Centre for Internet and Society

‘Piracy is now a mainstream political phenomenon'

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:44:40Z

“Piracy has become a mainstream political phenomenon,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society in the city. The piracy that he was referring to was not the piracy of the high seas but the piracy of intellectual property.

Mr. Abraham was speaking at the ‘Resource mela and meet of documentary centres' at the Centre for Education and Documentation (CED). The three-day mela ended on Sunday.

He argued that the process of documentation was a political matter. The theme of his talk was on the tussle between knowledge in the public domain versus its restriction by copyright. Mr. Abraham explained that documentation centres can have four positions vis-à-vis intellectual property restrictions.

The first position could be to agree with the existing law on intellectual property and defend the interests of those who own those rights.

A second position could be to acknowledge the usefulness of copyright laws while balancing it with the interests of the creator, entrepreneur, consumer and the general public. This balancing act is being further pushed by three important global campaigns — the right of persons with disabilities to read, the right of student communities to bypass certain copyright restrictions, and the necessities of archivists and librarians.

Moving to the other side of the spectrum, a third position that documentation centres can have is a ‘position of openness' by supporting only freely licensed intellectual property material. The extreme position that can be taken is to dismiss all the laws that exist around intellectual property and freely “pirate” knowledge.

‘No longer shameful'

Arguing from this position, Mr. Abraham said that it was no longer shameful to be known as a “pirate” today. “There are elected members of parties advocating piracy in certain European countries such as Sweden and even in the European Union.”

Mr. Abraham openly advised documentation centres not to greatly concern themselves with copyright issues in their work, as in India no two lawyers would agree on copyright laws while very few cases of copyright infringement actually came up in Indian courts.

He concluded his talk by indicating that there was no global model that could be applied to intellectual property rights “as there is no model that works for everyone everywhere”.

The resource mela was intended to be a multi-dimensional sharing centred around a national network of documentation centres called DCM. The programme was organised by Akshara, Aalochana and CED.

Read the original article in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/piracy-political-phenomenon

Open standards policy in India: A long, but successful journey

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:40:53Z

Last week, India became another major country to join the growing, global open standards movement. After three years of intense debate and discussion, India's Department of IT in India finalized its Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, joining the ranks of emerging economies like Brazil, South Africa and others. This is a historic moment and India's Department of Information Technology (DIT) deserves congratulations for approving a policy that will ensure the long-term preservation of India's e-government data.

A major victory for the Open Source community is that the policy now says, "4.1.2 The Patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard shall be made available on a Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard."

This victory is really important to the open source community because open source and open standards have a symbiotic relationship. While open source is the freedom to modify, share and redistribute software source code, open standards refer to the freedom to encode and decode data and network protocols. One freedom without the other is a limited freedom.

In the Indian policy, proprietary software vendors wanted to define open standards in such a way that even royalty-based standards would be included. Due to stiff opposition from the free and open source software community, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), academia and others, this proposal was rolled back.

Under the National e-Government Action Plan, the Indian government is spending more than 10 billion dollars on e-governance. Some of the largest greenfield e-governance projects are in India. For example, one project aims to give a unique ID to more than 700 million Indians. Given the scale and scope of e-governance in India, the storage, archival and retrieval of e-governance data is a critical state responsibility. The standards selected by India also have global implications because the sheer volumes of usage in India, could make those standards the most popular standards in the world.

It must be remembered that while software changes every few years, the underlying data (birth and death records, census data, tax data etc.) is fairly static and might have to be preserved for centuries. If the government stores its data in a closed format, it could permanently lose access to that data if the owner of that format goes out of business or refuses to provide access to that format. If the government stores its data in proprietary formats that require royalty payments, the negotiation power of the vendor goes up as more and more data is stored in that proprietary format; a situation that no sovereign power should tolerate.

The Indian policy also states that a single open standard will be used for e-governance. This clause is also extremely important. For example, if a Central Government Ministry requests a certain set of information from state governments in India, and each state government submits the data in a different format, enormous amounts of time will be wasted in converting the data into a common format. There is also risk that data could be lost in the process of converting data from one format to another. Therefore, the usage of a single, open standard for an application area is the backbone that will unify these applications and enable the sharing of data across different applications. This will drive more efficiency in e-governance enabling policy makers and e-government practitioners to quickly pull together data from different government departments and take more informed decisions.

It was a very tough fight and the proprietary vendors used their market clout and strong field presence in their attempts to subvert open standards. For example, in the previous draft policy dated 25/11/2009, the wordings of the key section read,

"4.1.2 The essential patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard should preferably be available on a Royalty-Free (no payment and no restrictions) basis for the life time of the standard. However, if such Standards are not found feasible and in the wider public interest, then RF on Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND) could be considered."

Commenting on the final policy, veteran journalist, Glyn Moody said, “As you can see, there is no room for doubt here, no quibbling with 'RF on Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND)' or 'Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND)' as the earlier version suggested: just a clear and simple 'Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard'.”

So how did the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community succeed against tremendous odds? Some key actions that helped us succeed are:

   1. We worked long and hard to educate the public and the media. At first, some journalists shied away from writing on this subject because they found it too arcane and complex. It took over six months of talking to mediapersons before one of the mainstream publications carried an article on open standards. Once that happened, the dam broke and other publications also started to write about this “arcane” subject.
   2. The academic community, especially in the prestigious Indian academic institutions, were very supportive of open standards. Many academicians have influential positions on government committees and their support helped.
   3. India has a very vibrant set of Civil Society Organizations. The FOSS community worked with leading CSOs like IT For Change, Center for Internet and Society, Knowledge Commons and others that are founded by people who have tremendous experience in working on technology policy issues. A loose-knit coalition was formed under the title of FOSSCOMM and some excellent representations were made to the Indian government.
   4. Many sections within government itself were firmly in favor of open standards and the community worked closely with them.
   5. The community made common cause with sections of industry that supported open standards. This helped counter the pressure from industry associations that were supporting proprietary standards.

It was a long but extremely rewarding issue to be involved in and I am documenting this in the hope that other countries can benefit from the experiences we gained in fighting for open standards in India. Jai Ho! (May you be victorious!)

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-standards-policy

Just Where We Like It

praskrishna — 2012-01-03T10:25:08Z

The micro space for status updates might become the new public space for discussion. Nishant Shah's column on Digital Natives was published in the Sunday Eye of the Indian Express on 21 November 2010.

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting the mecca of digital native research — The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard University. In a workshop on digital safety, questions were cropping up faster than fractals on a screen-saver: What are the tools that digital natives use to mobilise groups? How do they engage with crises in their immediate environment? Are they using popular social networking sites and Web 2.0 applications for mere entertainment? Are these tools helping them re-articulate the political realm? While thinking through these questions, I glanced at my Facebook feed, to find a friend, a respectable professor in Taiwan, announcing, “I like it on the table.” I blinked thrice to ensure I was reading it correctly. Soon more female friends announced how some liked it on the floor, some liked it on the couch, some liked it in closets.

On Facebook, almost all users engage in updating their status updates. These updates can be varied — capturing moods and emotions, reporting on striking things, offering political opinions, suggesting movies and books to friends, and often making public announcements of important events. The updates appear as a live feed, in almost-real time, letting people in networks know, discuss and share information about their personal lives. Often, to outsiders, these updates would appear pointless; I remember somebody asking me, “But why would I want to know what you had for breakfast?”

However, status messages are also constantly used as a form of political mobilisation to raise awareness, to spread the word or to gather people around a common cause. In the early part of 2010, we saw a colour meme, which invited women users on Facebook to have a colour as their status update — “Black!”, “Green!”, “Red!”, “White!” without any other explanation. It was a viral phenomenon, with colours appearing from across the world, spanning different languages, cultures and contexts. It created discussions and conspiracy theories. Blogs discussed it, people tweeted about it and eventually, the word came out.

It was a meme — an internet gene (because it replicates), which spreads virally by inviting people to participate in a series of actions, either to answer a question or perform a certain act, and pass it along. The colour updates were part of a breast cancer awareness campaign that invited women to update the colour of their bra in their status and pass the note across to other women in their network.

