Category Archives: Link Digest

Egypt: Blogger detained for 15 days
Reuters reports that Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah has been detained for fifteen days after refusing to answer military prosecutors in a case where he stands accused of inciting violence and sabotage. The case is widely seen as reflecting a broader crackdown on dissent by the ruling Egyptian army, and a return to old ways of repression. Abd El Fattah was detained by the Mubarak regime in 2006. Abd El Fattah has sent a letter from prison, which was published on Wednesday in the UK’s Guardian newspaper in English and in Arabic by the Egyptian newspaper Al Shorouk. This video depicts Abd El Fattah’s family and rights work.
Report | Letter | Video

“Hollywood finally gets a chance to break the internet”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) highlight a new piece of draft legislation being pushed through the United States Congress: the STOP Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Dubbing it “the worst piece of IP legislation we’ve seen in the last decade — and that’s saying something”, EFF detail how it will require internet service providers, search engines and payment processors such as Paypal to “disappear” websites which are alleged – by rightsholders – to infringe their intellectual property rights. The law may also threaten services that rely on safe-harbour provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to host user-generated content. EFF are publishing a series of blog posts analysing the law, and are urging their supporters to act.
First post | Second post

Russia: Government plans to control the online media
European Digital Rights (EDRi) report on tests being conducted by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator, of software that traces “extremist” content on the web: “In case the respective software decides, based on rather vague criteria, that a certain website has “extremist” content, the site is given three days to remove it and, in case of non-compliance, is sent two more warnings and then is closed down”.

US: First phase of Open Course Library launched
The Washington State community and technical college system launched its Open Course Library this week, a repository of open educational resources that anyone can download, use and adapt, free-of-charge. Inside Higher Ed reports: “More than half of the first 42 course modules use only open content, which students can access for free. Other courses refer students to textbooks published by Flat World Knowledge, which offers a choice of free digital textbooks or inexpensive print editions.”

Iran: Cyber police cite US threat
The Washington Post reports on Iran’s latest PR campaign to convince its citizens that the Iranian cyber-police is on their side, by linking Western internet firms to US foreign policy: “At this month’s Digital Media Fair in Tehran… portraits of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs hung next to posters showing the Google logo replacing the field of stars on the American flag”.

Russia: The data leak war and other pre-election surprises
Global Voices reports on the rise of data leaks in Russia in the run-up to country’s elections.

Why parents are helping their children lie to Facebook
This First Monday paper by Danah Boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schiltz and John Palfrey details new survey data about parents’ attitudes to their younger children having Facebook accounts, and concludes that current US legislation intended to protect children’s privacy “inadvertently undermines parents’ ability to make choices and protect their children’s data”.

Digital age spawns big brother bosses
Aljazeera.net investigates illegal monitoring of employees’ online activity in Romania and beyond.

Michael Nielsen on opening science to the network
Michael Nielsen outlines his vision for open science in this Wall Street Journal editorial, while the Financial Times reviews Nielsen’s new book, “Reinventing Discovery”.
Editorial | Review

Open Access vs academic publishing company profits
Techdirt highlights analysis from across the Open Access blogosphere showing that the amount of money it would cost to pay PLoS One’s per-article publication fee for the estimated 1.5 million scholarly research articles published each year is roughly equivalent to the total amount of money the top three for-profit scholarly publishers take out of the system as profit for their shareholders each year.

Three reasons why M4D may be bad for development
Steve Song cautions those seduced by stories of rapid mobile phone adoption in Africa to learn from the lesson of the “ICT4Dev” (ICTs for Development) movement.

Making the Open Government Partnership work
Matt Rosenberg, editor of Public Data Ferret, provides in-depth analysis of the Open Government Partnership for the Open Knowledge Foundation blog.

Tools for corporate transparency
The Sunlight Foundation have launched a new project “Six degrees of corporations”, which highlights how the lack of an effective unique identifier system for corporate bodies in the US and globally is hampering grassroots efforts to enhance corporate transparency. Another project, opencorporates.com, is an attempt to fix the problem.
Six degrees | Open Corporates

Audio: Douglas Rushkoff – program or be programmed
The Spark podcasts Nora Young speaks to Douglas Rishkoff about his most recent book: “Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age”.

Phorm resurfaces in Romania
The online behavioural tracking service Phorm has reappeared in Europe, via a partnership with Romtelecom in Romania, following its exit from the UK market in 2008 amid widespread speculation that its services were illegal under European law on the interception of electronic communications. European Digital Rights (EDRi) reports “With no public debate before the launch at the end of September, Romtelecom has presented a new service called MyClicknet, which basically implements the Phorm behavioural advertising solution with an opt-in approach.”

