We are anonymous, we are legion

Is Facebook tracking your virtual footprints?

praskrishna — 2011-11-24T03:02:00Z

Social media experts claim number of cases of privacy violations against the site has increased in past few months; Facebook rubbishes the allegations. This article by Sheetal Sukhija was published in MidDay on 22 November 2011.

If you thought your online footprints would be erased by merely clicking on the 'delete web history' option and no one would ever know about your virtual movements, think again.

For, some popular social networking sites have been accused of tracking their users' movements on the Internet even when they log out from the sites.

According to reports in the international media, Facebook, the virtual face of around 80 crore people across the globe, is battling a series of legal cases for alleged violating users' privacy worldwide.

While the social media giant has categorically said that they have not misused any user data, internet experts have dubbed the website 'the big brother of new media'.

"Many users claim that when they log onto their accounts, Facebook automatically installs a cookie onto a user's browser, which keeps tracking their movement on the internet.

We believe that Facebook might be using this just to boost their marketing and not to sell this data to any third party," said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre For Internet and Society.

Experts also believe that using such strategies have now made Facebook the world leader when it comes to credible demographic information.

"Facebook has achieved the status of possessing the most accurate demographic information. It is a credible source to understand consumer habits of a single unique user and even user groups. However, using such information is surely a violation of privacy," he added.

Former member of NASSCOM, Pratap Reddy, believes that often people ignore the 'fine print' or the agreement page while creating an account on a social networking site or elsewhere on the net. "When users sign up on these social networking websites, they often ignore the fine print.

When legal cases come up, companies often defend their stance by saying that their agreement page (or privacy policy page) mentioned all such things and make up a leeway for themselves," argued Reddy.

He added, "This is surely a violation, but there is also a positive side to this. Such websites are only trying to facilitate users better, based on their past web history. This helps them put you onto people/issues/topics that you have previously searched - like a mediator," added Reddy.

All about marketing?
Experts argued that this is not for the first time a website is being sued for such an act. In the past, Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Yahoo and other online advertising agencies too have been criticised for using such controversial tracking cookie technology.

According to reports, users from across the world have been taking legal recourse after pointing out that Facebook used cookie technology to track their virtual movements even after they have logged out of the social networking site.

Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic is the latest user to join the growing list of people suing the website for violating federal wiretap laws, reported a UK-based tabloid.

The other side
Defending their stance, Facebook argued in its official statement that they are not tracking users across the web.

Facebook's official stance: Facebook does not track users across the web. Instead, we use cookies on social plugins to personalise content, to help maintain and improve what we do, or for safety and security.

No information we receive when you see a social plugins is used to target ads, we delete or anonymise this information within 90 days, and we never sell your information.

Specific to logged out cookies, they are used for safety and protection. They are used for identifying spammers and phishers, detecting when somebody unauthorised is trying to access your account, helping you get back into your account if you get hacked, disabling registration for a under-age users who try to re-register with a different birth date, powering account security features such as 2nd factor login approvals and notification and identifying shared computers to discourage the use of 'keep me logged in'.

Security tips
Internet security software experts suggest that installing strong anti-virus software would be the first step towards protecting your privacy.

Installing an anti-virus software
Every such software has a social network control option that prompts users when any unsolicited cookie is installed. By using this option, a user holds the right to refuse such installations.

Read the original article published in MidDay here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/facebook-tracking-footprints

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 https://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 https://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 https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/ijlt-cis-lecture-series-report

Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism

yelena — 2013-03-01T05:44:23Z

Tactical Tech and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invite you to the first round of discussions on the intersection of Art and Activism at CIS office in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Film maker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society) are leading the conversations.

The Exposing Data Project

An NGO sets up a database to track elected representatives’ participation in the Parliament, the spending for their constituency, and keeping a track of their political mandates and promises.

A geographer tracks the movements of US Government satellites and visualises their paths to form curious visuals of ‘State secrets’.

A photographer travels to an island in the Pacific Ocean to take pictures of the plastic debris found in the stomach of a Laysan albatross carcass.

Each of these examples is about how data that serves as evidence can be collected and visualised in different formats. The NGO can output its data as infographics, the geographer creates non-cartographic maps and the photographer’s images serve as testimony to increased pollution levels. We live in database times. Never before in human history have we consumed, produced and shared as much data as we do now in bits and bytes through our digital devices, coded as images and graphs and spreadsheets. The power to do so has allowed individuals and communities around the world to expose and reveal things that have been invisibilised and obscured, robbed of language and articulation.

At the same time, the visual immediacy of such data sets and the ability to manipulate it to construct new ways of looking at our reality, often hides the fact that the production and use of data as evidence is not benign or neutral. While data itself claims a certain objective fact value, the politics involved in identifying something as data are subject to strong power confluences.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Tactical Technology Collective, Bangalore, propose the Exposing Data Project as a series of conversations between people working across art, activism, politics, information science, cartography, geography, social sciences, humanities and technology science to share, learn, discuss, debate and explore processes, methods, challenges and implications of what it means to live in a data-rich world.

Art Slash Activism

The first round of discussions will be looking at the intersections of Art and Activism, but without falling into the usual traps of looking at art as the vehicle of activism or activism as a form of art. Hence, instead of Art and Activism, we are looking at Art Slash Activism exploring how data visualisation, data representation, and new forms of data mapping re-articulate what it means to be political.

The event will bring together professionals such as Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Filmmaker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society). Rather than being a seminar to instil practical knowledge, the aim of Art Slash Activism is to engage participants in a curated conversation on the use of data as evidence and its dissemination through visual depiction as a catalyst for change. We are seeking a variety of perspectives when answering questions such as whether data can have a universal reach through visual presentation; how we can utilize various forms of representation to spread awareness; and what happens when information cannot be represented as data.

Art Slash Activism is a multidisciplinary learning experience that will involve members of the art community, open data activists, designers, and others active in the processes of social change in a creative, playful and innovative manner that will result in textual and visual documentation which will serve as a knowledge corpus for researchers and practitioners interested in these questions.

Bio of the Speakers

Zainab Bawa
Zainab is a PhD scholar at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore. Zainab primarily works as an independent researcher on issues of governance, politics, property and how technology is embedded in state-citizen interactions and society. In the course of her work, she is associated with the Centre for Internet and Society and the Centre de Sciences Humaines - New Delhi. Zainab is also a designated partner at HasGeek Media LLP, Bangalore.

Ayisha Abraham
Ayisha Abraham lives and works in Bangalore as an installation artist and short filmmaker. She works at the Srishti School of Art, Design, Technology, as a visual arts consultant and is a member of the BAR1 (Bengaluru Artists Residency).

Stephanie Hankey
CO-founder & executive director, Stephanie has been working to strengthen the use of technology by civil society in the global South since 1998, initially working with the Open Society Institute establishing their Technology Support for Civil Society Program, before co-founding Tactical Tech in 2003. Stephanie has a background in information design, was editor-in-chief of Pulp and worked as a creative director and producer for a number of London-based multimedia companies. She has a Masters in Information and Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art London, and a certificate in Campaigning and Lobbying from NCVO.

Marek Tuszynski
Co-founder & director of programmes & technology, Marek has been working to help advocates use technology since 1995. In the mid-nineties he co-founded the International Network of Contemporary Art Centres and worked with others to create a television programme about independent culture in Poland. He was director of the Stefan Batory Foundation’s Internet programme (Warsaw), sat on the board of Klon/Jawor (a research and infrastructure NGO) and The Second Hand Bank. Marek worked as a consultant to many funding agencies focusing on information and communication strategies for civil society in Central Asia.

Ward Smith
Ward Smith is a librarian who works with academics, activists and artists to design and implement information systems that aid in the development and documentation of their work. He has recently worked with the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the Arts, Computation, Engineering program at UC Irvine, the Southern California Library, the 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference, and rhizome.org.

