general internet news - 17 January

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

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Sponsored by the Singapore Internet Research Centre
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/
Internet in Asia blog:
http://internetinasia.typepad.com/
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Sovereignty in cyberspace: Two legal scholars puncture
the myth of the borderless, lawless Internet

http://boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/01/15/sovereignty_in_cyberspace/

us/fr: Yahoo loses Nazi memorabilia case

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/81127f12-83cb-11da-9017-0000779e2340.html

U.S. firms help China keep control of the Web

http://iht.com/articles/2006/01/15/business/chinet.php

Bangladesh to curb 'vulgar' calls
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4614640.stm

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RESEARCH PAPERS
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Without a Net By Jonathan Zittrain
The Internet is vulnerable to viruses so lethal that
they could gravely damage the online world?unless we
upgrade law and technology now: ON THE NIGHT OF
NOVEMBER 2, 1988, a 23-year-old Cornell University
graduate student named Robert Tappan Morris Jr. used
the Internet to transmit a small piece of software
from a Cornell computer to an MIT one. Embedded in the
MIT machine, Morris's software connected
surreptitiously to other computers on the Internet and
installed and ran copies of itself on those machines,
which in turn passed the software on to other
computers. The software accessed the machines by
applying a set of minor digital parlor tricks, such as
guessing user passwords. It turned out that many
users' passwords were identical to their corresponding
user names, and if not, were found on a list of 432
common passwords conveniently dispatched with Morris's
software.

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_zittrain_janfeb06.msp

Digital Borders By Jack Goldsmith and Timothy Wu
National boundaries have survived in the virtual
world?and allowed national laws to exert control over
the Internet: IN THE 1990S, MANY PUNDITS AND SCHOLARS
believed that the Internet was eroding the authority
of governments. The web's salient features?instant and
universal communication, geographical anonymity, and
decentralized routing?made it easy for computer users
inside a nation to get illegal information from
computers outside the nation. American college
students could download copyrighted songs from servers
in the South Pacific and bet on digital blackjack
tables on computers in Antigua. Saudi Arabians could
access porn sites in Holland, and Italians could read
banned books on web pages hosted in Australia. Nations
seemed unable to stop violations of local laws via the
Internet.

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_goldsmith_janfeb06.msp

Dragon Slayers or Tax Evaders? By Julian Dibbell
Buying and selling imaginary goods in computer-game
worlds is big business. Now let's figure out whether
gamers should pay real-world taxes on virtual
treasures: IF YOU HAVEN'T MISSPENT HOURS battling an
Arctic Ogre Lord near an Ice Dungeon or been equally
profligate spending time reading the published works
of the Internal Revenue Service, you probably haven't
wondered whether the United States government will
someday tax your virtual winnings from games played
over the Internet. The real question is, Why hasn't it
happened already?

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_dibbell_janfeb06.msp

Cool Tools for Tyrants By Derek Bambauer
The latest American technology helps the Chinese
government and other repressive regimes clamp down:
HENG YICHUN, A MIDDLE-AGED ENGLISH PROFESSOR at
Liaoning University in northeast China, has made a
career of trying the government's patience. Born a
member of the nation's large Korean minority in 1957,
Zheng openly supported the antigovernment protests
that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. He
published eight collections of poetry, and he wrote
hundreds of essays, many of which were critical of the
Chinese Communist Party and its harsh treatment of
journalists. Virtually none of the essays could be
published safely in China, so Zheng sent them abroad
through the Internet, and they appeared in the New
York-based Chinese newspaper Epoch Times, on the
Democracy Forum website, and in other media that
afforded Zheng a modest degree of fame. By late 2004,
Chinese security forces had him in their sights.

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_bambauer_janfeb06.msp

Blawgs By Lincoln Caplan
THE SUPREME COURT RECENTLY MADE HISTORY by citing a
blog. Called "Sentencing Law and Policy," it's a
year-old web log by Douglas Berman, a professor of law
at Ohio State University
(http://sentencing.typepad.com). Berman was reacting
to the hubbub about Congress's 1984 act setting forth
guidelines for sentencing. Federal judges had to
follow the guidelines until the court ruled them
unconstitutional in January?a decision that referred
to Berman's blog as the place to find a Justice
Department memo about how prosecutors could get courts
to increase sentences beyond the maximum in the
guidelines. Berman launched his blog in part because
the law was changing so rapidly that his
recommendations would be stale if he published them in
traditional law reviews.