US seeks detailed information on China’s internet restrictions
The United States Trade Representative has written to China under World Trade Organisation rules asking for detailed information on the trade impact of Chinese website-blocking policies. In a statement released this week, the USTR made clear that “While the United States believes that the best internet policy is to encourage the free flow of information globally, the United States’ WTO request relates specifically to the commercial and trade impact of the internet disruptions”.

Thailand: Government admits “lese majeste” law may have been misused
Agence France Presse reports that the Thai government have responded to UN concerns that its lese majeste law, which prohibits criticism of the monarchy and is punishable with up to 15 years in prison, harms free expression. In a statement, the Thai foreign ministry accepted that the law may have been misused and advised it was setting up “a special committee in the Royal Thai Police headquarters… to scrutinise potential prosecutions”.

Russian privacy law used to suppress politically sensitive research
Human Rights in Russia reports on a legal case being brought against Russian historian Arseny Roginsky for passing data to the German Red Cross about ethnic Germans who were deported to the Arkhangelsk region during the Soviet period. If found guilty, Roginsky could face two years in prison, in what would be “a dangerous signal for researchers and for the staff and administrators of archives”.

Net neutrality resolution adopted by European Parliament
La Quadrature du Net reports that a key committee in the European Parliament has adopted a pro-net neutrality resolution, asking the European Commission to promptly assess the need for further legislative action to protect the open internet. La Quadrature du Net label the resolution: “a strong political statement in favour of net neutrality”.

When secrets aren’t safe with journalists
In this New York Times oped, OSF Fellow Chris Soghoian decries insecure communications practice at the West’s major newspapers and comes to the provocative conclusion that “Until journalists take their security obligations seriously, it will be safer to leak something to WikiLeaks — or groups like it — than to the mainstream press”.

Special: Occupy Wall Street media tools and strategy
The International Journalists Network list “Five tools from Occupy Wall Street that journalists should know about”, while the Columbia Journalism Review embed with the Occupy Wall Street media team, to find out about the strategies they use to get the message out.
Tools | Strategy

The Russian state and surveillance technology
Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan detail the laws and technologies that allow the Russian authorities to keep tabs on citizens’ online activities, in this detailed feature for openDemocracy.net.

One man’s war against Facebook on the European front
New York magazine carries a short feature on Max Schermas, the 24 year-old Austrian student behind the Europe vs Facebook campaign.

Catching the next WikiLeaker
This Daily Beast reports from GEOINT, an annual conference for the military intelligence community, on how attitudes about the best way to catch potential whistleblowers have changed in the year since WikiLeaks published material leaked from the military’s secure networks, with the emphasis on surveillance of those with access to the network.

The case for piracy
This article published on a blog hosted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation lays the blame for piracy at the feet of the world’s major media companies.

More jobs predicted for machines, not people
This New York Times feature surveys conflicting ideas about the socioeconomic consequences of automation in the workplace, and details a new e-Book written by academics in the field, “Race against the Machine”.

Video: TV White Spaces in Africa – “The beginning of the future”
Russell Southwood interviews Steve Song about the promise TV White Spaces hold for access to communications in Africa.

Audio: Creating a digital public space
This edition of the UK Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast speaks to archivists from across the UK’s major cultural institutions, including the BBC, about their plans to create a combined digital archive of works in their collections that is accessible to and reusable by the public.

France: Court orders blocking of “Copwatch” website
The New York Times reports that a French court has ordered France’s internet service providers to block a website “that shows pictures and videos of police officers arresting suspects, taunting protesters and allegedly committing acts of violence against members of ethnic minorities”. La Quadrature du Net have issued a statement following the block, saying the case “shows that the blocking of websites, even if promoted in the name of legitimate pretexts such as fighting the dissemination of child abuse images or illegal gambling, is ultimately a tool for the political censorship of the internet”.
Report | Statement

US Senator questions constitutionality of ACTA
Intellectual Property Watch reports that US’s recent signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may face a constitutional challenge following news that Senator Ron Wyden is querying the United States Trade Representative’s power to enter into such an agreement without Congress’s approval. ACTA is a bilateral treaty with provisions for copyright and patent enforcement which have the potential to go beyond norms established by the World Trade Organisation.

Google encrypts more searches
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports on Google’s announcement this week that it is switching its logged-in users to encrypted search by default. EFF dub the move a “significant win” for users, for whom secure search will act as an “essential protection against surveillance… whether by governments, companies, or hackers”.

