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ISOC Member Newsletter - May 2010
Internet Society Funds Projects to Support Internet Access, Security, and Policy Development
Community Grants Programme’s 11th round helps extend Internet’s reach and promote key technologies
[Washington, D.C., USA and Geneva, Switzerland – 25 May 2010] The Internet Society (ISOC) today announced it is funding community-based projects around the world addressing issues such as Internet leadership, education, core infrastructure, local governance, and policy development, with a strong focus on currently underserved communities.
“The diversity of projects awarded highlights the profound importance of the Internet in so many aspects of our lives, in all parts of the world,” said Jon McNerney, Chief Operating Officer of the Internet Society. “The passion and creativity of those developing the projects within their communities drives the Internet Society’s commitment to help bring the benefits of the Internet to people everywhere.”
As part of the ISOC Community Grants Programme, each project will receive up to US$10,000 for efforts that promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world.
Projects funded in this round include:
- Training programmes to build digital literacy within safe environments in India and Uganda
- Village-operated telecommunication services in East Timor
- Support for development of core Internet time infrastructure
- Policy and practical action in Kenya to improve online safety for women
- Online support for NGOs in Tunisia and more effective local governance in India
- Promotion of Internet leadership in Ecuador
Development of important public policy resources in Georgia and Australia.
Internet Society Community Grants are awarded twice each year. The next round of the programme will open on 1 September 2010.
Additional information is available about the Community Grants Programme and this round of award-winning projects.
Chapter update: Australia
Contributed by Holly Raiche
April saw the Internet Society Australia Chapter participating, with Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG), on Forums in Australian most capital cities (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane) on the implications of the National Broadband network for end users. The Chapter has also been involved in the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement Subgroup meetings to finalize recommendations that will go to the GNSO as the Brussels meeting. Locally, we continue involvement with what is called the Safer Internet Group (with Google, Yahoo, Inspire, SAGE, and others) on developing and promoting an alternative to the Government’s proposed mandatory ISP blocking. We have also been involved in finalising a voluntary ISP code on cyber-security – urging ISPs to take steps to detect compromised computers of their customers and take steps to address the issue. Finally, the Chapter has also made a submission to the auDA inquiry into new second level domains (2LDs).
Chapter update: Washington DC
Contributed by Hannah Miller
DC Policy and Technology Slam!
At INET-DC on 29 April at the Capital Hilton, the Washington DC Chapter of Internet Society held an unique event – a “Technology and Policy Slam” – modeled after the tradition of a spoken-word poetry slam. The Slam, mixed in with a day of panels hosting FCC and NTIA representatives and others, got the membership on its feet, engaged, and contributing ideas in a way that few conference activities do, by soliciting “the best tech or tech policy ideas” for a casual, fun, American-Idol-style contest (without the verbal takedown.)
Hosted by the Internet Society’s Mike Nelson and the Media and Democracy Coalition’s Hannah Miller, the Slam was arranged as follows: five judges were chosen from the audience and given cards with numbers ranging from 1 to 10. Then Mike, as master of ceremonies, got attendees to come up to a microphone and give their favorite ideas in two minutes or less (example: “you should own all information about yourself”), then took scores from the judges.
In the “Elimination Round,” the three scorers went back to the microphone, to take another two minutes to expound on their idea, and a final winner emerged: privacy education for high schoolers. ISOC-DC highly encourages other Chapters to try this.
The Media and Democracy Coalition is a collaboration of over thirty local and national organizations committed to amplifying the public’s voice in shaping media and telecommunications policy.
Chapter update: New York
Contributed by Joly MacFie
Diaspora Project
The dispora project, a free and open distributed social network, borne out of the Internet Society New York Chapter’s presentation of Eben Moglen’s ‘Freedom in the Cloud’ in February is making incresingly bigger waves. Four NYU students introduced dispora at the Chapter’s April monthly meeting http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=777 . They planned to raise $10,000 to work on the project over the summer, however a NY Times story on 5 May http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html and other interest has, as of today, boosted the funding to to $180K+ ! More info: http://joindiaspora.com
Monthly Planning meeting
The Internet Society New York Chapter will be holding our monthly planning meeting on 20 May 20 2010. We will be welcoming Sébastien Bachollet, visiting from the French Chapter.
