Information Policy

Knowledge Maps: ICTs in Education

These knowledge maps reveal that, despite a decade of large investment in ICTs to benefi t education in OECD countries, and increasing use of ICTs in education in developing countries, important gaps remain in the current knowledge base. In addition, there appears to be a dearth of useful resources for policymakers and donor staff working on education issues in developing countries, identifying what is known to work—and not work—in this field, especially in support of Education For All (EFA) and other education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The knowledge maps investigate ten topics (impact of ICTs on learning and achievement; monitoring and evaluation; equity issues; costs; current projects and practices; specifi c ICT tools; teaching and ICTs; content and curriculum; policy issues; and school-level issues).

http://www.icdev.info/contributions/321.pdf

UK: Plan to monitor all internet use

By Dominic Casciani

Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.

The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.

The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.

The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database.

Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.

But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.

The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.

Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.

"Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said.

"Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm.

"It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8020039.stm

The Facebook Open Stream API

Ray C. He

Today we are excited to announce an important step toward greater openness through Facebook Platform. For the first time, we're opening the core Facebook product experience -- the stream -- with the new Facebook Open Stream API.

The home page design centralizes the stream of information that tells you what's going on right now in the world around you. With the Facebook Open Stream API users will be able to use applications to read and interact with their stream. As a Facebook developer you'll also be able to access the posts you've published into the stream and display them in your application, whether it's on a mobile device, Web site or desktop.

To enable developers to access the stream, we've built the Facebook Open Stream API to include the emerging Activity Streams standard. Over the last several months, we've been collaborating with the community, hosting meetups at Facebook headquarters, and speaking at industry events about Activity Streams and the open stack. We think that working alongside our peers to create an open standard for accessing and consuming streams is the future. We'll continue to make contributions to the standards community and related technologies and are happy to be one of the first companies to implement Activity Streams at scale.

In addition to the Activity Streams interface, the Open Stream API includes robust new APIs called stream.get and stream.publish and new FQL tables that enable you to directly access the stream. With these new methods, you can access the stream on behalf of a user and then filter, remix, and display the stream back to that user however you choose, wherever you choose, in the manner most relevant for the user experience. Other new API methods will allow users to both publish into the stream and to add comments and "likes" to posts in the stream.

Consistent with our previous steps toward greater openness, we believe users must have full control and choice and that's exactly how we've designed Facebook Platform and the Open Stream API. All Facebook Platform terms governing data use apply and an application or Facebook Connect site can only access a user's view of the stream if the user gives the application permission.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=225

IANA Report on the Redelegation of the .BY Top-Level Domain

Recommendation: In its decision making process on accepting delegation and redelegation requests, ICANN respects the ability for a local Internet community as well as local law and local government to make decisions about the operation of a top-level domain. In its research, staff believe that there are grounds for reassignment of the domain name under the relevant criteria. It is therefore recommended that the .BY domain should be redelegated to Open Contact Ltd. as per their request.

http://www.iana.org/reports/2009/by-report-03feb2009.html

Estonia leads the way in countering cyber-attacks

Estonia, which recently suffered what appeared to be the largest political cyber-attack ever seen on EU soil, is organising an EU ministerial meeting on the protection of vital infrastructure against cyber-crime, the European Commission has announced.

http://euractiv.com/en/infosociety/estonia-leads-way-countering-cyber-attacks/article-181172