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(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The first global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was organized by United Nations in Athens between 30 October and 2 November 2006.
The forum has shown a strong and large opposition to Internet blocking and filtering, putting under pressure repressive governments such as China. The three sessions devoted to content regulation and control have been dominated by the advocates of anti-censorship and access to knowledge that have criticized the state control of Internet content.
Thus, Amnesty International publicly handed a pledge, called Irrepressible Info. that states: "I believe the Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference. I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the Internet - and on companies to stop helping them do it."
Most panellists from several work sessions opposed the extension of content filtering and blocking. They criticized severely the representative of the Council of Europe who tried to justify regulating "harmful content." Some participants argued in favour of an international treaty on Access to Knowledge, supported for some time by South Africa, some other governments and NGOs.
Mr. Joichi Ito, the iCommons chairman, emphasised the fact that the access to Internet was already considerably restricted by the identification and authentication measures required for DRM and considered the copyright legislation was getting, "worse and worse" . He said one solution to the problem could be to review the copyright laws so as to adapt the multimedia domain. Another solution would be through the Creative Commons and its alternative licenses.
Among other important subjects debated during the sessions there was the problem of unsolicited email communications.A group of six main anti-spam organisations made an alliance called Stop Spam Alliance and launched a website with information and advise on spam.
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
http://www.intgovforum.org/
Internet Governance Forum 2006 Greece
http://www.igfgreece2006.gr/
Reporter's Log: Internet Governance Forum (2.11.2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6105496.stm
The gossip issue (2.11.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/igd_blog_wed/
Assault on State Censorship at the IGF (1.11.2006)
http://www.circleid.com/posts/assault_on_state_censorship_at_the_igf/
IGF: more free content for the Internet (2.11.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80401
Stop Spam Alliance
http://www.stopspamalliance.org/
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
A Danish court ruled against the Danish ISP Tele2 and ordered to block all access to the site Allofmp3.com. According to the ruling, the ISP is willingly infringing copyright if its customers use AllofMP3 to download music.
IFPI Denmark sued the ISP, Tele2, in July 2006. It asked the judge to force the ISP to block access to AllofMP3.com. A few days ago, the judge ruled in favor of the IFPI, but Tele2 will appeal this decision.
The verdict hasn't been taken well by ISPs from all over the world. It is a milestone in the IFPI's efforts. According to the IFPI it will be referenced in future cases, not only against Danish ISPs, but ones in other EU countries too.
The verdict could have very strong implications for the future. It clearly states that an ISP can be held liable for temporarily (milliseconds) storing infringing data on their routers. This means that ISPs can be forced to block websites, if the court decides that these sites are mainly used to spread "illegal" content.
These are the most critical passages in the IFPI vs. Tele2 ruling : a.Under section 2(2) of the Danish Copyright Act, reproduction is regarded as any direct or indirect, temporary or permanent, and complete or partial reproduction in any form or manner whatsoever. Thus, any form of copying falls within the scope of section 2.
b. Based on this, the Court finds that the fleeting and random fixation of the work of music in the form of electronic signals conducted in the various routers during the transmission of data packages via the Internet also falls within the scope of section 2 of the Danish Copyright Act.
c. Furthermore, Tele2 cannot invoke the right of temporary reproduction under section 11a of the Danish Copyright Act, since this provision presupposes that the reproduction is based on a legal copy.
The head of a Danish telecommunications industry group told Computerworld Denmark that they "are horrified over this judgment, to say the least. It means that we must now keep an eye on what our users are doing online. And blocking user access to certain websites will never be a perfect solution."
Sebastian Gjerding , spokesperson for Piratgruppen, said: "This case shows that it has never been the question if Allofmp3 were legal or not. Its part of IFPI's more general attack on the freedom of the Internet. They have lost control over their customers, and they want it back at any price." Piratgruppen is the sister organization of the famous Swedish Piratbyrån, an organization whose goals are reforming current copyright law and protecting consumers' rights.
Sebastian added: "The verdict is highly controversial as it brings internet censorship to Europe. It states that ISPs are responsible for the traffic they route. In this way introducing a new paradigm, where Internet service providers are obliged to block sites that the authorities dislike. The verdict is at the same time so unclear that accusations of copyright infringement can be used to censor a long list of sites. The result is the destruction of the Internet as a free space of communication, and the realization of national borders in cyberspace."
