OpenNet Initiative Newsfeed

Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace

rheacock — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:46:00 -0500

Description from MIT Press:

A daily battle for rights and freedoms in cyberspace is being waged in Asia. At the epicenter of this contest is China--home to the world's largest Internet population and what is perhaps the world's most advanced Internet censorship and surveillance regime in cyberspace. Resistance to China's Internet controls comes from both grassroots activists and corporate giants such as Google. Meanwhile, similar struggles play out across the rest of the region, from India and Singapore to Thailand and Burma, although each national dynamic is unique. Access Contested, the third volume from the OpenNet Initiative (a collaborative partnership of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and the SecDev Group in Ottawa), examines the interplay of national security, social and ethnic identity, and resistance in Asian cyberspace, offering in-depth accounts of national struggles against Internet controls as well as updated country reports by ONI researchers.

The contributors examine such topics as Internet censorship in Thailand, the Malaysian blogosphere, surveillance and censorship around gender and sexuality in Malaysia, Internet governance in China, corporate social responsibility and freedom of expression in South Korea and India, cyber attacks on independent Burmese media, and distributed-denial-of-service attacks and other digital control measures across Asia.

All three of the @OpenNet Initiative books can now be found, free and open access, on a single site (via @jpalfrey)

ashar — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:48:46 -0500

Better Data for a Better Internet

ashar — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:30:08 -0500

The Berkman Center enthusiastically shares an article from Faculty Co-Directors John Palfrey and Jonathan Zittrain on "Better Data for a Better Internet," published in this month's edition of Science. The piece explores how current debates and discussions about Internet policy can be more effectively informed by better data and research methods.

You can find the full text of the article here <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/334/6060/1210?ijkey=yLssWDbbr0ekI&keytype=ref&siteid=sci> and on newsstands.

From "Better Data for a Better Internet":

Decisions about when and how to regulate activities online will have a profound societal impact. Debates underlying such decisions touch upon fundamental problems related to economics, free expression, and privacy. Their outcomes will influence the structure of the Internet, how data can flow across it, and who will pay to build and maintain it. Most striking about these debates are the paucity of data available to guide policy and the extent to which policymakers ignore the good data we do have.

Related work from John Palfrey, Jonathan Zittrain, and the Berkman Center can be found via these resources:

Project: OpenNet Initiative
Project: Herdict
Paper: "Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act"
iLaw: New Methods for New Technologies

Congratulations to John and Jonathan on this achievement, for continuing to engage new constituencies across disciplines.

= = =

Additional coverage can be found here:

Setting smart Internet policy requires data we don't have, aren't getting (Ars Technica)
HLS Professors Push for Data-Use in Internet Policy (Harvard Crimson)

Berkman Buzz: November 4, 2011

rheacock — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:00:48 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

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What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Wendy Seltzer reports on last week's ICANN public meeting
* The OpenNet Initiative makes its global filtering data available for download and reuse
* Ethan Zuckerman explores the phenomenon of the "rebuttal tweet"
* Jeffrey Schnapp discusses physicality in the libraries of the future
* The Citizen Media Law Project keeps track of ACTA
* Weekly Global Voices: "Global Voices Podcast: Bridging the Language Gaps"

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The full buzz.

"Law enforcement demands to domain name registrars were a recurring theme of the 42d ICANN public meeting, concluded last week in Dakar. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) took every opportunity at its public meetings with GNSO and Board, and in its Communique to express dismay, disappointment, and demands for urgent action to 'reduce the risk of criminal abuse of the domain name system.'"
From Wendy Seltzer's blog post, "ICANN: The Stakes in Registrar Accreditation"

"The OpenNet Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of our summarized global Internet filtering data as a downloadable CSV file under a Creative Commons license. The data provides an overview of the most recent ONI ratings of the breadth and depth of Internet censorship in seventy-four countries across four content categories (political, social, Internet tools and conflict/security). This release makes ONI data more accessible to researchers, journalists, and data mash-up developers."
From Masashi Crete-Nishihata's blog post for the OpenNet Initiative, "ONI Summarized Global Internet Filtering Data Now Available for Download"

