We are anonymous, we are legion

Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:18:25Z

FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India is organizing Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013 on 17th October 2013 at Federation House, FICCI, New Delhi. The theme for this year’s conference is “Internet to Equinet: Empowering a Billion Online”. Sunil Abraham is a speaker in the session on "The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder Approach".

This was published by FICCI on their website on October 16, 2013. Download the agenda here.

Shri Kapil Sibal, Hon’ble Minister for Communications & Information Technology has kindly consented to inaugurate the conference and will deliver the keynote address during the inaugural session. Shri Nehchal Sandhu, Deputy National Security Advisor; Shri M F Farooqui, Secretary, DoT; and Mr. Fadi Chehadé, CEO, ICANN have also agreed to address the participants during the inaugural session of the conference.

The conference will deliberate on the empowerment of Indian citizens and growth of the digital economy, using internet and mobile technologies. The first conference will specifically debate on thematic and business issues as below:

Inaugural Session: Internet to Equinet: Empowering a Billion Online

Session I: The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder View

Session II:M2M: The Internet of 50 Billion Devices

Session III: Mobile Internet is the Future: What Stands in the Way?

The conference which will include CEOs and senior government, industry and academia participants, will explore the challenges in connecting the unconnected and making them part of the global information society on one hand, while discussing the implementation and impact of new emerging technologies such as M2M. It will provide an opportunity to hear the views of various stakeholders and thought leaders in the internet, mobile and digital economy space. IMDEC 2013 is open to business leaders, economists, researchers, analysts and decision-makers from government entities, industry, academia, and international organizations.

Bhairav Acharya, Elonnai Hickok and Purba Sarkar also participated in the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ficci-october-17-2013-internet-mobile-digital-economy-conference-2013

Internet's Core Resources are a Global Public Good - They Cannot Remain Subject to One Country's Jurisdiction

vidushi — 2016-11-14T06:39:52Z

This statement was issued by 8 India civil society organizations, supported by 2 key global networks, involved with internet governance issues, to the meeting of ICANN in Hyderabad, India from 3 to 9 November 2016. The Centre for Internet & Society was one of the 8 organizations that drafted this statement.

Recently, the US gave up its role of signing entries to the Internet's root zone file, which represents the addressing system for the global Internet. This is about the Internet addresses that end with .com, .net, and so on, and the numbers associated with each of them that help us navigate the Internet. We thank and congratulate the US government for taking this important step in the right direction. However, the organisation that manages this system, ICANN,[1] a US non-profit, continues to be under US jurisdiction, and hence subject to its courts, legislature and executive agencies. Keeping such an important global public infrastructure under US jurisdiction is expected to become a very problematic means of extending US laws and policies across the world.

We the undersigned therefore appeal that urgent steps be taken to transit ICANN from its current US jurisdiction. Only then can ICANN become a truly global organisation.[2] We would like to make it clear that our objection is not directed particularly against the US; we are simply against an important global public infrastructure being subject to a single country's jurisdiction.

Domain name system as a key lever of global control
A few new top level domains like .xxx and .africa are already under litigation in the US, whereby there is every chance that its law could interfere with ICANN's (global) policy decisions. Businesses in different parts of the world seeking top level domain names like .Amazon, and, hypothetically, .Ghaniancompany, will have to be mindful of de facto extension of US jurisdiction over them. US agencies can nullify the allocation of such top level domain names, causing damage to a business similar to that of losing a trade name, plus losing all the 'connections', including email based ones, linked to that domain name. For instance, consider the risks that an Indian generic drugs company, say with a top level domain, .genericdrugs, will remain exposed to.

Sector specific top level domain names like .insurance, health, .transport, and so on, are emerging, with clear rules for inclusion-exclusion. These can become de facto global regulatory rules for that sector. .Pharmacy has been allocated to a US pharmaceutical group which decides who gets domain names under it. Public advocacy groups have protested [3] that these rules will be employed to impose drugs-related US intellectual property standards globally. Similar problematic possibilities can be imagined in other sectors; ICANN could set “safety standards”, as per US law, for obtaining .car.

Country domain names like .br and .ph remain subject to US jurisdiction. Iran's .ir was recently sought to be seized by some US private parties because of alleged Iranian support to terrorism. Although the plea was turned down, another court in another case may decide otherwise. With the 'Internet of Things', almost everything, including critical infrastructure, in every country will be on the network. Other countries cannot feel comfortable to have at the core of the Internet’s addressing system an organisation that can be dictated by one government.

ICANN must become a truly global body
Eleven years ago, in 2005, the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus at the World Summit on the Information Society demanded that ICANN should “negotiate an appropriate host country agreement to replace its California Incorporation”.

A process is currently under-way within ICANN to consider the jurisdiction issue. It is important that this process provides recommendations that will enable ICANN to become a truly global body, for appropriate governance of very important global public goods.

Below are some options, and there could be others, that are available for ICANN to transit from US jurisdiction.

