July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[tahoe-dev] notes from weekly dev chat 2013-04-04
by Zooko Wilcox-OHearn 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hi folks! Here is your regularly scheduled incomplete, cryptic notes from the Weekly Dev Chat! in attendance: Zooko, Daira, Andrew, Brian, Amber, Samuel All tickets were either moved out of the 1.10 Milestone or assigned to someone. They are all in the state of reviewing and fixing -- no new code needs to be written. Brian will cut an RC1 release of v1.10.0 within a week. Next week's meeting will be a Nuts And Bolts meeting, but it will be *post-1.10* Nuts and *post-1.10* Bolts! That will be fun! proposed theme for 1.11 cycle: New automation to lower the friction of the release process, so we can have more frequent releases. Buildbot is chugging along, but needs oiling, new robot arms. LeastAuthority.com submitted a second DARPA proposal. We'll find out in about two weeks if it got accepted. Regards, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn Founder, CEO, and Customer Support Rep https://LeastAuthority.com _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Need help with MPAA threats
by krishna e bera 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 01:00:38PM -0800, Curious Kid wrote: > Industry organization putting pressure on Tor exit node operators to filter leads to chilling effects. > > As nodes start to filter, that traffic will seek out non-filtering exits. That would work like a funnel, as a majority of traffic of that sort will exit through a decreasing number of exits, thereby making those non-filtering nodes appear to be large-scale violators. > > Has it occured to any of you that these organizations are being conspiciously aggressive with certain people with the complete knowledge that they are Tor exit node operators and what their exit policies are? They want complete network filtering, and that includes the Tor network. It was in the news today that RIAA is switching strategies away from suing individuals toward pressuring ISPs. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html In USA the EFF might help with legal defense if you are sued or charged, but that doesnt preserve your server or internet connection if your ISP just cuts you off. Read your Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy and switch providers if necessary. Help lobby against big government and fascist (corporate+police/military) states, etc. Encourage everyone to use Free Software and strong encryption, and produce works licensed CC-by-sa. What else can we do? Nevertheless, some Tor operators (myself included) do so for specific reasons. We might not help at all if we could not choose our exit policies. Some who don't want to deal with complaints choose to run middle nodes. I'm grateful for every byte of bandwidth. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Need help with MPAA threats
by krishna e bera 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 01:00:38PM -0800, Curious Kid wrote: > Industry organization putting pressure on Tor exit node operators to filter leads to chilling effects. > > As nodes start to filter, that traffic will seek out non-filtering exits. That would work like a funnel, as a majority of traffic of that sort will exit through a decreasing number of exits, thereby making those non-filtering nodes appear to be large-scale violators. > > Has it occured to any of you that these organizations are being conspiciously aggressive with certain people with the complete knowledge that they are Tor exit node operators and what their exit policies are? They want complete network filtering, and that includes the Tor network. It was in the news today that RIAA is switching strategies away from suing individuals toward pressuring ISPs. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html In USA the EFF might help with legal defense if you are sued or charged, but that doesnt preserve your server or internet connection if your ISP just cuts you off. Read your Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy and switch providers if necessary. Help lobby against big government and fascist (corporate+police/military) states, etc. Encourage everyone to use Free Software and strong encryption, and produce works licensed CC-by-sa. What else can we do? Nevertheless, some Tor operators (myself included) do so for specific reasons. We might not help at all if we could not choose our exit policies. Some who don't want to deal with complaints choose to run middle nodes. I'm grateful for every byte of bandwidth. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: <nettime> Steve Coll: Leaks (The New Yorker)
by John Young 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Jealousy is the lifeblood of ambition, Assange is a victim, and who is not? Sorry to say Brian, for you customarily offer unusually trenchant commentary, your comments indicate a lack of awareness of the diverse and multiple forums which offer material similar, and in many cases superior, to that of Wikileaks -- offered long before as well as after its inititation. The leaks conceit of Wikileaks is deliberate, better known as "breaking news," attention getting, the Wiki as false as democracy, the promise of openness never fulfilled due to security needs of the sponsor. What is unique about Wikileaks is its publicity capability and for that it deserves credit to bring to a non-institutional initiative, thanks to the momentarily cheap Internet megaphone, the slick braggardy well known as the key element for the "reputation, responsibility and trustworthyiness" of big institutions from their origin millennia ago. Promoting established institutions is what the media -- journalism, publishing, entertainment, advertising -- were invented to do by creating the illusion that individuals have a say in "what's going on." But never invited into the sanctums where decisions are made about the means and methods for promulgating illusions. All this has been said tiresomely (arch ouch) overmuch. So what else is new about Wikileaks type initiatives that the hullabaloo can advance? One is to contain enthusiasm, if you will, about the uniquenss of Wikileaks. It is not unique in the content it provides: there is much more and better available by less celebrated means and methods, once called research, reflection and reassement, continually done, even non-institutionally, perhaps that most so, not reduced to crowd-arousing bombshells in which the tiniest of comment is viralized to thousands of sites -- try it: post anything with the word Wikileaks in its title and watch it richochet in synapases of worldbrain. To advance the much larger body of material it would be useful to develop a battery of such socio-political-rich words which would assure attention to an inititiative that might be otherwise swamped by orchestrated viralization, ie, advertising. "Che" once did that, as do "Obama" and "Assange" now, albeit somewhat smeared by assholes unable to dream of less than godlike perfection. Your point about jealous of other blogs has become a knee-jerker that shows ignorance, well, lack of appreciation, of other initiatives which have not been catapulted to the media stage where nearly every commentator derives daily doses of inspiration to get off ass and be "a player." Which means worthy of paying attention to. How to get from being a non-entity to being a player is what Assange has demonstrated. Not enough attention has been paid to how he imagined Wikileaks for that, although a lot of superficial reporting has been done on the person and personality of Assange. Assange is more complicated and inscrutable than he has been caricatured to be -- ie, mediaized. But then so are all heroes manufactured in that mold and buried in that sarcophagus. Agreed that much better analysis is needed for those who yearn for that comfort food never available on blogs and the daily beasts. Better than analysis though is to do more of what Wikileaks does to get forbidden information into public hands, minds and hearts, unanalyzed, and most crucially unmediated. That might mean fighting the mediaized Internet addiction, say, for a day or two a week, gradually assemble your own material and formulate its significance -- and do not rush to post the drivel, ponder, reassemble, exchange it quietly, redo, rejigger, reflect, sit on it. Arguing about fucking Wikileaks has led me to write more bombast in the past six months than in the previous 14 years, as you can readily see, and curtailed research and publication of unanalyzed materials. The issue is infectious and induces Mailer's advertisements for himself. The Wikileaks initiative is now in grave danger of being destroyed by the attention Assange yearned for and assumed would be easy to handle. He is its Achilles heel. Not the first time that has happened, again merely look at the over-celebrated who are over-loaded with our cowardly aspirations that they do for us what we are too lazy or inept to do for ourselves, everready to blame the socio-political gods that failed, everready to vote in Time's Persons of the Year proffered by manipulative authoritatives. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: <nettime> Steve Coll: Leaks (The New Yorker)
by John Young 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Jealousy is the lifeblood of ambition, Assange is a victim, and who is not? Sorry to say Brian, for you customarily offer unusually trenchant commentary, your comments indicate a lack of awareness of the diverse and multiple forums which offer material similar, and in many cases superior, to that of Wikileaks -- offered long before as well as after its inititation. The leaks conceit of Wikileaks is deliberate, better known as "breaking news," attention getting, the Wiki as false as democracy, the promise of openness never fulfilled due to security needs of the sponsor. What is unique about Wikileaks is its publicity capability and for that it deserves credit to bring to a non-institutional initiative, thanks to the momentarily cheap Internet megaphone, the slick braggardy well known as the key element for the "reputation, responsibility and trustworthyiness" of big institutions from their origin millennia ago. Promoting established institutions is what the media -- journalism, publishing, entertainment, advertising -- were invented to do by creating the illusion that individuals have a say in "what's going on." But never invited into the sanctums where decisions are made about the means and methods for promulgating illusions. All this has been said tiresomely (arch ouch) overmuch. So what else is new about Wikileaks type initiatives that the hullabaloo can advance? One is to contain enthusiasm, if you will, about the uniquenss of Wikileaks. It is not unique in the content it provides: there is much more and better available by less celebrated means and methods, once called research, reflection and reassement, continually done, even non-institutionally, perhaps that most so, not reduced to crowd-arousing bombshells in which the tiniest of comment is viralized to thousands of sites -- try it: post anything with the word Wikileaks in its title and watch it richochet in synapases of worldbrain. To advance the much larger body of material it would be useful to develop a battery of such socio-political-rich words which would assure attention to an inititiative that might be otherwise swamped by orchestrated viralization, ie, advertising. "Che" once did that, as do "Obama" and "Assange" now, albeit somewhat smeared by assholes unable to dream of less than godlike perfection. Your point about jealous of other blogs has become a knee-jerker that shows ignorance, well, lack of appreciation, of other initiatives which have not been catapulted to the media stage where nearly every commentator derives daily doses of inspiration to get off ass and be "a player." Which means worthy of paying attention to. How to get from being a non-entity to being a player is what Assange has demonstrated. Not enough attention has been paid to how he imagined Wikileaks for that, although a lot of superficial reporting has been done on the person and personality of Assange. Assange is more complicated and inscrutable than he has been caricatured to be -- ie, mediaized. But then so are all heroes manufactured in that mold and buried in that sarcophagus. Agreed that much better analysis is needed for those who yearn for that comfort food never available on blogs and the daily beasts. Better than analysis though is to do more of what Wikileaks does to get forbidden information into public hands, minds and hearts, unanalyzed, and most crucially unmediated. That might mean fighting the mediaized Internet addiction, say, for a day or two a week, gradually assemble your own material and formulate its significance -- and do not rush to post the drivel, ponder, reassemble, exchange it quietly, redo, rejigger, reflect, sit on it. Arguing about fucking Wikileaks has led me to write more bombast in the past six months than in the previous 14 years, as you can readily see, and curtailed research and publication of unanalyzed materials. The issue is infectious and induces Mailer's advertisements for himself. The Wikileaks initiative is now in grave danger of being destroyed by the attention Assange yearned for and assumed would be easy to handle. He is its Achilles heel. Not the first time that has happened, again merely look at the over-celebrated who are over-loaded with our cowardly aspirations that they do for us what we are too lazy or inept to do for ourselves, everready to blame the socio-political gods that failed, everready to vote in Time's Persons of the Year proffered by manipulative authoritatives. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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None