Register now for Open Access Week webcasts
Next week is Open Access week, and to mark the occasion the Right to Research Coalition will host two webcasts: “The State of Open Access and the Student Role in Creating Change”, which will feature Heather Joseph from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC); and “Open Access and the Impact of Open on Research”, which will feature John Wilbanks of Creative Commons.
Webcasts | Open Access Week

Guide: “Doing digital” in non-profit organisations
The Stanford Social Innovation Review publishes the first two parts of a three part series authored by experts in digital practice for the non-profit sector. The first part looks at common mistakes organisations make when managing digital personnel, and the second outlines four models of “managing digital” in a non-profit organisation. Part three will be published later this month.
Mistakes | Models

Global survey of Parliamentary monitoring organisations
This report, published by the National Democratic Institute and the World Bank Institute, surveys organisations monitoring parliamentary activity across the world and offers some preliminary recommendations to donors seeking to fund such organisations.

A day in the life of privacy
This piece for Security Week looks at the privacy compromises made by the average American on a normal working day.

Book Review: “Public parts: How sharing in the digital age improves the way we work and live”
Evgeny Morozov stands up for privacy in this brutal and controversial review published by the New Republic of Jeff Jarvis’s latest book. Readers may also wish to view Jarvis’s line-by-line response.
Morozov | Jarvis

Audio: Outriders at the 3rd Arab Bloggers Summit
The BBC’s Outriders podcast reports from the third Arab Bloggers Summit in Tunisia, interviewing participants from across the Middle East and north Africa.

“Marco Civil” reaches Brazilian Congress
A draft bill to establish a civil rights-based governance framework for the internet has reached the Brazilian Congress. A2K Brasil has published an English translation of the bill, and a blog post summarising its contents, which were devised as the result of an inclusive consultation process spear-headed by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

US: Secret orders target email
The Wall Street Journal reveals that the US government obtained a secret court order to force companies including Google to hand over the communications traffic records of WikiLeaks volunteer (and US citizen) Jacob Applebaum. The revelations “provide a rare public window into the growing debate over a federal law that lets the government secretly obtain information from people’s email and cellphones without a search warrant”. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is campaigning to change this law.
Report | EFF campaign

Russia: State funded blogging school opens in Chelyabinsk
Global Voices publishes a short, English-language summary of a Russian-language report about a new state-funded blogging school.

Cuba: Radio/TV Martí texting is ‘cyberwar’
The Miami Herald reports on allegations made by the Cuban authorities that a service funded by the US government to send censored news from the US to Cuban mobile phones via SMS violates the country’s laws and may disrupt the network.

Italy: Wikipedia restores service
The Italian Wikipedian community has restored access to Italian Wikipedia after amendments to a draft law they say threatens the existence of Wikipedia were proposed in the Italian Parliament. Last week, the entire Italian Wikipedia was replaced by a message protesting against the law.

Views on Open Data contrast during ICIC sessions
This short report from the 7th International Conference of Information Commissioners underlines the contrasting view open government data activists and freedom of information (FOI) campaigners hold of each other’s disciplines. Freedominfo.org reports: “One Canadian open data advocate called reforming FOI laws a low priority. FOI traditionalists… warned that politicians are using open data portals to avoid legal reforms”.

Report: Casting a wider net
This new report from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs describes a series of real-world tests to deliver access to BBC websites into Iran and China and draws lessons from these tests for broadcasters and other media players seeking to use the internet to get their content into countries who are likely to block it.

Financial Times special series: Cyberwar – the new arms race
This US-focused in-depth report into cybersecurity examines the issues, the politics and the economics of so-called “cyberwar”. It includes an interactive visualisation of the defence companies the FT says are “creating a cyber-industrial complex”.
Special issue | Visualisation

TV white spaces can open up low-cost, high-speed internet across Africa
This Association for Progressive Communications (APC) report details a recent meeting of civil society organisations, government officials, industry and regulators to discuss how to make better use of so-called “TV white spaces” – wireless spectrum freed up by advances in wireless technology. The meeting was convened in the hopes of persuading regulators to open up spectrum allocation beyond incumbent licence-holders, in order to “enable a new generation of wireless entrepreneurs and innovators in Africa”. The report includes an APC interview which explores the issues at stake with Henk Kleynhans, chair of the South African Wireless Access Providers Association, Google Africa’s Ory Okolloh and South African wireless entrepreneur Steve Song.
Report | Background

Speaking stats to justice
Chance magazine publish this feature from Benetech’s Daniel Guzmán about the statistical work he undertook as an expert witness in a 2010 legal case against the police in Guatemala which “set a historic precedent for human rights”.