The new meme with people writing suggestive messages about “I like it on my...” is a follow-up on the older one, where “it” stands for a purse. There is much critique of these kinds of games, where it seems all fun and sometimes dissociated (the coy suggestiveness plays with the female stereotype of women’s love for purses). However, this critique misses out on how digital natives, through a gaming mode, are able to generate discussion on the prevention of breast cancer. What was just a space for personal ramblings suddenly became a place of political mobilisation and participation. Both men and women, reading these memes, took a moment to think about breast cancer and generate a buzz. Discussions that started with curiosity ended on a note of reflection.

Memes like these, whether on Facebook or any other social networking site, generate discussions, capture attention and create awareness campaigns without any apparent funding or infrastructure. Digital natives who start and participate in such memes might not think of themselves as activists in the traditional sense and yet they are making interventions that would otherwise require support from traditional organisations.

As digital natives grow with new technologies, they change the ways in which we engage with the world. The micro space for status updates becomes the new public space for discussion and engagement.

I know digital natives who raise an eyebrow at holding a public rally on the streets, because to them, these don’t seem to be effective solutions. I am not suggesting that digital natives do not engage in those forms of civic protest. They do, and often in a style and scope that is effective. They organise, not using pamphlets and petitions, but by using tools like memes which might be obscure, funny, absurd and strange, and to an outsider meaningless. However, memes are here to stay.

Read the story in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/just-where-we-like

Information, the world's new capital - Digital Natives

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:41:31Z

Information is the new capital and currency of the world, Nishant Shah, of the India-based Digital Natives with a Cause, told Bizcommunity.com yesterday, 10 November 2010, as the three-day workshop on digital and internet technologies that brought together young delegates from nine African countries ended in Johannesburg, South Africa. "If the 20th century was the age of the industrial revolution, the 21st century is now actually the age of the knowledge information," Shah said.

The workshop, hosted in collaboration with the Netherlands-based Hivos Centre for Internet and Society, aimed at analysing how young Africans use the digital tools and platforms at their disposal to create social change in their environments. Delegates came from countries such as South Africa, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Egypt, Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya.

Youth need to be more involved

However, despite the power of this newly-found capital and currency, there is a general impression out there that not everyone is getting access to the information or being part of the discussion of how that information is produced. Fieke Jansen, of Hivos, said research shows most of the young people growing in the south are not being part of the discussion, as policymakers, academics and practitioners act on their behalf, thus influencing their lives.

Jansen said: "We told ourselves we should break this cycle and include them in this discussion, as we strongly believe that there is a need for young people to grow up and intersect with technology in the aim to create social change."

Shah said: "Look, worldwide there is a huge pressure on young people to become economically active. You can see how governments all over the world are putting more resources into pushing populations to get access to the digital.

"Excluding the youth by, for instance trying to censor the internet, could only mean that there is a lack of understanding of how internet works.

"Older people can no longer ignore the youth in this age of digital revolution because exposing young people to digital technology can give them more voice that could help bring change, for example they can get involved in issues such as government accountability and transparency."

Gap between academic, practice

Furthermore, Jansen said research also shows that a huge gap exists between academic and practice, something she said her organisation and its partners were working hard to address. "We need to bridge that gap because academic and practice need each other," she pointed out.

Digital Natives with a Cause, which is based in Bangalore, is a research company specialised in the intersection of internet into society. The two organisations organised another workshop in August this year in Taipei, Taiwan, attended by young delegates from several Asian countries. A third workshop is due to take place in early December in Santiago, Chile's capital city.

It is estimated that the global youth population now stands at 1.2 billion this year, 85% of which live in developing countries.

Jansen said: "There is no limit on what young people can do with digital. And age doesn't matter in technology, it is the way you approach technology that matters."

Youth, agents of change

Shah said nobody can produce change in isolation. "It is time the world saw young people not only as beneficiaries of change, but also as agents of change. So it is time we start listening to them. While the older generation needs to teach the youth, young people also need to tell them if you don't build a new army, society will be in trouble."

The Johannesburg workshop was also made possible with the help of their local partner, South Africa-based The African Commons Project.

Download and read Digital Natives with a Cause? A Report.

For more information, contact the Hivos Centre for Internet and Society at www.hivos.net, the African Commons Project at www.africancommons.org or go to www.digitalnatives.in/africa.

Read the original article here

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

Archive and Access: Call for Review

praskrishna — 2012-12-14T12:15:23Z

The Archive and Access research project by Rochelle Pinto, Aparna Balachandran and Abhijit Bhattacharya is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. The project that attempts to look at the ways in which the notion of the archive, the role of the archivist and the relationship between the state and private archives that has undergone a transition with the emergence of Internet technologies in India has been put up for public review.

The Researchers At Work Programme, at the Centre for Internet and Society, advocates an Open and transparent process of knowledge production. We recognise peer review as an essential and an extremely important part of original research, and invite you, with the greatest of pleasures, to participate in our research, and help us in making our arguments and methods stronger.

Laying out a theoretical review of the history of technologies of archiving in the country, the project aims at building case studies of public and private archives in the country and the needs for a local capacity building network of historians, archivists, technologists and state bodies which exploits the digital and Internet technologies for building new archives of Indian material.

The monograph has emerged out of the "Archive and Access" project that was initiated in September 2008. The first draft of the monograph is now available for public review and feedback.Please click on the links below to choose your own format for accessing the document:

We appreciate your time, engagement and feedback that will help us to bring out the monograph in a published form. Please send all comments or feedback by 15 December 2010 to nishant@cis-india.org or you can use your Open ID to login to the website and leave comments to this post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/archive-and-access

What it means to be a child today

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:42:34Z

They move seamlessly between reality and virtual reality. The digital landscape they inhabit comprises generations — not of family — but of technology such as Web 2.0, 3G, PS4 and iPhone5. Their world has moved beyond their neighbourhood, school and childhood friends to encompass a 500-channel television universe, the global gaming village, the endless internet. These are the children born in the last decade and half — possibly the first generation that has never known a world without hi-tech.

These tweens and teens were born with dial-up internet, learnt to crawl alongside the PC and practiced writing the alphabet on the desktop. To them, a world without keypads, joysticks, digicams, headphones and LCD is unimaginable. For them, the Dark Ages are the time when television was black and white.

Nishant Shah, director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, says, "We are living with digital natives — populations that do not know the ins and outs of analogue technologies but they do often instinctively take to the world of digital and internet technologies. They view the world differently, connect with each other in unprecedented fashions and often question the authority structures developed by analogue technologies."

But no one is born into or with technology, Shah points out, and it's still the older generation that is shaping the new technologies.

Even so Indian childhood in 2010 is markedly different from ever before, he says, in that "the younger generations growing up with digital and internet technologies are using them for things that were not integral to the technologies. For example, Facebook was only meant to be a social networking site. Twitter was merely a microblogging platform. And yet, we now see the young users using these spaces for political participation, social transformation and mobilization of resources."

A survey of 14,000 children aged between 12 and 18 in 12 Indian cities by Tata Consultancy Services last year found that 63% of urban students spend an hour online daily; more than 80% have access to mobile phones and one in four have laptops. They do their homework and assignments online, access report cards, chat, blog, game, download, SMS and send photos via Bluetooth. The internet is becoming friend, philosopher and guide for the 'screenagers', supplying them with endless friendship requests, enlisting them for social causes and sometimes offering emotional solace.

Delhi student Manil Chhabra, 13, who swears by his mobile, desktop and PS2, supports many causes on Facebook, including the welfare of street dogs and gay rights. He also bonds with friends online. "My mother gets angry that I 'waste' too much time on the cell phone and online but I do try to make family time. It is not like I don't want to go out with my parents anymore. But I have a busy schedule and have free time only on Sundays. I would rather spend it with friends than my parents who I meet every day."

That said, this doesn't always translate into 'real' friendship of the physical sort. Mumbai businessman Anoop Sharma says of his 14-year-old daughter Aruhi, "My daughter has friends she chats with on Facebook but does not even say 'hi' to when she meets them!"

Admittedly, many young Indians today limit their friendships to the slightly antiseptic interaction possible on the Net. In Mumbai, Amara Mustan, 10, is constantly busy with his iPhone, an iPod with a "state-of-the-art" docking station and a Macbook. She says, "I don't think I have the time to be in touch with any of my friends except on Facebook."

