Information Policy

Guerrilla Techniques For Online Activism

IFEX often reports on journalists who have been violently attacked or killed while on the job, or who have been slapped with defamation suits - two of the greatest threats to free expression. So how do you, as a reporter, escape unscathed and write without fear or favour?

The Southeast Asian Centre for e-Media, a partner of the Netherlands-based foundation Free Voice, has come up with "Guerrilla Techniques for Online Activism" for online journalists and bloggers to freely "pursue their advocacy goals."

Using examples from Malaysia during its election year, the centre outlines some "common guerrilla techniques," such as using multiple anonymous identities, or teaming up with a ghost writer in another (safer) country who will publish articles as if s/he is the one writing them. The guide also offers tips on how you can protect yourself from government detection, including by getting circumvention software from Sesawe.net.

Read more Guerrilla Techniques for Online Activism (English only):

http://www.freevoice.nl/weblog/view/425/

Andreessen: Facebook revenue to top $500 million in '09

by Caroline McCarthy

Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who just launched a new venture fund, said in an interview with Reuters (published Monday) that he expects the company's revenue to be in excess of $500 million in 2009, and that in five years it'll be well into the billions.

"Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake," he told Reuters regarding the fact that since an initial public offering is still a ways off, Facebook is permitting some employee stock sales to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian firm that invested $200 million in the site in May. Andreessen himself is not a personal investor in Facebook, and said that "I probably could have if I had tried hard but I didn't."

If Facebook worked the ad-sales front a bit harder, Andreessen added in the interview, revenue could already be over a billion.

But Facebook has never taken kindly to traditional display advertisements, choosing instead to experiment with "engagement ads" integrated into the social-networking experience--a product it may potentially extend into Facebook Connect's participating sites, which now number over 10,000.

Additionally, Facebook has been working toward an alternative revenue stream with its "credits" system, a virtual currency that for now is restricted to the company's in-house "Gifts" application. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the Facebook currency system will be made available to developers using the social network's API, which could produce a significant new source of revenue for Facebook as it takes a cut of transactions.

Andreessen--the Netscape founder and Silicon Valley mainstay whose current projects include social-network builder Ning--has been on Facebook's board for just over a year. He joined at the personal request of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said at the time that "Marc is an industry leader, and we're fortunate to have him join our board."

http://ow.ly/gDxr

Broadband To Reach 640 Million Households By 2013

By W. David Gardner

InformationWeek

While the Asia-Pacific region will account for nearly half the global broadband market share, the U.S. will also see a boost from the Obama Administration's stimulus package.

Demand for high bandwidth broadband will drive the number of worldwide households with the high-speed technology to more than 640 million by 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by Parks Associates.

The analyst firm said that the number of broadband households worldwide grew by over 18% in 2008 to exceed 400 million.

The Asia-Pacific market will pace global broadband deployment, the market research firm said, adding that the region will account for more than 49% of the worldwide total market share by 2013. Currently, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than 160 million broadband subscribers.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QT0B5EPTIW41CQSNDLOSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=218400829

$7B Target for India's 3G Auctions

The Indian government has budgeted for the impending 3G auctions to deliver revenues of 350 billion Indian Rupees (US$7.26 billion) during the 2009-2010 financial year, reinforcing the now widely held belief that the reserve price for the auction will be raised.

Indeed, it would suggest that the finance ministry has got its way and the reserve price for each spectrum block will be doubled to INR40.4 billion ($838 million).

In the 2008-9 budget, into which the 3G auctions had originally been scheduled to fall, the government had valued the 3G licenses at INR200 billion ($4.13 billion). The 43 percent price hike is due to the finance ministry's belief that the spectrum is worth more, and thanks to more blocks being available after spectrum was released by the defense services.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/36177?7649

Google to launch desktop OS

Google has announced that it is developing an open source operating system (OS) based on its Chrome browser for use with netbooks.

The Google Chrome OS will be available on netbook computers in the second half of 2010, with the code for the project to be open sourced later this year.

Google says that the key features of the OS are speed, security and simplicity; it has been designed to get users from system start up to the web within a few seconds, has a minimal user interface and features a redesigned security architecture.

"Users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work," Sundar Pichai and Linus Upson of Google write on the search engine's official blog.

They add: "Any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the internet."

The OS will run on x86 and ARM chips and will be as web based as possible; all online apps will work automatically and new apps can be created using web technologies, Google states.

These apps will be able to be used with any standards based browser across the Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. Google stresses that the Chrome OS is an entirely separate project to its Android OS for mobile devices, however.

It is hoped that the Chrome OS will eventually be able to be expanded to power full sized desktop systems.