Video: John Palfrey and Jeremie Zimmerman on Net Neutrality
This 13 minute video from the Open World Forum, featuring the Berkman Center for Internet and Society’s John Palfrey speaking to La Quadrature du Net’s Jeremie Zimmerman, is an excellent introduction to global issues surrounding net neutrality.

Audio: Algorithmic Culture
In this interview for the CBC Spark podcast Ted Striphas, an associate professor at Indiana University’s Department of Communication and Culture, examines how our cultural life is affected by the growing automation of cultural curation. The interview builds on a series of blog posts Striphas has published on the topic.
Interview | Blog posts

Audio: How telecom providers respond to government surveillance requests
Chris Soghoian reveals the real story behind the small print of telecoms companies’ privacy policies.

ACTA signed
Last weekend, at a signing ceremony in Japan, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore and the United States all signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a bilateral treaty with provisions for copyright and patent enforcement which have the potential to go beyond norms established by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). James Love of Knowledge Ecology International argues the case for why the US signing may be subject to challenge based on its inconsistencies with US law, while Michael Geist outlines the legal changes that must take place in Canada before the treaty can be ratified. The EU, which was also party to negotiations, is yet to receive authority from the European Parliament to sign the treaty, report Out-Law.com. La Quadrature du Net are among the European civil society voices urging the European Parliament to withhold its consent.
Report | Love | Geist | Out-Law.com | La Quadrature

Italian Wikipedians shut down Wikipedia in protest at draft censorship law
The Italian Wikipedian community replaced the entire Italian Wikipedia with a message to Wikipedia users about a draft Italian “Wiretapping Bill” which they threatens the existence of Wikipedia because it would require websites “to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image”. The Wiretapping Bill has the full support of Silvio Berlusconi, and is in danger of passing through the legislative process without scrutiny. The Wikimedia Foundation has issued a statement saying it “stands with our volunteers in Italy”.
Italian Wikipedians’ statement | Wikimedia Foundation’s statement

Tunisia secretly tested censorship software for Western companies
Arab Bloggers reports: “The new chairman and CEO of the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), Moez Chakchouk, told participants at the Arab Bloggers Meeting today that western companies offered significant discounts on use of censorship software to the Tunisian government in exchange for testing and bug-tracking. He said confidentiality contracts preclude him from naming the companies, but said the Internet Agency has extracted itself from these partnerships and thus can no longer afford to censor, even if they wished to.”

Iran blocks TOR, TOR unblocks itself later that day
The TOR project carries a short report detailing Iran’s successful attempt to block its citizens from accessing TOR, and TOR’s subsequent workaround which allowed it to resume its service in Iran the same day. TOR (which stands for “The Onion Router”) is a system which allows online anonymity.

EU restricts export of surveillance technology
The European Parliament has revised EU rules on the export of surveillance technologies to make companies wishing to export such technologies seek permission from the authorities first. IT News reports “the new rules limit the risk of sensitive technologies being exported to certain foreign regimes such as China, Russia, India and Turkey, as well as those subject to arms embargoes”.

Anonymous attacks official Syrian websites
Global Voices reports on coordinated attacks by Anonymous against the official websites of every major city in Syria, whose homepages have been replaced with an interactive map of the country, showing the names, ages and date of deaths of victims of the Syrian regime since the protests started in March.

Access Info Europe launches AsktheEU.org
Access Info Europe have launched a new web portal that radically simplifies the process of requesting information from the EU. Built on the Alaveteli software that underpins mySociety’s successful WhatDoTheyKnow.com platform for Freedom of Information requests in the UK, AsktheEU.org sends an email to the relevant EU body, making responses it receives public and allowing users to rate the responses for quality and comprehensiveness.

The Geopolitics of the Open Government Partnership
This short piece by David Eaves frames the recently announced Open Government Partnership, an international effort to make governments more transparent led by the US and Brazil, as “the first overt, ideological salvo in the what I believe will be the geopolitical axis of Open versus Closed”.

US: “Phone and web clampdowns in crises are intolerable”
In this opinion piece for Bloomberg, Susan Crawford urges the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to recognise the decision by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) to shut down mobile phone services during a protest in August as a violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which prohibits discontinuing or impairing service without due process.

Special Issue: Global human rights challenges of forensic DNA
The new issue of GeneWatch magazine produced by the Council for Responsible Genetics, focuses on the increasing risks posed by the proliferation of forensic DNA collection around the world, with articles from experts and activists from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, India, Pakistan and Portugal.