Does this change social interaction? Clinical psychologist and student counsellor Dr Etishree Bhati agrees that the way children now use technology redefines the way they judge themselves and interact with everyone else. "Earlier, children turned to parents and siblings for emotional support. Today, they are checking up personality, IQ and other tests online themselves. Coming to me is the last option. Sometimes, they even crosscheck whether what I tell them tallies with these test results," says Bhati.

So yes, children in 2010 are more knowledgeable and aware. The downside is the "superiority complex and stress" says Bhati wryly.

For urban children then, if both parents are at work, the school day ends with returning to an empty home and the 'human' contact of the internet. Manil's mother, Simar Chhabra, says she is sad to note that today's children "do not understand and realize the joy of solitude. My son has absolutely no time for himself. Even when he is in bed, he is messaging till the time he falls asleep. They are disconnected from themselves and with their families."

Bhati says the impact of increasing exposure to technology is yet to be understood. "Cognitive learning can get affected. Some schools have barred students from joining Facebook. But what do you do when teachers are themselves interacting with the whole class on Facebook?"

As children routinely Google for answers to class quizzes, skipping books and encyclopaedias altogether, scientists worry that they are in danger of developing 'magpie minds' — flitting between web pages and losing the ability to analyze.

Is technology at fault? No, says Nishant Shah. "Technology in itself cannot be good or bad. It is we, the users, who make the decisions on our usage of it and what we can do with it. Children as young as two are also getting introduced to books. Is exposure to books at much younger ages necessarily bad?"

Shah believes that young users of technology are exactly like the generations that went before — only different. "Each generation has used the technologies that they are most familiar with, in order to bring about change."

He believes that the era of individualism seems to be ending and the future lies in networks and how we work, live and play within networked societies.

Is the 'twitch speed' or the rate at which networked children adapt to newer technologies the number every parent and school teacher needs to know? Keeping pace may be the only way to stay connected with the networked generation.

Read the news in the Times of India

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/a-child-today

Report: Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum, 23 Oct 2010, Doha, Qatar

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:43:25Z

A summary of the event "Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum" held in Doha.

Although I arrived in early morning of Saturday, 23 October 2010, I managed to attend Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum, held at Sharq Village, Doha Qatar. Here is below a summary of the event.

The welcoming speech was given by Dr. Hessa Al Jaber, secretary General of the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, ictQATAR. Al Jaber spoke about the importance of open digital environments for the region, and outlined specific initiatives that ictQATAR is leading to embrace it (establishment of incubation center, drafting policies that encourage open source in government and arabizing content). She noted that "The Arab world has a strong and important voice that must be heard. Embracing a digitally open world will put us at the forefront of innovation and help propel us towards being a knowledge based economy." The full speech of Dr. Al Jaber is available here.

Michelle Baker, Chairperson of Mozilla Foundation provided her insights of openness. She described elegantly openness as “a state of mind” and is about spreading innovation. To Baker, if you want to be effective on the internet, you need to have “scale”. Openness is important for “scale”. Creative Commons is a framework of how to work with a copyright system and share ideas. Mozilla intends to build a layer of the internet designed for individuals to make civil and social value. According to Baker, there are many degrees of “openness” and it up to the users contributing to open projects and the companies to choose between the various levels. She argues that openness does not mean “free” and believe that in certain areas this might hold some truth, but the matter is far from being settled.

Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons gave an interesting presentation entitled “Innovation and Digital Content Rights”. He described from his own experience while working for Japanese IT companies how innovation was perceived pre the internet era and afterward. He also compared between the traditional style of IT innovation (governments, large companies, experts) and the new style of innovation with the arrival of the internet (users contributing to open source and open content projects). To joi, the internet is made of various layers and stacks. Creative Commons is the next stack. It basically lowers the costs and creates an explosion in knowledge and innovation. He gave examples of organizations that are using Creative Commons including Wikipedia, Aljazeera, and Governments in New Zealand and Australia.

Chris Dibona, Open Source Programs Manager, Google, spoke about open source. He outlined the motivations behind releasing code by developers. He described how Google practices open source projects such as “Chromium”. One audience member asked Dibona about Google’s attention in the region in relation to open source. He replied that Google needs to learn more about the region and the culture of the Middle East. His full presentation is available here.

Professor Michael Nelson, a visiting professor of Internet Studies, Georgetown University spoke about “open clouds”. He emphasised that we are living in new world where small countries can make big impact in technology world. Estonia is the most “wired” country in Europe. Skype changed the way we do business. Qatar can provide the seed for the magic cloud. This can be achieved by having the right policies in the right time.

The second panel entitled “Openness in Science and Technology” was moderated by John Wilbanks, Vice President for Science, Creative Commons. He gave introductory remarks to the use of CC in science. His full presentation is available here.

Shaikah Al- Jaber, Director of Marketing, Innovation and Alliance, Qtel International gave a presentation entitled “Open Innovation for Telecom Companies in the Middle East”. She mainly spoke about innovation in the telecommunication sector and how it can be achieved. Her full presentation is available here.

Hesham Al Komy, Head of Sales and Marketing, Middle East and Africa, Redhat, gave a presentation entitled “From Linux to Beyond”. He went through the history and development of “open source”. Redhat was the first cooperation to take “open source” into the commercial arena. It was founded in 1983 and it currently employs 3500 employees with offices in 29 countries. He also discussed other issues related to open source community and open source adoption. His full presentation is available here.

Habib Hadid, the founder of Yalla Startup and Yamili.com did not give a presentation, but instead spoke spontaneously about business and how innovation and openness can help it. He recommended at the end to consider “innovation as a human right”.

Lucio Rispo, a strategic research director for the Qatar Science and Technology Park, spoke about the internet technological revolution and how it is changing the world. He described several initiatives that were taken in Doha, Qatar including IQRA to spread technology and innovation. His full presentation is available here.

The third panel was about “Openness in Government” that was moderated by Professor Michael Nelson. Sunil Abraham, executive Director for the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India provided interesting remarks about the internet and openness from the perspective of developing countries especially India. He also mentioned the importance of putting government funded research under open transparent and open models.

Paul Keller, Senior Project Lead of Technology and the Public Domain, Knowledgeland, Netherlands, discussed the ways to promote openness in the public sector through the use of Creative Commons licensing model. To view his presentation click here. Marwan Marouf Mahmod, Executive Director of ICT Industry Development, ictQATAR spoke about his experience and the initiatives that they have taken in ictQatar.

The final panel was entitled “Culture, Creativity and Openness”. There were 3 speakers in this panel. Eric Steuer, Creative Commons Director and the moderator of the session gave an introduction to CC. He described how CC is being used in Education, music, museums, design, films and journalism. His full presentation is available here.

Addulrahman Al Qataba is a web and application developer from Qatar. He presented his philosophy on “open life”. He developed several projects that serve the open source community in mobile applications. The full presentation is available here.

Arend Kuster, Managing Director of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation (BQF) outlined the initiative that Bloomsbury Publishing is taking in Qatar to spread knowledge through printed books and journals published in Arabic and English.

Roger Mandle, spoke about museums and his experience as a director of the Qatar Museum Authority.

CC Arab World Second Meeting
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Sharq Village
12:30 p.m – 9:00 p.m.

The CC Arab world was attended by lawyers from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and also users and enthusiasts supporting CC from across the region. The meeting was divided into two sessions. The first was for all attendees and the second was divided into two groups one for users and another for lawyers.

The first session started with a welcoming note by Joi Ito, who stressed the importance of reaching consensus decisions on important matters related to CC in the Arab world. He noted the difficulties associated with organising such an event and the efforts that CC has invested to bring all people together. Donna thanked the organizers and the supporters of the event particularly ictQATAR. She also set out the agenda for the meeting. Diane spoke about the Affiliate Enhancement Program and Michelle gave details on drafting road maps for each jurisdictions. Speakers from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the UAE presented their road maps to CC.

After discussion and questioning, Diane gave an introduction to CC naming policy in other jurisdictions including Spanish speaking countries. The discussion of CC naming policy started with Rami Olwan writing in Arabic suggested terms for English CC licences. There were two views in relation to the translation of the English terms to Arabic. The first view came from lawyers who want to use legal words that might not sound appealing to Arabic users of the licences. The second view came from users who want to use words that might not be legal and enforceable in courts. After discussion that lasted three hours, a decision was reached on each term. It was agreed to either to use المشاع الإبداعي (creative Commons) or use the English version alone. Attribution: نسب المصنَف; ShareAlike: الترخيص بالمثل, NoDerivatives: منع الاشتقاق; NonCommercial: غير تجاري.