Chrome currently accounts for 1.75 per cent of the global browser market, according to StatCounter.

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/googletolaunchdesktopoperatingsystem080709.mxs

A Review of Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL) or Power Line Telecommunication (PLT)

By Ewan Sutherland

The OECD has published a detailed report, Broadband over Powerlines: Developments and Policy Issues, on what was once considered a potentially interesting and disruptive technology that might have rivaled DSL. It notes that having largely failed in that, it is instead being applied to "smart grid" applications.

Extracted from the report are the "Main Points" below:

At first glance Broadband Power Line (BPL) technology seems to have a high potential to provide ubiquitous broadband access to households and businesses across a country. The fact that electricity is provided on a nationwide basis seemingly gives BPL an advantage. The commercialisation of BPL could also be important from a competition perspective providing a second or third wire to the home in competition with digital subscriber line technology and cable modem technology. It also has the potential to be a shared technology, given its use in developing smart grids and monitoring consumption of electric power to share costs. BPL also has unique features such as the possibility of in-home access for broadband from any power socket in the room without the need for further in-house wiring.

Thus, while BPL has all the features of a promising technology, it has not, as yet, fulfilled earlier expectations. The extremely slow growth in the number of BPL service providers, and customer base, and the fact that a number of BPL service providers have been withdrawing from the market concentrating instead on developing smart-grid technology to monitor energy consumption, seems to indicate that service providers face problems.

There are a number of technological and, to a lesser extent, regulatory issues which need to beovercome in order to facilitate the take-off of BPL technology in the market. The electrical grid provides a harsh environment for data transmission, issues regarding radio frequency interference are both technological and regulatory, and international standardisation is incomplete. BPL requires investment, in particular where power grids are old, and BPL also requires investment to send data over long distances.

Furthermore as broadband over DSL migrates to fibre and cable modem speeds increase as a result of new technology, the competitive environment facing BPL becomes more difficult.

In short, while there may be a potential for BPL to further competition in the broadband market, there is little evidence to indicate that this will take place soon and that it can be counted on to provide a competitive alternative in the near term to xDSL (or fibre to the home) and cable modem technologies. Nevertheless, a technology neutral policy would argue in favour of regulators ensuring that no unnecessary barriers are in place for the eventual commercial diffusion of this technology as well as ensuring that interference with other licensed wireless services is minimised.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090707_review_of_broadband_over_power_lines_bpl/

Federal Web sites knocked out by cyber attack

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned.

The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening.

Federal government officials refused to publicly discuss any details of the cyber attack, and would only generally acknowledge that it occurred. It was not clear whether other government sites also were attacked.

Others familiar with the outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

The Homeland Security Department confirmed that officials had received reports of "malicious Web activity" and they were investigating the matter, but had no further comment. Two government officials acknowledged that the Treasury and Secret Service sites were brought down, and said the agencies were working with their Internet service provider to resolve the problem.

Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems, called it a "massive outage" and said problems with the Transportation Department site began Saturday and continued until Monday, while the FTC site was down Sunday and Monday.

Keynote Systems is a mobile and Web site monitoring company based in San Mateo, Calif. The company publishes data detailing outages on Web sites, including 40 government sites it watches.

According to Rushlo, the Transportation Web site was "100 percent down" for two days, so that no Internet users could get through to it. The FTC site, meanwhile, started to come back online late Sunday, but even on Tuesday Internet users still were unable to get to the site 70 percent of the time.

"This is very strange. You don't see this," he said. "Having something 100 percent down for a 24-hour-plus period is a pretty significant event."

He added that, "The fact that it lasted for so long and that it was so significant in its ability to bring the site down says something about the site's ability to fend off (an attack) or about the severity of the attack."

Denial of service attacks against Web sites are not uncommon, and are usually caused when sites are deluged with Internet traffic so as to effectively take them off-line. Mounting such an attack can be relatively easy using widely available hacking programs, and they can be made far more serious if hackers infect and use thousands of computers tied together into "botnets."

For instance, last summer, in the weeks leading up to the war between Russia and Georgia, Georgian government and corporate Web sites began to see "denial of service" attacks. The Kremlin denied involvement, but a group of independent Western computer experts traced domain names and Web site registration data to conclude that the Russian security and military intelligence agencies were involved.

Documenting cyber attacks against government sites is difficult, and depends heavily on how agencies characterize an incident and how successful or damaging it is.

Government officials routinely say their computers are probed millions of times a day, with many of those being scans that don't trigger any problems. In a June report, the congressional Government Accountability Office said federal agencies reported more than 16,000 threats or incidents last year, roughly three times the amount in 2007. Most of those involved unauthorized access to the system, violations of computer use policies or investigations into potentially harmful incidents.

