The idea is very simple.  We are going to have a group of very smart people.  Some of them are internet pioneers from different countries, some of them are established researchers, and some are well known practitioners.  We will also have a group of young, less known (yet) people, whose activism and professional lives are related to the internet in one way or another.  The panel itself is quite large and we are also counting on having a very diverse and engaging audience from the IGF community.

So, the plan is to have a discussion among the panelists and then involve the floor, about core internet values and principles.  The question is not only what those values and principles might be, but whether the perception of these values and principles varies across generations and what that may mean for the future of internet-related policies.

This is where I would really appreciate an input from anyone reading these lines.  What do you think are the core values and principles of the internet where we can find the widest gaps across generations?

One example may be the notion of privacy.  I think since online social networks became popular there is an ongoing debate about how the younger generations’ perceptions of privacy online differ from that of their parents.  We all heard Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that the age of privacy is over.  But is it so for everyone?

What are the core values and principles of the internet that you still hold dear?  Which ones do you think were important in the past, but are no longer important?

Please share your thoughts!

I have more Internet Governance Forum related updates, which I will post soon.  In the meantime, here is the program of the symposium, which will take place on September 13th:

9:00-9:15 Opening

9:15-10:30 PANEL 1: Internet governance theory and issue

Moderador: William Drake, Centre for International Governance of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva

• Peng Hwa Ang and Natalie Pang. Going Beyond Talk: Can International Internet Governance Work?
• Everton Lucero. Global Governance of Critical Internet Resources: A Perspective from the South
• Jean-marie Chenou. Multistakeholderism or elitism ? The creation of a transnational field of Internet governance

10:30-11:00 Poster session and coffee break

11:00-12:15 PANEL 2: State power and Internet governance

Moderator: Rolf Webber , European Law Institute and the Center for Information and Communication Law at the University of Zurich

• Joanna Kulesza. State responsibility for acts of cyber-terrorism
• Jeremy Shtern. Models of Global Internet Governance and the Projection of State Power: The Case of Facebook and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• Lorena Jaume-Palasi and Ben Wagner. Nosy preferences of Google and China: Modelling an internet governance conflict using Amartya Sen’s liberal paradox

12:15-12:30 Sponsorship slot

12:30-13:30 Lunch – Sponsored by MIT Press. Welcome speech given by William Drake, editor of the MIT Press series on “The information revolution and global politics” and Milton Mueller, author of the newly released book, “Networks and States: the Global Politics of Internet Governance.”

13:30-14:45         PANEL 3: Interaction of technology, operations and governance

Moderator: Meryem Marzouki, LIP6/PolyTIC – CNRS

• Brenden Kuerbis. Securing Internet routing: Influence and control of critical Internet resources through social networks and delegation
• Dmitry Epstein, Qiu-Hong Wang, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Milton Mueller. What’s in the name? A behavioral study of the use of the URLs in China and the US
• Laura DeNardis. The Privatization Of Internet Governance

14:45-15:45         PANEL 4: IGF practice, multistakeholderism and emerging issues

• Nanette Levinson. Evaluating and Analyzing Collaboration In Cross-cultural and Cross-sectoral Perspective: Indicators from The Internet Governance Forum
• Ivar Alberto Hartmann. Universal Access policies and Internet Access as a Fundamental Right: The Constitutional Law Perspective informed by the Brazilian Case.

15:45-16:00         Closing

16:00-16:30         Poster session and coffee break

16:30                    GigaNet Business meeting

POSTER SESSION:

• Charlotte Bogusz. Openness and Privacy v/ Security : The example of filtering measures.2
• Charlotte Bogusz. The promotion of the general interest through ICTs : The French and Senegalese examples
• Daniel Oppermann. Analysing cybercrime from a multistakeholder perspective
• Luiz Costa. The Internet and the Constitutional restrictions on foreign participation in Brazilian Media
• Luiz Costa. A case study on the Brazilian E-Commerce Forum
• Mona Badran. Is internet changing the social life of Egyptian college students and affecting their privacy?
• Rolf H. Weber. Policies for Governing Critical Internet Resources
• Shawn Gunnarson. Securing ICANN’s Accountability
• Sofiane Bouhdiba. Internet governance and Education: the Tunisian Virtual University in the context of the Tunis agenda

I heard similar observations from a number of industry players and also from a government official.  I listened and “filed” these observations, but they were  brought back to life with the recent explosion of the BlackBerry story.  You may know that the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and now also India and a number of other countries, are threatening to ban BlackBerry unless RIM allows them access to the encrypted email data of BlackBerry users, stored on the company’s servers.  India gave RIM an ultimatum until the end of the month to comply and the rumor is that the Indian government has similar plans for Google, Skype, and perhaps others.