- What: ISOC-NY Planning meeting
- When: Thursday May 20 2010 7.00pm-8.30pm
- Where: Room 317, Warren Weaver Hall, 251 Mercer Street NYC (SW corner of West 4th)
- All are welcome. Come along for a chat, but beware boring administrative details.
http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1335
Sébastien is a member of ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and a couple of us interested in ICANN affairs plan to meet with him around 5:30pm for a repast before going on to the Chapter meeting. If interested email me : joly@punkcast.com with subject “Sebastien Meetup”.
http://www.icann.org/en/committees/alac/bachollet.html
Advancing Community Broadband: Summer Discussion Series @ Columbia University
Earlier in the day on Thursday 20 May sees the first of 3 monthly half-day forums on Community Broadband at Columbia U. These are intended to follow up on the NTIA’s stimulus program and the FCC’s National Broadband Plan with a focus on increasing access in the City’s underserved neighborhoods. ISOC-NY will record for later webcast.
- What: Advancing Community Broadband – Stakeholders’ Community Building Meeting
- When: Thu May 20 2010 10:30am-1:00pm
- Where: Carleton Lounge, Mudd Building, 500 W. 120 St, NY 10027
- Public welcome.
http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=793
Video: dot nyc: How are we doing
The Internet Society New York Chapter on 8 May 2010, hosted a seminar “dot nyc – How are we doing?” at NYU. NYC Council Member Gale Brewer delivered keynote remarks, then vendor Eric Brunner-Williams of CORE Internet Council of Registrars revealed details of their proposal to the City, and Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines and Public Advocate Beill DeBlasio’s earlier comments to the City Council were shown in video. There was a discussion “What’s it for?” about possible applications – civic, community, commercial, and “outside the box” – for a local top level domain. Speakers included Tom Lowenhaupt of Connecting .nyc and Richard Knipel of Wikimedia NYC. Audio/video is available.
http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1515
ISOC-NY TV
The New York Chapter’s TV show is available on a bi-weekly basis on Manhattan Neighborhood Network MNN Ch.56 – the next show – Wednesday 26 May – 11:30 am – will feature the .nyc discussion.
http://www.mnn.org/viewers/schedule?channel=1&day=1274846400&channel=2
Chapter update: Peru
Contributed by Francisco Rubio
[English]
New Board in ISOC Peru Chapter
On 13 March, a new board was elected. The new officers are:
- Freddy Linares, President
- Alexander Forsyth, Vice President
- Ruddy Medina, Secretary
- Claudia Cordova, Treasurer
- Luis Malpartida, Officer
- Gustavo Castro, Officer
17 May – World Telecommunication and Information Society Day
ISOC Peru participated in the official activities organized by the e-Government and Informatics National Office, which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office, on several districts of Lima. The activities took place on the streets and had a massive attendance.
[Spanish]
Nuevo Comité Directivo en ISOC Perú
El sábado 13 de marzo hubo elecciones generales en el capítulo Perú de ISOC. El nuevo comité directivo está conformado por: Presidente: Freddy Linares, Vicepresidente: Alexander Forsyth, Secretario: Ruddy Medina, Tesorero: Claudia Córdiva, Vocales:Luis Malpartida, Gustavo Castro.
17 de Mayo – Día Mundial de las Telecomunicaciones y de la Sociedad de la Información
ISOC Perú participó en las actividades oficiales programadas por la ONGEI-PCM en varios distritos de Lima. El evento, que se realizó en las calles, contó con una masiva concurrencia del público.
World Summit Youth Award
The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) invites once again young designers, e-content creators, writers, and bloggers from around the world to enter their online-projects in an international multimedia competition: using Internet and mobiles to put the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into Action.
About WSYA
The WSYA will be organised in 2010 as a follow up activity of the World Summit on Information Society and its action plan towards 2015. WSYA is organized by the World Summit Award Network for the third time since 2005. WSYA will be promoted in all UN member states through the networks of the World Summit Award (WSA), the UN Global Alliance for ICT, the participating UN Organisations and Agencies, governments and NGOs, youth organisations, and all others committed to the motivation of the project.
Get Action On MDGs!
The WSYA selects and promotes best practice in e-Content and technological creativity, demonstrates young people’s potential to create outstanding digital content and serves as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together in the efforts to reduce poverty and hunger, and to tackle ill-health, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water, and environmental degradation.