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2005/editorial_mayjun05.msp

How Women and Men Use the Internet (Pew news release)
Men continue to pursue many internet activities more
intensively than women. At the same time, trend data
show that women are catching up in overall use and are
framing their online experience with a greater
emphasis on deepening connections with people.

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/171/report_display.asp

The Internet and Democracy: Global Catalyst or
Democratic Dud? by MICHAEL L. BEST and KEEGAN W. WADE
Abstract: In this study we explore the global effect
of the Internet on democracy over the period of 1992
to 2002 by observing the relationships between
measures related to democracy and Internet prevalence.
Our results show a significant correlation between
Internet penetration (measured as the estimated number
of Internet users per 1,000 people) and a common
indicator of a nation?s level of democratization
provided by the Freedom House.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=870080

Illegal Online Filesharing: Optimal Sanctions by
MICHAEL NWOGUGU
Abstract: In the US, Europe and Asia, illegal download
of content and music has resulted in substantial
losses in the entertainment and education industries.
The issue involves various policy, technological and
economics problems that have not yet been resolved
even as internet use continues to grow substantially.
The lack of an efficient method of controlling
downloads of content is compounded by the fact that
owners of content don?t know how to price such
content; and that inefficient downloads results in
sub-optimal pricing of content. This paper discusses
some of the main problems and introduces several
methods/systems for efficiently controlling downloads
of content.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=874487

VoIP Regulation in Canada by MARCEL BOYER and
CATHERINE MERCIER
Abstract: The CRTC recently released Regulatory
Framework for Voice Communication Services using
Internet Protocol (Decision 2005-28), Telecom Decision
CRTC 2005-28, setting out the details of the
appropriate regulatory regime applicable to the
provision of VoIP services. This commentary aims to
comment on the CRTC decision: we present a brief
overview of Decision 2005-28, we then consider the
positions of incumbents and competitors, and finally
we comment on the above interventions in light of the
economic theory of regulation and the theory of
strategic competition. We conclude that the
predominant model underlying the positions not only of
the CRTC but also of the parties involved, including
the firms themselves, both the incumbents and the new
entrants, and their respective business consultants,
is rooted in an economic theory of a past forever
foregone era.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=873355

Web of lies? Historical knowledge on the Internet by
Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig
Abstract: Scholars in history (as well as other fields
in the humanities) have generally taken a dim view of
the state of knowledge on the Web, pointing to the
many inaccuracies on Web pages written by amateurs. A
new software agent called H-Bot scans the Web for
historical facts, and shows how the Web may indeed
include many such inaccuracies?while at the same time
being extremely accurate when assessed as a whole
through statistical means that are alien to the
discipline of history. These mathematical methods and
other algorithms drawn from the computational sciences
also suggest new techniques for historical research
and new approaches to teaching history in an age in
which an increasingly significant portion of the past
has been digitized.

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_12/cohen/index.html

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CENSORSHIP, FILTERING & CONTENT REGULATION
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uk: How we could regulate the Internet by Roger
Darlington
Presentation to Ofcom staff by Roger. The essence of
Roger's case was that: The Internet cannot ? and
should not ? be regulated like ?old? media; However,
more can and should be done, especially in relation to
harmful content; New initiatives should be low-cost,
practical and promoted on a voluntary basis; and most
problematic Internet content is not illegal or harmful
and users must take appropriate responsibility while
being advised on tools and techniques.

http://rogerdarlington.co.uk/commswatch/permalink.php?id=2297_0_2_0

uk: Authorities 'misunderstand use of cautions in
child porn cases'
THE use of police cautions to deal with people who
download internet child pornography has soared,
according to figures obtained by The Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1987948,00.html

Shock and gore
The story examines some of the more extreme content
available online, particularly relating to what has
come about from recent events in the Middle East. It
concludes with "The lesson here is not that we should
ban Ogrish, but that we have not yet worked out what
kind of beast the world wide web is, or the
responsibilities required of those who use it."

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1373c930-8325-11da-ac1f-0000779e2340.html

Sovereignty in cyberspace: Two legal scholars puncture
the myth of the borderless, lawless Internet
LESS THAN a decade ago, in his famous ''Declaration of
the Independence of Cyberspace," the Internet theorist
John Perry Barlow wrote, ''Governments of the
Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and
steel....You have no sovereignty where we gather."

http://boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/01/15/sovereignty_in_cyberspace/

Digital Borders By Jack Goldsmith and Timothy Wu
National boundaries have survived in the virtual
world?and allowed national laws to exert control over
the Internet: IN THE 1990S, MANY PUNDITS AND SCHOLARS
believed that the Internet was eroding the authority
of governments. The web's salient features?instant and
universal communication, geographical anonymity, and
decentralized routing?made it easy for computer users
inside a nation to get illegal information from
computers outside the nation. American college
students could download copyrighted songs from servers
in the South Pacific and bet on digital blackjack
tables on computers in Antigua. Saudi Arabians could
access porn sites in Holland, and Italians could read
banned books on web pages hosted in Australia. Nations
seemed unable to stop violations of local laws via the
Internet.