The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, says there were 5,499 known breaches of U.S. government computers in 2008, up from 3,928 the previous year, and just 2,172 in 2006.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5icTKBW9_fm-oKDzns75BI-ykokSwD999UN580

Spain asks the United Nations to have a bigger role in International Financial e-Governing

Spain supported the United Nations to have a bigger role in the international financial e-governing, as it was announced by Soraya Rodríguez, State Secretary of International Cooperation, to the multilateral organism in order to search a solution for the economic global crisis.

To achieve the results, authorities from Madrid asked for reinforcing the Economic and Social Council, in order to convert it in an indisputable reference institution for the debates concerning the economic and social development, so it will not be necessary to create new organisms.

The Spanish government bets on a reinforced Economic and Social Council, with better human resources, with an extended and clearer mandate counting with a real independent supporting net of experts to provide scientific evidence to its decisions.

It has also said that the United Nations role in international financial e-governing “mustn’t be excluding, on the other hand, should be complementary” to the other forums like the G-20 or the ones realized by the international financial institutions in the managing of international system concerning monetary, financial and commercial issues.

Other participants in the debates, like the Ecuador President, Rafael Correa, and other Latin Americans representatives, plead for United Nations to be the only one to take part in the debates concerning the solutions to the global economic crisis and its impact on the develop world.

http://pep-net.eu/wordpress/?p=550

Nielsen: Kids spending more time online

Young kids are getting online at a faster rate than their parents and older siblings. A new study from Nielsen Online found that nearly 16 million U.S. children ages 2 to 11 were online in May. They made up about 9.5 percent of Internet users. The youngest of the set — 2, 3, and 4-year-olds — probably aren't yet updating their Twitter accounts with 140-character messages, or posting quiz results to Facebook. Rather, they are sitting in a parent's lap in front of a computer, being exposed to the Internet that way, said Peter Grunwald, president of Grunwald Associates LLC, which specializes in researching kids and technology. In the past five years, Nielsen said, the number of kids online has grown by 18 percent, compared with just a 10 percent growth among all Internet users. And this growth comes as the total number of U.S. kids under 14 is declining. In all, the time children spend online grew 63 percent in the past five years, from nearly 7 hours in May 2004 to more than 11 hours online this past May. Nielsen also found that boys spent 7 percent more time online than girls, but girls viewed 9 percent more Web pages than boys did in May 2009. Grunwald said kids are also beginning to produce their own content rather than use the Web as a passive viewer.

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/nielsen_kids_spending_more_time_online/

Future Law on Data Protection in Costa Rica

The Bill has just been voted in favour by the Legal Matters Committee of the Legislative Assembly.

Costa Rica will have its own Law on Data Protection, which will be known as the Law on Individual''s Protection against Personal Data Treatment. The future Law will ensure the respect of every physical or legal person''s fundamental rights, specifically their right to self determination of disclosure on personal or business life and other personal rights, regardless of their nationality or residence. The Law will also ensure the protection of their freedom and equality regarding automatic or manual treatment of data belonging to their person or possessions.

The Bill also contains definitions of terms such as personal data, legal entity data, sensitive data, archive, record, file or database, automatic treatment, authority in charge of the file, concerned party and data dissociation, while also establishing basic principles to serve as the backbone to Data Protection in the country, to count: a right to information on data gathering, the concerned party''s consent, data quality, data safety, and a duty to confidentiality.

On the other hand, a new body of highest decentralization from the government, affiliated to the Public Defence.

By Data Protection Review.eu

http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=sa&id=1697

Infocom Launches Fibre-Optic Link from Kampala to Mombasa

Altech Stream East Africa—a unit of Altech comprising Infocom Uganda, Kenya Data Networks and Altech Stream Rwanda—has announced that it has completed a fibre-optic line running from Mombasa (Kenya) via Nairobi to Kampala (Uganda). The New Vision newspaper reports that the operators have completed the 1,500-kilometre cable, which has a capacity of 10 Gbps (STM-64). The project also includes completion of a fibre-optic link from Kampala to Kigali (the Rwandan capital) within the next six to eight weeks. “The ambition for the region is to be able to connect Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania to the rest of the undersea cable network via a terrestrial cable from Mombasa through to Nairobi, Kampala, Bujumbura, Kigali and back to Dar-es-Salaam,” said Fred Sewe, the managing director of the project's contractors, Green Future, at a ceremony in Kampala.