ICANN can get incorporated under international law. Any such agreement should make ICANN an international (not intergovernmental) body, fully preserving current ICANN functions and processes. This does not mean instituting intergovernmental oversight over ICANN.
ICANN can move core internet operators among multiple jurisdictions, i.e. ICANN (policy body for Internet identifiers), PTI [4] (the operational body) and the Root Zone Maintainer must be spread across multiple jurisdictions. With three different jurisdictions over these complementary functions, the possibility of any single one being fruitfully able to interfere in ICANN's global governance role will be minimized.
ICANN can institute a fundamental bylaw that its global governance processes will brook no interference from US jurisdiction. If any such interference is encountered, parameters of which can be clearly pre-defined, a process of shifting of ICANN to another jurisdiction will automatically set in. A full set-up – with registered HQ, root file maintenance system, etc – will be kept ready as a redundancy in another jurisdiction for this purpose. [5] Chances are overwhelming that given the existence of this bylaw, and a fully workable exit option being kept ready at hand, no US state agency, including its courts, will consider it meaningful to try and enforce its writ. This arrangement could therefore act in perpetuity as a guarantee against jurisdictional interference without actually having ICANN to move out of the US.
The US government can give ICANN jurisdictional immunity under the United States International Organisations Immunities Act . There is precedent of US giving such immunity to non-profit organisations like ICANN. [6] Such immunity must be designed in such a way that still ensures ICANN's accountability to the global community, protecting the community's enforcement power and mechanisms. Such immunity extends only to application of public law of the US on ICANN decisions and not private law as chosen by any contracting parties. US registries/registrars, with the assent of ICANN, can choose the jurisdiction of any state of the US for adjudicating their contracts with ICANN. Similarly, registries/registrars from other countries should be able to choose their respective jurisdictions for such contracts.

We do acknowledge that, over the years, there has been an appreciable progress in internationalising participation in ICANN's processes, including participation from governments in the Governmental Advisory Committee. However, positive as this is, it does not address the problem of a single country having overall jurisdiction over its decisions.

Issued by the following India based organisation:

Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
IT for Change, Bangalore
Free Software Movement of India, Hyderabad
Society for Knowledge Commons, New Delhi
Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi
Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
Software Freedom Law Centre - India, New Delhi
Third World Network - India, New Delhi

Supported by the following global networks:

Association For Progressive Communications
Just Net Coalition

For any clarification or inquiries you may may write to or call:

Parminder Jeet Singh: parminder@itforchange.net +91 98459 49445, or
Vidushi Marda: vidushi@cis-india.org +91 99860 92252

[1] Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

[2] The “NetMundial Multistakeholder Statement” , endorsed by a large number of governments and other stakeholders, including ICANN and US government, called for ICANN to become a “truly international and global organization”.

[3] See, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130515/00145123090/big-pharma-firms-seeking-pharmacy-domain-to-crowd-out-legitimate-foreign-pharmacies.shtml

[4] Public Technical Identifier, a newly incorporated body to carry out the operational aspects of managing Internet's identifiers.

[5] This can be at one of the existing non US global offices of ICANN, or the location of one of the 3 non-US root servers. Section 24.1 of ICANN Bylaws say, “The principal office for the transaction of the business of shall be in the County of Los Angeles, State of California, United States of America. may also have an additional office or offices within or outside the United States of America as it may from time to time establish”.

[6] E.g., International Fertilizer and Development Center was designated as a public, nonprofit, international organisation by US Presidential Decree, granting it immunities under United States International Organisations Immunities Act . See https://archive.icann.org/en/psc/corell-24aug06.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internets-core-resources-are-a-global-public-good

Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites

praskrishna — 2015-01-02T13:46:25Z

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has ordered Internet service providers to block 32 websites, in cluding popular video-sharing plat forms such as Dailymotion and Vimeo, reportedly over concerns that they are being misused by Islamic State jihadists.

The article by Jaison Lewis was published in Mumbai Mirror on January 1, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

The ban has angered free-speech proponents who allege that the Narendra Modi government is using national security as a pretext to censor online content. On Wednesday, tweets criticising the restrictions were trending on #GOIBlocks. Senior lawyer Karuna Nandy said that she would challenge the DoT order in the Supreme Court.

Apart from Dailymotion and Vimeo, Internet service providers have also been ordered to block Github and Pastebin, which are popular among programmers; Weebly, a free website creator; and Archive.org, a non-profit digital library.

Some Internet users, however, were able to access some of the sites. This could be because their Internet service providers have not yet implemented the DoT order or because the government has lifted restrictions on some web addresses, according to activists monitoring the blockage of the websites.

The order was issued under Section 69A (procedure for blocking public access) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The section allows authorities to block websites without giving any formal reason or making any public announcement.

However, Arvind Gupta, BJP's national head for information and technology, tweeted that the sites had been blocked over security concerns. "The Web sites have been blocked based on an advisory by Anti-Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS.The sites that have removed objectionable content andor cooperated with the ongoing investigations, are being unblocked," he wrote.

Gupta, however, did not explain how the sites were being misused by terrorists. Some of the sites are mostly frequented by programmers looking for open-source software and codes.

Nandy, a Supreme Court lawyer who specialises in human rights litigations, criticised the ban. "I will challenge the order in the Su preme Court this week. I will seek directions to lift the secrecy surrounding such bans and also request for a right to appeal," she said.