I attended the second meeting of the session for lawyers. Diane and Joi were present at this session. Diane spoke then allowed each of the jurisdiction leads to speak. Hala Essalmawi from CC Egypt spoke about the A2K project in the library of Alexandria, Egypt and how it was important to start the project there.

I spoke also about the importance for CC in governments and education. Pierre El Khoury and Mohammed AL Darwish spoke about their upcoming events that will feature Lawrence Lessig as a speaker to the Lebanese Bar Association. Mohammad from CC Lebanon also spoke about his involvement in the Consumers International and the reports that he produced for A2K in Lebanon.

Omar Al Taweel presented his views to CC of how CC should proceed in Jordan. Several questions were asked by the lawyers and Diane gave answers. The meeting ended as some of the attendees had to leave for the airport.

See the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/report-digitally-open-innovation-and-open-access-forum-23-oct-2010-doha-qatar

DOC 2.0: A Resources Sharing Mela by NGO Documentation Centres

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:13:51Z

A Resource Sharing Mela and Meet of DCM (Document Centres Meet) at the Centre for Education & Documentation in Domlur, Bangalore.

Programme

18th Nov: 9.30 am to 20th Nov. 2 pm

Draft 3 ( to be finalised )

For DCMers
9.30 pm to 12 noon
CED Terrace

Interaction
2 pm to 4 pm
CED Exhibition Hall

Public Session
5 pm to 7 pm
CED Terrace

18th Nov.	Multi-Media/New Media. AVs, Photos, Internet - blogs	Managing Data Akshara Class.; Mapping Data: Timbaktu experience- Anne Marie.	Knowledge in an Internet Era: Role of DCs in Info-digital Society: Avinash Jha - KICS Sharing Session: Chair: Ashish Rajadhaksha
19th Nov.	Print Media Training Manuals, Newsletters, Posters etc	Producing Data: Data generation tools used by Aalochana in PC4D, Jagori safety audit	Internet : Reclaiming Civil society on the Internet. Public domain V/s copyright: Sunil Abraham:
20th Nov.	Interactive Media: Theatre, Melas?; Yuvati Mela:	Dissemination Marketing issues: Alvito; Mobile Libraries (Aalochana)	Ends

Workshop Banner

See the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/doc-2.0

Wi-Fi Direct promises range, bandwidth higher than Bluetooth

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:13:27Z

Sharing, printing and connecting for Wi-Fi devices is going to be more convenient than ever with soon-to-be-launched technology Wi-Fi Direct, which enables devices to connect to each other without a conventional Wi-Fi hub. This article by Ramkumar Iyer was published in the Hindu on 31 October 2010.

Previously known as Peer-to-Peer Wi-Fi, this new technology will allow the Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices to connect directly to each other anytime, anywhere.

It's much like Bluetooth except that it promises typical Wi-Fi range (up to 200 metres) and bandwidth (up to 250 mbps) much higher than what Bluetooth technology offers.

Moreover, the devices have a quick set-up mechanism, follow the latest security protocols and can easily connect to existing Wi-Fi networks.

Seamless usage

It means that the huge variety of existing Wi-Fi applications can be used with the new technology seamlessly.

The Wi-Fi Alliance — a coalition of technology industry giants that does the research and standardisation in Wi-Fi — announced on October 25 that it had begun certifying devices as being compatible with the new technology protocol.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance Website, the technology can be implemented in any device such as cameras, mobiles, laptops and human interface devices.

Single-tech solution

“The Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available,” said Wi-Fi Alliance Executive Director Edgar Figueroa in a press release.

The technology is aimed at both consumer and enterprise applications and has a vast range of applications which aim at making gaming, sharing, printing and remote operations simpler and convenient.

While the Wi-Fi Direct's entry into the market may present new opportunities for application developers, it may be argued that such kind of range and speed can be easily misused.

Security consciousness

Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Madras, agrees: “This technology poses a security risk because if just one device in a group is compromised, almost all the devices in the group are at risk too. And this is especially true of organisations, because unlike in the past, wireless data transfers can now take place without the organisation being able to monitor them and particularly over a larger area.

“People will now have to be more security conscious than ever. Especially, the ones with a previous case of security breach.”

End of Bluetooth?

Wi-Fi Direct not only has all the features of Bluetooth, but boasts superior transfer speeds and range. Does this mean the demise of Bluetooth?

Experts speculate that Bluetooth will not be affected much.

“In an existing market where there are millions of Bluetooth-enabled devices, it is unlikely that any manufacturer will retire the technology just because of a new one.

“Bluetooth will not be affected much; at least in the next couple of years,” said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Read the original in the Hindu

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Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:14:30Z

Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property charts the rise of the access to knowledge movement, a movement in which Open Society Foundations have played a key role. It maps the vast terrain of legal, cultural, and technical issues that activists and thinkers aligned to the movement negotiate every day.

Produced with the support of the Open Society Information Program, the book aims to make accessible a diverse range of subject matter, including access to medicines, software patents, food security and access to agricultural biotechnology, the public domain, remix culture, free expression, and semiotic democracy.

It features over 60 essays from leaders in the A2K movement, including influential thinkers and doers like Yochai Benkler, Peter Drahos, Lawrence Liang and James Love. The book also contains a chapter by Senior Information Program Manager Vera Franz, exploring the potential to redress the copyright balance of a new international instrument to mandate a minimum set of limitations and exceptions.

An electronic copy of the book has been made available for free download under a specially crafted Creative Commons (by-nc-nd) license which additionally allows for translations.

Date: November 2010
Source: Zone Books
Author: Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski, eds.

Contents include:

The Emergence of the Politics of A2K
The Conceptual Terrain of A2K
Strategies and Tactics of A2K
A2K in the Future: Visions and Scenarios

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Download the CC-licensed electronic copy of the book. Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property (PDF Document - 7041K)

Link to the original here

NEW

The end of the twentieth century saw an explosive intrusion of intellectual property law into everyday life. Expansive copyright laws have been used to attack new forms of sharing and remixing facilitated by the Internet. International laws extending the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies have threatened the lives of millions of people around the world living with HIV/AIDS. For decades, governments have tightened the grip of intellectual property law at the bidding of information industries. Recently, a multitude of groups around the world have emerged to challenge this wave of enclosure with a new counterpolitics of “access to knowledge” or “A2K.” They include software programmers who take to the streets to attack software patents, AIDS activists who fight for generic medicines in poor countries, subsistence farmers who defend their right to food security and seeds, and college students who have created a new “free culture” movement to defend the digital commons. In this volume, Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski have created the first anthology of the A2K movement, mapping this emerging field of activism as a series of historical moments, strategies, and concepts. Intellectual property law has become not only a site of new forms of transnational activism, but also a locus for profound new debates and struggles over politics, economics, and freedom. This collection vividly brings these debates into view and makes the terms of intellectual property law legible in their political implications around the world.

“It’s hard to believe that the ‘definitive’ book has already been written about a movement as new as A2K. It’s even more unusual for an edited collection of essays to have the power of a monograph. But this collection of essays is both the definitive explanation of the access to knowledge movement and a beautifully constructed conversation about the various ideas, conceptual, political and organizational, that make it up. From Amy Kapczynski’s superb overview, to Yochai Benkler’s brilliant meditation on the commons, to Lawrence Liang’s superbly titled ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Book,’ the central ideas of A2K are laid out with a freshness and power that is remarkable. And the rest of the contributors in the essays gathered here are just as strong. This is a must-have for university libraries, but it is also something that will be read intently, tactically, and sometimes uneasily, in venues ranging from WIPO to the university classroom. Highly recommended.”

James Boyle, Duke University, author of The Public Domain

“This is the first book of its kind. It comprehensively describes the intellectual contours of a powerful and emerging social movement and serves as a handbook for activism. The A2K movement is disparate and diverse. So assembling a volume that takes account of its various strands and influences is no small task. Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski have selected works from the most influential writers and practitioners of this new distributed politics. I will certainly assign this book to my survey course next year.”

Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, author of The Googlization of Everything

See the news in Zone Books

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/access-to-knowledge

Social Mashup!

