Centre for Internet and Society

Comments on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations: Technical Background Paper Prepared by the WIPO Secretariat

praskrishna — 2015-06-28T15:44:03Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations.pdf

Paper-thin Safeguards and Mass Surveillance in India File

praskrishna — 2015-06-20T10:12:04Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/paper-thin-safeguards.pdf

May 2015 Report

praskrishna — 2015-06-19T15:57:17Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/may-2015-report.pdf

Re-thinking Tomorrow

praskrishna — 2015-06-19T14:10:23Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/re-thinking-tomorrow.pdf

The I-MACX Summit & Demo Day (Spring 2015)

praskrishna — 2015-08-23T09:37:40Z

IIIT-B Innovation Center organized this event in Bangalore on June 18, 2015. Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker.

Programme

Time	Agenda
1.00 p.m.	Registration
1.15 p.m.	Welcome Address
1.30 p.m.	Keynote: “Solving Civic Issues through Technology Platforms” by Dr. Pramod Varma, Chief Architect – Technology, UIDAI
1.50 p.m.	Panel Discussion: “Opportunities and Challenges in Civic-Tech Startup Space” Ms. Radha Kizhanattam, Principal – Unitus Seed Fund Mr. Shyam Menon, Co-founder – Infuse Ventures Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director – The Center for Internet & Society Mr. Rajith Shaji, Product Manager – Janaagraha Mr. VS Prakash, Director – Karnataka State Natural Disasters Monitoring Center (Retd.); Currently Registrar – IIIT Bangalore Mr. Syed Suhale Perveez, Senior Manager – Emergency Management Research Institute (108) Moderated by Dr. TK Srikanth, Professor – IIIT Bangalore
2.45 p.m.	Startups Pitch
3.55 p.m.	Vote of Thanks
4.00 p.m.	Investors – Startups discuss over High Tea Startups demonstrate their innovative solutions

About the Summit:

The I-MACX Summit is a civic-tech focused event that intends to bring together innovators from government and social organizations along with civic-minded startups, influencers, activists, investors and entrepreneurs.

The I-MACX Summit aims to not only bring out the opportunities and the challenges in the civictech space, but also showcase the offerings that are being created by the civic-tech startups nurtured at IIIT-B Innovation Center.

The I-MACX Summit, envisions itself as a thought-leadership forum that would delve into how the various players in the civic-tech ecosystem could potentially transform governance and society, using the emerging technologies (IOT, Data Analytics, Sensors, Mobile, Cloud).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/icmax-summit-and-demo-day

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ୧୩ ତମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ପାଳନ, ୨୦୧୫ ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖ

praskrishna — 2016-06-18T18:17:34Z

ତାରିଖ ଏବଂ ସମୟ: ୨୦୧୫ ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖ, ସନ୍ଧ୍ୟା ୫ ଟା ସ୍ଥାନ: ପଦାର୍ଥ ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାନ, ସଚିବାଳୟ ମାର୍ଗ, ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର, ଓଡ଼ିଶା କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ସବିଶେଷ: https://or.wikipedia.org/s/sml

The article was published in Odishan.com on June 2, 2015.

ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ କେତୋଟି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ (Wikipedia) ମଧ୍ୟରୁ ଅନ୍ୟତମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏହି ମାସ ୩ ତାରିଖରେ ତାହାର ୧୩ ବର୍ଷ ବ୍ୟାପୀ ମୁକ୍ତ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣର ମହୋତ୍ସବ ପାଳୁଛି । ଇଂରାଜୀ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେବାର ବର୍ଷେ ପରେ ୨୦୦୨ ମସିହାରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ । ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏ ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବିଶାଳତମ ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ (ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ)ରେ ପରିଣତ ହୋଇଛି । ଭାରତର ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ରହୁଥିବା ପାଖାପାଖି ୧୭ ଜଣ ସକ୍ରିୟ ସମ୍ପାଦକ (“ଉଇକିଆଳି” ନାମରେ ପରିଚିତ)ଙ୍କ ଦେଇ ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ଓ ୮,୮୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ଭରା ଏହି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ଏକ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷରୁ ଅନେକ ଉପରେ । ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନ କରୁଥିବା ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କ ଉଦ୍ୟମ ହେତୁ କପିରାଇଟ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ବହିର ଲାଇସେନ୍ସ କ୍ରିଏଟିଭ କମନ୍ସ ଭଳି ମୁକ୍ତ ଲାଇସେନ୍ସରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତରତିକ କରାଯାଇ ସେସବୁକୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଜରିଆରେ ଅଧିକ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ନିକଟରେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବାର ବାଟ ତିଆରି ହୋଇଛି । ଏହା ଛଡ଼ା ଲେଖକ ଓ ସତ୍ୱାଧୀକାରୀ (କପିରାଇଟ ମାଲିକ)ଙ୍କ ସହ ସନ୍ଧି କରି ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ରଚନା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯାଉଛି । or.wikipedia.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦିଆଯାଇଥାଏ ଯାହା ଫଳରେ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ପତ୍ରିକାଆଦିରେ ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ବିଷୟରେ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ଲେଖାମାନଙ୍କ ଆଧାରରେ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ତିଆରି ଓ ପୁରୁଣା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ଉନ୍ନତୀକରଣ କରାଯାଇପାରିବ ।