Report: Truth, lies and the internet
This new, UK-focused report from DEMOS about young people’s ability to critically evaluate information they access online includes a comprehensive literature review as well as a survey of over 500 teachers. It concludes that young people are “vulnerable to the pitfalls of ignorance, falsehoods, cons and scams”.

“Recognition of internet freedom as a trade issue growing”
The Huffington Post carries an op-ed by Edward J. Black, President of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, detailing how “the internet’s evolution as a platform to enable commerce has also put the issue of internet restrictions on the radar of the international trade system”.

Book review: “Surveillance or Security?: The risks posed by new wiretapping technologies”, by Susan Landau
In this piece for the Boston Review, Evgeny Morozov provides a summary of Susan Landau’s detailed new book on surveillance, which argues that FBI-mandated surveillance “back doors” may not be the most realistic or effective response to the proliferation of secure communications products ushered in by the digital age.

Book reviews: “Dark Market – Cybertheives, cybercops and you”, by Misha Glenny
Evgeny Morozov reviews Misha Glenny’s new book on cybercrime for the Wall Street Journal, calling it “a bold attempt to write a biography of a single obscure website that, between 2005 and 2008, served as the premier destination for criminals engaged in online fraud”. For the UK’s Independent, computer security expert Ross Anderson also highlights the book as an important work which has much to teach experts about the human element of computer crime, but regrets the work’s technical inaccuracies.
Morozov | Anderson

Internet Governance Forum begins in Nairobi
The Internet Governance Forum, a multi-stakeholder forum created as a result of the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society and now in its sixth year, began in Nairobi, Kenya this week. The .nxt internet governance blog highlights competing bids by China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa and the EU for a stronger role for governments in internet control. And a paper prepared for the summit by Jeremy Malcolm of the Giganet network of internet governance scholars charts the decline of “multi-stakholderism” in internet governance.
Report | Paper

Kyrgyzstan to switch off foreign TV channels for elections
TREND reports that cable television cables in Kyrgyzstan will switch off transmissions of foreign TV channels this week until the end of October, in order to comply with laws governing the broadcast of political campaign messages.

Windows 8 secure boot: the return of “Trusted Computing”?
ZDNet report on a security measure proposed by Microsoft to link operating system (OS) software to the computer that runs it, a development that could have widespread ramifications for the computer market. The Light Blue Touchpaper blog likens the proposal to previous attempts by major computer firms to lock down computer hardware, concluding “The extension of Microsoft’s OS monopoly to hardware would be a disaster, with increased lock-in, decreased consumer choice and lack of space to innovate. It is clearly unlawful and must not succeed.”
ZDNet | Light Blue Touchpaper

Copyright reform back on the agenda in Canada
Proposed reforms to copyright law, which had been delayed by national elections, were scheduled to be re-introduced in the Canadian Parliament this week. Michael Geist analyses the political mood surrounding some of the proposal’s most controversial provisions and highlights the role the US played in promoting legal change, as revealed by leaked US State Department cables published since the elections took place.

89 countries ranked in world’s first rating of right to information laws
Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy celebrated International Right to Know Day (28 September) this week by launching a detailed analysis of the legal provisions for exercising the right to information across 89 countries. Among the study’s findings are that more recent laws protect the right to know more strongly, and that countries in Europe, particularly those with older laws that are limited in scope and have weak appeals mechanisms, account for 15 of the bottom 20 rankings.

Anonymous accuses Chaoda of fraud
The Financial Times reports that “Anonymous, the amorphous cyber-collective, has made its first foray into securities analysis by accusing a scandal-plagued Chinese company of fraud”. The company in question is Chaoda Modern Agriculture, and the 38-page “Anonymous Analytics” report released this week accuses them of falsifying financial statements and swindling investors.

New website tracks net neutrality violations in Europe
Two European digital rights organisations, Bits of Freedom and La Quadrature du Net, have launched a new website called “Respect My Net”, which invites European users to report violations of net neutrality principles committed by their Internet Service Providers.

Six provocations for big data
This paper, presented by sociologist danah boyd to the Oxford Internet Institute last week, contains some interesting observations on how the current trend towards making extremely large data sets the object of scholarship “creates a radical shift in how we think about research… a profound change agt the levels of epistemology and ethics”.

Why the world is scared of hacktivists
This Financial Times feature by Joseph Menn provides excellent history and context on the activities of Anonymous and other hacktivists.

Audio: Cyber-spies
This podcast of the BBC’s flagship investigative radio program, File on Four, provides an excellent overview of the issues surrounding digital surveillance in open and closed societies.