She added that censoring the Internet was against the idea of free expression guaranteed under the Constitution. "Such steps are not good for a healthy society," she said.

Pranesh Prakash, a policy director with the Centre for Internet and Society and one of the most vocal opponents of the blockage, said that the people had the right to know why the websites had been blocked.

"We still don't know why these blocks were issued: was it an overzealous copyright lawyer who found an indulgent judge to issue an overbroad and baseless order? Or was it a public servant who wrongly directed the Department of Electronics and IT to block the sites under the IT Act? We have no idea," said Prakash, who tweeted a picture of the DoT order on Wednesday.

He added that websites were frequently blocked without clear evidence of wrongdoing. "These laws must be changed," Prakash said.

Internet users also voiced their anger over the DoT order. "This only proves ATS is an idiot. If terrorists use buses, phones & Whatspp, you'll block whole system? #GOIBlocks," Poonam Sharma tweeted.

Some users retweeted a Modi post from August 2012: "As a common man, I join the protest against crackdown on freedom of speech!"

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/mumbai-mirror-jaison-lewis-jan-1-2015-internet-users-fume-as-govt-blocks-32-sites

Internet users flay Mumbai girls' arrest over Facebook post

praskrishna — 2012-11-20T11:35:04Z

The arrest of two girls over their Facebook post on shutdown in Mumbai for Bal Thackeray's funeral on Monday again opened a can of worms with netizens calling the move a "social media hijack by the powerful and the fundamentalists". Social media was abuzz with tweets and posts about the arrest, with most referring to the arrest as yet another move to curb freedom of speech on the Internet.

This post was published by IBN Live on November 20, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Noted journalist Gautam Chikermane tweeted "First Pondicherry businessman, now 21 year old Palghar girl. Next: all of us. Social media hijack by the powerful and the fundamentalists". Minister of State (Communications and IT) Milind Deora tweeted: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize ~ Voltaire".

Communication specialist Alyque Padamsee expressed shock at the arrest and the vandalism at the clinic of one of the girl's uncle. "I want to know how these girls have broken the law when all they said is that why should Mumbai come to a standstill. There is nothing derogatory against Thackeray. I do not see anything illegal in that," he said. Padamsee further said the Constitution provides everyone free speech and that "no one should be arrested on such flimsy grounds".

Pavan Duggal, Cyber law Expert and an advocate with Supreme Court also voiced similar views. "This is high time for the government for the review of the law. The government should amend the IT Act so as to narrow down its provisions as some of the these violate our constitutional right of free speech."

He added that it would be a bigger challenge for the prosecution to prove that the statement could incite communal disharmony and violence. "This should not be seen merely as "social media regulation", but as a restriction on freedom of speech and expression by both the law and the police," Centre for Internet and Society Policy Director Pranesh Prakash said.

The two girls--Shaheen Dhada and Renu--were sent to 14-day judicial custody by a court before which they were produced today but were granted bail within hours after they furnished personal bonds. There was also an attack on the clinic of an uncle of one of them by Sena activists.

The arrests also sparked an outrage with Press Council of India chief Markandey Katju today demanding "immediate" action against police personnel involved. While Dhada was arrested for the post, Dhada's friend Renu was arrested for 'liking' the post. "Police arrested both of them under section 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes). Today, they were granted bail," their advocate Sudhir Gupta said.

The duo was arrested following a police complaint lodged by a local Sena leader. After the comment was posted, a mob of nearly 40 Shiv Sainiks allegedly barged into Dhada's uncles's orthopaedic hospital at Palghar and vandalised the place on Sunday. However, no arrests were made in connection with the attack.

Some other tweets in support of the girls read: "Hatred of minorities, liberals is an epidemic on Twitter. Law shd be harsh on hatespeak not on democratic rights of 21 year olds!Cheerio" (@sagarikaghose) and "So the girl n frnd got arrested for posting stuff on FB did Shiv sainiks get arrested for destroying the doc's hospital?? #Mumbai #Balasaheb" (@SocoMumbai).

Last month, a businessman from Puducherry was arrested on the charge of posting "offensive" messages on social media targeting Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram.

The following image was also being circulated over the Internet and is said to be the Facebook post that led to the girls' arrest:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ibnlive-news-nov-20-2012-netizens-flay-mumbai-girls-arrest-over-facebook-post

Internet users enraged over US online spying

praskrishna — 2013-07-01T04:10:05Z

India is the fifth most tracked nation by American intelligence agencies.

The article by Maitreyee Boruah was published in the Times of India on June 29, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Have you been posting pictures and messages with gay abandon on your social networking sites or having personal discussions on instant chat or video messaging and thinking that no one other than the intended recipient(s) has access to it? Well, going by the recent revelation that government agencies, and that too from the US, have been spying on our internet usage and collating private information, even the most hardcore security settings for your online data are apparently of no use.

According to former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Edward Snowden's testimony, the US National Security Agency ( NSA) has been using major tech giants to spy on private information of users around the world. And India is the fifth most tracked nation by the US intelligence system. But isn't this a direct infringement on our right to privacy? Or are such measures the need of the hour, given the increasing incidences of terror acts across the world?

