InternetPolicy.net

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..."

Nigeria responds to its email scammers

Online from Lagos, The Guardian said today that "A panel to check advance-fee (419) fraud and allied crimes via the internet was yesterday set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo... The President said the new committee had been empowered to adopt existing laws to cope with scam e-mails and also propose adequate punitive measures... The 15-member committee is headed by the National Security Adviser, Gen. Muhammad Aliyu. Aliyu said the State Security Service (SSS) had been working in collaboration with National Information Technology Development Agency to address the problem of '419' mails and cyber crimes... Other members of the committee are the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director-General of the SSS, the National Intelligence Agency and the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission..."

Cyber-dissent crackdown in Zimbabwe

Reporters sans frontieres said on 24 November that 14 people have been arrested in Zimbabwe, charged with the crime of "circulating an e-mail message criticising President Mugabe's economic policies and calling for his departure... 'Robert Mugabe has already gagged the traditional news media and we must now speak out so that the Internet does not meet the same fate,' Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. 'The Zimbabwean opposition is increasingly using the Internet to distribute information criticising the regime and this right must not be denied them,' he added... This is the first time the authorities have used a law passed last year by the parliament allowing them to intercept e-mail. An employee with a Zimbabwean Internet service provider told the BBC that no system for monitoring e-mail has yet been installed. The police therefore intervened after receiving a copy of the message. The Zimbabwean news media use the Internet to get round government censorship..."

New open-source Internet mapping project

The image above is a small detail of an Internet map generated a few days ago by Barrett Lyon's Opte Project: "The goal of this project is to use a single computer and single Internet connection to map the location of every single class C network on the Internet... The first scanning tests began in late October 2003 and I wish to have the project generate a new map every week... This project started as a bet, but after I warmed up to the idea I found a lot of value in [it]..."

Lyon intends to release his program code after completing the "beta-testing" so others can improve and adapt it and generate their own maps. For nonprogrammers, he plans to produce static and dynamic, 2D (JPG/PNG) and 3D (VRML) maps, with colors showing the region where the link is located (red for Asia-Pacific, blue for North America, etc.). The detail above comes from a map based on some 50 million trace-route "hops." Click here for a small version of the entire map, and here for a larger (much more detailed) version.