Last year, South African conglomerate Altech acquired Kenya Data Networks (KDN), Infocom Uganda and Swift Global (an ISP in Kenya and Tanzania), and established Altech Stream Rwanda and Africa Digital Networks Ltd in the Democratic Republic of Congo. KDN had a 3,800-kilometre, long-haul, fibre-optic network in operation in Kenya by February 2009, including 950 kilometres of metropolitan area network in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret. KDN has also invested in both the SEACOM and TEAMS submarine cables that have now landed at Mombasa and will enter service shortly.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/36165?7649

Forging Partnerships for Advancing Policy Objectives for the Internet

The OECD’s Information and Communication Policy Committee (ICCP) Committee, in its draft outline for the study: “A Focus on Internet Intermediaries,” as part of its work on Forging Partnerships for Advancing Policy Objectives for the Internet Economy, describes the scope of its investigation as being the role of information intermediaries “in achieving economic and social policy objectives for the Internet economy”.

The Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC) is grateful for the opportunity to comment on this draft outline and commends the decision to supplement the OECD’s substantial work on the knowledge economy with special attention to the public benefits of Internet Intermediaries for the Information Society embodied in this project. We offer these comments on proposed areas of specific focus in this research program and make suggestions for further relevant resources with the aim of supporting the public interest emphasis of the report. We welcome further exchanges on the ICCP’s work as outlined in the Principles for the Participation of Non-governmental Stakeholders in the Work of the ICCP Committee and its Working Parties.

The future growth of the Internet and its ability to reach its full potential in the economic, cultural and social spheres depends on OECD countries adopting legal regimes and regulatory frameworks that provide appropriate incentives for investment in the development of Internet technologies and widespread broadband infrastructure deployment, while safeguarding the rights of citizens. We believe that appropriately tailored frameworks for limitations on liability of Internet intermediaries are the key driver of Internet innovation and the freedom and autonomy of individuals in the Information Society.

As CSISAC stated in the Seoul Declaration, OECD Member countries should “maintain a balanced framework for intellectual property protection that is least intrusive to personal privacy, least restrictive for the development of new technologies, and that promotes creativity, innovation, and learning.”

http://csisac.org/2009/07/04/OECD_Intermediary_070109.pdf

FTTH: Singapore will provide every home with 1 Gbps service

Singapore’s plan to deliver every home and business with a 1-Gbit/s fixed broadband connection is ahead of schedule, despite the economic downturn, according to the island state’s authorities.

Dr. Tan Geok Leng, CTO of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) , told the media at a special briefing here that the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN), which is part of the government’s iN2015 initiative, is still very much on track.

IDA representatives also provided an update on the technology deployment plans for the NBN, and revealed the initial wholesale tariffs for residential and business services.

The NBN is being developed by two separate entities, known as the NetCo and the OpCo: OpenNet (the NetCo), a consortium comprising Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel)Axia NetMedia Corp. (TSE: AXX), Singapore Press Holdings, and Singapore Power Telecoms, which will provide the passive infrastructure; and Nucleus Connect (the OpCo), a wholly owned subsidiary of StarHub Pte. Ltd. , which will provide wholesale connectivity to multiple retail service providers.

The companies are working on parallel rollouts that are required to deliver 100 percent coverage by January 1, 2013, and are actually ahead of schedule, with 95 percent coverage promised for June 2012 instead of the 80 percent required in their license conditions.

The wholesale rates have now been set for the initial 100-Mbit/s services that will run over the NBN: 15 Singapore dollars (US$10) per month for residential connectivity, and SG$50 (US$34) per month for non-residential connections, from the NetCo to any OpCo; and SG$21 (US$14) per month for residential services, and SG$75 (US$51) a month for non-residential services, from the OpCo to the retail service providers.

While OpenNet is the sole provider of passive infrastructure, Nucleus Connect could face competition from other providers. Any future wholesale rival, however, will not receive any of the SG$250 million ($172 million) government funding available to the initial OpCo.

Andrew Haire, deputy director-general of the IDA’s Telecoms and Post unit, noted at the briefing that, as there are currently 46 service providers in Singapore, it’s unlikely that Nucleus Connect will remain unchallenged as the only OpCo over time.

Nucleus Connect is deploying GPON equipment for residential access and a mix of GPON and point-to-point Ethernet to reach commercial buildings. Two speed options will be made available initially: Residential users can choose a 100-Mbit/s downlink and 50-Mbit/s uplink, or 1-Gbit/s downlink and 500-Mbit/s uplink; and non-residential customers will choose between symmetrical 1-Gbit/s or symmetrical 100-Mbit/s access lines. Four classes of service have been identified, ranging from A (real-time) to D (best-effort).