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_goldsmith_janfeb06.msp

"The Filtering Matrix"
Nart Villeneuve, Director of Technical Research at the
Citizen Lab (an interdisciplinary laboratory based at
the Munk Centre for International Studies at the
University of Toronto) and OpenNet Initiative
researcher, very recently published "The Filtering
Matrix: Integrated Mechanisms of Information Control
and the Demarcation of Borders in Cyberspace" through
FirstMonday.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/home?wid=10&func=viewSubmission&sid=899

U.S. firms help China keep control of the Web
It was not so long ago that the Internet was seen as a
trap for China. The country desperately needed to
foster economic growth, and in the early 1990s much of
the globe was plugging itself in.

http://iht.com/articles/2006/01/15/business/chinet.php

China's Net Censorship
Decades-long protests to Communist China about human
rights violations have had almost zero effect.
Individuals are persecuted and jailed, and far worse,
and blogs and news and information sites are routinely
censored and shut down with the full-blooded
cooperation of mega US corporations such as Microsoft,
Yahoo and Google. These huge, unimaginably powerful
companies, and others like them, appear to believe
their unstinting cooperation is helping them to
penetrate China, with its vast population, as their
next natural profit centre. However, the opposite is
true. Communist China is taking them for a ride.
 http://p2pnet.net/story/7614

uk: New Independent Chair for Internet Watch
Foundation (news release)
The Internet Watch Foundation is pleased to announce
the appointment of Amanda Jordan OBE as its new
Independent Chair. Amanda will take up her role on 1st
January 2006
 http://iwf.org.uk/media/news.150.htm

uk: How Kelly failed the vulnerable
We think we are a nation that cherishes and protects
children. But our incoherent policy on sex offenders
tells a different story. [Included in this story is
"Police evidence says he paid to download porn;
accepting a caution is an admission of guilt. But Mr
Reeve has no known history of abuse. He never actually
taught at the school that hired him. As Number 10 has
said, taking away someone's livelihood is 'a complex
legal matter'. Nor is Operation Ore, under which he
was arrested, free of shadow. At least 33 men
suspected of paying for child pornography have
committed suicide. In any other inquiry, such
attrition would provoke grave alarm."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1686684,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1986265,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-1984431,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1984813,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1984430,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-1983068,00.html

us: US teens porn assignment called off
A high school assignment to research and write about
Internet pornography was cancelled after parents
complained, the school's superintendent said.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/1/15/world/13118801&sec=world

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=qw1137323701328B253
 http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=4361480

Adult content producers eye PSP, iPod
The recent addition of video playback to the iPod's
features and the launch of the video-capable
PlayStation Portable have several major producers of
adult content eyeing the platforms as a new way to
reach consumers, but opinion is divided as to whether
they represent a novelty or a serious business
opportunity.
 http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/060112adultmobile/

Internet safety program offered
Parents, do you know what your child is doing on the
Internet? Cyber bullying and sexual predators are just
a couple of things that could be threatening your
child.

http://www.enewscourier.com/articles/2006/01/14/news/news03.txt

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LEGAL, SECURITY AND PRIVACY
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us/fr: Court dismisses Yahoo's free-speech lawsuit
A divided federal appeals court on Thursday ducked the
question of whether a French court order censoring
Nazi-related materials can apply to Yahoo's U.S.-based
Web site.
 http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6026749.html

us/fr: Yahoo loses Nazi memorabilia case
Yahoo on Thursday lost its attempt to persuade a US
appeals court to intervene in a landmark ruling in
France over the sale of Nazi memorabilia on the
company?s websites. The decision by the US court
should send a warning to online companies that operate
globally that they will have to pay more attention to
the local laws of countries in which they operate,
said Michael Geist, a law professor at the University
of Ottawa.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/81127f12-83cb-11da-9017-0000779e2340.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/13/nazi_yahoo_defeat/

http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=10838324

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/81127f12-83cb-11da-9017-0000779e2340.html
 http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=12628