Video: Evgeny Morozov on digital utopianism
This feature-length video for Dutch TV programme Tegenlicht invites Evgeny Morozov to respond to a range of video clips which explore ideas of digital utopianism. Although broadcast for a Dutch-speaking audience, the footage (from about 2 minutes in) is mainly English-language with Dutch sub-titles and is well worth watching.

Audio: Yochai Benkler on his new book “The Penguin and the Leviathan”
David Weinberger talks to internet and legal scholar Yochai Benkler about his new book “The Penguin and the Leviathan: How cooperation triumphs over self-interest”, which challenges the popular notion that human beings are entirely self-motivated.

Video: Zeynep Tufecki on Social Media and Dynamics of Collective Action under Authoritarian Regimes
This Berkman Luncheon Series video features Zeynep Tufecki talking about the role of social media in energising networks of dissent under authoritarian regimes, drawing on data gathered in Tahrir Square during the uprisings in Egypt.

WikiLeaks name names in full-text post of secret cables
At the end of last week, WikiLeaks published over 251,000 leaked US diplomatic cables from a set it had previously been releasing in redacted form with media partners all over the world. The cables were released in unredacted form, an action almost universally condemned for the lives of named informants it might inadvertently put at risk. This IT World report provides important details of the events that led up to WikiLeaks’ action.

Leak shows US influence on intellectual property policy around the world
The Toronto Star reports on US diplomatic cables that reveal significant US influence on proposed copyright and copy protection enforcement measures put forward in Canada in 2010. The cables show cabinet minister Maxime Bernier “raising the possibility of showing US officials a draft bill before tabling it to Parliament” and “even have a policy director for then industry minister Tony Clement suggesting it might help US demands for a tough copyright law if Canada were placed… on an international piracy watch list”. The story has made frontpage news in Canada. Meanwhile, Knowledge Ecology International’s James Love writes a strong and detailed piece for the Huffington Post on the important revelations the newly-released cables offer about the US government’s close collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry in its dealings with low and middle income countries seeking access to medicines, including Guatemala and the Philippines.
Toronto Star | Huffington Post

Global congress issues declaration challenging US trade policy
Information policy experts from around the world have released a joint statement that challenges the dominant direction of negotiations on intellectual property (IP) in US trade agreements. The Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest is the result of a global congress hosted by American University Washington College of Law, and calls for a refocussing on public interest concerns in IP negotiations, emphasising limitations and exceptions to copyright protection and the checking of enforcement excesses. Individuals and organisations are invited to sign the declaration to indicate their support.

Putin says state should not control the internet
Reuters report that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that modern states should not restrict internet freedoms, noting “One can always impose control, but the question is … whether the state has the right to interfere”.

Fake Facebook page targets pro-revolution Syrian users
The Information Warfare monitor reports on a new attack – suspected to be the work of the pro-regime Syrian Electronic Army – which harvests the Facebook login credentials of pro-revolution Syrians.

New evidence in case against Cisco
The New York Times reports that the Human Rights Law Foundation, who are pursuing a case against Cisco Systems under a US law that allows American companies to be sued for violations of human rights abroad, will present new evidence “showing that Cisco customized its products specifically to help Beijing go after members of the religious group Falun Gong”.

Google certificate hackers may have stolen 200 others
The Wired Threat Level blog reports that “Hackers who obtained a fraudulent digital certificate for Google may have actually obtained more than 200 digital certificates for other top internet entities such as Mozilla, Yahoo and even the privacy and anonymizing service Tor”. The hackers are believed to be targeting Iranian users, and could have used the fake certificates to intercept traffic that users thought was secure.

Political Repression 2.0
Evgeny Morozov highlights the links between surveillance systems used by repressive governments and the Western corporations who manufacture them, and urges the US State Department to address the issue, in this editorial for the New York Times.

How to create sustainable open data projects
Tom Steinberg, Director of civic hacking organisation MySociety, weighs in on a debate started on the O’Reilly Radar blog about ways that data owners, funders and civic hackers need to change their practice in order to make sure open data projects are sustainable and successful.
Steinberg | More debate

Uzbekistan launches its own Facebook, except it’s not for everyone
This feature for the Radio Free Europe Tangled Web blog looks in depth at a new state-sponsored social networking site launched in Uzbekistan, and surveys state-sponsored social networking sites across the world.

Shouting fire in a crowded hashtag
This post by Andrés Monroy-Hernández analyses the case of sixteen people in Mexico charged with spreading rumours on Twitter, putting it in the context of the security and media environment surrounding drug-related crime in Mexico.

