2008.05.16

Stung by cyber warfare, Estonia, NATO allies to sign deal on cyber defense center

The defense ministers of NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Spain and Slovakia are to sign Wednesday's agreement that will ensure funds and staff for the center's operations. The United States will join the project as an observer

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/14/europe/EU-GEN-Estonia-NATO-Cyberterrorism.php

Egypt blocks opposition website

The censorship came as Egypt seeks to promote its information and communication technology industry by hosting the International Telecommunication Union conference, which President Hosni Mubarak opened on Monday. "The website is performing normally with other ISPs, but the technical supervisor of the website informed us that the TE-Data Co. blocked Kefaya website through the IP address."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdzFrz7y0JJbZ6mS48k37U6wqosQ

UK: Government orders data retention by ISPs

Phone and internet companies will soon be forced to keep logs of internet usage to be made available to the police under a new law announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week.

The law, the Communications Data Bill, will implement the remainder of the European Union's Data Retention Directive.

Last October the Government enacted regulations which said that telcos must keep records of phone calls to and from land lines and mobile telephones. That requirement will be extended to records of customers' internet usage, email usage and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) records.

“The aim of the [Directive] is to ensure that certain data is retained to enable public authorities to undertake their lawful activities to investigate, detect and prosecute crime and to protect the public," said a Home Office spokeswoman.

http://www.out-law.com/page-9121

UN launches new training course to help Asian developing countries use ICT

About sixty experts from around 30 countries in the Asia-Pacific region are taking part in a new initiative aimed at equipping government officials with the knowledge and skills they need to fully utilize the potential of ICTs to achieve national development goals.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26748&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Kenyan Government Mulls Mandatory Registration of All Mobiles

The new Kenyan government is considering a move to require all mobile phone subscribers to register their identities with network operators. The move, proposed in a private members bill by Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo, is reportedly in response to threats sent by SMS during the recent post-election violence in the country. MPs are supporting the move, which would require an amendment to the Kenya Communications Action Order.

Significance: In other countries where a similar requirement has been introduced, the move resulted in a drop in the declared subscriber base as some customers with multiple SIM cards would register with only one operator. This may also happen in Kenya if implemented. Safaricom in particular has refused to divulge how many of its subscribers are active, saying that it has an internal figure, which even its recent share offering prospectus did not clarify.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/30681?7649

Syrian blogger gets 3 years in jail for undermining state

A human rights group says a 24-year-old Syrian blogger has been convicted and sentenced to three years in prison on charges of undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale. In a statement sent to The Associated Press yesterday, The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria condemned Tuesday's verdict as "outrageous" and called for Tarek Bayassi's immediate release.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_9256708?nclick_check=1

ICELE makes nine recommendations for local petitioning

The Governance of Britain Green Paper (July 2007), said that petitions can provide an important way for communities to express their views and generate local debate, boosting the relationship between residents and councils. It also announced the government's intention to consult on people's right to 'call for action' and the strengthened role of councillors in that process.

A recent consultation sought views on how arrangements for local petitions can be strengthened and how the new system might operate.

The focus of our response was around the concept of electronic or 'e' petitions, as highlighted in point 28 of the original consultation. This includes the way that electronic petitions and paper petitions should converge.

http://www.edemocracy-forum.com/2008/04/in-uk-the-natio.html

2008.05.15

ebooks and information 4 free

Eldis, a development portal, hosts this group which is intended to provide links to good places to go to access a number of resources on ebooks and online resources, such as Eldis itself. This space is partly to complement the work of Book Aid International’s physical book donation program, enabling BAI's partners and group members to share their knowledge of the many and varied free or low-cost sources of information available on the web. In addition to online resources members can include information resources available offline for free such as CD-ROMs.

http://community.eldis.org/.59959bbd/

Decentralization and Democracy: A Global Perspective in 2007

by Tim Campbell

This paper is the conclulding chapter to the first Global Review of Decentralization and Local Democracy (GOLD) of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) in Barcelona. The GOLD report consists of nine chapters, seven regional reviews, each prepared by experts from the respective region, together with a chapter on metropolitan governance. The concluding chapter, prepared by Tim Campbell, PhD, summarizes the findings, observations, and conclusions in the entire report.

http://208.113.197.138/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=28

CH: Business takes to eGovernment

Swiss firms are stepping up their use of eGovernment services, a new survey shows.