ଉଇକିଆଳିମାନେ ଜଗତରେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏଜୁକେସନ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଭଳି ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଶିକ୍ଷଣ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ହାତକୁ ନେଇ ପାଖାପାଖି ୨,୦୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟରେ ଲେଖିବା ବାବଦରେ ଶିଖାଇଛନ୍ତି । ଏହାର ୧୩ ତମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ପାଳନ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଉଇକିଆଳି ସମୂହ ଏକ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସରକାରୀ ଜର୍ଣ୍ଣାଲ, ଖବରକାଗଜ, ପତ୍ରିକା ଆଦିରେ ଥିବା ଅଣ-ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ଲେଖାରୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିବା ପାଇଁ କ୍ୟାରେକ୍ଟର ଏନକୋଡିଙ୍ଗ କନଭର୍ଟର ବିତରଣ କରିବା ଯୋଜନା କରୁଛି । ଏହା ଫଳରେ ସର୍ଚ ଇଞ୍ଜିନରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇନପାରୁଥିବା ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ଲେଖା ଡିଜିଟାଲ କଣ୍ଟେଣ୍ଟ ଭାବେ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପଠନଯୋଗୀ ହୋଇପାରିବ ।

ଯୋଗାଯୋଗ:
odiawiki@gmail.com
ମୃତ୍ୟୁଞ୍ଜୟ କର, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ପରିଚାଳକ (ଫୋନ: 9437112371)
ଶୈଳେଶ ପଟ୍ଟନାୟକ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିଆଳି (ଫୋନ: 7537097770)
ସୁଭାସିସ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ପରିଚାଳକ ଓ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଅଫିସର, ଆକସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜ-ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି (08050515339)
subhashish@cis-india.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/b2db41b2cb28b47b36b4db71b30b30b47-b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3fb21b3cb3fb06b30-b67b69-b24b2e-b1cb28b4db2eb24b3fb25b3f-b2ab3eb33b28-b68b66b67b6b-b1cb41b28-b69-b24b3eb30b3fb16

Odia Wikipedia celebrates 13 years of free knowledge contribution at Bhubaneswar

praskrishna — 2016-06-18T18:18:05Z

Odia Wikipedia, one of the first of several Indian language Wikipedia projects is ready to celebrate 13 glorious years of free knowledge contribution on June 3.

This was published in Orissadiary.com on June 2, 2015. Also see http://odishan.com/14971 (In Odia)

Beginning in 2002 — a year after the world's largest online encyclopedia, the English Wikipedia, was launched — Odia Wikipedia has grown to be the largest content repository in the Odia language available in Unicode on the Internet at https://or.wikipedia.org.

With about 17 active editors (also known as “uikiali”) spread across various parts of India and abroad, and over 8,800 articles, the project has become more than just an encyclopedia. The voluntary editor community has put its efforts into acquiring valuable Creative Commons (CC) licensed content by lobbying copyright holders/authors to relicense copyrighted content under CC licenses.

Date and time: 3 June 2015, 5 pm
Venue: Institute of Physics, Near Apollo Hospital, Bhubaneswar, Odisha
Event details: https://or.wikipedia.org/s/sml

It has also engaged with over 2,000 people by organizing various outreach programs including the globally accredited pedagogic program the Wikipedia Education Program (WEP). For its 13th anniversary the community is planning to release a character-encoding converter that promises to unlock massive amounts of content from government portals as well as journals, newspapers and magazines that have their content in non-Unicode character encoding that prevents user searching and reuse of digital-based content.

