ISOC na świecie

Contributed by Nehora Dagan-Hess

The Internet Society’s Israel Chapter (ISOC-IL), together with two other Israeli organizations celebrated “OneWebDay 2008″, over three activity-filled days from 22-24 September 2008.

In Israel, as in many other places around the world, the goal of this celebration was to emphasize the cooperation and human connections fostered by the internet and express the positive aspects of the World Wide Web.

One Web Day events included activities for all ages: children, youths and adults at thirteen Community Technology Centers across the country. This year, children and youth activities promoted a variety of “green” subjects and included a sign, animation, and graphic design competition: “I Wish - My Green World ” for 4th through 6th graders at the Community Technology Centers. Selected works from each class were uploaded to an online Gallery where the general public were encouraged to vote for their favourites.

Simultaneously, the Community Technology Centers held adult workshops (open to the public and free of charge) sensible internet use as well as commercial and e-Gov services. Training sessions were also provided on various uses on the personal computer environment, such as email, digital cameras, cell phones, and scanners.

Contributed by Holly Raiche

A highlight of the past month was the visit to Sydney, Australia of the ISOC Regional Bureau Manager for South and Southeast Asia, Rajnesh Singh. The chapter hosted a dinner for him and discussed issues of importance for both ISOC and ISOC-AU.

One of our Directors also attended the .au Domain Administration (auDA) Stakeholders’ meeting, with particular discussion on the Australian Community Geographic Domain Names.

The chapter recently made two submissions. One was to an auDA review of the Industry Competition Panel and one was to the ICANN Final ACAL Review Report. Both are available on our website as well as on the auDA and ICANN sites.

Finally a reminder of our IPv6 Summit being held in Canberra from 17-19 November 2008, with the theme of “Transition to IPv6″. Speakers will include ICANN CEO, Paul Twomey as well as speakers from Bechtel, Cisco, Juniper Networks, NTT and Australian network providers, government, defence and academia who have begun the transition process to IPv6 Learn more and register on our website.

PIR .ORG (the registry for the .org top level domain) and Eco (the federation of the German Internet economy) have announced a forum event to gather thought-leaders under the theme “From Ground Breaking to the Mainstream.”

During this one-day event, experts will discuss new ideas, concepts, and technologies in the experimental stage that will contribute to the future growth and stability of the Internet. The event will be held on 8 October, 2008 in Frankfurt, Germany from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm in the DE-CIX Competence Center.

“The workshop’s theme to foster dialogue about mainstream to ground breaking ideas is a great fit for .ORG, The Public Interest Registry. The .ORG registry promotes ideals and principles necessary for an open community and the long-term health of the Internet,” says Alexa Raad, CEO, of Public Interest Registry. “Since Germany has the second highest market penetration of .ORG domains, this country was a natural choice to locate this unique event.”

The agenda features sessions on new developments with the .ORG domain in the area of security and stabililty as well as discussion on the challenges and opportunities of the increasing Domainer market. Since The Public Interest Registry took over the administration and managementof the .ORG domain in 2003, the number of registered domains grew from 2.3 million to over 7 million today. .ORG is the third largest generic top-level domain in the world, following .COM and .NET , and the broad spectrum of .ORG registrants extends from global organizations such as Amnesty international and Greenpeace to communities such as Craigslist and Wikipedia, as well as federations and associations.

The full agenda and registration details are available on the Eco web site.

The European Chapters Coordinating Council (ISOC-ECC) has made an important contribution to lawmakers in the European Commission debating changes to intellectual property law.

In 2007, the EU Commission conducted a public consultation into intellectual property issues, prompted by concerns about the impact that digital downloads and file sharing may have on the rights of publishers and creative artists. The consultation was followed by an official “Communication” in January 2008 and a further consultation in February 2008. During the same period, the French government developed a draft law, commonly known as the “Hadopi” law, which proposed a system of warnings and sanctions to be imposed by ISPs on users who breached intellectual property law.

ISOC-ECC, which coordinates the work of the European Chapters of ISOC, produced an “Aide Memoire” critical of the proposed Hadopi law and the analogous discussions in the European Parliament as a “disproportionate response to the objective of developing creative content online”. The Aide Memoire was in fact based on a strong position paper originally developed by Charles Simon for ISOC’s French Chapter.

The response warns that the unintended consequences of the law could include cutting off citizens’ access to essential services such as tax filing, online banking, and even education.

The Aide Memoire has been endorsed by 14 European Chapters of ISOC, namely France, Poland, England, Germany, Wallonia, Belgium, Romania, Luxembourg, Italy, Finland, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands. It has now been presented to the responsible member of the European Commission, Madame Viviane Reding, and to the rapporteur of the European Parliament Committee dealing with telecommunications legislation, Madame Catherine Trautmann.

ISOC-ECC is now encouraging other Chapters to post the Aide Memoire to their own web sites and to refer it to their respective MEPs and other senior officials in the EU.