by Mondavi 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

1 0

EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.12, 17 June 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.12, 17 June 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. The French Constitutional Council censures the 3 strikes law 2. The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany 3. Stockholm programme - the new EU dangerous surveillance system 4. The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by the EP 5. Finland: Complaints not allowed for the Police child-porn censorship list 6. Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased 7. More voices in the EP for digital rights 8. Report: OECD Conference on Sensor Based Networks 9. ENDitorial: Regulating online media in Azerbaijan? 10. Recommended Action 11. Recommended Reading 12. Agenda 13. About ============================================================ 1. The French Constitutional Council censures the 3 strikes law ============================================================ As a result of the appeal of the Socialist Party, the French Constitutional Council decided on 10 June 2009 that 3 strikes (known also as Hadopi) draft law was infringing the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 and rejected the most important parts of the text. The graduate response was censured, the Council considering that any sanction applied to Internet users could only be applied by a court. In the Council's opinion, the draft law infringes article 11 of the Declaration which ensures the freedom of communication and expression, that also applies to the online world, as the Internet is nowadays a very important means of communication. The power to "limit the exercise by any person of one's right to express oneself and freely communicate" cannot be given to an administrative authority. "These powers can only be incumbent on a judge", says the Council. This is the same position expressed by several members of the European Parliament especially by the introduction into the Telecom package of the well-known amendment 138. The Council also believes the law is in breach of article 9 of the same Declaration that stipulates the principle of the presumption of innocence. This principle was entirely ignored by the draft law where the text says that a sanction can be applied to an Internet user presumed guilty: "By ignoring article 9 of the Declaration of 1789, the law thus setting up, by operating an inversion of the proof charge, a presumption of guilt that could lead to the application to the subscriber of sanctions depriving or limiting his rights". The Council also ruled that the method of policing the web envisaged in the law was in breach of a citizen's right to privacy fact which might influence future decisions on other means of restriction or limitation, such as filtering projects. While the socialists asked the law be "completely rewritten with the double aim of ensuring the financing of culture and preserving the freedom of Internet users", Christine Albanel, France's culture minister, continued to defend the draft bill, stating she regretted that she could not finalise "the logic of 'decriminalisation of Internet users' behaviour by bringing all stages of the procedure to a non-judicial authority". The law was promulgated by Nicolas Sarkozy on 13 June 2009 in its censored form. A new text, named Hadopi 2, is to be presented to the French Council of Ministers before the end of June in order to give judges the power to apply sanctions. The text will have to observe the Constitutional Council's opinion. In any case, the law will be deprived of its core and the graduate response is crippled. The government may be in the position of having to consider the fine system that it had rejected previously. The method has the advantage of seeing immediate results and of not being in breach of fundamental rights. However, even for a fine, material evidence will have to be brought in court to prove an Internet user's copyright infringement, which will be rather difficult to produce. The ruling of the Constitutional Council is in line with the arguments the European Parliament which has tried to outlaw the French bill by the introduction of amendment 138 into the telecom package. On 11 June, the package was however rejected at the EU telecoms ministers meeting in Luxembourg which means that the law will go through a conciliation process mediated by the European Commission. This will begin in the autumn and the legislation is expected to be passed only next year. French Constitutional Court - Decision n 2009-580 DC of 10 June 2009 (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-… The Constitutional Council censures the graduate response (only in French, 11.06.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2009/06/10/01002-20090610ARTFIG00516-le-co… French anti-filesharing law overturned (10.06.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/10/france-hadopi-law-fileshar… Press Release of the French Constitutional Council on Decision n0 2009-580 DC (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-… Hadopi : the Constitutional Council censures the graduate response (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2009/06/10/hadopi-le-conseil-con… Sarkozy tries to rescue internet law after court decision (12.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28294 French ruling raises hopes for EU telecoms deal (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/french-ruling-raises-hopes-eu-teleco… Hadopi law is promulgated in its uncensored part (only in French, 13.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13144-La-loi-Hadopi-est-promulguee-dans-sa… Hadopi 2 will be presented to the Council of Ministers by the end of the month (only in French, 12.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13142-Hadopi-2-sera-presente-en-Conseil-de… EDRI-gram: French Government hurries to put HADOPI law into application (3.06.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.11/hadopi-application-hurry ============================================================ 2. The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany ============================================================ Germany is on the verge of censoring its Internet: The government - a grand coalition between the German social democrats and conservative party - seems united in its decision: On 18 June 2009, the German Parliament is to vote on the erection of an internet censorship architecture. The Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen kicked off and led the discussions within the German Federal Government to block Internet sites in order to fight child pornography. The general idea is to build a censorship architecture enabling the government to block content containing child pornography. The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) is to administer the lists of sites to be blocked and the internet providers obliged to erect the secret censorship architecture for the government. A strong and still growing network opposing these ideas quickly formed within the German internet community. The protest has not been limited to hackers and digital activists but rather a mainstreamed effort widely supported by bloggers and twitter-users. The HashTag used by the protesters is #zensursula - a German mesh up of the Ministers name and the word censorship equivalent to #censursula. As part of the public's protest an official e-Petition directed at the German parliament was launched. Within three days 50,000 persons signed the petition - the number required for the petition titled "No indexing and blocking of Internet sites" to be heard by the parliament. The running time of an e-Petition in Germany is 6 weeks, during this time over 130 000 people signed making this e-Petition the most signed and most successful ever. During the past weeks, protests became more and more creative - countless blogs and twitter-users followed and commented the discussions within governments and opposing arguments. Many mainstream media picked up on this and reported about the protest taking place on-line. A working group on censorship was founded and the protest coordinated with a wiki, mailing lists, chats and of course employing twitter and blogs. One website "Zeichnemit.de" created a landing page explaining the complicated petitioning system and making signing the petition easier and more accessible for non net-experts. Over 500 people attended the Government official press conference on the planed internet censorship, a number of whom used this occasion to demonstrate and voice their concerns. In fact, demonstrators began attending some of the Minister von der Leyens public appearances, carrying banners and signs to raise attention to the stifling of information freedom in Germany. The net community did not only oppose the governments plans, but also made constructive suggestions on how to deal with the problem of child pornography without introducing a censorship architecture and circumcising constitutional freedoms. The working group on censorship demonstrated the alternatives for instance by actually removing over 60 websites containing child pornographic content in 12 hours, simply by emailing the international providers who then removed this content from the net. The sites were identified through the black lists of other countries documented on Wikileaks. This demonstration underlines the protesters' main arguments: instead of effectively investing time and efforts to have illegal content removed from the internet, the German government is choosing censorship and blocking, an easy and dangerous way out. The greatest fear of the protesters is that once in place, the infrastructure will be used to censor other forms of unwanted content, not only child pornography. German politicians already seem to be lining up with their wish-list of content to be censored in future - the suggestions ranging form gambling sites, islamist web pages, first person shooters, and the music industry cheering up with the thought of finally banning Pirate Bay and p2p. More information and linklist (only in German) http://netzpolitik.org/2009/kommentierte-zensursula-linkliste/ Links, banners and more (16.06.2009) http://netzpolitik.org/2009/the-dawning-of-internet-censorship-in-germany/ EDRi-gram: German Government forces ISPs to put web filters (22.04.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.8/web-filters-isp-germany Internet filtering type Loppsi creates polemics in Germany(only in French, 17.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13167-Le-filtrage-du-net-facon-Loppsi-fait… (contribution by Markus Beckedahl, EDRi-member NNM- Germany, Thanks to Geraldine de Bastion for the translation) ============================================================ 3. Stockholm programme - the new EU dangerous surveillance system ============================================================ Civil rights groups are worried about a new EU proposal that would enhance a "dangerously authoritarian" European surveillance and security system that will include ID card register, Internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems. On 15 June 2009, EU justice ministers discussed on the so called Stockholm programme trying to set up the first EU "domestic security strategy for the EU", by the end of this year. The 'Stockholm Programme' is the Swedish EU Presidency's proposed legislative agenda in the area of justice and home affairs for the 2009-2014 period. According to the Swedish Presidency, the Stockholm Programme aims to "define the framework for EU police and customs cooperation, rescue services, criminal and civil law cooperation, asylum, migration and visa policy". "National frontiers should no longer restrict our activities," said Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner on 9 June when he presented the EU priorities in the justice area for the next five years. The measures include increased security co-operation and improved immigration management. The paper presented by the commissioner calls for stricter border controls, a better exchange of information on criminal and security issues between the member states and an increased police co-operation. European Commission President Josi Manuel Barroso said that "in future, EU action must aim above all at delivering the best possible service to the citizen in an area of freedom, security and justice more tangible for the citizens". "We want to promote citizens' rights, make their daily lives easier and provide protection, and this calls for effective and responsible European action in these areas. In this context, I consider immigration policy particularly important. This is the vision the Commission is presenting to the Council and Parliament for debate, with a view to the adoption of the new Stockholm Programme by the European Council in December 2009," he added. But civil liberties advocates commented in a different