"There’s some sort of psychological impact that comes from receiving a rebuttal tweet. Twitter is a social network, and to some extent, we’re all looking for the small serotonin burst that comes from an affirmative retweet – 'Yay, a person liked what I have to say!' Not only does the rebuttal fail to provide the boost – it provides (for me, at least) a much stronger negative signal: someone I don’t know disagrees with me strongly enough to single me out and correct me. Did I get my facts wrong? Is this a chance to start a discussion, or is someone merely yelling at me? Even if I’m confident about what I wrote, the rebuttal tweet interrupts my comfortable echo chamber of affirmation and invites me to think about whether I’m considering an issue broadly enough. And that’s often a good thing."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "The rebuttal tweet"

"The seminar’s home in an architecture school has helped to drive the discussion towards a key question that confronts (and haunts–today is Halloween!) conversations regarding libraries of the future: namely, how much does physicality count. And what sorts of physicality? The physicality of the silent reading room, the open access stack, the coffee house in the basement, the carrel where you can 'spy' on the books and documents gathered together by another researcher?"
From Jeffrey Schnapp's blog post, "Bibliotheca and beyond"

"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is slowly inching its way towards implementation, but obstacles still remain. Now that the signing window for ACTA has been open for a while, let’s take a quick look at which countries have actually signed the agreement: United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea."
From Andrew Moshirnia's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "Keeping an Eye on ACTA"

"In this edition of the Global Voices Podcast we discuss languages that are hard to find on the internet. Do you speak a language that is hard to find online? Are you from a place where your mother tongue is not widely spoken? Then you may be a part of large number of people around the world who speak and write “under-represented languages”. We also look forward to the 11 Eleven Project on 11/11/11."
From Jamillah Knowles's post for Global Voices, "Global Voices Podcast: Bridging the Language Gaps"

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Compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Berkman Buzz: August 12, 2011

rheacock — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:46:55 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Dan Gillmor cautions against social media surveillance
* The OpenNet Initiative tracks Anonymous's summer of attacks against Internet censors
* The Citizen Media Law Project talks online defamation, injunctive relief, and the future of prior restraint
* The Harvard Library Innovation Lab interviews Tim O'Reilly
* FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn blogs about her meeting with the Berkman Center
* Weekly Global Voices: "Africa to Send Troops and Care Packages to the UK"

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The full buzz.

"Law enforcers in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are coming to grips with a hard reality: modern communications technologies give activists of all kinds an easier way to organise and deploy. But even as governments move to crack down, as Jeff Jarvis notes, activists are also learning a lesson – not just those whom we may support, such as the Egyptian revolutionaries, but also those whose deeds leave us cold or angry, such as many of the rioters and looters who've trashed so many parts of London and other British communities in recent days. In all cases, they are realising they cannot begin to trust the technology companies whose communications tools they used."
From Dan Gillmor's article for the Guardian, "Social networking surveillance: trust no one"

"Early this week, the online hacking community Anonymous launched a cyber attack on the Syrian Ministry of Defense website. This attack is one of the latest in a series of attacks by Anonymous/LulzSec against governments and companies perceived to be engaging in some form of Internet control and, more recently, human rights abuses."
From Jane Abell's blog post for the OpenNet Initiative, "Anonymous' attack on Syrian Defense Ministry website: A window into the group's changing agenda?"

"Online publishing changes things: suddenly, it's more practical to expect a defendant to take down a blog post, in a way that seems intuitively different from what we could ask of print publishers. But I'm not so convinced that the issues are really all that different -- print and online publishing have more in common than you might initially think."
From John Sharkey's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "Online Defamation, Injunctive Relief, and the Future of Prior Restraint"

"In the digital age shelves weighted down with books like these are becoming less and less common. Creators are turning more to online resources and tutorials to help them with specific issues. But, as you might expect from a forward thinking technology company, O’Reilly has been there to meet their readers."
From the Harvard Library Innovation Lab Podcast 005: Stock in Paper

"A quick trip, last week, to Massachusetts gave me another opportunity to learn about activities outside of the Beltway that promote three important initiatives: greater diversity in traditional and new media outlets, open Internet, and wider broadband adoption."
From FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's blog post, "Media Diversity, Open Internet, and Adoption Efforts in Massachusetts"

