From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Jun 1 13:05:27 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 07:35:27 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Documenta XI - A response to Philip Pocock Message-ID: <200106010735.JAA17590@mail.intra.waag.org> This is a further statement on the postings about New Delhi Platform of Documenta XI. As you will know the discussion till now has been archived on this list, and a digest of the various postings made by Monica Narula has been posted on nettime (www.nettime.org) on the 21st of May, 2001. For us, the discussion on Documenta XI (Platform 2) has been but an instance of a more general discussion of matters pertaining to cultural politics. We have no special interest in either extolling or flaming Documenta. What concerns us here are conceptual and pragmatic issues that are of relevance to media practice and critical reflection on new media, digital culture and their relationship to our contemporary condition. Any event or festival or person or work that is discussed here needs to be discussed with only this in view. There are other lists that are more suitable for other purposes. Day before yesterday, the list received a lengthy email from Philip Pocock, who has been active on the discussion on Documenta, in the form of a letter to Okwui Enwezor (the curator of Documenta XI). We believe in a free, frank and critical discussion on the list, and see no reason for the list being used to further personal agendas by anyone on the list against people outside it. Or, to see material from the list being selectively used to bolster these personal agendas. This is why we have responded in detail to Philip, and are posting relevant extracts of the response on the list, which we hope will help in carrying forward a general discussion on the serious issues of cultural politics which have been raised in the postings. We have no interest in becoming a forum for exhibiting personal affinities and animosities in the art world. This list has more important things to do! ====================================== Dear Philip, This is in resonse to your last email on the reader-list at sarai.net regarding Documenta XI, (especially Platform 2 - held in Delhi recently). The arguments that you are making. If we could summarize them, are as follows (and correct us if in summarizing them violence is being done to any of them) 1. The implications of 'importing' and 'exporting' culture in and out of ex-colonial situations, (Is Documenta XI carrying with it the risk of carrying on a colonialist cultural agenda ?) 2. The cost of attending the platforms and the lack of new media technologies as alternative modes of participation and dissemination 3. The institutional setting of the location of Platform 2 in Delhi - The India Habitat Centre 4. The paucity of local participation 5. The lack of local back up and research 6. The lack of attention to local concerns - and to the "the spiritual dimension of truth which underpins india's identity even today" We would like to respond to each of these criticisms, not in defence of the New Delhi Platform of Documenta XI, but as observers who were present through a substantial section of the deliberations of the platform. Incidentally, we happen to work at Sarai, which you have so generously commended in your posting, and far from actually being ignorant of Sarai, members of the curatorial team (Mr. Enwezor and his colleagues) were familiar with Sarai and with our work. A delegation from the curatorial team also visited Sarai and had detailed discussions with us and our colleagues after the days of Platform were over. We would, in the light of this, urge you not to be so misplaced in your enthusiasm for Sarai so as to argue on our behalf in a dispute that seems to have very little to do with Sarai itself, or the relationship between media practice in India, and elsewhere. We are able enough to articulate our own positions whenever we need to, and with whomsoever we need to, and need no endorsements or interlocution. Ironically, your enthusiasm for us risks sliding into a 'first world' endorsement for the latest 'bright kids from the third world'. We might add that your statement "some (were) able to afford entry into the Habitat Center" is specious. We were in fact specifically invited to be present, but the meeting itself was open to the general public, anyone could have walked in and for free. You have quoted a posting on the list to the effect that the meeting was in some senses closed to the public - "...but not the easiest space to enter if you do not have enough capital, cultural or otherwise." This statement must be seen in the sense that it was intended - which is a reflection on the fact that there is at present next to nothing in Delhi by the way of a democratic and accessible cultural/arts/exhibiton space which is open, non-elitist and public. This would have been the case no matter what venue was chosen by the orgainsers. But it cannot be construed to mean an argument against the holding of the excercise in itself. The elitism of insitutionalized arts spaces is a fact that we have to live with and contend with everywhere in the world. We would argue that this is the case in practically any city, anywhere. The same factors operate in London, or Lagos, or Lisbon, and a (necessary) scepticism about the "elite" nature of a space in the posting being turned into a (gestural) protest against the event itself, in your quotation of it, is nothing more than rhetorical sleight of hand. This is true, unfortunately, of your deployment of all of the quote - the fact that barring academics and artists, few people from the general public were to be seen - is again a reflection of the estrangement of discourse from the public sphere - in Delhi, and anywhere in the world. This is a fact that is not by any means of Documenta's making. And it is unfair on your part to suggest that this is in fact what is being said. Now for your criticisms, 1. The Implications of 'importing' and 'exporting' culture in and out of ex-colonial situations, (Is Documenta XI carrying with it the risk of carrying on a colonialist cultural agenda ?) This question brings with it a lot of baggage. Suppose, that an international arts event located in Western Europe, (as Documenta is) chooses to pass over Asia, Africa and Latin America on the grounds that to present work from the so-called 'Third World' is to always render it exotic, then there would be no doubt much agonizing over the fact that yet again the West has chosen to ignore the Rest. This was in fact the case in the last Documenta (Documenta X, 19XX). The curatorial decision to not enter into the realm of the 'exotic' even if unconsciously, was lambasted as "colonialist exclusion". see xxxx for an interesting and balanced analysis of the curatorial agenda of Documenta X by Geeta Kapur an Art Theorist and Historian from Delhi. This time it is the obverse, because the same international arts event, guided by a different vision is determined to look at discourse and cultural practice in Africa, South Asia, the Carribean (as well as Central Europe) the cri-de-coeur is that of resistance to "colonialist appropriation". Both tendencies, the allegations of "colonialist exclusion" and "colonialist appropriation", assume that there are monolithic cultural entities in the ex-colonial countries that are waiting to be re-colonized by western imperialism. This assumption only creates the comfortable illusion that ex-colonial socieities (and their cultural lives) are hegemonous and bereft of contrarian conflicts within them.That the culture on the streets in say a city like Delhi, is the same as the culture in an institution committed to the classical Indian arts, or even to the cultural life breath of the modern Indian nation state. The culture on the streets in South Asia has no insecurities about its 'impure' and cosmopolitan nature, it is as able to wear imitation western clothes with just as much ease, use English when and where necessary, as it is able to be indifferent to imitation western food or to popular western music or Hollywood cinema. It has no reason to see "western" culture as colonizing. It sees it as yet another element in a global cultural space that all of us are jostling to refashion after our own concerns, needs, and desires. The anxiety about the authenticity of "eastern" as opposed to western culture in India is better located in those indigenous elites who get a ready audience in new age-ist constituency that runs from california to california. Also, it puts all of western cultural practice within one (colonizing) bracket. While this may assuage the new age guilt of individuals within Western Europe and North America, it does nothing to actually illuminate the politics of a cultural encounter. Colonialism produced its victims both in the west and in the rest of the world. It needs to be recognised as a fact that the colonies of European powers were vast laboratories for the invention of new techniques of deploying power, which were then executed with alacrity 'back home'. We are shamelessly interested in the history of Europe and North America because we see our own history as being completely entwined with it. Equally, if we were European/North American today, we would be just as interested in the History of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The phenomenon of Colonialism, which is a particular instance of the general history of Capitalism, asks all of us to be equally concerned with the distrubution and transmission of power right across the globe. To look for greater or lesser victims of this impersonal and fluid network of power is to priviledge this or that corner of history, and to pretend to greater or lesser claims to innocence, in a world in which we are all equally implicated in violence and equally capable of compassion. This is why we reject the notion that the meeting of artists and intellectuals from India, ex-Yugoslavia, Chile, Germany, South Africa, the United States, Nigeria, Tunisia, Israel, France and the United States was an excecise in a "colonial encounter". 2. The cost of attending the platforms and the lack of new media technologies as alternative modes of participation and dissemination. From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Jun 1 13:13:23 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 07:43:23 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Documenta XI - A response to Philip Pocock Message-ID: <200106010743.JAA19337@mail.intra.waag.org> This is a further statement on the postings about New Delhi Platform of Documenta XI. As you will know the discussion till now has been archived on this list, and a digest of the various postings made by Monica Narula has been posted on nettime (www.nettime.org) on the 21st of May, 2001. For us, the discussion on Documenta XI (Platform 2) has been but an instance of a more general discussion of matters pertaining to cultural politics. We have no special interest in either extolling or flaming Documenta. What concerns us here are conceptual and pragmatic issues that are of relevance to media practice and critical reflection on new media, digital culture and their relationship to our contemporary condition. Any event or festival or person or work that is discussed here needs to be discussed with only this in view. There are other lists that are more suitable for other purposes. Day before yesterday, the list received a lengthy email from Philip Pocock, who has been active on the discussion on Documenta, in the form of a letter to Okwui Enwezor (the curator of Documenta XI). We believe in a free, frank and critical discussion on the list, and see no reason for the list being used to further personal agendas by anyone on the list against people outside it. Or, to see material from the list being selectively used to bolster these personal agendas. This is why we have responded in detail to Philip, and are posting relevant extracts of the response on the list, which we hope will help in carrying forward a general discussion on the serious issues of cultural politics which have been raised in the postings. We have no interest in becoming a forum for exhibiting personal affinities and animosities in the art world. This list has more important things to do! ====================================== Dear Philip, This is in resonse to your last email on the reader-list at sarai.net regarding Documenta XI, (especially Platform 2 - held in Delhi recently). The arguments that you are making. If we could summarize them, are as follows (and correct us if in summarizing them violence is being done to any of them) 1. The implications of 'importing' and 'exporting' culture in and out of ex-colonial situations, (Is Documenta XI carrying with it the risk of carrying on a colonialist cultural agenda ?) 2. The cost of attending the platforms and the lack of new media technologies as alternative modes of participation and dissemination 3. The institutional setting of the location of Platform 2 in Delhi - The India Habitat Centre 4. The paucity of local participation 5. The lack of local back up and research 6. The lack of attention to local concerns - and to the "the spiritual dimension of truth which underpins india's identity even today" We would like to respond to each of these criticisms, not in defence of the New Delhi Platform of Documenta XI, but as observers who were present through a substantial section of the deliberations of the platform. Incidentally, we happen to work at Sarai, which you have so generously commended in your posting, and far from actually being ignorant of Sarai, members of the curatorial team (Mr. Enwezor and his colleagues) were familiar with Sarai and with our work. A delegation from the curatorial team also visited Sarai and had detailed discussions with us and our colleagues after the days of Platform were over. We would, in the light of this, urge you not to be so misplaced in your enthusiasm for Sarai so as to argue on our behalf in a dispute that seems to have very little to do with Sarai itself, or the relationship between media practice in India, and elsewhere. We are able enough to articulate our own positions whenever we need to, and with whomsoever we need to, and need no endorsements or interlocution. Ironically, your enthusiasm for us risks sliding into a 'first world' endorsement for the latest 'bright kids from the third world'. We might add that your statement "some (were) able to afford entry into the Habitat Center" is specious. We were in fact specifically invited to be present, but the meeting itself was open to the general public, anyone could have walked in and for free. You have quoted a posting on the list to the effect that the meeting was in some senses closed to the public - "...but not the easiest space to enter if you do not have enough capital, cultural or otherwise." This statement must be seen in the sense that it was intended - which is a reflection on the fact that there is at present next to nothing in Delhi by the way of a democratic and accessible cultural/arts/exhibiton space which is open, non-elitist and public. This would have been the case no matter what venue was chosen by the orgainsers. But it cannot be construed to mean an argument against the holding of the excercise in itself. The elitism of insitutionalized arts spaces is a fact that we have to live with and contend with everywhere in the world. We would argue that this is the case in practically any city, anywhere. The same factors operate in London, or Lagos, or Lisbon, and a (necessary) scepticism about the "elite" nature of a space in the posting being turned into a (gestural) protest against the event itself, in your quotation of it, is nothing more than rhetorical sleight of hand. This is true, unfortunately, of your deployment of all of the quote - the fact that barring academics and artists, few people from the general public were to be seen - is again a reflection of the estrangement of discourse from the public sphere - in Delhi, and anywhere in the world. This is a fact that is not by any means of Documenta's making. And it is unfair on your part to suggest that this is in fact what is being said. Now for your criticisms, 1. The Implications of 'importing' and 'exporting' culture in and out of ex-colonial situations, (Is Documenta XI carrying with it the risk of carrying on a colonialist cultural agenda ?) This question brings with it a lot of baggage. Suppose, that an international arts event located in Western Europe, (as Documenta is) chooses to pass over Asia, Africa and Latin America on the grounds that to present work from the so-called 'Third World' is to always render it exotic, then there would be no doubt much agonizing over the fact that yet again the West has chosen to ignore the Rest. This was in fact the case in the last Documenta (Documenta X, 19XX). The curatorial decision to not enter into the realm of the 'exotic' even if unconsciously, was lambasted as "colonialist exclusion". see xxxx for an interesting and balanced analysis of the curatorial agenda of Documenta X by Geeta Kapur an Art Theorist and Historian from Delhi. This time it is the obverse, because the same international arts event, guided by a different vision is determined to look at discourse and cultural practice in Africa, South Asia, the Carribean (as well as Central Europe) the cri-de-coeur is that of resistance to "colonialist appropriation". Both tendencies, the allegations of "colonialist exclusion" and "colonialist appropriation", assume that there are monolithic cultural entities in the ex-colonial countries that are waiting to be re-colonized by western imperialism. This assumption only creates the comfortable illusion that ex-colonial socieities (and their cultural lives) are hegemonous and bereft of contrarian conflicts within them.That the culture on the streets in say a city like Delhi, is the same as the culture in an institution committed to the classical Indian arts, or even to the cultural life breath of the modern Indian nation state. The culture on the streets in South Asia has no insecurities about its 'impure' and cosmopolitan nature, it is as able to wear imitation western clothes with just as much ease, use English when and where necessary, as it is able to be indifferent to imitation western food or to popular western music or Hollywood cinema. It has no reason to see "western" culture as colonizing. It sees it as yet another element in a global cultural space that all of us are jostling to refashion after our own concerns, needs, and desires. The anxiety about the authenticity of "eastern" as opposed to western culture in India is better located in those indigenous elites who get a ready audience in new age-ist constituency that runs from california to california. Also, it puts all of western cultural practice within one (colonizing) bracket. While this may assuage the new age guilt of individuals within Western Europe and North America, it does nothing to actually illuminate the politics of a cultural encounter. Colonialism produced its victims both in the west and in the rest of the world. It needs to be recognised as a fact that the colonies of European powers were vast laboratories for the invention of new techniques of deploying power, which were then executed with alacrity 'back home'. We are shamelessly interested in the history of Europe and North America because we see our own history as being completely entwined with it. Equally, if we were European/North American today, we would be just as interested in the History of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The phenomenon of Colonialism, which is a particular instance of the general history of Capitalism, asks all of us to be equally concerned with the distrubution and transmission of power right across the globe. To look for greater or lesser victims of this impersonal and fluid network of power is to priviledge this or that corner of history, and to pretend to greater or lesser claims to innocence, in a world in which we are all equally implicated in violence and equally capable of compassion. This is why we reject the notion that the meeting of artists and intellectuals from India, ex-Yugoslavia, Chile, Germany, South Africa, the United States, Nigeria, Tunisia, Israel, France and the United States was an excecise in a "colonial encounter". 2. The cost of attending the platforms and the lack of new media technologies as alternative modes of participation and dissemination. From geert at basis.desk.nl Sat Jun 2 05:07:38 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 09:37:38 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] G-15 leaders call for enhanced cooperation on ICT Message-ID: <011a01c0eaf4$813f4120$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "Newsmaster" To: "Datacom" G-15 leaders call for enhanced cooperation on ICT JAKARTA (JP): The two-day 11th annual summit of the Group of 15 developing nations (G-15) ended on Thursday with a declaration calling for an end to the so-called digital divide. Following is the full text of the declaration: 1. We, the Heads of State and Government of the Group of Fifteen, meeting in Jakarta on 30-31 May 2001, recognize that information and communications technologies (ICT) are central to the emergence of a knowledge-based economy and information society. In conjunction with the basic elements for development, ICT has the potential to accelerate sustained economic growth and promote sustainable development in developing countries. In order to achieve the objectives of development, ICT-driven economic transformation should be geared toward empowering, local communities, and individuals to enable them realize their potentials and aspirations. We are however deeply concerned that, at present, the huge potential of ICT for advancing development is largely eluding most developing countries resulting in a growing digital divides. 2. We affirm that for ICT to serve the cause of development, there is an urgent need to address the major impediments to the participation of the majority of the peoples in developing countries in the ICT revolution. To this end, we consider it a priority to evolve concerted actions at the national, regional and international levels to remove impediments related to lack of infrastructure, local content, training, capacity-building, investment, connectivity, modern technology and appropriate policy framework. 3. We consider it important that national programs should aim at mainstreaming ICT into a national development strategy and be defined and implemented on the basis of national priority. This should be undertaken to promote infrastructure development, investment, enhance national institutions and capacities, generate local content, as well as facilitate widespread access to ICT for development. To complement these efforts, there is a need for regional action to pool resources and exchange experiences to facilitate the integration of developing countries into the new global economy and information society. We therefore urge the international community, particularly developed countries, to demonstrate their commitment to promote digital opportunities for all through innovative approaches and partnerships between government, private sector, civil society and NGOs. This effort should be geared towards facilitating affordable access to new technologies on favorable terms, improved market access for exports from the South and enhanced capital and investment flows to developing countries, on a sustainable and stable basis. To this end, multilateral development institutions and developed countries should encourage and strengthen ICT-related applications and local industry in developing countries through investment, transfer of technology, education and training, development of institutional and appropriate policy framework, as well as support for national programs at harnessing the potential of the ICT for development. 4. We are convinced that unless there is a common vision and adequate as well as timely international cooperation to bridge the digital divide, the information and knowledge revolution could increase economic inequalities among and between peoples, countries and regions of the world. We therefore welcome the various international initiatives to enhance the capacity of developing countries to take advantage of the development opportunities presented by ICT. In this regard, we acknowledge the efforts of ECOSOC 2000 in bringing the issue of ICT for development to the forefront of the UN agenda and in raising the awareness of its potential for development. We also appreciate the adoption of the Council's Ministerial Declaration on harnessing ICT in the service of development and ongoing initiative of establishing a UN ICT Task Force for carrying this critical process forward. We express our support for ITU's initiative to convene a World Summit on the Information Society to be held in 2003. We hope that the activities of the G-8 Digital Opportunities Task Force (DOT Force) will benefit all developing countries, including G-15 countries. We acknowledge the importance of E-Commerce and its implications for the developing countries, and within the WTO, we recognize the need for the continuation of the study process on the trade-related aspects of global E-Commerce without prejudice to the outcome of this process or any deliberations in this regard. 5. As the Group of Fifteen addresses issues related to the ICT, including the question of access to worldwide information networks such as Internet, due attention should be given to the preservation of cultural diversity, privacy and other aspects of "Info-ethics". We call upon the international community to bear these aspects in mind in dealing with ICT issues. 6. In light of the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital era, we agree on the establishment of a G-15 Task Force on ICT to elaborate the modalities for the implementation of a framework of cooperation and collaboration on ICT, including the proposal to establish a G-15 Online Resource Center, and to provide coordinated actions and responses to enable our countries and other developing countries to participate in the various international ICT initiatives in a way that is beneficial to developing countries. Accordingly, we mandate our Personal Representatives to follow-up this decision, taking into account the outcome of the Expert Group Meeting on ICT, held on 18-19 April 2001 in Jakarta, and to report to our Twelfth Summit in Caracas in 2002. 7. We call the international community to join us in evolving a common vision and realistic approaches to promoting partnerships among all stakeholders to make digital opportunities a reality for all. From Harwood at scotoma.org Sun Jun 3 07:07:48 2001 From: Harwood at scotoma.org (Harwood) Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 03:37:48 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] RE E-mail users warned over spy network Message-ID: E-mail users warned over spy network [excerpt] Computer users across Europe should encrypt all their e-mails, to avoid being spied on by a UK-US eavesdropping network, say Euro-MPs. It's so easy to spy as the Word frequency I did on the Sarai List can tell. It took me about 2 hrs to work out who said what with what words and if I wanted to search for trouble makers around a certain theme I could automate the software to search many lists, and cross reference to find out who says the most in what subject area. Be carful out their. H Harwood at scotoma.org Tel +31 (0) 20 365 9334 MONGREL http://www.mongrelx.org HARWOOD DE MONGREL TATE GALLERY SITE: http://www.tate.org.uk/webart/mongrel/home/default.htm/ WASTE_WORDS THEIR WEIGHT& FREQUENCY IN LONDON'S MUNICIPAL RUBBISH http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/kunst/waste/index.html Linker site http://www.Linker.org.uk From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Sun Jun 3 17:11:50 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 04:41:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Documenta again Message-ID: <20010603114150.97302.qmail@web14607.mail.yahoo.com> Dear All I am responding to some of the recent postings on the Documenta 11 Platform in Delhi. Firstly I would like to correct what I regard as a couple of factual and interpretive errors. Most obvious and easy to rectify is Okwui Enwezor�s attribution of my email about the conference to Monica Narula. (This email was re-posted by Ms Narula to the Nettime list as part of a digest of Sarai postings on the subject, which is how the misunderstanding may have arisen.) Since my mail was perhaps the most critical of the conference from among those based in Delhi, the majority of Mr Enwezor�s comments should have been addressed to me, not to Ms Narula. I address some of these comments below. Next, I think it is important to restore to this debate the context of the place in which this discussion has appeared. The Sarai reader list is relatively new and the most active contributors are still those associated with Sarai itself in Delhi (this was particularly the case up to the time of the Documenta conference). Within such a community one assumes a certain set of shared experiences and meanings which disappear when the raw words are exported. I would cite as illustration Ms Narula�s comment about the inaccessibility of the Habitat Centre where the conference was hosted. This was in the context of an email publicising the event to the Sarai community and exhorting its members to attend (�The more interesting, and i think for some readers of the list, more pertinent event - is the series of talks that are happening in an Auditorium�). In my reading of the mail, it encouraged readers to attend the conference in spite of any misgivings they may have had about the elite character of its location (which she also described as a �pleasantly designed office and cultural complex�). This elite character is manifested less in active exclusion than in a rather intangible configuration of architecture, city location, dress, behavioural norms etc, but is still relevant information for those planning to attend. But when such local notes become part of a metanarrative of �colonial exoticism� (to quote Philip Pocock) they have rather lost their sense. My own comments about the conference on which much of Mr Enwezor�s response focused also needed to be seen in the context of a multitude of local offline discussions which arose as a result of the sessions, and in which it was taken for granted (as Raqs Media Collective made clear in their response to Philip Pocock�s last mail) (1) that the platform was a stimulating and welcome intervention in Delhi�s intellectual and cultural life, and (2) that holding discussions in places such as this was infinitely preferable to not doing so. (I had begun my mail with an account of this context when a posting appeared from Shuddhabrata Sengupta which made my introduction superfluous.) This context was again completely lost when they became part of Mr Pocock�s agenda, which seemed to come dangerously close to the colonial condescension he is so critical of (e.g. his concern for the apparently supine Indians who would be defenceless if he were not present to stand up to the colonial invaders � �the truthseekers are reconciling to import all the talent for the documenta dehli platform like coloniasts and i have no way of participating from here�. Although I did appreciate his exceptionally evil-sounding coinage, �coloniast�, which I imagine is analogous to �pederast�.) Within this context I would stand by the basic point I was making in my posting, which had to do with the problems of communication that existed between local and visiting attendees. The desire that visiting scholars engage more closely with local issues is not based on an assumption that, as Mr Enwezor puts it, intellectuals must be exhaustively �knowing, worldly, and in full possession of knowledge of all places on this planet�, nor, I think, is it an example of what he calls �Indocentrism�. Rather it is to state that if Documenta is to seek to establish a �platform� for meaningful communication between international scholars and a diverse audience in a place like Delhi it must not only acknowledge the divergent access to information, travel etc that broadly separates the two groups (with exceptions on both sides, naturally) but also take upon itself the responsibility for closing the resultant communication gap. It would be tedious to enumerate all the forms of power enjoyed by the formal discourse of western-based artists and scholars presenting in Delhi. Nevertheless, this power has certain implications for how local audiences assess the relative authority of their own discourse and that of the visitors. It is in the hands of those that possess this power, rather than of those that do not, to find ways in which any obstacle it might present to true communication can be defused. One way that this can be done is by seeking to understand the local context in which discussions about �truth and reconciliation� might take place. The intention of my comment about the �jetsetting academic from New York� was not to make a personal attack or to score easy points. I apologise if that was the effect. However, I think it should be remembered that this authority enjoyed by � for instance � an American academic visiting Delhi rests very significantly on his/her mobility and that the actual ordeals of economy class travel do nothing to diminish this. Let me finish by admitting that I was indeed unable to attend the whole conference, so Mr Enwezor�s �In fact, if she [Monica Narula] had cared to stay through the course of the conference� is completely apt. I wrote in a spirit of discussion and made no claims of finality. But such discussions sometimes go much further than one imagined. When I see the ways in which Mr Pocock deploys my words, I cannot help thinking that this discussion has admirably dramatised some of the problems of meaning and location that are its subject. R __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From monica at sarai.net Mon Jun 4 14:40:54 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 14:10:54 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Documenta XI Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010604141054.007e9970@mail.sarai.net> Dear Mr Enwezor, Thank you for your posting. I would here like to make some small clarifications. Firstly, as Rana Dasgupta's posting must have already made clear, a great deal of what was attributed to me was actually written by Rana Dasgupta, who is a list member (and not of Sarai). His, along with other postings constituted digest posting that I did as the list administrator. There was perhaps a confusion that arose from that. However, to discuss what I did say : Spaces do have invisible barriers which are marked by cultural and economic advantages. To say a place `is not the easiest to enter` is not to say that the space is discourteous or inhospitable. For many of us our families provide deeply hospitable habitats that enable us in impressive ways, and yet we do find ourselves battling - all our lives - the many invisible barriers engengered by the same habitat. A few years ago while shooting a film, I was put out when a woman who was physically challenged quietly said to me, "Your spaces are very intolerant". Surely I hadn't made those spaces, so I couldn't be held responsible for them. But it was a statement arising from her experience. What she did was to point out to me a simple fact about my space which was invisible to me. Even today, I count the steps leading up to a building, or auditorium, and notice when the pedestarian paths do not join to the roads to make a smooth flow. Whenever documentary filmmakers in Delhi get together to discuss their screenings, they invariably articulate a discomfort about being caught up in the few fixed predictable venues for the screenings of their films - it is a very deep discomfort which arises from the hunger for a wider space, a wider public, a deeper engagement. The 'parallel cinema' here lost this discomfort and got a new name : the 'Panorama' films, as they are screened only in the 'Panorama' section of the Film Festival in India. The painter J.Swaminathan once narrated an anecdote in an interview. He recalled meeting Gandhi to show him a newspaper that he and his friends were bringing out. Gandhi looked at it and asked for whom was the newspaper meant. When being told that it was meant for working people, Gandhi gently pointed out that the typeface could be bigger as tired people would then find it easier to read. Gandhi was not belittling Swami's effort, or ridiculing him; he was just reminding him of another view, another possibility. When Manthia Diawara shared images of a group of artists and writers helplessly standing inside a classroom in Rwanda where a student passionately asks "Where were you before?", he was not ridiculing them or belittling them either. He was asking for a creation of a public space by intellectuals that could allow these encounters to take place in a freer way; a space where intellectuals could breathe normally and address deeper silences. We all have different optics, different vantage points, different truth claims. A dialogue is possible only when we recognise the incompleteness of our optics. The 19th century poet Ghalib, on being complained to by someone that his poems were being sung in the brothels and the street, he replied that now he could rest happy as his poems would definitely live much beyond him. What matters, truly, is that an idea roam the streets. Regarding the Reader-list: We run the reader-list in a non-moderated way. Anyone can post what they like, and respond to what they wish to from someone else's posting. We at Sarai do not always choose to respond to everything, even if the material may be ridiculous or inflammatory. This is to leave the arena open for all kinds of discussion, and to not be possessive or prescriptive about the list, especially as this is a new list. In my initial posting, made on the third day of platform2 of Documenta11, I was informing people about the event, positioning it regarding space and attendees ("one of the less attended" - equally a comment perhaps on the public as the event), and stating that the themes being addressed were relevant and engaging. But it seems that my posting has become an unfortunate benchmark regarding the success of the platform in Delhi... warm regards Monica From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Jun 4 16:31:36 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (jeebesh at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 11:01:36 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Documenta X - Geeta Kapur Message-ID: <200106041101.NAA08119@mail.intra.waag.org> This is the article that was referred to in an earlier email by us. cheers Jeebesh (http://www.universes-in-universe.de/doc/opinion/e_kapur.htm) ____________________ Opinions about the documenta X Geeta Kapur Art historian, critic, curator from New Dehli, India. Guest at �100 Days - 100 Guests�, 30 July From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Jun 4 17:57:27 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (jeebesh at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 12:27:27 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification experiments Message-ID: <200106041227.OAA10321@mail.intra.waag.org> More news on identification technologies. The new enterprenatorial imagination and alliances are worth noting. The compact of defence, police and technologists in creating new forms of identification is going great guns. The bodies of the prisoners in Cherrapalli prison in Hyderabad are now the new objects of biometric experimentation. What follows is a website declaration of capability by the company conducting the experiment, and a news report that happily reports on this new pilot project. Cheers (?) Jeebesh ---------------------------- [The Capability] http://www.ilitec.com/cias.htm BIOMETRICS Citizen ID & Authentication System (CIAS) A comprehensive system for acquiring and storage of personal data by using specialized equipment and services. ILI incorporates individual identity & authentication systems through Biometric technology enabling premier high-end data availability and personal identification systems. The technology could be used in Elections, Distributions, Personalization, Disbursements and other e-governance requirements. --------------------------------- [The News Report] MONDAY, 4 JUNE 2001 http://www.asianageonline.com/ DEFENCE SNOOPING MAY GET TOUGHER SOON By K. Raghu Bangalore, June 3 Snooping in key defence installations and highly sensitive areas like nuclear plants may become a thing of the past, if a proposal involving the use of Biometrics is accepted. The technology, being developed by the Bangalore-based ILI Technologies is an integrated security system that includes finger print, voice and digital signatures with radio frequency identification. �he proposal has been sent to the defence ministry and is in the preliminary stage,�Mr B.R. Badrinath, managing director, ILI Technologies said without elaborating further. The company has come out with a security, tracking and authentication solution, which combines Biometrics, the system of pattern recognition of an individual through physiological and behavioural characteristics such as fingerprint, voice, iris, hand, signature and face with RFID technology. The RFID technology uses radio waves to help track, monitor, record, automate and identify an individual through a remote scanner. The individual, who may be an employee or a visitor, will be given an identification tag that is impossible to interchange. �his is ideal for high-security zones,�Mr Badrinath told The Asian Age. This system more or less works like the Prisoner Identification and Tracking System which is being implemented as a pilot project at the Cherrapalli prison in Hyderabad. The 150-acre prison houses over 3000 inmates, and is the first prison in the country to experiment this technology. �e have installed local positioning systems which provides real time information on the movements and whereabouts of the prisoner who has a label tagged on him. If he removes the label, it triggers an alarm,�Mr Badrinath said. The label which scans the bio-physical data of the inmate with his criminal records cannot be interchanged. �he biometrics value of the body heat emanating from each individual differs,�he said. In what may be termed as futuristic, ILI Technologies has also introduced solutions for vehicle tracking. And monitoring, fleet monitoring, asset tracking among others. The existing registration cards and books for vehicles could be replaced with a electronic RF tag, which serves as a black box, that can be tracked using RFID based LPS technology. �ith the RFID technology, fleet monitoring can be done accurately with updated information on the position and operating status of every vehicle which will ensure optimal utilisation of personnel and vehicles. Monitoring on-line in real time through the web is also possible,�Mr Badrinath said. The company which has on its board, global biometrics expert Mr Anil K. Jain has several futuristic technologies in the pipeline including a citizen identification and authentication system that may be useful for e-governance. �e can build a comprehensive citizen database from birth to death with unique ID and photograph for each individual through biometrics and RFID,�Mr Badrinath added. MONDAY 4 JUNE 2001 http://www.asianageonline.com/ From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Jun 4 19:34:51 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 14:04:51 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification Experiments II Message-ID: <200106041404.QAA13444@mail.intra.waag.org> Apropos of Jeebesh's last posting on the Prisoner Tracking Systems being developed at a prison near Hyderabad - read this short essay by Cynthia West, author of "Techno-Human Mesh" which has appeared in Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) newsletter, Volume 18, Number 2 (http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Spring2000/west.html ) cheers (?) Shuddha ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Safety, Security and Surveillance by Cynthia K. West, Ph.D. West at coastside.net http://www.cynthiawest.com A fellow digerati [1] member tells me she and her husband have purchased the new Mercedes station wagon to accommodate their growing family. Of course, one of Mercedes' marketing pitches is the ability to transport one's family safely, securely and in style. Elsie chirps, "The Mercedes also comes with a GPS (global positioning system) which is great. If I need to know how to get somewhere, I just check the GPS. And if I'm still lost, I can call Mercedes from the installed mobile phone and they, knowing my position exactly, will talk me through the directions or stay on the phone until I get there." She continues, "Plus, a nice feature is that Dan can call Mercedes and locate me in case of emergency." I nod understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. This example displays just how common surveillance has become in the western world. In the case of surveillance cameras and GPS technology, we have turned public spaces into superpanopticons, or systems which are designed to shape and affect behavior as if one is under constant watch. The trade off for such public monitoring is supposed to be some sense of increased, or perhaps just maintained, safety and security. These technologies are not innocent. For instance, the GPS has a history embedded in the military-industrial complex. One of its original applications, with respect to interaction with human subjects, was to track military personnel in the field. Soldiers wear a belted unit that communicates with the satellites and the GPS, letting those outside the combat zone know of the soldiers' whereabouts. One step toward commercialization of the GPS was in the area of criminal justice, or tracking paroled prisoners. Such is the application marketed by ProTech Monitoring Inc. in Florida. [2] ProTech offers a receiving/tracking unit that a parolee (mostly sexual offenders) wear in a fanny pack along with a non-detachable ankle bracelet. The technology is in constant communication with the satellite and GPS. The GPS sends information bout his or her whereabouts to a monitoring center. The monitoring center, in turn, contacts the police, the parole officer and the victim of each parolee, should the parolee outstep his designated geographical boundaries. There is a slippery slope of such technologies toward general consumer usage. For example, ProTech encourages the victims to also wear a corresponding unit to assure her or his safety. The argument is as follows: the monitoring center can know where the two individuals are with respect to each other and notify the victim more rapidly. The specious marketing message begs the question: Just who is the criminal here? In Techno-Human Mesh, I argue that it is not long before the GPS is used to track general populations. Just as the book went to into production, CNN.com featured Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions, a company promoting the use of a miniature digital device to be implanted in people, just under the skin, which communicates with and is tracked by GPS technology. [3] Their first markets include children and high risk heart patients. One benefit touted in the marketing message is that if you are a heart attack candidate, the device will monitor certain biological functions and notify a monitoring center if it detects medical concerns. Similarly, parents concerned about locating missing children, need not worry if their children have an implant. Their product, amazingly enough, is called the "Digital Angel." Another example is Techno Bra (I am not kidding here) which proposes that women wear its digitally embedded support system. Techo-Bra features a digital device that can recognize the rapid jumps in the heart rate of its wearer, distinguishing between an exercising heart beat and a heart beat of a woman being sexually attacked. In the event of sexual assault, the bra uses the cellular phone network to notify the police. [4] The marketing message is that we will be safer if we purchase and utilize surveillance products. I submit that we are not addressing these problems at their roots. That is, instead of encouraging individuals to act within moral limits, we create societies in which the individual is further isolated. It is each individual's responsibility to care for him or herself, not to rely on a stranger for assistance, but rely on the power of monitoring technologies. By relying on technologies for our safety concerns, we give the technologies power and render ourselves less potent players. Also, in this system, it is a vicious circle, always hoping that the technologies stay ahead of the criminal elements. We must instead return to education and retain some process for educating members of society about agreed upon values. How does a community, which is often comprised of divergent interests, arrive at an agreement on common values? One successful example comes from Sanford McDonnell, chairman emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation who, having developed a code of conduct and values for his employees, extended the idea to his community where he created and funded a school-business-community partnership called Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP). The goal of this partnership was to determine common values and promote these values in schools. Parents and teachers of each school met to decide upon the specific values and character traits they wanted to develop in students. If not everyone agreed on a particular value, they conceded that the value would not be taught. Even though one school in this community was comprised of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they agreed on the core values of honesty, responsibility, respect, cooperation and service to others. [5] Technologies of the superpanoptic type, like surveillance technologies, should be examined with great care. Those deemed invasive or non-constructive should be resisted. Educating individuals about the types of societies and communities we want to built needs to be the foundation, instead of technology solutions. Similarly, if as computer professionals, we are busy building systems such as these, we need to ask ourselves about their value in the short and long term. Are these systems we are building contributing to the kinds of communities we want to leave the next generations? [1] I borrow John Brockman's term from his book of the same name, Digerati, to signify the group of individuals responsible for researching, developing, selling and marketing information technologies. [2] See [ http://www.protech.com ]. [3] Richard Stenger, "Tiny human-borne monitoring device sparks privacy fears," 20 December 1999, [ http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/ptech/12/20/implant.device/index.html ]. [4] Leander Kahney, "Techno Bra Calls the Cops," 1 July 1999,[ http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20517,00.html ]. [5] Gail Bernice Holland, A Call for Connection (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1998), 101. Based on forthcoming book to be published in 2000 by Quorum books, entitled Techno-Human Mesh: The Growing Power of Information Technologies � Cynthia K. West, 2000. -- Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI:The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110 054 India Phone : (00 91 11) 3960040 From menso at r4k.net Tue Jun 5 12:12:55 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 08:42:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification Experiments II In-Reply-To: <200106041404.QAA13444@mail.intra.waag.org>; from shuddha@sarai.net on Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 02:04:51PM -0000 References: <200106041404.QAA13444@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <20010605084255.E56003@r4k.net> Hi, I would just like to point out that the GPS system works in a one way style, meaning that the satellites continuously broadcast their locations and the receivers pick these signals up and process them to give you your location. No information is being sent back to the satellite and neither can a satellite figure out who's picking up it's signal. In order to achieve something like that there will need to be a second system that broadcasts the location back to some other satellites (or uses the GSM network) so that Mercedes for example can know where the car is. Reason I'm trying to explain this is because it's not done in the article itself which could give people the impression that GPS broadcasts information back which it does not. On http://www.howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm you can learn more about how GPS pinpoints by triangulating between three satellites (and uses four to determine time). If you're really worried about surveillance technology then keep in mind that if you carry a GSM phone the triangulating trick can be used by the telco to determine your position up to 250 square meters and that each phone is uniquely identifiable by it's IMEI number (International Mobile Equipment Identity Number) which is always linked to your name when you get a subscription. Don't think you're safe if you've got a prepaid phone which didn't require any registration though: traffic analysis can still say who you are! If you want to know the IMEI number of your GSM phone, dial *#06# Traffic analysis means looking at who is communicating with who. For example: if my unregistered prepaid phone starts calling my parents every two days and their phone starts calling me it means there is a relationship between those too and by looking at what other numbers are being called and the frequency you can deduct who is using the phone. Sneaky stuff, aye? Since GSM communication works in cell based blocks you can easily figure out who's hanging out with who as well. Locate one phone and then query the GSM-broadcasting pole for all the other phones in that cell. Do this regularly and patterns occur. Menso On Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 02:04:51PM -0000, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > > > Apropos of Jeebesh's last posting on the Prisoner Tracking Systems being > developed at a prison near Hyderabad - read this short essay by Cynthia West, > author of "Techno-Human Mesh" which has appeared in Computer Professionals > for Social Responsibility (CPSR) newsletter, Volume 18, Number 2 > (http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Spring2000/west.html > ) > > cheers (?) > > Shuddha > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Safety, Security and Surveillance > by Cynthia K. West, Ph.D. > > West at coastside.net > http://www.cynthiawest.com > > A fellow digerati [1] member tells me she and her husband have purchased the > new Mercedes station wagon to accommodate their growing family. Of course, > one of Mercedes' marketing pitches is the ability to transport one's family > safely, securely and in style. Elsie chirps, "The Mercedes also comes with a > GPS (global positioning system) which is great. If I need to know how to get > somewhere, I just check the GPS. And if I'm still lost, I can call Mercedes > from the installed mobile phone and they, knowing my position exactly, will > talk me through the directions or stay on the phone until I get there." She > continues, "Plus, a nice feature is that Dan can call Mercedes and locate me > in case of emergency." I nod understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. > > This example displays just how common surveillance has become in the western > world. In the case of surveillance cameras and GPS technology, we have turned > public spaces into superpanopticons, or systems which are designed to shape > and affect behavior as if one is under constant watch. The trade off for such > public monitoring is supposed to be some sense of increased, or perhaps just > maintained, safety and security. > > These technologies are not innocent. For instance, the GPS has a history > embedded in the military-industrial complex. One of its original > applications, with respect to interaction with human subjects, was to track > military personnel in the field. Soldiers wear a belted unit that > communicates with the satellites and the GPS, letting those outside the > combat zone know of the soldiers' whereabouts. > > One step toward commercialization of the GPS was in the area of criminal > justice, or tracking paroled prisoners. Such is the application marketed by > ProTech Monitoring Inc. in Florida. [2] ProTech offers a receiving/tracking > unit that a parolee (mostly sexual offenders) wear in a fanny pack along with > a non-detachable ankle bracelet. The technology is in constant communication > with the satellite and GPS. The GPS sends information bout his or her > whereabouts to a monitoring center. The monitoring center, in turn, contacts > the police, the parole officer and the victim of each parolee, should the > parolee outstep his designated geographical boundaries. > > There is a slippery slope of such technologies toward general consumer usage. > For example, ProTech encourages the victims to also wear a corresponding unit > to assure her or his safety. The argument is as follows: the monitoring > center can know where the two individuals are with respect to each other and > notify the victim more rapidly. The specious marketing message begs the > question: Just who is the criminal here? > > In Techno-Human Mesh, I argue that it is not long before the GPS is used to > track general populations. Just as the book went to into production, CNN.com > featured Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions, a company promoting the use > of a miniature digital device to be implanted in people, just under the skin, > which communicates with and is tracked by GPS technology. [3] Their first > markets include children and high risk heart patients. One benefit touted in > the marketing message is that if you are a heart attack candidate, the device > will monitor certain biological functions and notify a monitoring center if > it detects medical concerns. Similarly, parents concerned about locating > missing children, need not worry if their children have an implant. Their > product, amazingly enough, is called the "Digital Angel." > > Another example is Techno Bra (I am not kidding here) which proposes that > women wear its digitally embedded support system. Techo-Bra features a > digital device that can recognize the rapid jumps in the heart rate of its > wearer, distinguishing between an exercising heart beat and a heart beat of a > woman being sexually attacked. In the event of sexual assault, the bra uses > the cellular phone network to notify the police. [4] The marketing message is > that we will be safer if we purchase and utilize surveillance products. > > I submit that we are not addressing these problems at their roots. That is, > instead of encouraging individuals to act within moral limits, we create > societies in which the individual is further isolated. It is each > individual's responsibility to care for him or herself, not to rely on a > stranger for assistance, but rely on the power of monitoring technologies. By > relying on technologies for our safety concerns, we give the technologies > power and render ourselves less potent players. Also, in this system, it is a > vicious circle, always hoping that the technologies stay ahead of the > criminal elements. > > We must instead return to education