Enter your online projects until 20 June, 2010 at www.youthaward.org in one of the following categories:
- Fight Poverty, Hunger and Disease
- Education for all
- Power 2 Women
- Create your Culture
- Go Green
- Pursue Truth
An international jury of ICT experts will evaluate the projects in two rounds of online judging, where the winners of each category will be selected.
WSYA Goes Big Apple
Winners will be invited to showcase their platform to heads of state, business leaders, and civil society at the 4-day WSYA Winners Events, where the most committed and creative young people from around the world will be brought together with the UN Millennium Review Summit Leader in New York in September 2010. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered.
More Benefits
Next to the presentation of the winner’s projects the winners of the contest 2010 are invited to participate in workshops at the WSYA Winners Events. All nominated projects will be presented online at www.youthaward.org and extensive promoted through the WSYA network, which offers all contest participants co-operation possibilities with ICT experts, business leaders, multimedia producers and youth to youth organizations.
Contest dates 2010
Online registration: 19 April – 20 June 2010 at www.youthaward.org
Jury: July 2010
Winners events: 18 September – 22 September, 2010 at the UN MDG Review Summit in New York City, USA
Contact Information:
Maria Eschlboeck, WSYA Project Coordinator
WSYA / WSA Office
ICNM – International Centre for New Media
Moosstrasse 43a, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Phone: +43 662 630408 | Email: eschlboeck@icnm.net
http://www.youthaward.org
Chapter update: Ghana
Contributed by Vera Doku
ISOC Ghana Leads Disucssions On Internet Security
[Accra, Ghana 23 April, 2010] “Cyber crime has become extremely pervasive since the invention of the Internet. In Ghana, many people associate the phenomena with Sakawa, which is Internet fraud or scamming. However, cyber crime goes beyond Internet fraud, it could also involve the hacking of networks, which could destroy a nation’s critical infrastructure. The perpetrators of cyber crime have become very sophisticated, so there is the need to protect our Internet resources by waging warfare against them,” said Prof Nii Narku Quaynor.
Prof Quaynor, made these remarks at social night, when he chaired a social gathering organized by the Ghana Chapter of the Internet Society under the theme, “Internet Security and the National Effort”. It was attended by about 50 people from ISOC members, government, civil society, industry and academia.
Reiterating the importance of protecting our critical infrastructure, Mr. Daniel Asante, coordinator of the Ghana Computer Emergency Response Team (ghCERT) informed the gathering that ghCERT was partnering with government agencies, ghNOG, ISOC Ghana, GhNIC, and other organizations to create awareness on Internet security issues and how some of the incidences can be prevented. However, he said that because of the pervasive nature of the Internet, it was difficult to track down on the perpetrators and that everyone was obligated to protect the Internet against anti-social acts.
An interesting question that came up for discussion was how much security was needed to prevent the cyber crime. While one school was of the thought that security was extremely necessary and that policies should be put in place to curb cyber crime, another was of the opinion that, the more security, the less friendly the Internet becomes, since the Internet is a network of networks and used by a large number of people.
Adding to the debate, Prof. Quaynor said that technology keeps changing very rapidly and policies very quickly become obsolete. Moreover, policies on Internet usage are done globally with the involvement of organisations such as, the IETF, ISOC, IGF, ITU, ICANN, and others, and these normally take time before they are implemented. He said, rather than preventing the occurrences, the role of ghCERT is to respond to problems as and when they occur. Prof. Quaynor stressed on the importance of sharing of best practices among IT operators on a regular basis, so that they are abreast of the issues.
Presenting the topic, Mitigating the ‘Sakawa’ Challenge, Mr. Charles Nelson, of Youth Against Cyber Crime, described himself as ‘a lone ranger’ in the war against Sakawa. He described the phenomena as endemic and that the future was bleak if the government does not take measures to nip the crime in the bud. Of great concern to Mr. Nelson, however is the erroneous perception among people that young people who use Internet are all engaged in the Sakawa business. “There must be a reorientation of the minds of the youth that the Internet goes beyond Sakawa.” He said. “Advocacy is therefore, the key to change the mindset of these young people.