way the proposal: "What stands out are the proposals related to the Future Group report. A promise to balance better data protection and EU standards for 'Privacy Enhancing Technology' with the law enforcement agencies demands for access to all information and communications. An 'information system architecture' to bring about the sharing of all data across the EU. The use of 'security technologies' to harness the 'digital tsunami' to gather through mass surveillance personal data on peoples' everyday activities through public-private partnerships. What is new is the clear aim of creating the surveillance society and the database state. Future generations, for whom this will be a fully developed reality, will look back at this era and rightly ask, why did you not act to stop it." said Tony Bunyan from Statewatch. The paper reintroduces proposals related to immigration and asylum, insisting on "burden-sharing and solidarity" between member states as regards asylum seekers and stating legal migrants should have the same status across the EU and that they should have easier access to the job market. Frontex, the external borders agency should be given more powers in preventing human traffic and irregular immigrations at the EU borders. In the opinion of liberty advocates, these plans will only get us closer to a surveillance type of society. "An increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is developing under the auspices of the EU," commented Tony Bunyan. One of the main concerns is the intention of standardising European police surveillance techniques and of creating common data gathering systems operated at the EU level. A particularly worrying statement of the proposal is: "The SIS II and VIS information systems will have to enter their fully operational phase. An electronic system for recording entry and exit and a registered traveller programme must be established. The usefulness of a system of prior travel authorisation must be examined." The plans have in view an extension of the sharing of the present DNA and fingerprint databases stored for new digital ID cards to CCTV video footage and material gathered from Internet surveillance. The Daily Telegraph stated they had information from EU officials that the new plans would need the coverage of the Lisbon Treaty presently stopped by the Irish referendum in 2008 and waiting for a second Irish vote this autumn. The Treaty stipulates the creation of a Standing Committee for Internal Security to co-ordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations such as Europol, the Frontex, the European Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence. The Stockholm programme will be discussed at the informal ministerial meeting in Stockholm in July 2009, to be further on examined by the European Parliament in November with the hope that it would be approved at the Summit in December 2009, under the Swedish presidency. EC proposals for the Stockholm Programme (COM(2009) 262/4) English http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-prog.pdf German http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-german.pdf French http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-french.pdf EU security proposals are 'dangerously authoritarian' (10.06.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5496912/EU-security-pro… Brussels outlines justice priorities for next 5 years (10.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28283 Sweden's EU immigration plans facing headwinds (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/sweden-eu-immigration-plans-facing-headw… Justice and Home Affairs - Stockholm Programme http://www.se2009.eu/en/the_presidency/about_the_eu/justice_and_home_affair… Closer cooperation between EU countries on the agenda for justice and home affairs. - Freedom, justice, security: a balancing act (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/news/justice/090610_en.htm European Commission outlines its vision for the area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the next five years (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/int European Commission - Communication - An evaluation of the Hague Programme and Action Plan (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/doc_centre/doc/com_2009_263_en.pdf Statewatch Observatory The "Stockholm Programme" - "The Shape of Things to Come" http://www.statewatch.org/future-group.htm European Civil Liberties Network - Oppose the "Stockholm Programme" (04.2009) http://www.ecln.org/ECLN-statement-on-Stockholm-Programme-April-2009-eng.pdf ============================================================ 4. The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by the EP ============================================================ The European Commission continues to pressure the Council and the new European Parliament to rapidly adopt the telecoms package without a proper scrutiny of the law or any consideration of the implications of Amendment 138. At the Luxembourg meeting on 11 June 2009, the telecoms ministers decided to reject the telecom package in the form adopted by the European Parliament in the second reading on 6 May 2009, thus proposing a new round of negotiations. The ministers consider the Parliament has breached the earlier compromise reached with the Council on the telecoms package as a whole, obviously the main issue under question being the controversial issue of copyright protection and users' rights. And with the new decision of the French Constitutional Council against the French three strikes law, the European Parliament will probably insist in its position. On a press conference on 11 June, the position of the European Commission was expressed by Viviane Reding's spokesman Martin Selmayr who stated that the issue of Amendment 138 had been dealt with at the national level (thus referring to the French Constitutional Council decision) and therefore should no longer be a European matter. Which, obviously, means that the Commission wants the amendment dropped from the telecom package. Reding, which has lately been supporting France's position for the graduate response, made an appeal to EU lawmakers urging them to finalise the discussions on the package. "I call on all political players to do their best in the next days and weeks to settle the last pending issue. Critics often lament about Europe's lack of competitiveness, because of the alleged length of the EU's decision-making processes. In the next days and weeks, Council and Parliament have the unique opportunity to prove these critics wrong." The deadline for the European Parliament to send its position to the Council on the telecoms package is 19 June. After this, there are several options for the telecoms ministers. One is to adopt the text as voted by the Parliament but this is unlikely having in view their position on Amendment 138, especially the position of France in the matter. Another option is to adopt a counter-proposal restating the Council's initial line which will formally start the negotiation procedure to take place under the new Swedish presidency. In this case, the Parliament will have to create a conciliation committee including 27 newly elected members representing all the EU countries. A formal agreement could be reached by the end of the year. EU Council could also reopen the entire case asking for negotiations on the core of the text which could lead to other debates with unpredictable duration and results. A technical possibility could be to split the package but this is unlikely as the ministers have already stated they did not want to take that road. As the text is interlinked, splitting it would mean bringing modifications to a large part of the text. The European Parliament's schedule is to have a trialogue on 29 September with a final vote on 15 December which would give time for discussion of the issues raised by Amendment 138 and for the new MEPs to get familiarised with these issues. French ruling raises hopes for EU telecoms deal (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/french-ruling-raises-hopes-eu-teleco… Commission steps up pressure on Telecoms Package (10.06.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=358&Item… Reding: don't involve EU in fundamental rights (12.06.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360&Item… Telecoms package remains hostage of political row (12.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/telecoms-package-remains-hostage-pol… Ministers braced for final round of telecoms talks (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/ministers-braced-final-round-telecom… Presidency Press Statement on the state of play regarding the 'telecoms package' (12.06.2009) http://www.eu2009.cz/en/news-and-documents/news/presidency-press-statement-… EDRI-gram: European Parliament votes against the 3 strikes. Again (6.05.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/ep-plenary-votes-against-3-strikes ============================================================ 5. Finland: Complaints not allowed for the Police child-porn censorship list ============================================================ The Helsinki Administrative court decided on 20 May 2009 that complaints lodged in regards to the child-porn censorship list maintained by the Finnish Police are not allowed. The case originates from one Finnish activist's "battle" against the censorship list maintained by the Finnish police and originally the censorship law passed by the Finnish Parliament in 2006, meant to combat child pornography. The list works in the manner that in conjunction with the ISPs the Finnish Police is able to bock access to certain sites deemed as having child pornography content and thus illegal. However what the activist Matti Nikki contests is that although the list is maintained for a good cause, many sites including Mr. Nikki's own site lapsiporno.info (translated as childporn.info) meant to display parts of the Police's censorship list end up as being blocked in an arbitrary manner by the Police. This is shown by the way in which the Finnish Police acted in relation to Mr. Nikki, after he started a direct debate with the Finnish Police; the Police stepped in and included Nikki's site onto the censorship list, after which Mr. Nikki was interrogated by the Police and the Finnish Attorney General deliberated whether Mr. Nikki should be prosecuted for distribution of child pornography. No action of prosecution followed, and Mr. Nikki asked that his site be removed from the list of censored sites. The Finnish Central Criminal Police decided not to release lapsiporno.info. Mr. Nikki appealed to the Helsinki Administrative Court, which gave its decision in May 2009. The decision of the Helsinki Administrative Court states that Mr. Nikki's site is being censored, however the most worrying aspect is that while the court admits that the case is in fact about censoring Mr. Nikki's personal site, it totally walks over the Finnish constitution and the rights enshrined in it in relation to freedom of speech, without even giving any reasoning why it has done so. This is a grave violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Nikki, who is represented by the Helsinki - based law firm Turre Legal, will appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland during June 2009. Decision of the Helsinki Administrative Court (only in Finnish, 20.05.2009) http://hack.fi/~muzzy/lapsiporno/files/hao-09-0704-3.pdf (contribution by Markku Rdsdnen - Summer Associate, Turre Legal, Finland) ============================================================ 6. Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased ============================================================ Although until recently Microsoft was claiming that Internet Explorer (IE) browser was an integrant part of Windows operating system, on 11 June 2009 the company stated it would launch its new version of operating system for the European market, Windows 7, without Internet Explorer. The decision comes as a result of a Statement of Objections sent to Microsoft in January 2009 by the European Commission regarding competition concerns related to the bundling of the browser to the operating system. However, the European Commission has not welcomed the new decision. A Statement of Objections is a formal step in Commission antitrust investigations by means of which the parties concerned are informed in writing of the objections raised against them. Microsoft replied to the this step on 28 April 2009 and the Commission is presently considering Microsoft's reply and any additional evidence in the case. According to the Commission, by bundling Internet Explorer to Windows, Microsoft is using its dominant position in the operating system market to block competition in the browser market. Microsoft was already fined in EU in 2007 for bundling its media player to Windows. Waiting for the decision of the Commission but wishing to observe its launching targets for the new version of its operation system, Microsoft decided to offer this European version without IE. "We're committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition law as we launch the product. Given the pending legal proceeding, we've decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users. This means that computer manufacturers and users will be free to install Internet Explorer on Windows 7, or not, as they prefer. Of course, they will also be free, as they are today, to install other Web browsers," stated Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner in a blog post on the company website. In response to this statement, on 12 June, the European regulators showed they were not pleased with Microsoft's decision as they had suggested that the company offer a selection of browsers on its operating system to open up choice for consumers and not a complete lack of options. "Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less," said the Commission in its statement. The reaction is explainable as after Microsoft had decided to sell a version of Windows without its Media Player after the fine received in 2007, it succeeded in going around the Commission's restrictions by selling an alternative version of Windows equipped for free with the Media Player, which was obviously preferred by the consumers. A potential solution considered in the Commission' Statement of Objections would be to allow consumers to choose from different web browsers presented to them through a 'ballot screen' in Windows. Thus, the Commission might force Microsoft to include other browsers with its operating system which will probably help competitive browser companies such as Mozilla's Firefox , Opera, Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari. EU unconvinced by Microsoft Internet browser offer (12.