What should the Indian government do?

Recently, a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) was filed in the Indian Supreme Court on the issue of the web snooping by the US. The PIL sought the Centre to initiate action against internet companies for sharing information with foreign authorities, which amounts to breach of contract and violation of the right to privacy.

"First, we need to urgently enact a horizontal privacy law, which articulates privacy principles and institutes the office of the privacy commissioner. Second, we need to promote the use of encryption and other privacy-enhancing technologies. The use of foreign internet infrastructure by those in public offices should be banned, except in the case of public dissemination. And last, but not the least, take action against online firms that have access to personal data of users and violate the privacy of Indian citizens through the office of the regulator," suggests Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research organization, Centre for Internet and Society.

Anja Kovacs, project director at the Internet Democracy Project in India, meanwhile, wants the Indian government to assert itself. "The best the Indian government can do is to demand that this kind of snooping does not happen. However, it can't ensure that such episodes won't happen in the future, as there is no enforceable global legal framework to deal with online snooping."

Era of the Big Brother?

Given the lack of legal support, does it mean that internet users have no right to privacy? "We do have a right to privacy. Unfortunately, our right is not respected. By and large, unless they use special tools to protect themselves, internet users do not have any real privacy in many countries, including India," says Anja, adding, "The right to privacy is not explicitly included in the Constitution, and the Privacy Bill continues to be pending. Also, Indian intelligence agencies are not under supervision of the Parliament, which is an important weakness in the accountability system." Echoing Anja, Sunil says, "In India, unfortunately, our right to privacy is not sufficiently protected. Indian laws are not strong enough to safeguard privacy of Internet users."

Anger in the online community

A large number of internet users who we spoke to said they were "shocked" after hearing about the US government's spying mechanism. "The recent revelation of snooping by the US government is a clear case of intrusion into our privacy. It is absolutely illegal," says 24-year-old IT professional Subodh Gupta.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-maitreyee-boruah-june-29-2013-internet-users-enraged-over-us-online-spying

Internet Universality Indicators for a Safe, Secure and Inclusive Cyberspace for Sustainable Development

Admin — 2017-11-25T02:04:54Z

Amber Sinha attended an event organized by UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India in the run-up to the 5th Global Conferene on Cyberspace (GCCS 2017) on November 17, 2017 at UNESCO Conference Room in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

Agenda here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/internet-universality-indicators-for-a-safe-secure-and-inclusive-cyberspace-for-sustainable-development

Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden

praskrishna — 2011-09-08T03:19:35Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, invites you to a public lecture by Caspar Bowden*, the Chief Privacy Adviser of Microsoft’s Worldwide Technology Office, on Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?

Abstract

In 2000, as Director of the independent think-tank, "Foundation for Information Policy Research", Caspar led a campaign to revise several aspects of a new comprehensive UK law governing electronic surveillance ("the RIP Act"). UK legislated in this area many years before most other countries, and the approach was widely criticized although some amendments were achieved. After a hiatus of a decade, many Commonwealth countries are now copying the RIP law (evidently unaware of the original controversies over its defects). Caspar will discuss the legal-technical intricacies of such legislation, the underlying policy dilemmas, the background context of the failed 1990s policy of “key escrow”, and the subsequent privacy catastrophe of blanket retention of the “traffic data” of all of the 500m citizens of the EU.

Caspar Bowden

Caspar Bowden is Microsoft's Worldwide Technology Officer for Privacy, providing advice on technology policy matters concerning privacy in over 40 countries, with particular focus on Europe and regions with horizontal privacy law. His goal is to ensure that users of Microsoft products and services are in control of their personal data and that fair information practices are respected. He is a specialist in data protection policy, privacy enhancing technology research, identity management and authentication.

Earlier he was the director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research and was also an expert adviser to the UK Parliament for the passage of three bills concerning privacy issues, and was co-organizer of the influential Scrambling for Safety public conferences on UK encryption and surveillance policy. His previous career over two decades ranged from investment banking (proprietary trading risk-management for option arbitrage), to software engineering (graphics engines and cryptography), including work for Goldman Sachs, Microsoft Consulting Services, Acorn, Research Machines, and IBM.

Who should attend?

This public talk aims to engage in a dialogue with anybody interested in questions of technology, surveillance, policy and the politics of Internet based governance. Students, research scholars, academics, practitioners, those in the business of technology development, design and study, are invited to attend the lecture that approaches the issue from different angles of technology, society and politics.

Entry: Free; Limited Seating

Registration recommended: prasad@cis-india.org

For additional info click here [PDF, 521 kb]

* Caspar is speaking in his private capacity and his remarks do not necessarily reflect any official Microsoft position

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture

Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy

akriti — 2019-04-01T16:38:54Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and the University of Munich (LMU), Germany are jointly organizing an international symposium at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on April 5, 2019

Click to download the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy

Internet Shutdowns: A Modern-day Siege

Ayswarya Murthy — 2017-12-19T16:29:41Z

Strap: Technology activists, lawyers, politicians and NGOs weigh in on the spate of internet shutdowns in India in 2017.

