Centre for Internet and Society

September 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-10-16T06:28:42Z

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights

Wikisource is one of the trending Wikimedia projects. Many new editors and new books to Indic language Wikisource's get added over a period of time. However, new editors as well as existing editors face numerous problems while working with the content online. The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team, to help the editors, has created a Wikisource Handbook for Indian communities. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook.
Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) participated in the 5th Global Congress on IP and Public Interest held in Washington in a big way. CIS signed on as a supporting member to the Civil Society Proposal for a Treaty on Education and Research Activities.
Sunil Abraham, in an article in the Hindustan Times, explores what leads to fake news. He has revealed that transparency regulations is the need of the hour especially for election campaigns and political advertising.
Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok, Udbhav Tiwari and Arindrajit Basu co-authored a blog post which examines cross-border data sharing. The authors have argued that conventional methods of compelling the presentation of evidence available for investigative agencies often fail when the evidence is not present within the territorial boundaries of the state.
Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok wrote a blog entry on usage of artificial intelligence in governance sector in India. As per research though artificial intelligence has the potential to ameliorate structural inefficiencies in governmental functions, the deployment of this technology across sub-sectors is still on the horizons.
Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu produced a research paper on the implications of artificial intelligence in India in various sectors such as health, banking, manufacturing, and governance sectors.
Artificial Intelligence in many ways is in direct conflict with traditional data protection principles and requirements including consent, purpose limitation, data minimization, retention and deletion, accountability, and transparency. Authors Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha have explained this in a blog entry.
The researchers@work programme has selected 10 essays, based on an open call announced in August, engaging with the thematic of "offline". The abstracts of the selected essays have been published, and the final essays will be published on the upcoming r@w blog.

Articles

India’s post-truth society (Swaraj Paul Barooah; Hindu Businessline; September 7, 2018).
Digital Native: #MemeToo (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 9, 2018).
The Right Words for Love (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 23, 2018).
A trust deficit between advertisers and publishers is leading to fake news (Sunil Abraham; Hindustan Times; September 30, 2018).
Digital Native: Hardly Friends Like That (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 30, 2018).

CIS in the News

Can this curb your addiction? (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; September 5, 2018).
'Why should we talk to Dunzo?' State regulators fume at liquor delivery (Aroon Deep; Medianama; September 7, 2018).
#NAMAprivacy: Data Protection Authority's regulatory and enforcement challenges (Rana; Medianama; September 9, 2018).
'What Security Breach?' The Unchanging Tone of UIDAI's Denials (Karan Saini; The Wire; September 12, 2018).
Haryana Cops Say Internet Shutdowns Hurt Police Operations (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; September 19, 2018).
Find ways to trace origin of messages: Government to WhatsApp (Surabhi Aggarwal; Economic Times; September 20, 2018).
Net nanny meets muscular law (Laxmi Murthy; Himal South Asian; September 26, 2018).
After Supreme Court Setback, Fintech Firms Await Clarity On Aadhaar (Nishant Sharma; Bloomberg Quint; September 27, 2018).

Access to Knowledge

Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Copyright and Patent

Participation in Event

5th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest (Organized by PublicCitizen, Washington College of Law, American University, O'Neill Institute and the American Assembly, Columbia University; Washington D.C.; September 24 - 29, 2018). Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha and Swaraj Paul Barooah were panelists at the event.

Wikipedia

Publication

Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities (Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V.; September 19, 2018).

Blog Entry

Christ (DU) students enrolls for 3rd Wikipedia certificate course (Ananth Subray; September 23, 2018).

Events Organized

Copyright Workshop (CIS; New Delhi; September 1 - 2, 2018).
Meeting on Digitization and Content Donation (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute; Pune; September 6, 2018).
Orientation session on Sanskrit Wikipedia (Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth; Pune; September 6, 2018).
Workshop on FOSS, Unicode & Wikimedia Projects for Publishers, Printers, Designers and Writers (Fergusson College; Pune; September 7, 2018).
Workshop in MKCL regarding Vanbodh Project with TRTI (Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited; Mumbai; September 11, 2018).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Privacy

Research Papers

The Srikrishna Committee Data Protection Bill and Artificial Intelligence in India (Amber Sinha and Elonnai Hickok; September 3, 2018).
AI in India: A Policy Agenda (Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu; September 5, 2018).
Artificial Intelligence in the Governance Sector in India (Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; edited by Amber Sinha, Pranav MB and Vishnu Ramachandran; ecosystem mapping by Shweta Mohandas and Anamika Kundu; September 14, 2018).
Cross-Border Data Sharing and India: A study in Processes, Content and Capacity (Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok, Udbhav Tiwari and Arindrajit Basu; September 27, 2018).

Participation in Events

Online Cogitatum on AI and Ethics in India (Organized by Takshashila; Takshashila Institution; August 27, 2018). Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.
Conference on Data Protection (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; September 4, 2018). Sunil Abraham and Amber Sinha were discussant in the session Disclosures in Privacy Policies: Does Consent Work?
Symposium on Data Privacy and Citizen's Rights (Organized by Tech Law Forum of NALSAR University of Law; Hyderabad; September 9, 2018).
Gender and Privacy: Countering the Patriarchal Gaze (Organized by Privacy International; United Kingdom; September 13 - 14, 2018).
Meeting of Information Systems Security and Biometrics Sectional Committee (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; September 14, 2018).
Forecasting the Implications of the CLOUD Act Around the World (Organized by Global Network Initiative; Russell Senate Office Building, Washington D.C.; September 18, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Networked Economies and Gender Action Learning (Organized by IDRC and facilitated by Gender at Work; Ottawa; September 20 - 21, 2018). Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Ambika Tandon participated in the meeting. Sunil Abraham, Swaraj Paul Barooah and Ambika Tandon also attended a workshop on Gender Action Learning on September 24 - 25, 2018, which discussed strategies to work on gender under a grant for Cyber Policy Centres.
Round Table Discussion on Personal Data Protection Bill (Organized by SFLC; Bengaluru; September 25, 2018). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event and moderated the first session on Data Protection Principles (Rights and Obligations).

Cyber Security

Event Organized

Symposium on India’s Cyber Strategy (India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; August 31, 2018).

Participation in Event

Cyber-Security in the Age of Smart Manufacturing (Organized by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & industry (FICCI) in association with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society, and Government of Karnataka; The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru; September 26, 2018). Arindrajit Basu attended the event.

researchers@work

The researchers@Work (r@w) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

Blog Entry

Essays on 'Offline' - Selected Abstracts (P.P. Sneha; September 6, 2018).
Digital Native: #MemeToo (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 9, 2018).
The Right Words for Love (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 23, 2018).
Digital Native: Hardly Friends Like That (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 30, 2018).

Participation in Event

Plenary Talk at Jyothi Nivas College Research Symposium (Organized by Jyoti Nivas College; Bangalore; September 28, 2018). P.P. Sneha made a presentation on presentation on new reading and writing practices in the digital context.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2018-newsletter

September 2017 Newsletter

Admin — 2017-11-21T15:19:25Z

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
CIS filed a request under the Right to Information Act in March 2016 as part of research for the paper: Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance (July 2017). Rohini Lakshané has captured the developments in a blog post. Last month’s judgment by the nine judge referral bench was an emphatic endorsement of the the constitutional right to privacy. Amber Sinha has dissected the various aspects of the right to privacy as put forth by the nine judge constitutional bench in the Puttaswamy matter. The papers on fundamental right to privacy can be accessed here. With offline as the theme of the third Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC18), CIS has invited teams of two or more members to submit sessions proposals by Sunday, October 22, 2017. The conference is expected to be held in Himachal Pradesh during February 22-24, 2018. The venue and dates will be confirmed soon. Anonymity-based internet apps like Sarahah may not be as vicious for those surrounded by the comfort of social status. If your experience of Sarahah has been positive, it might be good to reflect on your own cultural and social capital, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the Indian Express, dated September 10, 2017.

CIS in the news:

Privacy is now a right in India. Here's what that means for the tech industry (Rishi Iyengar; CNN Tech; August 29, 2017).
Russian social network VKontakte temporarily blocked in India for Blue Whale threat (Kim Arora; The Times of India; September 12, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Pervasive Technologies

RTI request to Indian Patents Office for Form 27 (Statement of Working of patents), March 2016 (Rohini Lakshané; September 9, 2017).
RTI request to Indian Patents Office for Form 27 (Statement of Working of patents), 2015 (Rohini Lakshané; September 9, 2017).

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Participation in Event

Praja - Enhancing Democracy Through Access to Open Data: What Are the Roles of Government and Civil Society? (Organized by Praja; September 8, 2017; New Delhi). Sumandro Chattapadhyay was a speaker.

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Internet Governance
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►Privacy

Blog Entries

Rethinking National Privacy Principles: Evaluating Principles for India's Proposed Data Protection Law (Amber Sinha; September 11, 2017).
The Fundamental Right to Privacy: An Analysis (Amber Sinha; September 27, 2017).

►Big Data

Upcoming Event

Emerging Issues in the Internet of Things (CIS, Bangalore; October 23, 2017). Andrew Rens will give a talk on the research that he is doing at the Internet Governance Lab.

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Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Revamp Telecom Sector & Revive The Economy (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 7, 2017).

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Researchers at Work
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The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Article

Digital native: What’s in a name? Privilege (Indian Express, September 10, 2017).

Announcement

Internet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline - Call for Session (P.P. Sneha; September 20, 2017). Teams of two or more members to submit sessions proposals by Sunday, October 22, 2017.

Blog Entry

The Digital Humanities from Father Busa to Edward Snowden (P.P. Sneha; September 4, 2017).

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About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2017-newsletter

September 2016 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-02-06T12:51:22Z

Welcome to the September 2016 newsletter of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

Thank you for reading the Centre for Internet and Society's September newsletter. The past month was notable for the media presence that various CIS members had. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan continued our work looking at the inaccessibility of everyday electronics with a piece in the Huffington Post about mobile applications and their low usability for persons with disabilities.

Ting-Yi Chang continued her research into the gender gap in Wikipedia, with a series of blog posts looking at the various movements and discoveries she has made about the Indian and the global context.

We are also happy to announce that CIS, in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy, will organize the second Internet Researchers' Conference next year.

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
CIS in partnership with Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy will organize the second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) from March 3 - 5, 2017 at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bengaluru. It is a free and open conference. Sessions must be proposed by teams of two or more members on or before Friday, October 21, 2016. All submitted session proposals will go though an open review process, followed by each team that has proposed a session being invited to select ten sessions of their choice to be included in the Conference agenda. Final sessions will be chosen through these votes, and be announced on January 2, 2017. In an article published in the Huffington Post, Nirmita Narasimhan threw light on the fact that mobile applications which today form an essential part of our lives such as booking cabs, ordering groceries, making payments online, or simply connecting to friends are still excluding millions of people in India particularly the visually impaired who want to use them. Rohini Lakshané has published a methodology to answer the research questions pertaining to working statements of mobile technology patents in India, also known as Form 27, using the granted patents from the landscape. In furtherance to the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2011 editor survey which revealed gender imbalance on online encyclopaedia, Ting-Yi Chang in a blog post series (of three parts) has summarized the movements and discoveries about Wikipedia gender gap on both local (India) and global scales. In an article published in the DNA, Subhashish Panigrahi has explained the concepts of FOSS, Free Software, Open Source, and FLOSS in light of the Software Freedom Day celebrated every year. Pranesh Prakash in a response note to Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) reply to Hans Verghese Mathews' article titled “Flaws in the UIDAI Process” (EPW, March 12, 2016) has noted that UIDAI do not illustrate the extent to which the false positive identification rates is expected to grow—neither in their initial paper, nor in their rebuttal to Mathews—whereas Mathews provides a method of estimating the increase of false positive identification rates. The article by Pranesh was published in the Economic & Political Weekly. CIS made a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Proliferation of Broadband through Public WiFi Networks. Through comments prepared by Sunil Abraham, Sharath Chandra Ram, Vidushi Marda, and Thejaswi Melarkode, CIS pointed out that Wi-Fi, a radio transceiver must be deregulated further to bridge India's digital divide.

CIS in the news:

Talking Point: Futile Battle Against Torrents (Deccan Herald; September 1, 2016)
Despite SC order, thousands booked under scrapped Sec 66A of IT Act (Aloke Tikku; Hindustan Times; September 7, 2016).
The DigiLocker was supposed to cut down paperwork but less than 0.1% of Indians are using it (Mayank Jain; Scroll.in; September 12, 2016).
How does the government track all its legal cases? (Shreeja Sen; Livemint; September 13, 2016).
SpaceX Explosion Slows Facebook & Israeli Efforts To Control Online Content (Kit O' Connell; Mint Press News; September 13, 2016).
India's Aadhaar mandate for smartphone makers may rile global firms (Alnoor Peermohammed; Business Standard; September 14, 2016).
“Made in India” Innovation Policy (Prof. Collen Chien and Prof. Contreras; SpicyIP; September 19, 2016).
Is India Prepared for a Cyber Attack? Suckfly And Other Past Responses Say No (Sushil Kambampati; September 21, 2016).
To embed a tweet or not? (Vidhi Choudhary; Livemint; September 23, 2016).
WhatsApp ruling: Experts seek privacy law (Apurva Venkat and Moulishree Srivastava; Business Standard; September 24, 2016).
When the war’s on WhatsApp (Manju V.; The Times of India; September 25, 2016).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Internet Rights and Wrongs (Pranesh Prakash; India Today; September 1, 2016).
Digital India Needs These Policy Changes (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot; September 1, 2016).
Glaring Errors in UIDAI's Rebuttal (Pranesh Prakash; Economic & Political Weekly; Vol. 51, Issue No. 36; September 3, 2016).
Quarter Life Crisis: The World Wide Web turns 25 this year (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 3, 2016).
Indians Ask: Is Visiting a Torrent Site Really A Crime? (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; September 5, 2016).
Making Telugu Suitable for Internet (Rahmanuddin Shaik; Ammanudi; September 6, 2016).
Where is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Headed? (Anubha Sinha; Spicy IP; September 12, 2016).
Software Freedom Day: The Importance of Free and Open Source Software (Subhashish Panigrahi; DNA; September 17, 2016).
ଆମ ହାତେ ଆମ କୋଡ୍ ଲେଖିବା (Subhashish Panigrahi; Samaja; September 17, 2016).
It's September, and That Means It's Time for Software Freedom Day (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; September 17, 2016).
Who Owns Your Phone? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 18, 2016).
Mobile Apps Are Excluding Millions Of Indians Who Want To Use Them (Nirmita Narasimhan; Huffington Post; September 22, 2016).
Delhi High Court’s Ruling Against Publishers is a Triumph For Knowledge (Anubha Sinha; September 23, 2016).