I wonder how did RIM find itself in such a situation?  Will other global technological companies find themselves in a similar situation soon too?  Peter Svensson writes in Washington Post today:

“Threats by the governments of India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to shut down BlackBerry’s corporate e-mail services reflect unease about a technology that the U.S. government also took a while to accept.  The foreign governments are essentially a decade behind in coming to terms with encryption, a technology that’s fundamental to the Internet as a medium of commerce. (…) RIM, the company behind the BlackBerry, doesn’t have years to wait for foreign governments to adopt the more relaxed U.S. stance toward encryption.”

I assume Svensson is right about his historical perspective; after all, writing about this is his bread an butter.  At the same time, given that all the governments currently having an issue with BlackBerry are in developing countries, I think he is missing the point made by the people I talked to about the Western companies’ attitudes to the emerging markets’ governments.

It did not take the US government years to figure out its stand on encryption on its own.  On the contrary, this position is a result of years of dialogue, argument, and debates between the government and the various interest groups, primarily the industry, through its lobbying activities, and the civil society.  We can see a similar discussion taking place these days around the issue of net neutrality.

It seems to me that until the RIMs, Googles, and Skypes of this world won’t take the regulators in the developing world as seriously as they take the governments back home, we will continue seeing more “BlackBerry” cases.  Until the multinational MICT companies will not engage in a meaningful  way with the local governments in the emerging markets, the barriers to their activities there will continue growing and become more sophisticated, especially when it comes to such a politicized area as information.

So, I wonder if it is the time for these companies to start lobbying in the developing world just the way they are lobbying here.  While I am aware of the potentially harmful influences of lobbying, it is an integral part of the policymaking mechanism and, for better or worse, it also has an educational impact on the policymakers.  At the end of the day, usually those are the governments that are catching up with technology, while the industry is ahead of the curve.

What do you think?  Is it the time to lobby?

Enjoy!

Recent news related

Not so much news at this point, but still an interesting and important development.  Not so long ago a federal court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the authority to enforce net neutrality in a case where Comcast chose to discriminate against BitTorent users on their network.  This is interesting because on the one hand, this decision raises questions about other internet related policy initiatives by the FCC, such as cybersecurity, privacy and consumer-protection policies.  On the other hand, it is highlighting the need to redefine the media landscape in light of the change in the technological environment.  Today, internet service providers (ISPs) are regulated differently from the traditional media or traditional telephone companies that have much more checks and balances.  This ruling can trigger redefinition of the ISPs placing them in a similar category with other companies oversaw by the FCC or perhaps a creation of new category  (yes, i am thinking about something like MICT category).  In the meantime, however, the FCC decided to not intervene.  Here is a good discussion of the issue on NPR.

Another big (old) news was the launch of the iPad, which was met with great hype and many hopes, but also with a substantive amount of criticism.  One article used an example where Apple rejected Pulitzer winner cartoonist’s iPhone app because it “ridicules public figures.”  It is used to raise questions about about the direction Apple is taking and the online experience it is tailoring for us.  Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing voiced his concerns about the locked nature of the iPad and so did David Weinberg.  Harry McCracken, posted a really thorough comparison of iPad to the various other devices.  I will let you judge.

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“Youth, Privacy and Reputation” (PDF) – The Berkman Center has released a massive literature about “the intersections of youth, reputation, and privacy online, focusing on youth attitudes and practices.”

“Google is way bigger than you realize” (via Bob) – A visualization of comparative sizes of server farms owned by Google, Intel, Facebook, and a number of other large players.

Particular stats:

• Canada – Internet use

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

“FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and future” – An opinion piece from Cory Doctorow about a recent decision of the FCC to allow “Selective Output Control” technologies in your TV set-top box.

“Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative” and “dear facebook, freedom or friends? that’s not a choice” – Just a couple of examples of people’s reactions to the recent changes in Facebook’s privacy settings and the introduction of the global “Like” button.  What do you think?

“How to Regulate the Internet Tap” – An opinion calling for government non-intervention in net neutrality issues.

