InternetPolicy.net

US anti-spam law - wide of the mark?

Entrepeneur/programmer/hacktivist John Gilmore, who joined with Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow to launch the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is circulating a warning about the US's new anti-spam law. He claims that a byproduct of the law will be to make anonymizers illegal. Also "it takes zero account of the First Amendment, attempting to list what topics someone can validly send messages about, while outlawing all other topics that relate to commercial transactions..." Gilmore concludes mournfully that "Everyone's common sense goes out the window when the topic is spam." The text of the Senate version of the law - unanimously approved on 25 November - is online here. The House of Representatives is expected to confirm it before the end of the year.

New generation of micropayment services

Gregory T. Huang writes in the December 2003 - January 2004 issue of MIT's Technology Review about a "new generation of e-payment companies [that] makes it easy to 'pay as you go' for inexpensive Web content, portending big profits for online businesses." His article, "The Web's New Currency," focuses on Firstgate (based in Cologne, Germany, and already a success in Europe) and Peppercoin, Ron Rivest's soon-to-be-launched micropayment service that uses statistical sampling to cut transaction costs. The elusive dream is that if "programmers and Web artists could profitably charge a few cents at a time, their businesses could flourish. And with an easy way for users to buy a richer variety of content, experts say, the current deadlock over digital piracy could effectively dissolve, giving way to a multibillion-dollar business stream that rejuvenates the wider entertainment industry the same way video rentals did Hollywood in the 1980s."

More skeptical perspectives are found in Andrew Odlyzko's "The Case Against Micropayments" (April 2003) and Clay Shirky's December 2000 essay of the same name.

"Hacker for the mob - and proud of it"

Simson Garfinkel has an interesting article in the December issue of Wired Magazine highlighting a new policy challenge: organized peer-to-peer betting. In "Codefellas" he speaks in the voice of an unnamed technician who claims to be building "a secure, online, peer-to-peer, encrypted, redundant bet-processing system with an offshore data warehouse... Instead of writing down a wager, the operator will enter the bet onto an online form. The whole transaction will be encrypted by a browser and sent over the Net to a server running in an undisclosed country where the laws are more liberal than they are in the US. Essentially, the system acts as a market maker, matching up people who want to take different sides of a sports bet... The second step is to move beyond matching up two bettors and program the computer to take a side when no one is willing to take theirs. Finally, we'll be moving to voice over IP... it's a simple matter to run voice over the same high-speed line. This has the advantage of eliminating all those traceable phone calls while simultaneously letting us encrypt our voice communications. A few years ago, then FBI director Louis Freeh warned Congress that if encryption technology wasn't controlled, drug dealers, organized criminals, terrorists, and child pornographers would soon be using it to protect their records. Freeh was half right. We are using encryption, but we'd be using it even if it was illegal..."

Digital Cops in a Virtual Environment

"The Information Society Project at Yale Law School is pleased to announce its upcoming conference on Cybercrime and Digital Law Enforcement entitled: Digital Cops in [a] Virtual Environment, which will take place on March 26-28, 2004 at Yale Law School. This ground-breaking conference will bring together policy makers, security experts, law enforcement personnel, social activists and academics to discuss the emerging phenomena of cybercrime and law enforcement. The conference will question both the efficacy of fighting cybercrime and the civil liberties implications arising from innovations in law enforcement methods of operation. During this weekend-long conference, a distinguished group of experts will discuss how a shift to a digital environment: (1) changes the crime scene; (2) facilitates the commission of new types of crimes; (3) leads to radical changes in law enforcement methods; (4) equips law enforcement with new tools of surveillance, technological design and risk sorting systems; (5) presents challenges for the legal process; and (6) introduces new forms of social resistance through 'hacktivism' and counter-surveillance.

"...In particular, we encourage experts from all disciplines and nationalities to submit papers:

• for the writing competition (deadline: noon, February 15th, 2004). The authors of the two best papers will be invited to present their work in a distinguished panel of the conference. They will also be offered full coverage of their travel and accommodation at Yale. The announcement of the winners will be done by March 1st, 2004;
• for publication (deadline: May 1st, 2004). The selection committee, composed of the editorial boards of YJoLT and IJCLP, will review and consider all submissions for publication in a special issue of the journals. The issue will be provided in both digital and paper formats. Authors will be notified of acceptance by June 1st, 2004. All submission and inquiries should be mailed to: Dr. Simone Bonetti ([email protected]), Professor Anil Samtani ([email protected]), lead editors IJCLP [the International Journal of Communications Law and Policy]; and Mr. Bryan McGee ([email protected]), Editor-in-Chief, YJoLT [the Yale Journal of Law and Technology]. For further information [click here].