Dr. Tan explained that uplink speeds will become more and more important as applications such as video uploads to social networking sites become increasingy popular. “We want to be ahead. The infrastructure we are building is not just for today, it is ready for tomorrow,” he stated.

In addition to FTTH, the iN2015 initiative includes a national WiFi network that has been in operation for longer than 12 months and which now boasts more than 7,550 hotspots. These have been developed by three companies — iCell, QMax, and SingTel — and provide free, island-wide coverage in public areas.

To date, there are 1.28 million subscribers, of whom 480,000 are regular users, Khoong Huk Yun, assistant chief executive of Infrastructure and Service Development at the IDA, revealed. He added that about 40 percent of users access the network using mobile smartphone devices. That’s significantly higher than the 10 percent the IDA had predicted, and a trend that has caused users to request the introduction of username and password login capabilities, something Khoong said the IDA was “fixing,” though he didn’t provide any details.

Singapore’s authorities are hoping the iN2015 initiative will help the island become the Internet hub for the Asia/Pacific region in the coming years.

It is also providing the IDA with an opportunity to boost the reputation of Singapore and its indigenous IT and communications sector overseas through the work of its wholly owned subsidiary, IDA International, which is selling its services to other government organizations around the world.

Launched in February 2009, IDA International is now working with government bodies in China, the Middle East, and South America to plan their e-government and network strategies. These operations provide revenue and boost the export potential of the Singaporean companies involved in the iN2015 program.

http://textio.co.uk/communications/ftth-singapore-will-provide-every-home-with-1-gbps-service/

China Blocks Access To Twitter, Facebook After Riots

by Robin Wauters

Following last weekend’s deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China’s central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services: aside from crippling Internet service in general, the authorities have blocked Twitter, removed unapproved references to the violence from search engines and has now apparently moved to bar its citizens from accessing Facebook from most parts of Mainland China just now. Two weeks ago, the government had already blocked just about every Google service, including communication tools like Gmail, Google Apps and Google Talk.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/china-blocks-access-to-twitter-facebook-after-riots/?awesm=tcrn.ch_5JG&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com

Millennium Development Goals Report 2009

Recent gains in eradicating hunger and poverty endangered by economic and food crises UN Secretary-General calls on rich and poor countries to boost efforts and meet aid commitments

More than halfway to the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow or even reverse as a result of the global economic and food crises, a progress report by the United Nations has found. The assessment, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Geneva, warns that, despite many successes, overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015.

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202009%20ENG.pdf

Confronting the Crisis: Its impact on the ICT industry

The report, Confronting the Crisis: Its Impact on the ICT Industry considers how the industry can position itself for recovery in the future.

Confronting the Crisis: Its Impact on the ICT Industry draws on analysis from leading industry experts and international institutions. As the established order is overturned, it says, convergence in the ICT industry will accelerate, with the emergence of new players with new business models. Firms' ability to weather the economic storm will depend on their ability to invest for the future and explore new opportunities to benefit from the eventual upturn. For an industry founded on innovation, the current turmoil will create openings for nascent ICT companies.

Confronting the Crisis finds that although credit is now less abundant and more expensive, with financing costs for operators on average 3 − 4 per cent higher year-on-year, savvy operators can take advantage of the economic turmoil to reposition their services for the upturn. Funding is still available for players with sound business models, established demand and early projected cash flows. Alternative sources of financing are now needed, with a growing role for government financing and economic stimulus packages.

Many analysts contributing to Confronting the Crisis underlined the need for ICT as vital services and suggested that fixed-mobile substitution and consumers' decision to switch to mobile telephony may gain momentum in developed markets during a prolonged recession. The report also notes that long project lead times for the satellite industry mean that it has been less affected in the short term, with strong recent growth in demand from developing countries.

The financial difficulties facing the private sector could add to pressure for government intervention in the financing of national backbone infrastructure. Governments are already stepping in to diminish the impact on the transition to next-generation networks (NGN), which can carry voice, data and media services simultaneously. Several administrations have announced commitments to invest in their national backbone infrastructure, while others, such as the European Union, have included the roll-out of broadband networks in their economic stimulus packages. Although the financial crisis may delay investment in NGN, it has also led to a widespread reaffirmation of the importance of building advanced telecommunication infrastructure as part of an economic stimulus package.

The Confronting the Crisis report finds that although by early 2009 some operators had cut capital expenditure (CAPEX) by 10−15 per cent, many telecommunication companies acknowledge that investment is vital to maintain quality of services. Growth rates in capital expenditure by regional mobile phone operators may slow down, but CAPEX is unlikely to decline on a global basis. Operators are instead focusing on adopting a more rigorous approach to control costs and increase operational efficiency.