Danish ISP forced to censor the Internet (5.11.2006)
http://torrentfreak.com/danish-isp-forced-to-censor-the-internet/
Allofmp3.forbidden in Denmark (only in Danish, 25.10.2006)
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/36251?a=fp&i=1
Danish ISP Must Block AllofMP3.com ( 25.10.2006)
http://slyck.com/news.php?story=1321
Verdict IFPI vs. Tele 2 (2.11.2006)
http://propiracy.org/article/11
EDRI-gram : Russian copyright law gets tougher (13.09.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.17/russia
(Contribution by Smaran-Torrentfreak and Sebastian Gjerding, Piratgruppen.org - Denmark)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Antonis Tsipropoulos, the administrator of a Greek blog aggregation website, blogme.gr, had his house raided, his hard drive seized and was himself arrested by the Greek cybercrime division, after having been served with a libel lawsuit without prior notice, because a public figure was offended by a satirical blog that was linked to by his site. The outraged response by Greek bloggers was immediate and unprecedented, reaching in the hundreds of posts within two days of the raid.
It was later revealed that the arrest and seizure had taken place 5 months prior to the revelation, but Mr. Tsipropoulos had chosen to withhold the incident. The story however received wide coverage in local media, as well as international attention, since it's disclosure coincided with the First Internet Governance Forum being hosted in Athens last week, that was attended by Internet luminaries, entrepreneurs and activists like Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and Joi Ito and featuring panels on Openness and Freedom of Expression.
The IGF Openness session in particular dealt at length with the implications of the arrest, with whether blogs should be regulated and the larger question of free speech on the Internet. Chairing the session was Greek Minister of State and government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos, who, when asked about the case, denied any knowledge of the incident. The Minister then went on to declaim against "bloggers who spread lies through television", giving rise to yet another hue and cry among greek bloggers.
Despite the successful campaign to break out the story to the media ahead of the IGF, Greek bloggers have largely been intimidated from the combined effect of the aggregator's arrest and the Minister's statements, and many fear that political blogging might lead to persecution as their status under Greek law is non-existent.
Prior successes of the Greek cybercrime division include the arrest of Swedish programmer Rick Downes on charges of spreading spam via handshake. Greece also made international headlines four years ago because of the shortsighted and highly controversial electronic games ban, that ended with the government being forced by public outcry, both at home and abroad - as well as the intervention of the European Commission - to amend the law and later suspend and deprecate it as unconstitutional.
On a related note, Amnesty International recently put out a "Call to Bloggers", to stand up for Internet freedom ahead of the IGF, while its representatives to the Forum presented special advisor to UN Secretary-General on internet governance, Nitin Desai, with a petition calling on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet, and on companies to stop helping them do it", backed by 50,000 online signatures.
A representative of Reporters without Frontiers (RSF) also attended the meeting to accuse leading IT companies of assisting the Chinese government's efforts to curtail free speech in the country. RSF recently published its 5th Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index, which ranks Greece 32nd among 168 places, leading other EU15 members such as France and Italy, as well as the US, but lagging behind such countries as Namibia, Bolivia and Bosnia - Herzegovina.
Greek Blog Agregator
http://www.blogme.gr
Greek blogger arrest infuriates world (30.10.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/greek_blogger_arrested/
U.N. blasts Cisco, others on China cooperation (31.10.2006)
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6131010.html
Blogging in the free speech world (31.10.2006)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2006/10/31/blogging_in_the_f...
"Call to Bloggers" to stand up for freedom ahead of world meeting on future
of Internet (27.10.2006)
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGPOL300552006
North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea the worst violators of press freedom -
Press Freedom Index 2006
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639
Greek Blogs on the blogme.gr case (only in Greek)
http://monitor.vrypan.net/search?q=blogme.gr
(Contribution by Asteris Masouras - oneiros.gr/blog )
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
At the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a diverse group of stakeholders has agreed to launch a Dynamic Coalition on Privacy, which will address emerging issues of internet privacy protection such as digital identities, the link between privacy and development, and the importance of privacy and anonymity for freedom of expression. It will initiate an open process to further develop and clarify the public policy aspects of privacy in internet governance in the perspective of the next IGF meeting in Brazil in 2007. The group will use online collaboration tools as well as facilitate meetings at related events all over the world throughout the year. Participants in Athens in particular agreed that there is a need for greater public participation in technical and legal standardizations that have a global public policy impact on privacy. They also emphasised that it is important to better include perspectives from developing countries in these processes.