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-unconvinced-microsoft-internet-br… Antitrust: Commission statement on Microsoft Internet Explorer announcement (12.06.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/272&format=… Working to Fulfill our Legal Obligations in Europe for Windows 7 (11.06.2009) http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/06/11/working-… Brussels threatens Microsoft with fresh fine (19.01.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/brussels-threatens-microsoft-fresh-f… ============================================================ 7. More voices in the EP for digital rights ============================================================ The recent elections have brought more seats for parties supporting digital rights in the European Parliament (EP), such as the Greens, UK Independence Party or the Liberal Democrats. The Swedish Pirate Party has succeeded in getting a seat as well. The Pirate Party has succeeded in obtaining 7% of the votes in Sweden, thus winning one representative in the EP. In case the Lisbon Treaty is adopted, it might even get one more seat. The success of the party is due to two recent events: the EU's intellectual property enforcement directive which asks that ISPs turn over traffic data to copyright holders who are trying to track down filesharers and which was brought into force by the Swedish Government in April 2009 and the result of the Pirate Bay trial. The party's success has proven that privacy rights and fair copyright systems matter to Swedish people. Ray Corrigan, senior lecturer in -technology at the Open University, explains: "A lot of IP laws are being driven through because they are off most people's cognitive agendas. If you start knocking people off the internet for -allegedly infringing copyright those numbers start to grow into the thousands, or tens of thousands, very quickly. It has a direct impact on their children's education and some people may need the internet for their job." The Pirate Party will join either the Green or the Liberal groupings in the European Parliament. "There have been no formal discussions, but we have been invited by a few groups for informal talks," said Christian Engstroem, a computer programmer and the candidate heading the party's list who also said that the party would join the one grouping that will be the closest to the party's positions on Internet freedoms. The Pirate Party presence may bring new debates on the issues of patents and copyright and privacy. Their position is for a five year copyright term, a file sharing exception and the abolishment of patents. EDRi-member Open Rights Group considers that the Pirate Party has some positions that are a little extreme but the party's cultural flat rate proposal might be something similar to a payment made in exchange for a file sharing exception. While the Pirate Party advocates for a 5-year term copyright, many copyright academics feel the economically optimal term is rather 15 years than the life plus 70 years that is now in force. Sweden is not the only country where digital rights supporters have succeeded in making their voice heard. The German pirate party, Piratenpartei Deutschland, won close to 1% of the vote. And registered "Pirate Parties" now exist in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Poland and Spain. Similar groups are attempting to register as political parties in the UK and the US as well. "My view is that IP is a good and necessary thing. I'm not in favour of a free-for-all but I do think that there are many important questions that need to be addressed. I think it's a good thing that you are getting representatives in parliament who wish to challenge the established view," stated Andrew Dearing, secretary general of the European Industrial Research -Management Association. A new and fresh breath of air will be beneficial for the atmosphere in the European Parliament that relies more on the Internet as a source of information, but also as a communication tool with its voters. A survey carried out by Fleishman-Hillard during 1 April to 1 May 2009 shows that although most MEPs largely use the Internet, it seems most of them still believe traditional forms of communication, such as television or newspapers, are more effective. About 75 percent of the MEPs use a web page to communicate with their voters, 93% use search engines daily to understand legislative issues. Still, many of them have to open up to social online media as only thirty-three percent of them use the social media networks "extensively", 20 percent occasionally, but 29 percent "do not use them or do not plan to use them." "Members of the European Parliament recognise that EU citizens go online and that they therefore need a web presence. However, the majority of MEPs do not currently take full advantage of social media tools as a means to engage with voters and drive them to their websites," the survey said. Pirates to join Green or Liberal groups in EU parliament (3.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/883/28237 Majority of MEPs do not 'tweet' (4.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/883/28238 Sweden's Pirate party sails to success in European elections (11.06.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/11/pirate-party-sweden What do the EU results and Pirate Party mean for digital rights? (9.06.2009) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/06/what-do-the-eu-results-and-pirate-pa… EDRIgram: The Pirate Bay asks for retrial claiming conflict of interest (6.05.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/pirate-bay-mistrial ============================================================ 8. Report: OECD Conference on Sensor Based Networks ============================================================ "Using Sensor-based Networks to Address Global Issues: Policy Opportunities and Challenges" was the title of an experts conference the OECD organised on 08 and 09 June 2009, hosted by Portugal, in Lisbon. Andreas Krisch participated in the conference on behalf of EDRi and CSISAC. The goal of the Conference was to help policy makers: a. understand Sensor-Based Networks and their potential contribution to economic and social welfare, b. identify how to further stimulate innovation in this area and foster the development of these technologies where they are needed the most and are the most promising. During the one and a half day event, the potentials of sensor based networks in the areas of health and elderly care, protection of the environment and transportation were discussed. Presentations on different research and commercial projects illustrated current and potential future uses of sensor networks. The presented applications ranged from humidity sensors used for the reduction of water consumption in agriculture via sensor networks used to support elderly care at home to traffic control systems for highways based on information gathered from vehicle on-board computers. In the last session privacy protection and information security dominated the discussion on policy options. Panellists made quite clear that, in their opinion, a widespread use of sensor networks and related technologies will only be possible in future, when a sufficient level of trust can be achieved. For this, privacy protection and information security are key. For a more detailed report on the conference see http://csisac.org/2009/06/csisac_oecd_rfid.php CSISAC http://csisac.org/ Conference website http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/sensors Presentations, session summaries, conclusions http://www.oecd.org/document/41/0,3343,en_2649_34223_42616233_1_1_1_1,00.ht… (contribution by Andreas Krisch - EDRi) ============================================================ 9. ENDitorial: Regulating online media in Azerbaijan? ============================================================ I was invited last week to a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan by the Council of Europe that organized together with the local National TV and Radio Council in order to discuss some issues related to the regulation of online media. The meeting took place on 4 June 2009 and the first part was dedicated to the local authorities (Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies or National TV and Radio Council) local Internet actors (The online news agency lent.az, or APA news agency) and NGOs (such as Azerbaijan Internet Forum or IREX Azerbaijan). Although the authorities and private partners sat at the same table, there was a huge difference in speeches. While the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technologies Iltimas Mammadov talked about 2000 km optic cable already deployed and measures for using Internet in the cars via WiMax, the private sector claimed that 95% of the population used dial-up or similar connections and that the average cost of a 1Mb/s monthly connection was between 60-120 manats (approx. 53-107 Euro), which is a huge price for an average person in Azerbaijan. While the authorities claimed that anyone can start an ISP, the private sector insisted that, basically, the backbone connectivity could be bought only from a "special" ISP - Delta Telecom. The high final prices and allegation of some content being blocked by the authorities could thus be explained. Talking about regulating online media, the voices seem to converge in asking for a definition of "electronic media". Strangely in my opinion, the private sector representatives asked for a clarification in this respect, seeming to want such a registration for the electronic media (which is in fact more a notification). But this could be explained by the fact that otherwise you are not invited to press conferences or able to get an interview from an official. In a country where you need to register your off-line publication with the Ministry of Justice or your TV or radio station with the National Television and Radio Council, most of the speakers seem to claim that the regulation should be the rule to protect others' privacy or honour, to prevent pro-aggressive war speech (this part may be a result of the war on Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia) or hacking of websites (?!?). Another interesting aspect is that the present mass-media law from 2009 lists the Internet as a mass-medium. The European experience presented by Mr Marcel Betzel, a policy adviser from the Dutch Media Authority and by myself was focused on whether any regulation was needed in the new online environment and whether such a regulation would be feasible.We also tried to emphasise with concrete examples the importance of self-regulation and its results. I have specifically explained why a registration of online media could be seen as a potential infringement of the freedom of expression if we take into consideration the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Also why we need to consider whether a new legislation is feasible in terms of its application and whether it will just send the unwanted content hosted in another country. Mr. Betzel also presented the difficulties of implementing the new European Audiovisual Media Services Directive and identifying which site can be considered web TV or Internet radio, according to the new rules. Taking into consideration the traditional IT development skills of the Azeri, the Internet has a lot of place to grow, but for now, it is hard to estimate what the future actions of the Azeri authorities will be, if any, for a "better regulation" of the online media. Regulation of Online Media in Azerbaijan http://www.coe.az/Latest-News/159.html Conference on the theme "Regulation of Internet media in Azerbaijan" takes place (4.06.2009) http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=103237 Azerbaijan - OpenNet Initiative Profile http://opennet.net/research/profiles/azerbaijan (contribution by Bogdan Manolea - EDRi-member APTI - Romania) ============================================================ 10. Recommended Action ============================================================ Cloud Privacy - An open letter to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt This six page letter (pdf) to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, is signed by 38 researchers and academics in the fields of computer science, information security and privacy law. Together, they ask Google to honor the important privacy promises it has made to its customers and protect users' communications from theft and snooping by enabling industry standard transport encryption technology (HTTPS) for Google Mail, Docs, and Calendar. http://www.cloudprivacy.net/letter/ ============================================================ 11. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Reykjavik conference maps out future Council of Europe work on media and the Internet https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1452361 Political Declaration and resolutions http://www.coe.int/t/dc/press/source/20090529_final_declaration_iceland_en.… ============================================================ 12. Agenda ============================================================ 28-30 June 2009, Turin, Italy COMMUNIA Conference 2009: Global Science & Economics of Knowledge-Sharing Institutions http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2009 2-3 July 2009, Padova, Italy 3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html 6-7 July 2009, Barcelona, Spain Fifth Internet Law & Politics Conference organized by the Law and Political Science Department of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya The Pros and Cons of Social Networking Sites. http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2009/engl/index.html 13-16 August 2009, Vierhouten, The Netherlands Hacking at Random http://www.har2009.org/ 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council: "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage" http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla75/index.htm 10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam Section: Protest Politics Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp 16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009 http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ 17-18 September 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands Gikii, A Workshop on Law, Technology and Popular Culture Institute for Information Law (IViR) - University of Amsterdam Call for papers by 1 July 2009 http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/2009.asp 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 24-25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 21 September 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 15 July 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ ============================================================ 13. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[Clips] Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/health/psychology/20essa.html?th=&emc=th&…> The New York Times February 20, 2007 ESSAY Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior By DANIEL GOLEMAN Jett Lucas, a 14-year-old friend, tells me the kids in his middle school send one other a steady stream of instant messages through the day. But there's a problem. "Kids will say things to each other in their messages that are too embarrassing to say in person," Jett tells me. "Then when they actually meet up, they are too shy to bring up what they said in the message. It makes things tense." Jett's complaint seems to be part of a larger pattern plaguing the world of virtual communications, a problem recognized since the earliest days of the Internet: flaming, or sending a message that is taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude. The hallmark of the flame is precisely what Jett lamented: thoughts expressed while sitting alone at the keyboard would be put more diplomatically - or go unmentioned - face to face. Flaming has a technical name, the "online disinhibition effect," which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace. In a 2004 article in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign - when a shy person feels free to open up online - or toxic, as in flaming. The emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of what goes on in the brains and bodies of two interacting people, offers clues into the neural mechanics behind flaming. This work points to a design flaw inherent in the interface between the brain's social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well. Much of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, a center for empathy. This cortex uses that social scan to help make sure that what we do next will keep the interaction on track. Research by Jennifer Beer, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, finds that this face-to-face guidance system inhibits impulses for actions that would upset the other person or otherwise throw the interaction off. Neurological patients with a damaged orbitofrontal cortex lose the ability to modulate the amygdala, a source of unruly impulses; like small children, they commit mortifying social gaffes like kissing a complete stranger, blithely unaware that they are doing anything untoward. Socially artful responses emerge largely in the neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdala that generate impulsivity. But the cortex needs social information - a change in tone of voice, say - to know how to select and channel our impulses. And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say. True, there are those cute, if somewhat lame, emoticons that cleverly arrange punctuation marks to signify an emotion. The e-mail equivalent of a mood ring, they surely lack the neural impact of an actual smile or frown. Without the raised eyebrow that signals irony, say, or the tone of voice that signals delight, the orbitofrontal cortex has little to go on. Lacking real-time cues, we can easily misread the printed words in an e-mail message, taking them the wrong way. And if we are typing while agitated, the absence of information on how the other person is responding makes the prefrontal circuitry for discretion more likely to fail. Our emotional impulses disinhibited, we type some infelicitous message and hit "send" before a more sober second thought leads us to hit "discard." We flame. Flaming can be induced in some people with alarming ease. Consider an experiment, reported in 2002 in The Journal of Language and Social Psychology, in which pairs of college students - strangers - were put in separate booths to get to know each other better by exchanging messages in a simulated online chat room. While coming and going into the lab, the students were well behaved. But the experimenter was stunned to see the messages many of the students sent. About 20 percent of the e-mail conversations immediately became outrageously lewd or simply rude. And now, the online equivalent of road rage has joined the list of Internet dangers. Last October, in what The Times of London described as "Britain's first 'Web rage' attack," a 47-year-old Londoner was convicted of assault on a man with whom he had traded insults in a chat room. He and a friend tracked down the man and attacked him with a pickax handle and a knife. One proposed solution to flaming is replacing typed messages with video. The assumption is that getting a message along with its emotional nuances might help us dampen the impulse to flame. All this reminds me of a poster on the wall of classrooms I once visited in New Haven public schools. The poster, part of a program in social development that has lowered rates of violence in schools there, shows a stoplight. It says that when students feel upset, they should remember that the red light means to stop, calm down and think before they act. The yellow light prompts them to weigh a range of responses, and their consequences. The green light urges them to try the best response. Not a bad idea. Until the day e-mail comes in video form, I may just paste one of those stoplights next to my monitor. Daniel Goleman is the author of "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips(a)philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Sampled Traffic Analysis by Internet-Exchange-Level Adversaries
by Steven Murdoch 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Some of you might remember my email to this list in February, where I asked for help from operators of Tor nodes in the UK [1]. This was for an experiment to establish how diverse the topology of the Tor network is -- an important component of how secure it is against traffic analysis. Thanks to all those who responded to my request; I had a great response and very interesting results. I've now finished the draft version of the resulting paper, which is to be presented at the PET Workshop (Ottawa, Canada, June 20--22 2007) [2]. The latest version of the paper can be found at this URL: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/pet07ixanalysis.pdf There is also an introduction to the area, and a summary of the paper on my research group's blog "Light Blue Touchpaper": http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/?p=212 My paper, co-authored with Piotr Zielinksi, is a follow-up to Nick Feamster and Roger Dingledine's paper, "Location Diversity in Anonymity Networks" [3]. In it, they point out that bouncing anonymity network traffic around lots of countries might not be as good as it seems because there are a small number of ISPs which show up on many of the links to, from and between Tor nodes. What our paper explores is that even if you deal with this problem, and choose paths with a diverse collection of ISPs, there are still Internet exchanges on many of the paths. These do not appear in the BGP data that Feamster and Dingledine use, which is why I had to resort to a more limited-scale traceroute-based study. So not only are Internet Exchanges good places to put traffic analysis equipment, but some (including LINX [4] and AMS-IX [5]) collect the necessary data anyway, for performance measurement purposes. They only record the headers of one in every few thousand packets, but our paper also shows that, even with such low-quality data, traffic analysis still works. There's certainly no reason to panic about these results, as there is still much more work to be done in this area. For example, the picture in the US, where Internet exchanges are less popular, will likely be different. I do hope that the paper will encourage future work on both establishing more accurate estimates of attack costs and developing defences. Thanks, Steven. [1] http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Feb-2007/msg00138.html [2] http://petworkshop.org/2007/ [3] http://freehaven.net/doc/routing-zones/routing-zones.ps [4] http://www.linx.net/ [5] http://www.ams-ix.net/ -- w: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/sjm217/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.12, 17 June 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.12, 17 June 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. The French Constitutional Council censures the 3 strikes law 2. The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany 3. Stockholm programme - the new EU dangerous surveillance system 4. The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by the EP 5. Finland: Complaints not allowed for the Police child-porn censorship list 6. Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased 7. More voices in the EP for digital rights 8. Report: OECD Conference on Sensor Based Networks 9. ENDitorial: Regulating online media in Azerbaijan? 