States based non-profit foundation. However, in India all non-profit organizations need to be in existence for 3 years before they can receive funding from sources outside India. In the interim, they can apply for prior-permission under the FCRA regulations to help expedite the process. As a result, the Trust will shortly be applying for approval to receive funds from the Wikimedia Foundation in the future.

As a Trust, we are required to have an independent external auditor. We have appointed KPMG. KPMG is experienced in auditing non-profit companies and are also auditors for the Wikimedia Foundation. Annually, the Trust will publicly disclose it's independently audited financial statements.

The Trust will publish a monthly newsletter outlining its current activities and future plans. This will commence in December 2011.

Operations of the Trust

The trust deed under which the Trust must operate clearly states that the purpose of the Trust is to independently promote the growth of volunteer activities within India in support of effective and unrestricted dissemination of free knowledge to the public. Hisham will serve as the Executive Director of the Trust. Once it is possible, additional employees will be brought on to the Trust. The Trust will eventually have an office in Delhi. In the interim, a temporary office space has been set up to facilitate establishing the Trust and its mission. It is located at Top Floor, G-15, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110 016. It's a couple of minutes walk away from IIT Flyover and Hauz Khas Metro. Do drop in! It's a small but cozy place and we'd love to have you over!

Conclusion

We continue to make progress in setting up program activities to support the growth of Wikimedia in India. We have a long way to go, but are glad that we are starting to build a solid foundation. The following link is for FAQs on this (and related) topics:
http://goo.gl/8Rdr2

As always, do reach out if you have any comments or questions.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/announcement-of-wikimedia-india-program-trust

CIS Comments on Finance Committee Statements to Open Letters on Unique Identity

praskrishna — 2011-11-13T02:39:16Z

We from the Centre for Internet and Society had sent six open letters to the Parliamentary Finance Committee on the UID. The Committee responded through an email on 12 October 2011. Our response to the points raised is reproduced below.

Dear Members of the Finance Committee,

Since January 2011, we have sent six open letters on the Unique Identity (UID) project to the Members of the Finance Committee. The Committee has responded through an email dated 12 October 2011. This letter is in reply to the points that were raised.

Finance Committee: "Comparison between SCOSTA and the UID project are not valid since SCOSTA is fundamentally a standard for smart card based authentication and does not work for the objectives of the UID project."

CIS: We disagree with this statement. The UID Bill states that the aim of the project is to provide identification and authentication services. Biometric technology may be useful for identification. The seventh open letter [1] that we sent to the Committee last week uses basic statistical analysis to demonstrate that the FPIR has to be 10−6 or a thousand-fold greater than the current level mandated by UIDAI procurement policy in order to achieve the project goal of building a national database of unique ID's. SCOSTA based smart card technology is more appropriate for the authentication of individuals because:[2]

Authentication will be based on asymmetric keys and perhaps pass-phrase or pin. This is known as public key infrastructure, and will allow a person to protect their authentication factor, and easily replace it if compromised.
Authentication through public key infrastructure does not depend on connectivity to a centralized network. This will allow for inclusion of unconnected populations.
Authentication through public key infrastructure establishes mutual trust between citizen and state. Instead of only the citizen being made transparent to the state – the state is also made transparent to the citizens. This will lower the presence of fraudulent institutions and corrupt transactions.
Connection to a centralized server is not required for only the authentication of an individual in a transaction. This will lower the cost of transactions and lower the IT overhead costs.

Finance committee: "The UID project follows a different approach and has multiple objectives like providing identity to the residents of India, and ensuring inclusion of poor and marginalized residents in order to enable access to benefits and services."

CIS: We disagree with this statement. Biometrics do not ensure the delivery of benefits. As mentioned in our third open letter,[3] in every transaction that requires the use of the biometric based UID number, there are four points where corruption is possible and delivery of services will not take place:

The technology fails, and does not perform authentication. Lack of connectivity, electricity and non-lab conditions for biometric technology.
The authority fails and delivers a false positive or false negative.
The local agency fails to deliver the service after authentication.
The biometric fails due to biological changes, and thus the individual is denied benefits.

Finance Committee: "Eliminating the fakes, duplicates and ghost identities prevalent in other databases."