One of the main outcomes of the IGF is the creation of "dynamic coalitions" or multi-stakeholder groups working together on a common issue over a multi-year process. The Dynamic Coalition on Privacy is a direct outcome of two privacy workshops at the IGF on 31 October, co-organized by the Information Systems Group at the LSE and the University of Bremen. It also reflects discussions held during the IGF main session on cyber-security as well as the IGF workshops on "Human Rights and the Internet" organized by the Council of Europe and on an "Internet Bill of Rights" organized by the Government of Italy together with IP Justice and the Internet Society of Italy. It builds upon several months of multi-stakeholder collaboration in the run-up to the UN meeting in Athens.
The coalition is open to interested parties and will start a global process to engage more stakeholders over the next year. Therefore, more than 40 start-up organizations call for people interested in or willing to join the work of this coalition and for recommending other stakeholders that should be contacted.
The French government has offered to host a follow-up meeting in Paris in early 2007.
Dynamic Coalition on Privacy
http://igf2006.intgovforum.org/wiki/Privacy
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
On 30 October 2006 in Prague the Big Brother Awards for the most egregious data privacy transgressions in the Czech Republic were bestowed for the second time. The event organised by the NGO Iuridicum Remedium was quite a big success reported by many national media. The chief of the Czech data protection office as well as other officials and foreign guests - Meryem Marzouki from EDRi, padeluun from German FoeBud, Alexander Kashamov, of AIP organising BBA event in Bulgaria together with dozens of people enjoyed the evening show.
Thus, for retaining indefinitely the data of its former customers and even of people who have merely made an inquiry with the institution, the "Komercní banka" (which freely translates as "Commercial Bank") will henceforth be allowed to bear the title of "Worst Commercial Intruder."
The title of "Biggest State Intruder," on the other hand, the jury thought fit to bestow upon the country's Minister of Finance Vlastimil Tlustý . Anyone who wants to do small business in the Czech Republic must apply for a taxpayer reference number. This number is to certain extend identical to the identity number that every Czech national receives and retains throughout his or her life. This way, identity numbers of a great part of the Czech citizens are available in the database accessible by public.
The International Award went to the United States for surreptitiously gathering financial transactions data supplied by the transaction services provider SWIFT as well as for the country's controversial flight passenger data collection scheme that applies to all passengers flying to the United States.
The jury found the most dangerous new technology from a data-privacy protection angle to be that introduced by the Czech Federal Railway Company. The company is banking on "In-Karta," an RFID-based ticket that makes it possible to track the movement of passengers. The title Big Brother law of the year went to the Law on electronic communications which introduces Data Retention Directive. The law has been in force in the Czech Republic since last autumn.
The winner of the award for the "most ridiculous argument against data protection" was Milos Titz, the erstwhile deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security. Six months ago Mr. Titz came out in public with the following statement: "If I don't do anything bad I have nothing to fear of phonetapping." Alas, the Social Democratic Member of Parliament is not alone in adopting this attitude toward data privacy protection. A virtually identical statement helped the Czech Police Commissioner Jirí Kolár bag last year's Big Brother award.
Positive prize for protection of the privacy was given to EDRi represented in Prague by its chairwomen Meryem Marzouki. EDRi was awarded the prize for its electronic biweekly EDRigram which becomes the most important source of information on privacy protection in Europe and for the coordination of the campaign against Data retention last year.
Big Brother Awards 2006 - Czech Republic
http://www.bigbrotherawards.cz
(Contribution by Filip Pospisil - EDRI-member Iuridicum Remedium - Czech Republic)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
United Kingdom has today the largest DNA database in the world, with over 3,5 million DNA samples. These days the Nuffield Council on Bioethics announced starting a public consultation about the new legislation regarding the storage of the DNA samples.