10. Recommended Action 11. Recommended Reading 12. Agenda 13. About ============================================================ 1. The French Constitutional Council censures the 3 strikes law ============================================================ As a result of the appeal of the Socialist Party, the French Constitutional Council decided on 10 June 2009 that 3 strikes (known also as Hadopi) draft law was infringing the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 and rejected the most important parts of the text. The graduate response was censured, the Council considering that any sanction applied to Internet users could only be applied by a court. In the Council's opinion, the draft law infringes article 11 of the Declaration which ensures the freedom of communication and expression, that also applies to the online world, as the Internet is nowadays a very important means of communication. The power to "limit the exercise by any person of one's right to express oneself and freely communicate" cannot be given to an administrative authority. "These powers can only be incumbent on a judge", says the Council. This is the same position expressed by several members of the European Parliament especially by the introduction into the Telecom package of the well-known amendment 138. The Council also believes the law is in breach of article 9 of the same Declaration that stipulates the principle of the presumption of innocence. This principle was entirely ignored by the draft law where the text says that a sanction can be applied to an Internet user presumed guilty: "By ignoring article 9 of the Declaration of 1789, the law thus setting up, by operating an inversion of the proof charge, a presumption of guilt that could lead to the application to the subscriber of sanctions depriving or limiting his rights". The Council also ruled that the method of policing the web envisaged in the law was in breach of a citizen's right to privacy fact which might influence future decisions on other means of restriction or limitation, such as filtering projects. While the socialists asked the law be "completely rewritten with the double aim of ensuring the financing of culture and preserving the freedom of Internet users", Christine Albanel, France's culture minister, continued to defend the draft bill, stating she regretted that she could not finalise "the logic of 'decriminalisation of Internet users' behaviour by bringing all stages of the procedure to a non-judicial authority". The law was promulgated by Nicolas Sarkozy on 13 June 2009 in its censored form. A new text, named Hadopi 2, is to be presented to the French Council of Ministers before the end of June in order to give judges the power to apply sanctions. The text will have to observe the Constitutional Council's opinion. In any case, the law will be deprived of its core and the graduate response is crippled. The government may be in the position of having to consider the fine system that it had rejected previously. The method has the advantage of seeing immediate results and of not being in breach of fundamental rights. However, even for a fine, material evidence will have to be brought in court to prove an Internet user's copyright infringement, which will be rather difficult to produce. The ruling of the Constitutional Council is in line with the arguments the European Parliament which has tried to outlaw the French bill by the introduction of amendment 138 into the telecom package. On 11 June, the package was however rejected at the EU telecoms ministers meeting in Luxembourg which means that the law will go through a conciliation process mediated by the European Commission. This will begin in the autumn and the legislation is expected to be passed only next year. French Constitutional Court - Decision n 2009-580 DC of 10 June 2009 (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-… The Constitutional Council censures the graduate response (only in French, 11.06.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2009/06/10/01002-20090610ARTFIG00516-le-co… French anti-filesharing law overturned (10.06.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/10/france-hadopi-law-fileshar… Press Release of the French Constitutional Council on Decision n0 2009-580 DC (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-… Hadopi : the Constitutional Council censures the graduate response (only in French, 10.06.2009) http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2009/06/10/hadopi-le-conseil-con… Sarkozy tries to rescue internet law after court decision (12.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28294 French ruling raises hopes for EU telecoms deal (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/french-ruling-raises-hopes-eu-teleco… Hadopi law is promulgated in its uncensored part (only in French, 13.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13144-La-loi-Hadopi-est-promulguee-dans-sa… Hadopi 2 will be presented to the Council of Ministers by the end of the month (only in French, 12.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13142-Hadopi-2-sera-presente-en-Conseil-de… EDRI-gram: French Government hurries to put HADOPI law into application (3.06.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.11/hadopi-application-hurry ============================================================ 2. The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany ============================================================ Germany is on the verge of censoring its Internet: The government - a grand coalition between the German social democrats and conservative party - seems united in its decision: On 18 June 2009, the German Parliament is to vote on the erection of an internet censorship architecture. The Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen kicked off and led the discussions within the German Federal Government to block Internet sites in order to fight child pornography. The general idea is to build a censorship architecture enabling the government to block content containing child pornography. The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) is to administer the lists of sites to be blocked and the internet providers obliged to erect the secret censorship architecture for the government. A strong and still growing network opposing these ideas quickly formed within the German internet community. The protest has not been limited to hackers and digital activists but rather a mainstreamed effort widely supported by bloggers and twitter-users. The HashTag used by the protesters is #zensursula - a German mesh up of the Ministers name and the word censorship equivalent to #censursula. As part of the public's protest an official e-Petition directed at the German parliament was launched. Within three days 50,000 persons signed the petition - the number required for the petition titled "No indexing and blocking of Internet sites" to be heard by the parliament. The running time of an e-Petition in Germany is 6 weeks, during this time over 130 000 people signed making this e-Petition the most signed and most successful ever. During the past weeks, protests became more and more creative - countless blogs and twitter-users followed and commented the discussions within governments and opposing arguments. Many mainstream media picked up on this and reported about the protest taking place on-line. A working group on censorship was founded and the protest coordinated with a wiki, mailing lists, chats and of course employing twitter and blogs. One website "Zeichnemit.de" created a landing page explaining the complicated petitioning system and making signing the petition easier and more accessible for non net-experts. Over 500 people attended the Government official press conference on the planed internet censorship, a number of whom used this occasion to demonstrate and voice their concerns. In fact, demonstrators began attending some of the Minister von der Leyens public appearances, carrying banners and signs to raise attention to the stifling of information freedom in Germany. The net community did not only oppose the governments plans, but also made constructive suggestions on how to deal with the problem of child pornography without introducing a censorship architecture and circumcising constitutional freedoms. The working group on censorship demonstrated the alternatives for instance by actually removing over 60 websites containing child pornographic content in 12 hours, simply by emailing the international providers who then removed this content from the net. The sites were identified through the black lists of other countries documented on Wikileaks. This demonstration underlines the protesters' main arguments: instead of effectively investing time and efforts to have illegal content removed from the internet, the German government is choosing censorship and blocking, an easy and dangerous way out. The greatest fear of the protesters is that once in place, the infrastructure will be used to censor other forms of unwanted content, not only child pornography. German politicians already seem to be lining up with their wish-list of content to be censored in future - the suggestions ranging form gambling sites, islamist web pages, first person shooters, and the music industry cheering up with the thought of finally banning Pirate Bay and p2p. More information and linklist (only in German) http://netzpolitik.org/2009/kommentierte-zensursula-linkliste/ Links, banners and more (16.06.2009) http://netzpolitik.org/2009/the-dawning-of-internet-censorship-in-germany/ EDRi-gram: German Government forces ISPs to put web filters (22.04.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.8/web-filters-isp-germany Internet filtering type Loppsi creates polemics in Germany(only in French, 17.06.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13167-Le-filtrage-du-net-facon-Loppsi-fait… (contribution by Markus Beckedahl, EDRi-member NNM- Germany, Thanks to Geraldine de Bastion for the translation) ============================================================ 3. Stockholm programme - the new EU dangerous surveillance system ============================================================ Civil rights groups are worried about a new EU proposal that would enhance a "dangerously authoritarian" European surveillance and security system that will include ID card register, Internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems. On 15 June 2009, EU justice ministers discussed on the so called Stockholm programme trying to set up the first EU "domestic security strategy for the EU", by the end of this year. The 'Stockholm Programme' is the Swedish EU Presidency's proposed legislative agenda in the area of justice and home affairs for the 2009-2014 period. According to the Swedish Presidency, the Stockholm Programme aims to "define the framework for EU police and customs cooperation, rescue services, criminal and civil law cooperation, asylum, migration and visa policy". "National frontiers should no longer restrict our activities," said Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner on 9 June when he presented the EU priorities in the justice area for the next five years. The measures include increased security co-operation and improved immigration management. The paper presented by the commissioner calls for stricter border controls, a better exchange of information on criminal and security issues between the member states and an increased police co-operation. European Commission President Josi Manuel Barroso said that "in future, EU action must aim above all at delivering the best possible service to the citizen in an area of freedom, security and justice more tangible for the citizens". "We want to promote citizens' rights, make their daily lives easier and provide protection, and this calls for effective and responsible European action in these areas. In this context, I consider immigration policy particularly important. This is the vision the Commission is presenting to the Council and Parliament for debate, with a view to the adoption of the new Stockholm Programme by the European Council in December 2009," he added. But civil liberties advocates commented in a different way the proposal: "What stands out are the proposals related to the Future Group report. A promise to balance better data protection and EU standards for 'Privacy Enhancing Technology' with the law enforcement agencies demands for access to all information and communications. An 'information system architecture' to bring about the sharing of all data across the EU. The use of 'security technologies' to harness the 'digital tsunami' to gather through mass surveillance personal data on peoples' everyday activities through public-private partnerships. What is new is the clear aim of creating the surveillance society and the database state. Future generations, for whom this will be a fully developed reality, will look back at this era and rightly ask, why did you not act to stop it." said Tony Bunyan from Statewatch. The paper reintroduces proposals related to immigration and asylum, insisting on "burden-sharing and solidarity" between member states as regards asylum seekers and stating legal migrants should have the same status across the EU and that they should have easier access to the job market. Frontex, the external borders agency should be given more powers in preventing human traffic and irregular immigrations at the EU borders. In the opinion of liberty advocates, these plans will only get us closer to a surveillance type of society. "An increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is developing under the auspices of the EU," commented Tony Bunyan. One of the main concerns is the intention of standardising European police surveillance techniques and of creating common data gathering systems operated at the EU level. A particularly worrying statement of the proposal is: "The SIS II and VIS information systems will have to enter their fully operational phase. An electronic system for recording entry and exit and a registered traveller programme must be established. The usefulness of a system of prior travel authorisation must be examined." The plans have in view an extension of the sharing of the present DNA and fingerprint databases stored for new digital ID cards to CCTV video footage and material gathered from Internet surveillance. The Daily Telegraph stated they had information from EU officials that the new plans would need the coverage of the Lisbon Treaty presently stopped by the Irish referendum in 2008 and waiting for a second Irish vote this autumn. The Treaty stipulates the creation of a Standing Committee for Internal Security to co-ordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations such as Europol, the Frontex, the European Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence. The Stockholm programme will be discussed at the informal ministerial meeting in Stockholm in July 2009, to be further on examined by the European Parliament in November with the hope that it would be approved at the Summit in December 2009, under the Swedish presidency. EC proposals for the Stockholm Programme (COM(2009) 262/4) English http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-prog.pdf German http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-german.pdf French http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eu-com-stockholm-french.pdf EU security proposals are 'dangerously authoritarian' (10.06.