May you have any further questions about the project or the event, please reach us in the contact details mentioned below:

Mrutyunjaya Kar, Administrator, Odia Wikipedia (9437112371)
Sailesh Patnaik, Editor, Odia Wikipedia (7537097770)
Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K)
subhashish@cis-india.org. 08050515339

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/orissa-dairy-june-2-2015-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution-at-bhubaneswar

Internet Intermediaries Law and Innovation Panel

praskrishna — 2015-06-14T14:47:09Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-intermediaries-law-and-innovation-panel.odp

Can Uber, Ola apps be blocked? Govt fighting cyber odds

praskrishna — 2015-06-14T09:52:28Z

The Delhi government is trying to block taxi hailing apps like Uber and Ola Cabs, but is it really possible?

The article by Siladitya Ray published in the Hindustan Times on June 4, 2015 quotes Sunil Abraham.

Taxi aggregators are in the firing line over passenger safety again after a 21-year-old Delhi woman alleged she was molested by a driver in an Uber cab near Gurgaon on Saturday morning.

The allegation came just six months after a 25-year-old financial analyst was allegedly raped in an Uber cab in Delhi, over which the victim took the cab aggregator's parent company to court in the US.

Following an order from the Delhi government, the Department of Telecommunication had issued an order to Internet Service Providers to block the websites and apps of taxi hailing aggregators like Uber, TaxiForSure and Ola Cabs.

But Internet Service Providers (ISP) have apparently expressed inability to block Uber, Ola as the web services feature strong end-to-end encryption.

How ISPs block sites

Often when an ISP blocks a website it severs your connection with the domain name. For example if ISPs want to block Google they simply block your access to www.google.com (i.e. Google's domain name), pretty simple. But if you are using an app like Google Now there is no domain name involved here the app talks directly to the server through using some form of encryption.

If we were to use an analogy, think of the ISP as a bridge that connects you to the web. The sites can be thought of as cars and their domain names as license plates. If the ISP wants to block a car with a certain license plate from going through it can do so with ease. But if a car's number plates are obscured (encryption) then ISP cannot block the car from passing through.

Uber and Ola

Most users book cabs from Ola or Uber using the company's apps, which use strong encryption effectively making their data virtually undetectable to ISPs.

"It's possible to block apps but it's much more difficult than before. Earlier you had to deal with a finite set of IP addresses but now these services are hosted on multiple cloud servers," said Sunil Abraham, the executive director of Bangalore based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society. "The ISPs themselves don't want to go through the pain of blocking these apps so they are asking the government to give them a solution," he added.

The government and the Department of Telecommunication are fighting near improbable odds in their endeavor to block these services on the web.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-siladitya-ray-june-4-can-uber-ola-apps-be-blocked

5G Workshop Schedule

praskrishna — 2015-06-14T09:38:45Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/5-g-workshop-schedule.pdf

The Perils and Prospects of Bringing the Next Billion Online

praskrishna — 2015-08-23T08:04:01Z

Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore. In his PDF talk, he explains the fight for net neutrality in India and how many solutions fall under the category of walled garden.

Video

For more see Personal Democracy Media

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/perils-and-prospects-of-bringing-next-billion-online

Only digital sex, please

praskrishna — 2015-06-15T01:38:12Z

Many Indian men are getting so dependent on digital sex and online pornography that they can’t handle real relationships. And a new book says this is happening the world over. Prasun Chandhuri and Avijit Chatterjee turn the spotlight on the trend

The article was published in the Telegraph on May 31. Rohini is quoted.

P. Sharath doesn't know how to handle women. The 31-year-old software engineer, who works for a multinational company in Bangalore, thinks he doesn't need them either. The man who grew up in Hubli in Karnataka and now earns an eight-figure annual salary has his virtual world. That gives him his sexual satisfaction.

Socially awkward, Sharath did try to date a woman, but the relationship broke within a few months because he found that she was getting to be "clingy" and "boring". An attempt by his family to fix a marriage with a woman failed when he groped her in a cinema hall. His online women, on the other hand, need no pampering, and do not complain.