CIS: We disagree with this statement. Biometrics cannot eliminate fakes, duplicates and ghost identities. The deduplication algorithm only checks for uniqueness of biometric information. This can easily be defeated by a.) presenting a combination of two persons biometrics, b.) presenting the biometrics of foreign nationals collected remotely using the Internet, and c.) modifying biometric information using software tools like image editors. This is not a remote technological possibility since many registrars like banks have financial incentives for creating ghost identities for benami bank accounts. The deduplication algorithm and technology is completely black-box and has not been subject to any independent audit. Ideally research organisations like CIS should be provided legal immunity so that we can conduct independent audits of the deduplication technology and provide evidence for policy-makers. Since the deduplication technology has such a direct impact on the quality of citizenship – we recommend that the Finance Committee include proper independent audit provisions in the draft bill.

Finance Committee: "Provide a platform for authentication in a cost effective and accessible manner."

CIS: We disagree with this statement. As our first open letter[4] to the Finance Committee notes, biometrics are not appropriate authentication factors. In our opinion the dependency of biometrics on connectivity, deduplication, and centralized storage causes them to be more expensive than smart cards. The onus is upon the UIDAI to demonstrate that biometrics are cheaper than existing systems like magnetic cards used by credit card and debit card companies. If it was truly technologically and economically the better option, surely banks driven by such considerations would have adopted them many years ago.

Finance Committee: "UIDAI is not issuing cards or smart cards."

CIS: We agree with the statement made and that is why it would be possible to defeat the UIDAI authentication system using fevicol and wax as demonstrated by security expert, Jude Terence D'Souza.[5]

Finance Committee: "Cards can be issued by agencies that are providing services."

CIS: We agree with the statement made and that is why the UIDAI cannot claim the benefits of secure authentication. In other words, agencies providing smart cards will have a more secure authentication based on smart cards and sooner or later citizens will stop using the weaker authentication based on biometrics provided by the UIDAI.

Finance Committee: "UID authentication does not exclude smart cards – service providers can still choose to issue smart cards to their beneficiaries or customers if they want to."

CIS: We agree with this statement but that makes the whole project redundant. If service providers are forced to issue smart cards to their customers, they will have to create separate databases of pins and keys for authentication. The service provider will not be able to authenticate users through the UID system.

We are grateful to have received a response from the Finance Committee and look forward to more correspondence with the Committee. We would also be very grateful if the Committee could give us an opportunity to come to Delhi on our expense and testify before the committee on legal, technology and privacy related aspects of the project.

Yours sincerely,

Elonnai Hickok

[1].http://goo.gl/93sl2

[2].http://goo.gl/ZrEQr,http://goo.gl/jHRvq

[3].http://goo.gl/pW3Wi

[4].http://goo.gl/ZrEQr

[5].http://goo.gl/0z22h

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-on-finance-committee-statements

Comments on the National Policy of Information Technology

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T10:28:31Z

The NPIT 2011 has the laudable goal of making India a ‘knowledge economy with a global role’ by developing and deploying ICT solutions in all sectors to foster development within India and at a global level. The policy identifies several praiseworthy goals such as the promotion of open standards and open technologies, accessibility for persons with disabilities, affordable ICT services, transparency, accountability, technology development for Indian languages, placing data in public domain for use and value addition, using social media to engage with citizens and investing in indigenous R&D and capacity building. We deeply appreciate this initiative of the Department of Information Technology and offer below brief comments to strengthen the draft.

Mission

It may be important to have one mission which is more citizen centric, for instance, to use ICT to empower and mainstream underprivileged sections of the population such as persons with disabilities, economically disadvantaged people, etc. All of the missions currently listed are related to making India an IT hub and around economic/commercial indicators and the focus on the human development aspect seems to be lacking.

Objectives

Objectives 8 and 9 which are dealing with government services could specifically mention accessibility. While access for persons with disabilities is covered in objective 12, it does not imply inherent accessibility of all government services, but merely an enablement of those which are required.

Enforcement Mechanism

While the policy has several commendable goals, there is little indication as to how it will be sought to be implemented. It would be helpful to have clear mention of the responsible authorities and execution mechanisms, including a mechanism for periodic review to ensure that all security, standards and quality guidelines and timelines are met.

Development of Language Technologies

Since the development of language technologies is extremely crucial to ensure that ICT access is possible for persons in both rural and urban areas, affordability should be stressed as a key aspect of this research and open source solutions may come out of public funded research.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-national-policy-information-technology

Droidcon India, first Android Conference in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2011-11-24T04:17:12Z

HasGeek is happy to announce the forthcoming Droidcon India on the 18th and 19th of November 2011 at the MLR Convention Centre in Bangalore. Droidcon.com, Bangalore Android User Group, MobileMonday Bangalore, Medianama, Android Advices and the Centre for Internet and Society are the event partners.