Jobs

CIS is presently seeking applications for the following positions

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Programme Officer (Communications)
Intern (Pervasive Technologies Project) - Application accepted throughout the year
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Report

September 2016 Report (Suman Dogra; August 31, 2016).

►Copyright and Patent

Blog Entry

Methodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents (Rohini Lakshané; September 14, 2016).

Participation in Events

Workshop on Innovation, Economic Development and IP in India and China (Organised by the Singapore Management University, O.P. Jindal Global University, and Renmin University of China; New Delhi; September 27 - 28, 2016). Anubha Sinha made a presentation on Investigating Limits to Innovation and Peer Production in India's Mobile Apps Economy. Rohini Lakshané made a presentation on Exploring Open Hardware in Mass Produced Mobile Phones.
Law and Economy Policy Conference 2016 (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and Institute of New Economic Thinking; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; September 28 - 30, 2016). Sunil Abraham served as a discussant on the "Towards a privacy framework for India" session of this conference.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

Wikiwomen’s Meetup at St. Agnes College Explores Potentials and Plans of Women Editors in Mangalore, Karnataka (Ting-Yi Chang; September 1, 2016).
A workshop to improve Telugu Wikipedia articles on Nobel laureates (Pavan Santhosh; September 12, 2016).
Another 5 Years: What Have We Learned about the Wikipedia Gender Gap and What Has Been Done? (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3; Ting-Yi Chang; September 18, 2016).
ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ: ଆମ ହାତେ ଆମ କୋଡ଼ ଲେଖିବା (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 18, 2016). The blog post was mirrored in Your Story, Odisha Story and Aajira Odisha on September 17, 2016. The originally published piece can be accessed here.
Campaign for relicensing copyrighted books under Creative Commons licenses (Pavan Santhosh S. & Subhashish Panigrahi; September 20, 2016).

►Openness

Submission

Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 1, 2016).

Participation in Event

Fuel Gilt Conference 2016 (Organized by Fuel Project; New Delhi; September 24 - 25, 2016). Subhashish Panigrahi participated and made a presentation.

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Internet Governance
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►Privacy

Participation in Events

The Future of Privacy in the Age of Big Data (Organized by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom; September 3 - 10, 2016; Berlin and Hamburg). Vanya Rakesh was one of the participants from South Asia.
LITD 17 Committee, Bureau of Indian Standards Meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; September 23, 2016; Bengaluru). Vanya Rakesh attended the meeting.

►Big Data

Participation in Event

Young Scholars' Programme, CPRSouth 2016 (Organized by Communication Policy Research South; September 6 - 7, 2016; Zanzibar). Rohini Lakshané participated in this programme.

►Cyber Security

Participation in Event

CYFY 2016 - The India Conference on Cyber Security and Internet Governance (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; September 28 - 30, 2016; New Delhi). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

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Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Submission

TRAI Consultation on Proliferation of Broadband through Public WiFi Networks (Sunil Abraham, Sharath Chandra Ram, Vidushi Marda, and Thejaswi Melarkode; September 1, 2016). Shyam Ponappa and Arjun Venkatraman provided inputs.

Event Organized

7 Ways to Con/fuse the Internet with Analogy (Intergalactic Mix) - Talk by Surfatial (CIS, Bangalore; September 26, 2016). Surfatial, a trans-local collective that works with text and sound gave a talk about their essay.

Blog Entries

IIRC: Reflections on IRC16 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 6, 2016)
Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Call for Sessions (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 23, 2016).
How Green is the Internet? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Aishwarya Panicker; September 23, 2016).
Mobilizing Online Consensus: Net Neutrality and the India Subreddit (Sujeet George; September 27, 2016).

Participation in Event

Designathon 2016 (Organized by Sequoia India; Bangalore; September 10 - 11, 2016).
Workshop on Center for IT and Society (Organized by IIIT, Delhi; September 17, 2016). Sumandro Chattapadhyay participated in the event.

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2016-newsletter

September 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-11-25T01:55:25Z

We are happy to share with you the ninth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (September 2015). It has been a significant month for public debates on the digital future of governance, citizenship, and economy in India, led by conversations around the draft National Encryption Policy, the Aadhaar number as a basis for provision of welfare services, the investigation of Google for potential abuse of market dominance by the Competition Commission of India, and the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions released by the Indian Patents Office. We were busy engaging with these issues, and more.

The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director

Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India
With great excitement, we are announcing the beginning of an annual conference series titled Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), the first edition of which is to take place in Delhi during February 25-27, 2016 (yet to be confirmed). We invite you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.

Highlights

CIS sent an Open Letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit, requesting him to urge USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. During the month, NVDA team organized training programmes for the visually impaired at Kullu, Bangalore and Ranchi. Nehaa Chaudhari in a blog post laid out a series of research questions, potentially seeking to apply actor-network theory as a research methodology. Recently, the Indian Patents Office released the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (“2015 Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in an attempt to clarify examination of software related patents in India. Anubha Sinha analysed the 2015 Guidelines. Read on to understand how the new guidelines will potentially lead to an increase in software patenting activity by expanding the scope of patentable subject matter – in negation of the legislative intent of section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970. As a part of its content donation initiative, CIS has brought Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence. CIS-A2K has received 74 issues as of now from the Telugu Jaati foundation. Sunil Abraham’s article titled Hits and Misses with the Draft Encryption Policy was published in The Wire on September 26, 2015. Vidushi Marda in a blog post titled Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India analysed the data flow within the UID scheme and highlighted the vulnerabilities at each stage. Vanya Rakesh in a blog post titled Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill has analysed the Human DNA Profiling Bill introduced in 2012 with the provisions of the 2015 Bill. CIS sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in a blog post by Aditya Garg. CIS has submitted a joint proposal with DataMeet and Oorvani for the Knight News Challenge 2015. We are proposing the development of "an application for users to search for locally-relevant data, discuss missing data, demand data, explore and respond to data demands by others, and start data crowd-sourcing exercises." CIS made its submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations to ICANN's CCWG-Accountability. Pranesh Prakash, on behalf of CIS, submitted comments to the Department of Telecom Panel’s report on net neutrality via MyGov. Prakash states that the report displays a far better understanding of the underlying issues than the TRAI consultation paper did, and is overall a good effort at balancing the different sides. Shyam Ponappa’s monthly column titled More on Those Dropped Calls was published by Business Standard.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Updates

September 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; September 30, 2015).

Event Reports

Training in the use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA (Organized by CIS and Lakshay for the Differently Abled; September 29 – 30, 2015; Ranchi). The event was conducted online by Dr. Homiyar over skype, with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.
5 day TOT for Training in Use of eSpeak Kannada with NVDA (Organized by CIS, Mithra Jyoti, Enable India and NFB, Bangalore; September 21 – 25, 2015; Bangalore).
eSpeak Training in Hindi Language (Organized by CIS and National Association for the Blind; Kullu; September 3 – 4, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by CIS; Atmadepam Society; August 22 – 23, 2015). The report was published in the month of September.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Pervasive Technologies

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory (Nehaa Chaudhari; September 5, 2015).
FAQ: CIS Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies (Rohini Lakshané; September 25, 2015).

Other (Copyright and Patent)

Submission

Comments on the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs) (Anubha Sinha; September 21, 2015).

Blog Entries

Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September 2015 (Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari; September 23, 2015).

Participation in Events

National Conference: WTO, FTAs and Investment Treaties: Implications for development policy space (Organized by Focus on the Global South, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), Madhyam, MSF Access Campaign, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO (NWGPL), Public Services International (PSI) – South Asia, South Solidarity Initiative – ActionAid, Third Word Network (TWN), and Forum against FTAs; September 22 – 23, 2015; Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?
IPEX 2015 (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.

Media Coverage

Open letter from CIS to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on his Visit to US (Apoorva Mandhani; LiveLaw; September 23, 2015).

Wikipedia

Blog Entries

CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence (Tanveer Hasan; September 2, 2015).
OCR and OER – update (Subhashish Panigrahi; Open Education Working Group; September 25, 2015).
As Odia Wikipedia turns 13, what happens next? (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015). This was originally published on the Wikimedia Blog on August 21. The post was shared on Wikipedia's official Facebook page, and on Twitter handles [1 and 2].
Google's Optical Character Recognition Software Now Works with All South Asian Languages (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015).
Wikimedia contributor shares his Linux story (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 27, 2015). This article is part of a series called My Linux Story. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: open@opensource.com. Read the original published by Opensource.com on September 3, 2015.

Events Co-organized

Annamaya Library edit-a-thon (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada).
International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 – 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

Unable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret! (Ruby Nanda; Odisha Sun Times; September 28, 2015).

Openness

The advent of the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Open Data

Submission

As one of the general stewards of the process, CIS was invited to take part in the final drafting meeting of the International Open Data Charter held before Con Datos 2015 in Santiago, Chile, but we could not take part in it. Apart from organising two public consultations on the draft Charter in Bengaluru and Delhi, we also submitted our detailed comments on the document. The final version of the Charter document has been launched at the United Nation General Assembly meeting, on September 27.

Free Software

Blog Entry

Software Freedom Pledge (Pranesh Prakash; September 25, 2015).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

Privacy

Article

Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy (Sunil Abraham; The Wire; September 26, 2015).

Blog Entries

Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India (Vidushi Marda; September 3, 2015).
Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill (Vanya Rakesh; September 6, 2015).
Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World: Webinar (Vanya Rakesh; September 26, 2015).

Participation in Event

The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 – 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the Young Scholar Award 2015 to attend the Young Scholar Workshop followed by main CPRSouth2015 conference (Communication Policy Research South) conference.

Free Speech and Expression

Submission

CIS Submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations (Pranesh Prakash; September 13, 2015).

Blog Entries

DIDP Request #11: NETmundial Principles (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
DIDP Request #12: Revenues (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
Peering behind the veil of ICANN’s DIDP (Padmini Baruah; September 21, 2015).

Participation in Event

Asian Regional Consultation on the WSIS+10 Review (Organized by The Internet Democracy Project, Bytes for All, APNIC, the Association for Progressive Communications, ISOC, Global Partners Digital and ICT Watch; September 3 – 5, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event.

IGF

The tenth annual IGF meeting will be held in João Pessoa, Brazil, on November 10 - 13, 2015. IGF's MAG has decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” as the overarching theme. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist for the following workshops:

Understanding and Mitigating Online Hate Speech and Youth Radicalisation (Organized by Council of Europe, Oxford University, OHCHR, Google and ISOC; November 2015).
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in Multi-stakeholder Cooperation (Organized by the United Nations; November 2015).

Cyber Security

Event Organized

Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham gave a talk at this event.

Miscellaneous

Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore (Vanya Rakesh; September 21, 2015).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Submission

Comments on the DoT Panel Report via MyGov (Pranesh Prakash; September 26, 2015).

Op-ed

More on those Dropped Calls (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 2, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; September 3, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Submission

Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 30, 2015). The text of the proposal was prepared by Nisha Thompson of DataMeet, Meera K of Oorvani, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Blog Entries

The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (Divij Joshi; September 9, 2015).
The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (Sailen Routray; September 21, 2015).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Does this click with you? (Parshathy J. Nath; The Hindu; September 1, 2015).
Government may tieup with global police, Interpol to fight child pornography (Surabhi Agarwal; September 3, 2015).
Hiding behind rules on naming sites it banned, govt reveals fears (Harjeet Inder Singh Sahi; September 3, 2015).
Outrage before sharing (Nikhil Verma; The Hindu; September 9, 2015).
Faking a stand (Shweta T. Nanda; The Week; September 20, 2015).
Some Key Words Are Missing (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; September 21, 2015).
Open sesame (The Hindu; September 22, 2015).
India encryption policy draft faces backlash (Moulishree Srivastava; September 22, 2015)
Online outcry forces government to withdraw draft encryption policy (Naina Khedekar; First Post; September 23, 2015).
Encryption policy would have affected emails, operating systems, WiFi (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; September 23, 2015).
Govt presses 'undo' button on draft encryption policy (Business Standard; September 23; 2015).
Huge outcry forces India to backtrack on social media data proposal (Today; September 24, 2015).
Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash (Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar; The Wall Street Journal; September 24, 2015).
Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free Basics (Business Standard; September 26, 2015).
‘By weakening our security, govt is putting us at risk of espionage’ (S. Raghotham and Mayukh Mukherjee; Asian Age; September 27, 2015).
ভারতে পাঁচশোরও বেশি স্টেশনে ফ্রি ওয়াই-ফাই চালু হবে (BBC; September 28, 2015).
Do you agree with our fee hike? Press 1 to answer Yes; or 2 for Yes (Kieren McCarthy; The Register; September 29, 2015).
Indian PM Narendra Modi’s digital dream gets bad reception (Amanda Hodge; September 29, 2015).
What Bengaluru Thinks of the Big Tech Announcements in Silicon Valley (Maya Sharma; NDTV; September 29, 2015).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2015-bulletin

September 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-01-02T01:26:03Z

Welcome you to the ninth issue of the newsletter (September 2014).

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the ninth issue of the newsletter (September 2014). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

Highlights

Nishant Shah was part of a working group writing a white paper on big data and social change, over the last six months. This white paper produced by a group of activists, researchers and data experts was published by Oxford.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies project Maggie Huang interviewed Semiconductor Industry Professionals in Taiwan on the trends and changes in technology and understanding mobile chip manufacturing.