and retain some process for educating > members of society about agreed upon values. How does a community, which is > often comprised of divergent interests, arrive at an agreement on common > values? One successful example comes from Sanford McDonnell, chairman > emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation who, having developed a code of > conduct and values for his employees, extended the idea to his community > where he created and funded a school-business-community partnership called > Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP). The goal of this > partnership was to determine common values and promote these values in > schools. Parents and teachers of each school met to decide upon the specific > values and character traits they wanted to develop in students. If not > everyone agreed on a particular value, they conceded that the value would not > be taught. Even though one school in this community was comprised of people > from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they agreed on the core values of > honesty, responsibility, respect, cooperation and service to others. [5] > > Technologies of the superpanoptic type, like surveillance technologies, > should be examined with great care. Those deemed invasive or non-constructive > should be resisted. Educating individuals about the types of societies and > communities we want to built needs to be the foundation, instead of > technology solutions. Similarly, if as computer professionals, we are busy > building systems such as these, we need to ask ourselves about their value in > the short and long term. Are these systems we are building contributing to > the kinds of communities we want to leave the next generations? > > [1] I borrow John Brockman's term from his book of the same name, Digerati, > to signify the group of individuals responsible for researching, developing, > selling and marketing information technologies. > > [2] See [ http://www.protech.com ]. > > [3] Richard Stenger, "Tiny human-borne monitoring device sparks privacy > fears," 20 December 1999, [ > http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/ptech/12/20/implant.device/index.html ]. > > [4] Leander Kahney, "Techno Bra Calls the Cops," 1 July 1999,[ > http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20517,00.html ]. > > [5] Gail Bernice Holland, A Call for Connection (Novato, CA: New World > Library, 1998), 101. > > Based on forthcoming book to be published in 2000 by Quorum books, entitled > Techno-Human Mesh: The Growing Power of Information Technologies © Cynthia K. > West, 2000. > > > > -- > Shuddhabrata Sengupta > SARAI:The New Media Initiative > Centre for the Study of Developing Societies > 29 Rajpur Road > Delhi 110 054 > India > Phone : (00 91 11) 3960040 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From menso at r4k.net Tue Jun 5 12:32:49 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 09:02:49 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] HAL2001 Program Message-ID: <20010605090249.A6401@r4k.net> Hi, Since some of you have shown interest to the HAL2001 event held in The Netherlands this August I figured I'd post the program for as far as it is known at the moment. Please note that it is possibly subject to change. HAL2001 stands for Hackers At Large and is focussed on Internet, new technologies being developed and the risks that those bring. Security, online rights, privacy, etc. V. Bell - Hacking the brain Tech. Univ. of Budapest - GSM Security H. Daniel - The tragedy of software quality in OS/GPL systems H. Daniel - Future Directions in OS's M. v. Dinter - DeCSS and Dutch law J. Gilmore - What's Wrong With Copy Prevention Technology J. Gilmore - Opportunistic Encryption in IP security J. Gilmore - Thoughtcrime and Drug Legalization R. Gonggrijp, R. Weis, and B. Wels - SESM - an open standard for secure SMS F. Ravia - Web wizard searching techniques, anti-advertisement galore and software reversing tips R. Pieper - Dutch kilometer tax project speaker unknown yet - Distributed DOS detection and prevention techniques I. Snellen - Dutch digital citizen's safe T. Timewaster - hacking SDMI D. Vallas - Counterfeiting, non-internet communications D. Vallas - defeating biometrics R. Weis - Java Cards - Open Source Smart Cards M. Wolschon - Wearable computing P. Wouters - Lawful tapping in the Netherlands As you can see topics range from die-hard technological lectures to lectures on drugs and how to counterfeit or defeat biometrics. I would urge all those who can come to come, these events are always big fun, the lectures interesting and the atmosphere and people make it a great thing to be part of. For more information see the HAL2001 website, www.hal2001.org Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From menso at r4k.net Tue Jun 5 13:03:00 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 09:33:00 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification Experiments II In-Reply-To: <20010605084255.E56003@r4k.net>; from menso@r4k.net on Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 08:42:55AM +0200 References: <200106041404.QAA13444@mail.intra.waag.org> <20010605084255.E56003@r4k.net> Message-ID: <20010605093300.B6401@r4k.net> Coincidentally I came across this picture just now and since we were discussing this I didn't want to keep it from you: http://www.ntk.net/2001/06/01/dohposter.jpg For those with not-so-good eyes, the little white square at the right bottom says "Tapping your phone" and is obviously not part of the original work ;) Menso On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 08:42:55AM +0200, Menso Heus wrote: > > Hi, > > I would just like to point out that the GPS system works in a one way style, > meaning that the satellites continuously broadcast their locations and the > receivers pick these signals up and process them to give you your location. > No information is being sent back to the satellite and neither can a satellite > figure out who's picking up it's signal. In order to achieve something like that > there will need to be a second system that broadcasts the location back to some > other satellites (or uses the GSM network) so that Mercedes for example can know > where the car is. > > Reason I'm trying to explain this is because it's not done in the article itself > which could give people the impression that GPS broadcasts information back which > it does not. > > On http://www.howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm you can learn more about how GPS pinpoints > by triangulating between three satellites (and uses four to determine time). > > If you're really worried about surveillance technology then keep in mind that if you > carry a GSM phone the triangulating trick can be used by the telco to determine > your position up to 250 square meters and that each phone is uniquely identifiable > by it's IMEI number (International Mobile Equipment Identity Number) which is > always linked to your name when you get a subscription. > Don't think you're safe if you've got a prepaid phone which didn't require any > registration though: traffic analysis can still say who you are! > > If you want to know the IMEI number of your GSM phone, dial *#06# > > Traffic analysis means looking at who is communicating with who. For example: > if my unregistered prepaid phone starts calling my parents every two days and > their phone starts calling me it means there is a relationship between those > too and by looking at what other numbers are being called and the frequency > you can deduct who is using the phone. Sneaky stuff, aye? > Since GSM communication works in cell based blocks you can easily figure out who's > hanging out with who as well. Locate one phone and then query the GSM-broadcasting > pole for all the other phones in that cell. Do this regularly and patterns occur. > > Menso > > On Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 02:04:51PM -0000, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > > > > > > Apropos of Jeebesh's last posting on the Prisoner Tracking Systems being > > developed at a prison near Hyderabad - read this short essay by Cynthia West, > > author of "Techno-Human Mesh" which has appeared in Computer Professionals > > for Social Responsibility (CPSR) newsletter, Volume 18, Number 2 > > (http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Spring2000/west.html > > ) > > > > cheers (?) > > > > Shuddha > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Safety, Security and Surveillance > > by Cynthia K. West, Ph.D. > > > > West at coastside.net > > http://www.cynthiawest.com > > > > A fellow digerati [1] member tells me she and her husband have purchased the > > new Mercedes station wagon to accommodate their growing family. Of course, > > one of Mercedes' marketing pitches is the ability to transport one's family > > safely, securely and in style. Elsie chirps, "The Mercedes also comes with a > > GPS (global positioning system) which is great. If I need to know how to get > > somewhere, I just check the GPS. And if I'm still lost, I can call Mercedes > > from the installed mobile phone and they, knowing my position exactly, will > > talk me through the directions or stay on the phone until I get there." She > > continues, "Plus, a nice feature is that Dan can call Mercedes and locate me > > in case of emergency." I nod understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. > > > > This example displays just how common surveillance has become in the western > > world. In the case of surveillance cameras and GPS technology, we have turned > > public spaces into superpanopticons, or systems which are designed to shape > > and affect behavior as if one is under constant watch. The trade off for such > > public monitoring is supposed to be some sense of increased, or perhaps just > > maintained, safety and security. > > > > These technologies are not innocent. For instance, the GPS has a history > > embedded in the military-industrial complex. One of its original > > applications, with respect to interaction with human subjects, was to track > > military personnel in the field. Soldiers wear a belted unit that > > communicates with the satellites and the GPS, letting those outside the > > combat zone know of the soldiers' whereabouts. > > > > One step toward commercialization of the GPS was in the area of criminal > > justice, or tracking paroled prisoners. Such is the application marketed by > > ProTech Monitoring Inc. in Florida. [2] ProTech offers a receiving/tracking > > unit that a parolee (mostly sexual offenders) wear in a fanny pack along with > > a non-detachable ankle bracelet. The technology is in constant communication > > with the satellite and GPS. The GPS sends information bout his or her > > whereabouts to a monitoring center. The monitoring center, in turn, contacts > > the police, the parole officer and the victim of each parolee, should the > > parolee outstep his designated geographical boundaries. > > > > There is a slippery slope of such technologies toward general consumer usage. > > For example, ProTech encourages the victims to also wear a corresponding unit > > to assure her or his safety. The argument is as follows: the monitoring > > center can know where the two individuals are with respect to each other and > > notify the victim more rapidly. The specious marketing message begs the > > question: Just who is the criminal here? > > > > In Techno-Human Mesh, I argue that it is not long before the GPS is used to > > track general populations. Just as the book went to into production, CNN.com > > featured Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions, a company promoting the use > > of a miniature digital device to be implanted in people, just under the skin, > > which communicates with and is tracked by GPS technology. [3] Their first > > markets include children and high risk heart patients. One benefit touted in > > the marketing message is that if you are a heart attack candidate, the device > > will monitor certain biological functions and notify a monitoring center if > > it detects medical concerns. Similarly, parents concerned about locating > > missing children, need not worry if their children have an implant. Their > > product, amazingly enough, is called the "Digital Angel." > > > > Another example is Techno Bra (I am not kidding here) which proposes that > > women wear its digitally embedded support system. Techo-Bra features a > > digital device that can recognize the rapid jumps in the heart rate of its > > wearer, distinguishing between an exercising heart beat and a heart beat of a > > woman being sexually attacked. In the event of sexual assault, the bra uses > > the cellular phone network to notify the police. [4] The marketing message is > > that we will be safer if we purchase and utilize surveillance products. > > > > I submit that we are not addressing these problems at their roots. That is, > > instead of encouraging individuals to act within moral limits, we create > > societies in which the individual is further isolated. It is each > > individual's responsibility to care for him or herself, not to rely on a > > stranger for assistance, but rely on the power of monitoring technologies. By > > relying on technologies for our safety concerns, we give the technologies > > power and render ourselves less potent players. Also, in this system, it is a > > vicious circle, always hoping that the technologies stay ahead of the > > criminal elements. > > > > We must instead return to education and retain some process for educating > > members of society about agreed upon values. How does a community, which is > > often comprised of divergent interests, arrive at an agreement on common > > values? One successful example comes from Sanford McDonnell, chairman > > emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation who, having developed a code of > > conduct and values for his employees, extended the idea to his community > > where he created and funded a school-business-community partnership called > > Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP). The goal of this > > partnership was to determine common values and promote these values in > > schools. Parents and teachers of each school met to decide upon the specific > > values and character traits they wanted to develop in students. If not > > everyone agreed on a particular value, they conceded that the value would not > > be taught. Even though one school in this community was comprised of people > > from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they agreed on the core values of > > honesty, responsibility, respect, cooperation and service to others. [5] > > > > Technologies of the superpanoptic type, like surveillance technologies, > > should be examined with great care. Those deemed invasive or non-constructive > > should be resisted. Educating individuals about the types of societies and > > communities we want to built needs to be the foundation, instead of > > technology solutions. Similarly, if as computer professionals, we are busy > > building systems such as these, we need to ask ourselves about their value in > > the short and long term. Are these systems we are building contributing to > > the kinds of communities we want to leave the next generations? > > > > [1] I borrow John Brockman's term from his book of the same name, Digerati, > > to signify the group of individuals responsible for researching, developing, > > selling and marketing information technologies. > > > > [2] See [ http://www.protech.com ]. > > > > [3] Richard Stenger, "Tiny human-borne monitoring device sparks privacy > > fears," 20 December 1999, [ > > http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/ptech/12/20/implant.device/index.html ]. > > > > [4] Leander Kahney, "Techno Bra Calls the Cops," 1 July 1999,[ > > http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20517,00.html ]. > > > > [5] Gail Bernice Holland, A Call for Connection (Novato, CA: New World > > Library, 1998), 101. > > > > Based on forthcoming book to be published in 2000 by Quorum books, entitled > > Techno-Human Mesh: The Growing Power of Information Technologies © Cynthia K. > > West, 2000. > > > > > > > > -- > > Shuddhabrata Sengupta > > SARAI:The New Media Initiative > > Centre for the Study of Developing Societies > > 29 Rajpur Road > > Delhi 110 054 > > India > > Phone : (00 91 11) 3960040 > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Reader-list mailing list > > Reader-list at sarai.net > > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > -- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved > somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From ravis at sarai.net Tue Jun 5 13:31:09 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 13:01:09 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] The culture of Surveillance Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010605130109.0079d880@mail.sarai.net> It seems to me that new openness with that surveillance technologies are being discussed in India points to certain crucial, long term shifts in elite discourses. Historically technologies of surveillance in South Asia have been state monopolies, ranging from innocent town and city records and the census, to those associated with the forces of order: tapping of phones, mail and the mundane mechanics of intelligence gathering at the local police station. The new transition happened when the mobile phone contracts were given out in the early 1990's - when the regime made it mandatory for all mobile phone companies to set up monitoring units manned by the police, at the company's cost. The same principle has applied to ISP's, and the new cable landing stations for bandwidth. This is still an 19th century model of intelligence gathering, there have been ways to get around it (SIM cards in mobile phones), but the framework remains and will surely be mobilised during crisis points. The new surveillance push has come has actually from India's IT industry - which has cheerfully collaborated with the govt in setting up the new national security network. The industry today acts much like their US counterparts: in that surveillance and security technologies are "pitched" to eager government officials. For the Indian state, which is now in a condition of perennial crisis, IT and technological renewal is the new lodestar. Hence the new schemes ranging from the fantastic (the national ID scheme), to those being practiced on marginal populations (Jeebesh's post on the Hyderabad prison population) the company - http://www.ilitec.com/cias.htm) ..These are intimations of the future. Everywhere in India, police officials, local governments, law enforcement are rushing breathlessly to the IT industry for solutions to the problem of 'local' knowledge. It seems to me that old-style libertarianism, which sees the state as solely responsible will also not work here, since new surveillance technologies have been implemented in many of India's IT companies, without any discussion. These are experimental grounds for national deployment. But capital today plays a crucial role in the culture surveillance, in ways that we could not imagine ten years ago. The media seems fairly excited about such developments, and fairly innocent about the implications of surveillance issues. Given the state of our public culture a debate on these issues is imperitive. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Jun 5 02:09:33 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 21:39:33 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Documenta11's New Delhi References: <88.734f489.28465d48@aol.com> Message-ID: <3B1BF203.34E2683A@t-online.de> Okwui at aol.com wrote: > I come presently to Mr. Pocock, on whose postings, I frankly do not want to > expend much thought or energy. Suffice it to say that Mr. Pocock seems > clearly avid to play the game of hubris which only the most tin-earred, > self-appointed minders of the gates against imperialism, colonialism, or > other such nonsense he espouses, can adopt. But what makes his ludicrous > attempt at pompous indignation unsavoury is his sudden swerve into that > crooked road of race baiting. Like all intolerant demagogues and bigots his > suggestion that the invited Indian speakers are government appointees flies > in the face of the facts and makes little sense. However, what is truly > remarkable is the fact that members of Sarai as hosts of this forum shy away > from the fundamental issue of challenging Mr. Pocock’s idea that the > diasporic Indian speakers (there are in fact only two) like my colleague Dr. > Sarat Maharaj and Prof. Mahmoud Mamdani are " foreigners of Indian origin > with questionable roots". hello all BTW: okwui enwezor quotes my words out of their questioning context. after all, no 'glocal' access was/is available and i was unable to attend physically or medially. the words okwui enwezor lifts are from this context as i wrote them: "let me ask, are they not government appointees with aligned politics, as well as foriegner of indian origin, with questionable roots or access to activist movements such as the very valuable sarai initiative in dehli?" the intent was "roots or access to activist movements". racism is a terrible reality. one ought to be careful using that term lightly as an insult. clearly my intent was to question participation locally and glocally, and to suggest to the new media initiative sarai through their list that they actively, should they choose to address my question, participate and glocalize documenta so it is a dehli platform and not a platform in dehli. imagine, were the vienna sessions available on-line already, not after the fact, so that participation could be ingrained in that platform and passed on to the second? imagine that the lecturers had been listed on the documenta site so that one might see who was speaking and when. and imagine that their topics, abstracts and texts were available to inform audience members so that they might ahead of time proto-form questions and opinions to inform their watching a live webcast, with the opportuinity of debating with the speakers and the local audience members via telnet for example? imagine all the political science, cultural theory, urbanism, art and other students in calcutta, bangalore, uttar kashi for that matter, all over vast india and vaster south east asia and everywhere on this new new continent able to attend and participate in the platform? clearly the notion of the global applied by documenta 11 to this point is 18th Century and easily confused formally - if not intended, and i believe that to be the case - with colonialism. it could have been a time event, a glocal event as ongoing as the issues it raised, and participatory to boot. i regret any disturbance my or anyone's mail can brought your cyberthoughts. concerning okwui enwezors last mail, i was worried about a tokenist presence in dehli, in light of no information on the documenta website. i hoped to awaken the media culture group - sarai - whom i visited and respect very much to help the platform in dehli avoid the pitfalls of colonial media (one way media) and reach a 'glocal' audience. i hope that puts it to rest. i forgive okwui enwezor for his tough words, and i hope he forgives me. it's the World Wild West sometimes in here. i truly wish you all the best and hope something positive - i.e. a global approach to media which leaves the 18th - 20th Century ideals of geotemporal travel, of closed discussions, and post-broadcasting behind, in favor of anyone, anywhere, all the time, traveling-past-moving, participatory aesthetics that breaks through old podiums and fosters a 'glocal' approach to debate and discourse. i believe the documenta 11 has pinpointed a very crucial problem - the crisis of exhibiting in a 'glocal' environment. i wish you good energy and much success. best wishes, philip pocock From monica at sarai.net Wed Jun 6 13:07:12 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 13:07:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Apologies for grave error Message-ID: Dear All, When i was making the reader's list digest on DocumentaXI for Nettime, I made the mistake of taking all the emails in my mailbox which contained headers to do with Documenta ("Re [Reader-List] platform 2 - documenta XI" in this specific case) and putting them in the digest. In this i committed the grave error of publishing a reply specifically to me made on my posting by Philip Pocock dated 10/may/01 as well. This email has made Mr Pocock vulnerable to various kinds of criticism. This error has been pointed out to me by him. I deeply regret this inadvertent mistake and hope that it does not affect his individual credibility. Sincere apologies to all concerned. Monica -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From pankaj at sarai.net Wed Jun 6 13:30:45 2001 From: pankaj at sarai.net (pankaj at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 13:30:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Why Unicode Won't work Message-ID: <20010606133045.A1482@black-satan> Found this on slashdot.: UCS-2 (ISO 10646-1) , has been widely assumed to be a comprehensive solution for electronically mapping all the characters of the world's languages, being a 16-bit character definition allowing a theoretical total of over 65,000 characters. However, the complete character sets of the world add up to approximately 170,000 characters. This paper summarizes the political turmoil and technical incompatibilities that are beginning to manifest themselves on the Internet as a consequence of that oversight. (For the more technical: the recently announced Unicode 3.1 won't work either.)" Read the http://www.hastingsresearch.com/net/04-unicode-limitations.shtml -- ................................ Pankaj Kaushal Proud to use GNU From sam at media.com.au Thu Jun 7 10:06:56 2001 From: sam at media.com.au (s|a|m) Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 14:36:56 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] More surveillance - dFace Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20010607143306.030b9b70@dface.org> Hi, Some of you may have noticed this posting on Nettime I made some months ago. But here it is again below - with a few mods. It's part of my MA (never ending) - and also will be incorporated in to a website am launching soon called www.dface.org ... I am at the moment interested in surveillance and statistics - and how these two technologies combined can become a very powerful force to ensure a status quo / stereotype in maintained... See ya, Sam. About the dFACE project by Sam de Silva, October 2000 " if god doesn't exist, then everything is permitted"... Fyodor Dostoyevsky In our technology-laden towns and cities, the surveillance camera is an intrinsic part of its design. From the foyers of buildings, to underground train stations, to shopping centres, to city corners; all are equipped with cameras that watch us. Today's surveillance camera is becoming deliberately obvious, often feeding its observations back to the observed. The justification for surveillance cameras is to promote safety and reduce crime. But we can easily imagine a more sinister use of surveillance technologies. A system called Cromatica claims to be able to detect if someone is contemplating suicide in underground train stations. Cromatica analyses our movements and matches it against stored information about how suicide victims behaved just before jumping in front a train. Another system capable of reading faces, is being developed by the Salk Institute. It claims to be able to detect a person's emotional state by using high-speed cameras. "When someone is lying, their true feelings often flicker across their face in what we call a micro-expression, which is quickly covered up by a posed expression", says Paul Ekman, long-term face researcher and professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Ekman is working with Salk scientists to create real-time analysis of facial expression in order to reveal emotional states. Researchers and private corporations are pushing the boundaries of technologies capable of analysing our behaviour. There are of course numerous beneficial applications for these technologies, such as detecting a potential suicide attempt. But there is also the possibility for misusing their capabilities. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with some very negative applications that interfere with our civil liberties. We cannot stop the increasing sophistication of surveillance technologies, nor can we enforce a particular direction to their application. However, what we can do is inform ourselves as to the rapidly developing technologies and engage in debate about how they are utilised. The face is one of the most sacred features of our self. It is the primary way we identify each other, and our complex expressions enhance the way we communicate. Sophisticated software and hardware is capable of interrogating the human face in fine detail, matching faces and evaluating expressions. However, this automatic analysis relies mostly on stereotyping the human face and its attributes. Therefore, these systems will make their evaluations based on the way we look. The dFace project is a media campaign aimed at raising awareness about current and potential applications of technologies which analyse our face and claim to be able identify us and predict our behaviour. The project doesn't call for the banning of such technologies, rather it wishes to inquire further about facial analysis systems and to inform a broader community as to their purpose and function in our society. Facial analysis is conducted by law enforcement agencies throughout the world. The mug-shot and identity kits are helpful in identifying culprits and solving crime. Sophisticated systems for the "public safety market" can detect the faces of known troublemakers and exclude them from entry or participation. Interestingly, a company that specialises in facial analysis software also provides products for prison inmate processing as well as for locating and identifying children. Many companies market software packages capable of detecting a face and putting an identity to it. They market the technology with the claim that it reduces crime, and increases security and safety. Matching an action or transaction with its owner is not only the wish of a dedicated detective investigating a crime, but is also of great interest to groups and companies. Various specialised technologies, which all fall within the realm of surveillance but referred to as 'customer profiling', already analyse our lives and actions, most of the time without our knowledge or informed consent. And the information and data gathered could be re-analysed in ways which were never originally intended. Once we have been profiled, there is no real way of knowing what happens to the collected data. When we use an ATM machine, transaction details are recorded and stored to build up a profile of our spending habits. The bank would claim that this would enable it to better service the needs of its customers. In the US, profiling data from a particular ATM showed that high number of transactions were being made between midnight and 2am. The reason for this was that customers were withdrawing money to spend in the nearby red-light district. The current use of electronic tags on vehicles has been promoted as an efficient way of collecting tolls that does not require the driver to slow down to physically pay for the use of the road. But these e-tags are effectively tracking devices able to accurately monitor the movements of a vehicle. Once all cars have these devices, there might be a temptation to apply automatic tolling elsewhere or to exclude certain cars from parts of the city. When we use a mobile phone the number we dial, the time and duration are all recorded. It is possible to approximate, with increasing accuracy, the location from which the call was made. Our use of technology leaves behind a shadow, a memory of our actions that is stored and transferred through networked databases to unknown collators. We are told by marketing departments that by profiling our behaviour, companies will be able produce and promote more products and services that are based on our true desires. However, potential for misuse of these data shadows, this profile information, is very high because of the lack of regulation or more importantly, public awareness concerning what is being stored about us and how this information is being used to effectively control us. The broader methods and implications of profiling are beyond the scope of the dFace project, however these will be considered and included where appropriate. The dFace project aims to explore and problematise the applications and outcomes of facial analysis technology. A focus has been placed on investigating the role facial analysis plays in matching an action with its owner and the effects this would have on people and the society we live in. We have a photograph of our face taken when we attend university, start a new job or apply for a driver's license. And our face is also captured passively, without our direct consent through surveillance cameras, which are quickly becoming a standard part of our environment. But amongst the public, there seems to be a lack of concern or even curiosity as to who has access to our captured face, how it is used and how long it will be kept for. The writings of Michel Foucault on the panopticon, social observation, power and discipline, and George Orwell's vision of 1984 were early motivations for the dFace project and continue to provide inspiration and direction. Science-fiction books and films which signpost to dangers of 'over-machining' our society also provide inspiration. The many contemporary academics and writers such as David Lyon who are exploring surveillance and its surrounding sociological issues will also provide discourse to work within. The dFace project wants to trace the path the face travels once it has been captured by a camera. It wants to understand the nature of analysis carried out and if the face is stored or distributed to other parties. Further, the project wants to investigate what effect the pervasive use of surveillance cameras and their ability to capture our faces, has on us, especially when this data is combined with other digital shadows we leave behind during our daily transactions. The research carried out by the project will not be exhaustive. Rather, the outcomes will provide direction to future research and also adequate content to develop creative media strategies to inform the public audience about the applications and implications of facial analysis technologies. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010607/9f9745fd/attachment.html From menso at r4k.net Thu Jun 7 14:18:01 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 10:48:01 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] More surveillance - dFace In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010607143306.030b9b70@dface.org>; from sam@media.com.au on Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at 02:36:56PM +1000 References: <5.0.2.1.0.20010607143306.030b9b70@dface.org> Message-ID: <20010607104801.A32820@r4k.net> Hi, Some comments: I believe the average person in The Netherlands, when travelling around for a day (as in: being outside, not in the office or home for the bigger part) is filmed for six hours. Currently these camera systems are not being linked, meaning that the shop owner cannot keep an eye on what I'm doing when I leave his shop, etc. I believe that in England this has been set up. Being curious I kept track of how easy it would be to trace my steps when going out a night in Amsterdam. Here are some of the results: First of all, I carried a GSM phone which is, as I posted earlier, a clear marker for my position and the easiest way to track me. Say I wouldn't be carrying it then it still would be easy: 1) Cab from my house in Haarlem to the trainstation - dispatch centre has a record of the address and destination of the customer (being me) 2) Trainstation Haarlem to Amsterdam - surveillance camera's film me while walking up and down and smoking a cigarette, waiting for the train to arrive. 3) Amsterdam central station - being filmed getting ou of the train until I leave the trainstation: obviously I do not take another train probably meaning I will stay in Amsterdam. 4) Tram from central station to Leidseplein - unnoticed, currently they are installing camera's however, so this will be a matter of months 5) Leidseplein, ABN Amro ATM machine - Insert card, get 150 guilders, record of my presence made. 6) Enter club, bounce around - camera films me while I enter At the end of the night (beginning of morning) same thing but in reverse, minus the ATM. As you can see the ojne part where they couldn't track me (tram) will only take some time before they can. The most disturbing thing about cameras in pubic transport facilities (onboard the vehicle) is probably the fact that a lot of coincidental things can become potential weapons for the authorities. For example: While I sit in the train from Haarlem to Amsterdam a man comes to sit next to me, he asks for nice things to do in Amsterdam and we have a small talk. Camera grabs this ofcourse. Now, the man turns out to be an escaped convict or terrorist or whatever makes the police unhappy, and they've got you talking to him on the cam. Sure, one could argue that it's just a coincidence and the cams outside the station don't show me talking to him... one could also argue that we were not just so that it would look like nothing more than a coincidence. Obviously I've got somethings to hide, tapped email shows I've got a habbit of sending PGP encrypted stuff to people. So suddenly I'm suspect, just like that. Now the above might be quite the overdone doom scenario, the problem however is that it's not unthinkable that something similar might happen in the future. Face recognition with a good camera and smart backend setup should not take longer than 3 seconds. 3 Seconds... that means that by the time you've shown your ticket to the bus conductor the system already knows: "Bleep: Menso Heus entered Bus 93, Amsterdam Central Station to Amsterdam North" and it will not need those three seconds again to register when you leave the bus ofcourse. Being in a sarcastic mood while a friend and I went to attend a lecture on Privacy in the Balie titled "Privacy in the digital age" we were joking how it should have been titled: "Dutch History: The days of privacy" since we figured privacy is dead. Sadly enough, the more you think about it the more you reach the conclusion that we must have been right at that time. Then again, I have nothing to hide, so why should I worry? Menso On Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at 02:36:56PM +1000, s|a|m wrote: > Hi, > > Some of you may have noticed this posting on Nettime I made some months ago. But here it is again below - with a few mods. > It's part of my MA (never ending) - and also will be incorporated in to a website am launching soon called www.dface.org ... > > I am at the moment interested in surveillance and statistics - and how these two technologies combined can become a very powerful force to ensure a status quo / stereotype in maintained... > > See ya, Sam. > > > > > About the dFACE project > by Sam de Silva, October 2000 > > " if god doesn't exist, then everything is permitted"... Fyodor Dostoyevsky > > In our technology-laden towns and cities, the surveillance camera is an intrinsic part of its design. From the foyers of buildings, to underground train stations, to shopping centres, to city corners; all are equipped with cameras that watch us. Today's surveillance camera is becoming deliberately obvious, often feeding its observations back to the observed. The justification for surveillance cameras is to promote safety and reduce crime. But we can easily imagine a more sinister use of surveillance technologies. > > A system called Cromatica claims to be able to detect if someone is contemplating suicide in underground train stations. Cromatica analyses our movements and matches it against stored information about how suicide victims behaved just before jumping in front a train. Another system capable of reading faces, is being developed by the Salk Institute. It claims to be able to detect a person's emotional state by using high-speed cameras. "When someone is lying, their true feelings often flicker across their face in what we call a micro-expression, which is quickly covered up by a posed expression", says Paul Ekman, long-term face researcher and professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Ekman is working with Salk scientists to create real-time analysis of facial expression in order to reveal emotional states. > > Researchers and private corporations are pushing the boundaries of technologies capable of analysing our behaviour. There are of course numerous beneficial applications for these technologies, such as detecting a potential suicide attempt. But there is also the possibility for misusing their capabilities. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with some very negative applications that interfere with our civil liberties. We cannot stop the increasing sophistication of surveillance technologies, nor can we enforce a particular direction to their application. However, what we can do is inform ourselves as to the rapidly developing technologies and engage in debate about how they are utilised. > > The face is one of the most sacred features of our self. It is the primary way we identify each other, and our complex expressions enhance the way we communicate. Sophisticated software and hardware is capable of interrogating the human face in fine detail, matching faces and evaluating expressions. However, this automatic analysis relies mostly on stereotyping the human face and its attributes. Therefore, these systems will make their evaluations based on the way we look. > > The dFace project is a media campaign aimed at raising awareness about current and potential applications of technologies which analyse our face and claim to be able identify us and predict our behaviour. The project doesn't call for the banning of such technologies, rather it wishes to inquire further about facial analysis systems and to inform a broader community as to their purpose and function in our society. > Facial analysis is conducted by law enforcement agencies throughout the world. The mug-shot and identity kits are helpful in identifying culprits and solving crime. Sophisticated systems for the "public safety market" can detect the faces of known troublemakers and exclude them from entry or participation. Interestingly, a company that specialises in facial analysis software also provides products for prison inmate processing as well as for locating and identifying children. Many companies market software packages capable of detecting a face and putting an identity to it. They market the technology with the claim that it reduces crime, and increases security and safety. > > Matching an action or transaction with its owner is not only the wish of a dedicated detective investigating a crime, but is also of great interest to groups and companies. Various specialised technologies, which all fall within the realm of surveillance but referred to as 'customer profiling', already analyse our lives and actions, most of the time without our knowledge or informed consent. And the information and data gathered could be re-analysed in ways which were never originally intended. Once we have been profiled, there is no real way of knowing what happens to the collected data. > > When we use an ATM machine, transaction details are recorded and stored to build up a profile of our spending habits. The bank would claim that this would enable it to better service the needs of its customers. In the US, profiling data from a particular ATM showed that high number of transactions were being made between midnight and 2am. The reason for this was that customers were withdrawing money to spend in the nearby red-light district. > > The current use of electronic tags on vehicles has been promoted as an efficient way of collecting tolls that does not require the driver to slow down to physically pay for the use of the road. But these e-tags are effectively tracking devices able to accurately monitor the movements of a vehicle. Once all cars have these devices, there might be a temptation to apply automatic tolling elsewhere or to exclude certain cars from parts of the city. When we use a mobile phone the number we dial, the time and duration are all recorded. It is possible to approximate, with increasing accuracy, the location from which the call was made. > > Our use of technology leaves behind a shadow, a memory of our actions that is stored and transferred through networked databases to unknown collators. We are told by marketing departments that by profiling our behaviour, companies will be able produce and promote more products and services that are based on our true desires. However, potential for misuse of these data shadows, this profile information, is very high because of the lack of regulation or more importantly, public awareness concerning what is being stored about us and how this information is being used to effectively control us. > > The broader methods and implications of profiling are beyond the scope of the dFace project, however these will be considered and included where appropriate. The dFace project aims to explore and problematise the applications and outcomes of facial analysis technology. A focus has been placed on investigating the role facial analysis plays in matching an action with its owner and the effects this would have on people and the society we live in. > > We have a photograph of our face taken when we attend university, start a new job or apply for a driver's license. And our face is also captured passively, without our direct consent through surveillance cameras, which are quickly becoming a standard part of our environment. But amongst the public, there seems to be a lack of concern or even curiosity as to who has access to our captured face, how it is used and how long it will be kept for. > > The writings of Michel Foucault on the panopticon, social observation, power and discipline, and George Orwell's vision of 1984 were early motivations for the dFace project and continue to provide inspiration and direction. Science-fiction books and films which signpost to dangers of 'over-machining' our society also provide inspiration. The many contemporary academics and writers such as David Lyon who are exploring surveillance and its surrounding sociological issues will also provide discourse to work within. > > The dFace project wants to trace the path the face travels once it has been captured by a camera. It wants to understand the nature of analysis carried out and if the face is stored or distributed to other parties. Further, the project wants to investigate what effect the pervasive use of surveillance cameras and their ability to capture our faces, has on us, especially when this data is combined with other digital shadows we leave behind during our daily transactions. > > The research carried out by the project will not be exhaustive. Rather, the outcomes will provide direction to future research and also adequate content to develop creative media strategies to inform the public audience about the applications and implications of facial analysis technologies. > > > -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Thu Jun 7 15:46:01 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 03:16:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] microsoft's next steps Message-ID: <20010607101601.97424.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> actually this is an old article but i'm behind the times. of interest to those looking at how monopolistic practices are themselves shifting and learning from those advocating more open approaches to software. even if it's under duress... enjoy R ^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=587172 A kinder, gentler gorilla? Apr 26th 2001 From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Jun 7 21:41:01 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:41:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Face Recognition & Surveillance In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010607143306.030b9b70@dface.org> Message-ID: <4.3.0.20010607213022.00a993a0@mail.sarai.net> Thanks, Sam and Menso, For all that information on surveillance software, particularly face recognition and CCTV stuff. I found Menso's description of what could happen to him on his ramble through Amsterdam quite chilling, and Sam's warnings about face recognition software are quite significant. I ran a search on what is happening in terms of Face Recognition in India, particularly with reference to plans for National ID card in India that we have been discussing on this list, and immediately came across two companies that are on the fast track of developing face recognition and biometric software solutions and want to develope these applications for national ID cards. They are : 1. Jaypeetex - ...The Biometrics People http://www.jaypeetex.com/ 2. Axis - The 'World Leader' in Biometric Software Solutions http://www.axistech.com/ Check out how these gentlemen have designs on your faces ! Cheers (?) Shuddha Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From nilanjanasroy at yahoo.com Fri Jun 8 23:37:47 2001 From: nilanjanasroy at yahoo.com (Nilanjana Roy) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:07:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Filtering co. nixes library filters Message-ID: <20010608180747.23660.qmail@web12501.mail.yahoo.com> This one raises some interesting issues--apologies if you've already read the story. Nilanjana S. Roy Thursday June 7, 3:52 AM SurfControl Opposes Mass. Mandatory Net Filtering Effort WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 2001 JUN 6 (NB) -- By David McGuire, Newsbytes. SurfControl - one of the world's largest manufacturers of Internet filtering and monitoring products - this week said it openly opposes an effort in Massachusetts to force libraries to use filtering technology. "We do think that schools and indeed libraries should consider using filtering (products), but we've always, since 1995, thought that it should be a choice," Surf Control Vice President of Home and Education Markets Susan Getgood said today. Because SurfControl maintains an office and a substantial presence in Massachusetts, the company felt that it was important "as a filtering company" to go on record in opposition to the mandatory filtering effort, Getgood said. Massachusetts lawmakers appear to still be in the very early stages of debating a proposal that would require all public libraries in the state to use filtering software. Getgood said that the mandatory filtering debate - whether at the state or federal level - too often disintegrates into an argument over whether filtering technology indeed works the way it is intended. Getgood disputes the arguments made by some filtering opponents that software such as CyberPatrol - one of SurfControl's proprietary products - filter either too much information or not enough. Modern filters can discern between porn sites and those providing information about breast cancer, Getgood said. "Filters work extremely well at helping schools and libraries manage Internet access for a whole host of reasons," Getgood said. Because school and library administrators are aware of filtering technology, and are - in a growing number of instances - using that technology, the filtering industry neither wants, nor needs a federal mandate requiring that their products be used, Getgood said. First Amendment attorney Jon Katz, who has fought against mandatory filtering efforts, speculated today that SurfControl could be using the announcement as a way to "get some free marketing," but added that regardless of the motive he welcomes the company's opposition to mandatory filtering. Getgood warned lawmakers not to pass legislation that she said could do more harm than good. "We know that technology is always changing and if you pin yourself down to something too tightly in law, you aren't going to be able to achieve your goal." --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Personal Address - Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010608/bcbb5b9c/attachment.html From raju at linux-delhi.org Sat Jun 9 00:29:41 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 00:29:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [LIG] Reaction to NASSCOM's campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200106081859.AAA01532@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi Atul, First-cut reactions: I personally don't know too much about NASSCOM's activities. I'm aware that they've done a fair amount of lobbying for the Indian Software Industry in international fora, and presumably the current well-being of the industry is due at least partly to their efforts. I have no quarrel with that: it's laudable, IMHO. I do object to NASSCOM's role as a policeman for foreign software companies. It's unethical, cowardly and against development. Unethical because Indians pay for NASSCOM's existence, and their primary fealty must be towards India and Indians; cowardly because (and I'm treading on shifting sands here :) essentially the copyright law has been forced down our throat due to the WTO, and we need to have the backbone and the strength to stand up for our rights (no, I'm not advocating illegal copying of software, just the right to make our own decisions); contra-productive since, as you've stated, there does not seem to be any focus from NASSCOM on evaluating and promoting technologies like GNU/Linux/BSD which could be more relevant to our country in the long- (and maybe even the short-) term. Is there someone on the list who can throw more light on NASSCOM's charter, constitution and activities, so that we can make have a more informed discussion? My reactions above have purely been based on newspaper reports and ads, which information is bound to be sketchy and possibly incorrect. Regards, -- Raju >>>>> "Atul" == Atul Chitnis writes: Atul> It is interesting to note reactions to NASSCOM's commercial Atul> campaign on behalf of Microsoft and other members of the Atul> BSA. Atul> This campaign makes dire threats about imprisonment and Atul> fines, offers bribes to employees to turn in their employers Atul> (Rs.50,000/US$1000 reward), takes an overall tone of "we Atul> know you are a criminal - buy MS software now or go to Atul> jail". Atul> Well, it looks like things are going awry for MS and Atul> NASSCOM. To NASSCOM's greatest embarrassment (apart from not Atul> a single raid netting anything so far), the campaign has Atul> caused many small to mid-sized companies in India to give Atul> Linux a serious look. Atul> My collegue Vaibhav Sharma, currently in Indore on Atul> home-leave, reports that the demand for Linux is extremely Atul> high there. Atul> I have been getting similar reports from Mumbai, Goa, Pune Atul> and even Delhi. (Ironically, I have not been getting that Atul> kind of info from Bangalore). Atul> Anyway, I was just wondering - what is your take on Atul> - NASSCOM's campaign in general, which is without question Atul> highly commercial in nature, aimed at increasing sales for Atul> foreign software firms - something it has never done for Atul> Indian companies developing software for local markets in Atul> its entire existence. Atul> - What kind of response should the free world give to Atul> NASSCOM? Should we just ignore it, or challenge NASSCOM's Atul> idiotic and biased campaign? Atul> - Does this represent an opportunity for Linux in India, and Atul> if so, should we exploit it, and how? Atul> I hope we can have a focussed discussion here about this. Atul> Atul Atul> p.s. Tarique - no, NASSCOM does *not* have a Z80 as CPU in Atul> the head, so don't bring that up! ;-) -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From menso at r4k.net Sat Jun 9 18:51:39 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 15:21:39 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Filtering co. nixes library filters In-Reply-To: <20010608180747.23660.qmail@web12501.mail.yahoo.com>; from nilanjanasroy@yahoo.com on Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 11:07:47AM -0700 References: <20010608180747.23660.qmail@web12501.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010609152139.D37888@r4k.net> Hi all, The issue raised in the article that filtering software doesn't do what it should is quite a relevant one. For some time now there has been a group of people on the net operating under the name PeaceFire.org who publish lists of sites that get blocked by filtering software showing that completely legite sites are blocked as well. You can visit the PeaceFire.org website and have a look at their findings, also, be a good little netizen and sign up as a member so that you get their mailinglist and if you can miss the money, donate the $15 and get a PeaceFire t-shirt (great for wearing when visiting Internet conferences where these filtering companies have stands :) These guys are doing quite some important work imho and if you can it's nice to support them. Menso On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 11:07:47AM -0700, Nilanjana Roy wrote: > This one raises some interesting issues--apologies if you've already read the story. > Nilanjana S. Roy > > Thursday June 7, 3:52 AM > > SurfControl Opposes Mass. Mandatory Net Filtering Effort > > > > > > > > WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 2001 JUN 6 (NB) -- By David McGuire, Newsbytes. > > SurfControl - one of the world's largest manufacturers of Internet filtering and monitoring products - this week said it openly opposes an effort in Massachusetts to force libraries to use filtering technology. > > "We do think that schools and indeed libraries should consider using filtering (products), but we've always, since 1995, thought that it should be a choice," Surf Control Vice President of Home and Education Markets Susan Getgood said today. > > Because SurfControl maintains an office and a substantial presence in Massachusetts, the company felt that it was important "as a filtering company" to go on record in opposition to the mandatory filtering effort, Getgood said. > > Massachusetts lawmakers appear to still be in the very early stages of debating a proposal that would require all public libraries in the state to use filtering software. > > Getgood said that the mandatory filtering debate - whether at the state or federal level - too often disintegrates into an argument over whether filtering technology indeed works the way it is intended. > > Getgood disputes the arguments made by some filtering opponents that software such as CyberPatrol - one of SurfControl's proprietary products - filter either too much information or not enough. > > Modern filters can discern between porn sites and those providing information about breast cancer, Getgood said. > > "Filters work extremely well at helping schools and libraries manage Internet access for a whole host of reasons," Getgood said. > > Because school and library administrators are aware of filtering technology, and are - in a growing number of instances - using that technology, the filtering industry neither wants, nor needs a federal mandate requiring that their products be used, Getgood said. > > First Amendment attorney Jon Katz, who has fought against mandatory filtering efforts, speculated today that SurfControl could be using the announcement as a way to "get some free marketing," but added that regardless of the motive he welcomes the company's opposition to mandatory filtering. > > Getgood warned lawmakers not to pass legislation that she said could do more harm than good. > > "We know that technology is always changing and if you pin yourself down to something too tightly in law, you aren't going to be able to achieve your goal." > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Personal Address - Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From ravis at sarai.net Mon Jun 11 00:01:16 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 23:31:16 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] nasscom Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010610233116.007bf260@mail.sarai.net> I think raju's post on NASSCOM, i.e "NASSCOM's role as a policeman for foreign software companies" hit the nail on the head..NASSCOM has played the role that the proprietory majors could not, and the late D.Mehta's closeness to those in power helped... We need a good case study of how this institution works, its networks and how it aggresively intervenes in policy.... Ravi From saumya at sarai.net Mon Jun 11 18:05:50 2001 From: saumya at sarai.net (Saumya Gupta) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 12:35:50 GMT Subject: [Reader-list] Digital Databases Message-ID: <20010611.12355000@saumya.sarai.kit> More on surveillance through digital databases - this Dutch version.  