Droidcon is India’s first international Android conference and is part of the world’s largest series of Android conferences, with other editions in London, Bucharest (Romania), Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin. Droidcon India is a response to the booming market for Android, which has seen sales increase by 888.88 per cent in 2010, and reach nearly 50 per cent market share worldwide.

Organized by developers for developers, the multi-track two day event will provide a rich variety of content for delegates by attracting the best speakers in the Android community. HasGeek expects the participation of over 400 delegates, including students, developers, UX and UI designers, and people with strong interests in the Android ecosystem, both from India and beyond.

The sessions will be presented in an informal environment that gives everyone a chance to be heard. The theme for the conference covers a range of topics that include building well designed apps, dealing with device diversity, performance optimization, NFC, Arduino, and usage in the Enterprise. For more details about session topics visit http://goo.gl/F9bEB

For registrations and tickets, visit http://goo.gl/pmXpJ

Following the first day conference on November 18, there will be an after party for this event which will be held at the CounterCulture restaurant.

For more information on tickets and registrations, contact Zainab Bawa @ zainab@hasgeek.in or call @ +91 99454 73641.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india

‘Not mandatory’ but maids, guards get fingerprinted

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T05:16:43Z

The Cubbon Park police have begun profiling domestic help in their jurisdiction. Personal details will be stored in a database, which can be accessed by potential employers, writes Hemanth Kashyap in this article published in Bangalore Mirror on 9 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.

It is the safety and security of the middle class versus individual rights of the 'lessers'. No guessing the victor in this battle. Recent crimes committed by household help seem to be enough justification for 'voluntary' profiling of maids, cooks, drivers, gardeners and watchmen. The brief of law-enforcing agencies is to keep the crime graph down, not get too involved in the procedural or sociological nitty-gritty. And in pursuit of this black-and-white objective, the city police have decided to go high-tech in this 'citizen-friendly' initiative.

Though the police say it is a voluntary exercise, the job prospects of those who demur will obviously be affected. To start with, the Cubbon Park police — with the assistance of a tech firm which operates a website, the ‘us and them’-sounding hamarisuraksha.com — have visited a few buildings in their jurisdiction to profile the servants and security guards there. Personal details like the servant/guard's voter ID card, thumb impression and photograph have been fed into a database, which will be accessible to anyone. Cubbon Park inspector Badrinath is leading the exercise, which will be extended to other high-end localities in the central division.

According to the cops, the background details on the website will make hiring a domestic help easy and risk-free. The cops feel such a system will also help servants with a clean record land a good job, not just in Bangalore but anywhere in the country. Employers will have to register with the website — one login ID will be given to one apartment complex — after which they can access details of existing or potential domestic help. Employers will also have to inform the cops after hiring a help.

According to the police, the problem of hiring a reliable domestic help is particularly acute in a city like Bangalore, where thousands from all over the country land up every day in search of a job. There have been numerous cases of theft, robbery and even murder where the accused have fled the city or disguised their identity and continued to work in other households. In the absence of a database, tracking the accused in such cases becomes difficult, say the cops.

Hamari Suraksha chief Ashwani Kumar Narula said, "It is a three-pronged effort involving the police, our website, and house, mall and security agency owners. The latter will give us the details of their employees and the info will be fed into a central database. A potential employer can, at the click of a mouse, do a background check before hiring a maid or watchman."

On Tuesday, a camp was held at Vasvani Apartments on St Mark's Road, and hundreds of housemaids, security guards and drivers came forward with their personal details. As it was very new to them, many were perturbed about giving their thumb impressions and photographs. But the police and the website volunteers explained the rationale of the exercise and assured them their details would not be misused.

"This is the first time I am facing this situation. We are working here for years and have not done anything wrong. I feel bad. But the police explaint why they were doing it and I was relieved," said Leena, who works in Vaswani Apartments.

"I am not at all worried. Everything depends on our work. If I am in the right, there will be no problem. The police are doing this for our convenience," said Shobha, another housemaid.

"I am fine with this. I read in the newspapers about the thefts committed by servants, and this exercise by the police will be helpful even for us. I am from Meghalaya and people here don't know anything about me. If my details are on the website, it will be easier to hire me," said Vanmaan, a housemaid in Vaswani Apartments.

'Employers are also potential abusers'

"It is a voluntary move,” said a senior cop. But does refusal to be profiled immediately put a maid under suspicion or under the threat of unemployment, asked some. They were also worried about the leakage of such data.