Equipment vendors may be first in the firing line of cuts in investment, but soaring growth in mobile telephony in developing countries has not yet been affected by the crisis. Large emerging markets, including Brazil, India and Nigeria, registered record subscriber additions in September and October 2008. Mobile operators are generally better placed to weather the downturn than fixed operators, as CAPEX accounts for a smaller proportion of their cost base and the incremental cost of upgrades to their networks is low.

http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/emerging_trends/crisis/index.html

Report on the public consultation on European e-Inclusion Policy

A public consultation was launched on 4 March 2009 through the European Commission’s interactive Internet platform “Your voice”. It closed on 6 April 2009 and its main objective was to gather views on the role of e-Inclusion in the future European strategy on the information society that will succeed the "i2010" initiative. The survey was also aimed at gathering opinions on European programmes and activities supporting e-Inclusion and cooperation modalities between European Commission services and relevant stakeholders regarding e-Inclusion activities.

Overall, 103 responses were received. They represent various stakeholder groups, including public authorities (26,2%), non-for-profit academic or research organisations (26,2%), individual academics or researchers (19,4%), commercial operators or industry associations(11,7%), users organisations (5,8%), private individuals (4,9%). Some stakeholders also sent position papers (please see below).

Among those who responded to this consultation, there was a general understanding that European policy on e-inclusion is useful and should be continued and enhanced in post 'i2010' initiative. There was an overwhelming consensus that in a context of financial and economic crisis greater e-Inclusion also generates systemic innovation, new business models and new modalities for service delivery. Respondents provided valuable inputs defining the future possible e-inclusion policies and dissemination activities.

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/survey/index_en.htm

OECD on Public engagement practices - new publication

Complex policy issues cannot be solved by government alone. People have a major role to play in ensuring high-quality public services economically and achieving shared public policy goals.

How are OECD governments putting the principles of open and inclusive policy making into practice? How can they ensure broader, more inclusive, participation?

This book provides answers to these questions, and more, based on a survey of governments in 25 countries, 14 in-depth country case studies and 18 opinion pieces from leading civil society and government practitioners. It includes 10 guiding principles to support open and inclusive policy making and service delivery in practice.”

http://www.oecd.org/document/25/0,3343,en_2649_33735_42216857_1_1_1_1,00.html

http://pep-net.eu/wordpress/?p=548

Beckstrom Selected As ICANN Chief

Former Homeland Security Department official Rod Beckstrom -- who headed the department's National Cybersecurity Center -- has been named the new president and chief executive officer of ICANN, a nonprofit group that oversees the Internet address system.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/techcentral/features/people/

300,000 .MX Domain Name Registrations As Registrations Grow Rapidly

NIC México has announced the .MX ccTLD reached 300,000 registered domain names recently, with the number of registrations today standing at 309,112. Of these, 58,000 domain names registered in 2009 alone showing a rapid growth for the ccTLD.

http://www.domainpulse.com/2009/06/30/300000-mx-domain-name-registrations-as-registrations-grow-rapidly/

World’s oldest bible goes online

The oldest bible in the world, the Codex Sinaiticus, written in Greek in the fourth century but now scattered between the British Library, Germany, Russia and St Catherine's monastery in Egypt's Sinai desert, will be reassembled online today in a GBP 1m scholarship exercise. Nobody alive has seen all the pages together in one place. The pages of the codex, described as 'a jewel beyond price' by Scot McKendrick, head of western manuscripts at the British Library, which has the largest part, have been scattered for over 150 years. From today, scholars or the merely curious anywhere in the world will be able to search all the surviving text, down to thumbnail-sized fragments found at St Catherine's, free online. The pages can be searched in facsimile, transcribed or translated. The digital photography is of such high resolution that insect bites and scars of some of hundreds of animals whose hides became the vellum pages can be seen. An exhibition which opens today at the British Library traces the history of the manuscript, and the project that involved collaboration between the British Library, the monks in the Sinai, Leipzig University library, the national library of Russia in St Petersburg, and the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at Birmingham university.