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:15:01Z

Save the Date Join us to meet India’s most passionate, innovative, and curious start-up social entrepreneurs for two groundbreaking days of conversations, connections and inspiration. This event will be held on 2-3 December 2010 at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

Who’s invited? Start-up social entrepreneurs, senior social entrepreneurs, funders/investors and anyone else interested in early stage social entrepreneurship.

What will you get? You’ll have direct access to resources that meet your immediate and long-term needs. You might meet your mentor or mentee, your investor or investee, and your CEO or team member. And did we mention that we'll have a selection of artists and musicians in residence, all set to spark your creativity? Believe us, you're in for a dynamic, inspiring, affordable and fun two days that truly captures the spirit of a start-up!

What will you not get? Panels that seem to be designed for the panelists, talks that fail to inspire and networking that begins and ends with an exchange of business cards.

Speakers

The speakers represent a diverse range of perspective, experience and approach. With all of these people in the same place, sparks of social change are sure to fly.

Sachin Malhan, Inclusive Planet
Prema Gopalan, SSP
Gijs Spoor, Zameen Organics
Solomon Jayaprakash, Ashoka
Sunil Abraham, Mahiti Infotech Pvt Ltd
Ravi Agarwal, http://www.toxicslink.org/
Murali Mohan, Mukteshwari Bosco
Sunitha Krishnan, Muthu Velayutham
Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, Lok Satta Party
Vipin Thekkekalathil, Ashoka's Youth Venture India
Pankaj Jain, Acumen Fund
Payal Gupta, Flow Consulting
Rob Katz, Acumen Fund
Aarti Madhusudan, Governance Counts

Download the schedule

Contact

E-mail socialmashup@unltdindia.org or call + 91 22 3222 0475 or write to us at 4th floor Candelar Bldg, 26 St John Baptist Rd, Bandra W, Mumbai 400 050.

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Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T09:26:09Z

Promoting Openness in Today's Digital World

The internet has created exciting new ways to share information and collaborate globally and we are only beginning to see its full potential. So what does the future hold, or more importantly, what could the future hold?

Join ictQATAR and Creative Commons for an interactive forum addressing how innovation can thrive in the digital age through sharing and openness. We'll take on issues such as digital content rights, the open cloud, open source software, openness in government, openness in creativity, culture and art and the value proposition of openness.

Hear the latest thinking from Google, Mozilla, Georgetown University and other leaders in the digital rights arena. Participate in lively panel discussions on openness in government, openness in business, and openness for culture and creativity.

Speakers:

Program:http://www.ictqatar.qa/output/page1988.asp#mbaker

8:45 a.m.      Registration Opens

9:30 a.m.      Welcome
                       Dr. Hessa Al Jaber, Secretary General, ictQATAR

9:45 a.m.       What it Means to be Open
                       Mitchell Baker, Chairperson, Mozilla Foundation

10:15 a.m.    Digital Content Rights
                       Joichi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons

10:45 a.m.    The Open Source Revolution
                       Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager, Google

11:15 a.m.     Break

11:30 a.m.     The Open Cloud
                        Michael Nelson, Visiting Professor of Internet Studies, Georgetown
                        University

12:00 p.m.     Panel: Openness in Science and Technology

                      John Wilbanks, Creative Commons, VP for Science - Moderator

                       Shaikha Al-Jabir, Director of Marketing, Innovation and Alliance, Qtel
                       International

                       Hesham Al Komy, Head of Sales and Marketing, Middle East and Africa, Redhat

                       Habib Haddad, Founder, Yalla Startup, Yamli.com

                       Lucio Rispo, Qatar Science and Technology Park

1:15 p.m.       Lunch Break

2:15 p.m.       Panel: Openness in Government (moderated by Michael Nelson)

                       Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center for Internet & Society, India

                       Paul Keller, Senior Project Lead of Technology and the Public Domain,
                            Knowledgeland

                       Marwan Marouf Mahmoud, Executive Director of ICT Industry
                            Development, ictQATAR

3:15 p.m.      Panel: Culture, Creativity and Openness

                       Eric Steur, Creative Commons Creative Director - Moderator

                       Abdulrahman Al-Otaiba, Web and Application Developer

                       Arend Kuster, Managing Director, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation
                            Journals

                        Roger Mandle, Director, Qatar Museum Authority

4:15                End

Speaker Bios:

Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber, Secretary General, ictQATAR

Dr. Hessa Al Jaber is the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, ictQATAR. In her nearly six years of leadership at ictQATAR, Dr. Hessa has led Qatar's ICT strategy across sectors, spearheading major initiatives in government, education and business.

She has overseen the liberalization of Qatar's telecommunications market, ushering in an era of choice and competition, and directed the modernization of Qatar's ICT infrastructure. Passionate about ensuring that the benefits of technology reach all sectors, Dr. Hessa has led numerous initiatives to make Qatar a more inclusive society through ICT.

She has spearheaded the modernization of Qatar's government through ICT, streamlining processes, making government more transparent and accessible to its people, and also launching an online portal to the government, Hukoomi. She is also leading Qatar's initiative to build the first high-capacity satellite "E'Shail" to be launched in 2012. Dr. Hessa has been instrumental in the creation of Mada, an assistive technology center that serves persons with disabilities in Qatar, as well as initiating a host of national programs that empower women and youth, and protect children online.

Mitchell Baker, Chairperson, Mozilla Foundation

As the leader of the Mozilla Project, Mitchell Baker is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide collective of employees and volunteers who are breathing new life into the Internet with the Firefox Web browser and other Mozilla products. Baker was born and raised in Berkeley, California, receiving her BA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and her JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law. Her law career included working for Sun Microsystems and Netscape. She has also sat on the board of the Open Source Applications Foundation.

Baker has been the general manager of the Mozilla project since 1999, helping shape the license under which Netscape's source code was released. In 2003, she became president and founder of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to openness and innovation on the Internet. In 2005, Baker led the creation of Mozilla Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. As Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, Baker continues her commitment to an open, innovative Web and the infinite possibilities it presents.

Joichi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons

Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons. He is a co-founder and board member of Digital Garage. He is on the board of CCC and Tucows. He is a Senior Visiting Researcher of Keio Research Institute at Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Japan. He is on board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Mozilla Foundation, WITNESS and Global Voices.

He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate and other Internet companies. He has served and continues to serve on various Japanese central as well as local government committees and boards, advising the government on IT, privacy and computer security related issues. He maintains a weblog (http://joi.ito.com/) where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community.

Chris DiBona, Open Source and Public Sector Program Manager, Google

Chris DiBona is the open source and public sector programs manager at Mountain View, Ca. based Google. His team oversees license compliance and supports the open source developer community through programs such as the Google Summer of Code and through the release of open source software projects and patches. In the public sector space, he looks after Google Moderator, the polling locations API. Additionally, he is on the board of Our Good Works, a non-profit that looks after the volunteer matching website Allforgood.org.

Mr. DiBona is an internationally known advocate of open source software and related methodologies. He occasionally appears on the This Week in Tech and Cranky Geeks podcasts. He is a visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management and has a masters in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Additionally, he serves on the advisory board of imeem, a San Francisco, Ca. based social networking firm.

Michael Nelson, Visiting Professor of Internet Studies, Georgetown University

Michael Nelson is currently Visiting Professor of Internet Studies in Georgetown University's Communication, Culture, and Technology Program. Since January 2008, he has been doing research and teaching courses on "The Future of the Internet" and technology trends as well as consulting and speaking on Internet technology and policy.

Nelson is a Trustee of the International Institute of Communication, a member of the Board of FirstMile.us, and until April was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet2 university research consortium. He is also the outgoing chairman of the Information, Computing, and Communications Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Panelists:

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society

Sunil is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), in Bangalore. He is the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Sunil continues to serve on the board of Mahiti. He is an Ashoka fellow and was elected for a Sarai FLOSS fellowship.

For three years, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007 - 2008, he managed ENRAP an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific, facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Dr. Shaikha Sultan Al-Jabir, Director of Marketing, Innovation and Alliances, Qtel International

Dr. Shaikha Al-Jabir a visionary IT executive who understands where business is going and takes corporate IT to a whole new level. She is currently the Director of Marketing, Innovation and Alliances in Qtel International (QI) where she is building a framework for strategic and sustainable innovation within QI.