http://www.ix.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/7393/1.html _________________ Digital Safe-Deposit for Dutch Citizens Jelle van Buuren   17.04.2001 Personal data from the register of population and financial and medical information should be stored in personal digital safe-deposits Every Dutch citizen should get a 'digital safe-deposit', which contains her personal data, according to a Dutch commission, which  studied improvements of the current register of population. In the digital safe-deposit not only personal data from the register of population should be stored, but citizens can also choose to store financial or medical information. The Commission 'Modernisation of the register of population' was asked by the Ministry of Home Affairs to study ways to improve the register of population, which in the Netherlands is held by the municipialities. The access to information is too slow, according to organisations like the law enforcement authorities or the tax office, who have direct access to the register of population. To improve direct access to the register of population the Commission advises to base the new register on web technology, so it would be possible to have access to the register 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every Dutch citizen should get a digital safe-deposit with the information stored in the register of population. The register of population holds on every Dutch citizen about two hundred items of personal data, like name, date and place of birth, tax number, partners, children and other parts of the 'administrative course of life'. The police, tax office, pension funds and other organisations which are allowed to access these personal data should get an interface for direct access to the digital safe-deposits. The commission thinks this will discourage fraudulent behaviour. But the Commission also proposes that Dutch citizens get the possibility to store other information in their digital safe-deposit, like medical and financial information. Citizens can decide to whom they will give access to these types of information. The digital safe-deposit should be located at the web sites of the municipialities. For the protection of the safe-deposits the commission suggests to give each Dutch citizen an electronic identity card with biometrics information. Citizens who are not on-line should get access to their digital safe-deposit through public terminals at the municipal hall. The Commission thinks that the introduction of the system will give a boost to the digitalisation of Dutch society. New developments like electronic commerce and payment systems for driving have a clear need for the availability of reliable personal data that easily can be transferred and checked. The president of the Commission, I. Snellen, only sees advantages in the system. 'Citizens can give companies or others access to their safe-deposit. That is really an advantage, when for instance a pharmaceutical wants to check what medicine his patient is taking,' Snellen told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. According to Snellen, his idea will give more power to the citizen: 'The safe-deposit is a service to citizens. It will enhance his position in the information society. He does not longer have to search for official data, or fill in over and over again the same inquiries. It is sufficient to give partial access to your safe-deposit.' Snellen also points at the emerging e-commerce and e-governance. 'The citizen wants to shop worldwide and wants to vote on Internet. Our proposal stimulates these developments because reliable personal data are hard to find on the Internet. A company that is asked to send stuff, or an employer, who wants to check on an employee, will profit from a quick view into the digital safe-deposit.' Civil liberties groups are outraged by the proposals. The digital safe-deposits will contain highly sensitive personal information and are vulnerable to hack attacks. It also centralises personal information, which creates the technical conditions for law enforcement authorities to get easy access to all the personal data of citizens. Furthermore there is the fear that for instance insurance companies will order access to the medical information before closing a deal. The commission states however that citizens are free to choose if they want to add information to their digital safe-deposits. Saumya From sam at media.com.au Mon Jun 11 21:03:02 2001 From: sam at media.com.au (s|a|m) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 01:33:02 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Media Circus 2001 - Melbourne AU Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20010612012720.03a10cd0@hutch.com.au> www.antimedia.net/mediacircus/ (spread the word and the url) Come to Melbourne, Australia on Thursday 12th July for the Launch. The Media Circus 2001 will happen on the Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th on July 2001. Media Circus is a gathering of people who create, consume, critique and distribute media content that challenges, questions, expresses and celebrates our culture, our society and the way we live. The event features a variety of participants including DJ Toupee, Geert Lovink, Jason Gibson, Lachlan Musicman, Leanne Minshull, MC Heroine, Naomi Klein, Nicole Biftek, PhucItUp, Scott Mcquire and many others... But the most important participant is YOU, so we'd love to see you here in Melbourne. The program guide (which is still morphing) is available from www.antimedia.net/mediacircus/ - check it out for full details. Join the announce-list Send an email to mc-announce at lists.myspinach.org with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line Here's the full 'about' text below: Media Circus is a gathering of people who create, consume, critique and distribute media content that challenges, questions, expresses and celebrates our culture, our society and the way we live. The media is everywhere. Deals, ideas, ideology, websites, porn, breaking news, films, positions vacant, knowledge, technologies. It's all around us. Just as we tend not to think about where milk comes from, we can forget to interrogate the processes through which media is made. Homogenised and pasterised or non-genetically-modified? It's all mediated. There is little doubt that the large media corporations with their diverse interests exert an overwhelming amount of influence and control over the way our world works. This is reflected upon and critiqued by academics and others in privileged ghettos, but this detail is often contained inside their sanctioned structures. We know from our direct experience that the media manipulates and distorts reality, that it misrepresents and influences priorities and that it disempowers and attempts to confuse us with choices we do not ask for. And we know that the media should belong to us, the public, and not to a handful of transnational corporations. The Media Circus will include a broad group of people to develop networks and share and exchange information, knowledge, skills and tactics. We need to reclaim the media space and continue fostering a bottom-up media culture which will break us free from the illusions which attack and prototype us every day. We need to tell our own stories and what better place to empower ourselves than at the Circus. For the event to be a success, it is essential that the audience-presenter boundaries are broken. Everyone is a participant. The Media Circus was first held in Melbourne in September 1999. See the webbed archive. Media Circus 2001 will be happening in Melbourne on the 12th, 14th and 15th July. 2001, and will be comprised of screenings, discussions, forums and exchanges. The days will be packed, but there will be spaces for autonomous gatherings and networking. It is hoped that this event will help create an origin from where more Media Circus events can be held to continue the development of a media culture in Melbourne and other networked locations. ==================================== The criteria are fairly clear: a "rogue state" is not simply a criminal state, but one that defies the orders of the powerful who are, of course, exempt. (Chomsky) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010612/36a90a27/attachment.html From shuddha at sarai.net Tue Jun 12 11:54:51 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 11:54:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Cogntiariat: Matthew Fuller & Snafu interview Franco Berardi Message-ID: <4.3.0.20010612113742.00b0f5c0@mail.sarai.net> Apologies for cross posting to those already on the nettime list, but this is a conversation on labour and labouring in cyberspace that I thought would be interesting for all on the reader list. The people talking are Matthew Fuller (MF), Franco Berardi (Bifo) and a third person called Snafu. ======================================================= From Nettime (www.nettime.org) June 12, 2001 the following is an interview with Franco Berardi, Bifo, that took place by email during May and June 2001 focussing around the themes of his new book describing the development of the 'Cognitariat'.The 'Factory of Unhappiness', (La fabbrica dell'infelicità. New economy e movimento del cognitariato) was recently published by Derive Approdi. (http://www.deriveapprodi.org/) MF: In your new book, 'The Factory of Unhappiness' you describe a class formation, the 'cognitariat' - a conflation of cognitive worker and proletarian, working in 'so-called jobs'. You've also previously used the idea of the 'Virtual Class'. What are the qualities of the conitariat and how might they be distinguished from this slightly higher strata depicted by Kroker and Weinstein in 'Data Trash'? Bifo: I like to refer to the concept of virtual class, which is a class that does not actually exist. It is only the abstraction of the fractal ocean of productive micro-actions of the cognitive workers. It is a useful concept, but it does not comprehend the existence (social and bodily) of those people who perform virtual tasks. But the social existence of virtual workers is not virtual, the sensual body of the virtual worker is not virtual. So I prefer to speak about cognitive proletariat (cognitariat) in order to emphasize the material (I mean physical, psychological, neurological) disease of the workers involved in the net-economy. MF: The political / economic theorisation of post-fordism which has much of its roots in Italian activism and thought of the sixties, seventies and onwards is now an established term in describing post-industrial, work conditions. You present a variant of this, and one which suggests that the full political dynamics of this change have yet to be appreciated - how can we describe the transition from 'The Social Factory' to 'The Factory of Unhappiness'? Bifo: Semiokapital puts neuro-psychic energies to work, and submits them to machinic speed. It compels our cognition, our emotional hardware to follow the rhythm of the net-productivity. Cyberspace overloads cybertime, because cyberspace is an unbounded sphere, whose speed can accelerate without limits. But cybertime (the time of attention, of memory, of imagination) cannot be speeded up beyond a limit. Otherwise it cracks... And it is actually cracking, collapsing under the stress of hyperproductivity. An epidemic of panic is spreading thoroughout the circuits of the social brain. An epidemic of depression is following the outbreak of panic. The current crisis of the new economy has to be seen as consequence of this nervous breakdown. Once upon a time Marx spoke about overproduction, meaning the excess of available goods that could not be absorbed by the social market. Nowadays it is the social brain that is assaulted by an overwhelming supply of attention-demanding goods. This is why the social factory has become the factory of unhappiness: the assembly line of netproduction is directly exploiting the emotional energy of the virtual class. We are now beginning to become aware of it, so we are able to recognize ourselves as cognitarians. Flesh, body, desire, in permanent electrocution. Snafu: This consideration opens up, in your book, an interesting reflection about the mutated relationship between free and productive time. In the Fordist factory, working time is repetitive and alienating. Workers start to live elsewhere, as soon as they leave the workplace. The factory conflicts with the "natural desires" of the worker. On the contrary, in the post-fordist model, productivity absorbs the social and psychological capacities of the worker. In this way, free time progressively loses its interest, in favour of what you call the contemporary "reaffectivization" of labour. On the other side, you depict the net-economy as a giant "brainivore". My question regards the apparent contradiction embedded in this double movement. How is it possible that people are at the same time so attached to their job and so exhausted by it? What are the psychological reasons that push people to build their own cages? Bifo: Every person involved in the Net-economy knows this paradox very well. It is the paradox of social identity. We feel motivated only by our social role, because the sensuous life is more and more anorexic, more and more virtualized. Simultaneously we experience a desensualization of our life because we are so obsessed by social performance. It is the effect of the economic backmail, the increasing cost of daily life: we need to work more and more in order to gain enough money to pay the expensive way of life we are accustomed to. But it is also the effect of a growing investment of desire in the field of social performance, of competition, of productivity. snafu: Moving onto a material level, economic conditions seem pretty irrelevant to the formation of the cognitariat. But, we all know that enormous disparities take place within the net-economy. Do you think that all of the cognitive workers live on their body the same level of exploitation? And what do these workers are really demanding, more money or more free time? Do you think that the stress from hyper-productivity is the only factor in the possible emergence of a self-consciousness in the virtual class? Bifo: I do not think at all that the economic condition is irrelevant. You know, people has been forced to accept low salaries, flexible and unlimited exploitation, a work day with no limits because every single fragment of the social relationship has become expensive. Before the liberist frenzy you could spend a night with friends and go around in the city with few money or no money at all. Nowadays, after the liberist therapy, every human relationship has been marketed. Gratuity has disappeared from the landscape of human relationship. This is why the human relationship is no less and less human. MF: Following from this, in what ways are people developing forms of resistance, organisation, solidarity that shift the algorithms of control in their favour in 'the movement of the cognitariat'. Or in other words, what forms - and given the difference between the 'felicita' of the original title and 'happiness' in English - might the production of happiness take? Bifo: Resistance is residual. Some people still create social networks, like the centri sociali in Italy: places where production and exchange and daily life are protected from the final commodification. But this is a residual of the past age of proletarian community. This legacy has to be saved, but I do not see the future coming out from such resistance. I see it in the process of recombination. I see this movement, spreading all over the world, since the days of the Seattle riots as the global movement of self organisation of cognitive work. You know, I do not see this movement as resistance against globalisation. Not at all. This is a global movement against corporate capitalism. Problem is: where is it receiving its potency from? I don't think that this is the movement of the marginalized, of the unemployed, of the farmers, of the industrial workers fighting against the delocalisation of the factories. Oh yes, those people are part of the movement in the streets. But the core of this movement resides in the process of conscious self-organization of cognitive work all over the world, thanks to the Net. This movement represents, in my view, the beginning of a conscious reshaping of the techno-social interfaces of the net, operated by the cognitarians. Scientists, researchers, programmers, mediaworkers, every segment of the networked general intellect are going to repolarize and reshape its episteme, its creative action. MF: You were involved in manifestations against the OECD meeting in Bologna. What are the tactics developing in that movement and elsewhere that you see as being most useful? What are those that perhaps connect the cognitariat to other social and political currents? Bifo: I do not think that the street is the place where this movement will grow. In the streets it was symbolically born. The street riot has been the symbolic detonator, but the net-riot is the real process of trasformation. When eighty thousand people were acting in the streets of Seattle, three, four million people (those who were in virtual contact with the demonstration thanks to the Internet) were taking part in a big virtual meeting all around the globe, chatting, discussing, reading. All those people are the cognitariat. So I think that the global movement against corporate capitalism is absolutely right when it goes to the streets, organizing blockades like in Seattle, Prague, Bologna, and Quebec City, and next July in Genova. But this is only symbolic action that fuels the real movement of sabotage and of reshaping, which has to be organized in every lab, in every place where cognitarians are producing, and creating the technical interfaces of the social fabric. The industrial working class needed a political party in order to organize autonomy, struggle, self-organization, social change. The netwoked class of the cognitariat finds the tool of self-organization in the same network that is also the tool of exploitation. As far as the forms of the struggle in the streets are concerned, I think we should be careful. This movement does not need violence, it need a theatricalisation of the hidden conflict that is growing in the process of mental work. Mental work, once organized and consciously managed can be very disruptive for capitalist rule. And can be very useful in reshaping the relationship between technology and social use of it. snafu: I'd like to know what the 'keywords of resistance within every lab' that you mentioned are, and to ask what the technical interfaces of the social fabric are? In particular i'd like to understand if, when you mention the techno-social interfaces, you refer to non-proprietary systems such as Linux, or if you have a broader view. But also, if the shared production of freeware and open source softwares represents a shift away from capitalism or if we are only facing the latest, most suitable form of capitalism given in this historical phase. As far as i know, military agencies and corporations use and develop free software as well as hacker circuits... Bifo: Well, I do not see things in this antagonistic (dialectical) way. I mean, I do not think that freeware and open source are outside the sphere of capitalism. Similarly I do not think that the worker's collective strike and self organisation in the old Fordist factory was ouside the sphere of capitalism. Nothing is outside the sphere of capitalism, because capitalism is not a dialectic totality suited to be overwhelmed (Auf-heben) by a new totality (like communism, or something like that). Capital is a cognitive framework of social activity, a semiotic frame embedded in the social psyche and in the human Techne. Struglle against capitalism , refusal of work, temporary autonomous zones, open source and freeware... all this is not the new totality, it is the dynamic recombination allowing people to find their space of autonomy, and push Capitalism towards progressive innovation. snafu: Another question is about the network. It can be used as a tool of self-organization, but it is also a powerful means of control. Do you think that there are new forms of life emerging within the network? I mean, can the network guarantee the rise of a new form of political consciousness comparable to the one emerging with mass parties? At the moment, global networks such as nettime, syndicate, rhizome and indymedia remain platforms for exchanging information more than real infrastructures providing support, coordination and a real level of cooperation (with few exceptions, such as the Toywar). Do you see the development of the network of the cognitarians, from a means of info-distribution to a stable infrastructure? How the different communities - such as hackers, activists, net.artists, programmers, web designers - will define a common agenda? At the moment each of them seem to me pretty stuck on their own issues, even when they are part of the same mailing list... Bifo: The net is a newborn sphere, and it not only going effect conscious and political behaviour, but it is also going to re-frame anthropology and cognition. The Internet is not a means (an instrument) of poltical organisation, and it is not a means (an instrument) of information. It is a public sphere, an anthropological and cognitional environment. Recently I heard that number of scientists all over the world are struggling in order to obtain the publication of the results of pblicly-funded research. "Scientists around the world are in revolt against moves by a powerful group of private corporations to lock decades of publicly funded western scientific research into expensive, subscription-only electronic databases. At stake in the dispute is nothing less than control over the fruits of scientific discovery - millions of pages of scientific information which may hold the secrets of a cure for Aids, cheap space travel or the workings of the human mind." The Internet is simultaneously the place of social production, and the place of selforganisation. MF: After the May Day demonstrations in central London, at the central end of which the police, several thousand of them, penned in a similar number of demonstrators for hours, it strikes me that It's almost as if the police are determined themselves to teach the people that staying static is a mistake. Certainly though, new ways of moving collectively in space are being invented and many of those are being tried out in the street. But perhaps amongst other currents there is also a reluctance or a nervousness about doing something concrete, about using power in a way that might risk repeating the impositions we have all experienced. On the one hand it could be said that this meakness is a strength, (if not just a public expression of a vague moral unease) but on the other it could be understood precisely as a result of this awareness that people have that their actions are always implicated in a multi-layered network of medial reiteration. Centralised networks that stratify and imprison people in the case of CCTV, but that also networks that are at once diffuse but that also contain, as you say, 'exploitation'. Given this, what are the ways in which you claim that this 'net-riot' creates transformation or exerts its political strength? Bifo: I see two different (and interrelated) stages of the global revolt: one is the symbolic action that takes place in the street, the other is the process of selforganisation of cognitive work, of scientists, researchers, giving public access to the results of the cognitive production, unlocking it from the hold of corporations. It may sound paradoxical. The physical action of facing police in the streets, of howling below the windows of IMF, WTO and G8, this is just the symbolic trigger of the real change, which takes place in the mental environment, in the ethereal cyberspace. MF: Returning to the issue of the relationship of bodies to the machines with which they work and to the information structures they form part of, it seems there are two strands to this. One is the relatively straightforward attention to the ergonomic conditions of working with computers, repetitive strain injury / carpal tunnel syndrome, eyestrain, the position of becoming an appendage to a telephone in a call centre etc. The other is how bodies are opened up as spaces to be interrogated by information systems. The obvious example of this is in the way that genetic material is thought about, as something that can be isolated and databased, but also as an 'agent' whose purpose is to deliver 'information' to the flesh that interprets and realises its instructions and which we will see as providing a rationale for the 'improvement' of bodies. Related to this, but occurring in a more diffuse way, is the increased emphasis on diagnosing what can be understood as information processing sicknesses - the recent study that claimed that 70% of all males have some form of autism for instance. Most interesting here is the idea of some of these syndromes, such as Asperger's Syndrome, which it is often speculated is one enjoyed by Bill Gates, are increasingly understood to be productive in certain ways. What might this suggest about the way notions of health in relation to information and productivity are treated? Bifo: I am not able to answer your question properly, because it implies so many fields of knowledge which I have only heard of. I see that the Global Mind is creating a sort of Global body, which is the continuum of distant organisms connected through the nonorganic electronic network. The Global Body is the productive body of the net, but it is also the space where viruses spread, the space of contagion. So therapy should work at the same level, at the collective level. This is the idea of therapy proposed by Felix Guattari. MF: It's clear also that the means of access to becoming a member of this class are becoming hardened as its function becomes more defined. In the UK and elsewhere, in the sphere of education there is a substantial slippage of the mask of Liberal Humanism, with education 'as a value in itself' moving towards strictly instrumental vocational training to create this new workforce. (This is also mirrored in the economic pain that students are made to suffer if they are to complete their studies). You are involved with a Hypermedia course in Bologna. How is an awareness of the composition of the cognitariat built into the course? Bifo: I have been teaching in a public school for web designers and videomakers, but my teaching experience is very fragmented and scarcely academic. But your question is very interesting, because it pinpoints the importance of a new didactic theory. What should we teach to our students? What should they learn? I say that we should make them conscious of their belonging to the process, and we should at the same time show them the possibility of existing outside the process. The danger in the process of the transmission of knowledge is the following: the 'power point' technicalities creating the Novum Organum of Science. Knowledge reduced to a functional system of frequently asked questions, the digital formalisation of didactics, of the method and of the contents of knowledge. You remember that Karl Marx wrote somewhere that the proletariat is the heir of classical german philosophy. It was just a metaphor. But now we can say in a stricly literal sense that the cognitariat is the heir of modern science and philosophy, and also the heir of the modern art and poetry. The social liberation of the cognitariat is also their appropriation of the technosocial effects of knowledge. (Interviewers: snafu, Matthew Fuller) Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From shuddha at sarai.net Tue Jun 12 18:30:32 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 18:30:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Reality TV Message-ID: <4.3.0.20010612182750.00a8e9f0@mail.sarai.net> Salman Rushdie Gets Real. Enjoy. ================================ Reality TV: a dearth of talent and the death of morality Salman Rushdie on the perils of voyeurism Saturday June 9, 2001 The Guardian I've managed to miss out on reality TV until now. In spite of all the talk in Britain about nasty Nick and flighty Mel, and in America about the fat, naked bastard Richard manipulating his way to desert-island victory, I have somehow preserved my purity. I wouldn't recognise Nick or Mel if I passed them in the street, or Richard if he was standing in front of me unclothed. Ask me where the Big Brother house is, or how to reach Temptation Island, and I have no answer. I do remember the American Survivor contestant who managed to fry his own hand so that the skin peeled away until his fingers looked like burst sausages, but that's because he got on to the main evening news. Otherwise, search me. Who won? Who lost? Who cares? The subject of reality TV shows, however, has been impossible to avoid. Their success is the media story of the (new) century, along with the ratings triumph of the big-money game shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Success on this scale insists on being examined, because it tells us things about ourselves; or ought to. And what tawdry narcissism is here revealed! The television set, once so idealistically thought of as our window on the world, has become a dime-store mirror instead. Who needs images of the world's rich otherness, when you can watch these half-familiar avatars of yourself - these half-attractive half-persons - enacting ordinary life under weird conditions? Who needs talent, when the unashamed self-display of the talentless is constantly on offer? I've been watching Big Brother 2, which has achieved the improbable feat of taking over the tabloid front pages in the final stages of a general election campaign. This, according to the conventional wisdom, is because the show is more interesting than the election. The "reality" may be even stranger. It may be that Big Brother is so popular because it's even more boring than the election. Because it is the most boring, and therefore most "normal", way of becoming famous, and, if you're lucky or smart, of getting rich as well. "Famous" and "rich" are now the two most important concepts in western society, and ethical questions are simply obliterated by the potency of their appeal. In order to be famous and rich, it's OK - it's actually "good" - to be devious. It's "good" to be exhibitionistic. It's "good" to be bad. And what dulls the moral edge is boredom. It's impossible to maintain a sense of outrage about people being so trivially self-serving for so long. Oh, the dullness! Here are people becoming famous for being asleep, for keeping a fire alight, for letting a fire go out, for videotaping their cliched thoughts, for flashing their breasts, for lounging around, for quarrelling, for bitching, for being unpopular, and (this is too interesting to happen often) for kissing! Here, in short, are people becoming famous for doing nothing much at all, but doing it where everyone can see them. Add the contestants' exhibitionism to the viewers' voyeurism and you get a picture of a society sickly in thrall to what Saul Bellow called "event glamour". Such is the glamour of these banal but brilliantly spotlit events that anything resembling a real value - modesty, decency, intelligence, humour, selflessness; you can write your own list - is rendered redundant. In this inverted ethical universe, worse is better. The show presents "reality" as a prize fight, and suggests that in life, as on TV, anything goes, and the more deliciously contemptible it is, the more we'll like it. Winning isn't everything, as Charlie Brown once said, but losing isn't anything. The problem with this kind of engineered realism is that, like all fads, it's likely to have a short shelf-life, unless it finds ways of renewing itself. The probability is that our voyeurism will become more demanding. It won't be enough to watch somebody being catty, or weeping when evicted from the house of hell, or "revealing everything" on subsequent talk shows, as if they had anything left to reveal. What is gradually being reinvented is the gladiatorial combat. The TV set is the Colosseum and the contestants are both gladiators and lions; their job is to eat one another until only one remains alive. But how long, in our jaded culture, before "real" lions, actual dangers, are introduced to these various forms of fantasy island, to feed our hunger for more action, more pain, more vicarious thrills? Here's a thought, prompted by the news that the redoubtable Gore Vidal has agreed to witness the execution by lethal injection of the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh. The witnesses at an execution watch the macabre proceedings through a glass window: a screen. This, too, is a kind of reality TV, and - to make a modest proposal - it may represent the future of such programmes. If we are willing to watch people stab one another in the back, might we not also be willing to actually watch them die? In the world outside TV, our numbed senses already require increasing doses of titillation. One murder is barely enough; only the mass murderers make the front pages. You have to blow up a building full of people or machine-gun a whole royal family to get our attention. Soon, perhaps, you'll have to kill off a whole species of wildlife or unleash a virus that wipes out people by the thousand, or else you'll be small potatoes. You'll be on an inside page. And as in reality, so on "reality TV". How long until the first TV death? How long until the second? By the end of Orwell's great novel 1984, Winston Smith has been brainwashed. "He loved Big Brother." As, now, do we. We are the Winstons now. Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From geert at xs4all.nl Wed Jun 13 03:00:17 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 07:30:17 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] resurrecting india imc Message-ID: <000b01c0f386$e0a8cce0$c900000a@bigpond.com> what do reader members think of an independant media center in india? see: www.indymedia.org. please mail sheri about your thought on what an imc-india could look like. best, geert From: "Sheri Herndon" To: "Patrice" ; "Geert Lovink" Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 7:15 AM Subject: FW: [New-imc] resurrecting india imc > can either of you share some thoughts about imc-india? i was under the > impression that it wasn't working and yet here's an email from siv saying > he's been in communication with someone from india and working on the site. > i'm wondering about your thoughts about these folks, how to inspire more > connections between media folks in india and the imc site and/or if other > models are more appropriate. > > thanks! > > sheri > > ---------- > From: Sivaraman Balachandran > Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 08:30:49 -0700 (PDT) > To: new-imc at indymedia.org > Cc: vidhi.parthasarathy at teldta.com > Subject: [New-imc] resurrecting india imc > > hi all, > > my name is sivaram (or siv if you prefer) and am > involved with seattle imc. i'd like to make a request > to get the india imc link on the left hand column of > links on the imc web pages. > > the india imc was alive at one point, then closed > down, and removed from the links column because, at > the time of removal, there weren't a core group of > people that were willing to run the site. > > however, the webpage india.indymedia.org has been > active and currently, people are posting to the india > imc newswire but there are no front page stories. > > there is also a list serv. i've contacted the list > administrator, vidhi, whom i've cced and we're psyched > about getting the india imc rolling again. > > by this weekend or next week, we hope to have a > collective of folks. > > i've also spoken with a core techie at seattle imc and > was told that the india imc site needs some minor > active/cgi/php scripting. the india-imc folks should > be able to tackle these tasks to get the site up and > running. > > if you have any questions, please feel free to contact > me. thanks. > > sivaram From fls at kein.org Wed Jun 13 16:52:19 2001 From: fls at kein.org (florian schneider) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:22:19 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Virtual Sit Ins and Electronic Disturbances References: <03e301c0e83b$61544100$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: <3B274CEB.2A731DF0@kein.org> > As I see it, the main protagonist of 'public hacktivism' for the moment, are > RDom cs & the Electrohippies; RTMark; and The Cult of the Dead Cow Hackers, > this representing a kind of spectrum going from "bad" to "good". Other > protagonists include No Borders/Kein Mensch ist Illegal (tending to side > with RDom), and the Critical Arts Ensemble (against - superbly deconstructed > Rdom years ago). Before engaging in, or even supporting, any form of > 'hacktivism' I would enjoin all of you to give a good look at the matter, > gather information, and think before acting. thanks a lot, patrice, for that sort of ranking ;) do you know these car drivers, who bitch at street rallye participants, when their way home is blocked for some minutes? i know, it's a really cheap argument, but anyway: "no one is illegal" tends to side with everybody, who is not only deconstructing deportations, but *constructive* in a way that prevents deportations in every single case. after the deportation-class campaign was started, hundreds of deportations were stopped or even not processed, because people have now very oftenly a chance to declare, that they are "not willing to travel" and pilots or the crew stop... that's maybe very pragmatic in the spectrum between "good" and "bad", but that's changing the lifes of more than a few human beings. the online- demonstration on june 20th might be a chance, to encourage lufthansa ag to drop out from deportation business at all. and the next campaign against the rumainian airline tarom has already started. i guess, some context might be helpful, so here is what i answered to geert in a related debate on another list. sorry for the delay... geert lovink schrieb: > I am coming back to Steve Gibson's fascinating reconstruction of the DoS > attacks against his server. This is his conclusion. I think it could be good > to discuss this here, taking into account that some of us are both involved > in the promotion of DoS attacks (against Lufthansa) and are a victim of > these very same tools (see mails from Melbourne). on the content-site, i'm afraid it's a bit more complicated: 1. if the online-demo can be called DoS, then everything, what happened over the last 150 years offline, was DoS as well: demonstrations, picketings, strikes, sabotage, street actions. the only difference: it was taking place within the borders of a nation-state, from a certain moment on it was regulated by some laws and high efficiently administrated. 2. ironically, what the deportation-class campaign demands from lufthansa, is nothing else than denial of service: not to provide their services for deportations anymore. 3. the very protestantic and puritanical debate about the correctness of an online-demonstration doesn't lead to many new insights, besides the technocratic one, that in future there might be smth like a guaranteed freedom for demonstrations in cyberspace (compare it with the .sucks TLD demand), which is regulating a sort of legal DoS-attacks, managing the immaterial damage and cutting the losses. 4. in that special case of the online-demonstration against lufthansa such a moral, bound in honour argument has to fail: what is a ten minutes, announced and legitimate online protest, which causes in the worst case, that lufthansa has to shutdown the webserver, what is this compared to more than 10,000 deportations (may i call them: denials of life?) carried out by lufthansa each year? remember, in europe there were six people killed during deportations within a few months in 99. 5. we all are victims and committers at the same time. i see, that's far to general, but at least don't call me schizophren ;) one server i adminstrate was used for a real DoS attack some weeks ago during the cyber war china vs. usa. of course, this was very annoying and it took me hours of work to let the machine work again in the proper way. but i am not so romantic to spend my time dreaming, that there might be a chance to preserve the net as a clean and healthy environment. of course it will be spoiled and destroyed and overwhelmed by good and bad purposes reaching from humanism to spamming, well meaning activities to commercialisation, from stupid DoS to clever campaigns... 6. the idea of the online demonstration against lufthansa turned out last autumn and it was brought up and carried out by libertad!, a group which wasn't before part of the no one is illegal network and probably will do smth else afterwards. that's how no one is illegal was working all the time: you don't have to become a member to do smth, it's better to have an idea, and to think about how to adapt it to the specific tactical context. for example there was another group which wanted to copy an action deportation class activists made one year ago at the occasion of the opening of the international tourism fair. instead of being offended they were invited by the no one is illegal activists, to think how to make it a little bit better next time. the same happened with the idea of the online demonstration against the deportation business. a lot of activists were against that type of action, not because of digital correctness, but because of plain and simple disguise against everything online. it was a very long process to synchronize the offline and online activities, to adjust the proposed actions and activities, to find a proper date and context for that kind of actions. you may call it hand knitted: what happens before that online demonstration is much more important than the demonstration itself. since weeks there is one article bigger than the one before in german mainstream newspapers. the story is as simple and easy to understand as in toywar or as if greenpeace would have invented it. it simply works on the virtual level of image pollution. the technical sequence of the so called DoS attack remains meaningless, and after all, me personally, i even would suggest to do nothing at all ;) 7. the deportation-class campaign always received a lot of messages from dubious sources like "we can attack the lufthansa server, just tell us when we should do it!". and in fact two days before an action day against deportation business on german airports, the lufthansa webserver was shut down for more than two days in december. but politically it didn't make any sense, since there was no outcome at all, just some panicking on the side of the lufthansa tech-crew. now it might make sense as an announced, self-determined, politically legitimated type of action. people are gathering in mailinglists and meetings, people are designing websites and banners, printing flyers, posters, magazins -- actually they are networking. 8. in my eyes the idea of online-demonstrations has to be critizised on another level: it's just the translation of an action from offline to online. nothing more and nothing less than trying to do smth in the digital way, which is well known and maybe not working not so fine anymore in the analogous world. so it has to remain far away from only touching the potential of netactivism at all. it's just the beginnning like everywhere else, you can do it only once, and it has to be overcome by much more creative, innovative and constructive types of action... but isn't this is a matter of course? best, florian From ravis at sarai.net Wed Jun 13 23:58:26 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 23:28:26 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] open hardware? Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010613232826.007bd7c0@mail.sarai.net> This is a cross-post from nettime , but for those who do not get nettime, its a good one... Ravi _________ [In April, the political free software 'Oekonux' conference took place in Dortmund, Germany. Texts are now being made available: http://www.oekonux-konferenz.de/dokumentation/texte/. Most of them are German, but the following one, on free harware design, is in English. On April 24, 2001 I posted an interview with the list moderator and conference organizer Stefan Merten to nettime. /geert] Free Hardware Design - Past, Present, Future ============================================ Graham Seaman What is a `free hardware design'? ================================= Perhaps the easiest way to define it is by looking at what it is not - by looking at current commercial design practice. Commercial design practice - -------------------------- o Designs are owned by the company which creates them. Ownership is protected by 3 sets of laws: copyright, trade secret, and patent. It is often not even possible to see a design without signing a non-disclosure agreement. o Designers cannot legally build on older designs unless their company owns the right to use these designs. Larger companies hold 'patent pools', which they use as bargaining counters with one another, and which block new entrants from the market. This is particularly important for developing countries. o Where the design is for a basic building block (eg an FPGA, or a cell library), design software can only be written by those entitled to know the secret information. EDA software is either written in-house (eg for FPGAs) or by software companies that have agreements with the manufacturers. Even where EDA software is generic, end users often have to purchase the right to use specific libraries. The result is that EDA software is ridiculously expensive; all except the largest companies (or universities) are barred from using them by cost. o Designs are driven by marketing departments. The two main goals are minimizing time to market (estimated to reduce by 30% per year for VLSI designs) and minimizing manufacturing costs. o Users of the final product have no rights to know how they work. The combined effect is to create a closed caste of designers producing unintelligible products for a passive population of consumers... So what would free designs look like by comparison? Free Design Practice - -------------------- o Designs are owned by the people who create them. Ownership is protected by copyright law only. The intention is to make designs as widely available as possible. o There is every incentive to build on older designs, to collaborate with as wide a spread of people as possible, and to make the designs widely known. NGOs in developing countries are not locked out, but encouraged to reuse designs. o Design software is free software, so that anyone who wishes to can participate. o Designs are driven by the wishes of their creators. The end goal can be whatever they wish. o Users of the end product can not only know how it works, but are encouraged to create improvements or modify it for their own purposes. If this list were fully realized, knowledge of hardware design would become more diffused through society, destroying absolute barriers between `creater' and `consumer'. Designs that people wanted could be produced, rather than designs planned for people to buy. In practice, some of the features of this list are already realities, and some are becoming so. Its often assumed that `free hardware design' is beginning only now, as a side effect of the free software movement; in fact, many of these ideas are anything but new, and free hardware design was born with free software. The Past ======== The First Wave - -------------- Like much of the earliest `free software' culture, free hardware designs first emerged from the wreckage of the 60s counterculture in the USA. The 60s student movement in the US, based around the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) had tried to work for a participatory democracy based on community activism. By the early 1970s it was becoming evident that networked computers could be the basis for a new type of communication that could reinforce and extend communities, an alternative to the centralized broadcast medium of the press (even the underground press): a medium for active participants. But the existing computer technology could not easily be used for this purpose: the first community bulletin boards depended on donated mainframes, a rare and almost unintelligible resource brought in from outside the community, where the skills to run, maintain, repair, and develop them were likely to be almost nonexistent. At the same time, small, medium and eventually large scale integration TTL devices were becoming easily available. They were ideal for the hobbyist: simple, cheap building blocks which could be put together easily with the simplest of tools (veroboard, wirewrap, or home-made PCBs). Frequencies were low, and most analogue effects could be ignored: the most horrible looking rats nest of tangled wires had some chance of working. A large pool of individual hobbyist designers began to emerge. One person with a foot in both camps -- working as an electronic designer, involved in the Berkely Free Speech movement and now maintaining the first community bulletin board system -- was Lee Felsenstein. He had recently read Ivan Illich's `Tools for a Convivial Society': An individual relates himself in action to his society through the use of tools that he actively masters, or by which he is passively acted upon. To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with his meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape of the tool determines his own self-image. Convivial tools are those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision. Lee's stroke of genius was to see how to apply these rather abstract ideas to the concrete problems of the community bulletin board systems: the new computers (initially, just the terminals) should be designed and built collectively, tapping into the energy of the individual hobbyists scattered across the country, and creating pools of people in each community who knew and understood every detail of the systems they were running. The maintenance and repair problems would disappear. To take on a use as `tools for conviviality' the whole design process for computers needed to be inverted, to become a convivial process in itself. Lee's first attempt to realise this goal was to design the `Tom Swift Computer Terminal', for which he distributed the schematics as widely as he could [1]. The second was not a design at all, but an organization: the [jump="http://www.opencollector.org/history/homebrew/index.html"Homebrew Computer Club, started by a group of 5 activists and engineers. Growing from 30 people in its first meeting to 600 within a year, the club encouraged the flourishing of cooperative homebrew computer design. Designs, even those which became commercial products such as the first Apple, were shared, discussed, and fed into one another. The direct and indirect influence of the club spread far outside the US. The initial home computer `industry' was thus a loose collection of small manufacturing companies and hobbyist groups (often the same people), built on a culture of openness. By the time the old computer companies realised that there was a potential market for them here, they were too late to impose their desired closed systems. In spite of the corporate spin that IBM put on developments [2], the participants of the Homebrew Club were quite clear that they had managed to impose their way of doing things: In 1978 IBM put its foot over the line and said `that's mine' with the 5100, a bread-box size wonder of incompatibility that epitomized the IBM way. They don't like to talk about what happened to them. In 1981 they returned with the 5150 (the PC), and with it they followed the rules we had laid out. Anyone can play, these rules read, but you must make your architecture and executive code as public as possible, and you must encourage individuals to write programs and create add-ons. You can play games, but you must help others to play as well. [Lee Felsenstein, 1984] [http://www.opencollector.org/history/homebrew/dinosaurs.html] The Second Wave - --------------- The first wave had been almost entirely outside the universities. The second wave was entirely based on the universities, involving an almost completely orthogonal set of people. The first wave had worked with sharing of designs based round commodity ICs. The internals of these ICs were well documented, so this had not been a problem. The designs themselves were largely drawn by hand, as were the commercial ones of the time. Chip designs were not hugely complex logically, but creating them did need a deep knowledge of semiconductor physics - a knowledge restricted to the engineers of the relatively small number of companies that produced them (which at that time usually implied owning their own fabrication equipment). By the late 1970s this transparency was beginning to disappear: the size and complexity of chips was becoming enormous. Chip designers creating custom designs needed a knowledge of all levels of the device, which was becoming increasingly unmanageable. There were two requirements: to separate the physical design of the chip from logical design and architecture, and to start automating the process of deriving one from the other. This was not just a technical problem, but a social one: it required the creation of a pool of engineers who could work in the new way. The impulse for its solution came from two people who saw this very clearly: Carver Mead and Lynne Conway [http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/Awards/Electronics/ElectAchiev.html] . The method they invented correspondingly had two parts: a technical part, involving the reduction of logical designs to simple diagrammatic representations with a direct, physically viable, semiconductor implementation; and a social part, which was the invention of what Eric Raymond would years later call `the bazaar'. Lynne Conway's paper `The MPC Adventures [http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/~mirror/MPCAdv/MPCAdv.html]' is a textbook description of how to create a bazaar-style community: o Involve large numbers of people. o Debug in parallel. o System designers must also be system users. o Rapid response to user feedback - release continuous bug fixes and improvements. o Let standards evolve from common usage. Prerequisites for this were the existence of a network (initially the ARPANET) and complete transparency. Co-operation between large numbers in turn made it economically possible to manufacture chips at low cost by incorporating many designs on a single wafer. - From an initial base in Xerox Parc, Caltech, and MIT, the method rapidly spread across the US and then across Europe. Initially, the main software used was simply for layout; but the software needed to be free to encourage the spread of the method. This was before the creation of the FSF and GPL, but Chipmunk [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/chipmunk/describe/describe.html], the descendant of Mead & Conway's original software is still used for teaching and research, and is now under GPL. As the method spread so the pool of people able to design ICs grew at a tremendous rate, creating a great flowering of university-developed design automation software, most notably in Berkeley and Stanford, but also in European universities such as Delft. Magic [http://bach.ece.jhu.edu/~tim/programs/magic/magic.html] for layout, SIS for logic synthesis, Espresso for logic minimization, Ocean [http://cas.et.tudelft.nl/software/ocean/ocean.html] for sea-of-gates design, Olympus [http://akebono.stanford.edu/users/cad/synthesis/olympus.html] for synthesis: all were naturally created under free licenses. For a period the state-of-the-art in design software was free software, and even now nearly all of todays closed-source design tools contain some elements from these programs. The Dark Ages - ------------- By the early 90s the second wave was grinding to a halt. Rather than creating free software which could be used commercially, universities began to develop software under contract to the EDA companies, or sought to set up their own companies to commercialize their products. EDA software became closed source and either unavailable to the general public or tied to particular companies' products. The survivors of the first wave had seen technology change from under them: increased miniaturization, higher clock rates, multilayer PCBs, circuits dependant on custom ICs: all made it increasingly difficult to produce designs not hopelessly outdated. A period of nostalgia settled in, with many content to update the designs of the early 80s. In spite of this, many individuals carried on with their own designs or work on EDA software. And from the mid 90s technological and social changes once again drove a new flowering of free hardware design, which could also build on the experience of the past. The Present =========== Over the last 2 or 3 years free hardware design has grown at an amazing rate. Among the new elements driving free hardware design now are: 1. The increased scale of ICs allowing SOCs (Systems-on-chip), and the resulting need for (and potential market in) libraries of designs at least in part independent of their physical realization. As FPGAs have grown in size, they two have created a need for design libraries. Attempts to create commercial libraries of such designs in the 90s were largely failures; free designs have little competition. The first established free site for these designs was Free-IP [http://www.free-ip.com]; now, the group with the largest number of participants is [jump="http://www.opencores.org"OpenCores. OpenCores is pulling in designers from round the world, from students to highly experienced professionals. The nominal goal of OpenCores is to produce a full library of SOC components, and to have this manufactured. There is no single standard for bus interconnections for SOCs; Silicore Corporation have now made their `Wishbone' bus design public domain and OpenCores have begun to enhance it; it may well emerge as the standard. Flextronics have now announced they may finance production of the first ASIC basic on OpenCores designs. 