Bangalore, Karnataka: For thousands of years, military sieges have been an effective means of depriving a population into submission. Attackers would surround the fort or city and simply wait for the food to run out. In today’s connected age, you can mount a successful siege remotely with a single signed order that can shut down the internet and practically bring life to a standstill.

So, it’s not surprising that inter-governmental organisations and NGOs around the world are starting to promote the idea that access to internet is a fundamental right, and watchdogs declare any deliberate interference to this access to be a violation of human rights. “In today’s modern digital world, shutting down mobile and internet networks is a drastic action that infringes on everyone’s rights and is inherently disproportionate. Internet shutdowns cut off everyone’s ability to speak and access information, regardless of whether they have done anything wrong. Considering the broad harm to rights that shutdowns can cause, government officials should certainly take them more seriously as a human rights violation,” says Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher at Human Rights Watch.

But in India, there is no legal recourse yet against such decisions. In 2015, a Public Interest Litigation filed in the Gujarat High Court against a week-long internet shutdown was dismissed (as was a Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2016 challenging this decision). In fact, tech entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekar attributes the dramatic increase in the number of internet blocks in 2017, which has doubled since last year, to this ruling. “This dramatic increase in the number of internet blocks can be attributed to the Supreme Court ruling in February 2016 which upheld the right of districts and states to ban mobile internet services for maintaining law and order .”

Typically, mobile internet bans were enforced under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which can prohibit assembly of more than four people and is usually invoked by a district magistrate. “Indeed, mobs come together due to the spread of misinformation over internet services such as Facebook and WhatsApp,” says Chandrasekar. “However, internet shutdowns also disabled authentic news organisations who can dispel such misinformation. I have argued that governments and administrations do have the right to shut down internet or take down content consistent with the Constitution’s Article 19 guarantee of fundamental right to free speech being subject to reasonable restrictions. So, the debate is not whether the government has a right to temporarily shut down the internet or not, but does the government or administration use this right reasonably and with clear guidelines,” he warns.

Enter the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency of Public Safety) Rules that were released in August. The primary concern of tech activists is that these ‘Suspension Rules’ set a dangerous precedent because they legalise internet shutdowns where ideally there should be none. But these rules also received a wary welcome.

"Use of an archaic law like Section 144 of CrPC for shutting down the internet is not justified. The new rules seem to have been hastily put together without much forethought," according to Prasanth Sugathan, legal director at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). “There is no transparency on how these rules were drafted as there was no consultation with the stakeholders. These rules are not conducive to ensuring the right to internet access of citizens which is essential for the success of initiatives like Digital India. As regulations go, these aren’t particularly robust, giving central and state governments the power to shut down telecom services, without having to cite further reasoning than “public safety” and “national security”. In fact, the rules don’t even specify a maximum duration after which services must be restored."

Calling the whole deal shoddy, Sugathan says it seems like they were put out just to subvert the illegality of Internet shutdowns.

Chandrasekar also feels the process should have been more consultation-driven. “The rules can and must be improved to remove adhocism and arbitrary use. As I say repeatedly, these kinds of government policies run the real risk of straying from the reasonable restrictions acceptable to our Constitution to an infringement of the Right to Expression. Governments, especially political leadership, should be careful that bureaucratic lack of imagination or paranoia or simply laziness doesn’t cause that crossover from right to wrong.”

According to SFLC, which has been tracking internet shutdowns in the country over the past five years, authorities in India have shut down networks 60 times just in 2017, spelling a staggering cost to the economy beyond the incalculable harm to human rights. Brookings estimated that the 22 network shutdowns in India from 2015-2016 cost the country’s economy $968 million. It’s baffling that while the government is pushing citizens to embrace ‘Digital India’ on one hand, they are concurrently pulling the rug from underneath these same users with these total and partial internet shutdowns. “From the perspective of promoting India’s digital economy, if people learn they cannot rely on their mobile phone service because of arbitrary disruptions, they are less likely to adopt digital technologies. If the Indian government truly wants to be a global leader in the digital age, it should cease all arbitrary and overbroad restrictions on internet access,” says Wong.

Osama Manzer, founder of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), has an ever-expanding roster of people who were keenly affected by the shutdowns in their regions, irrespective of whether it last three days or three months. “One of the biggest impacts is that residents must live with is that their access to basic services becomes very limited. In Darjeeling, many state government employees were not paid their salaries because the banking system is online and centralised. The livelihood of sim card sellers and recharge shop owners, internet cafes and mom-and-pop shops that offer printing, scanning, online form filling services took a huge hit. It is especially detrimental to them since they rely on daily sales for their income,” he says.

While the economic impact of internet shutdowns has been documented, the social and psychological impact is just as crucial to investigate, says Manzer, especially in cases where these shutdowns are frequent and long term. DEF is in the final stages of releasing a report based on such a research. “We've found through our research that when shutdowns are ordered for a few days, residents can reason it out and some even find justifications for it. They may say the security and safety circumstances warranted it. But prolonged shutdowns have an acute negative impact on residents psychologically. Residents of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and J&K feel the impact of internet shutdowns acutely. They feel doubly isolated from the rest of the country and their faith in the government erodes. People we've interviewed have said they feel helpless and panicked. Some interviewees in Kashmir went so far as to question the democratic process and their right to it.”