Commissioned by the federal government, the survey quizzed 1 004 firms in January of this year. In every sector except agriculture, it found a growing trend towards on-line contact with the authorities. Companies with 250 employees or more have increased their eGovernment take-up particularly fast since 2006. But smaller firms with nine employees or less are catching up: 44 % of them now favour the on-line processing of their administrative contacts with the authorities – a 9 % increase over last year’s figure.

As well as sectoral information, companies tend to go for the authorities’ on-line provision of accident insurance, legislative texts, administrative directories and business news. Swiss firms’ wish-list for eGovernment includes the expansion of the national administrative directory and more on-line guidance about social insurance, as well as a simplification of value-added tax.

The Swiss cantons’ websites are now better known in business circles. Of those surveyed, 24 % mentioned them (up 7 % on last year), and 15 % were aware of municipal sites (also up 7 %); 34 % said they use the cantons’ on-line services (up 20 %) and 2 1% use those of the boroughs (up 13 %); 74 % rated the cantonal services as very or fairly good (up 4 %); while 65 % said the same about the municipal services (up 3 %). The approval rating for federal eGovernment services also rose to 61 % (up 2%). However, 31 % of those interviewed could not comment on the federal services as they were unaware of them. The health, construction and manufacturing sectors gave eGovernment the highest scores.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/4705

LI: eGovernment strategy assessed

The government of Liechtenstein has reported to parliament on its eGovernment strategy up to 2011.

The government wanted to keep parliament informed of progress to date on its IT and eGovernment strategy, as well as on some current changes and updates. Approval is also needed for two supplementary credits in 2008 to pay for the ambitious plan. The extra loans will add up to CHF1 125 000 (approx. €694 700).

It is well worth it, in the authorities’ view. eGovernment, they point out, is “often a synonym for modern and efficient administration”. It enables Liechtenstein’s national administration to “supplement the traditional means of service provision with electronic access for a broad section of the public”. In recent years, the Internet has contributed to “major qualitative progress in communication between the national administration and its customers – i.e. business, citizens and administrations”.

The report, and an accompanying motion put to parliament, analyses the current eGovernment situation in Liechtenstein as well as giving detailed presentations both of strategy implementation and of individual projects. The aim is to create a wide range of user-friendly basic services by 2011. According to the government, the national administration’s clients should, in future, “be able to accomplish as many administrative processes as possible easily and fast by electronic means, without needing any particular knowledge of who is responsible, nor any special technical know-how”.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/4706

Braille converter bridges the information gap

A free, e-mail-based service that translates text into Braille and audio recordings is helping to bridge the information gap for blind and visually impaired people, giving them quick and easy access to books, news articles and web pages.

Developed by European researchers, the RoboBraille service offers a unique solution to the problem of converting text into Braille and audio without the need for users to operate complicated software.

“We started working in this field 20 years ago, developing software to translate text into Braille, but we discovered that users found the programs difficult to use – we therefore searched for a simpler solution,” explains project coordinator Lars Ballieu Christensen, who also works for Synscenter Refsnaes, a Danish centre for visually impaired children.

http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm?section=news&tpl=article&ID=89717

2008.05.14

Digital World Forum: Low Cost Laptop and Low Cost Broadband

PC computers have been the vector of deployment of Internet and Web access for most people and families of the Developed World. However, for a long time, it was not an affordable option for people in the Developing World. In order to tackle this problem, lots of initiatives have focused on starting telecenters. While these telecenters have been extremely successful, they are still very rare in rural areas. Moreover, the impact of computer is far less important when it is a heavily shared resource. Starting from this observation, and with the evolution of the hardware and the revolution of the free and open source software, few initiatives around the World are now investigating how to make very low-cost laptops.

http://www.digitalworldforum.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=13&Itemid=21