Vijay Menon of the Citizen's Action Forum, a major body of residents across the city, said, "You can collect fingerprints only under a specific law, and not demand fingerprints just because of their profession. It almost amounts to discrimination. I will definitely not be taking my maid for any kind of fingerprinting. Secondly, how safe is the privacy of this information? Why would I want to replicate that information with various stake-holders, increasing the risk of it being leaked?"

Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet & Society, said, "I am worried more about the unrealistic power balance it will create. To begin with, the law does not permit this kind of profiling. The only exception to this rule is the National Population Registry, and now the UID. Second, we have had instances of maids being physically abused by their employers too. If you work on the principle that household help can be dangerous and potential thieves (so you want their fingerprints), then you should be collecting fingerprints of employers too because they also can be potential abusers."

Residents’ welfare associations were almost unanimously positive about the move. N Mukund of the Jayanagar Welfare Association said, "It's a good beginning because security has become a major issue for residents. Despite maids having built a rapport with their employers in many homes, we have had instances of thefts. But it makes no sense to have electronic data in place if it cannot be accessed by my local police station, which doesn't even have an email address."

Dr Radhakrishna of the Koramangala Residents’ Welfare Association said, "Most of these people do not have a permanent address. How do you address that problem? "

Vivek Agarwal, of Mantri Sarovar Residents’ Welfare Association, Sarjapur, said, "Already, the household help has to be registered in the jurisdiction police station. If the police want to take it to the next level, I have no problem with it. We live in a huge apartment complex. Many of us are working professionals who need reliable and safe household help."

'Enact a law'

C V Nagesh, expert in criminal law, said as per law (Criminal Procedure Code), police have no right to force a person or section to give their fingerprints to the police if they are not involved in crimes. He said the Cubbon Park police’s effort may be a good cause, but police have no blanket permission to collect fingerprints of servants and others if they are not into any crimes.

"Law should be enacted, making servant-profiling mandatory and then police or any other agency can collect these details. Then, it becomes legal. If somebody is giving details voluntarily, it is not illegal," said Nagesh.

T Sunil Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), said the police were not forcing anybody to give their fingerprints. "It’s absolutely voluntary on the part of servants, watchmen and others to part with their details. If somebody says he is not interested, we will not force that person."

The officer said to check crimes involving these people, the police thought of having a database. So, they approached the resident welfare associations. "They (associations) are asking the servants to get the profile done. We are not asking anybody to come and mandatorily give details. But the law doesn’t stop people from voluntarily disclosing their details. The response is massive and there are not many complaints," he said.

Recent crimes involving domestic help

October 7, 2011

Ashraf (26), a security guard killed Anasuya (42), a woman head cashier of a bank, by slitting her throat inside the lift of an apartment at Seshadripuram. He is absconding.

July 25, 2009

Senior High Court advocate S S Naganand’s house in Sadashiv Nagar burgled, gold and diamond jewellery worth over Rs 80 lakh stolen. Police arrest his Gurkha watchman, Deerendar Bahaddur Thapa, and a gang of six Nepali guards and bust 44 cases in Yelahanka and surrounding areas.

June 26, 2009

Jewellery worth Rs 18 lakh stolen from the house of former Infosys director and iGATE CEO Phaneesh Murthy’s upscale villa in Shobha-Lotus, a residential complex in Brooke fields area of Whitefield.

Police arrest his domestic help Shivalinge Gowda (24) and complex electrician Mohammed Ali (24) and recovred the goods from Ali’s sister’s house in Shimoga.

February 16, 2009

Retired IISc professor and mathematician Purushottam Lal Sachdev, 71, his wife Rita, 62, and their son Munna, 35, are found murdered in their house on 80 Feet Road, RT Nagar. Police arrest his domestic help Deepak (36) his wife Suchitra (29) from West Bengal.

Read the original story published in Bangalore Mirror here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/maids-guards-get-fingerprinted

Netizen Report: Transparency Edition

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T04:31:48Z

Global Voices Online has carried a feature story, "Netizen Report: Transparency Edition". We at CIS had filed an RTI application about website blocking. This is reflected in this article by Rebecca MacKinnon which was posted online on 7 November 2011.

