August 2015 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Recommendations on Terms of Service and Human Rights on the IGF Website

by Luca Belli

FYI FYI Dear all, (apologies for cross posting) As some of you may already know, over the past year the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility (DCPR) has promoted a participatory process aimed at the elaboration of some Recommendations on Terms of Service and Human Rights. The consolidated draft of the Recommendations is now available on the IGF website for comments. You are all invited to comment on the draft by the end of August. http://review.intgovforum.org/igf-2015/dynamic-coalitions/dynamic-coalition… The Recommendations aim at providing indications on how to safeguard human rights within online platforms’ terms of service. The draft has been elaborated via an open process, as decided during the DCPR foundation meeting. All information regarding the process is available on the website of the DCPR and will remain public. Thanks to all DCPR members (as well as all non-members) who participated in the process. Please do not hesitate to share this email. All the best, Luca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Luca Belli, PhDResearcher, Center for Technology & Society, FGV Rio de JaneiroFounder and Co-chair, IGF Dynamic Coalition on Network NeutralityCo-founder and Co-chair, IGF Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ____________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: governance(a)lists.igcaucus.org To be removed from the list, visit: http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing For all other list information and functions, see: http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see: http://www.igcaucus.org/ Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t

Aug. 7, 2015

Net Neutrality Policy Statement on the IGF Website

by Luca Belli

FYI Dear all, (apologies for cross posting) Please note that the consolidated draft of the Net Neutrality Policy Statement has been published on the IGF website. You are all invited to comment on the draft by the end of August. http://review.intgovforum.org/igf-2015/dynamic-coalitions/dynamic-coalition… The draft aims at providing policy indications that any stakeholder may use in order to safeguard net neutrality. The draft has been elaborated via an open process initiated by members of the Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality as well as of the Global Coalition on Net Neutrality (see below: Request for Comments). The elaboration process encompassed 4 consultation-periods organised between May and July 2015. All information regarding the elaboration process is available on the DCNN website and will remain public. Thanks to all those who participated to the process and, please, do not hesitate to share this email. Best regards, Luca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Luca Belli, PhDResearcher, Center for Technology & Society, FGV Rio de JaneiroFounder and Co-chair, IGF Dynamic Coalition on Network NeutralityCo-founder and Co-chair, IGF Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Request for Comments Network Neutrality Policy Statement This is a Request for Comments with regard to the development of one or more Policy Statement(s) on Net Neutrality promoted by members of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality (DCNN) and the Global Coalition on Net Neutrality (GNN), to be discussed within the IGF community at-large. SUBJECT The development of the DRAFT Net Neutrality Policy Statement(s) aims at promoting the endorsement of an agreed position on net neutrality by the IGF community, based on the Model Framework on Network Neutrality developed by the DCNN. The development of the Policy Statement(s) is consistent with the Final Chair's Summary of the IGF 2014, according to which "The ninth IGF concluded with looking at the role of the IGF in taking the network neutrality discussion forward. [...] The Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality will continue the discussions leading up to the 2015 meeting, but the view was also held that there was a need to develop a process that allowed the entire IGF community to weigh in and validate the findings of the Dynamic Coalition." The DCNN Model Framework (MF) was presented at the 8th IGF in Bali and included in a Report on "Protecting Human Rights through Network Neutrality" delivered to the Council of Europe Steering Committee on Media and Information Society to be used as a working document for the elaboration of a Draft Recommendation on Net Neutrality. To date, the MF has been conveyed to several Parliamentary assemblies (EU Parliament, Argentinian Senate and South Korean Parliament) by DCNN members. However, although it has already played an inspirational role, the model has never been officially validated by the IGF community at-large, as pointed out by the Chairs Summary. This lack of validation is primarily due to the lack of an official validation process for dynamic coalitions' outcomes within the IGF structure. The development of the Policy Statements aims therefore at filling this gap through a self-organised and bottom-up process, which is the very essence of the IGF. DRAFT POLICY STATEMENTS During the RightsCon joint meeting of the DCNN and the GNN, consensus emerged as regards the elaboration of one or more DRAFT Net Neutrality Policy Statement(s) to be presented to the IGF MAG and discussed - and hopefully endorsed - by the IGF community at-large. The initial DRAFT policy statements are in attachment. The first policy statement (I. On Network Neutrality) aims at providing a concise and "human readable" version of the MF, while the second statement (II. On Specialised Services) aims at expanding the MF definition and provisions on specialised services, adding some further elements. The statements also include a "restyling" of the MF (APPENDIX Model Framework v.2.0). The original provisions of the MF have been reorganised within this restyled version, in order to identify with more clarity the key issues that should be evoked in the policy statements. The only modification to the MF content concerns the expansion of the specialised service provisions, in order include the additional elements that are proposed in Statement II. DRAFTERS According to DC NN Rules of Procedure, two drafters have been designated in order to "manage the elaboration of the position or statement and consolidate received comments with the aim of achieving a consensus document." The two individuals who volunteered as drafters are: - Luca Belli, DCNN Co-Chair and Researcher at the Center for Technology & Society, FGV Rio de Janeiro - Michał Woźniak, Warsaw Hackerspace and Polish Linux Users Group CALENDAR Comments to this initial DRAFT should be sent by 10 May 2015. After this deadline, the drafters will consolidate the comments and provide an updated draft that will be shared for a second round of comments. According to DCNN Rules of procedure, "DCNN members will be provided with 14 calendar days to comment, followed by a revised draft, and 10 calendar days to comment the revised draft." To foster the inclusion of widest number of comments from the IGF community at-large, all individuals will be allowed to comment the Draft statements using this google doc and this Pad. You are also free to share your inputs and critiques writing to the DCNN mailing-list nncoalition(a)mailman.edri.org to which you can subscribe following this link. : http://translate.google.com/translate_t

