BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
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What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.
* Jonathan Zittrain on Google's "new approach to China"
* Herdict learns two new languages
* Harry Lewis hasn't forgotten about privacy
* CMLP looks at YouTube and the California Proposition 8 trial
* Doc Searls essays the Net as infrastructure
* David Weinberger posits the opposite of "open"
* ProjectVRM, in defense of human beings on the Web
* Difficult Problems in Cyberlaw: "Cybersecurity: solutions that
provoke questions"
* Ethan Zuckerman answers the question "Where’s Cabinda?" (and so
what?)
* Weekly Global Voices: "Haiti: Le Cap Haitien sends some news"
* Below, more Berkman Center community reactions to Google's
announcement about its Chinese search engine
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The full buzz.
"Google announced today that it would cease (well, phase out) censoring
the results in google.cn, the Chinese-language version of its famed
search engine. It’s a pretty stunning move, both in its fact and in
its execution. First, the announcement of “A new approach to China”
may appear to have buried the lede. The lion’s share of the post is
devoted to describing a series of coordinated attacks on the accounts
of human rights activists, including those who use Google. It includes
a link to the amazing story of GhostNet, discovered by fellow ONI
researchers when the Dalai Lama gave them his oddly-acting laptop to
examine."
From Jonathan Zittrain's blog post "Google takes on China"
"Herdict is pleased to announce two additional language interfaces:
Persian (herdict.org/Persian) and Russian (nardict.ru). Our hope is by
adding additional languages, we’ll continue to expand the herd. And,
since Herdict relies on you, the herd, to get the upto the moment
information on internet filtering, the bigger the herd, the better the
data. Have ideas on what other languages we should add? What about
other new features?"
From the Herdict project blog post, "Herdict welcomes two new languages
to the flock"
"Zuckerberg says that people are more comfortable sharing and being
open than they used to be, and Facebook is just catching up with where
society has already gone. Of course this is nonsensical reasoning,
unworthy of someone who took a course in computational theory from me
(yes, he did)."
From Harry Lewis blog post "Zuckerberg to the World: Privacy? Forget
About It"
"There are a couple of laws in California that the U.S. Supreme Court
should consider before it announces tomorrow whether or not the
Proposition 8 trial can be broadcast on YouTube: § 240 and § 422.
These two laws don't address same-sex marriage, discrimination, or even
access to courts, as you may have expected. Instead, these sections of
the California Penal Code make it a crime to either assault or threaten
to use violence against another person."
From Justin Silverman's blog post for the CMLP, "Will This Revolution
Be YouTubed?"
"The Internet is free and open infrastructure that provides almost
unlimited support for free speech, free enterprise and free assembly.
Nothing in human history, with the possible exception of movable type —
has done more to encourage all those freedoms. We need to be very
careful about how we regulate it, especially since it bears only
superficial resemblances to the many well-regulated forms of
infrastructure it alters or subsumes."
From Doc Searls' blog post "The Net: Free infrastructure for speech,
enterprise and assembly"
"The Net as a medium is not for anything in particular — not for making
calls, sending videos, etc. It also works at every scale, from one to
one to many to many. This makes it highly unusual as a medium. In fact,
we generally don’t treat it as a medium but as a world, rich with
connections, persistent, and social. Because everything we encounter in
this world is something that we as humans made (albeit sometimes
indirectly), it feels like it’s ours."
From David Weinberger's blog post "The opposite of 'open' is 'theirs'"
"So, why do companies behave like this? Why do they act on the Web in
ways that nobody would act in person, whether at a party or even in the
privacy of, say, a doctor’s office? The answer is that the Web isn’t
human. At least not yet. You are not a human being on the Web. In fact,
as Paul Trevithick put it (at one of our first VRM meetings at the
Berkman Center), the Web has no concept of a human being."
From Doc Searls' blog post for ProjectVRM, "Where Markets are Not
Conversations"
"At the forefront of the security on the Internet, there lies the
security problem of identity. How can internet users maintain their
right to privacy while at the same time securing identity information
when necessary? IP addresses are the means by which information is
passed from one destination to another online, and play a role in
identity online. Given the number of IP addresses available in its
current iteration IPv4 and the increasing number of devices that
utilize IP addresses, the urgency for a new solution is becoming
apparent."
From Dharmishta Rood's blog post for Difficult Problems in Cyberlaw,
"Cybersecurity: solutions that provoke questions"
"Hosting an international event – a conference, a sporting event – is a
classic strategy for rebranding a troubled nation. Concerned that your
rigged elections and abysmal human rights record makes you look a
little backwards? Host an international meeting on information
technology to prove you’re firmly rooted in the 21st century. (Yeah,
that went well.) Concerned that you’re better known for violent civil
war and land mines than for your booming oil industry and bustling
capital? Host the Africa Cup of Nations!"
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post "What happens in Cabinda doesn’t stay
in Cabin"
"Wednesday January 13th: The day after the terrible 7.0 earthquake
which has left Haiti in an undefinable situation, Radio Kiskeya
announces the persistence of the communication challenges [Fr] the
island is facing: '...No radio nor TV station is available in Haiti
this morning. Radio Kiskeya's office has suffered damages. The
telephone network is out of order.' However, the Haitian blog from Le
Cap Haitien, le Réseau Citadelle has been able to publish news as early
as Tuesday 12th, when the disaster happened."
From Fabienne Flessel's blog post for Global Voices, "Haiti: Le Cap
Haitien sends some news"
More Berkman Center community reactions to Google's announcement about its Chinese search engine:
* Difficult Problems in Cyberlaw, "#GoogleCN news roundup"
* Internet & Democracy, "Google Threatens to Pull Out of China,
Cites Censorship and Cyberattacks"
* Harry Lewis, "Google: We're Re-Thinking China" and
"Vaidhyanathan on China"
* OpenNet Initiative, "Google's China Decision Could Have Far-Reaching
Implications"
* Ethan Zuckerman, "Four possible explanations for Google’s big China
move"
* StopBadware, "Google's new stance on China raises interesting badware
questions"
* Donnie Dong, "Google's Angry, Sacrifice and the Accelerated Splitting
Internet"
* Global Voices Online, "China: Google's possible exile leads to cyber
protests; Netizens on move"
* Rebecca MacKinnon, "Google puts its foot down"