The DNA database was initiated in 1996 with little public consultation and since 2003 anyone arrested by the police had their DNA taken, for crimes going from murder to drink driving. Their DNA samples have been kept even though they have never been officially charged. A Home office report has shown that over 139 000 people, including 24 000 children, are in this situation.
The report also shows that 5,24 % of the UK population has a profile in the database. The DNA sample could be taken also from victims or witnesses, but only with their written consent. However, the consent could not be withdrawn.
The percentage could increase up to 25% of the population, if the original plans of Tony Blair continues. In a recent visit to the Forensic Science Service, which operates the database for the Home Office, the prime minister declared that he wanted a further extension of the DNA database. According to the new legislation, the samples will be kept for three years for the people charged with violent and sexual offences, even if they are not convicted.
The independent think-tank Nuffield Council on Bioethics called for a public consultation regarding the UK DNA database. One of the members of the think-tank is Sir Alec Jeffreys, who developed the DNA testing in 1980s. He considers that the initial objective of the tool - to catch criminals that re-offend - has been overridden and expressed his concerns that the samples could be used in the future also for different purposes.
Sir Jeffreys said that the collected DNA samples were now "skewed socio-economically and ethnically". "The real concern I have in the UK is what I see as a sort of 'mission creep'."
The chairman of the Nuffield Council Sir Bob Hepple explained the scope of the campaign: "We want to hear the public's views on whether storing the DNA profiles of victims and suspects who are later not charged, or acquitted, is justified by the need to fight crime." He also explained that: "Certain groups, such as young males and ethnic minorities, are over- represented on the database, and the council will be asking whether this potential for bias in law enforcement is acceptable."
The forensic use of bioinformation: ethical issues (1.11.2006)
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/fileLibrary/pdf/Consultation_FINAL001...
DNA pioneer accuses the police of being overzealous (2.11.2006)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2433318,00.html
Growing DNA database 'turning Britain into a nation of suspects' (1.11.2006)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1945768.ece
Public consulted over DNA fears (1.11.2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6104876.stm
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The conference "The Role of Open Source Software for the Development of Information Society" was held in Yerevan, capital of Armenia from 31 October to 1 November 2006. The conference aimed at the exchange of experience in open source promotion policy and in the use of open source software in specific areas such as public administration and education.
The Conference was organised by the Center for Information Law and Policy (CILP) and was attended by representatives of non-governmental organizations from Eastern Europe (Macedonia and Bulgaria), CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan), and Armenian officials responsible for the development of information policies.
Ms. Larisa Minasyan, director of Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation - Armenia, noted that "EU integration is a big open source project" in which member countries consider solutions to change the way they function.
Presenting the free and open source software situation in Armenia, Ms. Taguhi Tumayan, CILP, noted that one of the main issues is the lack of comprehensive applied policies. The good news is that international donors ask for use of licensed software and 79% of the universities in Armenia use Free and Open Source Software for e-learning applications.
Presenting the applied policies in Eastern Europe, Ms. Julia Velkova, ISOC Bulgaria, noted that publishing laws under free licenses can be considered as a step towards the development of appropriate applied policies. She stressed the high value of Free and Open Source Software in education and in the creation of added value in local economy.
She presented State ICT Agency in Bulgaria as an example. The ICT Agency creates a register of open source projects that can be used by the governmental bodies. The municipalities use Linux due to the outdated hardware, despite the fact that the Government has bought MS Windows XP licenses. Ms. Velkova said the Extremadura region in Spain developed its own Linux version for the project within which a computer is provided for each two students in primary school.
Mr. Filip Stojanovski, Metamorphosis Foundation representative, presented the Macedonian experience in applied policies development through the example of National Strategy for Development of Information Society, the situation in local self-government units in Macedonia with the research conducted in May and June 2006, as well as innovative ways for raising awareness for free and open source software, and Get Your Job Done CD that has notable public reaction.
Speaking of Governmental OSS Policies, Mr. Asomiddin Atoev, Director of the Civil Initiative on Policy of Internet from Tajikistan referred to CSIS report Global Policies on OSS, adding that "a major difference between FOSS and proprietary software (PS) is in the way they provide access to the benefits of information society." While PS promotes consumption and passivity of the users, FOSS turns the users into developers". He mentioned the examples of Tajikistan, whose e-Strategy considers FOSS as a tool to narrow the growing digital divide, and Singapore, where the state provides tax incentives for organizations using FOSS.