Aug. 7, 2015

The Legal Problems with Cyber War Are Much Bigger Than You Think - Defense One

by J.C. DE MARTIN

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/08/legal-problems-cyber-war-are-much-b… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Aug. 7, 2015

MIT TechReview: "Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth* /*The idea that particular individuals drive history has long been discredited. Yet it persists in the tech industry, obscuring some of the fundamental factors in innovation.*/ By Amanda Schaffer on August 4, 2015 Since Steve Jobs’s death, in 2011, Elon Musk has emerged as the leading celebrity of Silicon Valley. Musk is the CEO of Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars; the CEO of SpaceX, which makes rockets; and the chairman of SolarCity, which provides solar power systems. A self-made billionaire, programmer, and engineer—as well as an inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies—he has been on the cover of Fortune and Time. In 2013, he was first on the Atlantic’s list of “today’s greatest inventors,” nominated by leaders at Yahoo, Oracle, and Google. To believers, Musk is steering the history of technology. As one profile described his mystique, his “brilliance, his vision, and the breadth of his ambition make him the one-man embodiment of the future.” […] Continua qui: http://www.technologyreview.com/review/539861/techs-enduring-great-man-myth/

Aug. 7, 2015

Economist: "Patents: A question of utility"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*A question of utility */*Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. *//* *//*But there is plenty of evidence that they do not*/ Aug 8th 2015 | From the print edition <http://www.economist.com/printedition/2015-08-08> THE Great Exhibition, staged in London in 1851, was intended to show off the inventive genius of Victorian Britain. In doing so it sparked a hardfought debate on intellectual property. On one side were public figures horrified at the thought of inviting the whole world to see the nation’s best ideas, only to have most of it go straight home and copy them. They called for the patent system to be made cheaper and easier to navigate, and for the rights it conferred to be more forcefully upheld. These demands, though, were met with a backlash. Supported by economic liberals who had successfully fought for the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws a few years earlier, this side of the debate argued that free trade and competition were good for the economy; that patents were a restraint on both; and that therefore patents should be not reformed, but done away with. The Economist, founded by opponents of the Corn Laws, was an enthusiastic promoter of this abolitionist movement. A leader in our July 26th issue that year thundered that the granting of patents “excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits [and] bestows rewards on the wrong persons.” In perhaps our first reference to what are now called “patent trolls”, we fretted that “Comprehensive patents are taken out by some parties, for the purpose of stopping inventions, or appropriating the fruits of the inventions of others.” Read more at http://www.economist.com/node/21660559