Prior to joining QI, she was the CIO at Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation- Kahramaa, where she established a sophisticated ICT infrastructure, placing the organization at the forefront of technology. Dr. Al-Jabir has a PhD in Computer Science, MS in Telecommunications and Computers, and a BS in Electrical Engineering.

Abdulrahman Al Otaiba

Abdulraham is a Qatari developer who has been passionate about computers since an early age. He started as a software developer, then web developer, and recently mobile application developer. Most of his personal projects are released under the open source license. He also co-founder and editor-in-chief of Almashroo Arabic blog, which talks about all sorts of web development.

Habib Hadad, Founder & CEO, Yamli.com

Habib is a serial tech entrepreneur, recently founder and CEO of Yamli.com a startup focused on empowering the Arabic language on the web. His also the founder and CEO of YallaStartup an NGO focused on early stage entrepreneurship in the MENA region.

In 2009, the World Economic Forum recognized Habib as a Young Global Leader and the ArabianBusiness named him one of the most influential Arabs under 30. He currently serves on the Global Agenda Council on innovation.

Paul Keller, Senior Copyright Advisor, Knowledgeland

Paul Keller is senior copyright policy advisor at Knowledgeland, an Amsterdam based think-tank focused on innovation in the knowledge economy. He is public project lead for Creative Commons in the Netherlands and serves as Collecting Societies Liaison for Creative Commons International.

Paul is an expert on open content licensing with a special focus on the cultural heritage organizations, the music industry and the creative industries. Next to his work for Creative Commons he is currently coordinating the copyright related aspects of Images for the Future one of the biggest digitization projects for audio-visual heritage in Europe and he is one of the architects of the licensing framework for Europeana, the European Union funded online aggregator of Europe's cultural heritage. Paul frequently advises organizations on the implementation of open content licensing strategies.

Arend Küster: Managing Director, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals (BQFJ)

Arend joined BQFJ from Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, where he was Business Development Director and led the development of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals. He has over 5 years of consulting experience in Sales and Marketing Strategies for scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishers including Elsevier Science, Springer, American Physical Society, Taylor and Francis, Wiley Blackwell, University of Chicago Press, British Medical Journal, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, Palgrave Macmillan.

Marwan Marouf Mahmoud, Executive Director of ICT Sector Development, ictQATAR

An ICT professional with more than 20 years of experience working with various levels of technology, Marwan oversaw the preparation and implementation of some of the most comprehensive ICT strategies in financial institutions and now heads the ICT Industry development at ictQATAR. In this role ictQATAR, he is involved in building an ICT Industry ecosystem and a digital content ecosystem, which includes initiatives in intellectual property, broadband infrastructure, international ICT Industry cooperation and entrepreneurship programs in the digital content space.

Roger Mandle, Executive Director, Qatar Museums Authority (QMA)

Roger Mandle brings to the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) more than four decades of experience as a senior museum executive and arts educator. As Executive Director, he oversees all of the QMA's museum programs and building projects, including the Museum of Islamic Art. His responsibilities range from administration and finance to the curatorial direction of the museums to a comprehensive educational program, which includes the creation of an international network of training opportunities for Qatari citizens who desire careers in the museum field.

Mr. Mandle comes to the QMA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island, where he served as President since 1993. From 1988 to 1993, he was Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Mr. Mandle was the Director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio from 1977-1988 and served as Associate Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1967 to 1974.

Lucio Rispo, Strategy Research Director, Qatar Science & Technology Park

Lucio has more than 35 years of experience in multinational and multicultural environments.
Lucio is currently Strategic Research Director at Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP). Prior to joining QSTP Lucio was Managing Director at BioGeM, a European leader in the biotech research and services. He developed strategy and services based on a network infrastructure which allows internationally cooperation.

In 2006 Lucio founded the telecom division of Pradac Informatica, Srl, which provided value added services for telecom companies, and which was acquired by Amuser. Prior to Amuser, Lucio held several executive positions including Wordwide Telecom Sales VP at Sema Group, President at Nortel Networks for the Southern European Region and CEO for Europe and Latin America at Bull.

Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons

Eric Steuer manages Creative Commons' relationships with artists, media companies, and cultural institutions. He produces creative projects and events that emphasize the use of CC licenses, and also directs the organization's media strategy. Before joining Creative Commons, Eric was as an editor for Wired Magazine, which he continues to write for. He is on the board of CASH Music, is the co-founder of Sneakmove Recordings, and is in a hip hop group called Meanest Man Contest.

John Wilbanks, Vice President, Science Commons, Creative Commons

As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark.

John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He serves on the Board of Directors for DuraSpace and AcaWiki.

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Crisis for identity or identity crisis?

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:16:30Z

The hurry with which the government is pushing its most ambitious project to assign a number (UID) to every citizen without any feasibility study or public debate has raised many questions.

“It will empower all”, declared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he issued the first UID card to a villager from Tembhli village in Maharashtra. But as days pass and relevant issues come for public discourse, many people have begun to doubt prime minister’s assurance.

Unique identification number (UID), named Aadhaar is a 12 digit identification number that the government plans to issue to all citizens that will not only be an identity card but will also serve multiple purposes for its holder.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has been assigned the responsibility to execute this proposal as Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Mr Nilekani leads a team of 120 people having the task of assigning unique identities to 1.2 billion people. He plans to take Aadhaar beyond being just a 12-digit identification number for every Indian. This ambitious and mammoth project is pitched to handle projects as diverse as a national-highway toll-collection system, a technology backbone for the forthcoming Goods and Services Tax (GST) and reform of the vast public distribution system (PDS) for subsidized foodgrains.

Government plans to cover 60 per cent of the nation’s population under this project in the next three years starting October this year. This project is intended to collect identification data about all residents in the country. It is said that it will impact the PDS and NREGA programmes, and plug leakages and save the government large sums of money.

But the UID will not replace ration cards and passports, and is not mandatory as of now. No questions would be asked related to language, caste or religion of the person applying for UID.

The UID number is linked to the fingerprints and the pattern of the eyes of the person assigned that number. This inimitable biometric data ensures that any given number is linked to only one person. So there is hardly a chance of any misgiving or stealing of rations and wages from the holder. It is believed that soon banks, insurance companies, cell phone providers and hospitals will demand UID number before doing business with you.

In short, in the future our name, address, bank account numbers, personal information and identity as a whole will be solely linked and governed by those 12 digit number we hold.

Critics say that there has been no feasible study conducted about UID project, neither has there been a cost benefit analysis done. To add to it, there are serious concerns about data and identity theft.

But apart from the buzz about this new project, there is an air of suspicion surrounding it too.

The launch of the UID has led to a flurry of debate amongst policy-makers, legal experts and civil society at large. In response, Mr Nilekani claims the UID to be “a foolproof project implemented at a low cost”.

However, some critical issues remain unanswered.

One of the major objections about UID is that there has been no feasible study conducted, neither has there been a cost benefit analysis done. There is no project document as such.

To add to it, there are serious concerns about data and identity theft.

In a world where cyber terrorism is the new threat, and the countries are gearing themselves to protect against such a threat, projects like UID come as an open invitation to terrorist outfits to infiltrate their defences.

The UID number is linked to fingerprints and the patterns of the holder’s eye. But medical studies show that our eye's iris patterns can change due to aging, disease or malnourishment. More over the government has no alternative option for many millions who fall outside this pattern of identification owing to callused hands, corneal scars and cataract induced by malnourishment. Even as enrollment is poised to begin, authentication is still an unstudied field. Fake fingerprints can very easily be made. Hence, the unique element of these numbers can be tampered.

Recently, Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society has remarked, “If I leave my fingerprints around, my identity can be stolen and transactions done on my behalf. They could use that number, to share information about anybody.”

A cyber-criminal having access to any person’s identification number can virtually control that person. Telephone numbers, addresses, family history can all be tracked down. Bank accounts can be manipulated and transactions done without the person knowing. Since these days, a lot of money transactions are done through internet, a cyber criminal can easily steal few UID numbers and impersonate those persons to manipulate the bank or credit card accounts.

In an even uglier scenario, where people might be tracked and judged by their numbers, a criminal’s fingerprints left behind on a scene of crime can be mixed with some one else through a slight manipulation and exchange of UID numbers, making an entirely innocent person a suspect in the eyes of law. Some incompetent or revengeful government officials can also frame innocents for a crime one never committed.