Sharath, however, is not happy. "He no longer gets any gratification from online sex and has been suffering from anxiety and depression," says Dr Ali Khwaja, a Bangalore-based psychologist and founder of the Banjara Academy, a counselling centre.

Increasingly, counsellors in urban India are coming across such cases of people who are so used to digital sex that they can't cope with real relationships any more. Khwaja refers to them as "hollow men" - people who go through despair after relations fail because of their dependence on digital pornography.

"Almost every week I meet a young man addicted to porn," says Mumbai-based counsellor Shefali Batra, author of the recently published book Teen Matters.

It's a pattern that many counsellors have noticed. As teenagers, young boys get hooked on to digital sex. "But it becomes a vicious addiction over time, playing havoc with their social and sexual development," Batra says. The women they meet do not match up to the large breasted and oversexed digital women - and the boys become men who cannot sustain marriages and relationships.

Pornography has always existed, and some counsellors do not believe that it is always harmful. But the spread of the Internet, the easy availability of smartphones and the profusion of sophisticated sex games and other platforms have led to a situation where men merely log on for sexual satisfaction.

The Internet is bursting at the seams with sex sites. There are various types of sex games, including cartoon sex games, 3D sex games, virtual reality sex games and so on where the viewer can indulge in sex with three or four imaginary characters. Some online games offer virtual simulation sex. In a new genre of digital porn, users can enjoy 3D porn with a special virtual reality headset that allows them to step inside their favourite games and completely immerse themselves in a sexual fantasy.

And this is happening across the world. In a recently released book, Men (Dis)Connected: How technology has sabotaged what it means to be male, psychologist Philip Zimbardo holds that "masculinity" is being destroyed by online pornography and gaming technology.

"We have surveyed over 20,000 young people in many countries. Even though we don't have data on Indian men, we assume that the impact of freely available porn is creating a new breed of addicts in every country," he says in an email interview. "These men prefer to masturbate to visual images than have live sexual relations with real women."

Nikita Coulombe, co-author of Men (Dis)Connected, adds that it is an "endless novelty" and a "virtual harem" for the men. "In 10 minutes you can see more 'mates' than your ancestors would have seen in their lifetime."

There was a time when people shrugged and said, it's just a phase. But Zimbardo believes that this addiction has gone beyond that and will have a "permanent negative impact" on young men everywhere because the porn industry is big business.

The professor emeritus at Stanford discovered this phenomenon when he found that many of his male students were shy and spent too much time poring over screens. Closer home, academic and writer Shiv Visvanathan had a similar experience while teaching at the O.P. Jindal University in Haryana.

"Many of these guys do not know how to talk to a girl - they'd rather convey their feelings through text messages or through social networks or mobile phones. Sometimes you'll even see two people sitting close together but talking over the phone, just to avoid a face-to-face conversation," Visvanathan says.

What this means is that young men are not just wary of getting into relationships - they are not missing them either. "Porn gives them instant gratification which can be repeated, say, 200 times. Moreover, the virtual body seems more transformable than the actual body and it's fast," Visvanathan points out.

It is an addiction that draws men more than women, primarily because the majority of Internet porn is male-centric and, more than teenage women, boys are addicted to computer games and associated thrills. "Research has affirmed that this is truer for the male brain in comparison to the female brain," explains Batra. "The male brain is more thrill and pleasure seeking and these exciting virtual realities provide an immense rush of pleasure in the brain."

Zimbardo's survey underlines this. It found that three out of five men expressed a "lack of interest in pursuing and maintaining a romantic relationship" while three out of four women between the ages of 18 and 30 said they were concerned about the "emotional immaturity or the unavailability" of men.

While the celebrated psychologist plans to conduct a similar survey in India, concerns are already rising because the lack of sex education in schools and colleges - coupled with repressed backgrounds and exaggerated pornographic images - gives the young a warped idea of sex and relationships.

"In a society where talking about sex is taboo, their only avenue to satisfy sexual curiosities becomes porn," says Rohini Lakshane, researcher, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

This is why sexologist Prakash Kothari often encounters young men who yearn for a "14-inch organ" and suffer from performance anxiety and depression. "Proper sex education can teach them just two inches and oodles of erotic love are enough to satisfy your female partner," says Kothari.