Digital Divide

“The Digital Divide Will Ensure a Broadband Ghetto” (via Josh) – An interesting discussion, especially in the comments, of the broadband situation in the US.

“Telecom companies seek to make Haiti a mobile nation” – Another interesting debate in the sphere of the digital divide – will the future be wireless or we will still need wires to gain appropriate bandwidth?

“The $99 sort-of-Smartphone” – A report on a US $99 smartphone aimed for the developing market and a short discussion about whether or not this is a sustainable development.  I apologize in advance  for the narration :)

“Two Billion Laptops? It May Not Be Enough” (via @rafik) – A NYT article about OLPC, its vision, challenges, and criticism.

“Bridging the Online Language Barrier” – An NPR story on the various ways of dealing with multilingualism online.

MICT regulation

“$4 Million Spent Lobbying Congress on Domain Names” (vai @IGPAlert) – A brief note summarizing the investment of various companies with interest in domain names in their Washington DC activities.  Take a look what they spent the money on.

“The Supreme Court: The Anonymity Of The Talkbacks Should Be Preserved” – The article in the link is in Hebrew and it reports on the Israeli Supreme Court decision to maintain the anonymity of the people leaving comments online.  The claim was to force the ISPs to reveal the identity of the comments’ authors for the purpose of a civil suit, but it got dismissed.  This is an interesting addition to the debate about ISPs as intermediaries in regulation of the Internet content.

“Public Policy Questions for Internet” – A 2005 article outlining an agenda for internet governance public policy debate.  Very long and still surprisingly relevant.

“New” media

“52 Percent Of Bloggers Consider Themselves Journalists” (via @joeymornin) – A report on a recent study with the observation in the title as well as the fact that most bloggers rely on other blogs and Twitter in their research.

“Twitter Updates, the 18th Century Edition” – A report on the paper written by one of our professors at Cornell, where she is telling a story of 18th century diaries, which resemble Twitter updates.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

“BeetleCam: Safari via remote control” – A project from two British brothers photographers where they mounted a camera on a remotely controlled car to take close pictures of animals in Africa; pretty cool!

“SA pigeon ‘faster than broadband‘” – A BBC article about a group in South Africa who compared the speeds of sending information online with sending it with a mail pigeon.  I heard about Yossi Vardi doing the same thing in Israel a few years ago with a similar result.

A TED talk by Jane McGonigal of the Institute of the Future about utilizing games for changing people’s behavior and making the world a better place.  I think she takes way too long to get to the point, but if you happen to listen to the end, I would love to hear what you think (also see the discussion on TED website):

A couple of old videos trying to envision the future of MICT.  It is really interesting to watch them from where we are today (thanks to Josh)

Many people, including those in major outlets are voicing their criticism of the erosion of privacy and introduction of the inverse Beakon.  For example, the Washington Post ran a number of articles on this subject and is reporting on a bill for privacy online being drafted following this outcry, ars technica writes about complains filed against Facebook at the FTC, Huffington Post posted some visualizations of how more and more of our information is exposed to more and more people on Facebook, and the Wired has recently posted a very opinionated piece from Ryan Singer criticizing Facebook’s behavior and calling for an alternative.  What I find amusing in this situation is that all these major outlets (and many others) have wholeheartedly adopted the universal “Like” feature and other Facebook gadgets.  When you come to read their articles, you are welcomed by familiar faces of your friends through some Facebook social feature.

To me it creates a dissonance.

I realize that in many cases these are journalists reporting on a piece of technology-related news and I realize that the opinions of the columnists belong to them and not necessarily to the news outlet. I also realize that the news outlets are involved in financial survival battle and using Facebook advertising and social platform may be an opportunity.  I even appreciate the fact these discussions are taking place and that the mainstream media, the blogosphere, and  even Facebook itself are hosting this debate.  Nevertheless, when I see that Ryan Singer’s super critical piece has two “Like” buttons and almost 3500 likes on Facebook, I understand why over at Facebook they feel so confident and comfortable messing with the privacy of their users.

And what do you think?

So, here are the DIY projects that I liked.  It is sort of repository for myself and also for anybody who has an interest.  Please feel free to suggest more ideas.

• Micro Maestro hexapod robot

and a larger and rather different variation

• Winduino

• Remote-Controlled Camera Mount (more here)

• The Frustromantic Box
• R/C plane from trash (lacking detailed instructions)

I will stop here for now… more may follow later :)

If you are celebrating, I hope you will have a tasty one!