2. The widespread use of FPGAs, giving the possibility of implementing complex designs even without access to factories. FPGAs appear to solve nearly all the problems run into by the board designers of the 80s. A complete circuit can fit into one chip (and the rapid growth in size of FPGAs means that a 'complete circuit' is not necessarily just a processor, but may be a complete system). The FPGA can be loaded with different designs at will - no need to make a new board for each use, making design test and debug much closer to software development. Virtually all free design groups are making some use of FPGAs. As a fairly random example, the CPC-NG [http://cpcng.free.fr] group, who are designing an updated version of the Amstrad CPC computers of the 80s, are using an FPGA to re-implement the original Amstrad ASIC, something that would not have been possible before. The initial challenge for a hobbyist is no longer 'design a computer', but 'design a processor': for the first time since the bit-slice processors of the 70s, hobbyists can actually design meaningful processors. 3. The expansion of the market for embedded systems: once again, systems on a scale that hobbyists can build. The computer is no longer only a large, overheated, box, but a multitude of small, handheld systems. An interesting system does not need to be one which outruns a multiprocessor board or is clocked at gigaherz, but can be a small, cheap device with a novel application. There are quite a number of embedded boards such as the Lart [http://www.lart.tudelft.nl], which runs Debian Linux on a StrongArm CPU and was originally designed for radio applications. Maybe more in the spirit of free design is MorphyOne [http://www.morphyone.org], a Japanese palmtop which includes an uncomitted CPLD so that users can design in their own additional interfaces. OpenH.org [http://www.openH.org] have started rewriting the Sourceforge software to provide a Sourceforge equivalent aimed at embedded systems hardware designers. 4. The expansion of the internet to cover the world, not just the US and Europe. Free hardware design is not just based on English speakers, but Japanese (eg Morphy), Indonesian (eg. many OpenCores participants), Indian (eg Simputer), South African (OpenH). The range of experience and also the range of needs for different applications is wider than ever before. At the same time, the imposition of IP laws on developing countries has been done in such a way as to push them into developing convivial technologies as an alternative strategy, as shown by the Bangalore Declaration on Information Technology for Developing Countries. The first of these to be mass-produced will be the Indian Simputer [http://www.simputer.org], which will also be used in Africa. The Simputer is not a Personal Computer in the conventional `PC' sense. The `Wintel' architecture of the de facto standard PC is quite unsuitable for deployment in the low-cost mass-market of any developing country... [the Simputer] is targeted as a shared computing device for a local community of users. A local community such as the village panchayat or the village school, or a kiosk, should be able to give this device out to individuals for a specific period of time and then pass it on to others in the community. Designed with this application in mind, the Simputer is heavily based on personalization through the use of smart cards. Other related designs are the MIT [jump="http://www.media.mit.edu/~rehmi/pengachu/v3_document.htm"Pengachu (designed for minimal power consumption, perhaps even wind-up). The Brazilian equivalent, LUAR [http://www.luar.dcc.ufmg.br], unfortunately seems to have been designed in a closed-source style (though the software is free). 5. The presence of an established free software movement, not just as a resource but as an example of what is possible. Given the persistence of free software, it is possible that this time free hardware designs may not just fade away and be absorbed by commercial interests, but may also become a permanent gain. The Future ========== What happens in the future depends partly on how the outstanding problems in free hardware design are resolved; among others these are: the lack of free EDA software; an uncertain relationship to manufacturing, and the lack of legally defensible licenses. Free designs without free software - ---------------------------------- The first free hardware design site to make a major impact was Open Design Circuits, started by Reinoud Lambert of the University of Delft. The site proposed Open Design Circuits are the chip design counterparts of Open Source Software with designs (sources) openly shared among developers and users. The open-design circuit approach outlined here captures the true advantages of open-source software, and aplies them to hardware. It avoids the large initial investments usually needed for hardware development, and it allows for the rapid design sharing, testing, and user feedback which are key to open-source software success. The initial idea was thus strongly based on the success of open source software, and it foundered for exactly this reason. The assumption among most of the participants was that open-source hardware had to be based on open-source software. There is no open-source software for FPGA design; manufacturer's secrecy over FPGA internals means that there cannot be. Designers have to either use donated commercial software, or commercial freeware. Even where open-source software is possible (HDL compilation to netlists, and simulation, in particular) it is generally considerably behind commercial software. This even applies to PCB design. Given the additional effort needed to make use of the open-source EDA software that does exist, and the need to switch to commercial software for the back-end, almost all those involved in free hardware design have practically abandoned open-source design tools. This leaves those working on such tools without the pool of feedback that would otherwise be available, and weakens the free hardware design movement by decreasing its links with free software. In time, open-source EDA will grow to the point where it is once again competitive with commercial software, at least for the front end. The gEDA group has in practice become the focal point for this development: not only the gEDA [http://www.geda.seul.org] developers, but developers of other software such as Icarus Verilog, Spice-Next Generation, Al's Circuit Simulator, and the Savant VHDL tools make regular use of the gEDA mailing lists. The real problem is the back-end: the hardware targeted, whether IC cell libraries or FPGAs, are both fast-changing and often protected by commercial secrecy. One possibility is that free hardware designers will be able to bootstrap from their own hardware substrata. The OpenCores group is already working on designing a new (and hopefully patent-free) FPGA as part of their SOC. Free designs that can't be made - ------------------------------- The initial reaction of many free software supporters to the idea of free hardware designs is `all very well, but you can't manufacture your own chips'. What initially seemed to be the largest problem of all is starting to seem less of a problem. The first chips based on GPL-ed designs already exist: the ESA's SPARC designs have been implemented both for the ESA themselves and as part of commercial products (Metaflow and IROC). OpenCores have said that they hope to have their own processor manufactured soon. Similarly, at the board level, the Simputer is now being manufactured in Mauritius by a company which hopes to target both Indian and African markets. So manufacture is possible, provided that the design appears to be one with commercial possibilities. For designs which do not offer an immediate profit, and during testing and development, the problem is harder. One possibility is to leverage university programs which have access to chip foundries using Mead & Conways strategy of multiple chips on a single wafer in order to reduce costs. Boards are simpler, and many groups can afford to have their own manufactured. In the long run, the answer has got to come through co-operation between multiple groups, perhaps centralized through organizations souch as OpenCores and OpenH. Free designs that don't stay free - --------------------------------- Commercial designs are protected above all by patents. Free designers cannot afford patents, and in any case have no incentive to use them. Protection must be achieved under some mix of copyright law, contract law, and the Semiconductor Chip Protection acts. The `traditional' license which emerged during the 80s says something like: `anyone can use this design, except for commercial purposes'. This is both contrary to the spirit of free software, and is shooting yourself in the foot if the only way to manufacture a design is to have it made for commercial purposes. The ideal license would be one like the GPL, which can be used commercially, but which forces improvements to be fed back into the free design pool. Yet no-one has yet created a license which is generally accepted as doing this for all aspects of hardware design. The FSF accepts that designs written in an HDL are software, and so can be covered by the GPL. For schematics, IC layouts, etc, it seems that the law may not make this possible. The best that can be done may be something like the BSD license, which cannot prevent firms from making radical improvements to a base free design while keeping them secret, effectively privatizing the design. But it is still possible that GPL-style licenses may work. The Simputer license is a hybrid GPL-style license (copyright based) combined with a creative use of trade-mark and contract laws. And it is the first such license to have been vetted by a lawyer. What next? - ---------- Even if none of the problems listed above are solved, free hardware design has been a major success: hundreds, if not thousands, have been involved, have enjoyed themselves, have learnt. The knowledge of one area of technology has spread a little further than it would have done otherwise, giving people back a little part of control over their lives. Some achievements which now seem unstoppable whatever happens are: o the creation of available free platforms for Linux. o free processor designs that outperform commercial ones. o designs that implement features commercial designers don't care about (maybe open FPGAs, or an Ogg Vorbis implementation?). o designs for markets commercial designers don't care about - free designs for the developing world. In the long run, as solutions emerge through time, we may look back on this point as the time when control over our lives as passive consumers began to be replaced by creation of our lives as active participants. In a society that seems determined to force unwanted pay-per-view tv, ridiculous encryption systems, and privatized knowledge on us in order to maintain profits, there is a chance to build an alternative technology which is truly convivial. A. Reference ============ o The Bangalore Declaration on Information Technology for Developing Countries [http://www.csa.iisc.ernet.in/bangit/bangdec/bangdec.html], Nov. 4th 1998 o Lynn Conway, The MPC Adventures [http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/~mirror/MPCAdv/MPCAdv.html], 2nd Caltech Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, Jan. 19th 1981 o Peter Clarke, Momentum builds for open-source processors [http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20010201S0050], EETimes, Feb.1 2001 o Lee Felsenstein, How we fought the dinosaurs [http://www.opencollector.org/history/homebrew/dinosaurs.html], Creative Computing, Vol 10 No. 11, November 1984 o Lee Felsenstein, interviewed in The Analytical Engine [http://www.opencollector.org/history/homebrew/engv3n1.html], Vol 3, No. 1, November 1995 o Ivan Illich, Tools for a Convivial Society [http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich.html], Marion Boyars Publishers, Dec. 1990 ______________________________________________________________________ [1] "Hardware reliability was an obvious problem ... My way out of this future problem was to design an all-purpose `convivial cybernetic device' as a terminal/concentrator/processor in such a way that amateurs would be encouraged to get their hands on it. In theory, each place where one of the `Tom Swift terminals' was installed would develop a computer club. Then, when a terminal broke down, relief would be a local matter, and people would not have to place their faith in a remote maintenance system." [2] "It is choice that is the underpinning of IBMs commitment to open architecture: providing information and specifications which encourage others to develop options and programs that run on our systems. This approach has enabled hundreds of companies and individuals to develop hundreds of hardware peripherals which people can choose for their IBM Personal Computers." [P.D. Estridge, then president, IBM Entry Systems Division] ________________________________ Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.de/ Organisation: projekt at oekonux.de # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From geert at basis.desk.nl Thu Jun 14 03:31:42 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:01:42 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Virtual technologies and open source software and hardware for communities Message-ID: <010401c0f454$fa6f4400$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "David Wortley" To: Apologies for cross posting Global CN2001 Workshop 5 Virtual technologies and open source software and hardware for communities. Information management Call for participation Deadline: June 30th 2001 Coordinators: David Wortley (UK) Gareth Shearman (Canada) Larry Stillman (Australia) Background to the Workshop Information Communications Technology (ICT) is increasingly seen as a vital component in facilitating sustainable community networks. The range of hardware, software and telecommunications technologies becoming available to communities can be bewildering to experienced ICT professionals, and since the majority of community initiatives are driven by individuals and groups whose background is not in technology, there is a need to share knowledge and experience of those best practices in hardware, software and telecommunications solutions which support sustainable community networks. Global CN 2001 Workshop 5 aims to provide a framework for sharing of Information Communication Technology best practices. We are seeking solutions which engage and empower ordinary, non-technical citizens to develop the social and economic wealth of their community. What hardware, software and telecommunications solutions provide this empowerment and contribute to sustainability ? We are inviting contributions from both providers of technology solutions to community networks and those who have direct experience of implementing technology in community technology, learning and media centers as well as virtual networks. Potential Issues for debate Windows vs Unix - which platform offers community networks the most manageable and sustainable future ? Virtual Community Development Tools - what tools are available to help community groups develop their aspirations ? Open Source Software - is there an opportunity for global community networks to develop hardware and software toolkits for community networks ? Virtual Conferencing Technology - what technologies are available to support real-time collaboration and knowledge sharing ? Community Media - what role can streaming media and community radio play in community development ? Software for Sustainability - is community commerce a practical reality for developing revenue streams and what other revenue earning applications are available ? Community Broadband - how can communities ensure access to the full potential of broadband technology ? Mobile media centers - what hardware, software and telecomms solutions are available ? We invite citizens, ICT professionals working with community technology, social entrepreneurs, managers of community technology centers, researchers, etc., to contribute to the presentation of documents, videos, and other multimedia formats that can be included in the Workshop. The reception of Abstracts of no more than 400 words (Arial 11, 1.5 space, A4 page size) must be sent by email no later by June 30, 2001 to :- propuestas at globalcn2001.org with copy to the Workshop Coordinators, David Wortley dwortley at massmitec.co.uk , Gareth Shearman shearman at victoria.tc.ca , and Larry Stillman larrys at vicnet.net.au Abstracts should include the title, author's name, institution, address, telephone, e- mail and URL and will describe clearly the proposed presentation, paper or activity. From raju at linux-delhi.org Thu Jun 14 11:12:07 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 11:12:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Illegal prime number Message-ID: <200106140542.LAA04123@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hehheh, one of the side-effects of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) is to outlaw certain numbers in the US. http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/48565...29443.html -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From info at usurp.org.uk Tue Jun 12 20:28:22 2001 From: info at usurp.org.uk (info at usurp.org.uk) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 14:58:22 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Branded - Year of the artist residency www.usurp.org.uk Message-ID: ::::BRANDED::::: A Year of the Artist residency created by Poulomi, working with refugee communities in a suburb in Middlesex UK. Artist Poulomi and poet Parm Kaur and three participants related their experiences of their journey to this country and their future aspirations. A reflective web site with visual poetry and cards has been created. To go to the web site now: http://www.usurp.org.uk :::::::::::::::::::: we would welcome your comments on the site..... sorry for any cross postings..... From geert at basis.desk.nl Thu Jun 14 15:10:38 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 19:40:38 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] www.bollywoodhasarrived.nu Message-ID: <005201c0f4b6$12d75120$c900000a@bigpond.com> "Bollywood has Arrived" Exhibition of art by 24 contemporary Indian and Dutch artsits organised by Jim Beard Gallery Foundation & Foundation for Indian Artists June 23th - August 1st 2001 Passenger Terminal Amsterdam The project Twelve Dutch artists who have spent a period working in India and twelve Indian artists who have spent a period working in Holland, are invited to produce work for the exhibition "Bollywood has Arrived", which will take place in Passenger Terminal Amsterdam. The title "Bollywood Has Arrived" is taken from one of the best known engagements of Western and Eastern culture: the phenomenon of the Bollywood film. The exhibition "Bollywood has Arrived" will attract a broad range of public and will stimulate the interest in contemporary art. This exhibition gives a view of art from both different cultures. By connecting the Indian and the Dutch culture, old opinions can be given a new dimension. This major art event will after its initial start in Amsterdam travel to India under the title "Windmills in the Mist", first to New Delhi and will finally arrive in Bombay. In New Delhi, where the event will open at the prestigious conference building of Habitat Centre, Open Palm Court Area on November 3rd, 2001, thousands of people are expected to see the exhibition. In Bombay the art exhibition will open the 5th of January 2002 at the Bombay National Gallery of Modern Art. We will treat our visitors with an extra feature on an outdoor location, hosted by the Bombay film industry. Nowadays culture and economics show a tendency of globalisation. The differences between countries are becoming smaller. This exhibition will show that in the language of art, these nations have grown towards each other. Modern art, being the avantgarde of culture, will prove that the tendency towards globalisation is there and progressing. Opening in PTA, Saturday 23th of June 2001 20.00 - 24.00 Afterparty: 24.00 in Escape - Chemistry, Rembrandtplein Amsterdam The opening of the exhibition will be a special celebration, where DJ and VJ artists from both cultures use new media (video, performance art and music) to set the atmosphere of Bollywood Has Arrived. Trailers from Bollywood films will be shown on a video screen. Public The exhibition in Amsterdam will last from June 23rd until August 1st. During this period 16 cruise ships will dock at the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam. An estimated 20.000 passengers from Europe and America will set foot in Amsterdam. The exhibition is set on the Main Deck of the PTA. This is the main entrance where passengers walk through when entering Amsterdam. We expect the opening to attract about 1000 visitors. In the next five weeks the number of visitors is estimated at 2.500 per week. The exhibition will also be open to public in the evening. Organisation This art exibition is a joint project by the Foundation for Indian Artsists and Jim Beard Gallery Foundation. Els Reijnders, director of F.I.A. since 1992, has ten years experience in organising exhibitions with Indian and Dutch artists, both in India and in Holland. Sonja Beijering and Robert Duyf from the Jim Beard Gallery are artists as well as curators. They have experience in organising exhibitions in Holland and abroad. Els Reijnders, art historian, Amsterdam. Sonja Beijering, , artist and curator, Amsterdam. Robert Duyf, artist and curator, Amsterdam. We have a board of advisors consisting of the following people: W de Ranitz, business consultant, Amsterdam. P. Faber, conservator Tropenmuseum,Amsterdam E. Hogervorst, legal fiscalist, Amsterdam. Participating artists: Artists: Rob Birza (1962) V.N. Aji (1968) Charlie Citron (1958) Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949) Desiree Dolron (1963) Bhupen Khakhar (1934) Robert Duyf (1950) Sheila Makhijani (1962) Dianne Hagen (1964) Monali Meher (1969) Remy Jungerman (1959) Subodh Gupta (1968) Bastienne Kramer (1961) Sanjeev Sinha (1964) Juul Krayer (1970) Uday Shanbhag (1972) Theo Schepens (1961) Sudarshan Shetty (1961) Marien Schouten (1956) Gayatri Subramanian (1972) Berend Strik (1960) Vivian Sundaram (1943) Vroegop/Schoonveld & Neve Mayura Subhedar (1974) Billboards Publicity will be made in typical Bollywood style. It is appropriate in India to make huge billboards that are painted by special companies to promote the production. We will make 5 such billboards, with portraits of the participating artists, in India and exhibit them as promotion in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. besides the normal publicity on flyers, posters, a postal mailing (2000 national) and a digital mailing (1000 international), the show will also be advertised in newspapers, magazines and cultural agenda's. Location Passenger Terminal Amsterdam is one of the first mayor buildings on the Oostelijke Handelskade 7 in Amsterdam. The building's interior can be seen on the website www.ptamsterdam.com through a rotating webcamera. Support This exhibition has been made possible with additional financial support from the following organisations: Passenger Terminal Amsterdam, Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunsten, Hivos, Prins Berhard Fonds, Prins Claus Fonds, VSB Fonds, Stadsdeel Zeeburg, Deloitte&Touche. Adresses: Foundation for Indian Artists Contact person : Els Reijnders Weesperzijde 88c 1091 EK Amsterdam Tel/Fax: 020.6686178 51.66.86.925 ABN AMRO Amsterdam Email:fia at euronet.nl www.bollywoodhasarrived.nu Jim Beard Gallery Foundation Contact person: Sonja Beijering Barndesteeg 15 1012 BV Amsterdam Fax: 084.8686300 Tel: 06.24741772 Email: info at jimbeard.nl www.jimbeard.nl Passenger Terminal Amsterdam Oostelijke Handelskade 7 1019 BL Amsterdam Tel: 00 31 20 5091000 Website: www.ptamsterdam.com Agent in New Delhi: Alka Pande, India Habitat Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 110003, India Tel: 4642095 Email: ihc at vsnl.com Website: www.indiahabitat.org Agent in Mumbai: Anupa Mehta, Art Works Inc. Mathurdas Mill Compound, Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel, Mumbai, 400013, India Tel/Fax: 91.22.496.5447 Email: artworks at vsnl.com Website: www.artworks7.com From ravis at sarai.net Fri Jun 15 15:14:57 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 14:44:57 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] India and China Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010615144457.007a7bd0@mail.sarai.net> I got found this today..The comparisons with our own situation in India is interesting. Even though Indian papers ritually parrot the govt. line about India having no state control on media, the Chinese laws are quite close to our own in the internet area, the same insecurity of elites, the same strategies of guerilla warfare by users to evade.... Ravi --------- China's Safe Haven: Net Cafes Reuters 10:10 a.m. June 12, 2001 PDT BEIJING -- The soft glow of computer screens lights the faces of hundreds of students and 20-somethings crammed into the Feiyu Internet cafe near Beijing University, 24 hours a day. The basement cafe is one of roughly 1,000 in Beijing, where young Chinese can anonymously log onto the Internet and browse any site they fancy, such as news or sports -- or even banned pornography sites. To Beijing, these cafes are a dangerous window into an electronic world beyond the Communist Party's control, and in April the government launched the second major clampdown against the popular venues in just over one year. Internet cafes offer people in China a way to get online and speak up without identifying themselves, making cyberspace almost impossible to regulate, despite a slew of high-profile arrests in China since March. "Thanks to Web cafes, they are completely unable to control me," said Sun Hang, a software programmer in Beijing. "It's very difficult, to be honest, to control by identity," said Edward Zeng, chairman and CEO of Sparkice, an e-commerce and Web cafe group, who enjoyed some notoriety in 1998 when President Clinton visited his shop in Shanghai. Cyber cafes create a layer of anonymity between their patrons and police in China, where home and office Internet connections are easily identified by their Internet protocol address. "In Internet cafes, if I wanted to say something on the Internet, nobody could find me," Sun said. That anonymity is important, because if China's content laws are broken on a personal homepage or a message board of a major Web site, authorities are likely to trace it back to its source. The Ministry of Information Industry, the State Council Information Office, the State Security Ministry -- China's secret police -- and local police all monitor websites looking for "hot button" issues: Taiwan, Tibet -- which China annexed in 1950 -- and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, she said. Over 20 percent of the more than 20 million Web surfers in China -- where most people cannot afford a PC -- use cyber cafes, an official survey said this year. In April, the government banned Internet cafes from residential buildings and areas near government offices and schools. Police said a new round of inspections of the cafes across China for evidence of illegal access to banned websites or subversive messages were a precondition for renewing licenses. Wang Yuesheng, who owns 24 of the Feiyu brand Web cafes in Beijing, said police raid his no-frills cafes twice a month to search browsers for evidence of having visited Falun Gong Internet sites. In May, local media reported Beijing police had shut down at least two such haunts -- one for being unlicensed and the other because its computers had been used to access banned websites. In April, China reiterated a long-standing rule that Web cafes must keep customer logs. But proprietors of the cafes said the rule is often broken. "The customer is God," said Wang, who would sooner bend the rules than turn away a customer who had no identification. However, clerks there said a student card would fetch a 30 percent discount from the 5 yuan (60 cents) hourly rate. In contrast to the cafes' lax rules, the Web executive said her firm, which hosts bulletin boards and homepages, regularly handed user IP addresses over to the police, for fear of being forced out of business. Unlike North America or Western Europe, where privacy is a hot topic, China's laws give Web users no protection from snooping police. Instead, ISPs are required to keep records of Web users' online movements. "These records are specifically intended to be available to law enforcement agencies for scrutiny by them," said Warren Rothman, Beijing counsel for law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Chinese laws broadly ban "socially destabilizing content," "breaches of public security," "divulging state secrets" and pornography on the Internet. But police rarely catch dissidents at cyber cafes even if a digital trail from an illegal message leads there, because the venues hook up numerous computers to the same Internet connection -- and a single IP address -- Feiyu's Wang said. At least seven arrests of cyber dissidents since March show a push by China to stem subversion on the Web -- which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a rights group said. "Since March, government offices have boosted their checks of these political cases," said Frank Lu of the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In May, China charged four intellectuals with subversion after they were detained in March for using the Internet to organize a discussion group on political reform, the group said. Earlier last month in Shandong province, Wang Jinbo was arrested for "libeling the police on the Internet," the group said. According to the rights group, China arrested at least two others last month for political statements on the Internet. From zubair at isb.sdnpk.org Fri Jun 15 15:25:23 2001 From: zubair at isb.sdnpk.org (Zubair Faisal Abbasi) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 14:55:23 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Pro-Poor IT Business In-Reply-To: <005201c0f4b6$12d75120$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: Beez Technologies(PVT) Limited http://BeezTech.com Mission The mission of BeezTech is to provide top-quality, cost-effective, and user-friendly Information Technology solutions and services including web and multimedia applications for wider cross-sections of society. Vision Though Beez Technologies (PVT) Limited is incorporated in Pakistan as a company limited by share under Companies Ordinance 1984, it works with pro-poor vision and seeks to make IT solutions relevant to the socio-economic needs of the marginalized sections of society. This outlook of Beez Technologies designs a converging progamme emphasis to partner with other pro-poor organizations. This bid helps earmarking synergies in developmental areas of work with the organizations, individuals, and networks who are striving to bridge digital divide at the national and regional (local) levels and build capacity of the poor segments to take the IT route for development and social uplift. Therefore, under its overall philosophy of work, Beez Technologies visualizes pro-poor organizations not as ‘clients-out-there’ but as preferred partners of development, growth, and expansion in IT sector. Benefiaries of the work of Beez Technologies include the following: · Pro-Poor Organization. · Small Scale Enterprises. · Non-governmental Organizations. · Government Organizations. · Social Services Sector. · Educational and Vocational Training Organizations. · Rural and Cottage Industry. · Local Governments. Governance Incorporated under Companies Ordinance 1984 in Pakistan, Beez Technologies (PVT) Limited has independent Board of Directors and is managed by Project Director who works with a team of IT professional. Offices Pakistan (Head Office)BeezTech (PVT) LimitedWaheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor,Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan.Ph: 092-051-2201484 USA (Sub-Office)BeezTech (PVT) Limited16 W. Remington Lane # 106Shaumburg, IL 60195, Chicago, USAPh: (847) 882 - 1453 Services About services our philosophy is simple. We believe you know your aims and requirements and we know the power of new media technologies to further enhance efficiency, socio-economic out-reach, and image building of your work. To produce top-quality IT solutions and services BeezTech (PVT) believes in working with AIM and ensure the following in its processes and products: · Accuracy and Attention · Intelligence and Integrity · Management and Mobility Core Services · Website Development and Designing · Website Maintenance And Re-Designing · Database Designing · CD Mastering · Portals Development and Designing · E-commerce solutions · Online shopping carts · Creative Arts Graphics Designing including designing the following: * Letterheads, Leaflets, Advertisements, Visiting Cards, Greeting Cards, Brochure, Posters, Web Graphics, Magazines, Prospectus, Promotional Material. CD Cover etc. · Software Development and Multimedia with: * HTML, Java, C/C++, JavaScript, Cold fusion, ASP. * Back-end database integration running on Oracle, MSSQL Servers. * GIF Animations, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director. Support Services We help our clients and partners to have the best deal and value for money in the following areas: · Website Hosting · Domain Name Registration We also help in designing: · eMarketing strategies Activities and Products BeezTechnologies (PVT) limited is constantly working to develop cost-effective and user-friendly IT solutions. Following could be a few examples of its work: · BeezTechnologies has developed an IT solution which helps organizations to manage and integrate their organizational contacts, emailing, and records of correspondence. This application is named as WebPower and works with triple options as Internet, intranet, and stand-alone. · BeezTechnologies has developed Web-based Email System which can be customized as client application for other organizations and can be integrated into WebPower solutions as well. · An enhanced version is under preparation by the name of WebPower Plus! which would help organizations to keep track of human resources management, internal governance, virtual resource center (library) etc. etc. · BeezTechnologies has developed an elaborate and efficient system and services for data-entry and content digitization. · BeezTechnologies has helped ePoor.org develop its organizational and project websites: o http://ePoor.org; http://ePoor.org/vol; http://ePoor.org/ehealth; Regards, Zubair Faisal Abbasi. CEO/Project Director, BeezTechnologies (PVT) Limited Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor, Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan. Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274 From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Jun 15 20:03:47 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 20:03:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A Slightly Late Anniversary Commemoration Message-ID: <4.3.1.20010615200146.00a8f330@mail.sarai.net> A Slightly Late Anniversary Commemoration A year ago, on the 16th of May 2000, the Information Technology Act 2000 became law in India. This Law criminalized hacking, attacks privacy and paves the way for surveillance and censorship of nternet content Since then, The first arrests have been made on the IT act The first person has been killed because his surfing behaviour was under watch The first Public Interest Litigation calling for surveillance of web usage in Cybercafes has been filed The first proposal to tag cybercafe users with ID cards has been implemented Those of us who are in India when we log on to the Internet on the 16th of June 2001 - might consider thinking about the fact that for a year and one month now, our actions in cyberspace, what we have been surfing, whom we have been talking to, what we have downloaded - have (at least theoretically) been under the eyes of a very big brother. On the cards are Licenses for providing web content Identity cards for the entire population and lots of other ways to make online and offline life more interesting.... We do live in interesting times Cheers (?) Shuddha Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From geert at xs4all.nl Sat Jun 16 04:41:19 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 09:11:19 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] internet india list Message-ID: <011601c0f5f0$7d141c40$c900000a@bigpond.com> http://www.ironclad.net.au/lists/internet-india/index.html INTERNET INDIA (ii-L) Internet India Interactive Mailing List -- this is an unmoderated discussion forum for all things related to India and the Internet. Examples of on-topic discussions include: are toll free numbers needed, more access numbers needed, unlimited access time should be allowed as now only limited time is available of 500 hours and charges are very high Internet telephoney is jammed, and should be restarted, videoconfercing should be allowed, internet fax is considered illegal, which should be restarted. Internet India Mailing List will be large forum where all internet users are welcome. This list would be of particular interest to internet users in India, including: Programmers internet users professionals in web designing internet members To subscribe to Internet India, you can use the following form, or just send email to requests at lists.ironclad.net.au with a subject of SUBSCRIBE II-L. From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Sat Jun 16 23:06:24 2001 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 10:36:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] A Letter from Jafar Panahi, the Iranian Film Director Message-ID: <20010616173624.61583.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> I was shocked to read about how Jafar Panahi was treated by immigration at JFK airport while his film, The Circle, was showing in a theatre in the West Village. --- City Press wrote: > Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:31:36 +0500 > From: City Press > Reply-to: city_press at email.com > To: Ajmal Kamal > Subject: A Letter from Jafar Panahi, the Iranian > Film Director > > Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, > > As the winner of the Freedom of Expression Award for > my film, The > Circle, I would like to take your kind attention to > what happened to me > in your country, an incident that takes place > everyday in US. And let > me hope to see your reaction to these inhuman > incidents. I believe, I am > entitled to be curious about the response of the > Board who granted me > such Award, a response proportionate to the behavior > I and many other > people faced and will face. > > You have considered my movie as a "wonderful and > daring" film and I wish > your Board and the US media would dare to condemn > the savage acts of > American Police/Immigration Officers and may such > condemnation would > make the people aware of these acts. Otherwise, > what would mean > winning such Award for me? And what honor I would > have to keep it? Then, > I may return this Award to you as you may find > another figure that is > more in proportionate to freedom! > > In the booklet you kindly sent me together with > your Award, I read > that a prestigious film personality like Orson > Welles has already > received this Award. Should I be happy that this > great man is not among > us now to hear how the American police behaves to > the filmmakers or > people who enter > your country? As a filmmaker obsessed with social > issues, my films deal > with social problems and limits and naturally I > cannot be indifferent to > racist, violent, insulting and inhuman acts in any > place in the world. > > However, I certainly do detach the acts of American > police and > politicians from the cultural institutions and > figures as well as from > the people of USA - as I was informed, the film > critics and audiences in > your country very well received my film. > Nevertheless, I will inform > the world media about my unpleasant experience in > New York and I hope, > your Board, who strives in freedom of expression, > would react properly > in this respect. > > On April 15, I left Hong Kong Film Festival to the > Montevideo and Buenos > Aires Festivals through United Airlines' flight 820. > This 30-hours trip > was via New York JFK airport and I had to stay > there for two hours > and change my flight to Montevideo. Further to my > requests, the staff > of all the said Festivals had already checked if a > transit visa is > required > and they assured me there is no need for such > visa and moreover, the > airliner issued me the ticket visa NY. But, I > myself did ask the United > Airlines staff for the need for a transit visa at > Hong Kong airport and > I heard the same response. > > As soon as I arrived at JFK airport, the American > police took me to an > office and they asked for finger-printing and > photography because of > my nationality. I refused to do it and I showed them > my invitations of > the Festivals. They threatened to put me in the jail > if I would not do > the finger-printing. I asked for an interpreter and > to call. They > refused. Then, they chained me like the medieval > prisoners and put me > in a police patrol and took me to another part > of the airport. > There were many people, women and men from > different countries. They > passed me to new police men. They chained my feet > and locked my chain > to the others, > all locked to a very dirty bench. For 10 hours, no > questions and > answers, I was forced to sit on that bench, > pressed to the others. I > could not move. I was suffering from an old illness, > however, nobody > noticed. Again, I requested them to let me call > someone in New > York, but they refused. > They not only ignored my request but also the > request of a boy from > Sri Lanka who wanted to call his mom. Everybody > was moved by the > crying of the boy, people from Mexico, Peru, > Eastern Europe, India, > Pakistan, Bangladesh and... I was thinking that any > country has its own > law but I could not just understand those inhuman > acts. > > At last, I saw the next morning. Another police > man came to me and > said that they have to take my photograph. I said > never. And I showed > them my personal photos. They said no and that they > have to take my > photo (in the way the criminals are taken) and to do > the > finger-printing. I refused. An > hour later, two other guys came to me and > threatened me to do the > finger-printing and photography by computer and > again I refused and I > asked for a phone. At last, they accepted and I > could call Dr. > Jamsheed Akrami, the Iranian film professor of > Columbia University, and > I explained to him the whole story. I requested > him to convince > them and as he knows me well, I am not a guy to do > what they were > looking for. > > Two hours later, a police man came to me and took my > personal photo. > They chained me again and took me to a plane, a > plane that was going > back to Hong Kong. > > In the plane and from my window, I could see New > York. I knew my film, > The Circle, was released there for two days and I > was told the film > was very well received too. However, the audiences > would understand my > film better if they could know that the director of > the film was > chained at the same time. They would accept my > beliefs that the circles > of human limits do exist in any part of this world > but with different > ratios. > > I saw the Statue of Liberty in the waters and I > unconsciously smiled. I > tried to draw the curtain and there were scars of > the chain on my hand. > I could not stand the other travelers gazing at me > and I just wanted > to stand up and cry that I'm not a thief! I'm not > a murderer! I'm not > a drug dealer! I... I am just an Iranian, a > filmmaker. But how I could > tell this, in what language? In Chinese, Japanese > or to the mother > lanngues of those people from Mexico, Peru, Russia, > India, Pakistan, > Bangladesh... or in the language of that young > boy from Sri Lanka? > Really, in what language? > > I had not slept for 16 hours and I had to spend > another 15 hours on my > way back to Hong Kong. It was just a torture among > all these watching > eyes. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But I > could not. I could > just see the images of those sleepless women and > men who were still > chained. > > Jafar Panahi > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more. http://buzz.yahoo.com/ From supreetsethi at yahoo.com Sun Jun 17 21:29:13 2001 From: supreetsethi at yahoo.com (Supreet Sethi) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 08:59:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] IB keeps tab Message-ID: <20010617155913.26701.qmail@web10502.mail.yahoo.com> Interesing links to articles in various magazines and dailies http://www.nic.in/rrtd/CAS-AUG.html check in out __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more. http://buzz.yahoo.com/ From zubair at isb.sdnpk.org Mon Jun 18 10:07:32 2001 From: zubair at isb.sdnpk.org (Zubair Faisal Abbasi) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:37:32 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Villages Online -------- ePoor.org from Pakistan Message-ID: Greetings from Pakistan and ePoor.org! ePoor.org a non-profit civil society initiative has developed and working on a flagship Programme in Pakistan by the name of Villages Online (VOL). The Programme, rooted in community development approach, aims at bridging digital divide with pro-poor perspective and strives to make IT relevant for the socio-economic needs of the poor communities. Attached is a brief outlook of the programme and basic facts about IT and Inequality (Annex: 1). Looking forward to hearing from you for. Zubair Faisal Abbasi. ePoor.org IT empowers Villages Online A Programme of ePoor.org Never-ending poverty, poor opportunities, poor social services, and poor governance, are some of the peculiarities that form the overall aura of rural life in Pakistan. The VOL (http://epoor.org/vol) initiative of ePoor.org, is spearheaded to change the development scene, increase social well-being, and expand opportunities of wealth generation by making IT relevant to community needs at the village levels. The Concept: In order to increase the potentials of socio-economic growth and development in the rural areas, there is an urgent need to harness the innovative solutions of IT for poverty reduction, better service provision (like health care, education, information on rural and urban market situation), and good governance. In other words the concept stresses upon the urgent need of bridging digital divide between the rich and poor, between urban and rural, and increasing digital opportunities at the village and community levels. The Key The key to make IT based solutions effective, efficient, and relevant for communities lies in harnessing both the technical and social side of human expertise and knowledge. This means creating a synergy between the experienced and intelligent social-ware and increasingly capable technical-ware developed by IT professionals. The social-ware is available in the shape of networks of pro-poor individuals and organizations at the village and community levels while the technical-ware is actuated and customized in the hi-tech IT parks. Both of these -wares offer innumerable opportunities of innovative work and mutual linking. ------ VOL is striving to bridge the two sources for greater development effectiveness. The Philosophy The philosophy of ePoor.org, in carrying out VOL, is to work on the demand side of information, namely by enhancing peoples' capacity to use knowledge (through creation of social capital), rather than purely on the supply side of the process (of which a good example is the creation of IT training schools without attention to creating the demand for such information in rural areas). This builds upon the rural community development approach, which has focused similarly on the demand side of other interventions. The philosophy of ePoor.org is based on the highly successful efforts of community development led by such pioneers as Akhter Hameed Khan and Shoaib Sultan Khan. These efforts revolve around the creation of social capital to enhance the coping and adaptive capacities and strategies of the poor. The aims of VOL includes: · Make IT relevant and contributive for socio-economic uplift including decision-making support, better services delivery, and improved digital reach-out (networking etc.) for participatory development and growth. . Increase village level capacity to absorb, generate, disseminate, and navigate information and knowledge repositories. Strategies and Deliverables In the present shape, the process and structure of IT spread in societies is giving rise to digital divides at the local and global levels. For example, There are more Internet account holders in London than in the whole of Africa. About 80% of the world's population has no access to reliable telecommunications and about one-third has no access to electricity, according to the Panos Institute http://www.oneworld.org/panos/. As a matter of fact, IT has innumerable implications in distributing the opportunities of wealth generation, resource allocation, and social development. Not-so-surprisingly, according to the 1999 Human Development Report issued by the United Nations, information technology is actually widening the gap between the world's haves and have-nots, not narrowing it. In Pakistan, the IT Policy, is primarily geared to create an enabling environment for IT sector growth and leaves room for pro-poor perspective; the link between IT and poverty eradication has to be explored further and vigorously perused. This situation gives opportunity to analyze the long-term implications of a predominantly urban-centered IT incidence in sharpening the digital divide and generating distorted digital opportunities between rural and urban areas. Keeping in mind the above scenario, and the core themes of ePoor.org programmes, the Villages Online initiative would like to spearhead the following strategies and deliverables so that the wizardry of IT expands horizons of opportunities for poor communities: 1- Policy Advice and Advocacy VOL would actively develop policy advices and advocate the need of pro-poor IT solutions, policies, and practices. With emphasis upon local content generation in local languages. 2- Partnership Development With the vision of pooling technical and social resources, VOL would develop strategic partnerships with other pro-poor organizations, institutions, and individuals and those excelling in the IT sector. This would be designed for an effective outreach to the poor groups, networking, resource and knowledge sharing so that VOL meaningfully enables the poor communities to benefit from the IT route. In the specific sense, these partnerships would aim at ensuring to deliver: A - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to IT infrastructure at the village levels. B - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to relevant information about services (health, education, sanitation, development schemes, etc.), market situation (local, provincial and national for rural produce and human resource) and credit availability (government and non-government scheme for poverty reduction). C - Most importantly, ePoor.org sees kiosks and cyber cafés not only as passive information consumers but relevant information generators so that poor communities really benefit from IT route the route which would be there own. 3- Online Information Repositories and CD ROMs VOL would collect information on poverty profiles, demography, economy, history, social services profile (like health care and education), governance structures, marketable produce, and development schemes from the rural areas including individuals and organizations. Then it would digitize, create online databases, and make it available for navigation through websites and CD ROMs. 4- Meta Portal of ePoor.org VOL will be cyber-linked with other projects of ePoor.org. For example it will receive a complementary navigational support from the following: · eHealth: Expanding Health Care Services · eM at RT: Expanding Market of The Rural and Traditional ANNEX 1. B A S I C F A C T S · The global online community has grown rapidly --- from about 16 million Internet users in 1995 to an estimated 304 million users in March 2000. · In 1998 more than 26% of all people living in the United States were surfing the Internet, compared with 0.8% of all people in Latin America and the Caribbean, 0.1% in Su-Saharan Africa and 0.4% in South Asia. · South Asia, with 23 per cent of the world’s people, has less than one per cent of the world’s Internet users. · The typical Internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, with a university education and high income, urban based and English speaking—a member of a very elite minority. · A computer costs the average Bangladeshi more than eight years’ income, compared with one month’s wage for the average American. · The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined income of 41% of the world's people. A yearly contribution of 1% of their wealth or $ 8 billion could provide universal access to primary education for all. · Among 159 countries with available data, 50 had negative average annual growth in GNP per capita in 1990-98, and only four Sub-Saharan countries had minimum rate for doubling incomes in generation. < SOURCE: UNDP Human Development Report 1999 and 2000> Regards, Zubair Faisal Abbasi. CEO/Project Director, ePoor.org Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor, Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan. Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274 ++++++++ Pro-Poor means enhancing capacity of the POOR to perform PRO i.e., 'Poverty reduction', 'Remoteness reduction' and 'Opportunity generation'. From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 10:40:03 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:40:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification and social control Message-ID: Some comments on the discussion on identification obsessions of the state and the creation of a new model of social enforcements. A DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) Crime advises the public on security systems - "Everyone must go in for such systems. These are an effective way to check crime. At all our meetings with the RWAs (Residents Wefare Associations) we keep telling people to install security systems. But these kind of systems have been installed only in modern societies like the ones in IP Extensions and other new colonies. In older colonies like Chandi Chowk, people don't have this sense." (HT East Delhi Live, Friday, June 15, 2001, p1). The security system technologies that are being advised and of which the `modern` housing groups are very aware of are video door phones, close circuit televisions, intrusion detection systems like sensors, magnetic contacts, motion detectors etc and signalling devices like sirens, hooters, strobe lights, and auto dialers. This will add to the already present security guards and entry/ exit registers. But strangely the incidence of crime in these areas and the perception of threat do not match. If you talk to residents of these so called modern societies you will record very little actual incidence of crime (murder, robberies, theft, cheating etc) but an amazingly ornate and enlarged perception of threat from the `class` other. And the activists of the RWAs are very vocal and pro-active in implementing technological monitoring mechanisms. These same associations are amazingly slothy and sloppy when dealing with issues of garbage collection and dumping, or road safety in the neighborhoods, etc. My fear is that these micro-`welfare` associations, associations of residents and shopkeepers in localities may just lap up the new technological order of the identification systems that are emerging. What you may get is a very de-centralised franchised chain which connects a software company - a local franchise - local associations and the local police station. I think I am not being paranoid, it will simply come and replace the present security system that we are all accustomed to. This form of social control through social networks and consensus is going to be the new mode of control within our society. Well lets say at least large parts of the urban spaces for sure. Let me end with a story of a park. This is a very large and well maintained park shared by many societies. But the residents do not go to the park after sunset, as apparently `bad` people from the `other` neighborhoods appears at night. No great crime has been reported from the park but dark rumors about dark people abound. Perhpaps one day RWAs will get active and will go to re-capture the night at the park, and their weapons probably will be a security picket armed with ID scanner! The deep urban politics of legal and illegal, licensed and non-licensed, resident or non-resident, are creating cognitive frameworks that arrive at consensus around mechanisms of social control and discrimination, and they are searching for efficient enforcement... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010618/4ae82f4a/attachment.html From monica at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 10:45:17 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:45:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] new police amendments Message-ID: New amendments are being proposed to the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code). - The change will be that a recorded statement in police custody is to be taken as evidence in the courts. This is to amend present status where the prosecution has to get the witness to record a statement inside the court in order to get it submitted as evidence. This implies that any statement that has been made in a police station is now enough to nail you. - These changes are coming in supposedly because law-makers are worried at the farcical judicial drama that has unfolded in some very high profile cases involving the rich and the powerful of the land. It is very clear within a vast public-field that cases can be twisted and turned in any direction if you have the power of wealth or influence. What has come to the public imaginary is that it is impossible for any one to get a fair trail if you are pitted against the rich and powerful. - So the law-makers act and give unprecedented power to police officers. The recorded statement in a police station and police custody will become unchallengeable evidence in court. This amendment will completely alter the power of the police vis-a-vis any detention. The police creates the suspects, it records the statements (the condition under which this statement is derived will always remain hidden), and then goes to the courts to get a trial with this evidence. I think this kind of amendment did make its appearance a few years back in the name of curbing terrorism, but got hooted out. But now it has appeared camouflaged anew in the form of protecting civil society from the terror of the rich and powerful. Just amazing. What is even more amazing is that these kind of amendments can be thought of and that there is very little evaluation of the implications of the amendments. How far are we from becoming a police state? And are we all giving consent to these processes? -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 12:52:31 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 12:52:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Electronic disturbances and virtual sit ins Message-ID: The discussion on electronic disturbances and protest evokes a comparison with protest forms like demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, etc. - I would like to draw attention to another form of protest that was worked out by the transport workers in South Korea sometime back. (I think the Mumbai transport workers also tried this form of protest some three to four years back.) These workers had to address the immediate problem of the effect to ordinary commuters if they stop work. And also, this makes them very vulnerable to sharp orchestrated press propaganda and they tend to loose public sympathy and thus solidarity. What they did as a counter measure, was to start running the transport carriages and refused to charge fares. The argument was very simple, we are with the commuters and against the management, so our protest form should be able to articulate this basic fact. Non-charging of fares creates many possibility of thoughts and dialogue and does have a completely different effect than the traditional form of work stoppage. It will be interesting to see how to think of forms of protest that think differently about the constituency that they are addressing and being in an increasingly networked society with a large dimension of our work being online, this will be a critical debate. - Another fact that can be looked at when we are working out the virtual space of a protest is the investment and legal architecture of a corporation or a firm. These gigantic entities are intricately enmeshed within a very complex network of financial institutions, pension funds, mutual funds, investment companies, insurance companies, trading companies, saving schemes, and various taxation protections and benefits. A virtual protest can work out parallel multi-nodal dispersed forms that can create a different kind of pressure on this extended network of interests and compress on the `implicit contract/ consensus` of economic activity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010618/206ba881/attachment.html From sam at media.com.au Mon Jun 18 13:13:04 2001 From: sam at media.com.au (s|a|m) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 17:43:04 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Surveillance Reader In-Reply-To: <200106180429.GAA11170@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20010618174158.03617a30@hutch.com.au> Hey Sarai Reader Peoples, I am exploring the idea of putting together a surveillance reader - current name - Meshed Up ... Is anyone interested in collaborating over there at Sarai? See ya, Sam. From rishab at dxm.org Mon Jun 18 15:15:45 2001 From: rishab at dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:15:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [CI] echelon etc: lambda 702 + Eurocops Enfopol group Message-ID: <200106180945.PAA01425@mail.linux-delhi.org> Delivered-To: lambda-en-outgoing at freenix.org Delivered-To: lambda-en at freenix.org X-Sender: thorel at mail.imaginet.fr Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 16:18:17 +0200 To: lambda-en at freenix.org From: Jerome T Subject: lambda 702 + Eurocops Enfopol group Sender: owner-lambda-en at freenix.org X-Rcpt-To: rishab at dxm.org =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D lambda 7.03 June, 2001 Jerome Thorel, Paris http://lambda.eu.org/7xx/703-e.html =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D to unsubscribe: send a blank subject message to: majordomo at freenix.fr - = with the following command: unsubscribe lambda-en Contents: + Short-circuits: Supreme Court case and Carnivore; Bug hunters unveil = special weapon + Euro cops challenge privacy guidelines, forbid anonymous access to = advanced networks - strong lobbying from the US + Echelon spotted by European Parliament - US trade policy link-up with = intelligence services ++++++++++++++ Short-circuits ++++++++++++++ De-(web)bug your PC ------------------- This month the Privacy Foundation unveiled a new software to keep an eye = and eliminate "spyware" and "webbugs" that send private data to unwanted = sources (works only for a Windows PC and an IE-5.0 browser) http://www.bugnosis.org/ Supreme Court Rules on Thermal Imaging Case Carnivore email collection system under attack. ----------------- (From EPIC newsletter, June 15, 2001. ) In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Scalia, the U.S. Supreme Court held i= n = Kyllo v. United States that the warrantless use of a thermal imaging = device to detect heat emanating from a person's residence constituted an = illegal search under the Fourth Amendment. In 1992, Danny Lee Kyllo was arrested after Oregon police searched his = home and found more than 100 marijuana plants growing inside. The search = warrant was obtained after the police scanned the roofs and walls of = Kyllo's home with a thermal imager to detect the infrared rays radiating = from the halide lamps typically used to grow marijuana. Kyllo pleaded = guilty to the charges, conditioned on his ability to challenge the = constitutionality of the search. Although the District Court and Ninth = Circuit rejected his Fourth Amendment claim, the Supreme Court reversed, = stating that "[w]here, as here, the government uses a device that is not = in general public use, to explore details of the home that would = previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the = surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a = warrant." (...) On June 14, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) sent a letter to = Attorney General John Ashcroft drawing a parallel between the Supreme = Court's majority opinion in Kyllo v. United States and the FBI's = controversial continued use of the Carnivore Internet surveillance = system. In the letter, Rep. Armey asks whether, similar to thermal = imaging, Carnivore "undermines the minimum expectation that individuals = have that their personal electronic communications will not be examined b= y = law enforcement devices unless a specific court warrant has been issued."= + Kyllo v. United States, No. 99-8508: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/99-8508.pdf + June 14 Letter from House Majority Leader Armey to Attorney General = Ashcroft regarding Carnivore (DCS-1000): http://www.freedom.gov/library/technology/ashcroftletter.asp + "Armey to Press Opposition to Net Wiretaps", By JOHN SCHWARTZ, The New = York Times: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20010615/tc/armey_to_press_opposition_to= _net_wiretaps_1.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + ENFOPOL CHALLENGES EU PRIVACY GUIDELINES + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - Foreword - " Evidence obtained with the aid of Internet traffic data " The following example shows how traffic data can be used in an = investigation into a classic crime. A woman had been found dead in the = basement of her house. In her computer, numerous e-mails and some = information on newsgroups were found. The content of these messages guide= d = the police towards a person whom it was possible to identify thanks to th= e = traffic data on the messages. However, no formal evidence made it possibl= e = to link the man to the crime. During a search at the man's home, = investigators found other messages that appeared in the victim's computer= =2E = They also discovered some texts in the attacker's computer that showed ho= w = the crime had been premeditated. The man was sentenced to death. (...)" From "ENFOPOL 71, ECO 316, REV 1 LIMITE - COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION = Brussels, 27 November 2000" http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/apr/12855.1.00.htm Paris, June 15, 2001. -- This curious apology for the death penalty = appeared in a restricted "ENFOPOL" document from the Council of the = European Union, published on May 16 by the British civil rights group = Statewatch. This so-called "Enfopol" group is the Police Cooperation = Working Party, formed by police experts of every member. To prevent = cybercrime they want to oblige operators of "advanced networks" (IP, GSM,= = GPRS, UMTS...) to keep regular reports of traffic logs in order to = identify users prior to any investigation. While Britain was said to ask for a period of 7 years of storage, the = majority claim now 12 months could be enough, while privacy officials = favor 3 months, not more. The ENFOPOL requirements were supposed to be cleared by EU Justice and = Home Affairs ministers during their May 28 and 29 meeting in Brussels. Bu= t = they dropped the case --for now. Too hot to handle? Or bad timing? At the same time, European policy maker= s = were busy to condemn privacy threats by the US-led Echelon spying network= : = on May 18 the European Parliament's Temporary Committee published a draft= = report after 11 months of investigation (see details below), in which = Britain and Germany were officially criticized for breaching European law= s = on privacy. US lobbying (again) =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D The abstract quoted above ("Evidence obtained with the aid of Internet = traffic data"), in which ENFOPOL experts promoted death penalty as a = legitimate way to conclude a 'modern' criminal investigation. EU may have= = been too much inspired by a well known North American State, because ever= y = EU's 15 members have banned death penalty from their Criminal Code. It's an excellent reminder that ENFOPOL meetings have emerged after the U= S = FBI's efforts to lobby OECD and G8 States on telecom surveillance, inside= = the ILETS informal group (International Law Enforcement Telecommunication= s = Seminar) founded secretly in early 1990's. Statewatch was the first = organisation to report about behind-the-scene influence of FBI in a 1995 = resolution passed by the European Council ("lawful acces to advanced = networks communications"). Statewatch revealed last month that the last ILETS' meeting, held in = November 1999 (Saint Cyr au Mont d'Or, near Lyon, France), concluded that= : "All delegations (had to) consider options for improving the retention of= = data by Communications Service Providers". ILETS urges EU countries to modify Directive 97/66 on personal data and = privacy in the telecommunications sector "which orders the operators to erase or to make anonymous historic data= = upon the termination of a call" http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/may/03Denfopol.htm Anonymity paranoia =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D This 1997 Directive (thanks to ILETS intervention?) is under review for = modification. A draft version (Directive concerning the processing of = personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic = communications sector) was proposed by the Brussels' European Commission,= = dated 12 July 2000. But ENFOPOL experts were still angry about it. "ENFOPOL 71" paper (Nov. 27 2000), states: "Various delegations (B/D/F/NL/S/UK) expressed misgivings about the = implications of the Directive, in particular Article 6, where it is state= d = that "traffic data relating to subscribers and users processed for the = purpose of the transmission of a communication and stored by the provider= = of a public communications network or service must be erased or made = anonymous upon completion of the transmission." The last ENFOPOL requirements are resumed in the "ENFOPOL 29" paper (Marc= h = 30, 2001). They are seeking: i) to stop the deletion of telecommunications data which is required unde= r = the law as laid down in the EC Directives on data protection and privacy;= ii) to stop users having anonymity in their communications (attack on = cybercafes); iii) to ensure that the law enforcement and security agencies have access= = to the retained/archived data; iv) to ensure that data is retained, in the first instance, for at least = 12 months - once the EC Directives are breached they can argue for seven = years, ten years or more later. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/may/03Genfolpol.htm Further arguments : "Each operator is generally required to delete the traffic data or render= = them inaccessible at the end of each call (or at the latest when the time= = required for their commercial processing has elapsed). ... The issue of = storing connection data therefore seems crucial. ... "At present the issue of the storage of connection data and the length of= = that storage is clearly the weak link in the fight against cyber-crime. A= s = witness, few countries have a legal requirement concerning the length of = time connection data must be kept." Public internet caf=E9s are considered as a new threat: "It is also imperative that a solution be found to the problems raised by= = the various forms of anonymity on the World Wide Web, the most significan= t = example being cybercaf=E9s, which have been the source of a number of cas= es = of fraud." A consensus seems to favor a "minimum of 12 months" of storage, as Belgiu= m = has already put it in its new cybercrime law (enacted in February 2001). = The proposed law in France (LSI or Loi sur la soci=E9t=E9 de l'informatio= n) = puts 12 month also as a "minimum" delay target, so as may decide Spain in= = its draft LSSI law, reports said. The Nederlands are more pragmatic, = requesting just a 3 months delay. Statewatch reports that Britain is still pushing its own ranks to raise = the period to 7 years (yes, seven!). But Britain, Statewatch argues, won'= t = pass any law for that, it may prefer to adopt "informal agreements" with = telecom and internet operators. Data retention cacophony =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Meanwhile, the Council of Europe (not a EU's body), a 43-countries = consultative assembly based in Strasbourg, France has been working since = the end of 1999 on a "Draft Convention On Cyber-Crime". The COE has = released its version-27 of the convention on May 25, 2001. This draft wil= l = be submitted to the COE's Committee on Crime Problems in a plenary sessio= n = (18 - 22 June 2001), and then will be passed to COE's members' government= s = for final adoption and ratification. The draft convention was also prepared by non-COE members, i.e. the USA, = Canada, Japan, South Africa, and others. The article 16 regarding "Expedited preservation of stored computer data"= = states that countries must adopt laws: "to order or similarly obtain the expeditious preservation of specified = computer data, including traffic data, (and) to preserve and maintain the= = integrity of that computer data for a period of time as long as necessary= , = up to a maximum of 90 days, to enable the competent authorities to seek = its disclosure." Privacy officials are upset =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D The problem is: the EU's 15 privacy experts strongly disagree all these = requirements. A working group of the Commission ('Article 29' or Data = Protection Working Party), made up by each country's Data Commissioners, = published its "Opinion on the Council of Europe's Draft Convention on = Cyber-crime" (March 22 2001). They said it will be disproportionate to = impose "general surveillance obligation consisting in the routine = retention of all traffic data". Abstracts of their opinion (made on the v.25 of the Convention): "The EU Data Protection Commissioners at their Spring 2000 Conference in = Stockholm ... adopted a resolution expressing that they "note with concer= n = proposals that ISPs should routinely retain traffic data beyond the = requirements of billing purposes in order to permit access by law = enforcement bodies. ... Such retention would be an improper invasion of = the fundamental rights guaranteed to individuals by Article 8 of the = European Convention on Human Rights. Where traffic data are to be retaine= d = in specific cases, there must be a demonstrable need, the period of = retention must be as short as possible and the practice must be clearly = regulated by law." (...) Nevertheless, the provisions in the draft Convention concerning traffic = data raise serious concerns: Articles 29 and 30 on expedited preservation= = and disclosure of traffic and other data do not provide for the = possibility for the requested party to refuse such assistance for data = protection reasons, but only for the general grounds (such as "ordre = public", sovereignty, security or other essential interests.) (...) Conclusions (...) The Working Party therefore sees a need for clarification of the text = because their wording is often too vague and confusing and may not qualif= y = as a sufficient basis for relevant laws and mandatory measures that are = intended to lawfully limit fundamental rights and freedoms. (...) The Working Party sees a need to improve the justification of the measure= s = envisaged in terms of necessity, appropriateness and proportionality as = required by the Human Rights and Data Protection instruments (...). http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/ en/media/dataprot/wpdocs/wp41e= n.htm In France (CNIL - Commission informatique et libert=E9s) and the UK (IC -= = Information Commissioner) they consider that 90 days of "connection data"= = is the maximum our democratic countries could handle. On June 13th, the = French governement approved the draft LSI law (Parliament may debate the = case in early 2002) but did not changed the 12 months target. Sources close to the French Industry minister, who was the main sponsor o= f = the law, said "security officials" fiercely opposed to follow the CNIL's = advice (3 months). From traffic to content data =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= The law, however, said that the "connexion logs" concerned by the = retention proposals "would not permit to give access to the content of = private messages and would not enable to have a list of consulted materia= l = to list consulted information". The lambda has learned that EU Data Commissioners have classified these = data in 4 categories (from less to more intrusive): 1) connection data namely designed to identify a single user (i.e., IP = address) or login account when connected to any fixed or mobile network; = Data Commissioners requirements >> 1 to 3 months of records prior to = official investigations, but under special circumstances 2) protocols data, designed to learn what king of networked protocols or = channels have been used online (chat rooms, web, IRC or instant messaging= ) = by a single account; >>no records justified prior to official investigations 3) traffic data aimed at identifying the user's "friends list", (i.e., = 'who speaks/writes to whom', "from"/"to" contacts list, caller/called = numbers for phone systems); >>no records justified prior to official investigations 4) content data designed to intercept private correspondence and discussi= ons; >>any records made prior to official investigations would constitute an "illegal interception" and thus would breach human = rights basic principles (ECHR). Lambda comments =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D - The search for logs could not be considered as the simple prolongation = of physical fingerprints (even if both are designed to identify somebody)= =2E - The requirements to scan, record and preserve these so-called "traffic = data" could be even more intrusive than mere fingerprints. For example, = traffic data such as "who speaks to whom", related to a user's web surfin= g = habits, forums' used, etc., are potentially a more intrusive arm than any= = investigation methods used nowadays. - The confusion between "log", "traffic", and "protocols" data is an idea= l = pretext for governments to extend their investigative powers on "advanced= = networks". - The next step would be to require, prior to any official investigation,= = the same kind of routine storage obligation for "content data" -- just as= = the British government is about to consider. - It has been proven in the US with the FBI's "Carnivore" system = (real-time collection of emails): it's impossible to discriminate exactly= = between "content" and "traffic" data when only the later is authorized by= = a judge. - Telephone wiretapping has been accepted (it's a fact) in democratic = countries as a legitimate way for the police not to be surpassed by = 'modern crime'. - But "content data" of any electronic communications do have a more = intrusive impact than phone conversations. Computer files and pictures = that would reveal private writings and thinkings could not be intercepted= = by telephone. Electronic medium consist of a much more choice of forms of= = expression than a mere phone discussion over a phone. - To preserve the basic principle of a democratic legal system = (presumption of innocence), an electronic wiretap court order may be more= = restrictive than a simple wiretap warrant. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ECHELON SPOTTED (BUT NOT UNPLUGGED) BY EURO PARLIAMENT ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Temporary Committee on the ECHELON interception system, a 36-member = semi-investigative group of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, decide= d = to publish its Draft report on May 18 -- after some leaks of an older = version was unveiled by the Federation of American Scientists. Later Duncan Campbell and the German online magazine Telepolis revealed = other papers that give further evidence of economic spying on European = firms. The Department of Commerce's Advocacy Center, helped by = intelligence services, seems to have played a key role. As Campbell = reports, "From 1992 to date Europe is likely to have sustained significan= t = employment and financial loss as a result of the U.S. government policy o= f = "leveling the playing field", introduced in 1991." The EP report is still a draft. The May 18th version contains some = comments about the delegation the Echelon Committee sent to Washington, = DC, May 8-10. The delegation had to cut short their visit because of = refusal from NSA, CIA, State Department and DOC Advocacy Center officials= = to meet European MPs. There had meetings with DOJ officials, Congress' = select committee on intelligence activities, with no news answers - asked= = if Echelon did exist, MPs were given a copy of the American Constitution.= =2E. The draft report will be finalized and approved on 20/21 June 2001, and = later, with a draft resolution, will be debated by the European Parliamen= t = on 3 September 2001. EP REPORT + HTML version - emphasis added by Cryptome to look for comments that wer= e = added afetr the Washington visit. http://cryptome.org/echelon-ep.htm + Pdf version from the EP web site http://www.europarl.eu.int/tempcom/echelon/pdf/prechelon_en.pdf Duncan Campbell 2001 report + Interception Capabilities - Impact and Exploitation (IC-IE2001), which = were presented on 22/23 January 2001 before the Committee: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/ech/7753/1.html + COMINT impact on international trade It sets out, with detailed sources, the case that from 1992 to date Europ= e = is likely to have sustained significant employment and financial loss as = a = result of the U.S. government policy of "levelling the playing field", = introduced in 1991. http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/ech/7752/1.html + U.S. trade "Success stories" affecting Europe - financial and = geographical analysis - a table with contracts, countries defeated, etc: http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/ech/7796/1.html + COMINT, privacy and human rights This paper reveals that Britain undertakes to protect the rights of = Americans, Canadians and Australians against interception that would not = comply with their own domestic law, while offering no protection of any = kind to other Europeans. This and other background papers provided to the= = Echelon committee have prompted them to observe that "possible threats to= = privacy and to businesses posed by a system of the ECHELON type arise not= = only from the fact that is a particularly powerful monitoring system, but= = also that it operates in a largely legislation-free area." = http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/ech/7748/1.html lambda / arQuemuse J. Thorel - June 2001 lambda.eu.org +++ to unsubscribe: send a blank subject message to: majordomo at freenix.fr - = with the following command: unsubscribe lambda-en _______________________________________________ Cypherpunks-India mailing list http://lists.vipul.net/mailman/listinfo/cpunks-india From kantibit at yahoo.com Mon Jun 18 15:16:56 2001 From: kantibit at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kanti=20Bit?=) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:46:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Somebody's Watching Me Message-ID: <20010618094656.90354.qmail@web9203.mail.yahoo.com> Dear All, The June 4 issue of TIME magazine focusses on interactive technologies and how they are affecting our lives. Following is one of the interesting articles. Read it online at: Somebody's Watching Me My inner stalker loves GPS. My inner Shaggy's a little paranoid. Maybe those satellites should stick to tracking missiles By MAUREEN TKACIK A few years ago I didn't turn in my keys to the company car at the end of the week, and I and one very dreamy grad student hijacked it to New York. A few weeks ago I spent the whole night at the office, most of it surfing the Internet, some of it sleeping under my cubicle, a very small chunk of it reporting this story. A few times in high school I told my mom I was going to the movies when, in fact, I was going to very large keg parties that were customarily very lacking in adult supervision. And in a few days I am flying to Italy for a weekend, which is something else I didn't want my mom to know because she'd think I was being sooooo impractical. Which I am. I'm not telling you all this because I'm compulsively confessional, which I also am, being female and American and Oprah-watching, but that's another story. I'm telling you this to give you some examples of the sins of omission I have committed that, in a year or so, I will no longer be able to commit (or omit) because my mobile phone, by law, will give me away. A teensy chip in a tiny chipset somewhere in the inner workings of my cell-phone handset will alert some 27 satellites, known as the global positioning system (originally launched by and for the U.S. military to keep track of missiles and stuff), of my whereabouts. Enough of those satellites will beam back my location to my carrier that it will have a pretty good idea (within a dozen or so meters) where I am and it will, depending upon my preferences, be empowered to pass that information on to my employers, my buds, my loved ones. This makes me paranoid. This I have in common with Shaggy. For those of you who might have missed it, Shaggy is the quadruple-platinum-selling Ricky Martin of reggae. He is also a technological prophet, as those who have seen the music video to his obscenely catchy single, It Wasn't Me, would know. The song is about a wannabe playa whose lady catches him, ahem, hangin' with the girl next door. Its name comes from the oaf's absurd, shameless alibi, and to hear the lyrics, you'd think this lady was just another Oprah-watching female American victim. But on screen, she's craftier than Lara Croft. She spies on her beau, narrow-eyed, everywhere he goes, using a little handheld device that looks suspiciously like the latest Nokia handset. He can't hide. He definitely can't escape. Big Sistah is watching. And Big Sistah's got a GPS receiver. It's an empowering concept, sure. But it's also a little, uh, freaky. Remember, I think to myself, that guy in 10th grade? With the sloppy long hair and regulation Oxford and those very, very piercing eyes? Remember his schedule, how you nervously ambled into the front office and flipped through the binder and memorized it so you could secretly coordinate that vital hall time? Remember wondering where he drove in that beat-up Volkswagen after soccer practice? Before he went home to West Springfield, zip code 22310? Technology changes, but not people. I didn't have a cell phone then; neither did Kevin; neither did anyone. But what if ... But back to reality. The reality, in 2001, is that my high-school freshman sister has a cell phone and that I occasionally plug Kevin's name into a Google search field. And that cell phone carriers in the U.S. are scrambling to meet the fall deadline to start rolling out location-pinpointing services that, by law, will have to be reliable enough to track all their cell-phone subscribers at least 66% of the time. The only people who will have die-hard access to this information are the folks who answer emergency calls to 911. They're the folks who lobbied for the GPS regulation, known as E-911, in the first place because they were getting countless mobile cries for help that they couldn't track down. But others can pinpoint you, too, though they'll need to pay a fee and have some kind of permission. I may be paranoid, but the reality also is, I will give them all permission. Gladly. I'll let my boyfriend program his phone to ring whenever we're in the same part of town. I'll let my parents and my "buddy list" follow my tracks. I'll even let Starbucks in on my whereabouts if it means the occasional m-commerce cappuccino coupon for the disclosure. Heck, this is useful stuff, this location-pinpointing technology. A GPS-aided map could have saved me hours in that company car I drove so cluelessly around town when I was using it for work (before I hijacked it). GPS is already helping thousands of Japanese keep track of elderly parents, wayward toddlers and straying pets. Next year-who knows?—it could help an awkward, well-meaning member of Generation Y more satisfactorily establish whether that brooding soccer-playing kid really is her soul mate. Freaky. From ravis at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 15:29:20 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:59:20 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] on identification and social control Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010618145920.007a8180@mail.sarai.net> Jeebesh's post on the new processes of (electronic) identification in some middle-class housing societies is a pointer on how these cultures actually spread and legitimate themselves. The panics around crime and criminality have emerged as a major theme in the popular press in the recent years, despite the fact that voilent crime is relatively low in India as compared the West or other parts of the 'Third World'. Discourses on crime go hand in hand with a new restructing of urban life. Surveillence systems of the kind we are talking about(television monitors etc)are pretty common in the West, and in Brazil and South Africa, only recently do we see them being introduced in India in the scale that Jeebesh mentions. Comparisons are useful. Teresa Caldiera in her recent book on Sao Paulo (City of Walls, UC Press, 2001) argues that the new gated neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo emerged as a response to the crisis of the inner city and major discourses on crime, fear, and the loss of control. These communities are almost completely self-sufficient living units, with shops, inner spaces of leisure. These are secure spaces of consumption, where constant policing by private security is the rule.Electronic surveillance is high with all visitors, who include a daily work-force which commutes. This is a scenario not widely seen in India (where slums co-exist with middle-class buildings) but emerging in 'developer' parts of the city like DLF-South Delhi and parts of Bombay. The delegitimation of the 'old' city (Chandni Chowk) by the Deputy Commisioner of Police in Delhi in Jeebesh's posting bears comparison to the attacks on the inner-city in Sao Paulo. From ravis at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 15:22:57 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:52:57 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] The next dot-com crash- bandwidth Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010618145257.007b0630@mail.sarai.net> The one of the issues of the Economic Times in Delhi last week carried stories about the crisis of bandwidth companies in India. In the last year, a number of companies have been feverishly laying fibre all over India; Reliance, Bharti, , Dishnet, Zeenet, Spectranet...the last three have been active in Delhi. Today a score of smaller players have fallen by the wayside, and there is a glut in the market. Very little of this has actually made a difference on the ground, where bandwith remains limited. Fibre is important to large media companies in India to ensure proprietory control over content, and to set in motion a pay system for cable televsion. In the recent past Star, zee and sony have introduced set-top boxes, and scrambled signals, leading to sharp conflicts with grey-market operators.......Till this day cable TV in India was the best deal on earth, with costs remaining very low for the customer....There are also a number of 'local' channels, run by the neighbourhood operator. With a proprietory regime things will change, for the worse -------------------------- June 18, 2001 Once-Bright Future of Optical Fiber Dims By SIMON ROMERO (New Yrok Times) n the last two years, 100 million miles of optical fiber — more than enough to reach the sun — were laid around the world as companies spent $35 billion to build Internet-inspired communications networks. But after a string of corporate bankruptcies, fears are spreading that it will be many years before these grandiose systems are ever fully used. There is a glut of capacity of high- speed, long-haul information pipelines, but a shortage of the high- speed, local-access connections that consumers and businesses need to gain access to the Web. It is as if superhighways stand nearly empty while traffic backs up at the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Few people have fast Internet connections, and prices are rising for those who do. Computer users with common dial-up Internet connections find their Web browsers stalled, and people trying to make regular phone calls complain increasingly of busy signals. Meanwhile, investment in the communications industry, especially in fiber optic networks, has sharply declined, leaving companies with fiber that may never be "lit," as commercially available wire is called. Only 5 percent of fiber in the ground is on, and lighting fiber can cost large corporate clients about $500 million and 15 months, according to Salomon Smith Barney. "There may be a significant amount of dark fiber in the ground, but it takes a lot more money to light fiber than to lay it and even more to deliver it to the end user," Howard E. Janzen, head of Williams Communications, said in a recent interview. "The challenges will force the flakes to drop out." The industry bubble has had an impact on the rest of the economy, too. Billions invested in telecommunications companies now appear to have been wasted. The drying up of capital investment is one reason that the economy has slowed sharply, and some economists argue that while the Federal Reserve's efforts to lower interest rates will stimulate some parts of the economy, it may be years before growth returns to the areas that were so hot only a year ago. The pain is spreading to many companies, their investors, their creditors and their workers. On Friday, Nortel Networks of Canada said it would lose an astonishing $19 billion this quarter because its phone equipment sales were falling. And 360networks, also of Canada, failed to make an interest payment on Friday, raising concern that the developer of a huge fiber optic network could seek bankruptcy protection or default on its debt. The buildup of networks was expected to usher in a prosperous era of vast new commercial applications for the Internet, fed by soaring supplies of bandwidth, the range of frequencies used to transmit communications signals. Some entrepreneurs were so optimistic that they suggested sending high-altitude aircraft to circle above big cities, beaming signals down to consumers. Today, only about 10 percent of American homes have high- speed access to the Internet, through conventional cable networks and digital subscriber lines. In Europe, anxieties run high for different reasons. Companies spent large sums there to acquire licenses to provide advanced wireless services. Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom and other companies are now seeking to renegotiate their agreements to pay $125 billion for these licenses. To reduce overwhelming debts, some companies are trying to sell assets and agreeing to share some network costs. Back in the United States, the stakes are perhaps highest for the companies that built transcontinental and transoceanic fiber optic networks capable of carrying huge amounts of voice and data traffic. The problems are similar to those in the railroad industry after the Civil War, when an economic boom fueled speculation by financiers. "In the railroad age, speculators built rail lines but often left it up to the locals in town to build the roads to each station," said Brian Kinard, a venture capitalist in San Francisco who focuses on communications companies. "Today, it's the responsibility of the capital markets to fund construction of all parts of the network. And suddenly, it's not clear whether investors will continue to do so." By the early 1870's an abundance of cheap financing, rather than business fundamentals, led to a doubling of railroad mileage from the previous decade. Then, in 1873, the collapse of the Northern Pacific Railroad ruined its principal owner, the Philadelphia banking firm Jay Cooke & Company, leading to a market crash. In the following years, two-fifths of railroad bonds went into default, and railroad miles built fell by 80 percent. It was not until the end of the 1870's that investment began to resurface. Still, railroads, the leading technology of their day, were never again seen in the same light. Similar clouds may be gathering over the telecommunications industry. So far this year, companies have defaulted on $13.9 billion of telecommunications bonds, resulting in investor losses of $12.8 billion, according to Fitch IBCA Duff & Phelps, a debt-rating company. For all of last year, investor losses amounted to $5.2 billion on such bonds. Companies as large and influential as GE Capital, the financial arm of General Electric, are said to be exposed to substantial losses by their roles in the financing of telecom and related companies. And investors in the companies' stocks have seen their value plunge. In the 1980's companies began laying fiber optic cable, sometimes alongside rail lines. But the value of the long-haul networks, or backbone, over which Internet data could travel soared in 1996 when WorldCom acquired MFS Communications, a fiber optic network, for $14 billion. Newcomers were also emboldened by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which helped to deregulate the communications industry. The stage was set for a company called Global Crossing. The brainchild of Gary Winnick, a banker and former successful Wall Street sales executive under the tutelage of Michael R. Milken, Global Crossing was formed in Beverly Hills in 1997 with the goal of building a fiber optic network linking the Americas with Asia and Europe. After Mr. Winnick, without much strenuous effort, secured $750 million and laid a fiber optic cable across the Atlantic Ocean, Global Crossing went public. The company's shares soon hit a high of $73.375, valuing Global Crossing at nearly $30 billion. That was many times what its network had cost, and encouraged similar ventures, like 360networks and Level 3 Communications. (Global Crossing shares closed at $8.66 on Friday.) Financiers feverishly raced to provide the post-cold war economy with communications capacity, much the same way financiers backed railroads seeking to increase transportation after the Civil War. New competitors joined the fray. Cincinnati Bell, a local phone company, acquired a fiber optic network operator and was reborn as Broad wing. The Williams Companies, a Tulsa, Okla.-based gas-pipeline operator, formed Williams Communications, which built a national fiber optic network partly by laying fiber along its parent company's pipelines. "Build it and they will come," became the mantra of billionaire fiber barons. Venture capitalists began financing companies with plans to deliver data quickly to computer users in other ways, like using satellites and even high-altitude aircraft. The optimism peaked last July when JDS Uniphase, a little-known Canadian maker of laser filters used to light fiber, announced a plan to acquire SDL, a little-known competitor, for stock then worth $41 billion and now valued less than $6 billion. It was the biggest merger in the history of the technology industry. Then concern began to build about market valuations. At about the same time, technology ventures began to have trouble securing financing. The share prices of many communications companies plunged. The swelling supply of fiber led to a decline in prices of bandwidth, which is increasingly traded like barrels of oil or pork bellies. Prices could fall 60 percent this year, on top of similar declines last year, according to estimates by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. The IDT Corporation, an international phone company based in New Jersey, says a 10-year contract for a phone line that can carry nearly 600 conversations has fallen to $1.8 million, from $12 million in 1999. Competition has led to even steeper declines for lines that can carry four times as much traffic. Carriers say that any glut is temporary, and that measurements of supply should not include dark fiber. Moreover, Internet use and the demand for bandwidth continue to climb. While carriers bet on a recovery in bandwidth prices, problems have arisen in other parts of the communications industry. One-time titans in communications equipment, like Lucent Technologies and Nortel, have reported giant losses as sales have declined. Some of the credit extended by these companies to clients to buy equipment is at risk of default, making it riskier for banks to lend money to even the biggest equipment companies. More than 100,000 jobs have been eliminated from the communications industry since last year. NorthPoint Communications, a provider of fast Internet access, shut down in March, leaving more than 100,000 customers scrambling to find new service. Several similar but smaller high-speed Internet companies have also closed. Others are teetering. The ranks of bankrupt telecommunications companies include Winstar, whose corporate trophy, a 200- foot blimp that still flies above New York, seems little more than an eerie relic of the late 20th-century telecommunications boom. Winstar paid for the blimp last year when the outlook for the telecommunications industry was still bright. From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Jun 18 14:46:22 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:46:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Virtual sit ins and electronic disturbances Message-ID: The discussion on electronic disturbances and protest evokes a comparison with protest forms like demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, etc. - I would like to draw attention to another form of protest that was worked out by the transport workers in South Korea sometime back. (I think the Mumbai transport workers also tried this form of protest some three to four years back.) These workers had to address the immediate problem of the effect to ordinary commuters if they stop work. And also, this makes them very vulnerable to sharp orchestrated press propaganda and they tend to loose public sympathy and thus solidarity. What they did as a counter measure, was to start running the transport carriages and refused to charge fares. The argument was very simple, we are with the commuters and against the management, so our protest form should be able to articulate this basic fact. Non-charging of fares creates many possibility of thoughts and dialogue and does have a completely different effect than the traditional form of work stoppage. It will be interesting to see how to think of forms of protest that think differently about the constituency that they are addressing and being in an increasingly networked society with a large dimension of our work being online, this will be a critical debate. - Another fact that can be looked at when we are working out the virtual space of a protest is the investment and legal architecture of a corporation or a firm. These gigantic entities are intricately enmeshed within a very complex network of financial institutions, pension funds, mutual funds, investment companies, insurance companies, trading companies, saving schemes, and various taxation protections and benefits. A virtual protest can work out parallel multi-nodal dispersed forms that can create a different kind of pressure on this extended network of interests and compress on the `implicit contract/ consensus` of economic activity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010618/ccbd265b/attachment.html From kantibit at yahoo.com Mon Jun 18 15:26:28 2001 From: kantibit at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kanti=20Bit?=) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:56:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <20010618095628.28147.qmail@web9208.mail.yahoo.com> Dear All, Here's another interesting article from the June 4 issue of TIME. The good news is some EU nations think they should pass laws restricting use of personal information. The link to this article is: Protecting the Private I Big Brother is watching the Net. Do you know how much he knows about you? Do you care? By ESTHER DYSON Do we need a new privacy to match the new economy? Not long ago, I saw a survey that asked business people questions such as whether it's ethical to listen to employees' phone calls or read their e-mails. But it didn't raise the key issue: Do the emplo-yees know? If your friend Alice tells you something, is it O.K. to tell your other friend, Juan? It all depends on what Alice expects of you. And if there's any doubt, you should ask her. These simple principles are so obvious that it's amazing people forget them when it comes to the Internet. The basic standard still applies: If in doubt, ask. Of course, things are different on the Net. First of all, almost all relationships are between strangers, especially those between merchants and customers. Should a seller have to ask what he can do with the transaction data each time a sale is made? That's a big burden for both parties. Moreover, many merchants would prefer not to delve too deeply into all of this. They would rather just assume that their information-collection methods are O.K. and use the data as they see fit. They argue that everything would be more expensive if they couldn't use marketing information effectively: Internet content would no longer be free. Besides, they add, people know what's going on anyway and really don't mind. While many consumers in fact don't have problems with all of this, some do. Certainly, their preferences vary—so why not ask what they are? That's what computers are meant for: to manage lots of information, including details as to how consumers want their data used. True, many users, if you were to ask them to actively consent to the use of their data, simply wouldn't bother. The process of making an explicit choice is a burden for customers as well as for merchants. What's the solution? To most people a problem is a problem, but to some—especially those building the New Economy (despite its current travails)—a problem is an opportunity. Many companies, from Microsoft to small start-ups, are building tools that allow users to specify their privacy preferences and then communicate automatically with websites using a standard language called P3P. The websites also state their privacy policies in P3P, and then the computers figure out if they match. Some of the systems require you to store your data with the vendor; others let you manage everything yourself. Some of these firms will succeed, some won't. Some are trustworthy, some may not be. And that brings us to the second part of the solution. What should governments be doing? Some, most notably in the European Union, think they should pass laws restricting the use of personal data. Others, like the U.S., restrict the use of medical information but are pretty lax on almost everything else. Still others haven't addressed the issue. (And all are hampered by the fact that their citizens use websites outside their own country and beyond their own government's control.) Although some oversight is helpful, especially for medical or government-mandated information, I think this basic approach is wrong. Let's go back to the first principle: people have different preferences and sensitivities about the use of their personal information. Many like free content and well-targeted marketing offers. So why not let the market work? Let websites disclose their practices in an intelligible way and then let consumers choose. But there are some things governments should do. One is to educate people to look for and understand privacy practices. Another is to prosecute any company that does not observe the privacy standard it pledges to uphold. And lastly, companies should be required to disclose their data-handling and security commitments to investors and insurance companies, so they can be factored into financial decisions. Privacy policies are confusing for any consumer. But in a world where attention to consumer desires matter (and where careless use of data can lead to liability and prosecution), an investor or insurer whose job it is to assess a company's long-term prospects has a strong interest in understanding what a company promises and whether it can deliver. Ultimately, consumer opinion does matter to the more committed vendors. You personally have an opportunity to weigh in on this debate, both by your behavior and through direct feedback. Demand data-use information and use it to pick which sites you do business with. And send e-mails to companies whose policies you like or dislike. All those data-tracking tools mean that your opinion will be counted! Esther Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings and author of Release 2.1: A Design for Living in the Digital Age. She invests in I.T. start-ups in the U.S. and Europe, including Russia -------- Kanti Kumar From hugh.trevelyan at mail.com Tue Jun 19 05:01:24 2001 From: hugh.trevelyan at mail.com (hugh trevelyan) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 09:31:24 +1000 Subject: [paper-contrib] Fwd: [Reader-list] Villages Online - ePoor.org from Pakistan References: <4.3.1.0.20010619000405.00aa5100@thepaper.org.au> Message-ID: <3B2E8F4C.AA3AE46@mail.com> I was keen to check this out and pass it on, but it might be a bit premature to be publicising it. Not one of the links on the snazzy- looking website worked. I only got "The page cannot be found". Best I could get were postal addresses & phone numbers for their website design company in Pakistan and the US. I hope we all hear that it was temporary or has been fixed. cheers, hugh trevelyan Editors - The Paper wrote: > > Could make an interesting story - someone want to follow it up? > > >Delivered-To: marni at thepaper.org.au > >X-Authentication-Warning: mail.intra.waag.org: Host [203.135.44.9] claimed > >to be ns1-isb.sdnpk.org > >From: "Zubair Faisal Abbasi" > >To: > >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) > >Importance: Normal > >Subject: [Reader-list] Villages Online -------- ePoor.org from Pakistan > >Sender: reader-list-admin at sarai.net > >X-BeenThere: reader-list at sarai.net > >X-Mailman-Version: 2.0 > >List-Help: > >List-Post: > >List-Subscribe: , > > > >List-Id: A list on the Sarai Reader 01 > >List-Unsubscribe: , > > > >List-Archive: > >Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:37:32 +0500 > > > > > >Greetings from Pakistan and ePoor.org! > > > >ePoor.org a non-profit civil society initiative has developed and working on > >a flagship Programme in Pakistan by the name of Villages Online (VOL). The > >Programme, > >rooted in community development approach, aims at bridging digital divide > >with pro-poor perspective and strives to make IT relevant for the > >socio-economic needs of the poor communities. Attached is a brief outlook of > >the programme and basic facts about IT and Inequality (Annex: 1). > > > >Looking forward to hearing from you for. > > > >Zubair Faisal Abbasi. > >ePoor.org > >IT empowers > > > > Villages Online > > A Programme of ePoor.org > > > >Never-ending poverty, poor opportunities, poor social services, and poor > >governance, are some of the peculiarities that form the overall aura of > >rural life in Pakistan. The VOL (http://epoor.org/vol) initiative of > >ePoor.org, is spearheaded to change the development scene, increase social > >well-being, and expand opportunities of wealth generation by making IT > >relevant to community needs at the village levels. > > > >The Concept: > > > >In order to increase the potentials of socio-economic growth and development > >in the rural areas, there is an urgent need to harness the innovative > >solutions of IT for poverty reduction, better service provision (like health > >care, education, information on rural and urban market situation), and good > >governance. > > > >In other words the concept stresses upon the urgent need of bridging digital > >divide between the rich and poor, between urban and rural, and increasing > >digital opportunities at the village and community levels. > > > >The Key > > > >The key to make IT based solutions effective, efficient, and relevant for > >communities lies in harnessing both the technical and social side of human > >expertise and knowledge. This means creating a synergy between the > >experienced and intelligent social-ware and increasingly capable > >technical-ware developed by IT professionals. The social-ware is available > >in the shape of networks of pro-poor individuals and organizations at the > >village and community levels while the technical-ware is actuated and > >customized in the hi-tech IT parks. Both of these -wares offer innumerable > >opportunities of innovative work and mutual linking. ------ VOL is striving > >to bridge the two sources for greater development effectiveness. > > > >The Philosophy > > > >The philosophy of ePoor.org, in carrying out VOL, is to work on the demand > >side of information, namely by enhancing peoples' capacity to use knowledge > >(through creation of social capital), rather than purely on the supply side > >of the process (of which a good example is the creation of IT training > >schools without attention to creating the demand for such information in > >rural areas). This builds upon the rural community development approach, > >which has focused similarly on the demand side of other interventions. The > >philosophy of ePoor.org is based on the highly successful efforts of > >community development led by such pioneers as Akhter Hameed Khan and Shoaib > >Sultan Khan. These efforts revolve around the creation of social capital to > >enhance the coping and adaptive capacities and strategies of the poor. > > > >The aims of VOL includes: > > > >· Make IT relevant and contributive for socio-economic uplift including > >decision-making support, better services delivery, and improved digital > >reach-out (networking etc.) for participatory development and growth. > > > >. Increase village level capacity to absorb, generate, disseminate, and > >navigate information and knowledge repositories. > > > >Strategies and Deliverables > > > >In the present shape, the process and structure of IT spread in societies is > >giving rise to digital divides at the local and global levels. For example, > >There are more Internet account holders in London than in the whole of > >Africa. About 80% of the world's population has no access to reliable > >telecommunications and about one-third has no access to electricity, > >according to the Panos Institute http://www.oneworld.org/panos/. As a matter > >of fact, IT has innumerable implications in distributing the opportunities > >of wealth generation, resource allocation, and social development. > >Not-so-surprisingly, according to the 1999 Human Development Report issued > >by the United Nations, information technology is actually widening the gap > >between the world's haves and have-nots, not narrowing it. > > > >In Pakistan, the IT Policy, is primarily geared to create an enabling > >environment for IT sector growth and leaves room for pro-poor perspective; > >the link between IT and poverty eradication has to be explored further and > >vigorously perused. This situation gives opportunity to analyze the > >long-term implications of a predominantly urban-centered IT incidence in > >sharpening the digital divide and generating distorted digital opportunities > >between rural and urban areas. > > > >Keeping in mind the above scenario, and the core themes of ePoor.org > >programmes, the Villages Online initiative would like to spearhead the > >following strategies and deliverables so that the wizardry of IT expands > >horizons of opportunities for poor communities: > > > >1- Policy Advice and Advocacy > > > >VOL would actively develop policy advices and advocate the need of pro-poor > >IT solutions, policies, and practices. With emphasis upon local content > >generation in local languages. > > > >2- Partnership Development > > > >With the vision of pooling technical and social resources, VOL would develop > >strategic partnerships with other pro-poor organizations, institutions, and > >individuals and those excelling in the IT sector. This would be designed for > >an effective outreach to the poor groups, networking, resource and knowledge > >sharing so that VOL meaningfully enables the poor communities to benefit > >from the IT route. > > > >In the specific sense, these partnerships would aim at ensuring to deliver: > > > >A - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to IT infrastructure at the > >village levels. > > > >B - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to relevant information > >about services (health, education, sanitation, development schemes, etc.), > >market situation (local, provincial and national for rural produce and human > >resource) and credit availability (government and non-government scheme for > >poverty reduction). > > > >C - Most importantly, ePoor.org sees kiosks and cyber cafés not only as > >passive information consumers but relevant information generators so that > >poor communities really benefit from IT route the route which would be there > >own. > > > >3- Online Information Repositories and CD ROMs > > > >VOL would collect information on poverty profiles, demography, economy, > >history, social services profile (like health care and education), > >governance structures, marketable produce, and development schemes from the > >rural areas including individuals and organizations. Then it would digitize, > >create online databases, and make it available for navigation through > >websites and CD ROMs. > > > >4- Meta Portal of ePoor.org > > > >VOL will be cyber-linked with other projects of ePoor.org. For example it > >will receive a complementary navigational support from the following: > >· eHealth: Expanding Health Care Services > >· eM at RT: Expanding Market of The Rural and Traditional > > > >ANNEX 1. > > > >B A S I C F A C T S > >· The global online community has grown rapidly --- from about 16 > >million > >Internet users in 1995 to an estimated 304 million users in March 2000. > >· In 1998 more than 26% of all people living in the United States were > >surfing the Internet, compared with 0.8% of all people in Latin America and > >the Caribbean, 0.1% in Su-Saharan Africa and 0.4% in South Asia. > >· South Asia, with 23 per cent of the world’s people, has less than > >one per > >cent of the world’s Internet users. > >· The typical Internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, > >with a > >university education and high income, urban based and English speaking—a > >member of a very elite minority. > >· A computer costs the average Bangladeshi more than eight years’ > >income, > >compared with one month’s wage for the average American. > >· The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined > >income of > >41% of the world's people. A yearly contribution of 1% of their wealth or $ > >8 billion could provide universal access to primary education for all. > >· Among 159 countries with available data, 50 had negative average > >annual > >growth in GNP per capita in 1990-98, and only four Sub-Saharan countries had > >minimum rate for doubling incomes in generation. > > > >< SOURCE: UNDP Human Development Report 1999 and 2000> > > > > > >Regards, > >Zubair Faisal Abbasi. > >CEO/Project Director, > >ePoor.org > >Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor, > >Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan. > >Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274 > >++++++++ > >Pro-Poor means enhancing capacity of the POOR to perform PRO i.e., 'Poverty > >reduction', 'Remoteness reduction' and 'Opportunity generation'. > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Reader-list mailing list > >Reader-list at sarai.net > >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > _______________________________________________ > Paper-contrib mailing list > Paper-contrib at lists.thepaper.org.au > http://lists.myspinach.