CIS entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Andhra Loyola College for a period of 5 years to enhance Telugu Wikipedia through increased contributions to Wikipedia and make it available under free license.
CIS-A2K signed a memorandum of understanding with Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa to enhance digital literacy in Konkani in the education sector across Goa.
Tejaswini Niranjana and Tanveer Hasan wrote a report on the workshop Developing Digital Open Knowledge Resources in Indian Languages for which CIS-A2K was one of the organizers.

CIS joined the Dynamic Coalition for Platform Responsibility towards creating due diligence recommendations for online platforms.
CIS organized a workshop on an evidence-based framework for intermediary liability at the IGF held in Istanbul on September 3, 2014. Jyoti Panday coordinated the workshop in collaboration with Stanford Centre for Internet & Society.
Elonnai Hickok contributed a thematic chapter on Intermediary Liability and Surveillance in the GISWatch Report.
The Supreme Court of India revised the law on electronic evidence in the case of Anvar v. P. K. Basheer. Bhairav Acharya has done an analysis on this. It was published by Law and Policy in India and subsequently mirrored on our website.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The updated draft is being reviewed by the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

Work Report for September (Suman Dogra; August 31, 2014).

Blog Entry

Study on Budget Allocation and Expenditure by States on Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (Anandhi Viswanathan; September 29, 2014).

Access to Knowledge

Pervasive Technologies

Interviews with Semiconductor Industry Professionals in Taiwan: Trends and Changes in Technology (Maggie Huang; September 26, 2014).
Interviews with Semiconductor Industry Professionals in Taiwan: Understanding Mobile Chip Manufacturing (Maggie Huang; September 30, 2014).

Wikipedia

Event Report

Developing Digital Open Knowledge Resources in Indian Languages (Tejaswini Niranjana and Tanveer Hasan; September 30, 2014). The workshop was organized by Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre, University of Pune (KSPWSC), Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and CIS-A2K.

Blog Entries

NIE Steps in to Grow Konkani Wikipedia (T. Vishnu Vardhan; September 6, 2014).
Expanding the World of Telugu Wikipedia - CIS-A2K and ALC join hands (T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik; September 17, 2014).

The following were published in August and mirrored on our website in September:

OpenGLAM at Wikimania 2014 (Subhashish Panigrahi; OpenGLAM; August 27, 2014).
We are Wikipedia (By Subhashish Panigrahi; Wikimedia Deutschland; August 25, 2014). Wikimedia Deutchland has included a paragraph about WeAreWikipedia on their blog.

Event Organized

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop for Students (Tumkur University; Tumkur; September 27, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop. Fifty people participated in the event.

Event Co-organized

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (Organized by Basaveshwara Science College and CIS-A2K; September 20, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Implementation of IT in Kannada (Prajavani; September 21, 2014).
105 Kannada books released under Creative Commons (Shyam Prasad S; Bangalore Mirror; September 29, 2014).

Participation in Events

State Level Seminar on "Odia alphabet and order teaching in primary education" (Co-organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research and Odia Bhasa Pratisthan, Bhubaneswar; September 14, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event and discussed about the applied aspects of Odia language in the context of primary education and need for reforms in the total number and order in the character-set citing problems with computer and internet.
Publishing Next (Organized by CinnamonTeal Publishing; Goa; September 19 - 20, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan was a panelist at the 5th edition of Publishing Next the annual conference on the future of publishing. He spoke on Open Access, Copyright and Copyleft.

Internet Governance

Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. We have produced the following outputs during the month:

Note: The White Paper below is not a part of the SAFEGUARD project .

White Paper

Big Data and Positive Social Change in the Developing World: A White Paper for Practitioners and Researchers (Nishant Shah; Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute; September 30, 2014). Nishant Shah was part of a group of activists, researchers and data experts in producing this white paper.

Analysis

Anvar v. Basheer and the New (Old) Law of Electronic Evidence (Bhairav Acharya; September 30, 2014).

Announcement

CIS joins the Dynamic Coalition for Platform Responsibility (Jyoti Panday; September 23, 2014).

Blog Entries

The Aadhaar Case (Vipul Kharbanda; September 5, 2014).
UID: A Data Subject's Registration Tale (Mukta Batra; September 11, 2014).
Biometrics: An 'Angootha Chaap' nation? (Mukta Batra; September 19, 2014).
UID and NPR: Towards Common Ground (September 19, 2014): This is an anonymous post.

CIS @ IGF

The ninth Internet Governance Forum ("IGF2014") was hosted by Turkey in Istanbul from September 2 to 5, 2014. A BestBits pre-event, which saw robust discussions on renewal of the IGF mandate, the NETmundial Initiative and other live Internet governance processes, flagged off a week of many meetings and sessions. CIS participated in multiple workshops and panels:

WS112: Implications of post-Snowden Internet localization proposals (Organized by Center for Democracy and Technology, Istanbul, September 2, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this IGF workshop.
WS63: Preserving a universal Internet: Costs of fragmentation (Organized by OECD and Centre for International Governance Innovation; September 3, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this IGF workshop.
WS2 Mobile, Trust and Privacy (Organized by GSM Association; September 4, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.
Transparency reporting as a tool for Internet governance (Organized by Global Network Initiative; September 3, 2014). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
WS149: Aligning ICANN policy with the privacy rights of users (Organized by Yale ISP; September 5, 2014). Pranesh Prakash was a moderator.

Other Participation

Launch of the GISWatch Report (Association for Progressive Communications and the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos). Elonnai Hickok contributed a thematic chapter on Intermediary Liability and Surveillance to this report.

Participation in Events

Re-Wiring Women's Rights Debates in the Digital Age (Organized by IT for Change in partnership with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan and ANANDI; September 13 - 14, 2014). Rohini Lakshane was a speaker.
Workshop on Enabling Information Systems for Local Governance (Organized by Jamia Milla Islamia, Tagore Hall; New Delhi; September 18, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a participant.
National Consultation on Media Law (Organized by Law Commission of India and the National University, Delhi; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; September 27 - 28, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari, Jyoti Panday and Anubha Sinha participated in the event.

Upcoming Event

CPDP 2015 : The eighth international conference on computers, privacy and data protection will be held in Brussels from January 21 to 23, 2015. CIS is a moral supporter of CPDP.

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Fighting battles online (Nikhil Varma; The Hindu; September 2, 2014).
Colonial yoke or bureaucratic insouciance? (Vidya Venkat with additional reporting by K.T. Sangameswaran in Chennai; The Hindu; September 7, 2014).
Social Media Aids Rescue Efforts in Flood-Hit Kashmir (Anjana Pasricha, September 10, 2014).
Google aims to win 40% of India with Android One (Varun Aggarwal; Economic Times; September 11, 2014).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Event Organized

Consultation on New Figures of Learning in the Digital Context (CIS, Bangalore, September 22, 2014). P.P. Sneha wrote a report on the event.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, atsunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director - Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2014-bulletin

September 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-10-24T06:48:33Z

Our newsletter for the month of September 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the ninth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. During this month we signed an MoU with the Goa University to enhance digital literacy in Konkani language, submitted a report on Inclusive Disaster and Emergency Management for persons with disabilities to the National Disaster Management Authority, published an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 based on feedback collected from the Privacy Round Table held on August 24, and published an analysis of the Crucifixion Protests in Paraguay. Further, updates on our upcoming events and media coverage are brought in this newsletter.

Our policies on Ethical Research Guidelines, Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities, Privacy, Terms of Website Use, and Travel can be accessed here.

Accessibility

As part of our project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India with the Hans Foundation, we bring you a new draft chapter on the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 21 states and 4 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for this chapter:

National Resource Kit Chapter

The Andaman and Nicobar Chapter (by CLPR, September 30, 2013).

Reports

Inclusive Disaster and Emergency Management for Persons with Disabilities (by Deepti Samant Raja and Nirmita Narasimhan, September 17, 2013). It was submitted to the National Disaster Management Authority of India (NDMA) on September 17 for their action.
The ICT Opportunity for a Disability-Inclusive Development Framework (by leading international organisations such as G3ict, ITU, Microsoft, UNESCO, et.al.) was released on September 24. CIS gave its inputs to this report.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is working on expanding the Indic language Wikipedia in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation . As part this project, we held seven Wikipedia workshops. Our project on Pervasive Technologies examines the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property and we have produced a column in EuroScientist as part of our efforts of promoting openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software:

Open Access
Column

Open Access: An Opportunity for Scientists around the Globe (by Subbiah Arunachalam, Euro Scientist, September 25, 2013).

Blog Entries

e - DIRAP Google+ Hangout: Open Government (by Christine Apikul, September 18, 2013).
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research Adopts an Open Access Policy (by Nehaa Chaudhari, September 30, 2013).

Wikipedia
Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programmes, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications here.

Announcements

CIS Signs MoU with Goa University: The A2K team at CIS has signed an MoU with the Goa University to digitize the “Konkani Vishwakosh” under the Creative Commons license and build a digital knowledge partnership to enhance digital literacy in Konkani language. See here for more details.

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project: The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the University of Goa invites you to a two-month project on digitization of Konkani Vishwakosh. Please send in your applications by October 5, 2013.

Video

Wikipedians Speak: Piotr Konieczny: This episode brings you a conversation with Piotr Konieczny, a veteran Wikipedian from Poland. He has contributed to over 514 DYK articles on Wikipedia.

Columns and Blog Entries

Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).
ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).
Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K (by Nitika Tandon, September 10, 2013).
Wikipedia reaches Classrooms in Hyderabad (by Syed Muzammiluddin, September 20, 2013).

Events Organised

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mysore (University of Mysore, August 6, 2013): This is a report of the workshop conducted last month. Dr. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Goa, September 28, 2013). Nitika Tandon conducted this workshop. The details will be posted soon.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 3 – 6, 2013).

Events Co-organised

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, September 13, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan participated in this event.
Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh & Building Konkani Wikipedia (organised by CIS-A2K and the University of Goa, Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao, September 26, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and wikipedians John Noronha and Supriya Kankumbikar, September 27, 2013). Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop.
Odisha: Wikipedia workshop at IIMC, Dhenkanal (co-organised by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia community, September 30, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi coordinated the entire event along with members of Odia Wikipedia, Dr Subas Chandra Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar and Sasanka Sekhar Das. This was covered by Odisha Diary (http://bit.ly/1bna9zd), and eOdisha Samachar (http://bit.ly/1aNJvv4).

Events Participated In

Workshop on e-Content Development (organised by Centre for Staff Training and Development, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 4 – 6, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan gave a guest lecture on Open Source to Open Knowledge, Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet, e-Content in Indian languages – History, Challenges and Opportunities, Wikipedia Users to Wikipedia Authors – Exploring Wikipedia as an OER Tool, and e-Content, e-Student, e-Faculty – Reimagining classroom in the digital Age.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire, September 15, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in this workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (organised by St. Aloysius College, AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore, September 13, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in this.

Media Coverage

'Help Konkani Wikipedia come out of incubation' (Deccan Herald, September 13, 2013): The article talks about the relative lack of content in Konkani Wikipedia. “To get it out of incubation, many should write Konkani articles for Wikipedia,” Dr. Pavanaja was quoted as having said.
Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow (The Hindu, September 26, 2013). A coverage of the re-release of the Konkani encyclopaedia under Creative Commons license.
Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26 (The Times of India, September 24, 2013): Goa University and CIS-A2K re-released the four volume 3632 page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) in Goa.
Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia (Navhind Times, September 27, 2013).
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months (The Times of India, September 27, 2013): Goa University becomes the first varsity in India to allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university to be used by internet users. Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided, says Vishnu Vardhan.
Konkani Wikipedia in the making (by Prakash Kamat, The Hindu, September 29, 2013): Goa University re-launched a four-volume Konkani encyclopaedia and will upload it on Wikipedia. The process will be completed in six months times, says Vishnu Vardhan.
For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language (by Joanna Lobo, DNA, September 29, 2013): Konkani has 24 lakh speakers as per the Census Department of India 2001 but online documentation is limited. CIS-A2K wants to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia, says Nitika Tandon.
Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months (by Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013).
Goa University Partners CIS India to Build Konkani Wikipedia (by Apurva Chaudhary, Medianama, September 30, 2013).

Access to Knowledge (Copyright and Pervasive Technologies)

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Event Participated In

The Law and Economics of Copyright Users Rights (organised by the American University Washington College of Law, Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington DC, September 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham presented the Pervasive Technologies project.

Internet Governance

We are doing a project on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS) with Privacy International and IDRC. So far we have organised six privacy round tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you the latest version of the Privacy (Protection) Bill and an analysis of the six privacy round tables. We are also doing a project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and IDRC. We did an interview with Lawrence Liang on privacy and free speech:

SAFEGUARDS Project
Bill

Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013: Updated Third Draft (by Bhairav Acharya, September 30, 2013): CIS has been researching privacy in India since 2010 with the objective of raising public awareness around privacy, completing in depth research, and driving a privacy legislation in India. As part of this work, we drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013. This is the latest version with changes based on feedback from the Privacy Round Table held on August 24.

Event Reports

A Privacy Meeting with the Federal Trade Commission (co-organised by CIS and the Federal Trade Commission, Imperial Hotel, Janpath, New Delhi, September 20, 2013). Elonnai Hickok participated in this meeting.
The National Privacy Roundtable Meetings (by Bhairav Acharya, September 19, 2013). Bhairav provides an analysis of the six round table meetings held in the cities of New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata.

Interview

An Interview with Suresh Ramasubramanian (by Elonnai Hickok, September 6, 2013): Suresh Ramasubramanian from IBM speaks about cyber security and issues in the cloud.