"Following the killing of a 29-year old man, Mark Duggan, in Tottenham on August 4, 2011, angry residents in London and other cities in the UK took to the street rioting and looting. Bloggers in Africa share their perspectives, some with a sense of humor."
From Ndesanjo Macha's post for Global Voices, "Africa to Send Troops and Care Packages to the UK"

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Compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Berkman Buzz: August 5, 2011

rheacock — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:39:01 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* The OpenNet Initiative investigates new DDoS attacks against LiveJournal
* David Weinberger liveblogs the Harvard Library Lab forum
* Dan Gillmor reviews the New York Times paywall
* The Berkman Center posts a new wave of videos from Hyper-Public
* danah boyd explains how to avoid creating angry mobs
* Weekly Global Voices: "Chile: Starbucks Baristas Hunger Strike for Higher Wages"

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The full buzz.

"Last week, the Russian language segment of the popular blogging platform LiveJournal experienced a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that brought down service for much of the week. This was the third such attack on the site this year, prompting vigorous discussion concerning the origins and goals of the attacks and their consequences for the Russian blogosphere."
From Jackie Kerr's blog post for the OpenNet Initiative, "Yet Another LiveJournal Outage Causes Concern for Russian Blogging Community"

"The Harvard Library Lab, which issues grants for library innovation at the University, is holding a forum in which all the projects get 5 mins to introduce themselves."
From David Weinberger's blog post, "LibraryLab funded project librapalooza"

"There are few news organisations whose survival I consider essential; the Times is one. Which is why I take modest pleasure in the news that its new online subscription service isn't failing."
From Dan Gillmor's article for the Guardian, "The New York Times paywall: the faint scent of success"

"In our (almost!) final post of the series of follow up materials for the Hyper-Public symposium, below you'll find seven more videos featuring key talks from the event."
From the Berkman Center's blog post, "Hyper Linking Hyper-Public #4"

"People don’t like to be configured. They don’t like to be forcibly told how they should use a service. They don’t want to be told to behave like the designers intended them to be. Heavy-handed policies don’t make for good behavior; they make for pissed off users."
From danah boyd's blog post, "Designing for Social Norms (or How Not to Create Angry Mobs)"

"Coffee is a high consumption export product in many Latin American countries. Consumers may be aware of the disparity between how much they pay for a cup of coffee and how much the coffee farmers in far away countries may make, but perhaps they don't realise that what they pay may be more even than their barista's hourly wage, as the Chilean Starbucks workers currently on hunger strike state."
From Juliana Rincón Parra's post for Global Voices, "Chile: Starbucks Baristas Hunger Strike for Higher Wages"

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Compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Berkman Buzz: July 29, 2011

rheacock — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:39:04 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Christian Sandvig's assigned new media fast raises questions
* Doc Searls urges Microsoft not to sell Bing
* The MIT Center for Civic Media interviews Jesse Shapins of MetaLAB at Harvard
* The OpenNet Initiative reports on the first Internet users to be charged under France's three strikes law
* David Weinberger points to plans for higher college network speeds
* Dan Gillmor talks Google+ one month in
* Weekly Global Voices: "Zambia: Facebook Group Leads 2011 Poll Debate"

Note: The Berkman Center is hiring a Clinical Instructor to join our Cyberlaw Clinic team!

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The full buzz.

"I just received a fascinating comment in my teaching evaluations from last year. On the back of the eval form there is a free-response section where people are invited to make constructive suggestions about the course. The results are usually fascinating, but in a bad way. Or in a puzzling way."
From Christian Sandvig's blog post, "Avoiding New Media: Impossible?"

"Here’s a suggestion for Microsoft: Don’t sell Bing. Sell Bing-based services directly to users — and fight Google where they’re weak: with personal attention and support."
From Doc Searls's blog post, "Earth to Microsoft: Don’t sell Bing."