Aug. 6, 2015

"CrowdVoice wants to help curate and verify crowdsourced news"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*CrowdVoice wants to help curate and verify crowdsourced news* *This free open source tool aims to make it easier for news organisations to collect, verify and embed news and data in stories* Posted: 5 August 2015 By: Mădălina Ciobanu Data is a huge asset for news organisations and can provide valuable insight into a story, whether it comes from documents or eyewitness footage. But because there are so many platforms where people share their experiences, it can be challenging for journalists to track all the information relevant to a topic or event and put it into a larger context. This is where a new project funded by the Knight Foundation is hoping to help. CrowdVoice.by, due for launch in October from citizen journalism platform CrowdVoice, is a new open source tool that newsrooms can personalise and use to collect, distribute and embed crowdsourced news and data. […] Continua qui: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-crowdvoice-by-wants-to-help-with-crow…

Aug. 6, 2015

David Post: "IP JUSTICE JOURNAL: Internet Infrastructure and IP Censorship"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Articolo del garante Nexa, prof. David Post. juan carlos *IP JUSTICE JOURNAL: Internet Infrastructure and IP Censorship by David Post* *Internet Infrastructure & IP Censorship** * By David G. Post – August 1, 2015 Full Article as .PDF Many scholars and other observers of developments in Internet governance, law, and policy have commented upon an unusual and important phenomenon that has become more widespread in recent years: using control over access to critical portions of the Internet’s technical infrastructure – the system comprising the underlying protocols for routing, naming, and addressing, along with related technical standards and the agreements, formal and informal, through which they are implemented across the Internet, what Laura DeNardis calls “Critical Internet Resources” (CIRs)[2] – to enforce private and public law. Three examples illustrate the nature of this new phenomenon. 1. The UDRP In the realm of private law and the enforcement of private rights, the paradigmatic illustration is ICANN’s[3] Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure (UDRP).[4] The UDRP is an ICANN-operated mandatory arbitration process that deals with “cyber-squatting,” i.e., the practice of registering domain names that mirror (or closely resemble) existing trademarks, for the purpose of re-selling the domain name to the trademark owner. The UDRP allows a trademark holder to submit a cyber-squatting complaint to an ICANN-accredited arbitrator, who is charged with applying ICANN’s substantive rules[5] for determining whether the cyber-squatting offense has been committed. […] Continua qui: http://www.ipjustice.org/digital-rights/internet-infrastructure-and-ip-cens…

Aug. 6, 2015

Should search algorithms be moral? A conversation with Google’s in-house philosopher - Quartz

by J.C. DE MARTIN

http://qz.com/451051/should-search-algorithms-be-moral-a-conversation-with-… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Aug. 5, 2015

4th Circuit holds warrantless seizure of cell phone location records violates 4th amendment

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Kevin Bankston (@KevinBankston) 05/08/15 19:42 Huge: 4th Circuit holds warrantless seizure of cell phone location records violates 4th amendment pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/graham_ca4… Congrats @EFF @ACLU Download the Twitter app (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Aug. 5, 2015

"Facebook patents technology to help lenders discriminate against borrowers based on social connections"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Facebook patents technology to help lenders discriminate against borrowers based on social connections* Mark Sullivan August 4, 2015 12:15 PM Facebook has been granted an updated patent from the U.S. Patent office on a technology that can help lenders discriminate against certain borrowers based on the borrower’s social network connections. The patent describes a technology that tracks the way users are connected in a network. The main use case is for preventing members of a network from sending spam to other members with who they’re not directly or legitimately connected. Other use cases involve preventing network members from receiving emails from, or showing up in the search results of, people with whom they have no direct or legitimate connection. […] Continua qui: http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/04/facebook-patents-technology-to-help-lende…

Aug. 5, 2015