Articles and Blog Entries

India: Privacy in Peril (by Bhairav Acharya, Frontline, July 12, 2013). The article was published in Frontline in July but was mirrored only recently on our website.
Privacy Law Must Fit the Bill (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Chronicle, September 9, 2013).
Transparency Reports — A Glance on What Google and Facebook Tell about Government Data Requests (by Prachi Arya, September 12, 2013).
The National Cyber Security Policy: Not a Real Policy (by Bhairav Acharya, Observer Research Foundation's Cyber Security Monitor Vol. I, Issue.1, August 2013).
The Central Monitoring System: Some Questions to be Raised in Parliament (by Bhairav Acharya, September 19, 2013).
CIS and International Coalition Calls upon Governments to Protect Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, September 25, 2013).
An Analysis of the Cases Filed under Section 46 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for Adjudication in the State of Maharashtra (by Bhairav Acharya, September 30, 2013): This is a brief review of some of the cases related to privacy filed under section 46 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 seeking adjudication for alleged contraventions of the Act in the State of Maharashtra.

Media Coverage

Gmail ban looms for Indian gov't workers (by Beatrice Thomas, Arabian Business.com, September 1, 2013): The article says that government would ban Gmail for official communication in light of cyber spying by the US. Sunil Abraham agrees with the ban.
Indien: Regierung will Nutzung von US-Mailprovidern in Verwaltungen verbieten (Netzpolitik, September 3, 2013). Sunil Abraham was quoted in this German newspaper.
A dangerous trend: social media adds fire to Muzaffarnagar clashes (by Zia Haq, The Hindustan Times, September 9, 2013). The article speaks about censorship in wake of publication of malicious content. In such cases the government has a legitimate reason to censor speech, says Sunil Abraham.
Three Years Later, IPaidABribe.com Pays Off (by Jessica McKenzie, TechPresident, September 23, 2013): The article talks about IPaidABribe.com, an online portal focusing on civic engagement and improving governance. But the real problem in India is “high ticket bribes...at the top of the pyramid,” Sunil Abraham was quoted as having said.
Indian biometric ID plan faces court hurdle (by John Ribeiro, Computer World, September 25, 2013): The article talks about Aadhar (India’s biometric system). The Aadhaar number now allows different agencies including private organizations to collect and exchange data between them, says Pranesh Prakash.

Upcoming Event

Privacy Round Table, New Delhi (co-organised by FICCI, DSCI and CIS, FICCI Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, October 19, 2013).

Event Organised

Public Law and Jurisprudential Issues of Privacy (CIS, Bangalore, September 27, 2013): Abhayraj Naik, a graduate from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and the Yale Law School gave a talk on public law and jurisprudential issues related to privacy.

Events Participated In

Young Scholar Tutorials (organised by Communication Policy Research South, September 3-4, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.
Privacy and Surveillance in India (organised by the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, September 18, 2013). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.
Syllabus: “Policy and regulation conducive to rapid ICT sector growth in Myanmar: An introductory course” (organised by LIRNEasia in collaboration with Myanmar ICT Development Organization, and with support from the Open Society Foundation and the International Development Research Centre of Canada, September 28 – October 5, 2013). Sunil Abraham is supporting Prof. Samarajiva on the last optional day of this course in Yangon.
Congress on Privacy and Surveillance (organised by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, September 30, 2013). Maria Xynou participated in this event.

Cyber Security Project
Video Interview

Part 10: Interview with Lawrence Liang (September 10, 2013): In the ecology of online communication it is crucial for us to look at right to privacy and right to free speech as inseparable.

Forthcoming Events

11th India Knowledge Summit 2013 (organised by ASSOCHAM India, Hotel Shangri-La, New Delhi, October 14-15, 2013). CIS is one of the organisations supporting this event.
CYFY 2013: India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance (organised by Observer Research Foundation and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi, October 14-15, 2013). Sunil Abraham will participate in this event as a speaker.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at www.internet-institute.in.

Modules

International Telecommunication Union (by Snehashish Ghosh and Anirudh Sridhar, September 30, 2013).
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) (by Snehashish Ghosh and Anirudh Sridhar, September 30, 2013).

Telecom

Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

Newspaper Column

Regrouping for Growth - Interest Rates – III (originally published in the Business Standard on September 4, 2013 and mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot on September 6, 2013).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:
Event Report

Bangalore + Sustainability Summit (organized by Ashoka India, Green Lungi and IDEX, September 21, 2013, CIS, Bangalore): Denisse Albornoz has summarised the happenings in this report.

Media Coverage

Youths brainstorm at social summit (The Times of India, September 21, 2013): A coverage of the Bangalore + Sustainability Summit hosted at CIS.

Blog Entry + Video

Revealing Protesters on the Fringe: Crucifixion Protest in Paraguay (by Denisse Albornoz, September 20, 2013): Denisse provides an analysis of the crucifix protest in Paraguay in the light of Nishant Shah’s piece: Whose Change is it Anyway?.

Digital Humanities

Interview

Thinking Digital Beyond Tools: Interview with Dr. Nishant Shah (by Noopur Raval, HASTAC, September 10, 2013): Nishant speaks about his interest in digital studies, the future of humanities, and his HASTAC experience.

Event Participated In

Reclaim Open Learning Symposium (organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, University of California Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine, September 26-27, 2013): Nishant Shah participated in this event as a panelist.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k

Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge

E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2013-bulletin

September 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-30T06:34:19Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage that happened in the month of September 2011.

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organizations and individuals in order to focus on its two year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Five monographs were recently launched at a workshop, Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum held in Ahmedabad from 19 to 22 August 2011.

Re:Wiring Bodies by Asha Achuthan
The Last Cultural Mile by Ashish Rajadhyaksha
Porn: Law, Video, Technology by Namita A Malhotra
Archives and Access by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto
Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities by Pratyush Shankar

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.

Featured Publication

Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? - This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South.

Book Review

Digital (Alter)Natives with a Cause? — Book Review by Maarten van den Berg - The books come in a beautifully designed cassette and are accompanied by a funky yellow package in the shape of a floppy disk containing the booklet ‘D:coding Digital Natives’, a corresponding DVD, and a pack of postcards portraying the evolution of writing - in the sentence ‘I love you’, written with a goose feather in 1734, to the character set ‘i<3u’ entered on a mobile device in 2011, writes Maarten van den Berg. The review was published in "The Broker" on 19 September 2011.

Event Organised

Digital AlterNatives book launch – CIS and Hivos launched this book at the Museum for Communication, Hague on 16 September 2011.

Accessibility

Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.

Event Participated

Stakeholders Meeting of the USOF on Facilitating ICT Access to Persons with Disabilities in Rural Areas, on 7 September 2011. Nirmita Narasimhan made a presentation.

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential, and such access promotes creativity and innovation, and helps bridge the differences between the developing and developed worlds in a positive manner. Towards this end, CIS is campaigning for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-challenged people, advocating against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public-funded knowledge, call for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, question the demonization of 'pirates', and support endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.

New Blog Entries

Copyright Amendment Bill in Parliament by Nirmita Narasimhan, 30 August 2011.
Photocopying the past by Sunil Abraham in the Indian Express, 2 September 2011.
Calling Out the BSA on Its BS by Pranesh Prakash, 9 September 2011.

Internet Governance

Internet technologies have fundamentally questioned the notion of governance, not only at the level of administration but also at the level of mechanisms of control, regulation and shaping of the individual. e-Governance initiatives, in combination with other regimes of surveillance, control and censorship, are redefining what it means to be a citizen, a subject, and an individual. We look at questions of governance — at the micro level of the individual and the private (family, relationships, community structures, etc.) as well as the level of governmentality — at the macro level of nation state, citizenship, market economies, and the public (spaces of consumption, work, leisure, political engagement, etc.) under the umbrella of digital governance.

New Blog Entry

Understanding the Right to Information by Elonnai Hickok, 28 September 2011.

Events Organised

Using the Internet as a Tool for Political Change: Lessons Learned and Way Forward, IGF, Nairobi, 27 September 2011.

Telecom

The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers.

Articles by Shyam Ponappa

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website.

Reviving Growth, published in the Business Standard on 1 September 2011.

Event Organised

Open Spectrum for Development in the Context of the Digital Migration, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011.

Miscellaneous

Film Screening

Screening of Partners in Crime, Vikalp@Smriti Nandan along with CIS screened the film and followed it with a discussion with the director of the film, Paromita Vohra, Smriti Nandan Cultural Centre, 9 September 2011.
Prime Security: The Mathematics of RSA Encryption, a one-day workshop with Rohit Gupta, a leading Mathematician.

News & Media Coverage

India's social media "spring" masks forgotten protests [Alistair Scrutton in Reuters, 25 August 2011].
Social media holds the key to Hazare's campaign success [Alistair Scrutton in NEWS.scotsman.com, 26 August 2011].
Digital divide: Why Irom Sharmila can’t do an Anna [FirstPost.Ideas, 25 August 2011].
When revolutions go viral [Times of India (Crescent Edition), 27 August 2011].
IBSA Seminar on Global Internet Governance, organised by the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, with support from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and the Center for Technology & Society (CTS/FGV) and governmental and non- governmental actors from India, Brazil and South Africa, 1 to 2 September 2011, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.
Copyrights Amendment Bill to Be Tabled in Indian Parliament – Parallel Import provisions have Been Removed [Mike Palmedo in infojustice.org, 5 September 2011]
The Power of Information: New Technologies for Philanthropy and Development [Indigo Trust, 15 September 2011]. Sunil Abraham participated in this event. A video of his speech is now available on YouTube.
Planning Commission, Census 2011 and India Post using social media to understand people's pulse better [Vikas Kumar in the Economic Times, 20 September 2011]
The Impact of Regulation: FOSS and Enterprise, organised by FOSSFA and ICFOSS, IGF, Nairobi, 28 September 2011.
Privacy, Security, and Access to Rights: A Technical and Policy Analyses, organised by Expression Technologies, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011.
Putting Users First: How Can Privacy be Protected in Today’s Complex Mobile Ecosystem?, organised by GSM Association, 29 September 2011.
The Truman Show, in Kerala [Times of India, posted on CIS website on 23 September 2011].
Making a difference, online and offline [LiveMint, 27 September 2011].

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Follow CIS on identi.ca
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin

Separating the 'Symbiotic Twins'

Nitya V — 2019-09-18T14:10:06Z

This post tries to undo the comfortable linking that has come to exist in the ‘radical’ figure of the cyber-queer. And this is so not because of a nostalgic sense of the older ways of performing queerness, or the world of the Internet is fake or unreal in comparison to bodily experience, and ‘real’ politics lies elsewhere. This is so as it is a necessary step towards studying the relationship between technology and sexuality.

Here, I would like to deal with ‘openness’ as an idea that seems to structure discussions on the nature of both the Internet and queerness, in different ways. What does it mean to read an object/phenomenon/practice as signalling the acts of opening? What is opening placed in opposition to? The terms that come together to constitute the field of openness, so to speak, are these – transparency, publicness, privacy, safety, freedom, expression, anonymity (not so paradoxically), communication, virtuality on the one hand and opacity on the other, the closet, danger, morality, prohibition, lack of access and real life.

‘Openness’ is seen as the fundamental principle of the Internet. [1] The ramifications of this statement for Internet studies and by extension for studies on the ‘cyber queer’ or on the implications of Internet technology for alternative sexuality practices are then the concern of this post. What does this idea refer itself to in terms of how we live in the world? It refers to:

communication – the idea that with the Internet, communication has broken free of the temporal, spatial, linguistic and national restrictions imposed by earlier technologies;
space – that space is no longer defined in material terms and the binary or inside/outside and public/private, has been radically recast by the entry into our lives of ‘cyberspace’ and of space thought of in virtual terms;
body – dematerialization, disembodiment, terms that imply that on the Internet, you become an entity of the mind and of a desire that does not need the material body. The implications of this then being that the threat to the body, posed by its circulation in ‘real’ space and time, is now reduced, because that body no longer has as much at stake as the mind does, in the world of virtual technology. It also means release from a body that is encumbered by class difference and the various ‘markers’ of social relations;
decentralization – that the Internet adopts the mode of ‘weaving’, which is seen as a refusal of hierarchisation, the kind imposed by the ways in which information is made available, or production and consumption are managed, the ways in which class, race and gender restrict the ways in which individuals ‘participate’. Weaving then refers to a network system in place of a top-down system.

“The evidence of the trend towards openness is all around. Young people are sharing their lives online via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Google, and whatever comes next. Though that mystifies their elders and appalls self-appointed privacy advocates, the transparent generation gains value from its openness. This is how they find each other, share, and socialize.”[2] (Jeff Jarvis, author of What would Google do?). We are henceforth titled the ‘transparent generation’, and we find the same value in the technology that defines our lives – the Internet. Why we are ‘transparent’ when compared to earlier generations? ‘Transparent’, ‘strawberry’, etc., are all terms that have come to describe the present generation of Internet users, the youth, a category born out of an idea of freedom from both moral and political constraint. In this imagination of them, they use technology in order to gain this freedom, in order to give their minds and bodies, which are straining at the leash, the required escape routes, from institutions (family, school and legal systems), from social relations (class and sexuality), and earlier forms of political identification.

The 90s was seen as the decade of openness, both in terms of new media technology and sexual practice. “With liberalisation sweeping the Indian mindset, more and more people are determined to enjoy the secret thrills sex has to offer. While high-profile executives are being seduced by escort services, the middle-class minds are being titillated by 'parties'. Those who are more discreet go for phone sex or MMS.”[3] What comes across is an idea of a new relationship to the temporal and the spatial, the cultural and the social. And sexuality seems to be central to this relationship. “A sexual revolution is sweeping through the small and big towns of India, and to stay immune to it is a big (t)ask.”[4] This article from The Week tells us how the ‘new sexual’ or the ‘newly sexual’ is described in popular discourse. So much so that the violence of the right-wing groups against women and against ‘obscene’ texts are sometimes explained through this very revolution of/in sex. It is read as a backlash, in a moment that is producing this new relationship, with the help of new media technologies such as the mobile phone, the Internet, the web camera and the ‘things’ that enable this openness. And because it is read as a backlash, the practices of the Hindu right are read as wishing to close, to reverse this process of opening out and to keep things as they used to be. Openness is not just a set of practices; it is read as a mindset, a shift from an older era of being bound within certain social structures. “Earlier only newly married women had the right, indeed were expected, to advertise their sexuality before receding into wall-flowers as respectable married women but today all that has changed….Walk into any college or even a school campus across the country and you have young men and women equating liberation and sexuality” (Patricia Uberoi). The linking of sexuality and liberation or freedom is here crucial, because what is particular to this era is the fact that ‘sexual expression’ is seen an indicator of freedom, whether this freedom is placed against moral or political orthodoxies, or on the other hand posited as Westernisation. Popular discourse reveals us as having arrived at the desire for sexual freedom (whether or not sexual freedom itself).