"I had the opportunity recently to speak with Jesse Shapins of MetaLAB at Harvard, co-founder of Zeega, a new platform for creating interactive documentaries and inventing new forms of storytelling. As the Zeega team have just been named a Knight News Challenge winner, I thought it would be nice to get a better sense of their innovative platform and what they're planning for the fall."
From Audubon Dougherty's blog post for the MIT Center for Civic Media, "Zeega: An Interactive Documentary Platform"

"A high school teacher who claims not to know how to download music and movies is among the first ten people in France who face disconnection from the Internet over alleged illegal file-sharing."
From Simon Columbus's post for the OpenNet Initiative, "France to disconnect first Internet users under three strikes regime"

"The plan to provide ultra high speed Internet connectivity to universities (mainly in the heartland) is exciting. And it’s got some serious people behind it, including Lev Gonick and Blair Levin."
From David Weinberger's blog post, "Gig U"

"It's been a month since Google launched its not-Facebook and not-Twitter social network. Despite some signs of a slowdown in growth – and some thorny issues around ease of use and terms of service – there seems little doubt that Google has created something that could stand the test of time."
From Dan Gillmor's Guardian piece, "Google+: the tweet smell of success"

"Can a Facebook group, 'Zambian People’s Pact', tip the Zambian elections due in the next few months against the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), which has been in power for 20 years now?"
From Gershom Ndhlovu's post for Global Voices, "Zambia: Facebook Group Leads 2011 Poll Debate"

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Compiled by Rebecca Tabasky and Rebekah Heacock.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Berkman Buzz: July 8, 2011

syoung — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:00:00 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Citizen Media Law Project on Vermont's amendment to its open records law.
* William McGeveran considers individual privacy and election law.
* David Weinberger is reading Tolstoy's essay on Shakespeare.
* Peter Suber breaks down the open access and copyright situation.
* OpenNet Initiative watches Australia turn on Internet filtering.
* Weekly Global Voices: "Togo: Fragile Truce Emerges After Five Weeks of Student Protests"

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The full buzz.

"That's why Vermont gets a gold star for its amendment to its open records law enforcement, in §319 of the Vermont Statutes, that requires that the public agency pay your attorneys fees if you "substantially prevail" in your case. The language in the statute mirrors that of the federal Freedom of Information Act and seems to operate similarly (though the statute has yet to be interpreted by a Vermont court). That suggests that if the court finds that most of your requests should have been answered, 1) you get those records and 2) your attorney gets paid."
From Brittany Griffin Smith's blog post for CMLP, Vermont Gives its Open Records Law Teeth

"I’ve been thinking and writing again about the topic of my very first full law review article: the role of 'sunshine' in our election system and the way it can compromise individual privacy. In the internet era, personal convictions and associations may be burned by too much sunshine. Of course, the public deserves to know about the big donors who effectively fund political campaigns. But knowing the identity of ordinary people who write small checks, sign petitions, or cast ballots doesn’t help inform voters, and it can squelch participation in politics -- especially by those with unpopular views, and those who want or need to maintain an apolitical public persona."
From William McGeveran's blog post Sunshine, Elections, and Privacy (Again)

"Tolstoy really really doesn’t like Shakespeare. His polemic is a wonderful literary rant, taking him on for putting undifferentiated characters into ridiculous plots, speaking language no one would ever actually say, and betraying Christian values and virtues. His opening recounting of King Lear shows just how absurd the plot is, and he moves on from there. So why is Shakespeare universally acclaimed? He thinks the Germans -- Goethe, in particular -- started it, and it became what would today call a meme..."
From David Weinberger's blog post Tolstoy and the Shakespeare meme

"From the beginning, OA struggled against the widespread assumption that it must violate copyright law. But this has been a struggle against perception, not reality. In fact, steering clear of infringement has always been easier than steering clear of this false assumption and the harm it has caused. The assumption has made some authors fear OA. It has made some institutions skittish about committing to OA. It has needlessly weakened some OA policies, for example, by creating loopholes for dissenting publishers. It has even been a dishonest pretext for bad legislation...Here's an attempt to clarify the situation in a dozen propositions."
From Peter Suber, in the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, Open access and copyright

