InternetPolicy.net

Italy forbids unsolicited email

"Sending e-mails without the permission of the receiver is against the law in Italy. Offenders now risk fines of up to 90,000 euros and between six months and three years in prison, if it is proved that they did it to make a profit... [Italy's] privacy watchdog issued the ruling in an attempt to limit the huge amount of advertising and promotional material sent online...."

If anyone can provide more specifics concerning this BBC report, please email us.

Safer Internet - Public Consultation

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Commission have extended their Safer Internet Programme to the end of 2004 and are now planning a follow-on programme for 2005-8. Their aim is to "promote safer use of the Internet and new online technologies, particularly for children, and to fight against illegal content and content unwanted by the end user." A public consultation on the programme's future will be held Friday, 12 September 2003, in room M6 of the Jean Monnet Building in Luxembourg. The agenda and registration form are online here. Extending the programme to the EU accession countries, to spam and unsolicited commercial messages sent to mobile/GSM phones are some of the new directions expected in the 2005-8 timeframe. The morning of the 12 September consultation will focus on how to submit a proposal for funding (about 11.7 million euros has been earmarked for 2003-4). The afternoon includes time for individual project developers to talk with EC officials. The closing date for submitting proposals is planned for 14 November 2003. Written comments on the Programme's extension into 2005-8 can also be emailed to iap@cec.eu.int with the subject "Safer Internet plus consultation." If received by 17.00 Luxembourg time on Monday, 15 September 2003, the comments will be taken into account and posted on the Safer Internet web site (unless requested otherwise).

Cybersecurity pressure builds on US Congress

The recent email worms, security holes in popular software, and the rising tide of break-ins to institutional networks, seem to be causing the US Congress to want to do something - anything - just so it isn't perceived as doing nothing. "There are a number of things that are working together that are going to result in some form of legislation on cybersecurity," Washington lawyer Robert Housman told Computerworld...

First Monday

The new issue of First Monday is full of good essays, including "Wireless Internet connectivity for developing nations" by Larry Press, "The many paradoxes of broadband" by Andrew Odlyzko, "The current status and potential development of online news consumption: A structural approach" by An Nguyen, "Giving E-mail back to the users: Using digital signatures to solve the spam problem" by Trevor Tompkins and Dan Handley, and many more. Don't miss it.

"An Economic Map of the Internet"

Belatedly discovered but still valuable: "An economic map of the Internet" by Shawn O'Donnell, a researcher in MIT's Program on Internet & Telecoms Convergence (23 pages, 2002). Covering just the US, it traces dollar-flow through various market- and service-segments, bringing scale and focus to many relationships that are usually discussed in vague terms or not at all.

Asian nations "move away" from "US-led Internet"

IT ministers from Japan, China and South Korea plan to meet on 8 September at Cheju Island to sign an agreement on cooperation in setting new Internet standards, future R & D and information exchange. According to the Electronic Times of Seoul, this is part of a regional effort to "move away" from the "US-led Internet system" - particularly the domain name system administered by ICANN - and "begin to unveil independent alternative services." Governments are working with businesses on novel implementations of IPv6. "Mybyul.com will throw down the gauntlet to the Internet domain service market which is dominated by ICANN by developing an independent Internet protocol shedding [the] existing 'http' and holding a demonstrative event for .byul service at Plaza Hotel on Aug. 28," says the Times. "Netpia is also declaring domain independence... Netpia sold almost 200,000 Hangul Internet addresses in Korea alone, and is putting a brake on ICANN lead by emphasizing mother tongue domain for ninety non-English speaking countries including Taiwan and Thailand..."

E-signing by mouse?

From the BBC website: "Scientists have found a way for people to sign their name online using a mouse instead of a pen... The system could be used to verify that people using a website are who they claim to be or provide another level of checking when people use credit cards online. Created by computer scientist Dr Peter McOwan at Queen Mary, University of London, the software system uses a neural network to pick out the unique features of the way that someone uses a mouse... Dr McOwan said the system is easy to install on machines as it needs only software to operate. It can keep an eye on the way that someone uses a mouse and refine information about distinctive mouse movements over time... Early trials of the system on students in the computer science department at Queen Mary showed that it was 99% accurate in spotting who was using a mouse to sign." (Thanks to Slashdot for the pointer.)

"Is the Internet dying?"

Karl Auerbach posted an item in his CaveBear Blog on 19 August that is still important reading:

"I am always amazed, and appalled, when I fire up a packet monitor and watch the continuous flow of useless junk that arrives at at my demarcation routers' interfaces... [I] believe that this background noise will become a Niagara-like roar that drowns the usability of the internet.

"Between viruses and spammers and just plain old bad code, the net is now subject to a heavy, and increasing, level of background packet radiation... Search engines still come around sniffing for web sites that disappeared... I am aware of people who are continuously bombarded by file access queries because a prior user of [their IP] address shared files from that address. Entire blocks of IP addresses are also contaminated, perhaps permanently, because they once hosted spammers thus causing those address blocks to be entombed into the memories of an unknown number of anti-spam filters not merely at the end user level but also deep in the routing infrastructure of the net....

"I believe that something radical will happen: We may see the rapid end to the 'end-to-end' principle on the internet... The loss of open end-to-end communications will, in itself, be a great loss. But of even more concern will be the fact that these portals, or gates, will require gatekeepers, which is merely a polite word for censors..."

"Government oversight for Internet is sought"

Amy Harmon writes in today's New York Times and International Herald Tribune: "some experts say that it is time for the government to improve the kind of of stability in cyberspace that societies expect from their critical public resources... Many security specialists now advocate direct regulation, in the form of legislation that makes software companies liable for damage caused by security flaws in their products... But some longtime Internet users worry that decisions about security, if left in private hands, may balkanize a network whose openness is precisely what has permitted it to flourish. Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor who is an expert on cyberspace, says, 'There's an opportunity here for policy that would address the harms of worms and viruses and spam and invasions of privacy, without breaking the Internet.'"

Patent may cover browser plug-ins, applets

The recent court ruling about Microsoft's Internet Explorer infringing a patent held by Eolas Technologies Inc. "could have implications for the whole of the World Wide Web," according to Steven R Bratt, head of the web standards organization W3C - Simon Aughton reports in PCPro: "The patent could cover a whole sector of Internet content, including plug-ins..., applets and scriptlets.... [W3C] has contacted Eolas to ascertain what its future intentions are, but has received no reply. Consequently the leading players in Internet software development met last month to discuss changes that may have to be made to browsers, authoring software and websites... W3C has set-up a mailing list for discussion of these issues."