This event is free and open to everyone. However, we would appreciate a confirmation of attendance ahead of time so as to ensure that your space is reserved. To confirm your attendance please write to: yelena.gyulkhandanyan@gmail.com

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-activism

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 https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-national-policy-information-technology

TRAI urged to take action against P2P throttling and DNS hijacking

Anand Priya Singh — 2012-03-27T06:07:30Z

On 4 November 2010, Anand had sent a complaint letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regarding unethical practices adopted by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), particularly Airtel. The letter was sent by post and through an e-mail. It was addressed to the Advisor, CN & IT, TRAI. Anand got no help from the ISP and the reply from TRAI (No. 340-1\2010-CA/VOLv) stated that he contact the nodal officer. We have reproduced below the complaint letter that Anand sent to TRAI.

The Advisor,
CN & IT, TRAI
New Delhi

Respected Sir,

I wanted to bring to your notice some unethical marketing practices being adopted by Airtel in their broadband market.

ISPs in India, especially Airtel and Tata have recently started to use Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking where they redirect a misspelled or a non-existent website to their own site — where they serve advertisements to make money and these get redirected to Airtel or Tata whenever you connect to the Internet. The reply from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was: "DNS hijacking practice violates the RFC standard for DNS (NXDOMAIN) responses, and can potentially open users to cross-scripting attacks. According to ICANN, the international body responsible for administering top level domain names has published a memorandum highlighting its concerns, affirming that ICANN strongly discourages the use of DNS redirection, wildcards, synthesized responses and any other form of NXDOMAIN substitution in existing Generic Top Level Domains (GTLDs), Country-Code Top Level Domains (CCTLDs) and any other level in the DNS tree for registry-class domain names." See for example, http://goo.gl/lZ2r6 or http://goo.gl/fDLNC

Our ISPs are violating international regulations and exposing the customer to phishing and hacking. Here are their rules: RFC 2308 - Negative Caching of DNS Queries (DNS NCACHE) (rfc2308). See http://goo.gl/QrKLs

I hope TRAI fines Airtel for their unethical practices. Now even toll free customer complaint numbers are no longer toll free. They charge 50 paise per call.

One of the most dangerous things that Airtel and Tata have done is to secretly throttle internet traffic particularly of peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol and not telling the customers, thereby violating the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. In October 2010, Airtel and Tata began using Elitecore's networking bandwidth tool NetVertex to throttle net traffic.

This violates net neutrality principle and could make the internet a cable television system where for different protocols different tariffs would be charged. Please watch this clip on net neutrality.

Since January 2011 Airtel is throttling P2P speeds to 256k from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. If a user has 1\2\4 mbps connection, his\her speeds are being throttled to 256 k. The only legal proof that customers have is the results from this site which tells if your connection is being throttled for specific protocols (for example, http, ftp, torrent, video streaming, email, etc) known as glasnost test.

This forum has many Airtel users complaining about this. For example: http://goo.gl/Utd72, http://goo.gl/uLZdg, http://goo.gl/bfgaE and http://goo.gl/S7lIQ

Sir P2P is controversial as it used to download copyright works but P2P is also used for legitimate files like Linux OS or Legit P2P streaming. Some torrent sites only provide legit torrents, for example,mininova.

In 2006 TRAI had a consultation paper on network neutrality para 3.6.2. In the reply, organisations like Google, Skype and Microsoft recommended that network neutrality be made a law. See the Google letter for network neutrality of August 2010.

In 2011 the TRAI-NGN said that they have not found any ISP violating this but I have been writing to TRAI since October 2010 to warn them about the impending 2 tier internet which is coming to India, page 91.

Like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which fined Comcast ISP in USA $ 16 million for secretly blocking P2P, TRAI should at least codify network neutrality as a simple sentence stating "All internet traffic irrespective of protocols and carrier shall be treated as neutral" and fine Airtel via Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal for violating Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

FCC passed diluted rules and TRAI should not copy FCC. I hope TRAI takes action against illegal secret P2P throttling and DNS hijacking.

Yours respectfully,

Anand

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/p2p-throttling-and-dns-hijacking

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 https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india

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 https://cis-india.org/news/netizen-report

Once Upon A Flash

nishant — 2012-12-14T10:23:52Z

It was a dark and stormy evening. A young man in a dark blue Adidas jacket, collar turned up, eyes under green-black shades, hopped off a motorbike, tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his low-slung retro jeans and surreptitiously made his way through a road thronging with rush-hour traffic and irate pedestrians yelping on their cellphones. He skipped across death traps with skilled ease: leaping over potholes, jumping over halfdug trenches, avoiding the occasional pair of doggy jaws that longed to mate with his ankles, ignoring the bikers who were using the pavements as new lanes for driving towards a honking traffic jam bathed in an orange and red neon that made the road look like a piece of burnt toast with dollops of vicious jam on it.

After five minutes of brisk walking, he slowed down as if he had reached just where he wanted to be – nowhere in particular. On his left were the large Acropolis buildings, towering over the world from their gated existence, structured in pompous Greek columns and facades of granite, stone and marble. On his right, on the other side of the road, if you looked over the metal head of the traffic, you could see the small roadside restaurant that announced fresh fish at cheap rates, sitting cosily under a starved-looking tree, happily encroaching upon the pavement, forcing the pedestrians to disembark, navigate the traffic and then come back to the relative safety of the footpath.

Caught between these two ironies, he stayed put for a while, glancing at his chor bazaar Rado model that flashed on his left wrist. He headed towards the mall that rose in glass and neon, false curves and studious lines across the quickly staining sky of a Saturday evening. As he walked into the mall, the automatic doors that sensed his corporeal presence opened up for him and the girl in a polka-dotted blue-and-red dress threw him the smile that desk attendants save for strangers. The gush of cold airconditioned air and the noises of window shoppers greeted him to ease; mannequins in windows, draped in the latest fashions and various states of undress, winked at him; the smell of freshly brewed coffee came and enveloped him. He headed with ungrim determination towards the round performance area in the mall centre. Like many other hangers-out he too loitered without apparent intent around it, just another boy out on a Saturday evening.

Suddenly his cell phone buzzed. His alarm sounded in loud tones to blend with the Britney Spears playing on the mall sound system. He fished out a bright bumblebee-yellow bandana and tied it to his head. As he did that, the performance area turned into a sea of people wearing varied shades of yellow, blasting their cell phone alarms at full volume till all you could hear was a grating disharmony that would have caused comment on a railway station in India. The phones soon faded and a group of about 70 people formed a human ring, holding hands, their heads swathed in yellow, and sang at the top of their voices the first two stanzas of Hum Honge Kamyaab – the Hindi rendering of the famous song We Shall Overcome. Once the song sank into a bewildered silence, the people in yellow bandanas fell on their knees, raised their hands towards heaven and roared with laughter before quickly pulling off their headgear and dispersing, leaving an empty space and a gawking audience who just had their first dose of a ‘flashmob’ – a group of people who assemble together, suddenly, in a public place, perform an unexpected sets of choreographed actions and disperse without as much as a by your leave or with your leave.

Flashmobs trace their history to the early 18th century industrialisation, when a group of women working in the labour shops[1]in Australia used coded messages to meet and discuss the problems they had in their workplaces. These meetings were organised at random, and the women used the very technologies of production that they engaged with at work on a daily basis to fight the oppression and the injustice of the people at the top. The first modern flashmob, however, is attributed to Bill Wasik, editor of Harper’s Magazine, who, after the first failed attempt (May, 2003), managed to pull a successful flashmob where 200 people swarmed over the mezzanine floor of the Manhattan departmental store Macy’s, pretending to buy a ‘love rug’ for their commune where they supposedly all lived together; they left a bewildered audience and a bemused store staff behind them (3rd June, 2003).