Comprehensive public debates on the use of the free and open source software in education and public administration, as well as related legal framework and implications were organised during the second day of the conference. Major issues were discussed through concrete experiences: training and retraining of users, which depends on whether they are thought to use technologies and not individual products (Mr. Atoev); lack of individual motivation of government employees, especially teachers, to increase their IT skills level in Kazakhstan (Mr. Alexader Borovitsin from Information Initiatives Foundation); need for increased usability (Mr. Vyacheslav Baharev from Kiberkultura Kazakhstan); example of extensive use of localized FOSS in the Armenian Army, aimed at untrained recruits who don't know English (Mr. Ruben Muradyan of Public TV Company of Armenia); and copyright and/or patenting of software and algorithms in the legal framework session.
In the closing session of the conference, Mr. David Sandukhchyan from CILP underlined the general impression that the conference had a productive knowledge exchange and it was a basis for networking of stakeholders from the wider region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Open Source Policy Conference
http://gipi.am/?i=254
(Contribution by Filip Stojanovski - EDRI-member Metamorphosis - Macedonia)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
At the 28th annual Conference of Data Protection and Information Commissioners held on 2-3 November in London, privacy commissioners from ten countries adopted common policies related to the international issue of increased citizen surveillance.
The document adopted by the commissioners, titled "Communicating Data Protection and Making It More Effective", asked for a common support in creating an international convention on data protection, first agreed on by commissioners in 2005.
UK's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas welcomed the initiative of the commissioners that show concern for the protection of data. He had already warned on the dangers created by the monitoring of individuals' actions in UK by public and private bodies. A report prepared by the Commissioner's office had showed a spilt between wealthy and poor people in both physical and economical mobility, triggered by social profiles based on data gathering.
In the same direction, on the occasion of the 72nd Federal Conference of 19 October 2006 at Naumburg, Germany, data protection officers criticized a planned anti-terror file as being unconstitutional. A resolution was passed in this sense.
Although they think the terrorism threat has to be dealt with, the German data protection officers consider any anti-terrorist action should be within the Constitution and therefore they would like to see some modifications in the planned anti-terror file.
Another concern expressed by the data protection officers is related to a central "educational register" with ID number for schoolchildren and teachers called for by the German Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder, in view of identifying individual data records at any time. The data protectionists have passed a resolution stating there is no clear need for such a register at the national level.
A new resolution of the data protectionists was related to the use of RFID chips and the creation of secret profiles by scanning data from the RFID devices. The resolution requires for devices to disable the chips used in the retail and service sectors and the use of encryption during data transmission and storing to prevent data scanning by unauthorised persons.
However, just a couple of weeks after the German privacy commissioners meeting, the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German Parliament has approved the federal government's draft regulation on the introduction of unique and permanent identity numbers, for tax assessment purposes. Irrespective of age, each German citizen will have an identity number starting with July 2007. The identity number, given by the Federal Central Tax Office, will replace the taxpayer identification numbers issued by the German federal states and will include personal details such as name, sex, date of birth or address.
Data protection advocates have largely criticized the proposed new identity number that will accompany its "owner" permanently for the entire life and which will be included in a large database. They claim there is no provision that would prevent the information collected for this database to be used by the taxpayers' employers or clients.
Privacy chiefs vow to fight surveillance together (7.11.2006)
http://www.out-law.com/page-7452
"Communicating Data Protection and Making It More Effective" (3.11.2006)
http://ico.crl.uk.com/files/Communicating%20data%20protection%20and%20...(E).pdf
Results of the Data protection Officers Conferences (27.10.2006, only in
German)
http://www.bfdi.bund.de/nn_531946/DE/Oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/Entschlies...
Data protectionists criticize anti-terror file and register of
schoolchildren (30.10.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80205
Bundesrat gives the green light to identity number (7.11.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80622
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
A few interesting decisions regarding the copyright infringement by fileshares have been taken in the last weeks by courts from different states in Europe. Usage of p2p programms has been considered totally different in decisions in Finland, Sweden and Spain.