Audio: Cathy N. Davidson on the future of education
Duke University professor Cathy N. Davidson talks to SPARK radio host Nora Young about her book “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn” and about how education needs to evolve to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Fake web certificate could have been used to attack Iranian dissidents
The Guardian reports on concerns that a fake web certificate – which could have been used to intercept traffic to Google’s servers that users thought was secure – has been discovered by users in Iran. The certificate was issued by DigiNotar, one of over 650 Certificate Authorities which underpin secure (HTTPS) web-browsing. The ability of Certificate Authorities to secure the web is increasingly coming into question.

New internet blocking order handed down by Tunisian court
 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) report on the decision of a Tunisian court to order the blocking of all pornographic websites, following a petition brought by lawyers. The Tunisian Internet Agency is appealing the decision at the country’s highest court.

Brazil: campaigns against “menacing” internet law gain 350,000 supporters
Consumers International reports on a proposed “cybercrime” law in Brazil that would limit online freedom and privacy, and the mounting popular sentiment opposing it. The Brazilian Institute of Consumers (IDEC), together with Avaaz and the Mega Não (Mega No) movement, have gathered the signatures of 350,000 Brazilian citizens who oppose the bill. Similar proposals were fought off in 2008 following popular protest.

Momentum on copyright term extension in Europe picks up
The Open Rights Group (ORG) reports on plans at the EU to finalise a law extending the length of time sound recordings attract a copyright. The law is the result of intense lobbying by record labels, and has been condemned by legal and economic experts.

Network security in the medium term: 2061-2561
Science Fiction author Charlie Stross guesses at the sorts of problems network security experts might face in the next 500 years, in this entertaining and informed keynote delivered at the 20th USENIX security symposium.

“Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist”
A provocative editorial from Guardian columnist George Monbiot on the state of academic publishing: “This is a tax on education, a stifling of the public mind”.

The Wrong War: models of cyber threats
This analysis from the Brookings Institute argues that maritime governance in the mid-19th century is a better model for understanding cyber threats than the Cold War: “While would-be cyber Cold Warriors stare at the sky and wait for it to fall, they’re getting their wallets stolen and their offices robbed”.

Are social networks a distraction for revolutionaries?
The New York Times reports on a new paper by a political science graduate that claims that switching off the internet during civil unrest may not be a wise move because “full connectivity in a social network sometimes can hinder collective action”.

Interview with Maria Otero about the open government partnership
The Forbes Magazine blog presents the full transcript of their interview with Maria Otero, the US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, about the Open Government Partnership, a new international initiative to “harness new technologies to make government more open, effective, and accountable”.

Video: Ruth Okediji at IFLA
Copyright scholar Ruth Okediji gives an overview of legal and policy challenges for libraries in the age of digital books to the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA).

Torture in Bahrain becomes routine with help from Nokia Siemens
This in-depth report from Bloomberg details the extent to which repressive regimes are using Western technology to monitor dissidents: “Across the Middle East in recent years, sales teams at Siemens, Nokia Siemens, Munich-based Trovicor and other companies have worked their connections among spy masters, police chiefs and military officers to provide country after country with monitoring gear”.

UK Home Secretary meets with Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry
The UK Home Secretary was scheduled to meet with senior police officers and executives from Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry this week to examine how to stop citizens using social media platforms to plot violence following the UK riots earlier this month.

Turkmen leader renews call for satellite dish ban
The president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has called for a satellite dish ban because the “reflect negatively” on the architectural appearance of the country’s capital, Ashgabat. The president first proposed the removal of satellite dishes in 2007. The Moscow Times reports that “Satellite television is one of the few means by which residents of Turkmenistan can access independent channels in a country dominated by state media”.

Dangerous cybercrime treaty pushes surveillance and secrecy worldwide
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports on the resurrection of the decade-old International Convention on Cybercrime, which it calls “one of the world’s worst internet law treaties” thanks to the overbroad surveillance powers it grants law enforcement agencies without specifying correspondingly strong privacy protections for citizens.

Slovenia launches web app to monitor public spending
Techcrunch reports on the launch of a new online public service to monitor public spending in Slovenia and reflects on the different types of challenges posed by open budget monitoring in countries outside of the US.

“Vietnamese authorities orchestrate DDoS attack against Viet Tan website”
The No Firewall blog draws the conclusion that a sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on pro-democracy website viettan.org is likely to have been orchestrated by Vietnamese authorities, based on the fact that those authorities lifted a technical censorship block on viettan.org which otherwise would have inadvertently protected it from the Vietnam-based botnet responsible for the attack.