Organise, congregate, act, disperse – that is the anatomy of a flash mob. A polymorphous set of people are brought together through the commonality of subscribing to similar technological interfaces or gadgetry. Random e-mails, short messages (sms) on cell phones, discrete messages embedded in public works of art or media, blogs and wikis have now been successfully used to conjure these tenuous group formations that temporarily transform the space that they arrive at – flash sites – into something that neither the audience they perform to nor the state can comprehend, thus producing that space in a condition of social and physical illegality.

In The Name of Fun

One of the most overarching icons of a globalised economy has been the credit card – virtual money that has changed the way we think of money, capital and transactions. Visa Power, as the advertisement goes, is looked upon as the quintessential rhetoric of economic globalisation, where the power to change and to create is manifested through the processes of consumption. While technology has been heavily implicated in the creation of this new invisible money, it has remained on the background. The swiping of the card – the physical act of buying without ‘paying’ has become such a naturalised event that the technology it adopts or the networks it creates are not very visible... Flash mobs, in their construction, execution and ramifications, foreground technology as one of the most powerful tools of creating new formations of grouping and networking that, through their deliberately devised unintelligibility, transform the spaces they occupy.

This is the story of the first flashmob in India, and how it can be understood through the tropes of illegality, enchantment and transformation. The story starts a little before the flashmob itself. In the year 2000, a shopping mall in Mumbai created a furore amongst the public. It was the first ‘genuine’ shopping mall in India. The first space that claimed mallhood was in Bangalore – Kemp Fort, but it was more a large shopping store rather than a mall. This first all American shopping mall – Crossroads, with its promises of unlimited pleasure and brand-tagged shopping – attracted the largest crowd in its opening week. Everybody wanted to see what the mall was like. Everybody was curious about this space. Everybody wanted to be a part of this exclusive zone that clearly demonstrated that modernity and progress had finally come to us. Then everybody found out that they were not allowed to enter the mall. As the director of the mall pointed out in his interview with The Times of India, (23rd August, 2000), “Crossroads is not meant for everybody".

In those days when cell phones were still a novelty and definitely a curio for the upper classes, and when pagers were still struggling for a mass market, Crossroads passed a stipulation which restricted people not carrying a cell phone or a credit card from entering the mall. If you were still eager to enter the space, you paid extra fees of Rs 50 per head and thus made amends for not carrying a cell phone or a credit card. This was the first time a ‘public’ space made it very clear that the public it was looking for and attempting to effectively create was not “everybody”. The issue was talked about, shouted about, screamed at and criticised by all wings of the media, who passionately analysed this instance of discriminatory practices based on socioeconomics. Later, a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) was filed against the mall; it lost, and had to throw its doors open to “everybody” who had been clamouring to get in ever since they found out they were not allowed to enter.

On 4 October 2003, the mall again came into limelight in a manner it had not accounted for. This time it was initiated by an e-mail. About 5,000 original mailers went off to people all around Mumbai and even beyond the city, asking them to have a look at a new blog for Mumbai flashmobs. The blog posted a form asking for name, e-mail address and mobile number. On 3 October several cell phones rang, asking people who had submitted their details in the form to check their inboxes. The eager participants glided to their accounts to find a mail that agonisingly chalked out the time and space of the meeting venue – a flash site. The information was also sent by sms to all members who had volunteered. And then at exactly 5 pm a group of about a hundred participants entered Crossroads. They screamed at the top of their voices and sold imaginary shares belonging to Reliance India. They performed the garba. In the middle of dancing they all froze. And then without so much as a word, after two minutes of historic histrionics, they opened their umbrellas and dispersed, leaving a trail of bewilderment and confusion, as an audience of over a thousand watched with their jaws on the floor.

This was India’s first recorded flashmob. A large crowd of people who did not know each other, did not have any largely political purpose in mind and did not really intend to extend the flashmob contact into relationships, got together to perform a set of ridiculous actions at Crossroads, thus marking it as the first flash site in India. Ironically, the group that converted the mall into mayhem consisted of whom Anne Balsamo calls the hyperreal people – people whose identities are created by the hypervisual and extra physical aesthetics of the digital technologies that they deploy - who were once the only legitimate owners of the space of that mall. This first flashmob sparked off many others all around the nation – most of them marking out spaces such as multiplexes, shopping malls, gaming parlours, body shops, large commercial roads and shopping complexes as their flashsite.

Bill Wasik, the creator of the first flashmob in Manhattan, in a recent interview,[2] looked upon the flashmob experiment as a study in behavioural psychology of people he called “hipsters” – people who would join ‘new’ or ‘cool’ things for no reason or investment but to be visible in the new trends and social fads. To a large extent, Wasik’s surface analysis seems to hold true. While flashmobs have been used as a political weapon by several groups and activists in many areas of human rights, queer rights, feminism, political democracy, etc., flashmobs fundamentally exist, like pre-Raphaelite art, for a solipsist reason. Bijoy Venugopal, who produced one of the most celebrated accounts of the Crossroads flashmob[3], mentions how it was all about having some “serious fun”. Increasingly, the flashmob organisers in and around the country have disavowed any ideological moorings for the gathering, and forcibly shelve it into the realms of entertainment or leisure. Following the banning of flashmobs in cities like Mumbai and Bangalore (Mid-day, 9th oct. 2003), even though they have invoked the right to freedom of speech and expression, the organisers and the participants have largely produced justifications by claiming to have no political agenda or inclinations in the construction or execution of flashmobs.

In this repeated disavowal of the political, one can read the desire for re-enchantment that flashmobs and mobsters bring with them. Flashsites, defined by the organising of the flashmobs, are usually sites of globalised consumption – an enchanted world of brand names and designer lifestyles that can make you feel as perpetually disoriented as Alice in Wonderland. These sites serve as the symbols of enchantment in the logic of the city.[4] The new urban enchantment and mode of fantasy is located in the circuits of consumerism where, with plastic money and unlimited credit, the consuming citizen can buy all that the heart desires. However, flashmobs, outside these networks of consumption, and constituted by the same people who fit the bill of the citizen as imagined and promoted by the state and the market as they embrace globalisation and its technologies, demand a re-enchantment of the city. They force us to acknowledge the need for such public spaces to be accessible to all, and provide a strong critique of the easily accepted globalised dream in which the state is so heavily investing. Flashmobs become a manifestation of how tenuously networked, fragile communities, their collaboration inspired and enabled by cyberspatial technologies, can contest the very forces that promote and proliferate these technologies. Flashmobs become a site upon which the drama of globalisation, consumption, state and space is discursively and recursively enacted.

In The Name of The Law

That flashmobs are in a condition of illegality is perhaps one of the easiest claims to prove. The very fact that the Mumbai Police, after the first series of flashmobs, invoked Section 37(1) of the Bombay Police Act in the name of security and safety, clearly states how flashmobs are considered outside the law in the most literal sense of the word. The then Mumbai Police Deputy Commissioner of Police, Amitabh Gupta, contacted Rohit Tikmany, organiser of the first flashmob and moderator of the flashmob blogging community (http://www.mumbaimobs.org/), asking him to shut down the site and stop all further attempts at organising flashmobs. Following the ban in Mumbai, cities such as Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Delhi have enacted similar bans within the city limits. These censoring forces look at flashmobs as potentially destabilising elements that can be ‘misused’ for violent acts such as riots and bombings by fundamentalist organisations.