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5496912/EU-security-pro… Brussels outlines justice priorities for next 5 years (10.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28283 Sweden's EU immigration plans facing headwinds (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/sweden-eu-immigration-plans-facing-headw… Justice and Home Affairs - Stockholm Programme http://www.se2009.eu/en/the_presidency/about_the_eu/justice_and_home_affair… Closer cooperation between EU countries on the agenda for justice and home affairs. - Freedom, justice, security: a balancing act (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/news/justice/090610_en.htm European Commission outlines its vision for the area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the next five years (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/int European Commission - Communication - An evaluation of the Hague Programme and Action Plan (10.06.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/doc_centre/doc/com_2009_263_en.pdf Statewatch Observatory The "Stockholm Programme" - "The Shape of Things to Come" http://www.statewatch.org/future-group.htm European Civil Liberties Network - Oppose the "Stockholm Programme" (04.2009) http://www.ecln.org/ECLN-statement-on-Stockholm-Programme-April-2009-eng.pdf ============================================================ 4. The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by the EP ============================================================ The European Commission continues to pressure the Council and the new European Parliament to rapidly adopt the telecoms package without a proper scrutiny of the law or any consideration of the implications of Amendment 138. At the Luxembourg meeting on 11 June 2009, the telecoms ministers decided to reject the telecom package in the form adopted by the European Parliament in the second reading on 6 May 2009, thus proposing a new round of negotiations. The ministers consider the Parliament has breached the earlier compromise reached with the Council on the telecoms package as a whole, obviously the main issue under question being the controversial issue of copyright protection and users' rights. And with the new decision of the French Constitutional Council against the French three strikes law, the European Parliament will probably insist in its position. On a press conference on 11 June, the position of the European Commission was expressed by Viviane Reding's spokesman Martin Selmayr who stated that the issue of Amendment 138 had been dealt with at the national level (thus referring to the French Constitutional Council decision) and therefore should no longer be a European matter. Which, obviously, means that the Commission wants the amendment dropped from the telecom package. Reding, which has lately been supporting France's position for the graduate response, made an appeal to EU lawmakers urging them to finalise the discussions on the package. "I call on all political players to do their best in the next days and weeks to settle the last pending issue. Critics often lament about Europe's lack of competitiveness, because of the alleged length of the EU's decision-making processes. In the next days and weeks, Council and Parliament have the unique opportunity to prove these critics wrong." The deadline for the European Parliament to send its position to the Council on the telecoms package is 19 June. After this, there are several options for the telecoms ministers. One is to adopt the text as voted by the Parliament but this is unlikely having in view their position on Amendment 138, especially the position of France in the matter. Another option is to adopt a counter-proposal restating the Council's initial line which will formally start the negotiation procedure to take place under the new Swedish presidency. In this case, the Parliament will have to create a conciliation committee including 27 newly elected members representing all the EU countries. A formal agreement could be reached by the end of the year. EU Council could also reopen the entire case asking for negotiations on the core of the text which could lead to other debates with unpredictable duration and results. A technical possibility could be to split the package but this is unlikely as the ministers have already stated they did not want to take that road. As the text is interlinked, splitting it would mean bringing modifications to a large part of the text. The European Parliament's schedule is to have a trialogue on 29 September with a final vote on 15 December which would give time for discussion of the issues raised by Amendment 138 and for the new MEPs to get familiarised with these issues. French ruling raises hopes for EU telecoms deal (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/french-ruling-raises-hopes-eu-teleco… Commission steps up pressure on Telecoms Package (10.06.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=358&Item… Reding: don't involve EU in fundamental rights (12.06.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360&Item… Telecoms package remains hostage of political row (12.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/telecoms-package-remains-hostage-pol… Ministers braced for final round of telecoms talks (11.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/ministers-braced-final-round-telecom… Presidency Press Statement on the state of play regarding the 'telecoms package' (12.06.2009) http://www.eu2009.cz/en/news-and-documents/news/presidency-press-statement-… EDRI-gram: European Parliament votes against the 3 strikes. Again (6.05.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/ep-plenary-votes-against-3-strikes ============================================================ 5. Finland: Complaints not allowed for the Police child-porn censorship list ============================================================ The Helsinki Administrative court decided on 20 May 2009 that complaints lodged in regards to the child-porn censorship list maintained by the Finnish Police are not allowed. The case originates from one Finnish activist's "battle" against the censorship list maintained by the Finnish police and originally the censorship law passed by the Finnish Parliament in 2006, meant to combat child pornography. The list works in the manner that in conjunction with the ISPs the Finnish Police is able to bock access to certain sites deemed as having child pornography content and thus illegal. However what the activist Matti Nikki contests is that although the list is maintained for a good cause, many sites including Mr. Nikki's own site lapsiporno.info (translated as childporn.info) meant to display parts of the Police's censorship list end up as being blocked in an arbitrary manner by the Police. This is shown by the way in which the Finnish Police acted in relation to Mr. Nikki, after he started a direct debate with the Finnish Police; the Police stepped in and included Nikki's site onto the censorship list, after which Mr. Nikki was interrogated by the Police and the Finnish Attorney General deliberated whether Mr. Nikki should be prosecuted for distribution of child pornography. No action of prosecution followed, and Mr. Nikki asked that his site be removed from the list of censored sites. The Finnish Central Criminal Police decided not to release lapsiporno.info. Mr. Nikki appealed to the Helsinki Administrative Court, which gave its decision in May 2009. The decision of the Helsinki Administrative Court states that Mr. Nikki's site is being censored, however the most worrying aspect is that while the court admits that the case is in fact about censoring Mr. Nikki's personal site, it totally walks over the Finnish constitution and the rights enshrined in it in relation to freedom of speech, without even giving any reasoning why it has done so. This is a grave violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Nikki, who is represented by the Helsinki - based law firm Turre Legal, will appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland during June 2009. Decision of the Helsinki Administrative Court (only in Finnish, 20.05.2009) http://hack.fi/~muzzy/lapsiporno/files/hao-09-0704-3.pdf (contribution by Markku Rdsdnen - Summer Associate, Turre Legal, Finland) ============================================================ 6. Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased ============================================================ Although until recently Microsoft was claiming that Internet Explorer (IE) browser was an integrant part of Windows operating system, on 11 June 2009 the company stated it would launch its new version of operating system for the European market, Windows 7, without Internet Explorer. The decision comes as a result of a Statement of Objections sent to Microsoft in January 2009 by the European Commission regarding competition concerns related to the bundling of the browser to the operating system. However, the European Commission has not welcomed the new decision. A Statement of Objections is a formal step in Commission antitrust investigations by means of which the parties concerned are informed in writing of the objections raised against them. Microsoft replied to the this step on 28 April 2009 and the Commission is presently considering Microsoft's reply and any additional evidence in the case. According to the Commission, by bundling Internet Explorer to Windows, Microsoft is using its dominant position in the operating system market to block competition in the browser market. Microsoft was already fined in EU in 2007 for bundling its media player to Windows. Waiting for the decision of the Commission but wishing to observe its launching targets for the new version of its operation system, Microsoft decided to offer this European version without IE. "We're committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition law as we launch the product. Given the pending legal proceeding, we've decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users. This means that computer manufacturers and users will be free to install Internet Explorer on Windows 7, or not, as they prefer. Of course, they will also be free, as they are today, to install other Web browsers," stated Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner in a blog post on the company website. In response to this statement, on 12 June, the European regulators showed they were not pleased with Microsoft's decision as they had suggested that the company offer a selection of browsers on its operating system to open up choice for consumers and not a complete lack of options. "Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less," said the Commission in its statement. The reaction is explainable as after Microsoft had decided to sell a version of Windows without its Media Player after the fine received in 2007, it succeeded in going around the Commission's restrictions by selling an alternative version of Windows equipped for free with the Media Player, which was obviously preferred by the consumers. A potential solution considered in the Commission' Statement of Objections would be to allow consumers to choose from different web browsers presented to them through a 'ballot screen' in Windows. Thus, the Commission might force Microsoft to include other browsers with its operating system which will probably help competitive browser companies such as Mozilla's Firefox , Opera, Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari. EU unconvinced by Microsoft Internet browser offer (12.06.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-unconvinced-microsoft-internet-br… Antitrust: Commission statement on Microsoft Internet Explorer announcement (12.06.