Here at Global Voices Advocacy we believe that transparency by governments and companies about how and when censorship and surveillance takes place is a base-line requirement if the Internet is ever to be governed in a manner that is compatible with free expression, dissent, and citizens' right to organize and assemble. Thus we applaud Google's latest Transparency Report - the company's fourth such report detailing government requests for user data and content removal, as well as the traffic flows (or lack thereof) to Google webistes across the world since July 2009. The new data for January-June 2011 contains more detail than in the past, including data on how Google responded to the requests and whether they were honored. The data comes with a list of caveats including that automated content removal is not logged and that some data cannot be released due to local law. Nonetheless, we hope that Google's data will provide an interesting snap shot of the state of Internet affairs and the data could be used to hold governments accountable to their censorship activities. We believe that if all Internet companies disclosed similar data, the world would be further on its way to being a better place. Many articles have been written analyzing the data. A few of them include:

TechPresident: Google Data Shows Government Internet Surveillance Far Outstrips Wiretap Requests
WIRED: U.S. Requests for Google User Data Spike 29 Percent in Six Months
Huffington Post:The 13 Countries That Request The Most User Data From Google
CNet: Google: Governments seek more about you than ever

Adding to the publicly available data about censorship around the world, the Open Net Initiative has released its research data on global Internet filtering, covering seventy-four countries.

Thuggery: Read the latest news on GVA about bloggers jailed in Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait and spread the word.

Surveillance: As GVA and others have recently reported, 13 Internet filtering devices produced by the California-based company Blue Coat have made their way to Syria. According to the Wall Street Journal, Blue Coat executives say that the company will not sell the devices to countries that are under embargo by the United States, and that the devices found in Syria had been sold to a dealer who claimed they were destined for Iraq.

The Wall Street Journal has had several other items related to the role of companies in global surveillance, including a report on how China's Huawei has been peddling its mobile phone tracking and censoring equipment to Iran.

In India, Research in Motion has set up a facility in Mumbai to help the Indian government carry out lawful surveillance of its BlackBerry services including the messenger chat service, but the WSJ reports that India still has no method to intercept and decode BlackBerry enterprise email.

In Russia, bloggers' influence has apparently made the Kremlin nervous. Reporters Without Borders has condemned plans by the Russian government to deploy new software to track “extremist” content on the web, highlighting concerns about an over-broad definition of “extremist,” and the arbitrary and disproportionate approach to punishment and sanctions against websites. For more on the Russian Internet be sure to follow Global Voices' Runet Echo Project.

Moving on the United States, The Guardian has a fascinating report on the super-secret Intelligence Support Systems World Americas conference held recently in Washington DC, at which surveillance professionals shared the latest surveillance technologies and innovations that they don't want you to know about. Hacktivist and friend of GVA Jacob Appelbaum managed to get in, but was thrown out.

On a more positive note in the United States, the Washington Post reports that since 2009 many Internet companies have been more assertive about challenging “national security letters” from the FBI requesting information about users.

The Guardian reports that Civil liberties and privacy groups in the United Kingdom have raised concerns about the deployment by the London Metropolitan Police of a "covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area."

Techdirt reports on the European Union's desire to have a “black box' built in to operating systems that would store a record of all of the computer's internet usage. The EU argues that this ability would be useful in cracking down on child pornography. The system that the EU is looking at as a possible candidate for role of ‘black box' is called LogBox. The developer of LogBox claims that the device is for preserving the freedoms and privacy of internet users, although Techdirt points out the fact that this device does little to ‘protect' the privacy of online users, it in fact, would make anonymous actions on the internet much more difficult and would provide governments and law enforcement a huge set of data on every internet user.

Censorship: The chief executives of China's 39 top Internet, telecom, and computer companies have agreed to “strengthen self-control, self-restraint and strict self-discipline” in order to “contain the tendency of spreading online rumours, pornography, fraud and other illegal, harmful information on the internet.” The move comes amidst a broader crackdown on the Internet and social media.

In India, the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society submitted a right to information request to the government's Department of Information Technology, asking for more information about website blocking. Based on DIT's response the Centre observes that “The data provided by the government seemingly conflicts with the data released by the likes of Google." Their conclusion: "Either the DIT is not providing us all the relevant information on blocking, or is not following the law."

Courts in Belgium and Finland have ordered ISPs to block the Pirate Bay.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has recently proposed a bill aimed at protecting intellectual property online that some critics describe as the beginning of a "Great Firewall of America". The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have detailed the bill's problems, including lack of due process, near certainty of over-blocking and abuse, imposition of excessive liability on Internet intermediaries, global legitimization of DNS censorship and potential fragmentation of the Internet, among other things. It is considered even worse than its evil fraternal twin in the Senate, the PROTECT IP Act which is also opposed by many tech companies and non-profit groups. Despite such opposition, the bill draws relatively broad support from lawmakers.

Net Neutrality: South African technology journalist Jan Vermeulen ran the M-Lab's Glasnost Test on South African ISP's to see whether their stated bandwith shaping policies match up with reality.