Recent news related

Whether you like or hate online porn, you are probably aware of its existence and attempts to regulate it in one way or another.  One of the aspects of this debate, which has recently come back to the public attention, may have far reaching repercussions to the politics of the internet.  I am talking about the famous debate about .xxx top level domain.  The highlight is that an independent review panel at ICANN decided that this top level domain was denied in an unfair fashion (79 page long PDF; Guardian).  The question now is what will ICANN’s board decide to do about it.  In light of the panel’s decision, ICM, the registry pushing this domain name, claims that the domains will be available this year (more here), but others in the industry disagree.  Rod Beckstorm, CEO and president of ICANN, wrote a blog post praising ICANN’s accountability mechanisms.  Milton Mueller replied with a critical assessment of Beckstrom’s reaction and calling for acknowledging the mistakes of the past and fixing them.  I recommend reading the comments to both posts as well – very interesting (more related comments here).  The Internet Commerce Association, an organization that unites registrars and domainers, published an extensive post arguing against the idea of .xxx, because it views it as an attempt of ICANN to get involved in content regulation.

Another conversation that hit the news-wire recently was a discussion of internet and freedom in the US Senate.  Here are some snippets and reactions.  Google called to include internet freedom as a free trade condition.  Ryan Singel of Wired warns against “Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet” (an opposite opinion, also in Wired ).

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“Measuring the Information Society 2010” – ITU has released a new report that shows some interesting numbers about adoption of information technology and its costs.

“Measuring Typosquatting Perpetrators and Funders” (PDF) – Some alternative titles of this post could be “Typosquatting is the 10th most popular site out there” or “Google makes almost half a billion a year from typosquatting.”

“Broadband adoption in America” – An FCC issued report showing the results of a survey about broadband adoption in USA (the link leads to the PDF); here is a NYT article about the study (thank you, Josh).  At the same time, the Social Science Research Council released another study, entitled “Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities,” which took a qualitative look into the same issues.  Over at the FCC blog, John Horrigan, the author of the first, quantitative study, reflected on the finding of both report.

“Four Ways of Looking at Twitter” – A blogpost and examples of various ways of visualizing information on Twitter.

“Study links violent video games to violent thought, action” – The Washington Post reports about a meta analysis of studies about video games and violence; the original analysis makes the statement in the title, but the article also includes references to some critique of the study; overall it reminds the early days of communication research.

Another interesting and rather broad resource about how young people interact with “new” media is the Good Play project (via Oya).

And if we are on Goolge, they have recently released “Google Public Data Explorer” – a tool that allows you to play with data from a number of sources and share it on the web.  The current list of sources includes: the World Bank, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the California Department of Education, Eurostat, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.  However there seems to be very few datasets available at the moment.

“The Internet of Things” (via @rsqr) – McKinsey report objects gaining connectivity and potential repercussions of this development.

“New gTLDs Will Cost Less than $.10 for Each Trademark Worldwide” (PDF) – A working paper by Minds + Machines, which looks at the cost of introduction of new TLDs; I think it’s an interesting insight for the ongoing debate on the subject.

“Capturing the promise of mobile banking in emerging markets” – McKinsey report about technology and finance for and among the world poorest.

“Internet and e-commerce industry in Lithuania” (via i-policy) – A brief about the state of e-affairs in Lithuania.

“China Global Investment Tracker: 2010” – It is hard to neglect the growing global role of China; the Heritage Foundation released a report with some fancy maps about the global Chinese investment; for example, Africa, is the single largest beneficiary of Chinese investments; you may also want to read the Foreign Policy commentary on the report.

“Ranking Web of World Universities” – An unusual ranking of the higher education institutions, this report attempts to capture the online visibility of various universities across the  globe.  I have not read their methodology in detail and I am not completely sure what is that they are trying to achieve with this metric, but I thought I’d share.

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

“The Digital Dictatorship” – Evgeny Morozov is in his usual role of critique of the revolutionary discourse surrounding social media and Rita King trying to debunk him – “The evolution of revolution.”  What do you think?  Who is making a better point?

“Media Development Needs Unified Research for Digital Age” (via Josh) – A review of a symposium about media based interventions and developmental efforts and how to study those; interesting piece to think about this field.

Stefana Broadbent of the University College of London gave an intriguing TED talk where she argued the media, information, and communication technologies are redefining and reshaping intimacy in our lives.  What do you think?