2008.05.13

Zimbabwe: New Technologies in Fight for Democracy

In countries such as Zimbabwe where media and political freedom is extremely restricted, new technologies have become powerful tools for political campaigning, communication, advocacy and mobilisation. Bloggers and civic organisations have resorted to using new tools and applications such as Flickr, Facebook, SMS text messages, YouTube and mashups to fight for democracy, media freedom and good governance.

http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2008/05/07/zimbabwe-new-technologies-in-fight-for-democracy/

Hackers shut down Zimbabwe state newspaper website

Hackers attacked the Web site of Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper and shut it down for three days. The Herald is widely seen as the official mouthpiece of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and has been critical of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which won the country's disputed March 29 elections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051201287.html

User-Generated Video Growing Faster Than Expected

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- With significant growth in the Chinese market, the forecasts for User-Generated Video (UGV) use and revenue have shifted upward since last year, reports In-Stat. And with expectations of higher quality content (e.g. HD video) and increasing file size maximums, the demands on bandwidth will likely continue to grow at a faster rate than the number of files/videos served, the high-tech market research firm says.

“User-generated video (UGV) and the video sharing sites that exemplify this form of content have spread across the globe,” says Michael Inouye, In-Stat analyst. “China is a prime example of UGV’s global reach and appeal, capturing a significant portion of the world market, making it second only to the US. In general, viewing of online video has increased in the US in the past year, although participation is still stratified by age.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

  • Total worldwide UGV revenue is expected to eclipse US$1.19 billion by 2012.
  • 160 billion UGV served videos are forecasted for 2012.
  • Individuals who use mobile phones to participate in online video sites are most likely to contribute to the market (both financially and in terms of content).
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/30574?7649

2008.05.12

EU Consumers: 50% of misleading airline websites corrected

EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva today published the mid term report on an EU wide enforcement investigation - involving 15 EU national authorities as well as Norway – against misleading advertising and unfair practices on airline ticket selling websites. The report shows that there are "serious and persistent consumer problems" throughout the airline industry as a whole. 1 in 3 websites surveyed (137 out of 386 originally checked by the 13 reporting countries) have had to be followed up with enforcement action over the last 7 months for breaches of EU consumer law. Over 50% of those websites have been corrected during this time.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/722&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Critical Factors in an Electronic Democracy: a Study of Municipal Managers

Tony Carrizales

Amid the growing research of e-government, prominent e-democracy practices have been regulated to sporadic, largely populated municipalities, throughout the world. This article examines the various factors that support and deter the practices of an electronic democracy. Factors which potentially challenge and support the progress of online democratic practices are explored. These factors include budgetary constraints, form of government, and ideological perspectives of municipal managers. Chief administrative officers were surveyed on their views of e-government, with specific focus on the function of e-democracy. The data reviews online practices of municipalities in New Jersey, and through ordinal regression it becomes evident what are some critical factors for the future potential of an e-democratic society.

The findings emphasize the role of e-democracy as more of an ideological innovation than as a functional innovation. Many of the predicted variables based on e-government research were found to be insignificant when it comes to e-democracy. e-Democracy becomes more a function of a manager’s view toward the practice of online democracy than as a function of resources, planning, size and having an IT department. This study was limited in scope, and has some generalizing limitations, but the findings are still able to highlight the unique nature of e-democracy in small-populated municipalities. Not all factors previously found significant in the study of e-government are critical in the study of e-democracy. This finding emphasizes the need for further research specific to the function of e-government. That is, e-democracy should be independently studied or categorized when doing large e-government studies so as to best understand the influential aspects. e-Democracy has its specific functions and ideological framework of utilizing technology for democratic purposes.

http://www.ejeg.com/volume-6/vol6-iss1/v6-i1-art3.htm

2008.05.11

12 million .DE domains

Domain names are proving as popular as ever in Germany, with the 12th million .DE domain being registered on April 14.

http://www.domainesinfo.fr/english/191/12-million-de-domains.php

DotAsia Goes Live With Thousands of Registrations

There have been over 10,000 domain registrations for each of the first five days of open registrations, DotAsia have announced. Since then, there have been between 2,000 to 4,000 new domains registered each day. The most popular countries for registrants have been China followed by Australian, New Zealand, Indian and Korean registrants. US and Japan are also among the top 10 countries registering .Asia domains.