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/272&format=… Working to Fulfill our Legal Obligations in Europe for Windows 7 (11.06.2009) http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/06/11/working-… Brussels threatens Microsoft with fresh fine (19.01.2009) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/brussels-threatens-microsoft-fresh-f… ============================================================ 7. More voices in the EP for digital rights ============================================================ The recent elections have brought more seats for parties supporting digital rights in the European Parliament (EP), such as the Greens, UK Independence Party or the Liberal Democrats. The Swedish Pirate Party has succeeded in getting a seat as well. The Pirate Party has succeeded in obtaining 7% of the votes in Sweden, thus winning one representative in the EP. In case the Lisbon Treaty is adopted, it might even get one more seat. The success of the party is due to two recent events: the EU's intellectual property enforcement directive which asks that ISPs turn over traffic data to copyright holders who are trying to track down filesharers and which was brought into force by the Swedish Government in April 2009 and the result of the Pirate Bay trial. The party's success has proven that privacy rights and fair copyright systems matter to Swedish people. Ray Corrigan, senior lecturer in -technology at the Open University, explains: "A lot of IP laws are being driven through because they are off most people's cognitive agendas. If you start knocking people off the internet for -allegedly infringing copyright those numbers start to grow into the thousands, or tens of thousands, very quickly. It has a direct impact on their children's education and some people may need the internet for their job." The Pirate Party will join either the Green or the Liberal groupings in the European Parliament. "There have been no formal discussions, but we have been invited by a few groups for informal talks," said Christian Engstroem, a computer programmer and the candidate heading the party's list who also said that the party would join the one grouping that will be the closest to the party's positions on Internet freedoms. The Pirate Party presence may bring new debates on the issues of patents and copyright and privacy. Their position is for a five year copyright term, a file sharing exception and the abolishment of patents. EDRi-member Open Rights Group considers that the Pirate Party has some positions that are a little extreme but the party's cultural flat rate proposal might be something similar to a payment made in exchange for a file sharing exception. While the Pirate Party advocates for a 5-year term copyright, many copyright academics feel the economically optimal term is rather 15 years than the life plus 70 years that is now in force. Sweden is not the only country where digital rights supporters have succeeded in making their voice heard. The German pirate party, Piratenpartei Deutschland, won close to 1% of the vote. And registered "Pirate Parties" now exist in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Poland and Spain. Similar groups are attempting to register as political parties in the UK and the US as well. "My view is that IP is a good and necessary thing. I'm not in favour of a free-for-all but I do think that there are many important questions that need to be addressed. I think it's a good thing that you are getting representatives in parliament who wish to challenge the established view," stated Andrew Dearing, secretary general of the European Industrial Research -Management Association. A new and fresh breath of air will be beneficial for the atmosphere in the European Parliament that relies more on the Internet as a source of information, but also as a communication tool with its voters. A survey carried out by Fleishman-Hillard during 1 April to 1 May 2009 shows that although most MEPs largely use the Internet, it seems most of them still believe traditional forms of communication, such as television or newspapers, are more effective. About 75 percent of the MEPs use a web page to communicate with their voters, 93% use search engines daily to understand legislative issues. Still, many of them have to open up to social online media as only thirty-three percent of them use the social media networks "extensively", 20 percent occasionally, but 29 percent "do not use them or do not plan to use them." "Members of the European Parliament recognise that EU citizens go online and that they therefore need a web presence. However, the majority of MEPs do not currently take full advantage of social media tools as a means to engage with voters and drive them to their websites," the survey said. Pirates to join Green or Liberal groups in EU parliament (3.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/883/28237 Majority of MEPs do not 'tweet' (4.06.2009) http://euobserver.com/883/28238 Sweden's Pirate party sails to success in European elections (11.06.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/11/pirate-party-sweden What do the EU results and Pirate Party mean for digital rights? (9.06.2009) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/06/what-do-the-eu-results-and-pirate-pa… EDRIgram: The Pirate Bay asks for retrial claiming conflict of interest (6.05.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/pirate-bay-mistrial ============================================================ 8. Report: OECD Conference on Sensor Based Networks ============================================================ "Using Sensor-based Networks to Address Global Issues: Policy Opportunities and Challenges" was the title of an experts conference the OECD organised on 08 and 09 June 2009, hosted by Portugal, in Lisbon. Andreas Krisch participated in the conference on behalf of EDRi and CSISAC. The goal of the Conference was to help policy makers: a. understand Sensor-Based Networks and their potential contribution to economic and social welfare, b. identify how to further stimulate innovation in this area and foster the development of these technologies where they are needed the most and are the most promising. During the one and a half day event, the potentials of sensor based networks in the areas of health and elderly care, protection of the environment and transportation were discussed. Presentations on different research and commercial projects illustrated current and potential future uses of sensor networks. The presented applications ranged from humidity sensors used for the reduction of water consumption in agriculture via sensor networks used to support elderly care at home to traffic control systems for highways based on information gathered from vehicle on-board computers. In the last session privacy protection and information security dominated the discussion on policy options. Panellists made quite clear that, in their opinion, a widespread use of sensor networks and related technologies will only be possible in future, when a sufficient level of trust can be achieved. For this, privacy protection and information security are key. For a more detailed report on the conference see http://csisac.org/2009/06/csisac_oecd_rfid.php CSISAC http://csisac.org/ Conference website http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/sensors Presentations, session summaries, conclusions http://www.oecd.org/document/41/0,3343,en_2649_34223_42616233_1_1_1_1,00.ht… (contribution by Andreas Krisch - EDRi) ============================================================ 9. ENDitorial: Regulating online media in Azerbaijan? ============================================================ I was invited last week to a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan by the Council of Europe that organized together with the local National TV and Radio Council in order to discuss some issues related to the regulation of online media. The meeting took place on 4 June 2009 and the first part was dedicated to the local authorities (Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies or National TV and Radio Council) local Internet actors (The online news agency lent.az, or APA news agency) and NGOs (such as Azerbaijan Internet Forum or IREX Azerbaijan). Although the authorities and private partners sat at the same table, there was a huge difference in speeches. While the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technologies Iltimas Mammadov talked about 2000 km optic cable already deployed and measures for using Internet in the cars via WiMax, the private sector claimed that 95% of the population used dial-up or similar connections and that the average cost of a 1Mb/s monthly connection was between 60-120 manats (approx. 53-107 Euro), which is a huge price for an average person in Azerbaijan. While the authorities claimed that anyone can start an ISP, the private sector insisted that, basically, the backbone connectivity could be bought only from a "special" ISP - Delta Telecom. The high final prices and allegation of some content being blocked by the authorities could thus be explained. Talking about regulating online media, the voices seem to converge in asking for a definition of "electronic media". Strangely in my opinion, the private sector representatives asked for a clarification in this respect, seeming to want such a registration for the electronic media (which is in fact more a notification). But this could be explained by the fact that otherwise you are not invited to press conferences or able to get an interview from an official. In a country where you need to register your off-line publication with the Ministry of Justice or your TV or radio station with the National Television and Radio Council, most of the speakers seem to claim that the regulation should be the rule to protect others' privacy or honour, to prevent pro-aggressive war speech (this part may be a result of the war on Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia) or hacking of websites (?!?). Another interesting aspect is that the present mass-media law from 2009 lists the Internet as a mass-medium. The European experience presented by Mr Marcel Betzel, a policy adviser from the Dutch Media Authority and by myself was focused on whether any regulation was needed in the new online environment and whether such a regulation would be feasible.We also tried to emphasise with concrete examples the importance of self-regulation and its results. I have specifically explained why a registration of online media could be seen as a potential infringement of the freedom of expression if we take into consideration the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Also why we need to consider whether a new legislation is feasible in terms of its application and whether it will just send the unwanted content hosted in another country. Mr. Betzel also presented the difficulties of implementing the new European Audiovisual Media Services Directive and identifying which site can be considered web TV or Internet radio, according to the new rules. Taking into consideration the traditional IT development skills of the Azeri, the Internet has a lot of place to grow, but for now, it is hard to estimate what the future actions of the Azeri authorities will be, if any, for a "better regulation" of the online media. Regulation of Online Media in Azerbaijan http://www.coe.az/Latest-News/159.html Conference on the theme "Regulation of Internet media in Azerbaijan" takes place (4.06.2009) http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=103237 Azerbaijan - OpenNet Initiative Profile http://opennet.net/research/profiles/azerbaijan (contribution by Bogdan Manolea - EDRi-member APTI - Romania) ============================================================ 10. Recommended Action ============================================================ Cloud Privacy - An open letter to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt This six page letter (pdf) to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, is signed by 38 researchers and academics in the fields of computer science, information security and privacy law. Together, they ask Google to honor the important privacy promises it has made to its customers and protect users' communications from theft and snooping by enabling industry standard transport encryption technology (HTTPS) for Google Mail, Docs, and Calendar. http://www.cloudprivacy.net/letter/ ============================================================ 11. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Reykjavik conference maps out future Council of Europe work on media and the Internet https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1452361 Political Declaration and resolutions http://www.coe.int/t/dc/press/source/20090529_final_declaration_iceland_en.… ============================================================ 12. Agenda ============================================================ 28-30 June 2009, Turin, Italy COMMUNIA Conference 2009: Global Science & Economics of Knowledge-Sharing Institutions http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2009 2-3 July 2009, Padova, Italy 3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html 6-7 July 2009, Barcelona, Spain Fifth Internet Law & Politics Conference organized by the Law and Political Science Department of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya The Pros and Cons of Social Networking Sites. http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2009/engl/index.html 13-16 August 2009, Vierhouten, The Netherlands Hacking at Random http://www.har2009.org/ 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council: "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage" http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla75/index.htm 10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam Section: Protest Politics Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp 16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009 http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ 17-18 September 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands Gikii, A Workshop on Law, Technology and Popular Culture Institute for Information Law (IViR) - University of Amsterdam Call for papers by 1 July 2009 http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/2009.asp 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 24-25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 21 September 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 15 July 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ ============================================================ 13. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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