Queerness, a phenomenon of the 90s in the Indian context, is similarly described as an opening out. ‘Queer’ signifies a stepping out of the binary of heterosexuality/homosexuality, which will no longer encumber the body or the mind. It is a conscious move away from identities like lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, in fact identity in itself is rendered fragmented and cannot emerge from a monolithic location.

“There was excitement and apprehension in the early '90s as an endless diversity of images flowed into private and public spaces…. Sexual speech came under special attention as newscasts, talk shows, sitcoms and a variety of TV shows challenged conventional family values and sexual normativity including monogamy, marriage and heterosexuality” (Shohini Ghosh – “The Closet is Ajar”, in Outlook[6]). Queerness is then linked to this rapid spread, this breathless circulation, this new access. Technological change is inextricably tied to this idea of the closet being ajar. “…the rapid spread of satellite TV and new media technologies continue to transform the cultural practices of the urban middle class.” It seems to be an era in which the boundaries of the sexual norm are being forced to redraw themselves, simply by the massive onslaught of ideas, speech and images. Queer identities are then seen as riding the crest of a wave of sexual revolution that has been washing over India over the past two decades.

These two formations, the Internet and the queer (we have not yet established what kind of formations they are), have been brought together in the term ‘cyber queer’ for the purpose of sociological and other analyses. The Levi’s ad for ‘innerwear’ shows a young black man saying, “On my web profile, I am a girl”. You can be a beer-bellied man in real life and turn into a voluptuous woman in second life. The virtual life, the virtual body and the virtual sex – the Internet is often spoken of as performing two functions for someone practicing alternative sexualities:

that it lets them be ‘other’ than they are (or are forced to be in real life);

by doing this, they are allowed to express their ‘real’ sexual desire or gender in a ‘safer’ space than in real life, thereby allowing for a freeing up or an opening (however, secretively it is done). “Cruising in physical spaces of the city has always been an affair which dangles on the edge of unsafety. Arrests and blackmail by policemen loaded with section 377, or extortion for money are often reported within queer circles. The Gay Bombay website has several articles and personal narratives which function as cruising guidelines and warnings. has several articles and personal narratives which function as cruising guidelines and warnings. In this context, Internet portals like guys4men provide forums which can be used to manoeuvre cruising in a different manner, possibly much safer than in moonlit Nehru or Central Parks in Delhi or train-station loos in Bombay.” (Mario d’Penha, gay activist [7])

Again, the notion of ‘space’ as suddenly emerging from the shadowy realms of ambiguity and secrecy, to stand in for freedom, is something that one often encounters in relation to cyber-queerness. And it is not just physical space which is pulled into this discourse of the technological shift, it is desire itself - “Desire is unabashed, playful and complex here”[8]. Desire, personified thus, is then seen as something set free by and through technological innovation.

Though this notion of sudden freedom is contested by researchers and scholars within the field, the result of that contestation has often been to:

affirm, in place of a single figure of the liberated cyber queer, the multiplicity of behaviours, dangers and freedoms that are generated. This is a little like affirming, in place of a single body called the public, several bodies that are termed multiple publics, or subaltern publics. The problem with this approach is that the nature of this public, the public-ness of it, is not then fully interrogated. It is assumed that the multiplicity in itself will be contest enough;
return to the body as existing at the root of queer existence. This return then, in claiming something that has been forgotten, or disavowed (our bodily existence), finds a strange comfort in this body, settling within it as if having found a location from which to speak, about the virtual, about cyberspace. For example, though Jodi O’Brien, in her essay “Changing the Subject”[9] refutes the claim “There are no closets in cyberspace”, she finds it necessary to return to the ‘body’ and not to subjectivity in order to do so – it is as if the materiality of the body is the only concrete thing that will allow this contestation. “The ‘alternative’ experiences that are enacted in ‘alternative’ or queer spaces are based on realities of the flesh: real, embodied experiences and/or fantasies cultivated through exposure to multisensory stimuli.” The body then becomes the explanatory fulcrum, and it is only from here that any kind of relationship to what is seen as virtuality can be understood.

An ancestor to the above problem - “What precisely does the cyber add to the queer identity which it lacked previously?”[10] This question, framed as the most basic one can ask of this figure, makes the following assumptions – that ‘queer’ is a human subject that precedes ‘cyber’, a.k.a non-human technology that the latter adds to this human subject and how it performs in the world, or has transformed it after the fact.

It is remarkably easy to say that in the great saga of sexual practices, technology has been an agent of transformation. Or, more importantly, to place cyberspace and queerness on par with each other, as sharing the same nature, or functioning on the same fundamental principle – of decentering or destabilizing a previously integrated or unified subject. Nina Wakeford asks of the term cyberqueer, “…what is the purpose of creating a hybrid of the two? It is a calculated move which stresses the interdependence of the two concepts, both in the daily practices of the certain and maintenance of a cyberspace which is lesbian, gay, transgendered or queer, and in the research of these arenas.”[11] By this logic, they are interdependent because there is some inherent quality in each that makes it offer itself to the other. “Queer sex is about following the desires of the flesh into an unnamed, uncategorized, uncharted realm, and doing something that neither of you can 'code'.”[12] The value of queerness therefore, derives from this lack of naming, an escape from coding of a particular kind, the zone of ambiguous enactments of desire.[13] “While it is this open transparent character of online existence that lays the Internet vulnerable to surveillance, it is also its self-inscribing character that makes it the playground of possibilities it is at its best. Cyberspace is habitat, playground, university, boulevard and refuge” (Shuddhabrata Sengupta, ‘Net Nomad on a Rough Route: A Despatch from Cyberspace’[14]). It is a zone of enactments of desire, a playground of possibilities, undefined, unbound.

There is then a reading of technology and sexuality as feeding off each other - “The relationship between technology and sexuality is a symbiotic one. As humankind creates new inventions, people find ways of eroticizing new technology. So it is not surprising that with the advent of the information superhighway, more and more folks are discovering the sexual underground within the virtual community in cyberspace” (Daniel Tsang)[15]. The above quote assumes the following:

that humankind existed before technology;
that first a technology is born and then there is the eroticization of this technology. It is only because of these assumptions that technology (in this case the Internet) as such can be seen as fundamentally open. Latour’s critique of the first assumption is that “Without technological detours, the properly human cannot exist.”

At the point of encountering this strange euphoria, we need to pause and consider, with Latour, this very relationship between technology and sexuality. “There has been a persistent silence on matters of sexuality in critical cultural studies of technology, perhaps partially because technology was associated with the instrumental to the exclusion of the representational (Case 1995). The creation of the term ‘cyber queer’ is itself an act of resistance in the face of such suppression” (Nina Wakeford). If the relationship between the two is viewed along representational lines, then the only direction that can be taken is one which will posit the human before the technological, will posit technological as that which enables (or not) representations of this human subject. In this sense, the representational is not far from the instrumental as an explanatory framework.

In all the explanations we have seen above, at one level or another, technology has viewed as the ‘thing’[17], and morality as that which ascribes meaning in a particular way to this thing. For example, the mobile phone is seen as the thing, the technology, with concrete attributes and use value. Morality is what then prescribes how this thing is to be used or not used, or the dangers that follow from its use in the world of social relations. Latour argues against this way of positioning technology and morality, and instead calls them both modes of ‘alterity’, albeit two different modes. Alterity in his definition is being-as-another, technology and morality both then constituting a particular way of being-as-another. Technology is not what you use, it is not a means to an end, it in fact changes the end to which it is the means. It is the curve, the detour. Morality is what questions means and ends and prevents the easy categorization of objects or people as one or another.

We are used to thinking of morality as keeping things static, wanting them unchanged, preventing new ideas or practices from being absorbed into the domains of our existence. Especially when it comes to sexuality, morality is seen as that which blocks, which lives in the past, which ‘ossifies’ – “…morality consists precisely of the willingness/ability to accept and organize one's behaviour in accordance with… ‘ossified’ recipes for interaction. If gender is a primary (read: coded as ‘natural’) institution for organizing social interaction, then boundary transgressions are not only likely to arouse confusion but to elicit moral outrage from the boundary keepers.”[18] Morality here refers to boundary keeping. Latour shifts our understanding of morality in ways that allow us to read beyond the boundary keeping. According to him, morality constantly interrupts the means-to-end process by questioning the use of something/someone as a means towards an end. Morality is then a hindrance to this process, not an ossification of social relations or practices.

This argument disrupts the location of technology as that which signals an opening out of the universe, and morality as signalling a closing off. True, Latour himself reads technology as creating new functions, or as creating new ends but he does not categorise these and the technologies they derive from as ‘open’. For him, technology is opaque, unreadable. Sexuality also then cannot be read as feeding off of technology, as some kind of symbiotic twin to it. The relationship between technological shifts and sexual practices or identities has to be read alternately to this idea of freedom from the shackles of social relations and bodily constraints. Sexuality cannot also then be opposed to morality, as it has often been done.

[1] www.openinternetcoalition.org.

[2] Jarvis, Jeff. “Openness and the Internet”, http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/may2009/ca2009058_754247.htm.

[3] Doval, Nikita. “Bold Bodies”, in The Week, September 7, 2008.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Quoted in Doval, Nikita. "Bold Bodies", in The Week, September 7, 2008, p 50.

[6] http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?227507

[7] Quoted in Katyal, Akhil. “Cyber Cultures/Queer Cultures in Delhi”. See http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/2007-July/002827.html

[8] Katyal, Akhil “Cyber Cultures/Queer Cultures in Delhi”. See http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/2007-July/002827.html

[9] Women and Performance: Issue 17: Sexuality and Cyberspace.

[10] Wakeford, Nina. “Cyberqueer”, in Bell, David and Barbara Kennedy, eds. The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge: London, 2000

[11] “Cyberqueer”, in Bell, David and Barbara Kennedy, eds. The Cybercultures Reader.

[12] O’Brien, Jodi. “Changing the Subject”. In Women and Performance, Issue 17: Sexuality and Cyberspace.

[13] Here I deal with the idea of queerness at an almost commonsensical level, not at the level of the queer theory of Judith Butler or Eve Sedgwick, just as cyberspace is also dealt with at the level of what it seems to be seen as doing.

[14] Quoted in the Sarai discussion.

[15] Tsang, Daniel. “Notes on Queer ‘n’ Asian Virtual Sex”. In Bell, David and Barbara Kennedy, eds. The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge: London, 2000.

[16] Latour, Bruno. “Morality and Technology: The End of the Means”. See http://www.bruno-latour.fr/articles/article/080-en.html.

[17] I put this in quotes because latour has a very specific definition of ‘thing’ or Ding, which this is not.

[18] O’Brien, Jodi. “Changing the Subject”, in Women and Performance, Issue 17: Sexuality and Cyberspace. See http://web.archive.org/web/20040604123458/www.echonyc.com/~women/Issue17/art-browning.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/queer-histories-of-the-internet/symbiotic-twins

Sense and Censorship

sunil — 2012-01-31T06:15:38Z

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills, at the US House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, appear to enforce property rights, but are, in fact, trade bills. This article by Sunil Abraham was published in the Indian Express on 20 January 2012.

In developed countries like the US, intellectual property (IP) plays a dominant role in the economy, unlike in economies like India. Countries that have significant IP are keen to increase global and national enforcement activities, while countries with little domestic IP are keen to reduce outgoing royalties in the balance of payments and therefore, keen to expand alternatives, limitations and exceptions like copyleft licensing, compulsory/statutory licensing and fair dealing.

The loss of generic medicines, hardware based on open standards, public domain content, free and open source software, open access journal articles, etc will equally impoverish consumers in the US and in India. SOPA and PIPA, therefore, do not represent the will of the average American but rather the interests of the IP sector, which has tremendous influence in the Hill. There is one more layer of complication for policy-makers to consider as they work towards a compromise of interests in Internet governance — the tension between the old and the new. The incumbents — corporations with business models that have been rendered obsolete by technological developments — versus emerging actors who provide competing products and services, often with greater technological sophistication, higher quality, at a lower cost.

The US, in terms of policy and infrastructure, still controls the global Domain Name System (DNS) and consequently, post-SOPA/PIPA, can take unilateral trade action without worrying about national variations enabled by international law. These bills directly undermine the business models of many Indian companies — generic drug manufacturers like Ranbaxy, software service providers like Infosys, electronics manufacturers like Spice and players in many other sectors dominated by IP rights. So it is baffling that they have not added their voices to the global outcry.

SOPA and PIPA, if passed, will enable the US administration to take three-pronged action against IP infringers — seizure of domain names and DNS filtering, blocking of transactions by financial intermediaries and revocation of hosting by ISPs. While circumvention may still be possible, it will get increasingly laborious — something like the Great Firewall of China, but worse. Unfortunately, the implementation of these blunt policy instruments will require more and more public-funded surveillance and censorship.

The censorship potential of efforts like SOPA and PIPA may appeal to others, as autocratic and democratic regimes across the world have been keen to try technology-mediated social engineering — these efforts have been multiplied in the post-Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street world. Organised religion, social conservatives and those who have been at the receiving end of free speech would all want to shut down platforms like WikiLeaks and political movements like Anonymous and the Pirate Party.

