The FBI investigates a grizzly murder. You are a bank president. The murderer stored his phone book in your bank's safety deposit box, the code for which is encrypted with copyrighted proprietary software, before he committed the murder. The FBI demands that you provide it with the master code for the box, which can be used to unlock other boxes, too.
Policy and Internet Blog on 29 February 2016 at 17:41PM Platforms that enable users to come together and buy/sell services with confidence, such as Uber, have become remarkably popular, with the companies often transforming the industries they enter. In this blog post the OII’s Vili Lehdonvirta analyses why the domestic cleaning platform Homejoy failed to achieve such success. He argues that when [...]
Elizabeth Dubois on 29 February 2016 at 15:44PM Having recently completed my doctoral work a common question is “what is your thesis actually about again?” Well, here it is. In my thesis I look at the idea of the opinion leader – an average citizen who happens to care a lot about politics and pays attention to current affairs. In communication theory we […] [...]
Olivier Alais at the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs: “The concept of “open data” is not new, but its definition is quite recent. Since computers began communicating through networks, engineers have been developing standards to share data. The open data philosophy holds that some data should be freely available for use, reuse, distribute and publish without copyright and patent controls.
IP interconnection is often assumed to be unregulated. But locally, public regulation is starting to emerge as interconnection professionals state in a survey conducted by Uta Meier-Hahn. Disclosure regulations, mandatory peering... MORE
We are excited to announce that Open Knowledge International has received $700,000 in funding from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation over two years to work on a broad range of activities to enable better research and more effective civic tech through our Frictionless Data initiative.
"Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts." - Salman Rushdie
Story is powerful. Whether the his-stories ingested through schooling, the discourses given voice in the news or the identities composed in popular culture, we make the world and are made by the world, through narrative. Politicians get this, media scholars get this, the youth get this.
As ICANN 55 approaches, the spotlight returns to the IANA Transition. The Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) has finalised its proposal and awaits endorsements from the chartering organizations. My colleague Aarti Bhavana, and I at the Centre for Communication Governance have begun a blog series tracking the developments of the CCWG Accountability […]
Recommendation 7 Continuing our series on tracking the CCWG Accountability Process, in our fifth post, we look at Recommendation 7 which concerns ICANN’s Independent Review Process. This post examines the key changes and developments since the 3rd Draft Proposal was opened for public comment. Our previous posts can be found at this index page for […]
For the past few years, grime has been making a small but significant shift in the mainstream. Artists like Wiley, Dizzee and Tinie have spilled over into the realms of pop culture. Others, like Skepta, spilled over and pulled back again, wanting to forge their own way into the limelight without conforming to polished beats and signing to major labels.There’s no question: artists like Wiley and the Roll Deep crew set the stage for this new wave of artists.
Book edited by Oriol Nel-lo and Renata Mele: “Cities in the 21st Century provides an overview of contemporary urban development.
David Brooks in The New York Times: “We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society — politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers chose politics.
Crowdsourcing Campaign by Strong Towns: “Nearly every urban neighborhood in this country — whether small town or big city — has properties that could use a little love. This week at Strong Towns we’re talking about the federal rules that have made that love difficult to find, tilting the playing field so that capital and expertise flow away from walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
Ability to access 'net from mobe no longer considered a miracle.
The article was published in the Register on February 15, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.
Words, whether spoken or shouted, that question or even malign the government cannot be labelled as sedition, unless they specifically incite violence, lawyers and human rights experts familiar with fundamental rights and sedition laws have said.
The article was published in the Telegraph on February 18, 2016
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore is a kind of hacker club for wonks and lawyers obsessed with issues of digital rights and global development. Not exactly the mainstream kids’ lunch table. But the Center was brought into sudden relief this week, thanks to … Mark Zuckerberg.
Read Sanjena Sathian's blog post published by Ozy on February 19, 2016
HIFLD: “This site provides National foundation-level geospatial data within the open public domain that can be useful to support community preparedness, resiliency, research, and more. The data is available for download as CSV, KML, Shapefile, and accessible via web services to support application development and data visualization.”
The social media giant wanted to give the people of India free access to a chunk of the Internet, but the people weren't interested.
The blog post by Daniel Van Boom was published by Cnet on February 26, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.
Global Voices Advocacy's Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in Internet rights around the world.
The blog post published in Global Voices on February 11, 2016 quotes Pranesh Prakash and Subhashish Panigrahi.