However, of greater interest is the way in which flashmobs manage to reproduce flashsites in conditions of social and physical illegality by creative deliberate structures of transient unintelligibility. The leisure infrastructure of malls and multiplexes, cafes and large shopping complexes, gaming zones and commercial roads of consumption, are all aimed at the new citizenry that comes into being with these new urban economies falling into place. These spaces are not only legitimate spaces of self-expression through consumption, but also authorised spaces of public assembly and gathering. They promote an ethos of incessant consumption where the individual is also installed as a consumable product that relates to others in the processes of consumption. They are the locations where brands, accessories and lifestyles all come together as the figureheads of a sanitised economy which strives to make opaque the surrounding subcultures of piracy, theft, copying and distributing that emerge around such nodal points.[5] To belong to the space of a mall or a shopping complex, one needs to almost automatically endorse the original, the authentic, the expensive, as a way of making a conscious statement of style and lifestyle. These potential flashsites become the spaces that the state legitimises as the most visible and sanitised form of urbanisation in contemporary cities.

However, flashmobs definitely subvert the sanctity or the sanity of such spaces by compelling them to suddenly introject disruptive conditions of unintelligibility. Flashmobs force the other participants of the space to enter into a narrative of confusion and chaos; of turbulence, thus rendering the space of consumption incomprehensible for the short time that the flashmob unfolds. Moreover, flashmobs do not fall under globalisation’s rhetoric of consumption, and do not require any special access powers or consumption rites, thus defying the discriminatory protocols that such spaces put in motion under the uneasily hovering sign “Rights of Admission Reserved”. Flashmobs, by rejecting the very use and expectation of the space, in spite of the heavy surveillance, state opposition and hi-tech policing, are able to distort the formulaic narratives of the space, thus creating alternative structures of resistance, of transformation, of transition. State apparatus gets completely paralysed when faced with such a radical reconfiguring, and thus goes out of its way to put a special ban upon flashmobs in a city where even a small defeat in a cricket match, or various emotional events such a public mourning or celebration, bring together crowds much louder, more aggressive, tenuous and destructive than conventional flashmobs. The transient illegality that flashmobs produce is not only at the level of the law but also at the level of legibility and comprehension.

"What do the mobsters do when they come together for a flashmob?" is a wrong question to ask. While the actions of the mobsters might be bizarre and lacking in meaning, often uninformed by any obvious ideology, flashmobs do produce new modes of signification and networking patterns, unprecedented in modern history. The ephemeral nature of the flashmobs, the improbably pseudonymous identities of the participants, the technologically mediated communication and networking patterns, all hint towards a certain notion of technosociality, where the social world around us is profoundly affected by the technologies that we adopt. In these unexpected eruptions, flashmobs create a new relationship between actors, audience and the spaces that they inhabit, including all the three into the circuits of digital technologies. As a form of radical localised performance, flashmobs offer a way to question the hierarchical intentionality of the spaces that they transform; they embody new ways in which technologies interface with our daily life, producing new forms of technosocial living.

This paper was published in Academia.edu. Click here to read the original. Download the file here. [PDF, 129 kb]

[1].These were probably the precedents to the modern day sweat shops that have characterized Globalisation in the 21st century. The ‘labour shops’ were large stone and concrete buildings which housed workers working around the clock towards incessant production. Women and children were often preferred because they were given lesser wages than men and considered more easily malleable.

[2].The transcript of the interview is available at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/37/features-bemis.php

[3].Venugopal, himself a prolific blogger, blogged about the flashmobs at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/37/features-bemis.php http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/37/features-bemis.php

[4]. Po Bronson, in his spectacular analysis of the Silicon Valley in The Nudist on the Late Shift, talks about how in a post-industrial city, the quantifiable icons of enchantment and progress – large factories, smoke spewing chimneys and huge barricaded stone and iron constructions have given way to small and homelike offices which are almost human and hence negligible. In his search for the new symbols of enchantment, Bronson conjures the figure of the nudist on the late shift – an eccentric double billionaire who works and lives in a cubicle and rides on the crest of the IT boom. In the case of third world countries like India, these symbols might well be these new sites of consumption that have come with globalization.

[5].One of the more exciting facets of digital technologies and globalization has been the debate over property, ownership and theft. Easy duplication of brands and bypassing the traditional circuits of distribution or sale of property have created the glorified figure of the pirate who straddles the worlds of the legal and the illegal, the digital and the physical, the ephemeral and the tactical with great ease. Within the sanctuarised spaces of malls and shopping complexes, these referents to the other world of cheap duplicates and mobile consumables hang uneasily. There is a constant attempt at establishing the original and the legitimate over the fake or copied replicas which are available in the grey markets that emerge around them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/once-a-flash

Learn It Yourself

praskrishna — 2011-12-23T05:01:14Z

The peer-to-peer world of online learning encourages conversations and reciprocal learning, writes Nishant Shah in an article published in the Indian Express on 30 October 2011.

Technologies and learning have always had a close link. In the past, distance learning programmes of higher education through the postal service, remote education programmes using satellite TV and interactive learning projects using information and communication infrastructure, have all been deployed with varied results in promoting literacy and higher education. In the last two decades, the internet has also joined this technology ecology in trying to provide quality and affordable education to remotely located areas through “citizen service centres” envisioned to reach 6,40,000 Indian villages in the future.

These technology-based information outreach programmes expand the ability of traditional formal learning centres like universities, to cater to the needs of those who might not have access to learning resources. This vision of networked education relies on existing systems of centralised syllabus making, teacher-to-student information transfer, grade-based evaluation and accreditation systems, and a degree-centred approach to learning.

I was in New York last week, at an international summit on the future of learning, Mobility Shifts, organised by the New School, where more than 260 speakers from 21 countries discussed the possibility of learning beyond the bounds of the school and university system. Many discussions were around the declining public education system (with huge disinvestment moves from the government), privatisation of education, increasing tuition and fees, and the non-relevance of current education. However, along with this digital expansion of the traditional education system is an emerging trend that challenges the ways in which we understand education and learning – DIY Learning or Do It Yourself Learning.

DIY Learning is a product of the networked condition. It recognises that as more people get onto digital information networks, there is a possibility of producing peer-to-peer learning conditions, which do not have to follow our accepted models of learning and education.

We have seen the rise of various decentralised and democratised knowledge repositories like Wikipedia. The search based algorithms of search engines also take into consideration the idea that knowledge is personal. User generated content sites like eHow.com show that the individual learner is not merely a recipient of information and knowledge. Information seeking spaces like Quora have shown that knowledge-sharing communities can incite new conditions of learning. Our contexts, experiences, everyday practices, aspirations etc. equip us with valuable information, which not only shape how we learn but also what we find relevant to learn for ourselves. DIY Learning picks up on the idea that the infrastructure of education is not necessarily designed towards learning. Learning often happens outside the classrooms, in informal conversations.

Thus DIY Learning offers a new model of learning. It destabilises the established hierarchy of knowledge production and pedagogy and creates an each-one-teach-one model with a twist. Instead of a centralised board of curriculum designer who shape syllabi for the “average” student, you have the possibility of customised, highly individual, interest-based learning curricula where the student is a part of deciding what s/he wants to learn. DIY Learning doesn’t recognise the distinctions between teachers and students, but recognises them as “peers” within a network, encouraging conversations and reciprocal learning rather than information transfer based classroom models. Instead of mass-produced education that caters only to an imagined average, the DIY Learning model recognises that within the same student group, there are different rates and scales of learning, thus offering environments suited to the aptitude of the students.

Within the DIY Learning model, aspects of education, from the design of curriculum and learning methods, to grading and evaluation are geared towards individual preferences and aspirations.

Many people think of DIY Learning as an alternative to mainstream learning processes and structures. However, it is perhaps more fruitful to think of DIY Learning as a way of figuring out the problems that beset our traditional educational system. It allows us to rethink the relationships between learning, education, teaching and technologies. It recalibrates the space of the classroom and reconfigures the role of the teacher and the student.

DIY Learning emphasises that merely building schools and universities is not enough to assure that learning happens. Learning happens through experiences, practice, conversations, internalisations and through making mistakes. DIY Learning offers these possibilities in an education universe that is constantly refusing to take risks, innovate and adapt to the needs of the present. By itself it might not be able to take on the roles and functions of the existing education systems. But it does warn us that we are preparing our students for our pasts rather than their futures. And the time to change is now.