At the end of October 2006, a judge from Turku, Finland convicted 22 people for copyright infringement deciding on a fine of more than 420 000 euros in damages, in favour of several plaintiffs including music, game and film producers. The plaintiffs had claimed 3.5 millions euro as damages.
The group of sentenced people had a peer-to-peer file sharing network with about 10 000 users, called Finreactor, and the judge ruled that the network had been created with the precise purpose to share copyrighted works such as games, software or movies thus violating the copyright law.
Although the defendants argued that the content was transferred directly between the users with no storage on the network, claiming that, in this case, they had no responsibility in the law infringement, the court considered the service as a whole, thus involving directly its operators in the violation action.
The Finnish court did not consider the offenders deserved a more severe conviction and applied an earlier copyright legislation that required profit scope for a criminal conviction on copyright violation.
Finland is not the only country to deal with file sharing more severely. Sweden courts also fined two men who had downloaded movies and music for personal use and more than 100 students at Växjö University of Sweden were banned during the past two years from using the university network for having downloaded copyrighted works.
A totally opposite decision was taken in Spain on 26 October 2006 when a judge of the of Penal Court No.3 of Santander acquitted a 48-year-old man who had shared digital music on the net, ruling that under the Spanish law a person who downloads music for personal use, without the intention of gaining money out of it, cannot be convicted.
The sentence was surprising for the state prosecutor's office and the two music distribution associations, the Asociación Fonográfica y Videográfica Española (Afyve) and the Asociación Española de distribuidores y editores de software de entretenimiento (Adese) who had asked for a two-year sentence for the defendant, a 7.200 euro fine and 18.361 euro damages for Afyve.
The plaintiffs have not succeeded in proving the defendant had made money from selling the CDs with the downloaded music and the judge argued that a sentence "would imply the criminalization of socially accepted and widely practiced behaviour in which the aim is in no way to make money illicitly, but rather to obtain copies for private use."
The Spanish recording industry federation Promusicae stated it would appeal against the decision. Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopéz Aguilar also said that artists' rights must be protected as much as possible and that Spain is drafting a new law to eliminate the present right to private copies.
A judge from Santanter decided downloading music from the Internet without
working purpose is no crime (only in Spanish, 1.11.2006)
http://www.elpais.es/articulo/internet/elpportec/20061101elpepunet_1/T...
File sharing website brings heavy damages in copyright case (27.10.2006)
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/File+sharing+website+brings+heavy+dam...
Finland convicts 22 in file sharing case (30.10.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/finns_convicted/
Students get network ban over file sharing(30.10.2006)
http://www.thelocal.se/5347/20061030/
Two Swedes fined for file sharing (18.10.2006)
http://www.thelocal.se/5262/20061018/
Spain Court Dismisses Music Download Case (2.11.2006)
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/11/02/ap3141442.html
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
From 30 October to 2 November approximately 1500 people gathered in Athens, Greece for the first global internet governance forum (IGF). The IGF is one of the outcomes of the Tunis Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005, with the aim of creating a new global policy space to advance discussions related to internet governance. Since the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) stalemate could not be resolved at the Tunis Summit, the participants agreed to establish a process to continue the debate, which is a classical way to deal with issues that are politically difficult. So the idea of the IGF was born and actually first proposed by civil society actors active in the WSIS negotiations. Civil society actors were also very active in preparing the IGF through the Advisory Group that was set up in May 2006 to assist UN Secretary General Adviser Nitin Desai and the Swiss diplomat Markus Kummer in preparing the meeting.
The overall theme for the first IGF was "Internet governance for development" - divided into four topics: Openness, Security, Diversity, and Access. The IGF was structured around long plenary panel debates on the four issues, combined with 30+ workshops organized by governments, civil society and industry actors on a broad range of topics, ranging from privacy and identity management, privacy and development, freedom of expression, content regulation and access, capacity building, open standards, access to knowledge, infrastructure security and so on.
Optimists hope for the IGF to harvest new grounds for the development of public policy on internet-related issues, using a model based on an open and informal deliberative process in which the role of civil society is not subordinated to that of governments. As several interventions stressed, choosing Athens -"the cradle of western democracy"- as the IGF's host city may suggest that a new model of networked policy making is being born. From this perspective, the IGF represents the first step towards truly multi-stakeholder policy dialogue and cooperation, at UN level. Others are more skeptical and see the IGF as yet another talkshow where everyone talks, but no one listens, and where the broad civil society coalition and pressure have been demobilized into individual goals and actions. Not least since there are no mechanisms to ensure that the many words are followed by action.