http://technewsreview.com.au/article.php?article=4623

The Principles for User Generated Content Services: A Middle-Ground Approach to Cyber-Governance

The debate over how, whether, and by whom the Internet should be regulated has occurred mostly at the extremes: some have argued that formal regulation of the Internet is impossible and undesirable, advocating for self-governance and heavy reliance on private arrangements, while others have argued that formal, traditional regulation is possible, inevitable, and ideal. ... This Note begins, in Part I, by summarizing the literature on cybergovernance, tracing commentators’ evolving attitudes toward selfgovernance and private arrangements. Part II describes the Principles and their development, focusing on the threads of cooperation and private arrangements underlying the Principles. Part III examines the Principles in light of the various approaches legal scholars have taken to cyber-governance and argues that the Principles represent a promising middle ground that takes advantage of the benefits and minimizes the problems associated with each model. Part III also provides a suggestion for how to deepen and extend the middle-ground approach embodied in the Principles, based upon some of their strengths and weaknesses. Part IV concludes.

http://harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/march08/notes/principles_for_user_generated_content.pdf

SI: New eDemocracy service involves citizens in legislative process

Slovenia’s national government portal eUprava has introduced a new eDemocracy service, which will allow citizens to follow closely the preparation and adoption of regulations, and co-operate in the elimination of administrative barriers.

The new service offers the public the opportunity to influence changes in existing legislation, by contributing their suggestions, comments and opinions. Citizens may electronically submit concrete proposals for change, and suggestions on how to help eliminate administrative barriers – which may often also involve changes in rules or regulations.

In addition, the portal provides a direct link to elected representatives, thus contributing to greater efficiency in the democratic process, and to improved communication between the general public and public administrations. The eDemocracy service is also intended to help citizens improve their understanding of the system and how it works, by providing general information on the public administration, democratic processes, and the adoption of laws and regulations at both national and EU level.

The eDemocracy service is broken down into four main parts: eliminating administrative barriers; contacting elected representatives; democratic processes, and legislation, legal rules in the EU, public information or elections.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/4600

HU: Hungarian city offers eGov services by SMS

Békéscsaba municipality, in south-eastern Hungary, has become the latest local authority to offer round-the-clock wireless eAdministration services.

The rate of penetration of the Internet in the Hungarian market is still relatively low and this acts as a major obstacle to using web-based eGovernment services. On the flip side, mobile phone penetration is close to 100 %, so this seems to be the real alternative to provide such services for the time being.

Following in the footsteps of early pioneering cities (such as Budaörs, Érd and Debrecen) where local authorities offer various SMS-based services, Békéscsaba, a county seat close to the Hungarian-Romanian border, also introduced such eGovernment service on 15 April 2008. Citizens do not need to be technologically savvy to use this cheap and user-friendly service. For the time being, services offered cover the document office (ID cards, addresses, driving licences, vehicle registration and number plates, etc.), taxation and social policy.

After sending the word ‘WAP’ – short for wireless application protocol – to a designated number, citizens can start browsing a menu system and read about requirements, necessary documents, stamp duties and fees. Once they are sure about what they need to do and how, they can make an appointment and only need to show up five minutes before the agreed time. In order to speed up the process, they can also provide data over the phone in advance. In case there is a need for a specific form, they can specify an eMail address to which the office can send the form. Completing the form in advance also saves time.