Ayswarya Murthy is a Bangalore-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdowns-a-modern-day-siege

Internet Shutdowns in 2016

japreet — 2017-04-28T13:50:09Z

An internet shutdown is an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information.

Download the report: PDF

There is no consolidated research on internet shutdowns worldwide and government policies relating to this phenomenon. Access, however, has been tracking instances of internet shutdowns here. According to this tracker, there were 56 internet shutdowns worldwide in 2016.

In this report, we have identified countries where shutdowns took place more than once in the past one year. We were able to identify these countries from the tracker that is being operated by Access. We have looked at the internet shutdown practices and government policies on shutdowns in these countries. The countries include Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey and Uganda.

We have greatly relied on media coverage of internet shutdowns in the aforementioned countries and reports by various organisations including Freedom House, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Article 19, Access, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Brookings Institution, Annenberg School of Communication, OSCE, Centre for Communication Governance, OONI and Dyn documenting and/or analysing internet censorship in these countries.

While documenting internet shutdown practices in the countries identified above, we have looked at the geographical coverage of a shutdown i.e. whether it was carried out nationwide or in specific regions and type of internet services that were restricted i.e. whether access was restricted to the whole internet, mobile internet services or specific messaging services and/or applications. In this regard, we have referred to a report published by the Brookings Institution, Internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion last year that has analysed the economic impact of internet shutdowns. In this report, the author has identified six categories of disruptions: national internet, subnational internet, national mobile internet, subnational mobile internet, national app/service, and subnational app/ service. I have used this classification to understand and document internet shutdown practices in the aforementioned countries.

This report was featured on the website of the Keep Us Online campaign led by the Internet Freedom Foundation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdowns-in-2016

Internet Shutdown Stories

ambika — 2019-09-03T09:57:40Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) has published a collection of stories of the impact of internet shutdowns on people's lives in the country. This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. This is a project funded by Facebook and MacArthur Foundation, and the stories were provided by 101 Reporters. Case studies from the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Uttar Pradesh have been highlighted in this compilation.

Read the report here: Download (PDF)

The report is shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

Edited by Debasmita Haldar, Ambika Tandon, and Swaraj Barooah

Print Design by Saumyaa Naidu

Advisor: Nikhil Pahwa, Founder and Editor at MediaNama

Foreword

Aside from the waves of innovation that the digital revolution brought with it, the ever increasing pervasiveness of the internet has had a tremendous impact on empowerment and freedoms in society. We are seeing unprecedented levels of access to information, along with a democratization of the means of creation, production and dissemination of information to anyone with an internet connection. This in turn has greatly amplified, and in many cases even created the ability, particularly for those traditionally left in the margins, to more meaningfully participate in their global as well as local societies. Recognising the significance of the internet to the freedom of expression as well as for the development and exercising of human rights more broadly, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously passed a resolution confirming internet access being a fundamental human right.

Simultaneously however, we are seeing Indian states discover and experiment with their power to clamp down on these new modes of communication for a variety of reasons, ranging from the ill-intentioned to the ill-informed. An internet shutdown tracker maintained by the Software Freedom Law Centre, shows that the number of shutdowns in India is increasing every year, with 70 shutdowns reported in 2017,and 45 shutdowns already reported from 1st Jan, 2018 to 4th May, 2018. These shutdowns also come at a significant economic cost. A 2016 Brookings report estimates that India faced a loss of about $968 million due to internet shutdowns. However, the democratic harms we have been accruing are more difficult to quantify and demonstrate.

This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. From Jammu and Kashmir to Telangana, from Gujarat to Nagaland, we have collected 30 stories from across the country for an up-close look at how the everyday lives of common citizens have been impacted by internet shutdowns and website blocks. From CRPF members posted in Srinagar who use the internet to connect with their family, to students who have been cut off from education resources for competitive exams; from the disruptions in day to day life brought about by non-functional bank services in Darjeeling, to stock brokers in Ahmedabad who faced costly slowdowns; the idea of a Digital India is facing severe setbacks with these continuously increasing internet shutdowns.

When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. The diversity of perspectives and activities that a healthy democracy demands is not met by the versioning of dominant narratives, but by allowing for, if not directly encouraging, the voices and activities of the unheard, oppressed and marginalised. We hope that in the telling of these personal stories of the day-to-day of people affected by such internet shutdowns, this book joins in the effort to position the dehumanized internet kill switches more aptly as dangers to democracy.

Sunil Abraham
Executive Director
The Centre for Internet and Society

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdown-stories

Internet services not to be affected as DNS servers undergo update

Admin — 2018-10-16T14:28:20Z

Internet services across the country are unlikely to be impacted over the next 48 hours even as the Domain Name System (DNS) servers undergo a security update coordinated by global regulator, Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The article by an HT correspondent was published in the Hindustan Times on October 12, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

“ICANN, the global certifying authority for DNS security, had taken a decision a year back to change the Trust Key. All ISPs were notified to update their configuration to the new key. Accordingly, the Internet Service Providers (ISP) have confirmed that they have already updated their DNS servers with the new key and the country does not carry any risk of impact on Internet services,” said National Cyber Security Coordinator Gulshan Rai in a statement on Friday. DNS servers are like the phone book for the Internet which translates human-friendly computer labels into their respective IP addresses. If the DNS servers become inactive, it will be impossible for users to access different websites in the absence of this translation.