The growth of bandwidth intensive internet applications in South Korea has made Net Neutrality an important issue there. South Korean ISP's are reporting that it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain neutral practices with content. The three largest telecommunications companies in Korea are worried by the rise of Smart TV's, which use Internet connections as opposed to traditional cable or satellite links to provide content. The ISP's want to charge companies varying amounts depending on the type and amount of content sent.

Internet Governance: ICANN held its 42nd public meeting in Dakar, Senegal late last month. Wendy Seltzer reported here on GVA why the seemingly arcane debates about domain name registrar accreditation is important. Konstantinos Komaitis, an active member of ICANN's Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (Global Voices is also a member), describes the struggle that is taking place took place between governments and other ICANN stakeholders over whether some stakeholders are more equal than others within ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance model. Kieren McCarthy at dotNext also has an in-depth report and analysis on the clash between governments and registrars over law enforcement regarding domain names. Over at the Internet Governance Project Milton Mueller takes an in-depth look at the politics surrounding the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group and related constituencies, and the fight for civil society representation at ICANN.

India has published a formal proposal to put the UN in charge of overseeing Internet governance. For different analyses by three Internet governance wonks see Kieren McCarthy, Milton Mueller, and Jeremy Malcolm.

The International Telecommunications Union has approved a new protocol for relaying biometric information. The protocol is intended to enable doctors to communicate data about patients safely and is geared towards developing countries where the access to medical care in rural areas is poor and communication between clinics and doctors would provide better patient care. You can read the full press release here.

Netizen Power: Lee Yoo Eun at Global Voices reports that the October 26th Seoul mayoral election was swayed by the use of twitter. Read the full article here.

African entrepreneur Herman Chinery-Hesse gave a speech at the Tech 4 Africa conference highlighting what the rise of Internet Communication Technologies has done for Africa. A synopsis of his talk can be found on the Tech4Africa.

Sovereigns of Cyberspace: Facebook has introduced a new “guardian angel” feature to help users restore locked accounts.

The 13th Austrian Big Brother Awards were held on October 25th in Vienna. “Winners” included the CEO of Telekom Austria, the Ministers of Interior and Justice, and the head of the anti-terror police unit. Mark Zuckerberg received the “lifelong menace” award and a “Defender of Liberty” award went to the creators of the “Europe versus Facebook” campaign.

The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference was held in San Francisco in late October (see GVA's report, Jillian York's report, and The Economist's) and released the Silicon Valley Standard, a set of 15 principles that technology companies should follow in order to protect human rights.

China's Weibo plans to launch an English version in partnership with Flipboard and Instagram. Will they agree to follow the Silicon Valley Standard?

Security Alert: The security researcher Barnaby Jack has found it possible to conduct a blind attack on insulin pumps. While there have been no reports of anyone being harmed by such an attack, this highlights how far behind security technologies are when it comes to wireless devices that are embedded in critical infrastructure and medicine.

Publications: Digital Cameras Reduce Electoral Corruption by Michael Callen and James Long.

Events: Check out this handy calendar of Internet-related events around the world, courtesy of Internews!

Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace, by the OpenNet Initiative, to be officially released in December. Part I of the book (including a chapter by yours truly) can be read online or downloaded here.

Note: This report was compiled with considerable help from Ted Eby and Weiping Li.

Read the original article here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/netizen-report

Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

praskrishna — 2011-11-08T05:01:14Z

The Western Ghats portal team is organising a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state on biodiversity informatics on 25 November 2011 at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore.

Schedule

09:00 – 09:20	Registration of participants
09:20 – 09:30	Welcome / Introduction
09:30 – 11:15	Plenary talks - Technology behind biodiversity informatics (3 talks)
11:15 – 11:30	Tea break
11:30 – 12:30	Plenary talks - Scientific commons and policy (2 talks)
12:30 – 13:00	Discussion
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch break
14:00 – 16:00	Biodiversity portals in India - Presentations by different teams/panel discussion
16:00 – 16:15	Tea break
16:15 – 17:00	Discussions and networking

Spheres of the Workshop:

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

Development of Information System, Open Data standards, Archive and Geospatial solutions, Visualization in Bhuvan - Arul Raj, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) - 20 mins + 10 mins discussion

Exploring the semantic web for species pages - M. Sravanthi, Western Ghats Portal - 20 mins + 10 mins discussion

Challenges on the emerging discipline of Biodiversity Informatics - Donald Hobern, Atlas of Living Australia - 30mins + 10 mins discussion

Focus:

The objective of this session is to understand the global developments in biodiversity informatics in relation with developments in India. The session will focus on:

the evolution of the discipline of biodiversity informatics and its current status
the development of standards in Indian context
the technologies for biodiversity informatics
the challenges in biodiversity informatics

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

Commons in the context of Biodiversity Information - Danish Sheikh, Alternative Law Forum - 20 mins + 10 mins

Open data in the scientific realm - Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society - 20 mins + 10 mins

Discussion on Scientific commons and Policy - 30 mins

Focus:

The objective of the session is to understand the commons principle and its implications for scientific research. The session will focus on:

the experience of developing a creative commons policy in Indian scenario and the resulting impacts for scientific collaboration, open data and open access
policy and social implications of open data sharing

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

Moderation: R. Prabhakar/ MD Madhusudhan
Panelists: (Introductory note by each of the panelists - 10 minutes each)

Suhel Quader, Season Watch (www.seasonwatch.in), Migrant Watch (www.migrantwatch.in)

Sanjay Molur, Pterocount (www.pterocount.org/)

K.N.Ganeshaiah - Indian Bioresource Information Network (www.ibin.co.in)

Ramesh BR - Western Ghats Portal (www.thewesternghats.in/)

Shwetank Verma, Biodiversity of India, formerly Project Brahma (http://www.biodiversityofindia.org)

Krishnamegh Kunte, ifoundbutterflies (http://ifoundbutterflies.org/)
Vijay Barve, DiversityIndia (http://diversityindia.org/)
Deepak Menon, India Water Portal (http://www.indiawaterportal.org/)
Chitra Ravi, India Biodiversity Portal (http://indiabiodiversity.org/)
Mr D.K Ved, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (http://envis.frlht.org)

Focus:

The objective of the session is to learn from each other’s experience and develop a combined vision for the future of biodiversity informatics in India. The panelists will present a focused summary of the

key features available on their portals
the experience of building the portal
the key lessons learnt
future plans

We believe these four aspects will be of common interest to all participants and the presentations are expected to stimulate discussion around these four aspects.

Summary of the Day: R Prabhakar - Call for synergy/collaboration/Thank you!!

Concept Note

Rapid advancements in the domains of computer Science and information technologies have allowed integration of biodiversity information and analytical capabilities to collaborate on social networks, leading to the emergence of a new discipline, Biodiversity Informatics. The dynamics in this discipline are defined by integrating multiplicity with the semantic web and enabling of democratic social networks focused on biodiversity. We are bound to see tremendous diversification in the scope of biodiversity informatics globally and in India.

Harnessing technology for aggregating, storing, querying and analyzing biodiversity data has seen major developments over the last decade. There has been a plethora of biodiversity information resources that include mailing lists and discussions groups, occurrence records, geographical databases, biodiversity image libraries, institutional databases, species description pages, specimen records of herbaria and museum databases, and biodiversity focused Internet sites. The challenges on the biodiversity informatics landscape are on two fronts: (1) A semantic web framework to link these biodiversity information islands; and (2) Effective and flexible data exchange standards for seamless information sharing among these sites.

The evolution of social networks and communities around biodiversity information systems has been a unique factor in influencing the ways in which these information systems have developed. The assimilation and aggregation of user-generated biodiversity data and dissemination under the 'commons' principle has gained momentum globally. It has changed the way scientific collaborations are being made, and created possibilities for effective citizen-science initiatives. It is now possible to ask fresh questions, with more data, newer methods, better tools and for citizens to participate and report data from different geographies. With this, local-level data can be integrated with large-scale data leading to a better understanding of biodiversity.

With the increased penetration of the Internet into developing economies, and the widespread adoption of web technologies, biodiversity informatics has spawned an impressive variety of initiatives. These initiatives range from global knowledge bases and networks, national initiatives, eco-region based initiatives, as well as sharply focused initiatives which address a single species or event. There have been tangible advantages for stakeholders from these initiatives which has inspired many other endeavours. Success stories exist at both global and local level, and learning from these experiences can help one understand the multi-faceted nature of this discipline.

The Western Ghats Portal team is organising a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: i) technology behind biodiversity informatics, ii) scientific commons and policy and iii) biodiversity portals in India. With these objectives in mind, we welcome your active participation during the workshop. It could provide an opportunity for us to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this discipline.

Download the agenda here [PDF, 124 kb]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities (Russian Version)

praskrishna — 2012-04-26T10:04:08Z

The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is based upon the online ITU-G3ict e-Accessibility Policy Toolkit for Persons with Disabilities (www.e-accessibilitytoolkit.org) which was released in February 2010. This is the Russian translation of the same.