Human rights activists claim that a tech-savvy person can hack into the system and gain any person’s information from the servers unless the government tightens the defenses. A reminiscence of the Bruce Willis starrer Hollywood blockbuster Die Hard 4, a bunch of techno geeks operating from trailer truck hold the entire United States hostage as they hack into every main frame computing network from transportation, communication, power, defence and individual accounts.

The number can also be used for real time tracking, profiling, mounting surveillance and ‘convergence’ of information. Apart from the concerns about identity theft, the number can also invade our private space. If in the future insurance companies and hospitals merge their databases, the insurance companies can increase premium, or simply refuse insurance cover to a person who is not keeping well.

Poor labourers and immigrants who are on the move in search of work could also be the victims of the ‘Aadhaar’. In future, in case of card being lost or misplaced, poor labour would be threatened with financial and welfare exclusion. Where being a legal resident is to be closely tied in with having a UID number, it could render the poor vulnerable to exclusion and expulsion by exploitative employers and others.

Interestingly, few months back in June, UK government scrapped the plans for the controversial 5 billion pounds National Identity Card scheme. The UK government now plans to destroy all information held on the National Identity Register, effectively dismantling the whole system.

Though Mr Nilekani claims that UID would be a cost effective project, however deeper analysis throws a different story. It is reported that the UIDAI project will cost Rs 45,000 crores to the exchequer in the next 4 years. This does not seem to include the costs that will be incurred by Registrars, Enrollers, additional costs on the PDS system to connect it to the UID, the estimated cost to the end user and to the number holder.

Defending himself from the flurry of queries, Mr Nilekani has stressed that the identification number is not mandatory for everyone and only those interested can enroll. The project aims to first enroll the poor and uneducated masses promising them better wages and ration schemes. As was reported, the first villager to get the UID card was ‘happy but did not know its benefits’. Critics allege that the reason why Aadhaar is selling itself to millions of poor in the country is to create a foundation of legitimacy to deflect concerns over its possible misuse, unsafe technology and huge costs. Later, with a larger foundation, the UID can be enforced upon all citizens in the near future as the apex identity proof, making everyone vulnerable to several risks described above.

The UIDAI project has proceeded so far without any legal authorization. There has been no feasibility study or cost-benefit analysis preceding the setting up of such a pervasive project. All calculations are of the back-of-the envelope variety. Data theft is a very serious threat to every individual and the country as a whole. There are deeply disconcerting facts about the project that should make even a die-hard UID supporter worry about its long term implications.

This article has been written by Sushant Sharma. He is a college fresher and avid reader.

Interestingly, few months back in June, UK government scrapped the plans for the controversial 5 billion pounds National Identity Card scheme. The decision came after about 15,000 citizens had already been enrolled and given their numbers. The UK government now plans to destroy all information held on the National Identity Register, effectively dismantling the whole system.

The UK system like the Indian UID had also started with much fanfare, claiming to save nearly 900 million pounds for the taxpayers. While the project was axed, UK’s Home Secretary Theresa May stated - “It (the identity card project) is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive. It is an assault on individual liberty that does not promise a great good.”

The same logic implies to the India as well. But instead of scraping this over-hyped-failure-in-the-making project, our Prime Minister claims the UID project “will empower all”. But will it actually? That is for us to decide now.

Read the original article here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/identity-crisis

Network Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing

praskrishna — 2010-12-01T07:07:07Z

Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

“Transversal Media Practices”

by Kristoffer Gansing (SE)

Digital network culture (and before it, multimedia) has since at least the mid-1990's often been described as a situation where, through an overarching process of integration, old and new media collide and converge in different ways (Zielinski 1999, Bolter & Grusin 1999, Manovich 2001, Jenkins 2006). This study investigates how the relation between new and old media forms and their associated practices have been critically appropriated in the field of media art, specifically dealing with alternative media and emerging media-archaeological practices.

“Gate Peepin' or a few thoughts on delivering people ...”

by Linda Hilfling (DK)

The countless click-and-agree contracts populating the Web are veritable gate keepers of the communities making up today's net culture, such regulations are, although materially detached from the structures that they govern, powerful means of controlling content on the Net. Through an introduction to the critical design intervention, Gate Peepin' and related projects, this presentation opens up for a discussion on participation, means of regulation and the user's position within social media platforms.

Gansing and Hilfling have collaborated on projects since 1999. Their joint projects include experimental platforms for media production exploring local/global networks and the curating of festivals and exhibitions challenging linear assumption of technological development. They often collaborate with different communities: CUDI in Vollsmose 2000-2002, Oda Projesi in Istanbul 2003, Sarai/LNJP Colony in New Delhi 2004 and currently with the artist-run TV-station tv-tv in Copenhagen. In 2005 they initiated the media archaeological festival The Art of the Overhead, an ongoing project which pays tribute to the almost forgotten medium of the overhead projector.

About Kristoffer Gansing (SE)

Kristoffer Gansing (SE) is a researcher at K3, School of Arts & Communication, Malmö Univ, with a research project on Transversal Media Practices, dealing with the articulation of old and new media forms and practices across art, activism and the everyday in the cultural production of network culture.

About Linda Hifling (DK)

Linda Hilfling (DK) is an artist who works with the premises of participation and public spaces within media structures, with a focus on means of control (codes, organisation and law) and their cultural impact. Her artistic practice takes the form of interventions reflecting upon or revealing hidden gaps in such structures.

Also see [1] and [2]

The two talks will proceed for 30 min for each speaker followed by short Q&A’s. Finally there’ll be a joint discussion. Tea and refreshments will be served.

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/archaeological-and-artistic-interventions

City in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 1)

praskrishna — 2012-03-13T10:43:50Z

“The estuaries that flirt with the land mass before they finally perish in the vast deep blue ocean beyond were perfect in their shape and grace. And you know what; from top it appears like a surreal landscape that is so restive and peaceful, almost heaven. The countryside is actually very beautiful”, says Pratyush Shankar in his latest blog post. A random conversation between two person discovering the joys of seeing our existence through Google Earth!

The use of maps through the Internet has seen a many fold increase in recent times. With availability of satellite information to anyone through various websites we are witnessing a sea change in the manner in which our space (cities, countryside and landscape) is being gazed upon. This is an important time historically, as it has the potential to fundamentally alter our imagination of space; right from the scale of a country to our neighbourhood block.

The Internet today is perhaps right in the middle of such mediation of the city and people. The Google maps, satellite imagery, road maps, place markers, are leading to a re-imagination of our own environment. Let us try and explore some of the key concepts that gets raised in the process of such expressions of space and its mental constructs. This is the part one of the essay and by the end of the next post I will try and speculate its impact on city spaces (yes the real space!)

Story 1: Geography is sensed and lived in

As a child growing up in a not so small town of Kota, Shailendra and his group of friends swore allegiance of silence and if needed deceit when it came to their weekend forays outside the city; a swim in the river Chambal. The swim was a big no-no for kids, as stories of people being washed away in the strong current of the merciless river that had steep banks, were drilled into every potentially aberrant child of the town. If not the force of the water it definitely had to be the crocodiles that wait for days together, at the dark bottom of the river for that one sweet sound of a child swimming above. After that it is only gore and blood. But Shailendra and his friends could not resist the temptation of a good swim in the cool water. He often boasted about his dives and his long swims and that he saw a crocodile come his way but swam faster than that wretched creature. And some time during a leisurely mood as he and his friends sat on the banks of the river, smoking Charminar with the Chambal swiftly passing below, he spoke about his dream of leaving this small city of aunts, cousins, family festivals, marriage, river and crocodile for the “big city”; the city of lights, new friends and endless possibilities. This is how he understood his city; small, protective and the big river on its periphery. The city was compact, the river dangerous, the slopes of the city lead to a valley which had rich but soft soil; not so perfect for foundations of buildings but great for mango orchards they frequented last summer. The orchards were owned by the Garasia’s, the land owning class of the villages around, and they made good money. They could marry off their daughters to neighboring villages and throw a lavish dinner for the community. Not bad at all, he thought considering the fact that this community had small land holding and almost no access to credit . Further downstream the villagers were much richer. The Patidar community here had access to capital from their ancestral assets and strong community networks as they used the river water for intense irrigation; they grew basmati rice, export quality very much “Made in India”. Their sons studied in boarding school at Mt. Abu and would often show0ff their recent shopping booty from Mumbai or Delhi. Enough land and plenty of water can do wonders he thought!