Australian recording association threatens ISPs

Jennifer Dudley reports in The Australian that: "The Australian Recording Industry Association plans to sue Internet service providers who failed to stop consumers illegally downloading music. ARIA's music industry piracy investigations manager Michael Speck said ISPs relied on illegal music downloads for 20 per cent of their revenue and were aware customers were flouting copyright laws but did nothing to stop them. He said the failure of Internet companies to prevent copyright infringements left ARIA with no choice but to prosecute them. But Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos slammed Mr Speck's comments as 'provocative' and 'inflammatory' and said ISPs were keen to work with copyright holders to prevent infringements... Mr Coroneos said ISPs did not have any responsibility to monitor the activities of its users and should not be asked to invade customers' privacy. He disputed Mr Speck's estimate of revenue from illegal music downloads..." [Thanks to Slashdot for the pointer]

August blackouts' impact on Internet

Renesys Corp., whose business is monitoring the state of Internet connectivity, released a 21-page preliminary report last week entitled Impact of the 2003 Blackouts on Internet Communications. Their main conclusions were that "Internet connectivity in the blacked-out region was far more seriously affected than has been publicly revealed. While the largest Internet backbones were apparently unaffected by the blackout, many thousands of significant networks and millions of individual Internet users were offline for hours or days... The scale and duration of the Internet connectivity outages recorded during the blackout strongly suggest that without additional investment in higher-quality interconnection and backup power at its edges, the Internet will be in no shape to supersede the telephone network as the nation's primary communications infrastructure." Download the report by clicking here.

Amnesty International on net repression in Vietnam

Amnesty International released a report yesterday detailing Vietnam's tough stance against freedom of expression on the Internet. AI's announcement says the report "outlines the history and development of the Internet in Viet Nam and the parallel development of control mechanisms over those who use it... The report examines international human rights standards in relation to rights associated with the Internet and refers to emerging international principles specifically related to human rights in cyberspace..." Download the report by clicking here.

EU agrees to prior consultations on Information Society rules

On 17 November the Council of the European Union approved EU accession to Council of Europe Convention 180, which created "the first truly international system (open to more than 50 countries, including the US, Japan and Canada) of regulatory dialogue on information society services." ("Information Society services" are defined as "any service, normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by electronic means and at the individual request of a recipient..." They do not include rules specific to broadcasting or telecommunication networks.)

According to Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, prior notice of new national rules regulating online services "will enable each party to be inspired by the good regulatory practice of others. Secondly, it will enable participants to express their concern about any proposed regulation which is likely to have negative repercussions beyond the borders of the country proposing it."

For more information about the procedures involved, see the Technical Regulations Information System website.

Internet Rangers: Kids helping parents get online

According to ZDnet, British Telecom "announced on Wednesday that it has started a campaign to encourage children to get their families onto the Web. The initiative, called Internet Rangers, gives advice and encouragement on how to get parents and grandparents to swallow the Net bug. According to BT, nearly 40 percent of adults are forced to rely on their children to help them cope with the online world..."

First licensed Internet cafe chain launched in China

Jo Best at Silicon.com reported yesterday that the first Chinese-government-licensed Internet cafe has opened in Beijing, with help from IBM: "The chain got the nod from China's cultural watchdog when the government handed out licences to ten operators back in June. One of the operators, Asia United Telecom and Network Company, opened the doors to the first [licenced] café in the Chinese capital. The company behind the venture is reported to have signed a 'memorandum of understanding' with IBM to allow the two firms to gain a stranglehold in the growing internet market. IBM will bankroll the building of a huge internet café in downtown Beijing - fitted out with Big Blue's hardware, of course – which the Chinese café chain will pay back from any profits it makes from the project. The Chinese government's decision to licence the chain came hot on the heels of the forced closure of thousands of other small internet cafés earlier this year..."