Access & infrastructure

The gang was all there

Today began with the really early train (6 am) to Stockholm since I had to be in there at 9 am to make a presentation at the Internet days an event organized by the Swedish IIS. My track was an e-government track but my presentation was on e-democracy and the way in which the citizen is forgotten in the rush to implement technology with the goal of making bureaucracy more efficient. My main gripe is the use of the word democracy when in actuality the goal is efficient bureaucracy.

The presentation went well and woke several questions among the listeners but it is doubtful whether an audience focused on bureaucracy really wanted to hear about democracy – but on the other hand it democracy is never wrong.

After the presentation I had an interesting (but brief) discussion with Rolf Berndtson  from Dataföreningen (always interesting and insightful) and at lunch I met Désirée Liljevall and Eliza Roszkowska Öberg two politicians with a special interest in IT. Other people there were Johan Schiff who was there as a representative for the newly launched Swedish Wikimedia Foundation. Naturally the gang from FSFE (Jonas Öberg, Henrik Sandklef & Irina Dzhambazova) were there, and I also said a quick “Hi” to Helena Andersson from the IT law department at Stockholm University, saw Nicklas Lundblad (Nicklas I cannot find your blog anymore – where are you?) but missed the opportunity to talk to him (shame), so the whole thing was a very friendly and familiar affair.

Then it was a brisk walk to the train to Lund where I shall be until Thursday morning when it’s off to Stockholm give a lecture and then back to Göteborg for the weekend. Ah, my train-setting lifestyle…

Posted on by mklang

Another idiotic regulatory attempt

The latest idiotic proposed legislation comes from Italy. The proposal is that all blogs and websites need to be registered (and taxed).

Beppe Grillo writes

Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement.
The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.

Oh my God, Lets start with the easy stuff.

First, How will they intend to police this law. The law can apply to all Italian sites. What is an Italian site? Is it:

  1. a site with an Italian domain
  2. a site on a server in Italy
  3. a site in Italian

Second, what happens when the site is based in several locations with data pulled from several sources? Do they get a tax reduction?

Third, what is a website? Can you define it legally? Is there a difference between the site, server and domain? What about:

  1. A facebook profile
  2. A blog on blogger
  3. An advert on ebay
  4. A wikipedia page
  5. A flickr profile

These may be unique individual websites – but they can also be seen as part of a larger domain.
Fourth, what about free speech rights? Basically an unregistered website would be in violation of the law but would/should the reaction be to close down the site? What happens if a newspaper does not register can they be closed down?

Fifth, administration. How much money and resource can be used to police a law such as this? Can the revenue it brings in even begin to cover the investigative resources required? No of course not. Imaging attempting to chase every Italian blog. How do you know when they are Italian?

Proposals to regulate the Internet come at regular intervals. Often they are barely thought through and will collapse before they even reach the enactment stage. Some laws on Internet regulation have been enacted but are then thankfully forgotten by those who should enforce them.

In the end proposals such as these show that regulators seem to lack even a basic understanding of the technology which most of us use. They also lack a fundamental modern historical approach to regulation. It is really a case of being condemned to repeat the past since we cannot remember it. All the earlier crappy failed attempts to regulate the Internet have failed but since the people proposing regulation have no memory of this we are doomed to see the same mistakes repeated again and again.

At best this provides a form of light relief and humor.

(via BoingBoing)

Posted on by mklang

Internet Censorship China

Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders (a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry) has produced a study on the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda. For obvious reasons the author of the report prefers to remain anonymous. The RSF press release promises:

This report shows how the CCP and the government have deployed colossal human and financial resources to obstruct online free expression. Chinese news websites and blogs have been brought under the editorial control of the propaganda apparatus at both the national and local levels.

… [The report] explains how this control system functions and identifies its leading actors such the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau…, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion… and the Internet Bureau…

Internet censorship is a vital topic any work in this area is very welcome. Two PhD thesis’ of interest in this area are Stuart Hamilton’s To what extent can libraries ensure free, equal and unhampered access to Internet-accessible information resources from a global perspective? and Johan Lagerkvist The Internet in China: Unlocking and containing the public sphere.

Posted on by mklang

Kissing Policemen

A Russian photograph depicting two kissing policemen by a Russian art collective has been excluded (banned?) from an exhibition of contemporary Russian art due to be exhibited in Paris next week. Alexander Sokolov, Russia’s culture minister has banned the photo entitled Kissing Policemen (An Epoch of Clemency).

Apparently Mr Sokolov sees the photo as a political provocation and has banned it together with 16 other works. (via Guardian Online)

Well no one will try to argue that Russia is a tolerant society or that the position of minister of culture is there to promote the arts.

The photo is a variation on, or homage to, the British artist Banksy’s Kissing policemen.

Kissing Policemen by Banksy (photo by David Singleton)

Posted on by mklang

Open Access Films

The Open Access movement is gaining momentum and still there are too many people who are unaware of what it is all about, its goals and effects. There are some very persuasive arguments being presented by key people but don’t worry if you have missed out on these. They are available on YouTube

Film One is a conversation with Sydney Verba, Director of Harvard University Libraries and professor of political science, and Charles Nesson, Professor of Law on the serials crises and the fact that “even Harvard” cannot afford the developments. 

Film Two is Chris McManus, a researcher at UCL, describes why research needs to be openly shared not only by other researchers but also by the general public. 

Film Three is an interview of researcher Erik Svensson the Department of Ecology, Lund University by Lund librarian Helena Stjernberg on the pros and cons of Open Access.

You might also want to look at the short ad boosting the Public Library of Science, maybe not so informative as fun! The last film is an occupational film from 1947 about the library profession, and becoming a librarian it’s kind of cute – also it shows the idea and image of the librarian of the time.

librarian.jpg

Librarians (circa 1947)

Being a natural skeptic I must admit to not being totally persuaded by the educational value of YouTube but I did enjoy these films.

Posted on by mklang

Peer Review

A good short term strategy when attempting to prevent something is to use obviously false arguments. This is a good strategy because even false arguments can be believed if they are stated with a sense of conviction. But this is a crappy strategy in the long run since it undermines the credibility of the fool making the false argument.

One of the arguments against open access is that open access will ruin the peer review system. This is obviously total bull but stated with conviction by publishers it sounds almost credible. It sounds very credible to those who have no idea what peer-review is. It sounds even more dangerous when the importance of peer-review to the progress of science is explained.

So people tend to get nervous when open access is invoked and fear for the demise of good science. Therefore it is always a good thing to have a answer to this prepared.

Peter Suber’s article in the September 2007 SPARC Open Access Newsletter is just what you need – please read Why Open Access Undermine Peer Review?

Posted on by mklang

Free Expression & T-shirts

Did you know that you could be arrested for wearing a t-shirt with an inappropriate text on it? No I am not talking arrested for indecency or for bad taste. Several people in the United States and the United Kingdom have been arrested for wearing t-shirts with political messages on them. In July last year I presented several examples of this on this blog.

In 2004 Nicole and Jeff Rank were removed from the event at the West Virginia Capitol in handcuffs after revealing T-shirts with President Bush’s name crossed out on the front. Nicole Rank’s shirt had the words “Love America, Hate Bush” on the back and Jeff Rank’s read “Regime change starts at home”

The good news is that the couple settled their lawsuit against the federal government for $80,000, the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday (via ABC news).

It’s good to hear that the even if protesters are arrested the right to freedom of expression is still a valued and protected right. However, the threat of being arrested is not something that most people want to experience and therefore freedom of expression is diminished even when people are compensated later.

Posted on by mklang