The original story was published in the Indian Express, it can be read here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/learn-yourself

CIS Comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronics

pranesh — 2011-11-01T00:05:32Z

These were the comments submitted by CIS to the request for comments put out by the Department of Information Technology on its draft 'National Policy on Electronics'.

The Department of Information Technology must be commended for taking the initiative to create this policy which aims to reduce India’s dependence on other countries for crucial electronic hardware requirements, and to increase Indian production to such a capacity as to not only serve India’s increasing demand for electronics, but to fulfil foreign demand as well.

We have mainly focused our comments on the implications of the patent regime on this laudable goal.

Technology Transfer

An area that the policy is silent on is technology transfer. In relation to technology, the main bargain embedded in the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of the WTO was the increase in the level of protection offered under patent laws of developing countries in exchange for increased transfer of technological know-how from the developed countries. While India has increased patent protection in accordance with the TRIPS Agreement, there has been no commensurate transfer of technology from countries which are currently hubs of electronics know-how.

One important example is China’s policy on transfer of technology along the whole value chain to enable domestic firms to gain technological expertise.

The Association of American Manufacturing notes, “One of the most potent weapons China has used to move up the value chain is forced technology transfer … It is only through the acquisition (rather than internal development) of sophisticated technologies that Chinese companies have been able to rapidly enter and expand in sophisticated industries ….”

This insistence on technology transfer as a national policy has served China well, and their experience should be incorporated into India’s National Policy on Electronics. This is not to say that India should not internally develop our own technological capabilities, but that the Indian government must use the policy space available to it to ensure that acquisition of technological capabilities happens alongside.

Outflow of Foreign Exchange as Royalties Creating Adverse Balance of Payments

The latest data from the World Bank shows that our balance of payments is increasing adversely at an alarming rate, and has now reached over USD 2.38 billion.

Our royalty and licence fee payments have kept on increasing at an astounding rate.

Table: India’s royalty and licence fees payments (current USD)

1991	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
49,565,208	845,949,436	1,159,824,391	1,528,826,913	1,860,283,808	2,437,500,663

Meanwhile India’s income is gaining slowly and erratically, and in 20100 reached USD 59.6 million.

Table: India’s royalty and licence fees, receipts (current USD)

1991	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
615,525	13,445,053	30,690,000	27,211,957	38,128,141	59,560,687

This bleeds the Indian economy through a very inefficient outflow of capital. Insisting on transfer of technology is an important component in slowing down this trend.

Linking of Value Chain and Preferential Treatment

One important clarification that is needed in the policy (specifically clause IV.1.3) is that “domestically manufactured electronic products” is intended to mean not those products for which the last part of value has been added in India. This way essentially non-Indian products with Indian branding can be seen to be “domestically manufactured electronic products”. The longer the Indian part of the value chain, the more preference it should be given, and holding by Indian companies of essential patent rights (or the availability of greater number of components of the product under royalty-free, FRAND and RAND licences) could be an important criteria. This will also encourage the transfer of technological know-how to Indian firms.

Preferential Treatment

Some may argue that the provision of preferential treatment to domestic manufacturers contravenes the GATT Agreement, however the GATT Agreement itself provides a usable exception in Article 3(8):

Article III: National Treatment on Internal Taxation and Regulation

8 (a) The provisions of this Article shall not apply to laws, regulations or requirements governing the procurement by governmental agencies of products purchased for governmental purposes and not with a view to commercial resale or with a view to use in the production of goods for commercial sale.

(b) The provisions of this Article shall not prevent the payment of subsidies exclusively to domestic producers, including payments to domestic producers derived from the proceeds of internal taxes or charges applied consistently with the provisions of this Article and subsidies effected through governmental purchases of domestic products.

Thus, by crafting any further regulation under this policy to fit within this exception, India would not fall afoul of its obligations under GATT.

Cybersecurity and Source Code

An important aspect of the cybersecurity that is discussed in clause IV.5 is the ability to validate the lack of malicious code in the electronics used in strategically important infrastructure. For this, manufacturers must be required to provide the source code as part of government tenders in strategically important infrastructure.

Distinction between Innovation and Intellectual Property

The Electronic Development Fund must seek to promote innovation, research and development, and commercialization of products, and must be used to strategically acquire patents. Promotion of patents is not an end in itself, unlike promotion of innovation and ensuring that research and development reaches markets through commercialization. Patents are only a means to an end, and may sometimes be strategically useful, and often stand in way of gaining optimal use of technology by markets due to their monopolistic nature. Thus, it is recommended that “promotion of IP” be dropped from this clause, and instead “promotion of strategic acquirement and use of patents” be substituted in its place.

National Electronics Mission

The National Electronics Mission should not only have industry participation but also participation from academia and civil society.

Funding

The issue of funding for the initiatives outlined in this policy must be addressed as well.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-draft-national-policy-on-electronics

India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy

pranesh — 2011-10-31T15:28:04Z

This is the statement made by India at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in which its proposal for the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy was presented.

66th Session of the UN General Assembly

New York. October 26, 2011.

Agenda Item 16: Information and Communications

Technologies for Development (ICT): Global Internet Governance

Statement by India

Mr. Chairman,

We thank the Secretary-General for his report on enhanced cooperation on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, contained in document A/66/77, which provides a useful introduction to the discussions under this agenda item.

As a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and democratic society with an open economy and an abiding culture of pluralism, India emphasizes the importance that we attach to the strengthening of the Internet as a vehicle for openness, democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, diversity, inclusiveness, creativity, free and unhindered access to information and knowledge, global connectivity, innovation and socio-economic growth.

We believe that the governance of such an unprecedented global medium that embodies the values of democracy, pluralism, inclusion, openness and transparency should also be similarly inclusive, democratic, participatory, multilateral and transparent in nature.

Indeed, this was already recognized and mandated by the Tunis Agenda in 2005, as reflected in paragraphs 34, 35, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61 and 69 of the Agenda. Regrettably, in the six long years that have gone by, no substantial initiative has been taken by the global community to give effect to this mandate.

Meanwhile, the internet has grown exponentially in its reach and scope, throwing up several new and rapidly emerging challenges in the area of global internet governance that continue to remain inadequately addressed. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Internet as a rapidly-evolving and inherently global medium, needs quick-footed and timely global solutions and policies, not divergent and fragmented national policies.

The range and criticality of these pressing global digital issues that continue to remain unaddressed, are growing rapidly with each passing day. It is, therefore, urgent and imperative that a multilateral, democratic participative and transparent global policy-making mechanism be urgently instituted, as mandated by the Tunis Agenda under the process of ‘Enhanced Co-operation’, to enable coherent and integrated global policy-making on all aspects of global Internet governance.

Operationalizing the Tunis mandate in this regard should not be viewed as an attempt by governments to “take over” or “regulate and circumscribe” the internet. Indeed, any such misguided attempt would be antithetical not only to the internet, but also to human welfare. As a democratic and open society that has historically welcomed outside influences and believes in openness to all views and ideas and is wedded to free dialogue, pluralism and diversity, India attaches great importance to the preservation of the Internet as an unrestricted, open and free global medium that flourishes through private innovation and individual creativity and serves as a vehicle for open communication, access to culture, knowledge, democratization and development.

India recognizes the role played by various actors and stakeholders in the development and continued enrichment of the internet, and is firmly committed to multi-stakeholderism in internet governance, both at the national and global level. India believes that global internet governance can only be functional, effective and credible if all relevant stake-holders contribute to, and are consulted in, the process.