The experts stress that they are not against pornography. "One should not shoot the messenger," contends Audrey D'Mello, programme director, Majlis, a legal counselling centre in Mumbai. "If used properly it can be an aphrodisiac," Kothari adds.

But many of the images that the young today see are violent and bestial. "These twisted forms of sex are being consumed by young men and boys through smartphones across the country," laments Ira Trivedi, author of India in Love. Lakshane believes that easy access to violent pornography "degrades and objectifies women", giving men and boys a "skewed view of sex and intimacy".

Calcutta-based Subhrangshu Aditya counselled a woman who wanted a divorce because her husband forced her to replicate all that he watched on porn. "It was torture for her, devoid of romantic love or eroticism," Aditya says.

Indeed, the effect on men has an impact on women as well. Trivedi points out that as men devote themselves to porn, women go for measures such as vaginal beautification to attract men.

Or women go off sex altogether.

"These women have an extreme phobia about sex," says Aindri Sanyal, an infertility specialist at a Calcutta-based fertility centre. "Some haven't even got their marriage consummated. So they want to conceive through artificial insemination."

Is there a way out? Experts such as Khwaja are doing what they can. "I am trying to help Sharath socialise in mixed groups, then spend a few minutes at a time doing a favour for a woman, or showing a gesture. I want him to focus on understanding the emotions that girls go through and eventually make him understand how to interact with another flesh-and-blood person who has her own romantic and sexual needs," he says. "The process will take quite a long time."

Zimbardo, 82, wants the "socially crippled generation" to hit the Escape button on their digital devices. He wants to remind them that real sex involves communicating with a real person, feeling their pain, earning their trust and making a real connection to their heart. Like people did, once upon a time.

If it’s May, it’s got to be India

Some porn stats

In 2014, India ranked among the highest consumers of pornographic content in the world, according to Pornhub, an online video hub
Around 25 per cent of Indian visitors on Pornhub.com were women, 2 per cent higher than the worldwide average of 23 per cent
Indians seek out pornography most in May and least in October
More Indians surf porn on their smartphones than on desktops
On an average, Indians spend 8 minutes and 22 seconds per visit to Pornhub, 30 seconds less than the rest of the world
Of all states, people from Andhra Pradesh spend the least time on Pornhub — 6 min and 40 sec; people from West Bengal spend 9 min and 5 sec; people from Assam spend 9 min and 55 sec
Sunny Leone is India’s favourite porn star
In most places in the world, porn is viewed most on Monday, but in India, it’s on Saturday
Porn viewing in India dips by over 25 per cent on Diwali, Dussehra, New Year’s Eve and Gandhi Jayanti.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-may-31-2015-only-digital-sex-please

Digital India launch likely in July

praskrishna — 2015-05-31T16:08:07Z

The Modi government, which completed one year at the Centre, is preparing for a big-ticket launch of Digital India, taking technology to the villages and block levels, through merchandise, hackathons and games spread over a week-long initiative across the country.

The article by Jochelle Mendonca and Neha Alawadhi was published in the Times of India on May 29, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

The National e-Governance Division (NeGD), under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology ( DeitY), has empanelled agencies for a messaging campaign, gamification, printing and merchandise, advertising and creatives, including advertising for rural outreach and social media.

Working directly with the Prime Minister's Office, NeGD has been tasked with preparing for the launch since February. Though no formal dates have been fixed yet, the Digital India Week (DIW) is likely to take off in July, and will involve stakeholders across state governments and ministries, and is expected to be the flagship programme for the second year of the BJP government, EThas learnt.

"They really want to make this the biggest programme of the second year. The idea is that many things have been done in the digital space that need to get highlighted," an individual with knowledge of the plans told ET.

The event is certainly being planned on a grand scale, according to the tender documents issued by the government. The government has asked for merchandise such as t-shirts, caps, trophies, pen drives and leather cloth and plastic bags. A gamification agency will work on the portals, mobile applications and social media handles to boost participation.

The messaging agency must be able to carry out, track, record and analyze 50 lakh to one crore messages a day. The event will be launched by the Prime Minister through a radio address on 'Mann ki Baat,' which will be followed by events at gram panchayats, block and sub divisional headquarters, district and state levels, eventually culminating in a national event, according to a presentation seen by ET.

As part of the run-up to the DIW, events such as hackathons, training programmes and webinars would be held in schools and colleges, followed by crowd-sourcing ideas through the government's portal MyGov, as well as a new Digital India portal that is being designed.