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17810441%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/Y/YAHOO_NAZI_AUCTIONS
 http://www.cdt.org/speech/20050113yahoocase.pdf

kr: Police Arrest 23 Internet Narcotics Traffickers,
Users
Police Wednesday apprehended a 23 year-old individual,
identified by his surname Kim, and 22 others on
charges of purchasing drugs on the Internet from a
Korean-Chinese man and then using them.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200601/kt2006011117375311960.htm

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POLICY
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OECD report: The Promotion of a Culture of Security
for Information Systems and Networks  	
This report is a major information resource on
governments? effective efforts to date to foster a
shift in culture as called for in the OECD Guidelines
for the Security of Information Systems and Networks:
Towards a Culture of Security (2002). It includes a
detailed inventory of initiatives to implement the
Guidelines in 18 OECD member countries and highlights
main findings based on an analysis of common current
trends in those countries and progress made since
2003.
 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/27/35884541.pdf

nz: InternetNZ welcomes Commerce Commission UBS
Determination
"An excellent result for New Zealand, which should
lead to a better national roll-out of faster, cheaper
broadband. We warmly congratulate the Commission on
this decision,? is Colin Jackson?s response to today?s
Determination by the Commerce Commission on
TelstraClear?s application to access the Unbundled
Bitstream Service.
 http://internetnz.net.nz/news/2005-12-20-ubs.htm

Coalition releases anti-spyware guidelines
The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) has released the
final draft of a risk-modelling description that sets
out the objective criteria anti-spyware developers use
to determine whether a particular piece of software
should be identified as spyware.
 http://www.out-law.com/page-6537

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INTERNET & NEW TECHNOLOGY USE
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by: Milinkevich 's programme - to provide Internet
access for 90% of Belarusian households
In his election programme "Belarus: the Road to the
Future", an opposition candidate for Presidency
Alexander Milinkevch, promises to provide Internet
access for 90% of Belarusian households.
 http://e-belarus.org/news/200601101.html

The Web as Weapon (video report)
A special report on how jihadists use the Internet and
technology to spread their message.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=3

Bangladesh to curb 'vulgar' calls
Bangladeshi authorities have ordered mobile phone
operators to stop offering free calls after midnight,
to protect the morals of young people.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4614640.stm

http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=10859317

http://smh.com.au/news/breaking/bangladesh-concerned-about-obscene-chatting/2006/01/16/1137259973701.html

uk: Mobile TV is not a turn-on, BT trial finds
Mobile phone users are more interested in listening to
digital radio through their handsets than watching
mobile television services, according to research
unveiled yesterday, and are only willing to pay about
£5 a month for the privilege of catching up with their
favourite shows on a phone's small screen.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,16781,1685359,00.html

Mobile TV finally gets moving
We have been talking about mobile TV for several
years, but so far the services have been limited and
the technology not quite up to the job. Ian Hardy
found at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las
Vegas that things seem to be coming together.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4610004.stm

uk: HMV is victim of net price battle
The internet shopping revolution claims its first big
high-street scalp as HMV blames online retailers and
supermarkets for plummeting sales.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,16559,1685617,00.html

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FILE SHARING
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in: Downloads may run out of tune
If the Indian Music Industry (IMI), a body
representing the industry, has its way, unauthorised
downloading of online music may soon come to an end.
The IMI has threatened to take ?appropriate civil and
criminal action? against over 600 websites and 30
Indian Internet service providers (ISPs) ? including
the Internet Service Providers Association of India
(ISPAI) ? for ?not preventing? the unauthorised
downloading of online music. The IMI has over 80 music
companies as its members.

http://www.business-standard.com/iceworld/storypage.php?chklogin=&autono=211456

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COMMENT, MICROSOFT & DEVELOPMENTS
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ca: REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: Internet Day in Canada
CIRA seeks to retain services for the implementation,
delivery and evaluation of the first nationwide annual
Internet Day in Canada.
 http://cira.ca/en/documents/internet-rfp-day

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ARRESTS/COURT CASES FOR CHILD PORN
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ie: Child porn racket
A 32 YEAR-OLD man has appeared before Limerick
District Court on charges connected to a major
Internet child pornography trafficking racket.

http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=7020&category=Daily-Thu

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Also see
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general internet news.

Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and
BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>.

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(c) David Goldstein 2006

David Goldstein
 address: 4/3 Abbott Street
             COOGEE NSW 2034
             AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David @yahoo.com.au
 phone: +61 418 228 605 - mobile; +61 2 9665 5773 - home


		
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