These are equally dismal times for Internet governance in India. Google, Facebook and 20-odd other intermediaries are trying to avoid jail time at the hands of a Delhi court. However, ever since the IT Act amendments were put in place three years back, digital activists have been requesting intermediaries to register their protests early and often, regarding draconian provisions in the statute and in the associated rules. Their silence is going to be very expensive for all of us. We cannot depend on the private sector alone to defend our constitutional rights. As yet unpublished research from CIS demonstrates that private intermediaries only bother with defending freedom of expression when it undermines their business interests. Working with an independent researcher, we conducted a policy sting operation — faulty take-down notices were served to seven intermediaries asking for legitimate content to be taken down. In six of those cases, the intermediaries over-complied, in one case deleting all comments on a news article instead of just those comments identified in the notice. The only take-down that was resisted was one claiming that sale of diapers was “harmful to minors” under the Indian IT Act (because they caused nappy rash). It is clear that the IT Act and its associated rules have already had a chilling effect on online participation by Indians.

Fortunately for us, during the previous parliamentary session — Jayant Chaudhary, Lok Sabha MP from the Rashtriya Lok Dal, asked for the revision of rules concerning intermediaries, cyber-cafes and reasonable security practices. The next Parliament session is the last opportunity for the House to reject these rules and intervene for a free Internet.

The writer is executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society

Read the original published in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/sense-and-censorship

Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology

sunil — 2015-09-15T10:53:52Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has been involved in privacy and data protection research for the last five years. It has participated as a member of the Justice A.P. Shah Committee, which has influenced the draft Privacy Bill being authored by the Department of Personnel and Training. It has organised 11 multistakeholder roundtables across India over the last two years to discuss a shadow Privacy Bill drafted by CIS with the participation of privacy commissioners and data protection authorities from Europe and Canada.

The article was co-authored by Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar. It was published by Observer Research Foundation, Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2.

Our centre’s work on privacy was considered incomplete by some stakeholders because of a lack of focus in the area of cyber security and therefore we have initiated research on it from this year onwards. In this article, we have undertaken a preliminary examination of the theoretical relationships between the national security imperative and privacy, transparency and technology.

Security and Privacy

Daniel J. Solove has identified the tension between security and privacy as a false dichotomy: "Security and privacy often clash, but there need not be a zero-sum tradeoff." [1] Further unpacking this false dichotomy, Bruce Schneier says, "There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy." [2] Effectively, it could be said that privacy is a precondition for security, just as security is a precondition for privacy. A secure information system cannot be designed without guaranteeing the privacy of its authentication factors, and it is not possible to guarantee privacy of authentication factors without having confidence in the security of the system. Often policymakers talk about a balance between the privacy and security imperatives—in other words a zero-sum game. Balancing these imperatives is a foolhardy approach, as it simultaneously undermines both imperatives. Balancing privacy and security should instead be framed as an optimisation problem. Indeed, during a time when oversight mechanisms have failed even in so-called democratic states, the regulatory power of technology [3] should be seen as an increasingly key ingredient to the solution of that optimisation problem.

Data retention is required in most jurisdictions for law enforcement, intelligence and military purposes. Here are three examples of how security and privacy can be optimised when it comes to Internet Service Provider (ISP) or telecom operator logs:

Data Retention: We propose that the office of the Privacy Commissioner generate a cryptographic key pair for each internet user and give one key to the ISP / telecom operator. This key would be used to encrypt logs, thereby preventing unauthorised access. Once there is executive or judicial authorisation, the Privacy Commissioner could hand over the second key to the authorised agency. There could even be an emergency procedure and the keys could be automatically collected by concerned agencies from the Privacy Commissioner. This will need to be accompanied by a policy that criminalises the possession of unencrypted logs by ISP and telecom operators.
Privacy-Protective Surveillance: Ann Cavoukian and Khaled El Emam [4] have proposed combining intelligent agents, homomorphic encryption and probabilistic graphical models to provide “a positive-sum, ‘win–win’ alternative to current counter-terrorism surveillance systems.” They propose limiting collection of data to “significant” transactions or events that could be associated with terrorist-related activities, limiting analysis to wholly encrypted data, which then does not just result in “discovering more patterns and relationships without an understanding of their context” but rather “intelligent information—information selectively gathered and placed into an appropriate context to produce actual knowledge.” Since fully homomorphic encryption may be unfeasible in real-world systems, they have proposed use of partially homomorphic encryption. But experts such as Prof. John Mallery from MIT are also working on solutions based on fully homomorphic encryption.
Fishing Expedition Design: Madan Oberoi, Pramod Jagtap, Anupam Joshi, Tim Finin and Lalana Kagal have proposed a standard [5] that could be adopted by authorised agencies, telecom operators and ISPs. Instead of giving authorised agencies complete access to logs, they propose a format for database queries, which could be sent to the telecom operator or ISP by authorised agencies. The telecom operator or ISP would then process the query, and anonymise/obfuscate the result-set in an automated fashion based on applicable privacypolicies/regulation. Authorised agencies would then hone in on a subset of the result-set that they would like with personal identifiers intact; this smaller result set would then be shared with the authorised agencies.

An optimisation approach to resolving the false dichotomy between privacy and security will not allow for a total surveillance regime as pursued by the US administration. Total surveillance brings with it the ‘honey pot’ problem: If all the meta-data and payload data of citizens is being harvested and stored, then the data store will become a single point of failure and will become another target for attack. The next Snowden may not have honourable intentions and might decamp with this ‘honey pot’ itself, which would have disastrous consequences.

If total surveillance will completely undermine the national security imperative, what then should be the optimal level of surveillance in a population? The answer depends upon the existing security situation. If this is represented on a graph with security on the y-axis and the proportion of the population under surveillance on the x-axis, the benefits of surveillance could be represented by an inverted hockey-stick curve. To begin with, there would already be some degree of security. As a small subset of the population is brought under surveillance, security would increase till an optimum level is reached, after which, enhancing the number of people under surveillance would not result in any security pay-off. Instead, unnecessary surveillance would diminish security as it would introduce all sorts of new vulnerabilities. Depending on the existing security situation, the head of the hockey-stick curve might be bigger or smaller. To use a gastronomic analogy, optimal surveillance is like salt in cooking—necessary in small quantities but counter-productive even if slightly in excess.

In India the designers of surveillance projects have fortunately rejected the total surveillance paradigm. For example, the objective of the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is to streamline and automate targeted surveillance; it is introducing technological safeguards that will allow express combinations of result-sets from 22 databases to be made available to 12 authorised agencies. This is not to say that the design of the NATGRID cannot be improved.

Security and Transparency

There are two views on security and transparency: One, security via obscurity as advocated by vendors of proprietary software, and two, security via transparency as advocated by free/open source software (FOSS) advocates and entrepreneurs. Over the last two decades, public and industry opinion has swung towards security via transparency. This is based on the Linus rule that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” But does this mean that transparency is a necessary and sufficient condition? Unfortunately not, and therefore it is not necessarily true that FOSS and open standards will be more secure than proprietary software and proprietary standards.

Optimal surveillance is like salt in cooking—necessary in small quantities but counter-productive even if slightly in excess.

The recent detection of the Heartbleed [6] security bug in Open SSL, [7] causing situations where more data can be read than should be allowed, and Snowden’s revelations about the compromise of some open cryptographic standards (which depend on elliptic curves), developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, are stark examples. [8]

At the same time, however, open standards and FOSS are crucial to maintaining the balance of power in information societies, as civil society and the general public are able to resist the powers of authoritarian governments and rogue corporations using cryptographic technology. These technologies allow for anonymous speech, pseudonymous speech, private communication, online anonymity and circumvention of surveillance and censorship. For the media, these technologies enable anonymity of sources and the protection of whistle-blowers—all phenomena that are critical to the functioning of a robust and open democratic society. But these very same technologies are also required by states and by the private sector for a variety of purposes—national security, e-commerce, e-banking, protection of all forms of intellectual property, and services that depend on confidentiality, such as legal or medical services.

In order words, all governments, with the exception of the US government, have common cause with civil society, media and the general public when it comes to increasing the security of open standards and FOSS. Unfortunately, this can be quite an expensive task because the re-securing of open cryptographic standards depends on mathematicians. Of late, mathematical research outputs that can be militarised are no longer available in the public domain because the biggest employers of mathematicians worldwide today are the US military and intelligence agencies. If other governments invest a few billion dollars through mechanisms like Knowledge Ecology International’s proposed World Trade Organization agreement on the supply of knowledge as a public good, we would be able to internationalise participation in standard-setting organisations and provide market incentives for greater scrutiny of cryptographic standards and patching of vulnerabilities of FOSS. This would go a long way in addressing the trust deficit that exists on the internet today.

Security and Technology

A techno-utopian understanding of security assumes that more technology, more recent technology and more complex technology will necessarily lead to better security outcomes.

This is because the security discourse is dominated by vendors with sales targets who do not present a balanced or accurate picture of the technologies that they are selling. This has resulted in state agencies and the general public having an exaggerated understanding of the capabilities of surveillance technologies that is more aligned with Hollywood movies than everyday reality.

More Technology

Increasing the number of x-ray machines or full-body scanners at airports by a factor of ten or hundred will make the airport less secure unless human oversight is similarly increased. Even with increased human oversight, all that has been accomplished is an increase in the potential locations that can be compromised. The process of hardening a server usually involves stopping non-essential services and removing non-essential software. This reduces the software that should be subject to audit, continuously monitored for vulnerabilities and patched as soon as possible. Audits, ongoing monitoring and patching all cost time and money and therefore, for governments with limited budgets, any additional unnecessary technology should be seen as a drain on the security budget. Like with the airport example, even when it comes to a single server on the internet, it is clear that, from a security perspective, more technology without a proper functionality and security justification is counter-productive. To reiterate, throwing increasingly more technology at a problem does not make things more secure; rather, it results in a proliferation of vulnerabilities.

Latest Technology

Reports that a number of state security agencies are contemplating returning to typewriters for sensitive communications in the wake of Snowden’s revelations makes it clear that some older technologies are harder to compromise in comparison to modern technology. [9] Between iris- and fingerprint-based biometric authentication, logically, it would be easier for a criminal to harvest images of irises or authentication factors in bulk fashion using a high resolution camera fitted with a zoom lens in a public location, in comparison to mass lifting of fingerprints.

Complex Technology

Fifteen years ago, Bruce Schneier said, "The worst enemy of security is complexity. This has been true since the beginning of computers, and it’s likely to be true for the foreseeable future." [10] This is because complexity increases fragility; every feature is also a potential source of vulnerabilities and failures. The simpler Indian electronic machines used until the 2014 elections are far more secure than the Diebold voting machines used in the 2004 US presidential elections. Similarly when it comes to authentication, a pin number is harder to beat without user-conscious cooperation in comparison to iris- or fingerprint-based biometric authentication.

In the following section of the paper we have identified five threat scenarios [11] relevant to India and identified solutions based on our theoretical framing above.

Threat Scenarios and Possible Solutions

Hacking the NIC Certifying Authority
One of the critical functions served by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is as a Certifying Authority (CA). [12] In this capacity, the NIC issues digital certificates that authenticate web services and allow for the secure exchange of information online. [13] Operating systems and browsers maintain lists of trusted CA root certificates as a means of easily verifying authentic certificates. India’s Controller of Certifying Authority’s certificates issued are included in the Microsoft Root list and recognised by the majority of programmes running on Windows, including Internet Explorer and Chrome. [14] In 2014, the NIC CA’s infrastructure was compromised, and digital certificates were issued in NIC’s name without its knowledge. [15] Reports indicate that NIC did not "have an appropriate monitoring and tracking system in place to detect such intrusions immediately." [16] The implication is that websites could masquerade as another domain using the fake certificates. Personal data of users can be intercepted or accessed by third parties by the masquerading website. The breach also rendered web servers and websites of government bodies vulnerable to attack, and end users were no longer sure that data on these websites was accurate and had not been tampered with. [17] The NIC CA was forced to revoke all 250,000 SSL Server Certificates issued until that date [18] and is no longer issuing digital certificates for the time being. [19]Public key pinning is a means through which websites can specify which certifying authorities have issued certificates for that site. Public key pinning can prevent man-in-the-middle attacks due to fake digital certificates. [20] Certificate Transparency allows anyone to check whether a certificate has been properly issued, seeing as certifying authorities must publicly publish information about the digital certificates that they have issued. Though this approach does not prevent fake digital certificates from being issued, it can allow for quick detection of misuse. [21]

‘Logic Bomb’ against Airports
Passenger operations in New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport depend on a centralised operating system known as the Common User Passenger Processing System (CUPPS). The system integrates numerous critical functions such as the arrival and departure times of flights, and manages the reservation system and check-in schedules. [22] In 2011, a logic bomb attack was remotely launched against the system to introduce malicious code into the CUPPS software. The attack disabled the CUPPS operating system, forcing a number of check-in counters to shut down completely, while others reverted to manual check-in, resulting in over 50 delayed flights. Investigations revealed that the attack was launched by three disgruntled employees who had assisted in the installation of the CUPPS system at the New Delhi Airport. [23] Although in this case the impact of the attack was limited to flight delay, experts speculate that the attack was meant to take down the entire system. The disruption and damage resulting from the shutdown of an entire airport would be extensive.

Adoption of open hardware and FOSS is one strategy to avoid and mitigate the risk of such vulnerabilities. The use of devices that embrace the concept of open hardware and software specifications must be encouraged, as this helps the FOSS community to be vigilant in detecting and reporting design deviations and investigate into probable vulnerabilities.