The Toolkit and its companion handbook have contributions from more than 60 experts around the world on ICT accessibility and is a most valuable addition to policy makers and regulators, advocacy and research organisations and persons with disabilities on the implementation of the ICT dispositions of the CRPD.

The handbook is a joint publication of ITU, G3ict and the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with The Hans Foundation. The book is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Preface by Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union. Introduction by Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D. Foreword by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict.

UNIC Moscow (United Nations Information Centre - Moscow) has translated the English version of the kit to Russian. For more information on the translation initiative by UNIC Moscow, click here.

Download the Russian version here (PDF, 1045 kb)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-kit-in-russian

Blocking online content: Google gets more requests than govt

praskrishna — 2011-11-03T10:45:25Z

Allowing a peek into what kind of information is requested to be blocked online and by who, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), in response to an RTI (Right to Information) query, has provided some intriguing details, says Pallavi Polanki in this article published in Firstpost.com on 2 November 2011.

DIT lists names of bureaucrats, police officers and one politician who requested blocking content online as well as the websites they identified.

In all, 68 individual items were requested to be blocked under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009, to the DIT, which is the only authority mandated by the Information Technology Act 2000, to order blocking online content.

Speaking to Firstpost, Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, who requested for the information under the RTI Act — and has posted it on a blog analysing the information received from DIT — said, "Information from a previous RTI application uncovered what all websites were officially blocked by the DIT, while this one uncovers what all website blocking requests the DIT received."

No prizes for guessing; pornographic sites topped the list of websites requested to be blocked. Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) listed 60 adult content sites in his request. However, the DIT doesn’t seem to have accepted the officer’s request. The sites remain accessible.

Haneef Ali, Andhra Pradesh State President of the Bharatiya Janata Minority Morcha, is the only politician on the list. He requested the blocking of a blogpost, the title of which translates to "insult against Islam".

Up to four requests were made for blocking of political content, two of which came from Tamil Nadu.

The secretary, Public (Law and Order) Department requested for the website tamil.net.in to be blocked and the principal secretary, IT Department, requested a blog to be shut down. Only the first request seems to have been accepted.

Also, in the line of political fire was a Wikipedia entry for Sukhbir Singh Badal. The principal secretary, IT Department, Punjab, requested the Wikipedia entry with the address ‘en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/Sukhbir Singh Badal’ to be blocked. However, Wikipedia does have an entry for the deputy chief minister of Punjab with a slightly tweaked address.

Not surprisingly, Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) wanted a YouTube video ( identified in Prakash’s blog as a video of Bal Thackeray’s speech) to be blocked. Click on the link and a message from YouTube reads: "This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service. Sorry about that."

A betting site betfair.com was sought to be shut down by a senior inspector from Mumbai’s cyber crime cell. No luck. The site remains up and running.

Finally, Maharashtra’s Commissioner sent in two requests: Both are running.

Now for the interesting part: Prakash states that the data provided by the government "seemingly conflicts with the data released by the likes of Google (via its Transparency Report)."

According to Google’s Transparency Report, released on 25 October, Google received requests for 358 individual items to be removed from its different services between January and June 2011. And 407 such requests were made in 2010.

Information provided by DIT, however, shows that only requests for 68 items (64 websites, one blog, and three specific web-pages) from eight separate requests were made to it. Of these, only three were for Google’s services (two for Blogger and one for YouTube), points out Prakash.

While only DIT has the authority to order blocks, Google data shows that requests to ‘remove content’ far outnumber the requests made to DIT, suggesting that Google is receiving these requests directly from law enforcement agencies.

"The only explanation for this is that an order to ‘block for access… or cause to be blocked for access by the public’ is taken to be different from an order for removal of content… That would mean that while blocking is regulated by the IT Act, forcible removal of content is not. Thus, it would seem that forcible removal of online content is happening without clear regulation or limits,"states Prakash. (emphasis added).

Prakash makes the case that when law enforcement agencies send requests to companies like Google to remove content they are "operating outside bounds set up by the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure as also the Information Technology Act."

He adds that companies tend to comply with such ‘requests’ even when they are not under legal obligation to do so because it might appear to them to "violate their own terms of service (which generally include a wide clause about content being in accordance with all local laws), community guidelines."

"This way, the intention of Parliament in enacting Section 69A of the IT Act — to regulate government censorship of the Internet and bring it within the bounds laid down in the Constitution—is defeated," states Prakash.

This article has been republished from Firstpost.com. The original can be read here. You can read Firstpost’s continuing RTI coverage here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/blocking-content-google-gets-more-requests