"It is a typical BJP-style campaign. The Prime Minister does not want to hold the final day event in Delhi and the location is being finalized. All state and line ministries have been involved, and are being asked to showcase e-services and best practices, along with the launch of some programmes like digital locker," said another person familiar with the plans being rolled out for the DIW.

The watch words of the campaign will be "inform, educate and engage", which will include taking the message of Digital India to the masses through educational institutions, industry and government agencies.

"It will educate people on various important services such as digital literacy, cyber-hygiene and e-waste management, and also look at engaging a large number of people, especially youth on a continuous basis," said a person familiar with the ongoing preparation.

NeGD is looking at using the principles of gamification to gather feedback. Experts on e-governance say this is a good move as most e-governance projects, across the world, fail because there's not enough buy-in from stakeholders or the goals aren't communicated widely to the public.

"E-governance needs evangelizing. That is what this campaign looks like it will do. Some parts are dated — such as posters and the print elements. But this is a good idea. Whether it works or not depends on the participation they see at the end," Sunil Abraham, director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-jochelle-mendonca-neha-alawadhi-may-29-2015-digital-india-launch-likely-in-july

Indian music streaming service Gaana hacked, millions of users’ details exposed

praskrishna — 2015-08-22T16:44:25Z

Indian music streaming service Gaana, which has over 7.5 million monthly visitors, has been compromised by a hacker and its user information database is now exposed.

The hacker, who goes by the moniker Mak Man and appears to be based in Lahore, Pakistan, posted a link to a searchable database of Gaana user details on his Facebook page. Enter a user’s email address and it spits out their full name, email address, MD5-hashed password, date of birth Facebook and Twitter profiles and more.

The hack appears to be a SQL injection-based exploit of Gaana’s systems, but the intention behind it is unknown. The database shows more than 12.5 million users are currently registered on Gaana.

Mak Man also posted images of the service’s admin panel.

It’s worrying that an online service from one of India’s biggest internet companies (Times Internet) is vulnerable to attacks like this.

With user details exposed, it may not do much good to simply change your Gaana password, as it will reflect in the hacker’s database. You’re better off deactivating your account until the issue is resolved, and changing your email, Facebook and Twitter passwords if they’re the same as on Gaana right away.

Update: Since our story broke, Gaana has taken its site offline and the exposed database isn’t returning search results when we queried it with test data.

The hacker has updated his database page with the following message: “The vulnerable parameter I was using here, has been patched by the Admin
Now the question is, Was this the only vulnerable parameter I had .. ? ;)”

Update 2: Times Internet CEO Satyan Gajwani tweeted that only login credentials were accessed and no financial or sensitive personal data was leaked.

Gajwani attempted to contact the hacker on Facebook and acknowledged the issue. He added that the attack was the hacker’s way of highlighting Gaana’s vulnerability.

The exposed database has since been removed on Gajwani’s request. All Gaana users’ passwords have been reset.

Gajwani also sought to reassure his followers that no user data was stored and that the passwords were hashed. Hacker

Mak Man also confirmed this in a Facebook post. However, that can’t be confirmed and you’d best change your passwords for any social accounts and email addresses associated with your Gaana profile.

According to Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, the MD5 hashing algorithm which appears to have been used for securing passwords isn’t very strong and could easily be unscrambled using a rainbow table to get the plain-text version of the data.

Prakash also says that for added security, Gaana should:

Stop using MD5 as its password hashing function and instead look at stronger password derivation functions like scrypt, bcrypt, or PBKDF2.
Sanitize its SQL inputs to prevent against malicious SQL injections.
Enable two-factor authentication for users to log in securely.
Urge its users to use long passphrases instead of short complicated passwords and to never to reuse a password.

➤ Gaana [via The Geek Byte]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/tnwnews-may-28-2015-abhimanyu-ghoshal-indian-music-streaming-service-gaana-hacked-millions-of-users-details-exposed

Your phone is a surveillance device, your ISP a surveillance provider…: Pranesh Prakash

praskrishna — 2015-06-17T14:53:40Z

“In India there is no special privilege for journalists over ordinary citizens,” Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society began at the workshop entitled ‘Digital Security for Journalists’ organised by the Mumbai Press Club and the Centre for Internet and Society.