Looking at the IGF meeting from the perspective of European Digital Rights, the interesting point is to which extent the IGF may advance the protection and promotion of human rights such as privacy, freedom of expression, access to information etc. in the digital world.
The IGF was definitely a new way to follow up on UN Summits, and in many ways more interesting and inspiring with regard to the content being discussed than the usual UN setting of pre-prepared statements and constrained modalities for civil society interaction. One example, among many, was the way internet architects Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn actively engaged in the debate with policy makers, NGOs etc. on how to find common ground for the internet. Another example was the way contentious human rights issues like imprisonment of bloggers, censorship on the net, industry cooperation with governments that violate human rights, or intellectual property rights regimes and their effect on access to knowledge was aired and discussed in the main sessions to an extent that you rarely see in normal UN gatherings. However, I should not be forgotten that this type of debate is possible precisely because no common decisions are taken, and no binding commitments are agreed upon.
Another perspective is the IGF as a policy laboratory, where new approaches and cooperation may be tested. One example is the new so-called dynamic coalition on Privacy, which already has 40+ supporting organizations ranging from privacy commissioners, governments, academia, industry, human rights groups etc. The coalition is a new platform that aims to advance privacy concerns on the global internet policy agenda, where it continued to be absent during WSIS. The initiative is a direct outcome of a couple of Privacy Workshops organised by "edri-associate" Gus Hosein from Privacy International (London) and EDRI-member Ralf Bendrath from Netzwerk Neue Medien (Berlin). Also, a number of new coalitions related to access to knowledge and freedom of expression are already launched or in the pipeline. It remains to be seen whether these new initiatives will have impact on the content and shaping of future Internet policy decisions.
The IGF has no real powers in terms of enforcement, the concrete outcome depends on how seriously it is treated, especially by governments. From a civil society perspective, the IGF was a step forward in terms of participation and in terms of setting the substantive agenda. However, it appeared that policy makers were much more bewildered as to which role to play. How should they interact in this rather loose setting where debate was much less diplomatic than the usual policy spaces ? and how may the IGF feed into the more closed policy spaces where decisions are actually taken?
Since the core idea of the IGF is to create new and more participatory ways for policy deliberation, it is crucial that government delegates find their feet in the process and are open to new ways of preparing for decisions. It is also crucial that civil society groups keep up the pressure, and ask for concrete indicators of progress. If not, it will just be civil society and industry having yet another internet conference.
Internet Governance Forum
http://www.intgovforum.org/
IGF Greece
http://www.igfgreece2006.gr/
(Contribution by Rikke Frank Joergensen, EDRI-member Digital Rights Denmark)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
A Report on the Surveillance Society: For the Information
Commissioner by the Surveillance Studies Network, 2006
http://ico.crl.uk.com/files/Surveillance%20society%20full%20report%20f...
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
13 November 2006, London, United Kingdom
Blocking Denial of Service Attacks
A conference to discuss technical, legal, regulatory and contractual
measures that would have a real effect in reducing Denial of Service
attacks on-line.
http://www.communicationsresearch.net/events/article/default.aspx?obji...
15-17 November 2006, Skopje, Macedonia
International Conference "e-Society.Mk"
http://www.e-society.org.mk/
16 November 2006, Basel, Switzerland
Big Brother Awards Switzerland
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2006/
30 November - 1 December 2006, Berlin, Germany
The New Surveillance - A critical analysis of research and methods in
Surveillance Studies. A two day international Conference hosted at the
Centre for Technology and Society of the Technical University Berlin.
http://www.ztg.tu-berlin.de/surveillance
2 December 2006, London, United Kingdom
Reclaiming Our Rights
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/reclaimingourrights
14 December 2006, Madrid, Spain
Conference on the Admissibility of Electronic Evidence in Court in Europe.
The final event of the project Admissibility of the Electronic Evidence in
Court in Europe (A.E.E.C.) funded by the European Commission and led by the
Spanish company Cybex.
http://www.cybex.es/AGIS2005/