The ICANN’s ongoing maintenance work over the next two days is to change the cryptographic key that helps protect DNS. This has been necessitated to counter the rising incidents of cyber attacks, ICANN said.

Rai had held a meeting with all ISPs in this regard on September 5. During which ISPs said that they had taken all necessary steps to update their systems in order to avoid any inconvenience to their users. Rai reviewed the situation again on Friday.

Sunil Abraham, founder, Centre for Internet and Society, said, “This security update is the responsibility of the management and network administrators at ISPs and telcos. Only time will tell what percentage of people have done their job. Its very likely that this number is very small, in case of people who haven’t updated their servers,” he explained.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-october-12-2018-internet-services-not-to-be-affected-as-dns-servers-undergo-update

Internet sceptic? Go get a life

radha — 2011-04-02T14:49:11Z

Fifty years down the line, generations will laugh off the paranoia about the Internet - an article by Nishant Shah in the magazine Down To Earth

If there is one thing the Internet can claim uniqueness for, it will be for the fact that never in human history has a technology been charged so much with being the object of obsessions, compulsions or psychological disorders. We have never really heard of a print addict. We do have bibliophiles and cultural gurus. The camera has been duly appointed the most effective form of preserving memories. Its presence at all occasions, or even in the ordinarily mundane, has been accepted as a protocol. Photographers might spend days in dark rooms and morphing memories for posterity but we haven’t yet heard of a camera addict who needs a rehab.

How does the Internet, then, achieve this dubious status of being heralded for generating the Internet Addiction Disorder? The term, coined as a hoax by Ivan Goldberg as a satirical comment on the easy ‘disorder-isation’ of practices by contemporary psychiatry, has unfortunately ended up becoming what it critiqued: pointless, devoid of meaning, and backed by questionable research and studies by groups with vested interests.

What is the Internet Addiction Disorder? The first set of answers that list physiological descriptions such as dry eyes, carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injury shall be summarily dismissed because these are not specific to the Internet. They are associated with lifestyles, postures and lack of awareness among the users about their physical engagements with technology but cannot, in any way, be a part of the psychological disorder under scrutiny.

So, ask the question again. The answers we get are: gambling, watching pornography, inappropriate time spent on social networking and email, chronic dependence for information, shopping beyond limits, excessive gaming and recreation online and neglecting different parts of life, and work. The list continues, but leaves us slightly baffled.

Surely critiques must know people used to gamble—we have made a nation of TV audience watching people gamble their lives, dignity and relationships on the camera—way before the Internet. Are they naive enough to think pornography and adult sex industries were lying low before the Internet came into play? In the increasingly urbanized spaces that we occupy, the need for social networking is inversely proportional to the reduced mobility, time and spaces of social interaction. In such cases, social networking is a tool that fulfils the human need to know we are not alone.

Anybody who is making claims about the Internet leading to excessive shopping is confessing they haven’t been around since plastic money was invented. And if somebody is avoiding responsibilities, it is a problem that will persist with or without the Internet.

The Internet is only a gateway to these and other interesting (and sometimes disturbing) cultural products, trends and fashions. We have never called for banning print as a technology because people use it to publish sexual material. The TV is going strong with celebrities gambling their lives and choosing spouses in front of an audience. Digital cinema and portable media devices have ensured that movies can be seen almost anywhere.

The fact is we depend on technologies of the time. These technologies, like the Internet, offer us possibilities and potentials for expression, cultural production and dissemination, information and communication, and each technology has its own inherent potential for abuse. The anxiety about technology is not new. Carolyn Marvin’s fascinating account, When Old Technologies Were New, shows how the telephone was supposed to make our children more furtive, our women more gossipy, our men more promiscuous and our society more detached and less civil.

The editor of a Philadelphia newspaper in 1894 had cautioned his readers “not to converse by phone with ill persons for fear of contracting contagious diseases.” Ridiculous as it sounds to us who have grown up with universal telephone technology, these concerns were grave and important to the people in those early days of telephones. Fifty years from now, generations are going to look at the contemporary paranoia around Internet addiction in a similar way and wonder what the fuss was all about.

Link to the article in Down to Earth

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-sceptic-go-get-a-life

Internet Rights and Wrongs

pranesh — 2016-09-22T23:36:14Z

With a rise in PIL's for unwarranted censorship, do we need to step back and inspect if it's about time unreasonable trends are checked?

The article was published in India Today on September 1, 2016. The original piece can be read here.

Over the last few weeks, there have been a number of cases of egregious censorship of websites in India. Many people started seeing notices that (incorrectly) gave an impression that they may end up in jail if they visited certain websites. However, these notices weren't an isolated phenomenon, nor one that is new. Worryingly, the higher judiciary has been drawn into these questionable moves to block websites as well.