Bearing in mind the need for a transparent, democratic, and multilateral mechanism that enables all stakeholders to participate in their respective roles, to address the many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by current mechanisms and the need for enhanced cooperation to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, India proposes the establishment of a new institutional mechanism in the United Nations for global internet-related policies, to be called the United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP). The intent behind proposing a multilateral and multi-stakeholder mechanism is not to “control the internet’’ or allow Governments to have the last word in regulating the internet, but to make sure that the Internet is governed not unilaterally, but in an open, democratic, inclusive and participatory manner, with the participation of all stakeholders, so as to evolve universally acceptable, and globally harmonized policies in important areas and pave the way for a credible, constantly evolving, stable and well-functioning Internet that plays its due role in improving the quality of peoples’ lives everywhere.

The CIRP shall be mandated to undertake the following tasks:

Develop and establish international public policies with a view to ensuring coordination and coherence in cross-cutting Internet-related global issues;
Coordinate and oversee the bodies responsible for technical and operational functioning of the Internet, including global standards setting;
Facilitate negotiation of treaties, conventions and agreements on Internet-related public policies;
Address developmental issues related to the internet;
Promote the promotion and protection of all human rights, namely, civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, including the Right to Development;
Undertake arbitration and dispute resolution, where necessary; and,
Crisis management in relation to the Internet.

The main features of CIRP are provided in the annex to this statement. In brief, the CIRP will comprise 50 Member States chosen on the basis of equitable geographical representation, and will meet annually for two working weeks in Geneva. It will ensure the participation of all relevant stakeholders by establishing four Advisory Groups, one each for civil society, the private sector, inter-governmental and international organizations, and the technical and academic community. The Advisory Groups will provide their inputs and recommendations to the CIRP. The meetings of CIRP and the advisory groups will be serviced by the UNCTAD Secretariat that also services the meetings of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development. The Internet Governance Forum will provide inputs to CIRP in the spirit of complementarity between the two. CIRP will report directly to the General Assembly and present recommendations for consideration, adoption and dissemination among all relevant inter-governmental bodies and international organizations. CIRP will be supported by the regular budget of the United Nations; a separate Fund would be set up by drawing from the domain registration fees collected by various bodies, in order to mainly finance the Research Wing to be established by CIRP to support its activities.

Those familiar with the discourse on global internet governance since the beginning of the WSIS process at the turn of the millennium, will recognize that neither the mandated tasks of the CIRP, nor its proposed modalities, are new. The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) set up by the UN Secretary- General had explicitly recognized the institutional gaps in global internet governance and had proposed four institutional models in its report to the UN General Assembly in 2005. The contours of the CIRP, as proposed above, reflect the common elements in the four WGIG institutional models. While the excellent report of the WGIG was much discussed and deliberated in 2005, unfortunately, no concrete follow-up action was taken to give effect to its recommendations on the institutional front. We hope that this anomaly will be redressed at least six years later, with the timely establishment of the CIRP.

In order to operationalize this proposal, India calls for the establishment of an open-ended working group under the Commission on Science and Technology for Development for drawing up the detailed terms of reference for CIRP, with a view to actualizing it within the next 18 months. We are open to the views and suggestions of all Member States, and stand ready to work with other delegations to carry forward this proposal, and thus seek to fill the serious gap in the implementation of the Tunis Agenda, by providing substance and content to the concept of Enhanced Co-operation enshrined in the Tunis Agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

***

Annex

The United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP)

The United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) will have the following features:

Membership: The CIRP will consist of 50 Member States of the United Nations, chosen/elected on the basis of equitable geographical representation. It will provide for equitable representation of all UN Member States, in accordance with established UN principles and practices. It will have a Bureau consisting of one Chair, three Vice-Chairs and a Rapporteur.

Meetings: The CIRP will meet annually for two working weeks in Geneva, preferably in May/June, and convene additional meetings, as and when required. The UNCTAD Secretariat will provide substantive and logistical support to the CIRP by servicing these meetings.

Multi-stakeholder participation: Recognizing the need to involve all stakeholders in Global Internet Governance in their respective roles, the CIRP shall ensure the participation of all stakeholders recognized in the Tunis Agenda. Four Advisory Groups – one each for Civil Society, the Private Sector, Inter-Governmental and International Organisations, and the Technical and Academic Community - will be established, to assist and advise the CIRP. These Groups would be self-organized, as per agreed principles, to ensure transparency, representativity and inclusiveness. The Advisory Groups will meet annually in Geneva and in conjunction with any additional meetings of the CIRP. Their meetings will be held back-to- back with the meetings of the CIRP, so that they are able to provide their inputs and recommendations in a timely manner, to the CIRP.

Reporting: The CIRP will report directly to the UN General Assembly annually, on its meetings and present recommendations in the areas of policy and implementation for consideration, adoption and dissemination to all relevant inter-governmental bodies and international organizations. .

Research Wing: The Internet is a rapidly-evolving and dynamic medium that throws up urgent and rapidly-evolving challenges that need timely solutions. In order to deal effectively and prudently with these emerging issues in a timely manner, it would be vital to have a well-resourced Research Wing attached to the CIRP to provide ready and comprehensive background material, analysis and inputs to the CIRP, as required.

Links with the IGF: Recognizing the value of the Internet Governance Forum as an open, unique forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on Internet issues, the deliberations in the IGF along with any inputs, background information and analysis it may provide, will be taken as inputs for consideration of the CIRP. An improved and strengthened IGF that can serve as a purposeful body for policy consultations and provide meaningful policy inputs to the CIRP, will ensure a stronger and more effective complementarity between the CIRP and the IGF.

Budget: Like other UN bodies, the CIRP should be supported by the regular budget of the United Nations. In addition, keeping in view its unique multi-stakeholder format for inclusive participation, and the need for a well-resourced Research Wing and regular meetings, a separate Fund should also be set up drawing from the domain registration fees collected by various bodies involved in the technical functioning of the Internet, especially in terms of names and addresses.

***

Excerpts from the Tunis Agenda

Paragraph 34 of the Tunis Agenda defines Internet Governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet”.

Paragraph 35 reaffirms the respective roles of stakeholders as follows: “(a) Policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues”. (b) The private sector has had, and should continue to have, an important role in the development of the Internet, both in the technical an economic fields. (c) Civil society has also played an important role on Internet matters, especially at community level, and should continue to play such a role. (d) Intergovernmental organizations have had, and should continue to have, a facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy issues. (e) International organizations have also had and should continue to have an important role in the development of Internet-related technical standards and relevant policies.”

While delineating the respective roles of stakeholders, Paragraph 56 recognizes the need for an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach by affirming that “The Internet remains a highly dynamic medium and therefore any framework and mechanisms designed to deal with Internet governance should be inclusive and responsive to the exponential growth and fast evolution of the Internet as a common platform for the development of multiple applications”.

Paragraph 58 recognizes “that Internet governance includes more than Internet naming and addressing. It also includes other significant public policy issues such as, inter alia, critical Internet resources, the security and safety of the Internet, and developmental aspects and issues pertaining to the use of the Internet”.

Paragraph 59 further recognizes that “Internet governance includes social, economic and technical issues including affordability, reliability and quality of service”. Paragraph 60 further recognizes that “there are many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by the current mechanisms”.

Paragraph 61 of the Tunis Agenda therefore concludes that “We are convinced that there is a need to initiate, and reinforce, as appropriate, a transparent, democratic, and multilateral process, with the participation of governments, private sector, civil society and international organisations, in their respective roles. This process could envisage creation of a suitable framework or mechanisms, where justified, thus spurring the ongoing and active evolution of the current arrangements in order to synergize the efforts in this regard”.

Paragraph 69 further recognizes “the need for enhanced cooperation in the future, to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities, in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, but not in the day-to-day technical and operational matters, that do not impact on international public policy issues”.

***

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-statement-un-cirp

Analysis of DIT's Response to Second RTI on Website Blocking

pranesh — 2011-12-02T09:26:11Z

In this blog post, Pranesh Prakash briefly analyses the DIT's response to an RTI request on website blocking alongside the most recent edition of Google's Transparency Report, and what it tells us about the online censorship regime in India.