Also, the Internet got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and there is a debate going on about it.  Some people argue that it is fullish.  Others argue that it deserves the prize.  What do you think?  And who will get the money if the internet wins?

Digital Divide

“First Solar Powered Rural Internet Kiosk installed in the South Coast of Kenya” – ISOC Community Grants in action.

The FCC and the Knight Foundation held America’s (read US) Digital Inclusion Summit.  Here are the highlights as presented by the organizers themselves:

FCC/Knight America's Digital Inclusion Summit from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

MICT regulation

“Broadband carriers speak out against FCC regulation” – A brief nice update from the Washington Post on the state of debate between the FCC and the telcos; I think it is interesting because it is part of the struggle of defining internet as a medium and its outcomes can have long lasting repercussions.

At the same time “FCC Chairman Genachowski confident in authority over broadband, despite critics“.  There is also a video of him talking about the need for a broadband plan for the US, but I did not find that interview particularly informative.

“Court Finds Domain Names are Located Where Registry and Registrar are Located” – An interesting precedent in determining jurisdiction in online disputes.

“Apple pulls sexually explicit apps from iTunes” – The title is slightly misleading as this NYT article actually tackles the debate about content regulation online.

Berkman Center’s response (PDF) to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry on “Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape” (PDF) seems like a good resource on the subject.

MICT business

“Lessons for U.S. Media From European Paid-Content Plays” – Inspired by a recent decision of the NY Times to re-introduce a paywall, this article surveys various European models of paid content.

“New” media

“Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” (PDF) – New report from the PEW Internet and American Life project about how, where, and to what extend people in the US access the news and interact with it online.

“Just press print” – An article from the Economist about the blossoming industry of self publishing.

MICT and politics

“Social Networking and Constituent Communications” – A report of the Congressional Research Service about how the members of the house use Twitter (the link leads to a PDF).

“The cloud cannot ignore geopolitics” – An interesting analysis of the link between political realities and their impact on the cloud paradigm.  On a related note, you may want to check out this interactive data protection heat map from Forrester.

As if an intentional illustration to the article, the Open Net Initiative at Berkman, published the following findings about Bing filtering its search results – “Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the ‘Arabian Countries’” – yes, its not just Google and Yahoo.

“The open society” – The Economist report about governments opening up their databases and letting people play with data.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

“Ex-Africa” (via The Wadi) – An Israeli startup that aims to bring financial transparency to Africa and give Western investors tools to evaluate African bunsinesses; it is really interesting to see how financial and investment instruments of the West are finding their ways to the developing countries.

“Why the internet will fail (from 1995)” – A really fun piece to read in retrospective of15 years; made me wonder about some of my skeptical thinking.

“ViewChange.org” – Is an imitative in the making that seems to aim to do something similar to what Positive News in UK are doing, but in a more Web 2.0-ish way:

This is slightly old, but still cool – playing Guitar Hero using an actual guitar (via Veronica):

My dad sent me a link to a documentary about one such person, Felix Zandman (in the picture).  I have never heard about him before, even though most of my gadgets, and in fact the field of my studies, owe quite a lot to his talent.  If you are using a laptop, a mobile phone, a digital camera or any other piece of electronics, most probably you are enjoying fruits of his work.  Zandman, who is one of the only six recipients of  Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Electronic Distributors Association (and a “few” other awards), is the founder of Vishay Intertechnology – one of the world’s largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductors and passive electronic components.  In fact, many of the innovations in the sphere of minimization of electronic components came from Zandman’s ideas, which I think is amazing.

Even more amazing in my view is Zandmand’s personal story.  His entire family, except for one uncle, was killed in the Holocaust.  He survived through a series of coincidences (or miracles if you want), human compassion, and living in a hole (literally) with 3 (and then 4) more people for 17 months.  He came out of that war with nothing and ended up building a Fortune 1000 company and creating technology that touches lives of billions of people.  I find his personal story truly amazing and inspiring, and my attempt to abbreviate it here does not do it much justice.

If you have an hour to spare, I encourage you to watch the entire documentary.  Someone uploaded it on 56.com (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 – warning: it’s really slow, you need to let it buffer for a while to watch it smoothly) and the first 20 minutes or so are also available on YouTube (part 1, part 2) – all with English subtitles and narration.  Most of what I know about the story of Felix Zandman at this point is from this documentary (the online materials are scarce), but it really got me interested in his personality and now I also intend to read his memoirs, Never The Last Journey.