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/paper-contrib -- -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ "civil disobedience. . . is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem." -----Howard Zinn, "Failure to Quit", p. 45 From zubair at isb.sdnpk.org Tue Jun 19 12:18:19 2001 From: zubair at isb.sdnpk.org (Zubair Faisal Abbasi) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 11:48:19 +0500 Subject: [paper-contrib] Fwd: [Reader-list] Villages Online - ePoor.org from Pakistan In-Reply-To: <3B2E8F4C.AA3AE46@mail.com> Message-ID: Greetings! - Thank you very much to for your comments and paying attention to our work. Please, let me explain a few things: - At the moment, on our website concept, philosophy, deliverables of VOL programme etc etc are accessible. I don't know why 'page not found' occurred. May be some problem with our servers in USA. Sorry for this inadvertent inconvenience. - On Village especially the Villages like Saiden, Gariala, and Barota we are preparing material to be put on their websites while the pages marked as 'under construction'. It would take a while to make the website of village Saiden come on the cyber-surface. Moreover, the VOL portal/back-end database is also under construction. - As this programme is at the moment without appropriate funding and actually forging ahead with resource constraints, we may not be 'fast' as Programmes with development cooperation may move but we would surely be STEADY. Notwithstanding, we are CONFIDENT that we CAN break inertia in a developing country like Pakistan and make IT relevant and helpful for the poor especially at the village levels. This is an area which is in many ways unexplored in Pakistan. However, at the policy, planning, and advocacy level ePoor.org has developed institutional linkages with the Government of Pakistan through the ministry of science and technology to lobby for pro-poor IT development in Pakistan. And we believe that with the passage of time our initiative spreads and brings other institutions and individuals on 'pro-poor IT' canvass to join hands and develop synergies. I would rather emphasis that your write up and words would definitely provide us a better out-reach and positively contribute to our Village level IT programme development. I would love to give answer and provide you with more information. Please stay in touch I would keep you posted. Best, Zubair. -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On Behalf Of hugh trevelyan Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 4:31 AM To: Editors - The Paper; marni at thepaper.org.au; Zubair Faisal Abbasi; reader-list at sarai.net Cc: dak at sarai.net Subject: Re: [paper-contrib] Fwd: [Reader-list] Villages Online - ePoor.org from Pakistan I was keen to check this out and pass it on, but it might be a bit premature to be publicising it. Not one of the links on the snazzy- looking website worked. I only got "The page cannot be found". Best I could get were postal addresses & phone numbers for their website design company in Pakistan and the US. I hope we all hear that it was temporary or has been fixed. cheers, hugh trevelyan Editors - The Paper wrote: > > Could make an interesting story - someone want to follow it up? > > >Delivered-To: marni at thepaper.org.au > >X-Authentication-Warning: mail.intra.waag.org: Host [203.135.44.9] claimed > >to be ns1-isb.sdnpk.org > >From: "Zubair Faisal Abbasi" > >To: > >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) > >Importance: Normal > >Subject: [Reader-list] Villages Online -------- ePoor.org from Pakistan > >Sender: reader-list-admin at sarai.net > >X-BeenThere: reader-list at sarai.net > >X-Mailman-Version: 2.0 > >List-Help: > >List-Post: > >List-Subscribe: , > > > >List-Id: A list on the Sarai Reader 01 > >List-Unsubscribe: , > > > >List-Archive: > >Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:37:32 +0500 > > > > > >Greetings from Pakistan and ePoor.org! > > > >ePoor.org a non-profit civil society initiative has developed and working on > >a flagship Programme in Pakistan by the name of Villages Online (VOL). The > >Programme, > >rooted in community development approach, aims at bridging digital divide > >with pro-poor perspective and strives to make IT relevant for the > >socio-economic needs of the poor communities. Attached is a brief outlook of > >the programme and basic facts about IT and Inequality (Annex: 1). > > > >Looking forward to hearing from you for. > > > >Zubair Faisal Abbasi. > >ePoor.org > >IT empowers > > > > Villages Online > > A Programme of ePoor.org > > > >Never-ending poverty, poor opportunities, poor social services, and poor > >governance, are some of the peculiarities that form the overall aura of > >rural life in Pakistan. The VOL (http://epoor.org/vol) initiative of > >ePoor.org, is spearheaded to change the development scene, increase social > >well-being, and expand opportunities of wealth generation by making IT > >relevant to community needs at the village levels. > > > >The Concept: > > > >In order to increase the potentials of socio-economic growth and development > >in the rural areas, there is an urgent need to harness the innovative > >solutions of IT for poverty reduction, better service provision (like health > >care, education, information on rural and urban market situation), and good > >governance. > > > >In other words the concept stresses upon the urgent need of bridging digital > >divide between the rich and poor, between urban and rural, and increasing > >digital opportunities at the village and community levels. > > > >The Key > > > >The key to make IT based solutions effective, efficient, and relevant for > >communities lies in harnessing both the technical and social side of human > >expertise and knowledge. This means creating a synergy between the > >experienced and intelligent social-ware and increasingly capable > >technical-ware developed by IT professionals. The social-ware is available > >in the shape of networks of pro-poor individuals and organizations at the > >village and community levels while the technical-ware is actuated and > >customized in the hi-tech IT parks. Both of these -wares offer innumerable > >opportunities of innovative work and mutual linking. ------ VOL is striving > >to bridge the two sources for greater development effectiveness. > > > >The Philosophy > > > >The philosophy of ePoor.org, in carrying out VOL, is to work on the demand > >side of information, namely by enhancing peoples' capacity to use knowledge > >(through creation of social capital), rather than purely on the supply side > >of the process (of which a good example is the creation of IT training > >schools without attention to creating the demand for such information in > >rural areas). This builds upon the rural community development approach, > >which has focused similarly on the demand side of other interventions. The > >philosophy of ePoor.org is based on the highly successful efforts of > >community development led by such pioneers as Akhter Hameed Khan and Shoaib > >Sultan Khan. These efforts revolve around the creation of social capital to > >enhance the coping and adaptive capacities and strategies of the poor. > > > >The aims of VOL includes: > > > >· Make IT relevant and contributive for socio-economic uplift including > >decision-making support, better services delivery, and improved digital > >reach-out (networking etc.) for participatory development and growth. > > > >. Increase village level capacity to absorb, generate, disseminate, and > >navigate information and knowledge repositories. > > > >Strategies and Deliverables > > > >In the present shape, the process and structure of IT spread in societies is > >giving rise to digital divides at the local and global levels. For example, > >There are more Internet account holders in London than in the whole of > >Africa. About 80% of the world's population has no access to reliable > >telecommunications and about one-third has no access to electricity, > >according to the Panos Institute http://www.oneworld.org/panos/. As a matter > >of fact, IT has innumerable implications in distributing the opportunities > >of wealth generation, resource allocation, and social development. > >Not-so-surprisingly, according to the 1999 Human Development Report issued > >by the United Nations, information technology is actually widening the gap > >between the world's haves and have-nots, not narrowing it. > > > >In Pakistan, the IT Policy, is primarily geared to create an enabling > >environment for IT sector growth and leaves room for pro-poor perspective; > >the link between IT and poverty eradication has to be explored further and > >vigorously perused. This situation gives opportunity to analyze the > >long-term implications of a predominantly urban-centered IT incidence in > >sharpening the digital divide and generating distorted digital opportunities > >between rural and urban areas. > > > >Keeping in mind the above scenario, and the core themes of ePoor.org > >programmes, the Villages Online initiative would like to spearhead the > >following strategies and deliverables so that the wizardry of IT expands > >horizons of opportunities for poor communities: > > > >1- Policy Advice and Advocacy > > > >VOL would actively develop policy advices and advocate the need of pro-poor > >IT solutions, policies, and practices. With emphasis upon local content > >generation in local languages. > > > >2- Partnership Development > > > >With the vision of pooling technical and social resources, VOL would develop > >strategic partnerships with other pro-poor organizations, institutions, and > >individuals and those excelling in the IT sector. This would be designed for > >an effective outreach to the poor groups, networking, resource and knowledge > >sharing so that VOL meaningfully enables the poor communities to benefit > >from the IT route. > > > >In the specific sense, these partnerships would aim at ensuring to deliver: > > > >A - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to IT infrastructure at the > >village levels. > > > >B - Regular, sustainable, and egalitarian access to relevant information > >about services (health, education, sanitation, development schemes, etc.), > >market situation (local, provincial and national for rural produce and human > >resource) and credit availability (government and non-government scheme for > >poverty reduction). > > > >C - Most importantly, ePoor.org sees kiosks and cyber cafés not only as > >passive information consumers but relevant information generators so that > >poor communities really benefit from IT route the route which would be there > >own. > > > >3- Online Information Repositories and CD ROMs > > > >VOL would collect information on poverty profiles, demography, economy, > >history, social services profile (like health care and education), > >governance structures, marketable produce, and development schemes from the > >rural areas including individuals and organizations. Then it would digitize, > >create online databases, and make it available for navigation through > >websites and CD ROMs. > > > >4- Meta Portal of ePoor.org > > > >VOL will be cyber-linked with other projects of ePoor.org. For example it > >will receive a complementary navigational support from the following: > >· eHealth: Expanding Health Care Services > >· eM at RT: Expanding Market of The Rural and Traditional > > > >ANNEX 1. > > > >B A S I C F A C T S > >· The global online community has grown rapidly --- from about 16 > >million > >Internet users in 1995 to an estimated 304 million users in March 2000. > >· In 1998 more than 26% of all people living in the United States were > >surfing the Internet, compared with 0.8% of all people in Latin America and > >the Caribbean, 0.1% in Su-Saharan Africa and 0.4% in South Asia. > >· South Asia, with 23 per cent of the world’s people, has less than > >one per > >cent of the world’s Internet users. > >· The typical Internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, > >with a > >university education and high income, urban based and English speaking—a > >member of a very elite minority. > >· A computer costs the average Bangladeshi more than eight years’ > >income, > >compared with one month’s wage for the average American. > >· The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined > >income of > >41% of the world's people. A yearly contribution of 1% of their wealth or $ > >8 billion could provide universal access to primary education for all. > >· Among 159 countries with available data, 50 had negative average > >annual > >growth in GNP per capita in 1990-98, and only four Sub-Saharan countries had > >minimum rate for doubling incomes in generation. > > > >< SOURCE: UNDP Human Development Report 1999 and 2000> > > > > > >Regards, > >Zubair Faisal Abbasi. > >CEO/Project Director, > >ePoor.org > >Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor, > >Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan. > >Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274 > >++++++++ > >Pro-Poor means enhancing capacity of the POOR to perform PRO i.e., 'Poverty > >reduction', 'Remoteness reduction' and 'Opportunity generation'. > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Reader-list mailing list > >Reader-list at sarai.net > >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > _______________________________________________ > Paper-contrib mailing list > Paper-contrib at lists.thepaper.org.au > http://lists.myspinach.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/paper-contrib -- -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ -=~ "civil disobedience. . . is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem." -----Howard Zinn, "Failure to Quit", p. 45 _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From monica at sarai.net Tue Jun 19 12:13:49 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 12:13:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] BlueEyed surveillance... Message-ID: From the Technology Review Magazine... Behind BlueEyes By Claire Tristram Software Most of us hardly notice the surveillance cameras watching over the grocery store or the bank. But lately those lenses have been looking for far more than shoplifters. Engineers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA, report that a number of large retailers have implemented surveillance systems that record and interpret customer movements, using software from Almaden's BlueEyes research project. BlueEyes is developing ways for computers to anticipate users' wants by gathering video data on eye movement and facial expression. Your gaze might rest on a Web site heading, for example, and that would prompt your computer to find similar links and to call them up in a new window. But the first practical use for the research turns out to be snooping on shoppers. BlueEyes software makes sense of what the cameras see to answer key questions for retailers, including, How many shoppers ignored a promotion? How many stopped? How long did they stay? Did their faces register boredom or delight? How many reached for the item and put it in their shopping carts? BlueEyes works by tracking pupil, eyebrow and mouth movement. When monitoring pupils, the system uses a camera and two infrared light sources placed inside the product display. One light source is aligned with the camera's focus; the other is slightly off axis. When the eye looks into the camera-aligned light, the pupil appears bright to the sensor, and the software registers the customer's attention. BlueEyes has set off warning bells at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Soon you won't only be able to capture how many people stopped by, but who they were," says Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the ACLU. "Once identity is established it will be cross-referenced to capture that person's income and buying preferences. It's only a matter of time." Not surprisingly, IBM's retail customers unanimously requested that the firm not reveal their names to the press, or the locations where BlueEyes has been implemented. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From monica at sarai.net Tue Jun 19 13:21:24 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 13:21:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] List Guidelines (list admin) Message-ID: * This list exists in the public domain, but in any further publication the list and the author should be informed and credited. * Save bandwidth. When replying to posts, please snip off irrelevant parts of the original mail. * We would prefer if you used plain text for messages. HTML messages are not preferable. If you want to share a text file with the list, go ahead and post it if it's small (say, under 20Kb); if it's any larger, please put it up for HTTP/FTP download somewhere and send the URL to the list. * Commercial posts, organisational promotions, job offerings are not preferable. However, sharing of "Calls for Entries", "Calls for Proposals", etc. are welcome. * Look up the Archive. There's a lot of interesting stuff there. * Here are some resources on the Internet related to mailing lists which make interesting reading: Netiquette Guidelines: Minimum set of guidelines for Network Etiquette (Netiquette). The SPAM-L Mailing List FAQ: A comprehensive set of Frequently Asked (and Answered) Questions from the SPAM-L mailing list. Contains a lot of general information and a fair amount of demystification of mail and mailing list terminology. Monica Narula List Administrator -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From sabadewan at netkracker.com Tue Jun 19 13:16:15 2001 From: sabadewan at netkracker.com (Saba Dewan) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 13:16:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Identification and social Message-ID: <3B2F0346.1C0E46E0@netkracker.com> I am reminded of a recent conversation. A up and coming trans Yamuna housing society has a children's park located at its entrance. It has swings, slides and benches. However the society residents constantly complain that there is no place where their children can go and play in the evenings after school. When I pointed out the park they explained that since children from the neighbouring slum areas played on the swings during the day `their' kids couldn't be sent there during the evening. Several complaints had been made to the resident association to step up security and ensure that `outside' children are not able to sneak inside the park. Here, the `other' is a small child who by merely playing pollutes/contaminates/devalues and threatens middle class utopias ! Saba Dewan From raju at linux-delhi.org Wed Jun 20 00:30:39 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:30:39 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Simputer mailing list Message-ID: <15151.41303.828749.726820@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi, Please join the Simputer mailing list if you're interested in starting projects for developing applications for our very own hand-held Simputer. To subscribe, send an empty message to simputer-request at kandalaya.org with ``subscribe your-email-address'' in the subject line. To post a message, send it to simputer at kandalaya.org. The mailing list archives should be available soon at: http://www.mail-archive.com/simputer%40kandalaya.org The Simputer project home page is at: http://www.simputer.org/ Regards, -- Raju -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From menso at xs4all.nl Wed Jun 20 03:53:08 2001 From: menso at xs4all.nl (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:23:08 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Digital Angel may -- or may not -- soon implant chips in humans (fwd) Message-ID: Forwarded from HippiesFromHell mailinglist, for the pleasure of all you surveillance fetish types out there :) Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- People are divided into two groups--the righteous and the unrighteous--and the righteous do the dividing. - Lord Cohen -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 15:57:07 +0200 From: Karin Spaink To: Hippies Subject: Fwd: Digital Angel may -- or may not -- soon implant chips in humans =================Original message text=============== From: Declan McCullagh To: politech at politechbot.com Date: Tuesday, June 19, 2001, 02:51 Subject: FC: Digital Angel may -- or may not -- soon implant chips in humans [A followup is even more relevant, in which the company declaims any immediate plans for human use: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23268 --DBM] --- From: "Dwayne Gradin" To: declan at well.com Subject: Digital Angel Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 03:40:56 Declan, Forgive me if this isn't quite what you believe is germaine to the Politech list, but I thought it was certainly noteworthy. I'm sure you've heard of Digital Angel by now, but in any case, here's a link to a WorldNetDaily article about it. L8R, Se�Dwayne http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23232 'Digital Angel' set to fly tomorrow Implant technology to be beta tested on humans ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Beginning tomorrow, Applied Digital Solutions will begin beta testing on humans an implant technology capable of allowing users to emit a homing beacon, have vital bodily functions monitored and confirm identity when making e-commerce transactions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ==============End of original message text=========== - K - -- Zwei Dinge sind unendlich: Die Dummheit und das All Nur die Liebe und das Wetter h� nimmer, nimmer auf - Einst�e Neubauten: Was ist ist From menso at r4k.net Wed Jun 20 04:27:09 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:57:09 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Somebody's Watching Me In-Reply-To: <20010618094656.90354.qmail@web9203.mail.yahoo.com>; from kantibit@yahoo.com on Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 10:46:56AM +0100 References: <20010618094656.90354.qmail@web9203.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010620005709.R37888@r4k.net> On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 10:46:56AM +0100, Kanti Bit wrote: > Dear All, > > The June 4 issue of TIME magazine focusses on > interactive technologies and how they are affecting > our lives. Following is one of the interesting > articles. Read it online at: > > > Somebody's Watching Me > My inner stalker loves GPS. My inner Shaggy's a little > paranoid. Maybe those satellites should stick to > tracking missiles > By MAUREEN TKACIK > But back to reality. > > The reality, in 2001, is that my high-school freshman > sister has a cell phone and that I occasionally plug > Kevin's name into a Google search field. And that cell > phone carriers in the U.S. are scrambling to meet the > fall deadline to start rolling out > location-pinpointing services that, by law, will have > to be reliable enough to track all their cell-phone > subscribers at least 66% of the time. The only people > who will have die-hard access to this information are > the folks who answer emergency calls to 911. As I already mentioned in a previous post, there is no GPS needed for tracking somebody who carries a GSM phone. By triangulating using 3 GSM-masts it's easily done. I have no idea why the author of this article keeps raising the idea that GPS is needed to locate someone carrying a GSM: IT IS NOT. I think in most countries in Europe it is already common practice that emergency response teams can access the location details of your phone when necessary. This is a good thing, sometimes you might be unable to talk, whether it's because you broke your jaw during a car crash or because taking the phone from your pocket might alarm the guy who's holding the .44 against your head. Back to reality: location details and the pressure put on telco's to be able to provide them did not come from these emergency response teams. When did medical institutions ever have the power to do this? They have come from police, millitary and your favorite three-letter agencies who believe they should be able to access these details at all times. The 66% of the time is quite a funny thing, when a GSM is switched on and thus talking to the network you *KNOW* where it is, not 'sometimes' but *always*. Then again, I believe the cellular network used in the States differs from the GSM network which is used across Europe and most parts of Asia (including India). Again, not only location info is your enemy, traffic analysis sucks perhaps even harder since it makes assumptions and, if you take it far enough, everyone becomes a criminal. (E.g. you phone with a colleague of yours who turns out to be a drug runner during the weekends, you are phoning with him... only because you are colleagues or also because you're in with his drug biz? Perhaps we should track this guy too now...) Here comes the sun.... Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From kantibit at yahoo.com Wed Jun 20 16:52:09 2001 From: kantibit at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kanti=20Bit?=) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 12:22:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] DoT-IT fight over Net service license Message-ID: <20010620112209.43459.qmail@web9208.mail.yahoo.com> Dear All, Here is some new development regarding the Concergence Bill. The two government arms - Dot and IT ministry - are now fighting over the proposal in the Bill to license Internet services. Read the story in Hindustan Times: DoT, IT ministry lock horns over licensing of Net services Prerna K. Mishra & Shalini Dagar New Delhi, June 16 EVEN AS the deadline approaches for the group of ministers to clarify the ambiguities in the revised draft Communication Convergence Bill, the ministry of information technology (MIT) and department of telecommunications (DoT) have locked horns over the contentious licensing issue. While Dot is in favour of regulating content application and value-added services, included in the revised bill, MIT is strongly opposed to the move. The bill is expected to be introduced in the monsoon session beginning on July 24. While Minister of Information Technology Pramod Mahajan has categorically opposed the move to regulate services calling it a retrograde step, the department of telecommunications insists that some regulation is called for. DoT would like to go with the provisions of the National Telecom Policy-99. "Since registration of other service providers is mandatory under NTP 99, therefore, a similar registration process is desirable under the new regime. The reason is simple. An estimate of the total number of players in the sector is often required for allocation of resources like bandwidth," said a DoT official. While DoT is clearly skirting the issue of licensing, it maintains that regulation through registration is imperative. However, according to industry sources, even registration in itself is a clumsy and straight-jacketed form of regulation. The case by case approvals given for operating call centres in the present regime is a case in point. According to the affected parties, on an average a call centre requires 24 approvals which takes arraign six months to materialise. The paranoia of the industry stems from the fact that under the revised Communication and Convergence Bill, services like Internet, unified messaging, IT-enabled services like call centres, tele-banking, e-commerce, e-trading, telemedicine, tele-banking video conferencing etc, will also require a licence. The latest version of the bill has also added Internet-based contents on the website into the list of content application services which will require a license. As the confusion rages on, experts are busy studying the options available to the GoM. The revised version of the bill incorporates the comments and suggestions received after posting the draft bill prepared by the sub-group on Convergence in January 2001. ============== Kanti Kumar From monica at sarai.net Wed Jun 20 16:07:52 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 16:07:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Writing on the city Message-ID: Street Signs. A city is a provocation for words, a map waiting for a reader. Crowded with experiences, people, memories and histories, city spaces demand interpretation, and inscription. Streets ask for signs.Crossroads, intersections, overbridges, cul de sacs, and grids wait to be written on to imagined topographies. We are forever reaching destinations inside the city, and in our own lives, that address each of us as long-term inhabitants, transients, strangers, and hostages. We may be hostages to the city but we also hold the keys to our own freedom within it. Some of these keys are words, and the things that can be made from fragments of words. Sarai: The New Media Initiative, invites writers to reflect on urban space on its website www.sarai.net, as part of its ongoing creative engagement with urban culture. While Sarai, being located in Delhi, India, is especially interested in writing on Delhi itself, it is also open to reflections on cities elsewhere, and on the city as a generic global form of cohabitation. The urbane pitch of classical Sanskrit drama in Kalidas's Ujjain and the pithy aphorisms of Kabir that sprang from the streets of medieval Benaras are earlier instances of what happens when cities find their unique voices in literature. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the city of Delhi gave rise to its own special genre/flavour/style of writing - the 'Shaher- E- Ashob' - the literature of the despair of the ravaged city. A few centuries ahead, can we in the early years of the twenty first century in the megalopolis of Delhi, lay claim to our own register for speaking once again about the specificity of the urban experience? Sarai hopes to be a space where a speculation such as this could find room for play. We are looking for subjective encounters with the city that also happen to transcend and transgress genres. So we are also looking for poets to do reportage, essayists to turn interviewers, and for social theorists to write fiction. We are particularly keen to provide a space for experimental and hypertextual forms of writing, that utilise the unique non-linear narrative possibilities and opportunities of dispersed or collaborative authorship that are opened out by the Internet. Submissions are invited in English and Hindi and may include both original work as well as translations from third languages into English and/or Hindi. All texts accepted for publication on the Sarai website will lie in the Public Domain. Some of this material may also be published in future Sarai Readers, with the consent of the authors. This focus on 'writing the city' will work in tandem with a series of explorations of experimental writing activities that will be hosted soon at Sarai through workshops and collaborative/online writing projects. We hope that these activities can mature into a regular electronic discussion list on "Writers, Writing and the City". For details contact : Monica Narula (monica at sarai.net) Sarai:The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110 054 Tarun Saint Department of English Hindu College Delhi University -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From menso at r4k.net Thu Jun 21 06:44:57 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 03:14:57 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] More shots Message-ID: <20010621031457.U37888@r4k.net> It happened again... I was waiting for my train to take me home tonight, the warm air still holding the memory of the nice sumer day that had passed. I think back on the kite-surfing lesson I had today when a man walks up to me. He sees me rolling a cigarette and asks if he can bum one of me. I tell him it's no problem and let him roll one. He's humming some song, nervously shifting his weight from one leg to another, looking up from the cigarette he's rolling at me and back. He's obviously got some mental or drugs problem. When he finishes he gives me back my tobacco and walks away from where I'm standing to the stairs that lead down to the station's main hall. My train of thought is derrailed as shouting fills the platform, the man who bummed the cigarette of me is running from the stairs, back to where I'm standing, three police officers at his heels. About five meters to my right they slam him into the wall of a small building that sells snacks during business hours. The shouting doesn't stop at that though, three more officers have climbed the stairs to my left and are now quickly running to where I and the other police men are standing, obviously having thought about how to close in on the guy. When the three fresh officers arrive one kicks away my bag while two others each take one of my arms and turn me around after which they slam me into the wall in much the same way they did to the other guy. Before I can ask what has happened my arms are behind my back, cuffed, and I'm being searched in an agressive way. "What the hell is going on here!" My screaming doesn't seem to have any effect on the cops nor the people around me on the platform, waiting to go back to the same city as I. "What the fuck is wrong with you guys?" When the police officer is done searching me they turn me around again so that my back is against the building and I can see the rest of the trainstation again. "Oh there's no sense in denying," one of them says while pointing to a security camera, "we saw your little conversation back in our office." I laugh hysterically and the cops exchange glances with each other, probably thinking I've gone mad. "I didn't have a conversation, I just allowed the poor guy to roll a cigarette," I tell them. Now they laugh, saying that's what "they all say" and how I can come down to their office and explain everything that happened there. No, everything in the second paragraph didn't happen, though there was the guy and there was the security camera and there was a me wondering how long it will take before these things will become common practice. People will become more paranoid with each other, not wanting to end up in situations like this, trust will fail and a fail in trust will raise aggression in the people. Emotion needs to find a way out, sadness through crying, happiness through laughing, agression often through bloody violence. Not only will the authorities change their perspective from a "innocent until proven guilty" angle to "guilty until proven otherwise", so will the people if enough of these cases actually happen. Isolation and alienation of people will be the natural consequence of this increasing use of surveillance cameras. Cracking down on someone like this in public might never happen, it might be far fetched or very futuristic music but then again, it might not. People will turn into Maya Angelou's caged bird of which she wrote in a poem titled "I know why the caged bird sings": "... But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing." Oh but something caged is so much easier to control, and after a while you will learn to love this cage and feel safe in it. The cage keeps the cat away from you too, you know. Besides, a caged bird is still quite pretty thing to look at and there will be no sudden surprises like the bird not being there one day, flying off is not an option while caged... The poem continues: "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom." The song will be that of protest, the question is if by the time it will be sung there is anybody there to hear it, care about it and remember freedom in the same way a caged bird would sing about it... I showed you mine, now show me yours,* Menso * Thoughts that is, please, don't send me jpgs ;) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere.... - TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology --------------------------------------------------------------------- From geert at basis.desk.nl Fri Jun 22 09:40:43 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 14:10:43 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] an imc in india? Message-ID: <003b01c0fad1$4efd35e0$432210cb@bigpond.com> From: "Sheri Herndon" > hi, > > i'm wondering what you all think about some of this. > > best, > sheri > > ---------- > From: Sivaraman Balachandran > Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 14:51:34 -0700 (PDT) > To: new-imc at lists.indymedia.org > Cc: vidhi.parthasarathy at teldta.com > Subject: [New-imc] resurrecting india imc > > my comments. sorry for the delay in responding > > >I am very concerned with the idea of having folks in > >the U.S. create an IMC > >for people in India, and then trying to get them to > >use it. It sounds like > >there are independent media folks already in India - > >I am wondering why we > >are pushing an IMC on them. I LOVE the IMCs but I > >think if the independent > >media somewhere is already strong, we should feel > >like we have to push our > >brand of OP on them... > > 1.i don't think this is a case of "us" pushing an > "imc" on them. it is interested folks (all indian so > far), who may be living in the u.s. for the time > being, who have the time and resources, that are > taking initiative. the folks resurrecting the > india-imc are not representative of all indians. but > the same probably holds for indian media collectives > (folks that have time and fairly costly resources such > as computers, internet access, etc). the same holds > for most imc's, given the discussions of increasing > diversity in imc collectives. > > 2.vidhi traveled to india trying to hook up with media > collectives/activists groups. the feed back she got > was they they were swamped and didn't have time to > start an india imc, but are supportive of vidhi's > actions to start one. > > 3.we have contacted several media collectives located > in india, including sarai, pukar and others, to be > involved in the imc-india collective so it has local > representation. we're waiting to hear from them. > > > >I really think that an IMC needs to be created > >totally from the ground up > >in order to function effectively in our network. It > >seems to me that there > >are very few success stories of IMCs that were > >created by outsiders and > >handed off to local DIY journalists anywhere... > > 4.agreed. we're trying to connect with groups in > india. one caveat: if no one steps up from india to > take an imc on, would the collective be opposed to > people from other locales taking it on until someone > steps up? it already seems like like activist groups > are way too overloaded there as it is. > > >This is why I would oppose immediately linking to > >India IMC > > 5.i appreciate the concerns above, but vidhi filled > out the imc application "so ya wanna be and imc" last > fall - it was approved and the india imc site went up > - also last fall - before our current process for > approving imc's. the site was hidden, but not > deleted, during vidhi's travels to india last winter. > if a site was approved by an older process, though ad > hoc, shouldn't it remain approved? that's why i think > the india site should be grandfathered back in and at > least given the opportunity to be full fledged imc > site. and we agree to follow through on filling out > necessary paperwork (unity, membership, ed policy, > etc). > > > >I wanted to chime in that I agree with Sheri's > >report. With over a billion > >people living in India, I don't think one website is > >very representative > >... especially since many US states that are like a > >twentieth the size of > >India have 3 or 4 local sites. I would support a > >local IMC from wherever in > >India, though. > > 6. although india has a billion people, 400 million > can't read. of the remaining, the percantage that can > read english, and have internet access is pretty > small. i think the one website issue is more > comparable to u.k (maybe 65 million) or germany (80 > something million). i also want to point out that > outside of america and canada, and australia, 16 out > of 18 imc sites are country based - some pretty big, > including mexico, brasil, u.k. and germany. > > >i agree with chris' concerns here. i think it is how > >we have primarily > >functioned (with the exception of congo). it's also > >somewhat explicit in > >the draft criteria: > > >b. Have a committed membership substantial enough to > >sustain a functional > >IMC, > >c. Have open and public meetings (no one group can > >have exclusionary > >"ownership" of an IMC), > > >with regard to india, both seem to be relevant. for > >turkey, c seems more > >applicable, as well as the excellent comments evan > >made earlier. > > > 7. we're working on b. confident it will happen soon. > we've got four folks and growing. i have no idea why > c is a conern with india imc. please clarify. > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail > http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ > _______________________________________________ > New-imc mailing list > New-imc at lists.indymedia.org > http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc From monica at sarai.net Thu Jun 21 16:50:40 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 16:50:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Inviting coding collaborations Message-ID: (Please post this message to other lists as well as people who might be interested.)  Dear All, We would like to share some ideas about possible collaborations between anyone interested in coding and the work that is taking shape within Sarai.  One of our projects that especially demands addressing by programmers - and will benefit a lot of people - is the CyberMohalla. Cybermohalla is a project that is primarily trying to develop a computing culture within non-elite social spaces. Our first experimental lab has been set in the basti adjoining the LNJP hospital (between Ajmeri gate and Delhi gate). Some possible areas of collaboration:- 1) Network based collaborative tools - by this we mean tools that are very easy to use and fun to play around with. These tools would make it possible for different users within the network to work together and create content. Basically, tools that facilitate a play with image, text and if possible sound. Over a period of time these tools could be available over the Internet as well.  2) Programming tools for beginners - This is especially keeping in mind that the first (and even later participants) of CyberMohalla are young people, and people who have no past experience with computer cultures, but would/could be excited at the idea of going beyond the veil. At the least, it will make programming a point of conversation among many people who otherwise would not enter it because of having missed formal education. We can publish both CDs and the manuals in large numbers and do workshops to continuously develop these tools. 3) Games reflecting our conditions and environment - These could be simple games involving, say, crossing the ITO criss-cross, or Daryaganj crossing. In that sense, they would help comment on the experience of being a pedestrian in the city.  These could later develop into serious games involving complex movement within the city.  4) A good Hindi desktop - Perhaps it is already available, and someone merely needs to inform us of the details... 5) A Database Interface - that makes for the visualization of an image-sound-text database's internal schema and allows the user to navigate with ease. The procedure: 1) Our Public Project Space will be open to the programmers - we have 4 linux boxes, and hope to have 2 more very soon. 2) We will be willing to host intensive workshops, where design and development plan for the project can be further worked out by all the collaborators. 3) We are committed to covering material costs (travel, books, photocopies, etc.) as well paying out a decent honorarium to the project participants.  What interests us is that in collaboration we can create possible approaches and possibilities that will facilitate the establishment of an interesting computing culture. A culture that speaks to a wider audience by creating social software (in absence of a better term!). All the software that will be generated will be put under GPL and we would be very keen to support a long term development plan for each/any of these softwares. If there are any other suggestions and ideas, we would be happy to begin joint thought on those as well. Student projects are especially welcome. cheers Sarai Media Lab  -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Sat Jun 23 03:07:58 2001 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 14:37:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] What are the two MITs upto in Mumbai? Message-ID: <20010622213758.68764.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> what do people think of this? (reported in midday) a Lab Asia in Mumbai By: Aquin George June 23, 2001 This Sunday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in association with the Ministry of Information Technology will launch Media Lab Asia (MLA), an ambitious 10-year effort in Mumbai to create an autonomous organisation whose research will help create innovative ways of bringing technology to the masses. Where is the media lab? No one knows. This Sunday is just the signing of the agreement with MIT. The one-year exploratory programme is a step towards meeting various challenges in the fields of education, health, agriculture and enterprise with technology in both rural as well as urban areas. To begin with, the government proposes to invest Rs 65 crore in the first year. The proposed 10-year budget for the lab is $ 1 billion. Of this, around 18 per cent could be government-funded. The rest is expected to be sponsored. Says S Ramakrishnan, senior director and head (education, research and technology division), "MIT will not invest directly. Its contribution will be in the form of intellectual capital, creating brand equity, help in getting sponsors etc. This is essential if MLA is to succeed in its ambition to facilitate the invention, refinement and deployment of innovations that benefit the masses." While setting up the lab will take about 48 months, the initial works will be conducted out of various IIT labs. MLA with the help of Tie and NASSCOM intends to lure about 180 sponsors. The first year will see innovative ideas being short listed following which private players will be roped in to assist materialising these ideas. Michael Best, a reasearch scientist with MIT's eDevelopment group, says: "Such undertakings have been part of MIT Media Labs' 15 years of existence. We have been involved in a number of projects in countries like Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Thailand, Cambodia and Ghana. For example, in the Dominican Republic, we created a Village Area Network (VAN). In a small fishing village we created a mobile roaming network and helped villagers buy cheap locally-assembled handheld appliances that could be used for crop testing, understanding crop diseases, soil testing etc. The network bandwidth we helped set up was 11 MBPS, which is the same as the whole of Ghana's internet connectivity with the rest of the world." MIT Media Lab is already helping out rural markets in Tamil Nadu in collaboration with IIT-Madras, I-Gyan Foundation and Harvard's Center for International Development. "Prior experience shows that problems in rural areas are similar on many counts the world over," says Best. "Though the one thing that really stands out is the high level of population density." But this seems to be a plus point as it could very well mean economies of scale. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From geert at basis.desk.nl Sat Jun 23 05:24:44 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 09:54:44 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] arzoo: blame it on the other Message-ID: <012c01c0fb76$b69366c0$c900000a@bigpond.com> www.arzoo.com Blame it on the Other. Sabeer Bhatia, founder of Hotmail who sold out to Microsoft, saw his second enterprise, arzoo.com, going down the drain. In April 2001 it closed operations. Bhatia: "This was necessitated by a severe downturn in the US economy which has resulted in a slowdown in corporate spending especially for any new product and services. This is not the right time to introduce such a service to our corporate partners - all of whom are engaged in what some call a "ruthless cost-cutting"exercise." Arzoo a victim of a "ruthless exercise"? Not its business plan was flauted. The world was simply not ready for Arzoo. Bhatia aimed at creating a virtual pool of talent that would help solve the problems of those who might encounter any IT-related troubles. "Arzoo will be used across the world by corporations to seek instant answers to their pressing technical problems. It will provide on-line problem-solving assistance for engineering and information technology applications to corporates,'' Bhatia told the Times of India on September 8, 2000. Fucked Company, a message board where rumours about down spirling IT-firms are exchanged: "Never used em, but, according to their press releases, they provided "live, real-time interaction with experts" hmm. sounds like usenet and EVERY FUCKING OTHER MESSAGE BOARD ON EARTH." Second Sux, responding on Fucked Company: "Anyway, I'm glad this "genious" founder of hotmail got slapped in the ass. I mean, it was amazing enough MS gave him millions for a Web-based email service, that are as commonplace as dirt right now. From the interviews I saw, this mothafucka thought he was the damn Messiah after scoring that load of $$$, and the IT media whores treated him as such. Well, 2 years later, what do you fuckin know? Netbust.com! BTW, this didn't have shit to do with the economic downturn, it had more to do with something more universal - reality." From saumya at sarai.net Mon Jun 25 17:53:14 2001 From: saumya at sarai.net (Saumya Gupta) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 12:23:14 GMT Subject: [Reader-list] Open source rival for MP3 Message-ID: <20010625.12231400@saumya.sarai.kit> Ogg Vorbis: An Open-Source Rival for MP3 An online music format that challenges MP3 in quality but owes nothing to any corporation will finally debut this weekend. Designed for free public use, the Ogg Vorbis format owes its existence to a single event. If Thomson Multimedia weren't demanding license fees for MP3, "there would be no need for Vorbis," says project manager Jack Moffitt. Seeking an alternative to MP3 and proprietary formats like Apple's Quicktime and Microsoft's Windows Media, a group of software developers has been working on Ogg Vorbis for nearly 33 months. In a 1999 statement, lead programmer Chris Montgomery wrote that "the Ogg project works to put the foundation standards of Internet audio into the public domain, where all Internet standards belong." The preliminary release, available from the Vorbis Web site, is the first version of the codec (encoder/decoder) with all features fully implemented. While not an MP3 product, it achieves comparable performance, backers claim, by attaining "CD quality" at a bit rate of 128 kilobits per second. Next month's official release of Vorbis 1.0 should achieve CD quality in the 80-kilobit-per-second range, comparable to the newly released MP3Pro. Growth of a Standard In 1996, U.S. Patent no. 5,579,430 was granted to Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in Munich for a "digital encoding process for transmitting and storing acoustical signals and, in particular, music signals." (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is the parent company of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, creator of the core technologies incorporated in the MP3 standard.) One of 18 MP3-related patents held by raunhofer and patent partner Thomson, this is the basis of their current claim to a "fair share" of MP3 revenues. However, Thomson did not assert its claim until the fall of 1998. By then, the public had already adopted MP3 in an online music explosion that will likely remain unique in Internet history. MP3 was originally designed for music transmission over telephone lines. Few, if any, saw it as a candidate for widespread use on the Internet when it was adopted in 1992 by the Motion Pictures Expert Group, a subgroup of the International Standardization Organization (ISO). As such, it became known as MPEG Audio Layer 3—MP3 for short. Henri Linde, Thomson's vice president of new business, assumed responsibility for MP3 licensing in 1994. No one at Thomson or Fraunhofer saw what was coming. In 1996, Pentium-class PCs with multi-gigabyte hard disks provided the first suitable desktop platform for high-quality audio compression. Only one more ingredient was needed, and "MP3 was in the right place at the right time," Linde says. Late that year, Fraunhofer released an MP3 encoder and decoder, together with a Windows MP3 player, for noncommercial use. Soon the first MP3 recordings began to circulate on the Web. In 1997, the number and quality of MP3 sites on the Web grew exponentially, with new homegrown MP3 players vying for honors in a hacker's heaven reminiscent of the early 1980s. All were based on elaborations of ISO's publicly available MP3 source code. By the end of 1998, most college students had become aware of MP3s as the Internet's first underground killer app. (So had the Recording Industry Association of America.) A solid consumer base had formed, and hardware manufacturers raced to produce pocket-sized MP3 players. I Want Your MP3 In this heady atmosphere, Fraunhofer's September 1998 "letter of infringement" to MP3 software developers sent shock waves around the Net. The letter declared that "to make, sell and/or distribute products using the [MPEG Layer 3] standard and thus our patents, you need to obtain a license under these patents from us." Development work stopped on popular products like Plugger, CDEX, 8Hz and Blade. Free MP3 encoders began to disappear from Web sites. Inside the Ogg With the concept of an audio encoder free of licensing entanglements already in the air, Montgomery, a recent MIT graduate, began work on Ogg Vorbis, named after the "bad guy" in Terry Pratchett's novel Small Gods. He was soon joined by other developers, with the total crew ranging up to 25 active programmers at times. The point, he says, "is to put something out there that everyone can use without having to worry about one of the MPEG consortium members saying, 'We'll let you know in six months what the licensing fees will be, and we'll renegotiate every six months.' Or, 'We're not going to charge you for it right now, but you may be getting a letter in a year.'" Closed-source protocols "exist by definition to serve the bottom line of a corporation," he wrote in 1999. In contrast, "the foundations of the Internet today are built of a long, hardy history of open development, free exchange of ideas and unprecedented levels of intellectual cooperation. These foundations continue to weather the storm caused by the corporate world's rush to cash in." Staying Clear of Patents Montgomery says he finds MP3 patents "annoying but not abusive." The Fraunhofer patents "are fundamental to the way MP3 does things," he says, "but the way MP3 does things is, thankfully, not the only way to do it. We don't infringe on their patents, so we don't have many worries." If there is any litigation, it's going to come from a desire to put Vorbis out of business, he says. "On the other hand, if we defend ourselves successfully, they could lose the patent." The MP3-patent claims have never been challenged in court or even in licensing negotiations, as Thomson's Linde confirms. Rocking in the Free World "Personally, I like the open-source movement," Linde says. "However, it is not a funded movement. If the effort is not to commercialize it, how good a product can it be?" Vorbis developers respond that the Vorbis codec is currently incorporated in leading MP3 software players like Winamp and Sonique, as well as Sonic Foundry's Siren Jukebox 2.0 and Sound Forge audio editor. In addition, game developers, including major player Electronic Arts, are showing interest in reducing development costs by tapping Vorbis. Two games have shipped with Vorbis-enabled audio so far: Activision and Realistic Entertainment's "Startrek Away Team" and Bohemia Interactive Studios' "Operation Flashpoint." Iomega's HipZip is the first portable player to support OGG files. By Stuart Kiang http://www.technologyreview.com/web/kiang/kiang061401.asp From menso at r4k.net Tue Jun 26 15:19:04 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 11:49:04 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Open source rival for MP3 In-Reply-To: <20010625.12231400@saumya.sarai.kit>; from saumya@sarai.net on Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 12:23:14PM +0000 References: <20010625.12231400@saumya.