Shailendra and his friends understood the geography as much as they understood the economic processes that are associated with land and water all across the length and breath of the country. The agricultural modes as linked to the geography of land is as common a knowledge, as the fact that one has to remove slippers before entering the temple premise. The geographical understanding of a place or region is necessarily one of soil, surface drainage, river, canals and how it impacts building and agriculture activity. This is true for most souls of the large number of villages and towns of India. The geography taught at the local school’s is as abstract and distant as Galelio’s invention of telescope or closer home the 1857 mutiny against the British. Land is understood through immediate examples that affect and lets us understand the structure of space around; the relationship of land, its water bodies, forest, its produce, livestock, agriculture and people. It is this web of relationship that provides the primary reading of landscape. A reading emerging from survival and dreams. An understanding that is bodily and involves all sense.

Story 2: Geography is contested

The push and the subsequent fall was bad, considering the fact that it was only suppose to be a friendly game of football with the boys from the municipal school. Pyjama chhap; that’s what Ajay used to call these boys. Ajay knees were badly bruised, something he had got used to since he joined the school football team. But the injuries and the resultant bandage were in fact trophies he did not mind showing off in his neighborhood. Sweet pain eh! But today his encounter with the boys from Municipal School no -32, Kandivalle in the football match left him a bit shaken. There was something about that push, something strange in the eyes of the boys who did him in. No apology, no shake of hands but a brutal look as if that bunch might kill him if he come anywhere close to them. Ignoring the skirmishes, he soon carried out with his show of bandages in the knee and slight limp in school; a typical John Travalto one. This had been a regular ritual he performed often to woo the girls of the class, a show that said “I am the Alpha male and have just returned from a battle where I proved my supremacy. I am broken here and bruised there. Some sympathy, some support, some sweet nothing talk or maybe a gentle caress might help”. And life goes on. A daily ritual of updating the facebook profile, completing the homework, sourcing the “ultimate porn”, avoiding dad, recharging the sim, football practice and girls.

Life rolled on till the day Ajay was again confronted with the same pyjama chaap kids of the Municipal school. This time it was beyond the security of his school compound in the market street exposed to the elements. The same dirty look and menacing stare. He tried to smile but before he could realize the one in the center with a dark face and curly hair shouted “matherchod bahut shaana ho gaya hai tu” (mother fucker you have become too smart these days). Now this one was a pure googly. Ajay was stumped, confused and more than anything else he was sweating with fear. Why me and why here in full public view. But..but what is the matter boss, he said? Matter is very clear, said the other one with a squint eye; your dads behind eviction of two shops, one house, three families and four dogs. You assholes have brought these families to street because your dad brought the municipal bulldozers to clear the plot in front of his clinic so that he can plant trees and have a nice parking for his clients. Now this was heavy… very heavy. Ajay just could not fathom why it had to be him. And.. and what is in that piece of land anyways. A large neem tree, dusty rough surface, some shanty and a nullah flowing with the exposes water pipe.

The encounter lasted a few seconds but it was devastating. He ran to the comfort of his house and immediately asked for hot masala maggie. Oh sweet home; it felt so good to curl up on the couch, switch the channels of the television, check the emails; all so personalized and predictable. He wanted all the familiar comforts that day…

Ajay soon outgrew the incident and went about planning his daily inaction’s, weekly bunks and occasional dates. But that incident also changed him. He had a keener eye now, for both sensing trouble and also to things around him he earlier had failed to notice.

He understood how the rivulet that flows from the ghats to the sea, actually is the life line of some twenty thousand families that stay there with their dogs, cats, shops, scooters and some even cars. He knew that the mangroves of the city are now piece of trophy used by the environmentalist to rally for protection and stop the International Airport project. He knew how the Mumbai floods were actually man-made as subsequent corrupt municipal officers choose to ignore the fundamentals of topography and water. That is how he learned about the geography of his city; from being absolutely ignorant about his surroundings, he suddenly knew how his city is the space of conflict, of emancipation, deceit, opportunity and corruption. The fractured geography of his city told the story of survival, human ingenuity and violence.

The “image from top”

“The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me—a small disk, 240,000 miles away. It was hard to think that that little thing held so many problems, so many frustrations. Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from that distance”

Frank Borman, Astronaut aboard Apollo 8, ‘A Science Fiction World—Awesome Forlorn Beauty,’ Life magazine, January 1969.

The view of the earth from moon and satellites in the late 50′s and 60′s contributed to imagination of the planet as an artifact that is small, vulnerable and alone in space. It fed a whole generation of activists, scientist and media to speak about the earth as a unique place. The image of earth with its deep blue surface, clouds and spots became the single most important symbol that fueled the the hearts and minds of the generation, that questioned the development model of the western world. It attacked the core values of modernity and growth that was drunk on technology, performance and confidence to master the elements of nature. But at the same time, it hearled a very different way of reading space. Riding on the growth of both print and visual mediums it led to an explosion of imagery that showed the “God’s view of the earth”. A fantastic collage of calm blue oceans, neat forests and swirling clouds streams. The good old map that existed in Geography- II textbooks of schools were so boring now; way too abstract and almost a diagram.

That old maps did not inspire any spatial imagination but it did have these lines where none existed. The straight lines of longitude, the dark red meridian, the political boundary of nations, the dark circular one of the capital city. And yes the arrows; the ones showing the direction of the ocean current, swirling all around the blue waters. Maps are much maligned lot these days. Often seen as expressions of the intent to document, control and exploit the land that was colonized by them, maps were instrument of power struggle in India and elsewhere. But they do exist amongst us like many other colonial legacies. Maps are provocative, they express an opinion and engage with the user to form a dialogue of questions and answers. For example the map of Delhi metro is statement of origin-destination possibilities of the large city. A statement of the state of flows and possibilities for movement of one self in the space.

Maps are a statement of processes of space which may or may not express visually. For example the map showing the per-capita consumption of cereals in a district, may or may not manifest as a form. It is the story of the people, their ability to access food supplies etc.

The map is telling a story that made you develop an imagination of space. The satellite image leaves nothing for imagination.

But the view from top has often been perceived to be the real space; as it actually exists. Unlike maps that are either surveyed and drawn, Google Maps and such derivatives on the internet today use an “image from top” as a basic conceptual ground to explore space. Let us now try to deconstruct this phenomenon further.

The image of space below taken from top is important from the point of view of creating grounds for further information. The image pretends to be complete, authentic, accurate and real. There is no possibility for error. The camera are special, there lens accurate, the satellite is state of art and the image is not “photo-shopped”. This portrayal assumes that the visual image is the baseline reality to be recognized. The image then claims to be “the” window to reality and becomes the mediator between the person and his/ her imagination of the surrounding space. Unlike maps wherein the first cut documentation is a bodily involvement of people with space while conducting physical surveys, it is the snap of the camera in case of satellite images. Whereas it is common knowledge that ground physical survey are way too accurate in terms of their dimensional characteristics, the “image from top” are seen to be more closer to reality. This raises interesting questions from the point of view of our understanding of space be it the forests, oceans, rivers, countryside or cities.

Will the dependence on the image (satellite pictures) and its derivative maps that we are witnessing through the internet today for visualizing space lead to a viewer that is satisfied with the “happy” image of his surroundings? Does it mean that the visual (image) becomes more important than the “process” (be it processes of nature, human survival, achievement etc) when imagining space. In short are the meanings attached to the image limited now than before.

So are we headed towards a more homogeneous imagination of our space and its parts due to the mediation by the same image through the internet? The forest are dense, the plantations greens, the coastline smooth, the old city organic and water bodies are deep blue.

Wait! The story has a new twist

But there is something also happening to the image on the internet. There are place markers, text, suggestions, stories, links to other site and even pictures overlaid on the satellite images or its maps. The story is getting interesting now; the technological possibility of user participation is creating a new layer of information and opinions on the maps. Far from being a specialized cartographic exercise, maps are being now created by people. It expresses their impressions, choices and preferences about their space.

This phenomenon of the individual expressions over the expanse of the vast space is new and needs to be further understood. More about it in the next post…..

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/city-in-the-internet