Attack on Critical Infrastructure
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India encounters and prevents numerous cyber attacks every day. [24] The best known example of a successful nuclear plant hack is the Stuxnet worm that thwarted the operation of an Iranian nuclear enrichment complex and set back the country’s nuclear programme. [25]

The worm had the ability to spread over the network and would activate when a specific configuration of systems was encountered [26] and connected to one or more Siemens programmable logic controllers. [27] The worm was suspected to have been initially introduced through an infected USB drive into one of the controller computers by an insider, thus crossing the air gap. [28] The worm used information that it gathered to take control of normal industrial processes (to discreetly speed up centrifuges, in the present case), leaving the operators of the plant unaware that they were being attacked. This incident demonstrates how an attack vector introduced into the general internet can be used to target specific system configurations. When the target of a successful attack is a sector as critical and secured as a nuclear complex, the implications for a country’s security and infrastructure are potentially grave.

Security audits and other transparency measures to identify vulnerabilities are critical in sensitive sectors. Incentive schemes such as prizes, contracts and grants may be evolved for the private sector and academia to identify vulnerabilities in the infrastructure of critical resources to enable/promote security auditing of infrastructure.

Micro Level: Chip Attacks
Semiconductor devices are ubiquitous in electronic devices. The US, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and China are the primary countries hosting manufacturing hubs of these devices. India currently does not produce semiconductors, and depends on imported chips. This dependence on foreign semiconductor technology can result in the import and use of compromised or fraudulent chips by critical sectors in India. For example, hardware Trojans, which may be used to access personal information and content on a device, may be inserted into the chip. Such breaches/transgressions can render equipment in critical sectors vulnerable to attack and threaten national security. [29]

Indigenous production of critical technologies and the development of manpower and infrastructure to support these activities are needed. The Government of India has taken a number of steps towards this. For example, in 2013, the Government of India approved the building of two Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication (FAB) manufacturing facilities [30] and as of January 2014, India was seeking to establish its first semiconductor characterisation lab in Bangalore. [31]

Macro Level: Telecom and Network Switches

The possibility of foreign equipment containing vulnerabilities and backdoors that are built into its software and hardware gives rise to concerns that India’s telecom and network infrastructure is vulnerable to being hacked and accessed by foreign governments (or non-state actors) through the use of spyware and malware that exploit such vulnerabilities. In 2013, some firms, including ZTE and Huawei, were barred by the Indian government from participating in a bid to supply technology for the development of its National Optic Network project due to security concerns. [32] Similar concerns have resulted in the Indian government holding back the conferment of ‘domestic manufacturer’ status on both these firms. [33]

Following reports that Chinese firms were responsible for transnational cyber attacks designed to steal confidential data from overseas targets, there have been moves to establish laboratories to test imported telecom equipment in India. [34] Despite these steps, in a February 2014 incident the state-owned telecommunication company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd’s network was hacked, allegedly by Huawei. [35]

Security practitioners and policymakers need to avoid the zero-sum framing prevalent in popular discourse regarding security VIS-A-VIS privacy, transparency and technology.

A successful hack of the telecom infrastructure could result in massive disruption in internet and telecommunications services. Large-scale surveillance and espionage by foreign actors would also become possible, placing, among others, both governmental secrets and individuals personal information at risk.

While India cannot afford to impose a general ban on the import of foreign telecommunications equipment, a number of steps can be taken to address the risk of inbuilt security vulnerabilities. Common International Criteria for security audits could be evolved by states to ensure compliance of products with international norms and practices. While India has already established common criteria evaluation centres, [36] the government monopoly over the testing function has resulted in only three products being tested so far. A Code Escrow Regime could be set up where manufacturers would be asked to deposit source code with the Government of India for security audits and verification. The source code could be compared with the shipped software to detect inbuilt vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Cyber security cannot be enhanced without a proper understanding of the relationship between security and other national imperatives such as privacy, transparency and technology. This paper has provided an initial sketch of those relationships, but sustained theoretical and empirical research is required in India so that security practitioners and policymakers avoid the zero-sum framing prevalent in popular discourse and take on the hard task of solving the optimisation problem by shifting policy, market and technological levers simultaneously. These solutions must then be applied in multiple contexts or scenarios to determine how they should be customised to provide maximum security bang for the buck.

[1]. Daniel J. Solove, Chapter 1 in Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security (Yale University Press: 2011), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1827982.

[2]. Bruce Schneier, “What our Top Spy doesn’t get: Security and Privacy aren’t Opposites,” Wired, January 24, 2008, http://archive.wired.com/politics/security commentary/security matters/2008/01/securitymatters_0124 and Bruce Schneier, “Security vs. Privacy,” Schneier on Security, January 29, 2008, https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/security_vs_pri.html.

[3]. There are four sources of power in internet governance: Market power exerted by private sector organisations; regulatory power exerted by states; technical power exerted by anyone who has access to certain categories of technology, such as cryptography; and finally, the power of public pressure sporadically mobilised by civil society. A technically sound encryption standard, if employed by an ordinary citizen, cannot be compromised using the power of the market or the regulatory power of states or public pressure by civil society. In that sense, technology can be used to regulate state and market behaviour.

[4]. Ann Cavoukian and Khaled El Emam, “Introducing Privacy-Protective Surveillance: Achieving Privacy and Effective Counter-Terrorism,” Information & Privacy Commisioner, September 2013, Ontario, Canada, http://www.privacybydesign.ca/content/uploads/2013/12/pps.pdf.

[5]. Madan Oberoi, Pramod Jagtap, Anupam Joshi, Tim Finin and Lalana Kagal, “Information Integration and Analysis: A Semantic Approach to Privacy”(presented at the third IEEE International Conference on Information Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust, Boston, USA, October 2011), ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/578.pdf.

[6]. Bruce Byfield, “Does Heartbleed disprove ‘Open Source is Safer’?,” Datamation, April 14, 2014, http://www.datamation.com/open-source/does-heartbleed-disprove-open-source-is-safer-1.html.

[7]. “Cybersecurity Program should be more transparent, protect privacy,” Centre for Democracy and Technology Insights, March 20, 2009, https://cdt.org/insight/cybersecurity-program-should-be-more-transparent-protect-privacy/#1.

[8]. “Cracked Credibility,” The Economist, September 14, 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/international/21586296-be-safe-internet-needs-reliable-encryption-standards-software-and.

[9]. Miriam Elder, “Russian guard service reverts to typewriters after NSA leaks,” The Guardian, July 11, 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-paper-nsa-leaks and Philip Oltermann, “Germany ‘may revert to typewriters’ to counter hi-tech espionage,” The Guardian, July 15, 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/15/germany-typewriters-espionage-nsa-spying-surveillance.

[10]. Bruce Schneier, “A Plea for Simplicity,” Schneier on Security, November 19, 1999, https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/1999/11/a_plea_for_simplicit.html.

[11]. With inputs from Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society and Sharathchandra Ramakrishnan of Srishti School of Art, Technology and Design.

[12]. “Frequently Asked Questions,” Controller of Certifying Authorities, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, http://cca.gov.in/cca/index.php?q=faq-page#n41.

[13]. National Informatics Centre Homepage, Government of India, http://www.nic.in/node/41.

[14]. Adam Langley, “Maintaining Digital Certificate Security,” Google Security Blog, July 8, 2014, http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.in/2014/07/maintaining-digital-certificate-security.html.

[15]. This is similar to the kind of attack carried out against DigiNotar, a Dutch certificate authority. See: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1246&context=jss.

[16]. R. Ramachandran, “Digital Disaster,” Frontline, August 22, 2014, http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/digital-disaster/article6275366.ece.

[17]. Ibid.

[18]. “NIC’s digital certification unit hacked,” Deccan Herald, July 16, 2014, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/420148/archives.php.

[19]. National Informatics Centre Certifying Authority Homepage, Government of India, http://nicca.nic.in//.

[20]. Mozilla Wiki, “Public Key Pinning,” https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinning.

[21]. “Certificate Transparency - The quick detection of fraudulent digital certificates,” Ascertia, August 11, 2014, http://www.ascertiaIndira.com/blogs/pki/2014/08/11/certificate-transparency-the-quick-detection-of-fraudulent-digital-certificates.

[22]. “Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL/VIDP) Terminal 3, India,” Airport Technology.com, http://www.airport-technology.com/projects/indira-gandhi-international-airport-terminal -3/.

[23]. “How techies used logic bomb to cripple Delhi Airport,” Rediff, November 21, 2011, http://www.rediff.com/news/report/how-techies-used-logic-bomb-to-cripple-delhi-airport/20111121 htm.

[24]. Manu Kaushik and Pierre Mario Fitter, “Beware of the bugs,” Business Today, February 17, 2013, http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/india-cyber-security-at-risk/1/191786.html.

[25]. “Stuxnet ‘hit’ Iran nuclear plants,” BBC, November 22, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-11809827.

[26]. In this case, systems using Microsoft Windows and running Siemens Step7 software were targeted.

[27]. Jonathan Fildes, “Stuxnet worm ‘targeted high-value Iranian assets’,” BBC, September 23, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-11388018.

[28]. Farhad Manjoo, “Don’t Stick it in: The dangers of USB drives,” Slate, October 5, 2010, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/10/dont_stick_it_in.html.

[29]. Ibid.

[30]. “IBM invests in new $5bn chip fab in India, so is chip sale off?,” ElectronicsWeekly, February 14, 2014, http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/ibm-invests-new-5bn-chip-fab-india-chip-sale-2014-02/.

[31]. NT Balanarayan, “Cabinet Approves Creation of Two Semiconductor Fabrication Units,” Medianama, February 17, 2014, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-02-04/news/47004737_1_indian-electronics-special-incentive-package-scheme-semiconductor-association.

[32]. Jamie Yap, “India bars foreign vendors from national broadband initiative,” ZD Net, January 21, 2013, http://www.zdnet.com/in/india-bars-foreign-vendors-from-national-broadband-initiative-7000010055/.

[33]. Kevin Kwang, “India holds back domestic-maker status for Huawei, ZTE,” ZD Net, February 6, 2013, http://www.zdnet.com/in/india-holds-back-domestic-maker-status-for-huawei-zte-70 00010887/. Also see “Huawei, ZTE await domestic-maker tag,” The Hindu, February 5, 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/business/companies/huawei-zte-await-domesticmaker-tag/article4382888.ece.

[34]. Ellyne Phneah, “Huawei, ZTE under probe by Indian government,” ZD Net, May 10, 2013, http://www.zdnet.com/in/huawei-zte-under-probe-by-indian-government-7000015185/.

[35]. Devidutta Tripathy, “India investigates report of Huawei hacking state carrier network,” Reuters, February 6, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/06/us-india-huawei-hacking-idUSBREA150QK20140206.

[36]. “Products Certified,” Common Criteria Portal of India, http://www.commoncriteria-india.gov.in/Pages/ProductsCertified.aspx.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology

Security, Surveillance and Data Sharing Schemes and Bodies in India

maria — 2015-03-14T02:35:31Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-surveillance-and-data-sharing.pdf

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy

elonnai — 2014-12-24T08:06:59Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and the Observer Research Foundation invite you to a one day conference on January 8, 2015 in New Delhi.

About the Conference

The conference will focus on the technologies, policies, and practices around cyber security and surveillance. The conference will reach out to a number of key stakeholders including civil society, industry, government, and academia and explore the present scenario in India to reflect on ways forward.

Conference Context

Ensuring the security of the India’s cyber space is a complex, challenging, and ever changing responsibility that the government is tasked with. Doing so effectively requires a number of factors to come together in a harmonized strategy including: laws & policies, technical capabilities, markets, and a skilled workforce. It also requires collaboration on multiple levels including with foreign governments, domestic and foreign industry, and law enforcement. The first of these is particularly important given the ability of attackers to penetrate across borders and the global nature of data. Any strategy developed by India must be proactive and reactive – evolving defences to prevent a potential threat and applying tactics to respond to a real time threat. To do so, the government of India must legally have the powers to take action and must have the technical capability to do so. Yet, many of these powers and technical capabilities require a degree of intrusion into the lives of citizens and residents of India through means such as surveillance. Thus, such measures must be considered in light of principles of proportionality and necessity, and legal safeguards are needed to protect against the violation of privacy. Furthermore, a principle of optimization must be considered i.e, how much surveillance achieves the most amount of security and how can this security be achieved with the optimal mix of technology, policy and enforcement.

Panel Descriptions

Challenges & Present Scenario

Protecting and enhancing the cyber security of India is a complex and dynamic responsibility. The challenge of securing cyber space is magnified by the demarcated nature of the internet, the multiplicity of vulnerabilities that can be exploited at the national level, the magnitude of infrastructure damage possible from a cyber attack, and the complexity of application of a jurisdiction’s law to a space that is technologically borderless. A comprehensive ‘cyber security’ ecosystem is required to address such challenges – one that involves technology, skills, and capabilities – including surveillance capabilities. The Government of India has taken numerous steps to address and resolve such challenges. In July 2013, the National Cyber Security Policy was published for the purpose of creating an enabling framework for the protection of India’s cyber security. In February 2014, the 52^nd Standing Committee on Information Technology issued a report assessing the implementation of this policy – in which they found that a number of areas needed strengthening. The Government of India has also proposed the establishment of a number of centres focused on cyber security – such as the National Cyber Coordination Center and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre. CERT-IN, under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology is presently the body responsible for overseeing and enforcing cyber security in India, while other bodies such as the Resource Centre for Cyber Forensic and TERM cells under the Department of Telecommunications play critical roles in overseeing and undertaking capabilities related to cyber security.

Law & Policy

India has five statutes regulating the collection and use of data for surveillance purposes. These laws define circumstances on which the government is justified in accessing and collecting real time and stored data as well as procedural safeguards they must adhere to when doing so. The Department of Telecommunications has also issued the Unified Access License which, among other things, mandates service providers to provide technical support to enable such collection. The Indian judicial system has also provided a number of Rulings that set standards for the access, collection, and use of data as well as defining limitations and safeguards that must be respected in doing so. The draft Privacy Bill 2011, released by the Department of Personnel and Training, also contained provisions addressing surveillance in the context of interception and the use of electronic video recording devices. In the Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy, the AP Shah Committee found that the legal regime for surveillance in India was not harmonized and lacked safeguards. Furthermore, in the era where the direct collection of large volumes of data is easily possible, there is a growing need to re-visit questions about the legitimate and proportionate collection and use (particularly as evidence) of such data. Questions are also arising about the applicability of standards and safeguards to the state. At a global level, catalyzed by the leaks by Edward Snowden, there has been a strong push for governments to review and structure their surveillance regimes to ensure that they are in line with international human rights standards.

