Berkman Buzz: Week of August 18, 2008

August 22, 2008

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

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*The OpenNet Initiative judges Internet filtering during week one of the Olympic Games
*David Weinberger wags a finger at the competitive model of science
*Tuna Chattergee looks at a court decision to drop a gag order on a group of MIT students
*Harry Lewis urges us to help free the white spaces
*Doc Searls finds beauty in ugly webpages
*The Internet & Democracy Project discusses bridging the digital divide
*Digital Natives Reporters in the Field: "David Kosslyn: Studying Online (Part I)"
*Weekly Global Voices: "Silencing online speech in Tunisia"

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The full buzz.

"For each test at the MPC, ONI tested at other locations in Beijing with broadband Internet access provided by China Netcom. The filtering was nearly identical between the MPC and home access in Beijing, indicating that the incrementally increased openness achieved by reminding China of its Olympic promises benefit all Beijingers. Tests across China suggest that the same sites have been made accessible elsewhere, with the exception of http://usolympictibetinfo.blogspot.com and the Tibetan and Uyghur language news sites of Radio Free Asia..."
From the OpenNet Initiative blogpost, "ONI analysis of Internet filtering during Beijing Olympic Games: Week 1"

"There’s an excellent story on the front page of the Boston Globe today, by Carolyn Johnson, about scientists who just go ahead and blab about their data before the village elders have given them permission. Yay. The article says: Scientists who plunge into openness also risk giving a competing lab a leg up. 'Maybe somebody has discovered some interesting gene and doesn’t want to blab to the whole world about why it’s interesting,' said Michael Laub..."
From David Weinberger's blogpost, "Open science and the competition-collaboration slider"

"EFF reports that U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole has lifted the temporary restraining order that the court had issued against the three MIT students who had planned to present their research on the security vulnerabilities in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) transit fare payment system at DEFCON, a highly-regarded conference for hackers. The students' research grew out of a project that they had worked on for a network security class at MIT, and they had offered to share their results with the MBTA before presenting their findings at DEFCON..."
From Tuna Chattergee's blogpost, "Court Lifts Gag Order On MIT Students"

"We’ve devoted a lot of attention on this blog to Net Neutrality — the principle that Internet Service Providers should, like telephone companies, be barred from picking and choosing what service to provide to whom on the basis of the content of the information being delivered. There is another important information policy issue at stake now, and there is an opportunity for members of the public to weigh in on it directly..."
From Harry Lewis' blogpost, "Free the White Spaces"

"Back in the mid-90s, when Linux was still at 1.something, website design was a simple exercise that left matters such as font choice up to the user. It was blessedly free of the Tyranny of Typography, the Legacies of Layout, and other controlling influences from the Provinces of Print. Better yet, it was free by design from withering rebuke by aesthetes whose high-minded "taste" made life miserable for both writers and readers. Back then the Web was meant to be maximally usable and minimally controlled by Authorities who knew more about what you need than you do. That was the Idea, and it stuck. For about two years..."
From Doc Searls' blogpost, "It sucks because it's good"

"Shrinking the digital divide, the gap between those people with effective access to information technology and those without, worldwide has been on the table of activists, NGOs and governments for years now, and the UN has devoted a global conference on this issue, the World Summit on the Information Society, with the goal to 'bridge the so-called global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by spreading access to the Internet in the developing world.' (0) The UN states in the Millennium Development Goals Report of 2006 that by the end of 2004 the digital divide is still a grim reality at large. By 2004, merely 14% of the world’s population were using the internet with the following large digital divide apparent..."
From the Internet & Democracy Project blogpost, "Price of Monopoly and Democracy"

"So far we’ve explored many areas of a digital native’s life – from privacy, piracy to digital information overload- but now we bring you the more positive efforts that Digital Natives are making. It seems that everything is accessible online in today’s world- then why not studying? We sat down with David Kosslyn, a rising sophomore at Harvard, who along with two other friends, is starting up an online academic networking site named StudyBuddy. We talked to him about issues that this may bring about for non-digital natives but also about how studying online can either aid or hinder a digital natives learning process..."
From the Digital Natives Project blogpost, "David Kosslyn: Studying Online (Part I)"

"Three more blogs have been blocked in Tunisia this week. These blogs, Mochagheb (Disturber), Ennaqed (The Critic) and Place Mohamed Ali have all been particularly active in providing news of the struggle of The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), and especially about the latest social unrest in the southwestern phosphate mining region of Gafsa, where two people have been killed. One was shot dead by security forces and the other was electrocuted inside a local electric generator. I asked the Tunisian blogger Ennaqed about the censorship of his blog in Tunisia. He said...'"
From Sami Ben Gharbia's blogpost for Global Voices, "Silencing online speech in Tunisia"