Using this new service, citizens can really enjoy a hassle-free, fast and “one-stop-shop” service at their municipality, even when they are on the go. The telecoms service provider already has plans to introduce this service in Budapest in the near future.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/4657

Making Online News: The Ethnography of New Media Production

Little has been published about the daily work of online journalists, how it differs from traditional media production, and what consequences it has for the character and quality of online news. We aim to fill this void. Research has tended to stay outside the doors of online newsrooms, and there is a lot to learn from entering.

http://www.makingonlinenews.net/the-book/

Network of Centres of Excellence

The Network of Centers of Excellence is a project designed to work with selected outstanding scientific and technological institutions in the developing world, using them as regional hubs of learning and training for developing country scientists and engineers. To this end, the Network organizes long- and short-term training courses scientists from developing countries, especially from Africa, seeking to create links within the scientific community and strengthen the mobility of scientists. The training courses focus on new and emerging technologies, such as biotechnologies and ICTs. UNCTAD, in collaboration with the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), launched the Network in 2005.

http://stdev.unctad.org/capacity/coe.html

China refuses to guarantee open Internet during Olympics

China is refusing to guarantee that it will not censor the Internet during this summer's Olympic Games, but insists that the international media will still be able to function normally. Officials from China's Technology Ministry took a somewhat odd opportunity to speak about its censorship plans during a press conference after the Olympic torch relay crossed Mount Everest. They said that while the government would be able to "guarantee as much [access] as possible," there is no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080508-china-refuses-to-guarantee-open-internet-during-olympics.html

2008.05.10

Microsoft e-gov tool free for governments

By John Rendleman

Microsoft is making its Citizen Services Platform for creating Web-based electronic government services available to local and regional governments. The platform is available without charge to municipal governments, but they will have to operate a Microsoft computing environment to run the platform.

The Citizen Services Platform includes eight ready-to-use templates for the most common types of transactions between municipal governments and residents, and it can be customized to offer the preferred level of sophistication. E-government services that municipalities and regional governments launch using the platform can, for example, range from simple, so-called presence offerings that provide static information to more complex transactional services incorporating live data streams or enabling online, real-time interactions between residents and government.

The platform includes the following templates:

E-Councilor template—A Windows Live Agent that allows messenger communication with a virtual government worker to ask questions.

Web TV template— Allows government and citizen video hosting in Web 2.0 style.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 templates— A set of 40 templates to customize scenarios that address site and system administration needs.

Local government communications template— Sample portal with intranet and extranet templates.

Role-based My Site template— Designed for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the My Site functionality.

Agenda Management template— Allows organizations to streamline processes.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM templates for municipal governments— Vertical templates, including reference data models, predefined work flows and role-based user experiences.

The Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Role-based My Site and Microsoft Dynamics CRM templates are available now; the others will be available later this summer.

“We’re interested in getting citizens out of line and online,” said James Osteen, assistant director of Miami’s information technology department. The city is giving input to Microsoft as it develops additional templates for the platform, Osteen said, including a template in the works for people applying for, documenting, paying for and tracking building permits in addition to a possible template incorporating Virtual Earth to give people localized, neighborhood-oriented services or access to information based on their geographical position.

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46237-1.html

2008.05.09

Technology Group Plans Wireless Network

A who's who of technology and telecommunications companies announced Wednesday that it intended to build the first of a new generation of nationwide wireless data networks. The consortium includes a disparate group of partners: Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and Clearwire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/technology/07sprint-web.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

€ 200 Million for industrial research in Embedded Computing Systems

Only 3 months after its launch the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking (JU) published its first Call for proposals. With € 100 million public funding from the European Commission and the participating Member States and at least a € 100 million contribution from industry and research organisations the Call should generate an activity of more than € 200 million. The ARTEMIS JU, a Europe-wide public-private research partnership, addresses embedded computer systems that – while running almost unnoticed by users – improve the performance of all kinds of machines: from cars, planes and phones, to factories, washing machines and televisions.

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=4097

ANRCTI announces winners of tender for new Telecentres

The Romanian telecoms regulator ANRCTI has announced that AccessNet International, Rartel, National Radiocommunications Company and Vodafone Romania have won the tender for the installation of telecentres in 172 rural localities of Romania that currently have limited or no access to telephone and internet services. AccessNet will install 150 telecentres in 31 counties, Rartel 19 telecentres in 14 counties, the National Radiocommunications Company one telecentre, and Vodafone Romania will install two. To date, ANRCTI has organised tenders for the installation of telecentres in 633 localities with 350 telecentres already functional. Each telecentre is equipped with at least two telephones, two computers linked to the internet and a fax, and are available for use by the whole community at ‘affordable’ tariffs.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=23022&email=text