As the Internet continues to grow, there is a need for global computer emergency response teams to curb the incidences of cyber crime. The Ghana project is therefore, a laudable initiative. According to Prof Quaynor, there is the need to create network of government ministries agencies and departments to come out with a defence strategy. He made this call when Mr. Godfred Ofori-Som, Chair, Technical Committee, ISOC, Ghana, Ayittey Bulley, Vodafone, Ghana, Daniel Asante and Charles Nelson, constituted a panel to discuss the way forward in forging a strong computer emergency response team. Mr. Asante, said that currently ghCERT was operating on funds from benefactors and voluntary contributions and that there was the need to look for other funding alternatives. Dr. Quaynor called on ghCERT to form strong ties with the government and tackle the issues from a multi-stakeholder approach. Mr. Asante made a call for volunteers to join in the crusade to make the Internet a safer place. He said ghCERT was putting a portal in place where it would disseminate information via listservs.
He also called for volunteers to team up with ghCERT to create awareness of the initiative. Four other CERTS in Africa can be found in Tunisia, South Africa, Mauritius and Egypt.
The evening climaxed with the launching of the new ISOC website, which has current Web 2.0 features, user generation content, with face book and twitter integrations. The launch was performed by Prof. Quaynor, Board Chairman of ISOC Ghana.
Chapter update: Colorado
Contributed by Chris Grundemann
ISOC Colorado Chapter at RMv6 Summit 2010
Internet Society Colorado Chapter is a sponsor of this year’s Rocky Mountain IPv6 Summit and, as such, we will have a booth in the expo hall! If you are going to be in or near Denver on 26 – 27 May, 2010, then you really should be at this great event! We will be handing out all the latest promotional materials from ISOC, including information on the Next Generation Leaders program, IPv6 (of course), the latest IETF Journals, chapter reports, stickers, and more.
On top of the sweet handouts, we will be holding a raffle for everyone who signs up with ISOC Colorado Chapter during the event! That’s right – every person who lives in Colorado and becomes a new ISOC Colorado Chapter member during the 2010 Rocky Mountain IPv6 Summit (by signing up at our booth) will be entered to win an open source Daisy MP3 Player Kit! If you are already a member, make sure to tell your friends – maybe if they win they will let you build it for them!
As if that wasn’t enough, Chris Grundemann will be manning the booth himself the majority of the time – which means that if you want a signed copy of Day One: Exploring IPv6, all you have to do is drop by the Juniper booth to grab your free copy and then swing by the ISOC Colorado Chapter booth for Chris to scribble on it. I know – it’s exciting, right? Well, regardless of your desire to read a whole book(let) written by Chris, we hope that you will come to what promises to be another fantastic event!
New Website for ISOC Colorado Chapter
ISOC Colorado Chapter has recently launched a new, improved website to act as the focal point of our online presence. Both aesthetic and technical changes have been made in the hope of creating a more useful and appealing site. We invite you to take a look and let us know your thoughts!
Chapter update: Mexico
Contributed by Alejandro Pisanty
Over recent months ISOC Mexico Chapter has continued to be active in the Mexican legislative and policy environment. We continue do make public interventions to further the understanding of the ACTA agreement on the Internet and its potential consequences, with particular focus on the fact that Mexico intends to be a party to the Agreement. We also follow local legislation initiatives and campaign for their better understanding, including among legislators. Members of ISOC Mexico Chapter have prepared to analyse two new legal initiatives with potential to affect the Internet, one imposing a surcharge on all equipment that can be used for reproducing digital content and another to make ISPs take part in content surveillance for potential intellectual-property infringements.
Members of ISOC Mexico Chapter publish and are present in publica fora and social media for this purpose.
More recently, 12 May marked the occasion of Internet 2010, the annual symposium convened by ISOC Mexico Chapter. Nearly 40 speakers, over 100 attendees and around 400 remote participants discussed legislation, public policy, intellectual property, digital archives of national memory, markets, business models, IPv6, access technologies, education at all levels, arts, innovation, health, blogs, personal and institutional branding, and values of the Internet in an open as well as friendly debate.
The discussants ranged from senior legislators and public officials to young, emerging leaders, and in subject matter from broad systemic integrative overviews to actual, practical field experience.
An unusually high attendance and interest of legislators and legislative staff gave the meeting a way to translate its discussions into decision-making. It is particularly fortunate that representatives of all industry and academic organizations at the core of the institutional environment of the Internet in Mexico came together during the meeting.
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ISOC's key initiatives target the critical issues that affect all aspects of Internet development and growth. They embody ISOC's philosophy that the Internet is for everyone and they provide the organization with a solid foundation from which to positively influence standards development, access, business practices, and government policies.