Architecture & Technology

India is in the process of architecting a number of initiatives that seek to enable the collection and sharing of intelligence such as the CMS, NATGRID, and NETRA. At a regional level, the Ministry of Home Affairs is in the process of implementing ‘Mega Policing Cities’ which include the instalment of CCTV’s and centralized access to crime related information. Globally, law enforcement and governments are beginning to take advantage of the possibilities created by ‘Big Data’ and ‘open source’ policing. The architecture and technology behind any surveillance and cyber security initiative are key to its success. Intelligently and appropriately designed projects and technology can also minimize the possibility of intrusions into the private lives of citizens. Strong access controls, decentralized architecture, and targeted access are all principles that can be incorporated into the architecture and technology behind a project or initiative. At the same time, the technology or process around a project can serve as the ‘weakest link’ – as it is vulnerable to attacks and tampering. Such possibilities raise concerns about the use of foreign technology and dependencies on foreign governments and companies.

International and Domestic Markets

Globally, the security market is growing – with companies offering a range of services and products that facilitate surveillance and can be used towards enhancing cyber security. In India, the security market is also growing with studies predicting that it will reach $1.06 billion by 2015. Recognizing the potential threat posed by imported security and telecom equipment, India also develops its own technologies through the Centre for Development of Telematics –attached to the Department of Telecommunications, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing – attached to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. At times India has also imposed bans on the import of technologies believed to be compromised. Towards this end, the Government of India has a number of bodies responsible for licensing, auditing, and certifying the use of security and telecommunication equipment. Though India has recognized the security vulnerabilities posed by these technologies, as of yet it has not formally recognized the human rights violations that are made possible. Indeed, though India has submitted a request to be a signing member of the Wassenaar agreement, they have yet to be accepted.

Agenda

11.00	Registration & Tea
11.30	Key Note Speech
12.00	Challenges & Present Scenario
13.00	Law & Policy
14.00	Lunch
15.00	Architecture & Technology
16.00	International & Domestic Markets
17.00	Tea
17.30	Conclusion & Closing Remarks

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/security-governments-data-technology-policy

Security, Governments and Data: Technology and Policy

elonnai — 2015-04-04T05:59:19Z

On January 8, 2015, the Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with the Observer research foundation, hosted the day long conference "Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy" The conference discussed a range of topics including internet governance, surveillance, privacy, and cyber security.

The full report written and compiled by Lovisha Aggarwal and Nehaa Chaudhari and edited by Elonnai Hickok can be accessed here.

The conference was focused on the technologies, policies, and practices around cyber security and surveillance. The conference reached out to a number of key stakeholders including civil society, industry, law enforcement, government, and academia and explored the present scenario in India to reflect on ways forward. The conference was a part of CIS’s work around privacy and surveillance, supported by Privacy International.

Welcome Address

The welcome address opened with a reference to a document circulated by CIS in 2014 which contained hypothetical scenarios of potential threats to Indian cyber security. This document highlighted the complexity of cyber security and the challenges that governments face in defending their digital borders. When talking about cyber security it is important that certain principles are upheld and security is not pursued only for the sake of security. This approach allows for security to be designed and to support other rights such as the right of access, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to privacy. Indeed, the generation, use, and protection of communications data by the private sector and the government are a predominant theme across the globe today. This cannot be truer for India, as India hosts the third largest population on the internet in the world.

During the welcome, a brief introduction to the Centre for Internet and Society was given. It was noted that CIS is a 6.5 half year old organization that is comprised of lawyers, mathematicians, sociologists, and computer scientists and works across multiple focus areas including accessibility, internet governance, telecom, openness, and access to knowledge. CIS began researching privacy and surveillance in 2010, and has recently begun to expand their research into cyber security. The purpose of this is to understand the relationship between privacy, surveillance, and security and is the beginning of a learning process for CIS. In 2013 CIS undertook a process to attempt to evolve a legal regime to intelligently and adequately deal with privacy in India. Industry specific requirements are key in the Indian context and this process was meant to try and evolve a consensus on what a privacy law in India should look like by bringing together key stakeholders for roundtables. CIS is now in the final stages of preparing individual legal proposals that will be sent to the Government – to hopefully have an informed Privacy Law in India. This event represents CIS’s first attempt to have a simultaneous dialogue on surveillance, cyber security, and privacy. As part of this event and research CIS is trying to understand the technology and market involved in surveillance and cyber security as these are important factors in the development of policy and law.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-governments-datat-technology-and-policy

Security Research

vanya — 2016-01-03T09:55:27Z

The Centre Internet and Society, India has been researching privacy policy in India since the year 2010 with the following objectives.

Research on the issue of privacy in different sectors in India.
Monitoring projects, practices, and policies around those sectors.
Raising public awareness around the issue of privacy, in light of varied projects, industries, sectors and instances.

State surveillance in India has been carried out by Government agencies for many years. Recent projects include: NATGRID, CMS, NETRA, etc. which aim to overhaul the overall security and intelligence infrastructure in the country. The purpose of such initiatives has been to maintain national security and ensure interconnectivity and interoperability between departments and agencies. Concerns regarding the structure, regulatory frameworks (or lack thereof), and technologies used in these programmes and projects have attracted criticism.

Surveillance/Security Research -

1. Central Monitoring System -

The Central Monitoring System or CMS is a clandestine mass electronic surveillance data mining program installed by the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a part of the Indian government. It gives law enforcement agencies centralized access to India's telecommunications network and the ability to listen in on and record mobile, landline, satellite, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls along with private e-mails, SMS, MMS. It also gives them the ability to geo-locate individuals via cell phones in real time.

The Central Monitoring System: Some Questions to be Raised in Parliament http://bit.ly/1fln2vu

India´s ´Big Brother´: The Central Monitoring System (CMS) http://bit.ly/1kyyzKB

India's Central Monitoring System (CMS): Something to Worry About? http://bit.ly/1gsM4oQ

C-DoT's surveillance system making enemies on internet http://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-krishna-bahirwani-c-dots-surveillance-system-making-enemies-on-internet

2. Surveillance Industry : Global And Domestic -

The surveillance industry is a multi-billion dollar economic sector that tracks individuals along with their actions such as e-mails and texts. With the cause for its existence being terrorism and the government's attempts to fight it, a network has been created that leaves no one with their privacy. All that an individual does in the digital world is suspect to surveillance. This included surveillance in the form of snooping where an individual's phone calls, text messages and e-mails are monitored or a more active kind where cameras, sensors and other devices are used to actively track the movements and actions of an individual. This information allows governments to bypass the privacy that an individual has in a manner that is considered unethical and incorrect. This information that is collected also in vulnerable to cyber-attacks that are serious risks to privacy and the individuals themselves. The following set of articles look into the ethics, risks, vulnerabilities and trade-offs of having a mass surveillance industry in place.

Surveillance Technologies http://bit.ly/14pxg74

New Standard Operating Procedures for Lawful Interception and Monitoring http://bit.ly/1mRRIo4

Video Surveillance and Its Impact on the Right to Privacy http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/video-surveillance-privacy

More than a Hundred Global Groups Make a Principled Stand against Surveillance http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/more-than-hundred-global-groups-make-principled-stand-against-surveillance

Models for Surveillance and Interception of Communications Worldwide http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/models-for-surveillance-and-interception-of-communications-worldwide

Why 'Facebook' is More Dangerous than the Government Spying on You http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/why-facebook-is-more-dangerous-than-the-government-spying-on-you

The Difficult Balance of Transparent Surveillance http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-difficult-balance-of-transparent-surveillance

UK's Interception of Communications Commissioner - A Model of Accountability http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/uk-interception-of-communications-commissioner-a-model-of-accountability
Search and Seizure and the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age: A Comparison of US and India http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/search-and-seizure-and-right-to-privacy-in-digital-age
State Surveillance and Human Rights Camp: Summary http://bit.ly/ZZNm6M
India Subject to NSA Dragnet Surveillance! No Longer a Hypothesis - It is Now Officially Confirmed http://bit.ly/1eqtD8g
Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light on the Global Surveillance Industry http://bit.ly/1d6EmjD
Surveillance Camp IV: Disproportionate State Surveillance - A Violation of Privacy http://bit.ly/1ilTJts
Hacking without borders: The future of artificial intelligence and surveillance http://bit.ly/1kWiwGv
Driving in the Surveillance Society: Cameras, RFID tags and Black Boxes http://bit.ly/1mr3KTH
Policy Brief: Oversight Mechanisms for Surveillance http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-brief-oversight-mechanisms-for-surveillance

3. Judgements By the Indian Courts -

The surveillance industry in India has been brought before the court in different cases. The following articles look into the cause of action in these cases along with their impact on India and its citizens.

Anvar v. Basheer and the New (Old) Law of Electronic Evidence http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/anvar-v-basheer-new-old-law-of-electronic-evidence

The Gujarat High Court Judgement on the Snoopgate Issue http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/gujarat-high-court-judgment-on-snoopgate-issue

4. International Privacy Laws -

Due to the universality of the internet, many questions of accountability arise and jurisdiction becomes a problem. Therefore certain treaties, agreements and other international legal literature was created to answer these questions. The articles listed below look into the international legal framework which governs the internet.

Learning to Forget the ECJ's Decision on the Right to be Forgotten and its Implications http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/learning-to-forget-ecj-decision-on-the-right-to-be-forgotten-and-its-implications
Privacy and Security Can Co-exist http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-and-security
European Union Draft Report Admonishes Mass Surveillance, Calls for Stricter Data Protection and Privacy Laws http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/european-union-draft-report-admonishes-mass-surveillance
Draft International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights http://bit.ly/XCsk9b

5. Indian Surveillance Framework -

The Indian government's mass surveillance systems are configured a little differently from the networks of many countries such as the USA and the UK. This is because of the vast difference in infrastructure both in existence and the required amount. In many ways, it is considered that the surveillance network in India is far worse than other countries. This is due to the present form of the legal system in existence. The articles below explore the system and its functioning including the various methods through which we are spied on. The ethics and vulnerabilities are also explored in these articles.

Paper-thin Safeguards and Mass Surveillance in India - http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/paper-thin-safeguards-and-mass-surveillance-in-india

The Surveillance Industry in India: At Least 76 Companies Aiding Our Watchers! - http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-surveillance-industry-in-india-at-least-76-companies-aiding-our-watchers

The Surveillance Industry in India - An Analysis of Indian Security Expos http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-industry-in-india-analysis-of-indian-security-expos

GSMA Research Outputs: different legal and regulatory aspects of security and surveillance in India http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/gsma-research-outputs

Way to watch http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-june-26-2013-chinmayi-arun-way-to-watch
Free Speech and Surveillance http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/free-speech-and-surveillance
Surveillance rises, privacy retreats http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-namrata-acharya-april-12-2015-surveillance-rises-privacy-retreats

Freedom from Monitoring: India Inc. should Push For Privacy Laws http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/forbesindia-article-august-21-2013-sunil-abraham-freedom-from-monitoring

Surat's Massive Surveillance Network Should Cause Concern, Not Celebration http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surat-massive-surveillance-network-cause-of-concern-not-celebration

Vodafone Report Explains Government Access to Customer Data http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vodafone-report-explains-govt-access-to-customer-data

A Review of the Functioning of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal and Adjudicator officers under the IT Act http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/review-of-functioning-of-cyber-appellate-tribunal-and-adjudicatory-officers-under-it-act

A Comparison of Indian Legislation to Draft International Principles on Surveillance of Communications http://bit.ly/U6T3xy

SEBI and Communication Surveillance: New Rules, New Responsibilities? http://bit.ly/1eqtD8g

Snooping Can Lead to Data Abuse http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/snooping-to-data-abuse

Big Brother is Watching You http://bit.ly/1arbxwm

Moving Towards a Surveillance State http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/moving-towards-surveillance-state
How Surveillance Works in India http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/nytimes-july-10-2013-pranesh-prakash-how-surveillance-works-in-india

Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho
Can India Trust Its Government on Privacy? http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/new-york-times-july-11-2013-can-india-trust-its-government-on-piracy
Indian surveillance laws & practices far worse than US http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-june-13-2013-pranesh-prakash-indian-surveillance-laws-and-practices-far-worse-than-us
Security, Surveillance and Data Sharing Schemes and Bodies in India http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-surveillance-and-data-sharing.pdf/view
Policy Paper on Surveillance in India http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-indiahttp://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology
The Constitutionality of Indian Surveillance Law: Public Emergency as a Condition Precedent for Intercepting Communications http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-constitutionality-of-indian-surveillance-law
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 1: Foundations http://bit.ly/1ntqsen

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 2: Gobind and the Compelling State Interest Test http://bit.ly/1dH3meL

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court's Wrong Turn http://bit.ly/1kBosnw

Mastering the Art of Keeping Indians Under Surveillance http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-may-30-2015-bhairav-acharya-mastering-the-art-of-keeping-indians-under-surveillance

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-research

Security and Surveillance: A public discussion on Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights

praskrishna — 2014-12-19T08:46:34Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invites you to a public discussion on optimizing security and safeguarding human rights at its Bangalore office on Friday, December 19th, 2014, 16:00 to 18:00.

The Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with Privacy International UK, has undertaken exploratory research into surveillance, security, and the security market in India.

Through this research, we hope to understand and document policy and law associated with security, surveillance, and the security market in India and learn about the regulation of security and related technologies such as encryption, filtering, monitoring software, and interception equipment. We also hope to understand the import and export policy regime for dual use technologies.

Such findings will be critical in creating evidence based research to inform security policy and regulation in India and work towards enabling regulatory frameworks that optimize the nation’s security while protecting the rights of citizens.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/security-and-surveillance-optimizing-security-human-rights