The blog post was published by mxmindia.com on May 27, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

“Even if you don’t care about your own security/privacy, think about you sources. Your sources want privacy,” Prakash said as he began the workshop on how to assess security threats, how to protect sources and how to prevent your ISP from leaking out information. With the growth of the internet since the 1980s, we know we can’t trust everyone; police stations, governments, all engage in surveillance of some sort, he pointed out. Prakash went on to explain the ‘Threat Model’, wherein journalists ought to ask questions like what are you protecting, who are you protecting yourself against, what do you hope to achieve and to what lengths are you willing to go? All of the measures you are going to take to protect your source are going to be inconvenient. Security is always at the cost of convenience he reiterated.

Data threat can be intercepted at two levels, Prakash explained; data in transit and data at rest. The important question to ask is which you wish to secure, because the means to secure both are very different.Emails being sent to someone can be intercepted by an outside source in transit. It is easier to secure you own data on your computer, but an email is so much more difficult to secure because there are multiple points where the information is stored. Targeted surveillance is much more difficult to protect yourself against than mass surveillance.

For WiFi, password protected networks form an encryption, one more barrier to protect you. However, a WEP encrypted network is easy to break through. You need at least a WPAII to be secure enough. Airport networks usually ask for a password after connecting to the WiFi. That too is easy to see through. Avoid using these networks for sensitive work.

One must keep in mind who they want to secure the data from; whether from a casual threat or an Intelligence Agency like the National Security Agency (NSA), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) or Intelligence Bureau (IB).Mass surveillance or non-targeted surveillance is not legal in India. However. the NTRO engages in mass surveillance, for which it was criticised in a Mint article, following which they shifted only to the national borders for surveillance. It is also possible for the NSA to tamper with your laptop before delivery.The NSA’s ANT catalogue has been working on a technology that has a device that can fit within the connector that connects to your keyboards and it can last there years and years without detection. Hence Prakash suggests that if a journalist is working on a sensitive story that if leaked could cause a ruckus, he/she would be safer buying a new computer and paying for it in hard cash.

The more important a source is, the less you must use your phone, Prakash pointed out. Phones leak information time and again, information of time and location. The NSA uses it, the police use it. If you are meeting with someone and you both have your phone, then information that you have met is transmitted. Even without GPS it can track your location, when you receive/send a call/message, as your mobile network needs to access the cell tower you are around in order to reach you.

Encrypted emails still leak identities. If the police look into an encrypted email, they will still know who you are communicating with. Background information you are doing on a story can also give away a lot you don’t want to be given away. Even with an encrypted email, they have access to your location, IP address, the sender and the receiver of the email, time stamp, Mac id and IMEI.

End-to-end encryption is the way out here.This means that no one in the middle, including the company can read the emails you send from your company server. End-to-end encryption is the most inconvenient. End-to-end encryption means that you and the party concerned need to come up with a code that the other party needs to be able to decrypt. The software both parties use also needs to be compatible.

“I recommend using WhatsApp over Viber and Line, Skype over other alternatives and Twitter is also safe, but never use Facebook for sensitive conversations that you don’t want to get out,” Prakash said. WhatsApp is safer than normal text messaging he points out. Prakash recommended an app called Conversations to use for messaging on your phone. It is safer than both normal SMSing and WhatsApp. An SMS leaks metadata, he explains, that’s why it is preferable to use data or apps that use the internet.

In the 2G network space, only Airtel and Docomo use at least a weak encryption.All the rest use no encryption. Anyone can snoop in on your conversations. Instead one must use data-enabled apps for calling like RedPhone, he suggested. This is a great way to protect your source.

Most people are known to repeat passwords for various accounts. Never repeat a password, Prakash advised. Maintain different passwords for all your accounts. It is the safest. And if you are unable to remember them all, then use password managementsoftware like LastPass or KeyPass. These enable you to key in and store all your passwords in one place and you only have to remember the password to your LastPass/KeyPass account. But if you forget your master password, then there is no way to recover all your other passwords.

The session concluded with Prakash working hands-on with the journalists, helping them to download the required software on their laptops and mobile phones. This knowledge is vital for all journalists in order to protect themselves and their sources when doing a high profile, sensitive story, Prakash said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/mxmindia-may-27-2015-dyanne-coelho-your-phone-is-a-surveillance-device-your-isp-a-surveillance-provider