What the DIT's Response Tells Us, and What It Doesn't

We at the Centre for Internet and Society had sent in a right to information request to the Department of Information Technology (DIT) asking for more information about website blocking in India. The response we got from the DIT was illuminating in many ways. The following are the noteworthy points, in brief:

Six government officials, and one politician have so far made requests for 'disabling access' to certain online content under s.69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
68 individual items have been requested to be blocked, those being 64 websites (domain-level blocking), 1 sub-domain, and 3 specific web pages. Seemingly, none of these requests have been accepted.
The data provided by the government seemingly conflicts with the data released by the likes of Google (via its Transparency Report).
India's law enforcement agencies are circumventing the IT Act, the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and ultimately the Constitution, by not following proper procedure for removal of online content.
Either the DIT is not providing us all the relevant information on blocking, or is not following the law.

Conflicting Data on Censorship Requests

The latest Google Transparency Report, released on October 25, 2011, shows that there were 68 written requests (imaginably taking the form of forceful requests/orders) from Indian law enforcement agencies for removal of 358 items from Google's various. If you take the figures since January 2010, it adds up to over 765.

However, the official government statistics show only eight separate requests having been made to the DIT (which, under the IT Act, is the only authority that can order the blocking of online content), adding up to a total of 64 websites (domain-level), 1 sub-domain, and 3 specific web pages. Of these only 3 are for Google's services (2 for Blogger, and 1 for YouTube).

If classified according to presumable reason for seeking of the block, that would be 61 domains hosting adult content; 1 domain (tamil.net.in), 1 sub-domain (ulaginazhagiyamuthalpenn.blogspot.com), and 2 specific pages (video of a speech by Bal Thackeray on YouTube and Wikipedia page for Sukhbir Singh Badal) for political content; 1 for religious content (a blog post titled "Insults against Islam" in Malay); and 1 domain hosting online gambling (betfair.com). It is unclear for why one of the requests was made (topix.net).¹

Content Removal vs. Content Blocking

Section 69A of the IT Act provides the Central Government the power to "direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource". The only person through whom this power can be exercised is the 'Designated Officer' (currently Dr. Gulshan Rai of the DIT), who in turn has to follow the procedure laid down in the rules drafted under s.69A ("Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguard for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009", the 'Blocking Rules').

Because of this, we see everyone from the Secretary of the Public Law and Order Department of Tamil Nadu to the Joint Commissioner of Police of Mumbai and the State President of the Bharatiya Janata Minority Morcha approaching the Designated Officer for blocking of websites.

However, as the data from Google shows, there are many times more requests being sent to remove content. 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. Nothing in the IT Act, nor in the Blocking Rules actually address this issue.²

Thus, there is a possibility that the forcible removal of content is treated separately from blocking 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.³

Role of the Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure

There are existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code that provide the government the power to censor book, pamphlets, and other material on varied grounds, including obscenity, causing of enmity between communities, etc. The police is provided powers to enforce such governmental orders. Section 95 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows the State Government to declare (through an official notification) certain publications which seem to violate the Indian Penal Code as 'forfeited to the Government' and to issue search warrants for the same. After this the police can enforce that notification.

It is clear that this is not the case for any of the content removal requests that were sent to Google.

Police Are Defeating the Constitution and the IT Act

Therefore, it would seem that law enforcement agencies are operating outside the bounds set up under the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, as also the Information Technology Act, when they send requests for removal of content to companies like Google. While a company might comply with it because it appears 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, etc., it would appear that it is not required under the law to do so if the order itself is not legal.

However, anecdotal evidence has it that most companies comply with such 'requests' even when they are not under any legal obligation to do so.

This way the intention of Parliament in enacting s.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.

DIT Either Evasive or Not Following Rules

The DIT did not provide answers on:

Whether any block ordered by the DIT has ever been revoked
On what basis DIT decides which intermediary (web host, ISP, etc.) to send the order of blocking to

It also provided the minutes for only one meeting⁴ of the committee that decides whether to carry out a block, when we had requested for minutes of all the meetings it has ever held. That committee (the Committee for Examination of Requests, constituted under Rule 8(4) of the Blocking Rules) has to consider every single item in every single request forwarded to the Designated Officer, and 68 items were sent to the Designated Officer in 6 requests. Quite clearly something doesn't add up. Either the Committee is not following the Blocking Rules or the DIT is not providing a full reply under the RTI Act.

A request was made to block http://www.topix.net, by the 'Commmissioner, Maharashtra State, Colaba, Mumbai—400001', presumably the Commissioner of State Intelligence Department of Maharashtra, whose office is located in Colaba. ↩
However, the Blocking Rules require the person or the hosting intermediary being contacted for a response. This provides the person/intermediary the opportunity to remove the content voluntarily or to oppose the request for blocking.

"Rule 8. Examination of request: (1) On receipt of request under rule 6, the Designated Officer shall make all reasonable efforts to identify the person or intermediary who has hosted the information or part thereof as well as the computer resource on which such information or part thereof is being hosted and where he is able to identify such person or intermediary and the computer resource hosting the information or part thereof which have been requested to be blocked for public access, he shall issue a notice by way of letters or fax or e-mail signed with electronic signatures to such person or intermediary in control of such computer resource to appear and submit their reply and clarifications if any, before the committee referred to in rule 7, at a specified date and time, which shall not be less than forty-eight hours from the time of receipt of such notice by such person or intermediary." ↩
While it is possible to imagine that the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure lay down limits, it is clear from the Google Transparency Report that the requests from removal are not coming based only on court orders, but from the executive and the police. The police have no powers under the IPC or the CrPC to request removal of content without either a public notification issued by the State Government or a court order. ↩
The minutes of the meeting held on August 24, 2010, on the request for blocking of www.betfair.com were sent as 'Annexure III' of the DIT response. This request was not granted. ↩

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysis-dit-response-2nd-rti-blocking

Text of DIT's Response to Second RTI on Website Blocking

pranesh — 2011-10-28T14:37:34Z

CIS had filed a request under the Right to Information Act with the government, asking a number of questions relating to blocking of content under the IT Act. We have reproduced below the response we got from the government.

Government of India
Ministry of Communications & Information Technology
Department of Information Technology
Electronics Niketan, 6 CGO Complex,
New Delhi-110003

No: 14(12)/2011-ESD
10.6.2011

Shri Pranesh Prakash,
Centre for Internet and Society,
194, 2C Cross, Domlur Stage II,
Bangalore - 560071

Subject: Request for information under RTI Act, 2005.

Sir,
Reference your request dated 13 May 2011, which was received in this office on 18.5.2011 on the above subject.

The information as received from the custodian of information is attached herewith (Annexure-I, II and III).

Yours faithfully,
(A.K.Kaushik)
Additional Director & CPIO
Cyber Laws & E-Security Division
Tel: 011-24364803

Annexure I

Reply to Shri Pranesh Prakash

How many orders have been issued for blocking of computer resources prior to the coming into force of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 (i.e., before October 27, 2009) under the Information Technology Act, 2000, or any other law for the time being in force.

Reply - Five orders were issued for blocking access to web content.

Please provide a list of all the websites for which the DIT has issued blocking orders and the dates on which each website was blocked.