"Last week, our friends over at Herdict reported on the proposed ISP-level censorship in Australia. The plan, released by Telstra and Optus (two major ISPs), aims to protect Australian citizens by blocking child pornography and child exploitation sites pulled from an Interpol blacklist. The list of sites (to be censored) was not released, although a government spokesperson claimed about 500 to 1000 sites would be included in the initial filter. Only a few days after the plan became public, Telstra was already wavering on whether to be a part of the implementation, mostly because of fears of Internet vigilantes. However, after the demise of LulzSecurity (a prominent 'hactivist' group), Telestra reaffirmed its commitment to the censorship regime."
From Kendra Albert's blog post for ONI, Australian Filtering Goes Live, 'Trivial' to Bypass

"West African country Togo's students' struggle for better education conditions is now in its fifth week and despite a recent truce, tensions remains high in the capital Lomé. A wind of appeasement seemed to blow on the demonstrations organized by the Mouvement pour l'Épanouissement des Étudiants Togolais - MEET (Movement for the Fulfillment of Togolese Students), when students managed to obtain from authorities the reinstatement...of the president of their association on June 30. Abou Seidou, a student of the University of Lomé, had been previously expelled for allegedly causing troubles on the campus."
From Julie Owono's blog post for Global Voices Online, Togo: Fragile Truce Emerges After Five Weeks of Student Protests

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Compiled by Seth Young.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Herdict: "Was Google+ Blocked in China? Maybe Not. Is Google+ Blocked in China? Maybe."

syoung — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:03:05 -0400

Berkman Buzz: June 10, 2011

rheacock — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:34:35 -0400

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations

If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Wendy Seltzer explores privacy in public
* Ethan Zuckerman navigates privacy walls and thresholds
* Dan Gillmor reviews the FCC report on the future of media
* David Weinberger interviews Peter Suber about open metadata
* The OpenNet Initiative evaluates what a new treaty on gambling could mean for Internet filtering in Germany
* Weekly Global Voices: "Syria: True Identity of Arrested Blogger Questioned"

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The full buzz.

"We learn to negotiate privacy choices as we see them reflected around us. Yet technological advances challenge our privacy instincts by enabling non-transparent information collection: data aggregators amass and mine detailed long-term profiles from limited shared glimpses; online social networks leak information through continuous feeding of social pathways we might rarely activate offline; cell phones become fine-grained location-tracking devices of interest to governments and private companies, unnoticed until we map them."
From Wendy Seltzer's blog post, "Privacy, Attention, and Political Community"

"Societies evolve norms around privacy. We don’t join other people’s conversations at a restaurant, and if we listen in, we try to disguise our behavior. In traffic jams, people forget their cars are transparent – they get dressed and pick their noses, and we try to look away. Those norms allow for privacy in public spaces. In law, on the other hand, privacy sometimes seen as a goal in itself, not just a means to an end."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Walls and thresholds – physical metaphors at Hyper-public"

"So many things are disappointing about the FCC’s just-released future of media report that it’s tempting to write it off entirely. That would be a mistake."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post, "FCC Journalism Report Is a Voluminous Disappointment"

"One of the outcomes of the the LOD-LAM conference was a draft of an idea for a 4-star classification of openness of metadata from cultural institutions. The classification is nicely counter-intuitive, which is to say that it’s useful. I asked Peter Suber, the Open Access guru, what he thought of it."
From David Weinberger's blog post, "Peter Suber on the 4-star openness rating"

"An inter-state treaty that will overhaul Germany’s gambling regulation could prove a threat to the open net. Should a recent draft be adopted, ISPs would be obliged to prevent users from accessing unauthorized gambling websites, which critics fear will mean the establishment of a censorship infrastructure that would breach constitutional rights."
From Simon Columbus's blog post for the OpenNet Initiative, "In Germany, a new treaty on gambling might open the door to Internet filtering"

"Since reports emerged that a Syrian blogger named Amina Arraf, known as “Gay Girl in Damascus” had been seized by authorities on Monday, 6 June 2011, serious doubts have surfaced that the blogger may not be who she claims."
From Jillian York's post for Global Voices Online, "Syria: True Identity of Arrested Blogger Questioned"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.