Since 2011, numerous torrent search engines and communities have been blocked by Indian internet service providers (ISPs). Torrent search engines provide the same functionality for torrents that Google provides for websites. Are copyright infringing materials indexed and made searchable by Google? Yes. Do we shut down Google for this reason? No. However, that is precisely what private entertainment companies have done over the past five years in India. Companies hired by the producers of Tamil movies Singham and 3 managed to get video-sharing websites like Vimeo, Dailymotion and numerous torrent search engines blocked even before the movies released, without showing even a single case of copyright infringement existed on any of them. During the FIFA World Cup, Sony even managed to get Google Docs blocked. In some cases, these entertainment companies have abused 'John Doe' orders (generic orders that allow copyright enforcement against unnamed persons) and have asked ISPs to block websites. The ISPs, instead of ignoring such requests as instances of private censorship, have also complied. In other cases (like Sony's FIFA World Cup case), courts have ordered ISPs to block hundreds of websites without any copyright infringement proven against them. High court judges haven't even developed a coherent theory on whether or how Indian law allows them to block websites for alleged copyright infringement. Still they have gone ahead and blocked.

In 2012, hackers got into Reliance Communications servers and released a list of websites blocked by them. The list contained multiple links that sought to connect Satish Seth-a group MD in Reliance ADA Group-to the 2G scam: a clear case of secretive private censorship by RCom. Further, visiting some of the YouTube links which pertained to Satish Seth showed that they had been removed by YouTube due to dubious copyright infringement complaints filed by Reliance BIG Entertainment. Did the department of telecom, whose licences forbid ISPs from engaging in private censorship, take any action against RCom? No. Earlier this year, Tata Sky filed a complaint against YouTube in the Delhi High Court, noting that there were videos on it that taught people how to tweak their set-top boxes to get around the technological locks that Tata Sky had placed. The Delhi HC ordered YouTube "not to host content that violates any law for the time being in force", presuming that the videos in question did in fact violate Indian law. They cite two sections: Section 65A of the Copyright Act and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act. The first explicitly allows a user to break technological locks of the kind that Tata Sky has placed for dozens of reasons (and allows a person to teach others how to engage in such breaking), whereas the second requires finding of "dishonesty" or "fraud" along with "damage to a computer system, etc", and an intention to violate the law-none of which were found. The court effectively blocked videos on YouTube without any finding of illegality, thus once again siding with censorial corporations.

In 2013, Indore-based lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani filed a PIL in the Supreme Court calling for the government to undertake proactive blocking of all online pornography. Normally, a PIL is only admittable under Article 32 of the Constitution, on the basis of a violation of a fundamental right (which are listed in Part III of our Constitution). Vaswani's petition-which I have had the misfortune of having read carefully-does not at any point complain that the state is violating a fundamental right by not blocking pornography. Yet the petition wants to curb the fundamental right to freedom of expression, since the government is by no means in a position to determine what constitutes illegal pornography and what doesn't.

The larger problem extends to the now-discredited censor board (headed by the notorious Pahlaj Nihalani), as also the self-censorship practised on TV by the private Indian Broadcasters Federation (which even bleeps out words and phrases like 'Jesus', 'period', 'breast cancer' and 'beef'). 'Swachh Bharat' should not mean sanitising all media to be unobjectionable to the person with the lowest outrage threshold. So who will file a PIL against excessive censorship?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-today-september-1-2016-pranesh-prakash-internet-rights-and-wrongs

Internet pour toutes

Isabelle Grégoire — 2019-09-20T15:01:56Z

Ambika Tandon was quoted in Canadian-French magazine L'Actualite, in an article on technology and women in India. In the quote, she explains the core research questions of the FIRN project, which is studying the digital intermediation of domestic work in India.

The article by Isabelle Grégoire was published in L'Actualite on September 11, 2019.

"Are women workers more or less exploited when they are recruited online? Can they evaluate clients and be defended if their rights are not respected? And most importantly, how do employers go about recruiting this workforce that usually does not have access to the Internet?

These are the kinds of questions that Indian researcher Ambika Tandon, a policy officer at the Center for the Internet and Society (CIS), a non-profit organization in Bangalore that conducts interdisciplinary research on the Internet and digital technologies, is trying to answer. To do this, she chose to look at digital platforms that provide housekeeping and home care services - trades mostly done by women.

"The idea is to compare the job opportunities and working conditions offered on these platforms with those of traditional placement agencies," says this graduate from the London School of Economics, and a member of the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) launched this year. Funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in Ottawa, the network brings together researchers (a majority of women) from a dozen countries in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe. It is led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), an international organization, which contributed to the development of the 17 "feminist principles of Internet 2.0". Each of FIRN's eight research projects will be linked to one or other of these principles.

"Our goal is to increase the visibility of these issues in the public space, so that they become part of the discourse," says Namita Aavriti from India, who is co-responsible for setting up projects within the APC, "With special attention to online violence against women, which still needs to be recognized in many countries."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/l-actualite-magazine-isabelle-gregoire-september-11-2019-internet-pour-toutes