Reply - The following websites have been blocked pursuant to court orders

Sl	Website	Date of issuing direction by designated officer
1.	www.zone-h.org	08.03.2010
2.	http://donotdiall00.webs.com (IP 216.52.115.50)	08.08.2010
3.	www.bloggernews.net/124029	15.11.2010
4.	http://www.google.co.in/#hl=en&source=hp&biw=-1276&bih=843&=dr+babasaheb+ambedkar+wallpaper&aq=4&aqi=gl0&aql=&oq=dr+babas& gs_ rfai=&fp=e791fe993fa412ba	20.12.2010
5.	http://www.cinemahd.net/desktopenhancements/wallpaper/23945-wallpapers-beautiful-girl-wallpaper.html	20.12.2010
6.	http://www.chakpak.com/find/images/kamasutra-hindi-movie	20.12.2010
7.	http://www.submitlink.khatana.net/2010/09/jennifer-stano-is-engaged-to.html	20.12.2010
8.	http://www.result.khatana.net/2010/11/im-no-panty-girl-yana-gupta-wardrobe.html	20.12.2010
9.	http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Hate-Ambedkar/172025102828076	25.02.2011
10.	www.indybay.org	17.03.2011
11.	www.arizona.indymedia.org	17.03.2011

Please provide a list of all the persons to whom such orders were issued.

Reply - The directions were issued to Department of Telecommunications.
Please provide a list of all the requests for blocking of information that have been received by the Designated Officer under the Information Technology (Procedures and Safeguards for Blocking Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 ("Rules").
Please provide a list of all persons/authorities from whom the Designated Officer under the Rules has received requests for blocking of information and the dates these requests were received.

Reply 4 & 5 - The details are given in Annexure-II.
Please provide the files on all the complaints and requests that have been rejected, including file noting.
Please provide the files on all the complaints and requests that have been accepted, including file noting.
Please provide the files on all the complaints and requests that are still being processed (e.g. more information has been sought on the request), including file notings.

Reply 6,7 & 8 - Files are available in section and can be viewed.
Please provide us copies of the minutes of all meetings held by the Committee for Examination of Requests under Rule 8(4) of the Rules.
Please provide copies of all the recommendations of the Committee for Examination of requests under Rule 8(4) of the Rules.

Reply 9 & 10 - Copy of the minutes/recommendation of the meeting of the Committee is at Annexure III.
Please provide us the dates and copies of the minutes of all meetings held by the Review Committee under Rule 14 of the Rules to periodically review the blocked resources.
Please provide us copies of all the findings of the Review Committee.
If the Review Committee has not met, please provide us the reason for the meetings not happenings as per the requirement of Rule 14 of the Rules.

Reply 11, 12 & 13 - This meeting is coordinated by Department of Telecommunications and DIT is not in possession of details.
Does "intermediary" in Rule 13 include intermediaries not located in India?

Reply - Such type of information is not permitted under RTI Act as per DOPT OM No. 1/7/2009 - IR dated 1st June 2009.
Has any block ordered by the DIT ever been revoked by the DIT or any other governmental authority?

Reply - Such questions are not permitted under RTI Act as per DOPT OM No. 1 /7/2009 IR dated 1st June 2009.
On what basis does the DIT decide whether the appropriate intermediary is the person who has put up content, the web host, or the different Internet service providers in India?

Reply - Such type of information is not permitted under RTI Act as per DOPT OM No. 1/7/2009 - IR dated 1st June 2009.
Does Rule 16 of the Rules override the Right to Information Act?

Reply - Such type of information is not admissible under RTI Act as per DOPT OM No. 1/7/2009 - IR dated 1st June 2009.
If the answer to the previous question is yes, please provide any correspondence with any legal officer who provided the DIT advice that it could override the Right to Information Act through delegated legislation.

Reply - Such type of information is not admissible under RTI Act as per DOPT OM No. 1/7/2009 - IR dated 1st June 2009.

Annexure II

Request received by Designated Officer

Website	Date of receipt of request	Request by
www.tamil.net.in	29.03.2010	Secretary Public (Law & Order) Deptt. Secretariat, Chennai 600 009
www.betfair.com	28.06.2010	Sr. Inspector, Cyber Crime Cell, Mumbai
http://www.youtube.com/ch?watv=tHUNESaC0E4	05.07.2010	Jt. Commissioner of Police (Crime), Mumbai
http://ulaginazhagiyamuthalpenn.blogspot.com	21.07.2010	Principal Secretary, IT Department, Chennai–600 009
en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/Sukhbir Singh Badal	11.08.2010	Principal Secretary to Govt. of Punjab, Dept. of IT, Chandigarh
http://www.exbii.com http://www.topix.net	05.10.2010	Commissioner, Maharashtra State, Colaba, Mumbai–400 001
http://ashsyumul.blogspot.com/2009/12/penginaan-terhadap-islam.html	20.08.2010	Shri Haneef Ali, State President, Bharatiya Janata Minority Morcha, Andhra Pradesh
http://www.angelsofindia.com/ http://www.adult-gals.com/ http://www.indianangels.net/ http://www.arabexposed.com/ http://indiamafia.com/ http://www.indianasfuckers.com http://www.indianpronvideos.in/ http://www.peterporntube.com http://www.bollywood-sex.net/ http://www.indianworldsex.com/ http://indianhomevideo.com/ http://indian-pakistani-girls.com http://indianvidz.com http://indianparadise.net/ http://bollywoodscandals.net/ http://indiansexpics.net/ http://www.indian-hardcore-movies.com/ http://www.bollywoodnudesex.net/ http://www.bangmyindianwife.com/ http://www.indian-angel-teens.com/ http://south-indian-sex.com/ http://www.indianseduction.com/ http://www.indiansexuniversity.com http://www.indianpassion.com/ http://fuckmyindianass.com http://indiansexwebcams.com/ http://exoticpics4u.com/ http://www.indianfreesexmovies.com/ http://www.newsindiansexmovies.com/ http://www.peterporn.net/ http://www.3xindianmovies.com/ http://www.amateur-indian-girls.com/ http://www.bollywoodhardcore.net http://www. indiansexpost.com/ http://www.desi-amateurs.com/ http://www.3xasianmovies.com/ http://allindiansex.com/ http://www.indiapornmovies.com http://www.3xindiansex.com/ http://www.indianxclips.com/ http://indiansexvideos.org http://www.pureindianporn.com/ http://indian-porn-sex.com http://www.newsindianpornmovies.com http://juicyindiangirls.com http://www/hardcoreindiansex.net http://bollywoodboobs.com http://indianmovietgp.com/ http://www.365indian.com http://www.indian-sex-hoes.com/ http://www.indian-sex-photos.net/ http://www.indian-free-sex.com/ http://www.indian-sex-movies.org http://ww.tamil-sex-movies.net/ http://www.indianteens.org/ http://www.sexyindianbooty.com http://www.indianposing.com http://www.pornhub.com/ http://www.indianpornhub.com/ http://www.exvideos.com	25.11.2010	Jt.Commissioner of Police (Crime), Mumbai

Annexure III

Minutes of the meeting held on 24-08-2010 for the request for blocking of website www.betfair.com

A meeting of "Committee for examination of request" constituted under the provisions of Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 was held on 24.08.2010 at Electronics Niketan. New Delhi to examine the Request sent by Government of Maharashtra to block the website www.betfair.com. The meeting was participated by the following members:

Dr. Gulshan Rai, Group Coordinator, Department of Information Technology
Shri Dharmendra Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs
Shri Arvind Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
Shri Ashok C. Prakash, Additional L.A., Department of Legal Affairs
Shri B.J. Srinath, Sr. Director, CERT-In

The Committee discussed the case and observed that Govt. of Maharashtra has requested for blocking of website www.betfair.com on the grounds of "public order". The Committee also noted the reply from Cyber Crime Cell, Mumbai that no case has been registered against www.betfair.com. Further, no details suggesting the "impact" of the said site on public order has been made available by the State Government.

Keeping in view the directions of the Hon'ble High Court to dispose the application strictly as per law, the Committee assessed that based on the data/facts/details provided by Government of Maharashtra and Cyber Crime Cell, Mumbai, violation of section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is not being established.

Download a scanned version of the letter received from the DIT office here [PDF, 1.74 MB]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/dit-response-2nd-rti-blocking