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/worlds_oldest_bible_goes_online/

US government Internet traffic to be screened: report

The Obama administration is planning to use the National Security Agency to screen Internet traffic between government agencies and the private sector, the Washington Post reported Friday. The project was first initiated by the previous administration of president George W. Bush and was due to be set in motion in February. The aim is to protect the government computer network from attacks from outside, the Post said quoting Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Her department has been tasked with guiding the NSA in the fight against cyberterrorism, she said. The plans risk re-igniting the fierce debate here about the protection of civil liberties, with the Bush administration accused of having tightened controls on telecommunications and Internet networks. In the Bush-era, the NSA was given the task of carrying out unauthorized wire taps on telephone calls between the United States and abroad. But Napolitano said the NSA would only be charged with looking at data going to or from the government system. 'Each time a private citizen visited a 'dot.gov' website or sent an email to a civilian government employees, that action would be screened for potential harm to the network,' the Post wrote. The daily quoted a Bush administration official as saying the program would focus on malicious content potentially in any note sent to a government address. 'What we're interested in is finding the code, the thing that will do the network harm, not reading the email itself,' they said.

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/us_government_internet_traffic_to_be_screened_report/

US - Online ad groups release new behavioral ad principles

Online consumers should get more information about what information is being tracked and collected for the purposes of behavioral advertising, and they should have more control over what data is being collected, according to new privacy principles released by four advertising trade groups. Online advertising networks should also "maintain appropriate physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards" to protect data collected, and they should retain the data "only as long as necessary to fulfill a legitimate business need, or as required by law," the principles said. see also Self-regulatory principles for behavioral advertising (Google Polciy Blog) by Pablo Chavez. Of course, for any self-regulatory effort to be effective, there has to be some kind of enforcement process.

http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem23047.htm

UK - MI6 boss in Facebook entry row

(BBC) Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns. His wife had put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8134807.stm

Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools for the Next Generation of Public Service

Driving high performance through more engaging, accountable and citizen-focused service

Web 2.0 technologies and services have spread around the world at an amazing pace and are used by millions of people every day. Many public service organizations are also adopting Web 2.0 applications to improve their ability to collaborate and serve citizens more effectively.

Accenture believes that Web 2.0 technologies are finding resonance among governments today because they are, in fact, supportive of a broader evolution in public service: a new relationship with government that is about genuine engagement of people in their own governance.

We also believe that public service executives must balance excitement and caution in their evaluation of the potential of Web 2.0. Governments have an obligation to be good stewards of citizens' tax money. They must implement new technologies responsibly and in a way that does not compromise privacy and security.

What is needed at this point in the evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and applications is an effective way to evaluate potential Web 2.0 investments in the context of a proven framework for effective governance—one that helps assess potential advancements in citizen-centric governance against both costs and the inevitable risks that any new technology poses.

The Accenture Public Service Value Governance Framework is such an offering. Derived from Accenture research and our experience working with governments and agencies around the world, the framework provides an important way for public-service executives to evaluate Web 2.0 technologies in terms of four attributes:

* Generating positive social outcomes.

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http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/By_Industry/Government_and_Public_Service/EvolutionPSDWeb20.htm

Australia Invites Public Comment on National Broadband Network Project

The Australian government today called for public comment on how its planned national broadband network (NGN) should operate, including issues of access, ownership and control of the network Dow Jones reports. Submissions are due by 30 July. The Labour government in April scrapped a tender process to build the network and instead plans to back the A$43-billion (US$34 billion) high-speed fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network itself, with some investments from the private sector, as the global financial crisis dashed hopes of a single company completing the project. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it is important that, in laying the ground work for the single biggest national-building infrastructure in Australia's history, the government gets legislation governing the proposed national broadband network company right.

The government is planning to form a new company for the NGN roll out and operate the new company on a wholesale-only, open-access basis with oversight by competition watchdog the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. It is asking for comment on how to achieve its goals, including how to set price and non-price terms for services, which services to offer, the nature of any private-sector ownership restrictions, arrangements for the government to ultimately sell its stake, and the role the ACCC should play in regulating the network. Telstra, SingTel's Australian unit Optus, and Canada's Axia NetMedia have indicated they are interested in participating in the NGN project, potentially by selling existing assets into the network in exchange for equity in the new company to be formed for undertaking the project.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/36138?7649

Article 29 Working Party on online social networking

Article 29 Working Party issued on 22 June 2009 an opinion on how European privacy laws affect social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace.

The opinion states the social networking sites should be responsible for the compliance to European privacy laws and, on the other hand, that users of such sites should upload pictures or information about other individuals only with the consent of the respective individuals.

Presently, social networking users share pictures and tag friends' images without requiring a prior consent and generally, communicate publicly, placing their own and others' private information on shared "walls".

The Data Protection Authorities recommend that users are given the opt out choice and are warned of the privacy risks and on the personal data that is being made available to others. The opinion says that "the homepage should contain a link to a complaint facility covering data protection issues for both members and non-members".