ICANN departures after Web suffix vote draw criticism
The Washington Post report on the revolving door at internet governance organisation ICANN (the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers), which has seen its chairman depart to take on a new role at a commercial top level domain (TLD) registrar just four days after ICANN voted to introduce hundreds of new TLDs.

Stallman warns of new software patent risk in Europe
The father of Free Software Richard Stallman has written an op-ed in the UK Guardian warning that a proposed EU-wide “unitary patent” system could usher in an age of software patents in Europe. Unlike in the US, software patents are generally not permitted in the EU, following a successful campaign to prevent their introduction several years ago led by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) and others.

The technology of corporate accountability
David Sasaki tracks the history of corporate accountability tools – from crowd-sourced wikis to recent data mashing projects and beyond – in this epic post for his Latin America-focussed blog Informacion Civica.

When algorithms control the world
This excellent feature from BBC reporter Jane Wakefield examines the role algorithms play in our cultural and economic lives and highlights the dangers of creating algorithmically-devised decision-making systems we are unable to understand.

Inside the hackerspace
Heather Brooke recounts her tour of the world’s hacker spaces, from the Chaos Computer Club in Berlin to Noisebridge in San Francisco, and argues that these informal, creative workshops and clubs are “the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses”. Brooke’s book “The Revolution Will Be Digitised” is released in the UK this week.

UK social media controls point to wider “info war”
This Reuters Africa analysis piece reveals that the UK is positioning itself closer to China than to its European and American allies with its ambitions to control the use of social media services.

The US is falling behind in the race to open government
Susan Crawford details how countries such as Brazil, Kenya, India and the UK are racing ahead of the United States in their employment of online technology to promote open government, in this analysis piece for Bloomberg.

Report: The evolving landscape of internet control
This new report from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society summarises two years of their research into internet censorship and control in the context of changing government strategies across the world, and offers some thoughts on the future of internet freedom.

Book Review: Free Ride
Evgeny Morozov takes a forensic approach to his review of former Billboard editor Robert Levine’s new book “Free Ride: How today’s internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy”, singling out for particular criticism a content industry that believes “the internet is merely TV on steroids – its impact on the Arab spring, economic and human development and the future of learning be damned”.

Ugandan Minister accuses opposition of staging “Twitter insurrection”
The BBC reports that Ugandan Security Minister Muruli Mukasa has accused the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party in Uganda of using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to prepare Ugandan youth for insurrection. The accusation comes amid widespread protests against the rising cost of living in Uganda.

BART “pulls a Mubarak” in San Francisco
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports that operators of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down mobile phone service at four stations in central San Francisco on the weekend in response to a planned protest against the police.

Argentinean court blocks access to whistle-blowing websites
The Argentinean National Criminal Court has issued an order to all ISPs in the country to block the websites leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com, Global Voices reports. Leakymails is a project which publishes the email correspondence of political officials, among other documents, in order to expose corruption. The interim blocking order follows a complaint from the Argentinean Ministry of Security.

California legislators at crossroads over learning resources
A battle is heating up in California over legislation designed to legitimise new fees being charged by commercial publishers for online community college courses. The debate has left legislators conflicted over whether to encourage commercial publishers to charge students for online courses or instead promote open educational resources.

OpenLeaks founder’s integrity questioned following expulsion from hacker collective
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Germany’s oldest hacker collective, has voted to expel Daniel Domscheit-Berg after he falsely claimed that his new whistleblowing website, OpenLeaks, had been vetted by the CCC. Domscheit-Berg worked with Julian Assange on the WikiLeaks project, but left last summer citing irreconcilable differences. A spokesperson for the CCC said he now doubted Domscheit-Berg’s integrity.
Report | Interview with CCC spokesperson

“Repressing the internet, Western style”
Evgeny Morozov argues in the Wall Street Journal that repressive regimes are closely watching Western responses to social media-fuelled uprisings like the UK riots: “Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologies. They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies”.

Auto-BAHN
Auto-BAHN is a smartphone application based around Bluetooth and wi-fi that provides users with a method to quickly communicate with others during an emergency situation when telecommunication systems are down.

The Public Domain Review
The Public Domain Review is an irreverent online cultural almanac that specialises in works in the public domain: “By providing a curated collection of exotic scraps and marvellous rarities and linking to freely distributable copies of works in online archives and from far flung corners of the web, we hope to encourage readers to further utilise and explore public domain works by themselves”.

Video: How to improve your podcasting
This short video from the BBC gives some great tips for podcasters.