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <20010626114904.L37888@r4k.net> Hi all, There are a couple of different things with this article: First, and probably most important, is that this must be the zillionth group of people that is going to create a standard to replace MP3. A couple of years ago there was suddenly VQF and more of that which was all going to make an end to MP3 and create an open standard of 'free' service. The netizens came, observerd, tested and decided: we want MP3, not something else. Why? Because MP3 was already widely spread and well-known and most of the other options just plainly sucked. And it makes sense, as end-user you get to download free players such as Winamp for example and you can download music for free. Why should the end user care about licensing fees for people who want to built encoding software, it's not like MP3's are very rare or anything and as long as they're available it's not a problem to the end-user, so he can't be bothered. Another problem is: why should I switch again? Why should I leave alone my realplayer (actually, that's obvious, but for the sake of the argument) or Quicktime or Windows Media Player for Yet Another Media Player? Why should I suddenly stop encoding my CD's into MP3 and switch to this new standard? Only because it's open? I hate to burst Ogg Vorbis' bubble but 99% of the people out there couldn't care less about open standards or cross platform compatibility, they just want things to work and unless my current player can't give me what a new one can I'm not going to change. Since they're all going to give it away for free they'd better make sure they either made something that totally kicks ass or they're doomed. If it's slightly better than Real or WMP than they still have the marketing problem. Two years ago MS might have been willing to incorporate the player with their browser, now they made their own player so they're not going to do it. Real has expensive licensing which means they also have money with which they can advertise and all that and for now, sadly enough, it seems Real is sort of the standard. (No, I don't mean sad because the licenses are expensive, I mean sad because it sucks imho). Anyway, I don't think we'll hear a lot of these guys but let's wish them luck. Menso Note: I could be terribly wrong, I hope I am. On Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 12:23:14PM +0000, Saumya Gupta wrote: > > Ogg Vorbis: An Open-Source Rival for MP3 > > An online music format that challenges MP3 in quality but owes nothing > to any corporation will finally debut this weekend. Designed for free > public use, the Ogg Vorbis format owes its existence to a single > event. > > If Thomson Multimedia weren't demanding license fees for MP3, "there > would be no need for Vorbis," says project manager Jack Moffitt. > Seeking an alternative to MP3 and proprietary formats like Apple's > Quicktime and Microsoft's Windows Media, a group of software > developers has been working on Ogg Vorbis for nearly 33 months. In a > 1999 statement, lead programmer Chris Montgomery wrote that "the Ogg > project works to put the foundation standards of Internet audio into > the public domain, where all Internet standards belong." > > The preliminary release, available from the Vorbis Web site, is the > first version of the codec (encoder/decoder) with all features fully > implemented. While not an MP3 product, it achieves comparable > performance, backers claim, by attaining "CD quality" at a bit rate of > 128 kilobits per second. Next month's official release of Vorbis 1.0 > should achieve CD quality in the 80-kilobit-per-second range, > comparable to the newly released MP3Pro. > > Growth of a Standard > In 1996, U.S. Patent no. 5,579,430 was granted to Fraunhofer > Gesellschaft in Munich for a "digital encoding process for > transmitting and storing acoustical signals and, in particular, music > signals." (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is the parent company of the > Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, creator of the core > technologies incorporated in the MP3 standard.) > > One of 18 MP3-related patents held by raunhofer and patent partner > Thomson, this is the basis of their current claim to a "fair share" of > MP3 revenues. However, Thomson did not assert its claim until the fall > of 1998. By then, the public had already adopted MP3 in an online > music explosion that will likely remain unique in Internet history. > > MP3 was originally designed for music transmission over telephone > lines. Few, if any, saw it as a candidate for widespread use on the > Internet when it was adopted in 1992 by the Motion Pictures Expert > Group, a subgroup of the International Standardization Organization > (ISO). As such, it became known as MPEG Audio Layer 3—MP3 for short. > > Henri Linde, Thomson's vice president of new business, assumed > responsibility for MP3 licensing in 1994. No one at Thomson or > Fraunhofer saw what was coming. In 1996, Pentium-class PCs with > multi-gigabyte hard disks provided the first suitable desktop platform > for high-quality audio compression. Only one more ingredient was > needed, and "MP3 was in the right place at the right time," Linde > says. > Late that year, Fraunhofer released an MP3 encoder and decoder, > together with a Windows MP3 player, for noncommercial use. Soon the > first MP3 recordings began to circulate on the Web. In 1997, the > number and quality of MP3 sites on the Web grew exponentially, with > new homegrown MP3 players vying for honors in a hacker's heaven > reminiscent of the early 1980s. All were based on elaborations of > ISO's publicly available MP3 source code. > By the end of 1998, most college students had become aware of MP3s as > the Internet's first underground killer app. (So had the Recording > Industry Association of America.) A solid consumer base had formed, > and hardware manufacturers raced to produce pocket-sized MP3 players. > > I Want Your MP3 > In this heady atmosphere, Fraunhofer's September 1998 "letter of > infringement" to MP3 software developers sent shock waves around the > Net. The letter declared that "to make, sell and/or distribute > products using the [MPEG Layer 3] standard and thus our patents, you > need to obtain a license under these patents from us." > Development work stopped on popular products like Plugger, CDEX, 8Hz > and Blade. Free MP3 encoders began to disappear from Web sites. > > Inside the Ogg > With the concept of an audio encoder free of licensing entanglements > already in the air, Montgomery, a recent > MIT graduate, began work on Ogg Vorbis, named after the "bad guy" in > Terry Pratchett's novel Small Gods. He was soon joined by other > developers, with the total crew ranging up to 25 active programmers at > times. > The point, he says, "is to put something out there that everyone can > use without having to worry about one of the MPEG consortium members > saying, 'We'll let you know in six months what the licensing fees will > be, and we'll renegotiate every six months.' Or, 'We're > not going to charge you for it right now, but you may be > getting a letter in a year.'" > Closed-source protocols "exist by definition to serve the bottom line > of a corporation," he wrote in 1999. In contrast, "the foundations of > the Internet today are built of a long, hardy history of open > development, free exchange of ideas and unprecedented levels of > intellectual cooperation. These foundations > continue to weather the storm caused by the corporate world's rush to > cash in." > > Staying Clear of Patents > Montgomery says he finds MP3 patents "annoying but not abusive." The > Fraunhofer patents "are fundamental to the way MP3 does things," he > says, "but the way MP3 does things is, thankfully, not the only way to > do it. We don't infringe on their patents, so we don't have many > worries." If there is any litigation, it's going to come from a desire > to put Vorbis out of business, he says. "On the other hand, if we > defend ourselves successfully, they could lose the patent." > The MP3-patent claims have never been challenged in court or even in > licensing negotiations, as Thomson's Linde confirms. > > Rocking in the Free World > "Personally, I like the open-source movement," Linde says. "However, > it is not a funded movement. If the effort is not to commercialize it, > how good a product can it be?" > Vorbis developers respond that the Vorbis codec is currently > incorporated in leading MP3 software players like Winamp and Sonique, > as well as Sonic Foundry's Siren Jukebox 2.0 and Sound Forge audio > editor. In addition, game developers, including major player > Electronic Arts, are showing interest in reducing development costs by > tapping Vorbis. Two games have shipped with Vorbis-enabled audio so > far: Activision and Realistic Entertainment's "Startrek Away Team" and > Bohemia Interactive Studios' "Operation Flashpoint." > > Iomega's HipZip is the first portable player to support OGG files. > > By Stuart Kiang > http://www.technologyreview.com/web/kiang/kiang061401.asp > > > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From zubair at isb.sdnpk.org Tue Jun 26 15:44:24 2001 From: zubair at isb.sdnpk.org (Zubair Faisal Abbasi) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 15:14:24 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Exploring Dimensions of IT Message-ID: Greetings from http://ePoor.org and Pakistan! Exploring Dimensions of IT - Zubair Faisal Abbasi “Well arranged fodder is a very attractive offering for my apparently dumb cows (bay-zubaan junwar)”, says Maula Dad, our milk supplier. “I dispense the fodder in a neat and beautiful way which my animals come and eat happily; and doing this gives me the best quantity and quality of milk. I sell the product and earn money better than my competitors.” There are at least two points in Maula Dad’s words. One being his understanding that instead of forcing animals to come and adjust themselves with the available but unattractive layout the food offering can be rearranged. Second, this way his efforts bring additional dividends both for his animals and himself. In simple words, he knows the collaborative importance of the “demand side”. The case for “Poor Communities and IT” in poverty alleviation and community development perspective is somehow analogous to the above pattern of work, though the dynamisms of IT and societal needs are more complex and involve multiple implications at the technological and policy levels. What is important and needs analysis is the current focus and character structure of Information Technology incidence in our society. At the moment, the focus is one sided and is largely supply-driven. However, to realize the promises of IT for an equitable socio-economic growth for poverty alleviation and opportunity generation, it is required to balance the work on the ‘demand side’ of IT needs. At one level, the overemphasis on the ‘supply side’ has potential to sharpen the legacy of socio-economic ‘divides’ (including digital divide i.e., information haves and have-nots) and strengthen the ruthlessly ‘exclusionary impact’ of IT growth and development in society. This would practically mean enhancing scope for development of a small, usually well off, and urban-based segments of society and also, in a way, augmenting the problem of urbanization. An example of supply-driven processes is mushroom growth of IT training institutes to produce more and more IT graduates (i.e., exclusively IT specialists), and uploading more and more supply-driven portals websites sometimes in the name of development as well. Looking at the current focus, it is quite predictable that high-speed over-supply of workforce in the domestic IT sector and the collection of largely irrelevant content would not contribute much for broad-based development. The over-supply may even lead to two uncalled for directions: one, towards expanding social discontent (may be because of hi-tech unemployment and decreasing remuneration) and second towards an accelerated brain-drain searching for ‘lands of opportunity’ across the national borders. While irrelevancy factor in content may lead to a general and widespread belief that IT (and new media technologies like Internet) are not a service but another transcendent ‘politics of the elite’. It is interesting to note that sometimes the way development information portals categorize and classify information is not the way poor need, discuss, process, and access information. What can be a very relevant suggestion here is to include the participatory role of community ‘key informants’; these key informants are perceived as reliable source of verbal information at the community levels and their potentials can be harnessed for community Information Points (IT kiosks). However, the current ‘supply-driven’ focus divorced from ‘demand perspective’ is something like a strategy of ‘putting all eggs in one basket’ without taking cognizance of the circumstances under which the basket would guard and sustain itself; and yes prove to be a fruitful contribution for pro-poor development as well. Louis Pasteur once said, “the microbe is nothing, the terrain everything”. It seems that the life-sustaining capacity of IT basket lies in its potential to generate activity in non-IT sectors like formal and informal education (in natural sciences, humanities, creative arts, technical skills etc), extending better health services, developing marketing access of the rural produce while improving quality of products, participatory governance and services etc. In other words, we need to develop such community-based platform where suitable order of things can help actualize the promises of IT for reducing poverty of income and opportunity in a sustainable, inclusionary, and equitable fashion. In the suitable order of things, the key would be to include and empower the excluded subjects of IT development and growth i.e., the people especially the poor communities. Questioning IT for Poor Communities The analytical paraphernalia for developing pro-poor policy prescriptions with demand side perspective can begin as a set of issue-raising questions. For example, how can IT (and networks) become an effective tool to eradicate excruciating predicaments of income poverty (see table 1.1) and poverty of opportunity (see tables 1.2)? Income Poverty in Pakistan, 1996-97 (%) (1.1) Key Finding: Overall 31 per cent of the people of Pakistan lived in poverty in 1996-97. Urban Rural Overall Punjab Headcount 33 29 30 Poverty Gap 7 7 7 Sindh Headcount 20 53 27 Poverty Gap 4 14 9 NWFP Headcount 18 24 23 Poverty Gap 3 5 4 Balochistan Headcount 35 54 49 Poverty Gap 8 14 12 Pakistan Headcount 27 32 31 Poverty Gap 6 8 7 Source: Social Policy and Development Center estimates based on HIES (1996-97) How can IT become a participatory and empowering service delivery mechanism and serve as efficient and relevant information (information about day-to-day needs) to the poor? How can IT help develop enabling environment for community participation and development, generate trust, generate accountability potential, improve governance and access to civic services? Creating enabling environment is important so that the poor access civic services without compromising their dignity. (see ANNEX 2.3 - at the bottom) Poverty of Opportunity Index, 1996-97 (1.2) Punjab Sindh NWFP Balochistan Pakistan Health Deprivation 52 56 51 54 47 Education Deprivation 53 51 60 65 54 Income Deprivation 30 37 23 49 31 POPI 47 49 50 57 49 The maximum value of the index is 100. The closer the value of POPI is to 100,the greater the state of deprivation. Source: Social Policy and Development Center Annual Review 2000 In quest for relevance of IT industry with pro-poor strategies vis-à-vis poverty alleviation mechanisms and societal needs the hunt for policy planners and IT entrepreneurs could be: What sort of IT applications can be developed, packaged, and presented (marketed) serving as tools of socio-economic relevance for the poor? How far IT industry provide public domain and affordable auto-translators (e.g., from English to Urdu) or text-to-speech software, voice recognition, and touch-screen applications that work as optimal man-machine interface to bridge illiteracy handicap of the poor communities at local levels? How can pro-poor clusters in IT enterprises be established and sustained? However, these question need not to be replied with a narrow marketing scheme (e.g., skimming strategy) like how the ‘poor’ (as separate subject category) are unprofitable than ‘others’ in expanding IT content and infrastructure; and they need to be given access to water rather than opportunities and access of new media technologies. Perhaps, the vision regarding IT development for the poor communities needs to liken the process of IT spread (i.e., ubiquitous prevalence of IT based on increasing consumer canvass) with the processes of community development and building social capital for equitable and inclusionary socio-economic development. What is important is to acknowledge that the poor communities need both water and cost-effective, capability enhancing collective communication tools and there is no such question of either/or. The subtlety of the questions stated above can be simplified in asking for a participatory bottom-up approach in information content generation and IT infrastructure provision and development. Notwithstanding, the bottom-up methodology (rooted in community development approach), while reorienting supply-driven exclusivity in IT environment, would help doing at least three things: q Design and spread IT tools and information content in a participatory way (establishing two-way communication mode) . q Build a sense of ownership regarding IT systems and services amongst communities while reducing alienation and help bridge digital divide. q Help making IT part of lived experience of the poor and a general-purpose tool for community development while harnessing collective buying/selling power of communities and building bondages and bridges for development in non-IT fields. Looking Ahead .. The key issue in the spread of IT in society is striking a balance between demand and supply side of the process and make it a socially responsible process; may be a sort of e-convergence. The key prescription would be to locate procedural frameworks in ‘community development and participation approach’ which works by enhancing the capacity of the poor to access IT and new media technologies and also participate in decision making processes (see ANNEX 2.1 - at the bottom). Harnessing the collective buying power of communities may be an important option along with resource mobilization like credit availability for community entrepreneurs to set-up community managed Information Points (IP: is called Internet Protocol in data transmission) and ensure access to new media technologies. This method would also help communities accrue benefits even in the absence of ‘one person one PC model’. These Information Points, may be equipped with mobile phones (e.g., Grameen experience of giving mobiles to women in Bangladesh) can act as two-way communication platform for linking the poor communities Diaspora and organize labor and skill market leading to dis-intermediary (shortening supply-chain with direct access between producers and consumers). It would be great experience of IT for the poor, if auto-translators (English to Urdu and other languages) are put in use and ‘key informants’ of community benefit from the service to further strengthen the capacity to make use of two-way collective communication potential. The potentials of IPs (Information Points) can also spark off good response from the poor communities if the digital assets of educational institutions like Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan are customized and made available on CDs at the community levels. These assets in the shape of audio-visual training manuals on subjects like preventive health care, agriculture, sanitation, and automobile management are of direct use of communities. Speaking IT for education for kids a very relevant experience could be of “Hole In The wall” which was carried out with street urchins. Interestingly, illiterate kids flocked to computers and learnt using computers without instructions and prior education. Isn’t replacement of blackboard with keyboard possible along with initiating a process of computer-based literacy? (see ANNEX: 2.2 - at the bottom) As Alan Greenspan, the chairman of US Federal Reserve once suggested, the world product is becoming lighter in weight. To produce it, we need more and more knowledge and information and not much material inputs. In the light of Alan’s suggestion, another goal in the way to ‘information technology for the poor’ is to innovatively think across the idea of how the power of IT can be linked with income diversification, participation into formal safety nets, and reducing vulnerability against ill-health, and disasters. The work of Tara HAAT http://tarahaat.com and Hewlett & Packard http://hp.com/e-inclusion is very relevant here. HP works in the select coterie of villages to harness IT for health, education, and marketing the rural produce with aim to initiate processes of broadening developing countries' access to the social and economic opportunities of the digital age. The Key However, the key to making IT beneficial for community development and a critical tool for poverty eradication is to broaden the focus of IT and the strategies of its spread in society. The focus should also be on demand creation and mobilizing creative couplet of development-application of IT tools so that the excluded become partners of development and contribute to national wealth and collective social well-being. --------- Reference Sites q ePoor.org http://ePoor.org q IT, Pro-poor Projects and Responses http://ePoor.org/bg.htm q Databases and Resources on Urban Development http://www.bestpractices.org q Slums Information Development and Resource Centers (SIDAREC) Kenya. http://www.sidarec.or.ke q Hole in the Wall project: http://www.niit.com q IT for the Poor http://tarahaat.com q Grameen Foundation’s Telecom: http://www.gfusa.org/projects/telecom.html q Ninos de la Calle, a Project among Street Children in Ecuador. http://www.chasquinet.org/ninodelacalle q Promes: Software tools for organizations working with urban poor http://www.promesWeb.nl q SAMEX: Decision making support system for sanitation selection for the poor http://www.awme.uq.edu.au/manage/thomast.htm q Text-to-speech software, ReadPlease 2000 http://www.readplease.com q Bridges.org: http://www.bridges.org/ q Simputer Trust http://www.simputer.org ------ ANNEX: 2.3 Poor People, Dignity, and Services Poor Women in the Voices of the Poor study stressed that officials are often unresponsive to them. They shared countless examples of criminality, abuse, and corruption in their encounters with public institutions and said they have little recourse to justice. In describing their encounters with institutions, poor people also drew attention to the shame and indignity of being treated with arrogance, rudeness, and disdain. “We would rather treat ourselves than go to the hospitals, where the angry nurse might inject us with the wrong drug.” Poor Youth from Kitui, Tanzania. Source: World Bank Development Report 2000/2001 “Attacking Poverty”. ---- ANNEX 2.1 Participatory-budgeting from Brazil The Porto Alegre Participatory Budget is one of the finest examples involving communities in the decision-making process. In Brazil, communities have been able to help authorities apportion the annual municipal budget to needs and priorities that are decided upon through a parallel process involving poor and disenfranchised neighbourhoods. The results speak for themselves and include improved water and sanitation, infrastructure and basic services. The "participatory budget" has now spread to over 70 other municipal authorities in Brazil and in neighbouring countries. Participatory mechanisms established and enabled by the local authority appear to provide an important means by which critical information, such as the municipal planning and budgeting process, is rendered accessible and transparent to the poor. As a result, such information allows the urban poor to organise themselves and to present their demands in such a way that they can be considered by the formal institutionalised decision-making process. Source: E-conference on the Knowledge and Information Systems of the Urban Poor organized by The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) Feb - May 2001 ------ ANNEX 2.2 Hole in the wall project of the National Institute of Information Technology, Delhi http://www.niit.com/Press%20Stories/Story71.htm. As an experiment, NIIT's cognitive engineering researchers last year made a hole in the wall near the slum and installed a powerful computer connected permanently to the Internet there. The computer was available for anyone to use. The result was extraordinary. The slum children, many of whom had had no primary education, went over to check out the computer. There was no instructor on call; they were left to themselves. Within five hours, one of them, Rajender, aged eight, had managed to find a Disney Site. ------ Regards, Zubair Faisal Abbasi. CEO/Project Director, ePoor.org Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor, Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan. Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274 ++++++++ Pro-Poor means enhancing capacity of the POOR to perform PRO i.e., 'Poverty reduction', 'Remoteness reduction' and 'Opportunity generation'. From ravis at sarai.net Tue Jun 26 19:43:25 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 19:13:25 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Freelancers Win in Case of Work Kept in Databases (FWD) Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010626191325.007c26c0@mail.sarai.net> From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Jun 26 21:49:10 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 09:19:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] on identification and social control In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20010618145920.007a8180@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20010626161910.4643.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> Within the context of recent postings on surveillance I would like to ask the question: what does freedom look like in the networked society? Modern surveillance and social control do not just begin with cameras and email censorship. They are there in much older systems. For instance, an economy built on credit - which is the case in the US for all of the post-WW2 era - imposes a profound kind of control. Instead of a period of restraint and saving followed by a libidinal rush of spending on a long-desired asset (a car, for example), this model extends that phase of restraint over the entirety of life. Credit card bills and mortgages ensure that citizens cannot deviate too far from the hard work that allows them to remain financially afloat. In this kind of society one's main social duty is to consume and thus keep up one's 'debt to society' - the rest (production, self-control, etc) will follow. this predates more precise forms of surveillance that the credit system makes possible - your credit card bill as a map, for instance, of your locations and actions. As the system's need for growth demands an ever greater level of both consumption and production from individuals, it is clear that both activities are ever more closely controlled. but one should not look at this in a vacuum, as if, if such modes of control were not there, there would be no control at all, and individuals would be totally free. the level of such dispersed, internalised control, i am sure, has an inverse relationship with the level of centralised, external control that is required in a society. in a place like india where both kinds of control are at work, they are unequally applied: i would imagine that middle class people are much more subject to the former, and working class people to the latter. if this is the only choice, personally i'd prefer to be subject to a control that is abstract and whose workings i can anticipate than one that is personified and random. and i think that within the realm of the actually-existing these are the only kind of choices we have. here in india where we are familiar with the experience of society being inadequately 'managed' the absence of any kind of control whatsoever does not seem wholly romantic. if it is true - and i'm not actually sure it is - that all the phenomena we are looking at point only to changing forms of control rather than different amounts of it, then any ideas of 'freedom' must only be relative. how do people on the list imagine 'freedom'? R __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From menso at r4k.net Wed Jun 27 05:58:18 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 02:28:18 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] on identification and social control In-Reply-To: <20010626161910.4643.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com>; from rana_dasgupta@yahoo.com on Tue, Jun 26, 2001 at 09:19:10AM -0700 References: <3.0.6.32.20010618145920.007a8180@mail.sarai.net> <20010626161910.4643.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010627022818.O37888@r4k.net> On Tue, Jun 26, 2001 at 09:19:10AM -0700, Rana Dasgupta wrote: > Within the context of recent postings on surveillance > I would like to ask the question: what does freedom > look like in the networked society? > > Modern surveillance and social control do not just > begin with cameras and email censorship. They are > there in much older systems. > > For instance, an economy built on credit - which is > the case in the US for all of the post-WW2 era - > imposes a profound kind of control. Instead of a > period of restraint and saving followed by a libidinal > rush of spending on a long-desired asset (a car, for > example), this model extends that phase of restraint > over the entirety of life. Credit card bills and > mortgages ensure that citizens cannot deviate too far > from the hard work that allows them to remain > financially afloat. In this kind of society one's > main social duty is to consume and thus keep up one's > 'debt to society' - the rest (production, > self-control, etc) will follow. this predates more > precise forms of surveillance that the credit system > makes possible - your credit card bill as a map, for > instance, of your locations and actions. The difference between creditcards and other 'networked' surveillance is that with creditcards *I* get to choose to use them and thus have somewhat more freedom. Hence: If I want to buy porno mags and don't want my bank or whoever to find out, I go in and pay by cash. One could argue that getting the money from an ATM is logged which is true, but they will not know what I spend it on (unless you're one of those people who believe they track all notes by their serial number, which too me seems just too much hassle :-) The fact that the store most likely has a cam however is something I can't do anything about, I cannot choose to not be filmed in the store or on the streets unless I choose to avoid those places. I cannot choose for people not to tap my email, surely I can try to fix a workaround (e.g. use encryption) but since storage is cheap they can store it now and by the time the next big generation of CPU's kicks in they'll decode it in a blink then when they think it's necessary. > As the system's need for growth demands an ever > greater level of both consumption and production from > individuals, it is clear that both activities are ever > more closely controlled. Is that need really there or is it there because Nokia, Intel, McDonalds, Nike and Foodworld supermarkets tell you so? We have come a long way, from hunting to prevent starvation to eating burgers sitting on our couch watching cartoon network while we grow fat and swallow anything that comes in a shiny packaging. I think Cow from the Cow And Chicken show on cartoon network said it best when she said "I'm gonna follow my herd!" Naturally, each herd has a leader and we have decided that big corporations are the way to go at some point or another.... > but one should not look at this in a vacuum, as if, if > such modes of control were not there, there would be > no control at all, and individuals would be totally > free. the level of such dispersed, internalised > control, i am sure, has an inverse relationship with > the level of centralised, external control that is > required in a society. in a place like india where > both kinds of control are at work, they are unequally > applied: i would imagine that middle class people are > much more subject to the former, and working class > people to the latter. I wouldn't be to sure on this, eventually all is controlled by the government and big corporations and even bigger clubs behind those. The internalised control is thus controlled by the external, governmental control (which might seem passive or look the other way if there's good enough reasons to do so, and there is ofcourse only one: money!) > if this is the only choice, personally i'd prefer to > be subject to a control that is abstract and whose > workings i can anticipate than one that is personified > and random. and i think that within the realm of the > actually-existing these are the only kind of choices > we have. here in india where we are familiar with the > experience of society being inadequately 'managed' the > absence of any kind of control whatsoever does not > seem wholly romantic. There is a big difference between saying control is bad and saying losing your freedom is. Funnily enough, in most groups of people I've met these forms of control evolve naturally and the 'group leaders' also are picked naturally instead of imposed. The image you create of a form of control that you can anticipate on is a nice one but not very current I think. While governments and big corps want to know more and more about us they are becoming less transparent in their own actions every day. Thus one could argue that the forms of control are getting tighter and tighter, perhaps reaching Orwell's 1984 (but when it does, they'll have made sure the book's not available anymore and nobody knows it, having sitcoms and cartoons about 'paranoid people' that want some privacy, ridiculing the concept). > if it is true - and i'm not actually sure it is - that > all the phenomena we are looking at point only to > changing forms of control rather than different > amounts of it, then any ideas of 'freedom' must only > be relative. how do people on the list imagine > 'freedom'? When something like the concept of control changes the amount or grip it has changes with it. It's a bit like a glass of water, one full and one half-empty and asking 'Is the form of the water between these two glasses different or does the amount change?" Ofcourse ideas of freedom are relative, there is no question about that. The amount of control society allows to be had on it though is not in my opinion. You see, the reason the sense of freedom is relative between people from different cultures or different times is because of the different amount of control their culture has on them. For example, a Turkish girl in The Netherlands might relate the idea of Dutch girls not wearing anything to cover their head to freedom, girls from England or Sweden however will not, since they do not know it any different. The Turkish girl will say "Oh, you are so free!" and the Dutch one will reply by saying "Oh, you're so oppressed!" and the father of the Turkish girl will say "It's the way God wants it" and is thus again controlled by religion* and that will be the start of it: The girl will need to figure out if she wants to live the way her family and religion think is best or if she wants the freedom to go and dress the way she wants to, and thus brake with current culture and traditions. Herbert's Dune series show the different ways control works quite nicely, the most famous words probably being "He who controls the spice controls the universe!" where spice is a drug that enables people to do crazy things like travel through dimensions and stuff, but that's not really the point here. The spice for our people seems to be money, everybody wants it and the more the better, if not for material things than to pay holidays or things like that. The growing demand for production comes from the growing demand for money, thus resulting in a world where we end up with lavalamps because the guy at the shop convinced us we need them because they look so damn cool, and we buy it. Thus resulting in a world where a popular square is hang full with camera's so you can feel safe, sure, the cops will never arrive in time when you get robbed, raped or murdered but hey, they can always sell the footage to some reality TV show to go along with that HappyMeal product we really need, can't they? Thus resulting in a world with bitter 19-year olds replying to emails about freedom while they should be out getting drunk and stoned out of their minds along with some nice college girls while not worrying about things like this. There is no such thing as complete freedom, even if it were just because of our sense of obligations to the people we love and care about (e.g. I will not have sex with someone else than my partner because I know it upsets him/her). There is however definately different amounts of control and current society will need to figure out just how much it will allow and to what purpose and how to mix up the different amounts of control between cultures to find a balance between them. GoodKnight, Menso * This comment is not made to upset any religious people. I am not saying all religion is bad, I am however very aware of the fact that most wars in this world had as reason: "My god is better than yours, and if you do not agree I will kill you eventhough my religion's bible says it's never ok to kill someone" Think about it, do you really need a church or does the church need you? ** For the Indian people out there, a Quarterpounder menu is a burger that you can get in all McDonalds across the world, except *yours* that have the highly irritating sign saying "No beef products sold here". And yes, it is indeed called a "Royal with cheese" in France as the movie Pulp Fiction claims it is and it makes quite an ok breakfast/lunch/dinner. One could argue that Indian culture prevents people from other cultures to eat beef products at their favorite fastfood joint, thus apply'ing more control (and leaving less freedom) to that person.... the burger doesn't really seem worth it though ;) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From kshekhar at bol.net.in Wed Jun 27 11:47:37 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 11:47:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Restrictions on Foreign Scholars Message-ID: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 India Places Restrictions on Visits by Foreign Scholars in 4 Fields By MARTHA ANN OVERLAND Academic leaders in India are protesting a government rule, revealed Friday, that requires many visiting foreign scholars to obtain official permission before they can be invited to participate in seminars and conferences in India. The government directive requests that universities and academic bodies avoid extending invitations to foreigners if a conference relates to politics, human rights, communalism, or religion. If a foreign scholar's presence is absolutely necessary, he or she must first be vetted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which deals with domestic security. In addition, any academic visiting from Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, or Afghanistan must get permission to attend a conference, regardless of the subject matter. India has had long-running border disputes with Bangladesh and China, and has twice gone to war with Pakistan. The government fears terrorist threats from factions operating inside Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. "This is not against academics per se, but foreigners speaking on various subjects," said Dinanath Shenoy, the under secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. He said the academics were overreacting to the article in Friday's issue of The Times of India, which revealed that the government had adopted the policy in September, and started circulating it to university officials in recent months. The policy was largely unknown until Friday. "We have surveyed 500 subjects under the sun," and only these few must be cleared by the home ministry, Mr. Shenoy said. "This is because we have a secular democracy and we don't want communal and inter-religious flashes to take place." After the rules governing visiting scholars were made public, the Delhi University Teacher's Association filed a complaint with the government. "This is totally uncalled for," said Shyram S. Rathi, the association's president. "There should be no restriction on academics, irrespective of the area. This amounts to the suppression of the freedom of expression." Mr. Rathi is also concerned that conference organizers, fearing repercussions, might decide not to invite scholars who are known for their unorthodox opinions. "This will make people think twice about inviting scholars to India," Mr. Rathi said. "Not just in these areas but in any area, because any ideological interaction or comment made at a seminar could be interpreted as political." _________________________________________________________________ Chronicle subscribers can read this article on the Web at this address: http://chronicle.com/daily/2001/06/2001062005n.htm If you would like to have complete access to The Chronicle's Web site, a special subscription offer can be found at: http://chronicle.com/4free _________________________________________________________________ You may visit The Chronicle as follows: * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com * via telnet at chronicle.com _________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education _____ Shekhar Krishnan 58/58A, Anand Bhavan 201, Lady Hardinge Road (T.H. Kataria Marg) Mahim, Bombay 400016 India From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Jun 27 12:26:56 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 12:26:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Controlling the Web by Scott Rosenberg Message-ID: <4.3.1.20010627122552.00ae0200@mail.sarai.net> Here is an interesting take on the increasing levels of control on the interent that we may be asked to be accustomed to, I found this on Salon at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/26/locking_up_the_web/print.html Cheers(?) Shuddha Assimilating the Web Like "Star Trek's" all-powerful Borg, AOL and Microsoft are determined to crush the spirit of online independence. Is resistance futile? - - - - - - - - - - - By Scott Rosenberg June 26, 2001 | There are moments, these days, when I sit at my desk, watching the spam pour into my in box, and think, Well, we did it! We built the Internet and created the most efficient means in human history for delivering penis enlargement pitches and come-ons from Nigerian scam artists. As spam keeps multiplying, it reminds us of the persistence of the original nightmare of the Net as a borderless, centerless anarchy -- a medium in which anyone is free to tell outrageous lies or steal collective resources because, hey, who can stop them? Each new spam is an irritating reminder: This network is out of control. Except. A couple of weeks ago, in between the spammed "Become your own boss!" and "herbal Viagra" offers, I received a cluster of real e-mail from friends and colleagues, all pointing to the same news blip: "Four Web sites," the headlines read, "control half of surfing time." My God! Talk about media concentration! Has the entire Web really come down to America Online, Microsoft, Yahoo and Napster? Of course, look a little more closely at that report and you find all sorts of holes. For starters, there's the notoriously inaccurate methodology of the survey takers at Jupiter Media Metrix. Then there's the definitions of all these terms -- "site," "surfing," "control." Does AOL "control" the time that its users are sending e-mail? Are Napster users "surfing" when they're trading music files? What idiot assembled this ludicrous data, anyway? Still, the sound bite touched a nerve because -- whatever the flaws in Jupiter's study -- we know in our guts that control of the Web is concentrating at an alarming rate. Sure, it's still possible for anyone to put up a Web site. But as the carcasses of independent Web start-ups litter the landscape, the once-wild online free-for-all is rapidly devolving into a showdown between AOL and Microsoft. AOL controls the subscriber lists and a huge chunk of the content; Microsoft controls the consumer operating system and browser. Anarchy? No way -- this is a bipolar Cold War, waged with software standards and lawsuits and marketing blitzes. In fact, the Web today, in this grim summer of 2001 -- seven long years after its first flush of popularity -- faces a paradoxical and perplexing impasse. It's still too anarchic to be made a completely smooth, convenient, ready-for-prime-time experience; but it's also losing the vital ferment of its "let a hundred flowers bloom" youth to the gray monotony of corporate control. We're reaping the worst of both worlds, networked chaos and monopolistic consolidation. The least common denominator of individual behavior multiplies, while the least common denominator of mass taste prevails. In other words, we're screwed. How did we -- the users of the Internet, promised untold new vistas of individual empowerment and a renaissance of political and cultural expression -- wind up in such straits? To answer that, we have to look back to the roots of today's commercial Internet, the heady days of 1994 and 1995. What made that time so exciting? For the first time in our experience, the spread of the Web had, momentarily at least, leveled the playing field of media distribution. The Web's open design and standards meant that publishers of all stripes could stop worrying about getting their products to people; all you had to do was plug your content into the Web, and anyone who had access to the Web could get it. You didn't have to pay for shelf space or rack space or airtime, or pay off regulators to reserve spectrum for you, or worry about delivery truck drivers going on strike. The Web didn't eliminate distribution costs (there are still servers to buy and bandwidth charges to pay), but it dramatically reduced them, and gave the notion that "everyone's a publisher" some credence beyond hype. "Publisher" covers a vast spectrum, though, from AOL Time Warner to your local HTML whiz kid. As commercial publishers colonized the Web and private individuals flexed their new publishing muscles, two vastly different visions of the Web's purpose and value emerged. Old-line media corporations that viewed the Web as a threat and commercial start-ups that saw it as an opportunity shared one perspective: The Web had to be made a safe place for profits, whatever it took in the way of advertising, subscriptions, privacy invasions and other increasingly desperate measures. Meanwhile, the do-it-yourself Web publishers -- from the "build your own page" homesteaders of 1995 to the more recent explosion of weblogs -- reveled in the new ease with which they could post information, from personal trivia to headline-making revelations, to the entire world, and didn't worry much about money. In no other medium have "pro" and amateur, commercial and "just for fun" found themselves so inseparably intertwined. But along the way each camp tended to conveniently forget some facts: The amateurs lost sight of how heavily their "free" publishing was subsidized by venture-capital investments in Net infrastructure -- investments that, having proved largely unprofitable, are no longer flowing. The pros, meanwhile, talked up projections of vast growth for Internet usage, without acknowledging how much of that use went to e-mail or Britney Spears fan pages, neither of which was likely to boost a media company's bottom line. Thanks to this dynamic, the Web we know today evolved. The medium became a laboratory for big corporate media and technology companies to test new software and new business models at relatively low risk and cost. Much of the Web's seven-year history is a chronicle of these failures: The e-commerce missteps of 1996 (remember Marketplace MCI?), the city-site wars of 1997, the me-too portal mania of 1998 and 1999, the dot-com dollar palooza that peaked and then cratered in 2000. At the same time, the Web became an enormous global water cooler and party line, a gossip-amplifying, hobby-driven cornucopia of trivial pursuits -- ham radio on speed, only you didn't have to learn Morse code. A lot of predictions made with great idealism didn't pan out. After a brief first wave of innovative new sites -- Hotwired, Feed, Word, Suck, Salon and Slate -- the notion that the Web would foster a renaissance of independent publishing quickly withered in the face of some hard truths about Web media: Yes, it's easier and cheaper to put up a site than to print a newspaper or magazine or start a TV station, but journalism and information still cost money. And once you hang out your Web shingle you still have to figure out a way for people to find out that it's there. So of that first wave of high-profile "indies," Hotwired and Word are long gone, Feed and Suck have just gone into deepfreeze and Salon's financial difficulties have become a long-running soap opera in the financial press. (Slate may belong to this group in its target audience, but it is now so deeply intertwined with the Microsoft Network that its Web address has become a mere redirect from "www.slate.com" to "slate.msn.com," and its editor, Michael Kinsley, says he doesn't even have a separate balance sheet.) There's no reason the Web can't support a flourishing field of independent professional publishers in the middle ground between Big Media and feisty amateur -- no reason, that is, as long as you give this still-fledgling business time to sort itself out. Web users will, eventually, accept the necessity of paying subscription fees for the content they really want. Advertisers will, eventually, stop holding the Web to standards of guaranteed effectiveness that their bloated print and broadcast budgets could never meet. Sustainable businesses will evolve out of the carnage of the dot-com downturn, or grow off the corpses of failed start-ups. Broadband connections and software improvements will, across a decade-long vista, reduce users' frustration and impatience. Anyone, anywhere, will still be able to put up a Web site and reach anyone else online with news, gossip, truth or lies. One big "but" hangs in the way of this rosy scenario, however. As Microsoft and AOL play out their corporate duel, each will inevitably seek to lock in customers and lock out competitors. I think a significant number of Web users, myself included, would be happy to see these two giants cripple each other in the process. The trouble is, their moves are more likely to injure bystanders -- and could wreck the Net itself. While no one company may "control" the Web, Microsoft and AOL each have it within their power to wreak a lot of damage on the network and its users. At the moment, the pressure is on Microsoft to whittle down AOL's overwhelming lead in the subscriber rolls, so it's Microsoft that's causing the most trouble. Since Microsoft controls the operating system and Web browser that most consumers use, Microsoft looks to bend its software in directions that will help drive users to its Web sites and other businesses. This is what Microsoft calls "innovation" and "integration" -- and what the U.S. legal system, depending on which court's ruling is currently in force, calls "monopolistic behavior" and "antitrust violation." As Microsoft readies the next mass-market version of Windows, XP (which supposedly stands, in some bizarre tip of the hat to Jimi Hendrix, for "Experience"), provocative tidbits of its "integrations" have surfaced. The most outrageous gambit is a little innovation known as Smart Tags -- a tool already built into the Office XP software package that automatically adds new links to documents. You don't choose where on the Internet these links point to; Microsoft does. In Windows XP, Microsoft intends to extend Smart Tags to the Web browser, usurping the heretofore-unchallenged right of a Web site operator to decide where links point. This sets off very loud alarm bells: Site editors rightly fear the hijacking of their content; site proprietors rightly foresee the hijacking of their businesses. (In my previous paragraph, imagine a link from "Hendrix" to a Microsoft-owned or -partnered music shop -- or, more outrageously, from "antitrust violation" to a Microsoft-slanted definition of that term.) Microsoft, feebly, murmurs that XP remains an unfinished product, and Smart Tags don't look like other links, and maybe they will be turned off by default, and maybe it will be easy for sites to override them. The bottom line remains: Microsoft will choose new directions for its technology, and the very directions the company insists its users are clamoring for will -- by sheer coincidence -- move power over content and commerce into its own hands. The Smart Tags tool isn't the only trick up Microsoft's XP sleeve. The new Windows will also herd users toward Windows Media Player for multimedia content. It will "integrate" its instant-messaging service to take on AOL's dominance in this arena. And it will aggressively push its Passport service for storing personal information. Passport is Microsoft's scheme for getting your credit card number and personal information on file; sure, it will offer one-click convenience at many Microsoft-affiliated sites, but it also puts Microsoft in an ideal position to finally make good on its long-held dream of cutting itself a slice of online transactions. (In memos and interviews a few years ago, the company's then chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold, referred to this tollbooth charge as a "vig" -- a term from the patois of bookies, which gives you an idea of the direction from which Microsoft has been drawing its inspiration.) Once we all need to register for Passport to pay the subscription fees Microsoft intends to charge for use of its operating system, Passport will be ubiquitous and unavoidable -- except by those who opt out of the Windows world completely, fleeing for the high ground of Apple's newly reinvigorated operating system or the freehold of Linux, as more and more adventurous souls will do. Microsoft's role in the ecology of the Internet business has long been to "cut off the air supply" of competitors. Microsoft execs deny coining that memorable phrase, which emerged during the antitrust trial -- but whether they used it or not, it accurately describes the company's tactics. Today, AOL -- with its tens of millions of subscribers -- has the luxury of, in essence, being the atmosphere of the online world. Where Microsoft needs to subsidize its online efforts with the obscene profits generated by its desktop-software monopoly, AOL controls the world's largest stream of direct revenue from online services. This is thanks to the company's unique position in serving as the country's biggest Internet service provider and its largest producer of content (since the merger with Time Warner). AOL won this position by offering new users a genuinely easy method of getting online, and by locking those users into AOL buddy lists and instant-messaging services. Users pay AOL their monthly connection fee (which seems to creep up a couple of dollars every year or two) and then AOL tries to leverage the relationship through advertising and promotions. Smart business? Sure -- but one that relies on users' lack of smarts. It's not yet clear how AOL will respond to Microsoft's offensive, but you can be sure it will give up no ground without a battle -- in the courts or the consumer market or the software arena or everywhere at once. AOL will do everything in its power, as it always has, to keep users' eyes and dollars from roaming beyond AOL turf -- and now that AOL's turf is so vast, that's an easier task. Before asking whether either of these companies could control the Web or the Net, you have to pin down what you mean by "control." There's control of speech -- of individual users' ability to say what they want. There's control of access -- of whether and how we're able to find and reach others across the network. And of course there's control of the ability to make money online. As long as AOL's and Microsoft's struggle is fought primarily in that final realm, the fight won't be one that most Net users will care about; one mega-corporation's money grab looks pretty much like another's. Things will get far more interesting, however, if the conflict spills over into the other two categories. The Smart Tag controversy is a glimpse of what corporate speech control on the Net looks like -- that's why it has so much of the active Net up in arms. Meanwhile, the more AOL and Microsoft "leverage" their advantages in, respectively, subscribership and software, the more likely they are to start closing off entrances and exits and transforming their fiefdoms into private networks. In the world of instant messaging, each company's users are unable to connect with the other's -- a preview of what corporate control of access on the Net looks like. Think of how it would feel if e-mail worked that way! In fact, it's not hard to imagine this at all -- because it's exactly how the commercial online world worked before 1994. The smoke of today's AOL/Microsoft war obscures a secret agenda the two companies will never admit to publicly: They don't like the Internet -- and never have. Microsoft's MSN and AOL were both closed, proprietary networks when the Web exploded and upended their business plans, forcing each to change course radically: Microsoft turned its battleship around to sink Netscape in the browser wars, while AOL dropped its hourly charges. Both companies hooked up their networks to the open Net, while conniving to keep their users just a little fuzzy about where the "branded" AOL or Microsoft turf ended and the rest of the Net began. Both companies, you can bet, would be far more comfortable in a world without the Internet -- a world in which they governed who could post content on their networks and taxed anyone who made money from it. Seven years ago, only one thing made them accept and embrace the strange new notion of a network that nobody owned or controlled: the overwhelming enthusiasm for the Net on the part of masses of users and developers. A kind of online "people power" forced open Microsoft's and AOL's doors seven years ago. Today both companies are itching to turn back the clock. Can they do it? They'll certainly try. But if these companies push too hard, those who care about the survival of an independent Web may simply vote with their feet and wallets, as they did once before. If they don't -- and only if they don't -- it will be time to sing a requiem for the Net. Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From monica at sarai.net Wed Jun 27 12:30:12 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 12:30:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Open source rival for MP3 In-Reply-To: <20010626114904.L37888@r4k.net> References: <20010625.12231400@saumya.sarai.kit> <20010626114904.L37888@r4k.net> Message-ID: In response: simple useful fact to know is that MacAmp (default config) also plays OggVorbis files besides the MP3 files. i know because i downloaded and checked. The sound quality seemed actually good on the inadequate Mac speaker (but tell me of one person who listens to MP3s - historically called "cruddy" by Courteney Love because of Not-god sound quality - on any better speaker! (WinAmp doesnt do so but perhaps its is possible to tweak??) More importantly is to find out more about alternative to Real (for both the reasons that you point out). One fact/rumour being bandied about is that soon one should be able to stream OggVorbis on IceCast. This can only be a good thing... (to make rumour fact, check www.icecast.org) Monica >Hi all, > >There are a couple of different things with this article: > >First, and probably most important, is that this must be the zillionth >group of people that is going to create a standard to replace MP3. A >couple of years ago there was suddenly VQF and more of that which was >all going to make an end to MP3 and create an open standard of 'free' >service. > >The netizens came, observerd, tested and decided: we want MP3, not something >else. Why? Because MP3 was already widely spread and well-known and most of >the other options just plainly sucked. > >And it makes sense, as end-user you get to download free players such as >Winamp for example and you can download music for free. Why should the end >user care about licensing fees for people who want to built encoding software, >it's not like MP3's are very rare or anything and as long as they're available >it's not a problem to the end-user, so he can't be bothered. > >Another problem is: why should I switch again? Why should I leave alone my >realplayer (actually, that's obvious, but for the sake of the argument) or >Quicktime or Windows Media Player for Yet Another Media Player? Why should >I suddenly stop encoding my CD's into MP3 and switch to this new standard? >Only because it's open? I hate to burst Ogg Vorbis' bubble but 99% of the >people out there couldn't care less about open standards or cross platform >compatibility, they just want things to work and unless my current player >can't give me what a new one can I'm not going to change. > >Since they're all going to give it away for free they'd better make sure >they either made something that totally kicks ass or they're doomed. If >it's slightly better than Real or WMP than they still have the marketing >problem. Two years ago MS might have been willing to incorporate the player >with their browser, now they made their own player so they're not going to >do it. Real has expensive licensing which means they also have money with >which they can advertise and all that and for now, sadly enough, it seems >Real is sort of the standard. (No, I don't mean sad because the licenses >are expensive, I mean sad because it sucks imho). > >Anyway, I don't think we'll hear a lot of these guys but let's wish them >luck. > >Menso > >Note: I could be terribly wrong, I hope I am. > -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Jun 27 14:00:11 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 14:00:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Sean Cubitt on Echelon, privacy and property Message-ID: <4.3.1.20010627135723.00b0bb80@mail.sarai.net> Very interesting observations on Privacy and Capital and Datra as Cash. Apologies for Corss Posting for those on the Nettime List Sean Cubitt's posting on Privacy, Echelon and Capital form Nettime (www.nettime.org) Thomas Carlyle, I think, coimed the phrase cash-nexus. He was protesting >the way in which traditional (Gemeinschaft, possibly even, in the >English context, residual feudal) relationships were being subborned to >the wage and commodity relations in the mid 19th century. My thesis is >really a minor elaboration of this idea, and of Marx's comment that >under capitalism relations between people take on the fantastic form of >relations between objects. > >Money, and this will come as no surprise to anyone growing up in the age of >finance, is a mode of communication. It is communication because it is a >medium for relationships between people (and between people, objects, >animals and machines, but that's another story). > >The odd thing about money, when compared to other modes of communication >like speech, gesture or even books and records, is that it can be hoarded. >In other words, this mode of communication, the dominant medium of the >early 21st century, is actually even better at stalling and even blocking >communication flows than at instigating them. > >Privacy -- private space, private family, private property, private >thoughts -- are social realisations of this trend. It doesn't matter to me >which comes first. What matters is that the private becomes a space for >accumulation, that is for removing communication content from local and >global flows. > >Take the Romantic artist. Overstating the case, the function of the >Romantic is to take all human activity and make it come to a stop in a >moment of personal experience: this is the case with Hegel, Rilke, >Delacroix, Mallarme (le monde existe pour aboutir a un livre). For >Heidegger, death plays a similar role: and Heidegger is the basis for much >post-structural thought. The unthinkable and terminally private moment of >*my* death is the end towards which human being (Dasein) tends. >Communication is a result, for Heidegger, of the being-towards-death. A >typical expression of the private self as goal, of the removal of >communication as the end, of history. > >Mark Stahlman writes to me that there is much, much more to be said about >the "dis-appearance" of the private individual over the course of the past >150+ years . . . of which ECHELON is really a very minor part. So true! >Habermas dates the arrival of the public/private distinction to the period >of the Encyclopedie, of the coffee-houses, salons and Tischgesellschaft in >the late18th century. A study of domestic bourgeois architecture would >probably give us a detailed trajectory of the materialisation of the >concept. Giedion, for example, in Mechanisation Takes Command, traces it >through the development of the water closet as an essentially private room, >still a rarity for the majority of the world's population. Alternatively, >we could use Foucault's panotic/disciplinary society as a model of an >organisation which follows that of the private. > >Foucault, like Deleuze and many other anti-Marxist philosophers, blames the >state for this. Bad idea. The state, while still an important sector, is of >diminishing importance in globalised capital flows (and I believe, was >never entirely liberated from the economic formations that gave rise to the >modern republic as exported to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and >elsewhere with such disastrous consequences for the indigenous peoples, and >such a phenomenal payback for global mercantilist and capitalist >entrepreneurs. > >The full blow by blow of this evolution would have to look also at the >movement towards consumer capital, and the compact every purchaser enters >into to become an information source -- just as Ford's factory hands had >been at River Rouge. Consumers no longer exchange only cash: they exchange >their data for a good or service. Alternative modes of data analysis -- >numerology, astrology -- are attempts to build alternative systems for >governing and especially for sharing data in ways not determined by >capital. > >But to return to the first thesis, Carlyle's cash nexus. Today cash is >data. Today relations between people appear to them in the fantastic form >of information. The tendency (from cash to information) is to get closer to >a communicative community, somewhere beyond Habermas' communicative >rationality (and its implicit binary of rational and irrational, the >sophistico-mystical 'symbolic exchange' of Bataille and Baudrillard ). To >paraphrase the Communist Manifesto, Information wants to be free -- but is >everywhere in chains. Human relations are at the brink of globalising >through networks of diaspora and shared belief. Against them are ranged >19th century concepts of individualism, 18th century concepts of nationhood >and 17th century concepts of divinity. But most of all, 20th century >conceptions of the state and of the private sphere which defines itself in >opposition to the state. > >But as the state crumbles, so privacy shrinks. Today we witness every day >the vast 'obscenity' of mass intimacy: the near-compulsive revelation of >our innermost thoughts in the liberating atmosphere of a global anonymity, >Poe's Man of the Crowd in cyberparadise. (Baudrillard is often an excellent >observer, just a lax and nihilistic commentator in an age where nihilism is >the official philosophy of transnational capital) > >Who wants to retain privacy?. Mainly wife-beaters, child-abusers and >tax-evaders. Most of us have nothing to lose but our privacy -- the >compulsory hoarding of data in the form of private property and private >thoughts. But a private thought is no thought at all, like a poem left in a >drawer is no poem. > >The ironic tone of my little post was nonetheless serious: we *should* >pursue Echelon's logic to its logical outcome -- privacy is a previous >phase of the global process, and we need not to slow down or arrest but >speed up the globalisation of data -- not least so that no more regions >have to go through the hell of the smokestack era. There is no going back. > >Richard Barbrook said: I don't mind them spying on me as long as I can spy >on them too... property is theft. And vice versa: data theft is property. >property and theft are inseparable. > >People are media too. As a first step I advocate an international agreement >at WTO level to permit the free flow of people. Perhaps then there will be >an incentive to stop hoarding dataflows in the metroplis. > >-- >Sean Cubitt >Screen and Media Studies, >Akoranga Whakaata Purongo >University of Waikato, >Private Bag 3105, >Hamilton, >New Zealand >T: Dept: +64 (0)7 838 4543 >T: Direct: +64 (0)7 856 2289 ext 8604 >F: +64 (0)7 838 4767 >http://www.waikato.ac.nz/film >http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/digita >http://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/sean/welcome.html > ># distributed via : no commercial use without permission ># is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, ># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets ># more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body ># archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net Shuddhabrata Sengupta SARAI: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India www.sarai.net From tray at cal2.vsnl.net.in Thu Jun 28 12:15:23 2001 From: tray at cal2.vsnl.net.in (Tapas Ray) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:15:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #83 - 2 msgs References: <200106270430.GAA24755@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <003301c0ff9e$0b058280$22abc8cb@b5m9z2> Just to let you know the funny (?) side: http://www.backwire.com/go.asp?cid=60617&nhid=3264&uid=1096666&bx=n2 EVERY DRIVE YOU TAKE, I'LL BE WATCHING YOU You're on vacation, joyriding in your upscale rental car equipped with cool stuff like a GPS. And hey, the rental agency's happy, too, because it can charge you each time you speed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: on identification and social control (Rana Dasgupta) > 2. Re: on identification and social control (Menso Heus) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 09:19:10 -0700 (PDT) > From: Rana Dasgupta > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] on identification and social control > To: reader-list at sarai.net > > Within the context of recent postings on surveillance > I would like to ask the question: what does freedom > look like in the networked society? > > Modern surveillance and social control do not just > begin with cameras and email censorship. They are > there in much older systems. > > For instance, an economy built on credit - which is > the case in the US for all of the post-WW2 era - > imposes a profound kind of control. Instead of a > period of restraint and saving followed by a libidinal > rush of spending on a long-desired asset (a car, for > example), this model extends that phase of restraint > over the entirety of life. Credit card bills and > mortgages ensure that citizens cannot deviate too far > from the hard work that allows them to remain > financially afloat. In this kind of society one's > main social duty is to consume and thus keep up one's > 'debt to society' - the rest (production, > self-control, etc) will follow. this predates more > precise forms of surveillance that the credit system > makes possible - your credit card bill as a map, for > instance, of your locations and actions. > > As the system's need for growth demands an ever > greater level of both consumption and production from > individuals, it is clear that both activities are ever > more closely controlled. > > but one should not look at this in a vacuum, as if, if > such modes of control were not there, there would be > no control at all, and individuals would be totally > free. the level of such dispersed, internalised > control, i am sure, has an inverse relationship with > the level of centralised, external control that is > required in a society. in a place like india where > both kinds of control are at work, they are unequally > applied: i would imagine that middle class people are > much more subject to the former, and working class > people to the latter. > > if this is the only choice, personally i'd prefer to > be subject to a control that is abstract and whose > workings i can anticipate than one that is personified > and random. and i think that within the realm of the > actually-existing these are the only kind of choices > we have. here in india where we are familiar with the > experience of society being inadequately 'managed' the > absence of any kind of control whatsoever does not > seem wholly romantic. > > if it is true - and i'm not actually sure it is - that > all the phenomena we are looking at point only to > changing forms of control rather than different > amounts of it, then any ideas of 'freedom' must only > be relative. how do people on the list imagine > 'freedom'? > > R > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail > http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ > > --__--__-- > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 02:28:18 +0200 > From: Menso Heus > To: Rana Dasgupta > Cc: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] on identification and social control > > On Tue, Jun 26, 2001 at 09:19:10AM -0700, Rana Dasgupta wrote: > > Within the context of recent postings on surveillance > > I would like to ask the question: what does freedom > > look like in the networked society? > > > > Modern surveillance and social control do not just > > begin with cameras and email censorship. They are > > there in much older systems. > > > > For instance, an economy built on credit - which is > > the case in the US for all of the post-WW2 era - > > imposes a profound kind of control. Instead of a > > period of restraint and saving followed by a libidinal > > rush of spending on a long-desired asset (a car, for > > example), this model extends that phase of restraint > > over the entirety of life. Credit card bills and > > mortgages ensure that citizens cannot deviate too far > > from the hard work that allows them to remain > > financially afloat. In this kind of society one's > > main social duty is to consume and thus keep up one's > > 'debt to society' - the rest (production, > > self-control, etc) will follow. this predates more > > precise forms of surveillance that the credit system > > makes possible - your credit card bill as a map, for > > instance, of your locations and actions. > > The difference between creditcards and other 'networked' > surveillance is that with creditcards *I* get to choose > to use them and thus have somewhat more freedom. > Hence: If I want to buy porno mags and don't want my bank > or whoever to find out, I go in and pay by cash. > One could argue that getting the money from an ATM is logged > which is true, but they will not know what I spend it on > (unless you're one of those people who believe they track > all notes by their serial number, which too me seems just > too much hassle :-) > > The fact that the store most likely has a cam however is > something I can't do anything about, I cannot choose to > not be filmed in the store or on the streets unless I > choose to avoid those places. > I cannot choose for people not to tap my email, surely I > can try to fix a workaround (e.g. use encryption) but since > storage is cheap they can store it now and by the time > the next big generation of CPU's kicks in they'll decode it > in a blink then when they think it's necessary. > > > As the system's need for growth demands an ever > > greater level of both consumption and production from > > individuals, it is clear that both activities are ever > > more closely controlled. > > Is that need really there or is it there because Nokia, Intel, > McDonalds, Nike and Foodworld supermarkets tell you so? > We have come a long way, from hunting to prevent starvation to > eating burgers sitting on our couch watching cartoon network > while we grow fat and swallow anything that comes in a shiny > packaging. I think Cow from the Cow And Chicken show on cartoon > network said it best when she said "I'm gonna follow my herd!" > > Naturally, each herd has a leader and we have decided that big > corporations are the way to go at some point or another.... > > > but one should not look at this in a vacuum, as if, if > > such modes of control were not there, there would be > > no control at all, and individuals would be totally > > free. the level of such dispersed, internalised > > control, i am sure, has an inverse relationship with > > the level of centralised, external control that is > > required in a society. in a place like india where > > both kinds of control are at work, they are unequally > > applied: i would imagine that middle class people are > > much more subject to the former, and working class > > people to the latter. > > I wouldn't be to sure on this, eventually all is controlled by > the government and big corporations and even bigger clubs > behind those. The internalised control is thus controlled by > the external, governmental control (which might seem passive or > look the other way if there's good enough reasons to do so, and > there is ofcourse only one: money!) > > > if this is the only choice, personally i'd prefer to > > be subject to a control that is abstract and whose > > workings i can anticipate than one that is personified > > and random. and i think that within the realm of the > > actually-existing these are the only kind of choices > > we have. here in india where we are familiar with the > > experience of society being inadequately 'managed' the > > absence of any kind of control whatsoever does not > > seem wholly romantic. > > There is a big difference between saying control is bad and > saying losing your freedom is. Funnily enough, in most groups > of people I've met these forms of control evolve naturally and > the 'group leaders' also are picked naturally instead of imposed. > The image you create of a form of control that you can anticipate > on is a nice one but not very current I think. While governments > and big corps want to know more and more about us they are becoming > less transparent in their own actions every day. > Thus one could argue that the forms of control are getting tighter > and tighter, perhaps reaching Orwell's 1984 (but when it does, > they'll have made sure the book's not available anymore and nobody > knows it, having sitcoms and cartoons about 'paranoid people' that > want some privacy, ridiculing the concept). > > > if it is true - and i'm not actually sure it is - that > > all the phenomena we are looking at point only to > > changing forms of control rather than different > > amounts of it, then any ideas of 'freedom' must only > > be relative. how do people on the list imagine > > 'freedom'? > > When something like the concept of control changes the amount or > grip it has changes with it. It's a bit like a glass of water, one > full and one half-empty and asking 'Is the form of the water between > these two glasses different or does the amount change?" > > Ofcourse ideas of freedom are relative, there is no question about > that. The amount of control society allows to be had on it though > is not in my opinion. You see, the reason the sense of freedom is > relative between people from different cultures or different times is > because of the different amount of control their culture has on them. > > For example, a Turkish girl in The Netherlands might relate the idea of > Dutch girls not wearing anything to cover their head to freedom, girls > from England or Sweden however will not, since they do not know it > any different. The Turkish girl will say "Oh, you are so free!" and the > Dutch one will reply by saying "Oh, you're so oppressed!" and the father > of the Turkish girl will say "It's the way God wants it" and is thus > again controlled by religion* and that will be the start of it: > The girl will need to figure out if she wants to live the way her family > and religion think is best or if she wants the freedom to go and dress > the way she wants to, and thus brake with current culture and traditions. > > Herbert's Dune series show the different ways control works quite nicely, > the most famous words probably being "He who controls the spice controls > the universe!" where spice is a drug that enables people to do crazy things > like travel through dimensions and stuff, but that's not really the point > here. > > The spice for our people seems to be money, everybody wants it and the > more the better, if not for material things than to pay holidays or > things like that. > The growing demand for production comes from the growing demand for money, > thus resulting in a world where we end up with lavalamps because the > guy at the shop convinced us we need them because they look so damn cool, and we buy it. > Thus resulting in a world where a popular square is hang full with > camera's so you can feel safe, sure, the cops will never arrive in time > when you get robbed, raped or murdered but hey, they can always sell > the footage to some reality TV show to go along with that HappyMeal > product we really need, can't they? > Thus resulting in a world with bitter 19-year olds replying to emails > about freedom while they should be out getting drunk and stoned out of > their minds along with some nice college girls while not worrying about > things like this. > > There is no such thing as complete freedom, even if it were just because > of our sense of obligations to the people we love and care about (e.g. > I will not have sex with someone else than my partner because I know > it upsets him/her). There is however definately different amounts of control > and current society will need to figure out just how much it will allow > and to what purpose and how to mix up the different amounts of control > between cultures to find a balance between them. > > GoodKnight, > > Menso > > * This comment is not made to upset any religious people. I am not > saying all religion is bad, I am however very aware of the fact that > most wars in this world had as reason: "My god is better than yours, and > if you do not agree I will kill you eventhough my religion's bible says > it's never ok to kill someone" > > Think about it, do you really need a church or does the church need you? > > ** For the Indian people out there, a Quarterpounder menu is a burger > that you can get in all McDonalds across the world, except *yours* that > have the highly irritating sign saying "No beef products sold here". > And yes, it is indeed called a "Royal with cheese" in France as the movie > Pulp Fiction claims it is and it makes quite an ok breakfast/lunch/dinner. > One could argue that Indian culture prevents people from other cultures > to eat beef products at their favorite fastfood joint, thus apply'ing > more control (and leaving less freedom) to that person.... the burger > doesn't really seem worth it though ;) > > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip > of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > End of Reader-list Digest > From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Jun 28 12:46:08 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:46:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] new rules for the new actonomy Message-ID: Apologies to those who are on the nettime list for this cross-posting. But for those who are not, I would think this text is a very necessary antidote to the deep pessimism that conversation about the control modes of new technologies tending to set in. The last decade has seen a very rapid move away from certain fixed ideas (and certainties) about modes of `social activism`. Alongwith a deep and radical skepticism of centralised macro political mobilisation (performative games in some cases, dangerous in some others), a new constellation of ideas and practices based on recognition of multiplicity, acknowledgement of anti- hierarchical, de-centralised, plural actions as well as the proliferation of subject positions, has emerged. This specific text speaks to and about this constellation, and i think it is a significant text to engage with. (to be frank the word `rules` in the title did make me wonder about the text, but on reading, i thought maybe with travel, on gathering more participants, it will modify itself and appear with a more actonomic title) Happy reading, Jeebesh >Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 23:17:13 +0200 >From: florian schneider >To: "nettime-l at bbs.thing.net" >Subject: new rules for the new actonomy > >NEW RULES OF THE NEW ACTONOMY >By Geert Lovink & Florian Schneider > >That the world is changing wasn't really noticed for a while, and if at >all, only in positive ways - at least for a long as the fall of the Berlin >Wall and the overcoming of the Cold War gave rise to great hopes, the Boom >of the New Economy hid its bad points, as long as the post modern fun >spread nothing but good vibes. Nowadays the signs have become more >obvious, that there are many political, cultural, economic and social >conflicts simmering under the cover of digitalization, infotization and >globalization, the extent and breadth of these conflicts can not yet be >estimated. > >Seattle, Melbourne, Prague, Nice, Davos - Quebec has just been added to >this list, and Genova soon will be, where the G-8 meeting will take place >at the end of July, and Qatar, where the next WTO will be, and a global >day of action will be carried out. At the first glance it seems as if a >new global protest generation is emerging, which endeavors to equal, >include and battle against that of 1968. > >However no-one should yield to this illusion: The great social movements >of the past centuries from labour to environment seem to be exhausted. >Simple recipes have lost all credibility, of course. The way back to >familiar models is obstructed, and the complex cohesion of an ever more >closely networking global economy and of ever more differentiated living >conditions seem to be immune against any form of criticism. > >The field of the political has collapsed into thousands of single >fragments, but it is exactly in this chaos that a new activism with new >ways of political articulation and action is breaking through. All these >new beginnings are extremely flexible and operate with tactical and >strategic plurality. They strive for up-to-date notions of solidarity and >self-determination, and they try to link and to short-cut immediate and >local conflicts with global ones. > >So what has changed? > >In former times, it was all about imprisoning people somewhere in order to >discipline them (in schools, the army, factories, hospitals). Nowadays >people are monitored in real time practically everywhere. In all >political, social and cultural fields networking techniques of control >replace the former techniques of power exertion. Chip-cards, biometric >systems, electronic collars control the access to proprietary and >privileged areas. Borders are subjected to a special change of meaning in >this context. At electronic frontiers and virtual borders everything is >about matching user-profiles and instead of in- or exclusion: networking >against one's will. > >There is no outside anymore and that is why the archimedical point of >criticism has vanished, to settle exactly on the border and to risk a >glance into the circumstances without really being a part of the >controversy. The "New Left", as it emerged from the student settings of >the 1960s and 70s had made their ideological criticism from these safe >positions. Little wonder that the remains of such a protest culture excel >at complaining, winging, griping and if it really gets radical, at making >someone feel guilty. > >Work that is no longer calculable and measurable anymore is certainly >nothing really new. But their meaning for production process is pivotal. >What some call "Affect Industry" covers work in hospitals and in the film >industry, in software sweat-shops and kindergartens, in the entertainment >industry and in nursing homes. Classic reproduction work which aims to >stir emotions and create a feeling of well-being. The newest development >in the emotion industry opens up a biopolitical dimension where the most >riddling aspect which exists on earth - life itself - becomes the object >of production. > >Nowadays, almost all habits of political thinking and action are more or >less radically questioned. Necessary is, a redefinition of the political >practice and its theorizing, not starting from point zero, but from where >we are now. In this context it is extremely exciting not to abandon all >insights, but on the contrary: to investigate experience from a new >historical upheaval and to recapitulate and to develop new terms and >refuel old ones; to let struggles communicate with each other, regardless >of if they are old or new, regardless of where they are physically >located, and how they will end. > >Resistance always comes before Power and sabotage derives from the French >word sabot, which is a wooden shoe that is secretly introduced into a >machine and blocks the production temporarily. This interruption aims to >reduce the efficiency of the machine to such an extent that the emerging >material damage underlines the concrete demands or a general disgust of >the condition of exploitation. > >As the normal strike, sabotage as a means of direct action aims directly >at the pickpocket of the corporation in order to achieve the realization >of certain conditions. Particularly when workers are robbed of their right >to strike, sabotage was appropriate although an illegal means of struggle >within the factories. Sabotage is a direct application of the idea that >property has no rights that its creators are bound to respect. That way >sabotage can be seen as a sort of anticipated reverse engineering of the >open source idea. > >Indeed, in the current political debate about direct action there are >several parallels to the situation of the late 19th Century, which can be >made. Sabotage is radically antagonistic to the representative discourse, >i.e. in the institutionalized contexts of the working class or social >movements. Those representative forms have always referred to a nation >state while spontaneous, un- or better organized forms of resistance (e.g. >the Industrial Workers of the World IWW) have expressed a global class >consciousness. What is nowadays called direct action re-presents sabotage. >>From "No Logo" to "Ruckus Society", from wild strikes in the hardware, >Hi-Tech- and service industries to the semiotic guerilla of Indymedia, >RTmark or Adbusters. > >We suspect: current forms of activism attempt a redefinition of sabotage >as social practice, but not in the usual destructive sense, rather in a >constructive, innovative and creative practice. Such a constructive >approach results in a movement without organs or organisation. In a >variety of perspectives - self-determined cybernetic thinking, that spurs >on different approaches and connections; that refers to a social >antagonism refers to the level of production; and that is constituting a >collective process of appropriation of knowledge and power. > >So far three layers of net.activism appeared in a still rudimentary way: > >- Networking within a movement: The first level of net.activism consists >of facilitating the internal communication inside the movement. It means >communication on and behind mailinglists, setting up websites, which are >designed as a toolbox for the activists themselves. It leads to creating a >virtual community, whose dynamics do not so much differ from romantic >offline-communities, besides the fact that people do not necessarily need >to meet physically, but very often they do afterwards. > >- Networking in between movements and social groups: The second level of >net.activism is defined by campaigning and connecting people form >different contexts. It means joining the forces, collaborative and >cooperative efforts, creating inspiring and motivating surroundings, in >which new types of actions and activities may be elaborated. > >- Virtual movements: The third level of net.activism means using the >internet vice versa as a platform for purely virtual protests, which refer >no longer to any kind of offline-reality and which may cause incalculable >and uncontrollable movements: E-protests like online demonstrations, >electronic civil disobedience or anything which might be seen as digital >sabotage as a legitimate outcome of a social struggle: counter-branding, >causing virtual losses, polluting the image of a corporation. > >Time is Running Out for Reformism. > >This is the golden age of irresistible activism. Accelerate your >politices. Set a target you can reach within 3 years--and formulate the >key ideas within 30 seconds. Then go out and do it. Do not despair. Get >the bloody project up and then: hit hit hit. Be instantly seductive in >your resistance. The moral firewalls of global capitalism are buggy as >never before. Corporations are weakened because of their endemic dirty >practices, mad for profits. The faster things are changing, the more >radical we can act. The faster things are changing, the more radical we >have to act. > >The green-liberal idea of slowly changing capitalism from within no longer >works. Not because the Third Way parties powers have "betrayed" the cause. >No. Simply because their project is constantly running out of time. Global >systems are in a state of permanent revolution, and so is subversive >politics. Society is changing much faster than any of its institutions, >including corporations. No one can keep up. There is no time anymore for >decent planning. The duration of a plan, necessary for its implementation >is simply not longer there. This mechanism turned the baby boomers into >such unbearable regressive control freaks. There is no more time to go >through the whole trajectory from research to implementation. Policy is >reduced to panic response. > >Government policy is reduced to panic response. For the complex society >its enemies are the blueprints of five years ago. The future is constantly >being re-defined, and re-negotiated. Global systems are in a state of >permanent flux between revolution and reaction--and so is subversive >politics. Society is changing much faster than any of its institutions can >handle. In short: no one can keep up and here lies the competitive >advantage of today's mobile actonomists. > >Instead of crying over the disappearance of politics, the public, the >revolution, etc. today's activists are focussing on the weakest link >defining the overall performance of the system: the point where the >corporate image materializes in the real world and leaves its ubiquity and >abstract omnipresence. Shortcut the common deliberations about the >dichotomy between real and virtual. Get into more sophisticated >dialectics. It's all linked anyway, with power defining the rules of >access to resources (space, information or capital). Throw your pie, write >your code. Visit their annual stockholders meeting, and do your goddamned >research first. What counts is the damage done on the symbolic level, >either real or virtual. > >The new actonomy, equipped with pies and laptops, consists of thousands of >bigger and smaller activities, which are all by themselves meaningful, >manageable and sustainable. For this we do not need a General Plan, a >singular portal website, or let alone a Party. It is enough to understand >the new dynamics--and use them. Create and disseminate your message with >all available logics, tools and media. The new actonomy involves a >rigorous application of networking methods. It's diversity challenges the >development of non-hierarchical, decentralized and deterritorialized >applets and applications. > >Laws of semiotic guerilla: hit and run, draw and withdraw, code and >delete. Postulate precise and modest demands, which allows your foe a step >back without losing it's face. Social movements of the last century were >opposing the nation state and disclaimed it's power. In the new actonomy >activists struggle against corporations and new forms of global >sovereignty. The goal is obviously not so much to gain institutional >political power, rather to change the way how things are moving--and why. >The principle aim is to make power ridiculous, unveil its corrupt nature >in the most powerful, beautiful and aggressive symbolic language, then >step back in order to make space for changes to set in. Let others do that >job, if they wish so. There is no need for a direct dialogue in this >phase. Exchanges on mediated levels will do. Complex societies have got >plenty mediators and interfaces. Use them. Indirect contact with the power >to be does not effect your radical agenda as long as you maintain and >upgrade your own dignity, both as an acting individual and as a group. > >Radical demands are not by default a sign of a dogmatic belief system >(they can, of course). If formulated well they are strong signs, >penetrating deeply into the confused postmodern subjectivity, so >susceptive for catchy phrases, logos and brands. Invent and connect as >much intentions, motivations, causalities as possible. > >These days a well-designed content virus can easily reach millions >overnight. Invest all your time to research how to design a robust meme >which can travel through time and space, capable to operate within a >variety of cultural contexts. The duality between 'small is beautiful' and >'subversive economies of scale' is constantly shifting. Low-tech >money-free projects are charming, but in most cases lack the precision and >creative power to strike at society's weakest link. Be ready to work with >money. You will need it for the temporary setup. > >Think in terms of efficiency. Use the staff and infrastructure on the site >of your foe. Acting in the new actonomy means to cut the preliminaries and >get to the point straight away. A campaign does not rely on ones own >forces, but on those of your allies and opponents as well. Outsourcing is >a weapon. It is a means of giving someone else the problems you cannot >solve yourself. Remember that you won't get very far without a proper >infrastructure such as offices, servers, legal frameworks to receive and >pay money, etc. However, you can also treat these institutional >requirements as flexible units. You do not need to own them, the only >thing you need is temporary access so that you can set up the machine >ensemble you need for that particular project. > >Radical demands are not by default a sign of a dogmatic belief system >(they can, of course). If formulated well they are strong signs, >penetrating deeply into the confused postmodern subjectivity, so >susceptive for catchy phrases, logos and brands. > >Invent and connect as much intentions, motivations, causalities as >possible. Nowadays activists use multi-layered and multiple voice >languages that reach out far beyond the immediate purpose of a campaign or >a concrete struggle, and in doing so, they create a vision much larger >than what is accessible right at the moment. This mechanism needs a >re-assessment of rhizomatic micro-politics which sprung up in a response >to the centralized macro politics of the decaying communist parties in the >seventies. > >Act in a definite space and with a definite force. Dramaturgy is all that >matters. Precision campaigns consists of distinct episodes with a >beginning and an ending, an either smooth or harsh escalation and a final >showdown. Accept the laws of appearance and disappearance. Don't get stuck >in structures which are on the decline. Be ready to move on, taking with >you the (access to) infrastructure of the previous round. Action is taking >place in a variety of locations and thus refers in a positive way to a new >stage of people's globalization from below. One that is not just an empty, >endlessly extended market, but full of energy. > >Refuse to be blackmailed. If attacked, make one step aside or ahead. Don't >panic. Take all the options into account. No one needs cyberheroes, you >are not a lone hacker anymore. The attack maybe be done by a single person >but remember we are many. The corporate response may be harder than you >expect. It may be better to evade a direct confrontation, but don't trust >the media and the mediators. Ignore their advice. In the end you are just >another news item for them. If trouble hits the face, scale down, retreat, >re-organize, get your network up, dig deep into the far corners of the >Net--and then launch the counter campaign. > >Program and compile subject oriented campaigns! These days a lot of people >talk about a global upraising, which is only in the very beginning and >definitely not limited to running behind the so called battles of the >three acronyms: WTO, WB and IMF. But the urgent question of that movement >is: what new types of subjectivity will raise out of the current >struggles? Everybody knows, what's to be done, but who knows, what are we >fighting for and why? Maybe it doesn't matter anymore: net.activism is of >a charming fragility. In the end it means permanently revising and >redefining all goals. > >The revolution will be open source or not! Self determination is something >you should really share. As soon as you feel a certain strength on a >certain field, you can make your power productive as positive, creative >and innovative force. That power opens up new capacities, reducing again >and again unexpected and incalculable effects. > >Ignore history. Don't refer to any of your favorite predecessors. Hide >your admiration for authors, artists and familiar styles. You do not need >to legitimize yourself by quoting the right theorist or rapper. Be >unscrupulously modern (meaning: ignore organized fashion, you are anyway >busy with something else). Create and disseminate your message with all >available logics, tools and media. The new actonomy involves a rigorous >application of networking methods. It's diversity challenges the >development of non-hierarchical, decentralized and deterritorialized >applets and applications. In the meanwhile leave the preaching of the >techno religion to others. Hide your admiration for everything new and >cool. Just use it. Take the claim on the future away from corporations. >Remember: they are the dinosaurs. > >Read as many business literature as possible and don't be afraid it may >effect you. It will. Having enough ethics in your guts you can deal with >that bit of ideology. Remember that activism and entrepreneurial spirit >have a remarkably lot in common. So what? Benefit from your unlimited >capacity of metamorphosis. With the right spirit you can survive any >appropriation. Free yourself from the idea that enemy concepts are >compromising the struggle. You don't have to convince yourself, nor your >foe. The challenge is to involve those, who are not yet joining the >struggle. The challenge is to use resources, which may not belong to you, >but which are virtually yours. > >Sydney/Munich, June 2001 > > > > ># distributed via : no commercial use without permission ># is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, ># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets ># more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body ># archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From geert at basis.desk.nl Thu Jun 28 14:56:11 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 19:26:11 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] new rules for the new actonomy References: Message-ID: <000e01c0ffb4$99806aa0$c900000a@bigpond.com> thanks jeebesh. let me just briefly explain the title. it is an ironic reference to new rules for the new economy, written in 1998 by one of the senior editors of wired magazine. rules here is sort of used in the context of guidelines and contexts in which activism operates. it is actually a thesenpapier, a wonderful german way of discussing in which you write down what you think that need to be done, defining together the direction of a movement summarized in seperate propositions. The dictonairy says thesis or theory. OK. The point here is that in Ango-Saxon context, I think, much too little is being discussed about the direction, the strategy. People are afraid to be labelled as moralist. I think we should try to overcome that fear and get rid of PC loops of deconstruction, leading nowhere. There is a fear that if we cannot speak on behalf of each other (because of difference) we can only talk singular. I. And I cannot have a strategy. I can only have an opinion. What do you think? Ciao, Geert From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Jun 28 17:13:57 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 17:13:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] on identification and social control Message-ID: "How do people on the list imagine 'freedom'?" Responding to Rana's question (provocation!) is fairly difficult. Why? At one level if we start with the tension between `freedom of one` and `freedom of all`, one finds oneself in a thought quagmire where constant evidence is mobilised to heighten this unresolvable contradiction. This mode of thinking makes for a feeling that we are chasing an impossible whenever we are refering to `freedom`. And there is that `grand uncle` called state who seems to be there to look on and regulate this tension. In this mode, the word tends to get mired in a `negative` connotation and in effect legitimises a centralised focus of social and economic regulation. With the unfolding of the 20th century, the word `freedom` did acquire many different meanings and events forced even newer meanings. Discourses of `national self determination`, `national liberation', `independence` did use this word, but dropped it soon enough. And the rhetoric of the cold war effectively managed to institutionalise and deeply ideologise the word, rendering it almost un-available for alternate imagining. Words like `social justice`, `civil liberties`, `democratic rights`, `human rights` provided for more firm grounds to think and critique institutional and social practices and protocols. And on the other side the marketing managers found a new mantra called `choice` to electrify the masses. (at least they think have won all minds and hearts with it). In a world which is getting increasingly knitted within a plethora of very restrictive and abrasive `state-corp` rules, regulations and enforcements one will need to search for words, cluster of words that effectively allows for a conversation between diverse and different `producing-suffering-resisting-desiring` subjects within an increasingly networked social dynamic. However, the present juncture provides for an interesting bend. Within this specific moment the trajectory offered by the practice of making code freely available, modifiable and distributable should be considered seriously. What is very significant is that it is able to workout a notion and practice of `freedom`. But, the biggest danger here will be that this practice of `freedom` - to be creative, to share, to be inventive, to be curious, to be exploratory - tends to gets obfuscated by categories of ideological `negatives` of "do not do this", "do not do that" - whether it is about using browsers or using a GUI interface! This culture of `negative` reprimands eats away at the creative core and makes for disagreements based on hard beliefs and not based on actual exploration and creativity. Cheers Jeebesh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010628/bd23168a/attachment.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Fri Jun 29 03:45:21 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 00:15:21 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] More on foreign scholars curbs in India... (fwd) Message-ID: <20010629001521.C18924@xs4all.nl> ----- Forwarded message from Frederick Noronha ----- Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 08:44:04 +0530 (IST) To: goa-research-net at goacom.com Subject: [goa-research-net] NEWS-FEATURE: Nothing academic about it.... NOTHING ACADEMIC ABOUT IT A new home ministry guideline restricting foreign participation in conferences confounds Indian academics. By RAJESH JOSHI --------------------- IS Indian security now under threat from foreign academics? Or is the NDA government just out to curb academic freedom, which Indian universities so value? The teaching community is up in arms over a 'secret' home ministry circular which has made "political clearance' mandatory for holding international seminars and conferences. For university and college teachers, who thrive on the seminar and lecture circuit, the ramifications of such an order are nothing short of blasphemous and seem in tune with the BJP-led government's "hidden agenda". According to this order -- issued by the ministry of home affairs on September 1, 2000, and circulated by the HRD ministry on January 18, 2001, to the registrars of all universities and deemed universities -- this clearance is required especially for participants coming from all neighbouring countries except Nepal. The move has left academics stunned. as one Jawaharlal Nehru University don put it: "This will hamper academic freedom and is aimed at exercising greater government control over educational institutions." It was only nine months after it was issued that the circular came to the notice of the academic community, in May 2001. The JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA)was the first teachers' body to take note of it and issue a statement of criticism. In fact, when former JNUTA president Kamal Mitra Chenoy came across the circular and raised the issue in JNUTA, the executive committee members were not even aware of such an order. The circular issued by the home ministry's foreigners division (No. 25022/40/97/F.IV) makes prior permission for holding international seminars compulsory if: * The subject matter of the conference being organised is political, semi-political, communal (sic) or religious, or is related to human rights. * The conference is proposed to be held in areas covered under protected/restricted or inner-line regime. * The conference includes participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. In addition, organisers of an international seminar have to obtain "political clearance" from the ministry of external affairs if "the subject matter of the conference has a bearing on external relations or the conference includes participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan or Sri Lanka". This last is particularly confounding because, as Chenoy points out, even if one were to go by the government's foreign policy, India has good diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "In this backdrop, restricting scholars from these two countries does not make sense," he says. What has fanned the academics' ire is the strange proviso in the circular wherein "NGOs and UN agencies do not require prior clearance from the ministry of home affairs". "If there are security considerations behind such government control," comments one official, "then the entire purpose is defeated because NGOs can be the best facade for anti-national activities." -x-x-x- ACADEMICS are viewing the move as undue "ministerial interference" in the functioning of universities. "As it is," says Chenoy, "there is enough control; any seminar has to be cleared from the HRD ministry." Others feel the government already exercises huge control over appointments in th universities; and fresh rules will further restrict their autonomous functioning. Says S.S.Rathi, president of the Delhi University Teachers' Association: "Certainly the new guidelines will hamper academic interaction, whatever the subject matter of the conferences and seminars. It also affects the freedom of expression the academic world should enjoy. "Academics is one sphere where total transparency should be allowed. It's not a healthy move and the government must reconsider it." Rathi has decided to join hands with other colleagues in resisting the government guidelines. Meanwhile, the circular already seems to be taking its toll. Sources in the academia and government confirm that foreign scholars are facing problems getting visas ever since the new guidelines came into force. As a matter of fact, some months ago, a few American academicians had written a letter to the 'Economic and Political Weekly' complaining how difficult it was for them to get a visa to India even for academic work. Something that will only do more harm than good to the cause of research and scholarship. Says a JNU professor: "Many foreign scholars work on Indian culture, history, etc. But with the government guidelines in place, they'll be viewed with suspicion." In typical officialese, the circular dictates that "a foreigner participation should not be generally considered to attend conferences of political, semi-political, communal or religious nature or those related to human rights or sensitive technical subjects which can be utilised as a platform for any particular line of propaganda...." Outside the academic world, politicians too have begun to take notice. Congress Rajya Sabha member Eduardo Faleiro, for instance, is planning to raise the issue in the coming session of Parliament. "The government claims that this circular is meant to simplify procedures. This is patently incorrect. This move is against the SAARC spirit which encourages cultural contacts between SAARC countries. Unfortunately, this is the only region where there is little interaction; now it's sought to be reduced even further." Agrees a Delhi University professor: "As it is, SAARC is not doing well, given defence and security bottlenecks. Now this government seems hell-bent on enforcing this division on academic issues as well." In the coming session of Parliament, some Opposition MPs are planning to demand a white paper from the government on the topic, 'Which is India increasingly becoming a police state'. Says Faleiro: "The government owes the national an explanation as to what has happened in the last two-and-a-half years that has prompted them to introduce measures such as these guidelines." Some other activists are preparing a PIL challenging the government decision in a court of law. Legal luminaries, however, are not very optimistic about its outcome considering courts usually do not interfere with government decisions relating to 'security' matters. On their part, officials in the home and HRD ministry justify the move on the ground that such decisions are not taken "in a vacuum". Pressed for comment, sources in Murli Manohar Joshi's HRD ministry say they have nothing to do with the guidelines. "As the nodal ministry," an official spokesperson told 'Outlook', "we only circulated the home ministry guidelines to various universities." Says P.D.Shenoy, additional secretary in the home ministry: "Did you try to find out what happens when our academics and scholars go to countries like Pakistan?" Clearly implying that even Indian scholars face the same difficulties when they go to the neighbouring countries. This, say experts, reveal the level of mistrust in the Indian subcontinent. There's division developing within the academic community too, along ideological lines. While the Leftists are attacking the move vehemently, pro-BJP teachers' associations are measured in their reactions. Says Dr N.K.Kakkar, president of the pro-BJP National Democratic Teachers' Front: "Normally such conferences do require clearances. There must have been some background to the decision. It's a sensitive issue and I would offer a detailed comment only after going through the circular." Which for the moment seems set to create another 'tehelka' in the coming monsoon session of Parliament beginning July 24. Already in the line of fire for saffronising educational institutions, the new guidelines promise to generate much heat and vocal exercise. (Outlook, June 18, 2001. Pg 26-27) ------------------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Goa-Research-Net ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Send us a brief self-intro to justify your interest in this "specialized" forum. This should be sent to teodesouza at mail.telepac.pt or to fred at goa1.dot.net.in * Send email to majordomo at goacom.com (NOT goa-research-net at goacom.com) * Leave SUBJECT blank * On first line of the BODY of your message, type: subscribe goa-research-net YOUR at EMAIL.ADDRESS or unsubscribe goa-research-net YOUR at EMAIL.ADDRESS ------------------------------------------------------------------- From joy at sarai.net Tue Jun 26 15:54:41 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 15:54:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Quantity of happiness Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010626155254.009f14f0@mail.sarai.net> If anybody wants to know that happiness can also be quantified!! Joy taken from: http://www.bol-online.net/bnd/index.htm December 29, 1998 Bangladesh-the happiest nation A global study has revealed that Bangladesh is the happiest nation in the world. The study titled 'World Happiness Survey' ranks India as the fifth happiest place in the world. The United States ranks only 46 in the survey, conducted by a team of professors of the London School of Economics. Among the countries ranked happier than the United States are Ghana, Latvia, Croatia and Estonia. The study on the link between personal spending power and the perceived quality of life has conclusively proved that beyond a certain level of income the relationship between personal spending power and happiness breaks down. The study shows that people in Bangladesh, one of the least developed countries, derive far more happiness from their small incomes than, for example, the British (ranked 32nd in the happiness survey) do from their relatively large bank balance. Although the British have twice as much money to spend in real terms compared with 40 years ago, their perceived quality of life has not improved. Earlier surveys revealed that many Britons thought money could bring more happiness. The new study shows that such a link still exists in poor countries because a small increase in income can mean large improvement in lifestyle. The findings of the study were reported recently in the Asian Age. People in most rich countries, including Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada and Japan, are unhappier than their poorer counterparts in countries such as Dominican Republic and Armenia, Says the study. The most unfortunate, however, are Russians and people in some other parts of the erstwhile Soviet Union. They are neither rich nor happy, according to the survey. According to the study, happiness in rich countries now is far more dependent on close personal relationships, good health and job satisfaction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010626/cf6aeb3b/attachment.html