The group also draws attention to the processing of personal data on the Internet for commercial purposes, recommending that before using the collected data aimed for personalised advertisements, the sites should obtain the prior consent of the respective users. Data on sensitive topics such as race, religion or sexual orientation should not be processed or passed on to advertisers and individuals should be allowed to adopt a pseudonym. Special attention should be given to the processing of the minors' personal data. This is an opinion that has been lately supported by the European Commission which has announced future strong measures to regulate online tailored ads.

The opinion also advises imposing limits on retaining the data of inactive users believing that abandoned accounts, together with their accompanying data, should be deleted.

The Article 29 Working Party's opinion is based on the principle that social networking websites must be subject to the EU Data Protection Directive even when their headquarters are outside the European Union space.

The group interprets the definition of "data controller" as covering the service providers who, therefore, must adhere to privacy laws. Although an exception is made for personal or "household" users, when users broadcast or gather information very widely via such sites, they become data controllers themselves which could affect users who organise concerts, human rights letter-writing campaigns or try to sell a homemade product online.

The recommendations are not binding but show the trend in the legislative measures that might be taken in the future at the national as well as EU level. The group has focused lately on privacy issues related to search engines and its initiatives have led to actions in this direction. The big search engines such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, have been pressed to reduce the retention period of data collected from their users.

The opinion has implications on the way the responsibility of social networks themselves is seen in carrying images and information that could breach protecting privacy and security rules.

The European Commission has lately focused more on protecting citizens and consumers' privacy and social networking websites are considered potentially dangerous for inexpert users.

Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding has shown her support to this line of action and has kept pushing the major players in this field in adopting a code of conduct meant to protect young users, threatening to otherwise take further action to protect privacy.

http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.13/article-29-social-networks

Botnets pushing up spam loads

Botnet-controlled PCs are responsible for some 83 per cent of all spam messages, according to a recent report. Security firm MessageLabs said in a recent report that despite efforts to shut down service providers notorious for hosting shady operations, spam vendors are continuing to send out huge loads of junk mail through the use of botnet-infected systems.

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2245041/botnets-pushing-spam-loads

North Korean 3G network hits 19,000 subscribers

North Korea's first and only public cellular telephone network attracted 19,200 subscribers after just over three months in business.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/062909-north-korean-3g-network-hits.html

U.S.: Biden announces program to expand broadband Internet access for rural areas at Pa. stop

DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer

WATTSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden outlined a $4.7 billion loan and grant program Wednesday to develop the infrastructure needed to deliver broadband, or high-speed, Internet access to areas that are underserved or without access.

America lags behind more than a dozen other countries in terms of Internet access and that has to change, Biden told about 200 people at Seneca High School, about 12 miles east of Erie.

"The bottom line is, you can't function — a nation can't compete in the 21st century — without an immediate, high-quality access for everything from streaming video to information overline," Biden said.

While Seneca has broadband Internet access, Biden said many students do not have access at home.

Providing the means for access would improve educational opportunities, he said. He also spoke of the power of the Internet to create jobs in rural America.

"We believe we are in the process of transforming rural America ... so it's integrated with the country, without losing it's character," he said. The program also covers inner-city areas without broadband access.

"Getting broadband to every American is a priority for this administration," Biden said.

The $4.7 billion is part of $7.2 billion included in the federal stimulus package to improve rural Internet access.

The Commerce and Agriculture Departments on Wednesday published the criteria they will use to judge funding applications. They will consider projects that provide wired or wireless access starting at low-end DSL speeds, but will give priority to ones promising higher speeds. They'll consider an area "underserved" by broadband, and thus eligible for grants, if half or fewer of the households can get wired broadband today, among other criteria.

Applicants can begin applying on July 14. The first round of funding will be awarded in September. Besides providing money to create the infrastructure, the funding can also go toward training people to use the Internet.

In 2007 and 2008, the Pew Internet and American Life Project asked households that lacked broadband why they haven't signed up. Lack of availability was ranked fourth, given by 14 percent. Most answered that they didn't need the Internet, that it was too expensive or too hard to use. Many people who don't use the Internet simply don't have computers.

About 95 percent of households can already get broadband, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. But the industry hasn't been very forthcoming in saying exactly where it's available, and that's part of what the stimulus package wants to address — it has allocated $350 million to mapping U.S. broadband access.

Biden appeared with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, D-Pa., as part of a "rural America tour."

All spoke of the need for broadband access to create jobs and improve education and health care.

"Broadband is not just about being able to Google faster. It's not merely a luxury or an option for entertainment. It is an essential tool in today's world," Dahlkemper said.

On the Net:

Broadband USA: www.broadbandusa.gov

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-biden-stimulus-broadband,1,4779748.story