ISOC’s Director of Public Policy, Frédéric Donck, describes the process leading to the coordination and development of this response as a successful example of full cooperation and coordination between ISOC chapters at regional level.

“Thanks to the hard work of the European Chapters, led by ISOC-ECC Chair Christopher Wilkinson, building on the efforts of Charles Simon and France Miremont from the French Chapter, the result is a strong position on an important piece of legislation at both national and regional level,” said Frédéric.

The Aide Memoire is available on the ISOC-ECC web site in both English and French.

Contributed by Frédéric Donck

The Internet Society (ISOC) is organizing a high level policy meeting on “Broad and equitable access to the Internet”, which will take place on 16 October 2008 in Dakar, Sénégal.

This event, which is specifically addressed to high level policymakers, is organized by ISOC in collaboration with ISOC Sénégal and the Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP) of Senegal, following three days of regional meetings dedicated to Internet Governance and Development (13-15 October 2008).

Broad and equitable access to the Internet is intended to address the regulatory challenges that African policy makers face in this new era of Internet and telecommunication infrastructure development. In particular, it will feature discussions among key area specialists and decision makers about the regulation of undersea cables as well as the new wireless technologies that so many African countries are successfully deploying to connect their rural zones. The meeting will also examine how to optimise the use of universal service funds, which can be instrumental in providing access to areas that are not typically attractive for commercial operators.

The meeting is expected to trigger high level policy discussions between the participants on the issues that African heads of states, ministers, regulators, and other policy makers have identified as important for Internet development on the continent. These discussions will develop the dialogue from other recent fora, including Connect Africa in Kigali, the Second Conference of African Ministers in charge of communication and information technologies in Cairo, and the 9th Forum on Telecom/ICT
Regulation and Partnership in Africa in Dakar.

For additional information please contact Mr Dawit Bekele, Regional Bureau of ISOC via email bekele@isoc.org or phone +251 911 22 13 33, or visit the website.

Contributed by Mireille Edin (ICIN2008 Team)

ICIN is a leading conference in the application of intelligence in the service layer, with a track record of attracting leading experts from all sectors of the ICT industry with high quality presentations and discussions. ISOC is pleased to be a supporter of the ICIN 2008 Conference, to be held in Bordeaux, France, 20-23 October 2008. The programme includes:

• Tutorials and sponsored seminars
• Keynote and panel sessions
• Technical and scientific sessions
• Poster session

ICIN 2008 also features a pre-conference tutorial and seminar day: 

• Delivering Services over IMS - It’s Showtime, Folks! Ulf Olsson (Ericsson, SE)
• Identity Management in the Service Delivery Environment - Enabling Secure Web 2.0 and 3rd Party Based Application, Anders Lundqvist (Oracle, SE)
• Cross-Fertilization of IMS and IPTV Services over NGN, Niklas Blum and Christian Riede (Fraunhofer FOKUS, DE)
• Security Aspects and Mechanisms of the Identity Management, Igor Faynberg and Hui-Lan Lu (Alcatel-Lucent, US)
• Sponsored seminar by NeuStar, Inc.: ENUM in Action, Adrian Dodd (GSMA, UK) and Steve Granek (NeuStar, US)

For more information, see the ICIN website or contact icin-info@neustar.biz.

Contributed by Giandomenico Massari

Another new Jon Postel IT center donated to the University of UYO, Akwa Ibom State, in the Southern part of Nigeria, was commissioned on 9 September 2008. The colorful ceremony had the full participation of the University academia, staff, and students and was led by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Essien.

The IT center is equipped with 25 computers with wireless desktop cards for wireless LAN connectivity, and receives Internet access via a VSAT dish. Two printers, a scanner, computer desks, and swivel chairs were also donated.

This is the 14th Jon Postel IT center donated by ISOC Nigeria Chapter. We are expecting to commission another Jon Postel IT Center donated to the University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) in October.

In the meantime, ISOC Nigeria Chapter have launched a program called “ICT FOR ALL” that will comprise seminars, workshops, and training courses. We are working in synergy with institutions and student bodies to organize the various events. Updates will be provided in subsequent newsletters. For more information, visit our website.

Contributed by Khaled Koubaa

ISOC’s Tunisia Chapter continues its support to youth and society by providing hosting and Internet resources for a new initiative: Your First Step Campaign. The First Step campaign aims to highlight how people all over the world - young and old, emerging and established figures - take action on critical issues that matter to them. The First Step campaign was initiated by a group of young activists who took part in the CIVICUS Youth Assembly 2008 in Glasgow, Scotland, as a platform for sharing the stories of how people from all walks of life, all over the world, are making change a reality. The First Step Campaign has been initiated in order to:

• Inspire and activate those who have not participated yet in community affairs
• Share the story of how youth take their first steps to make the world a better place to live for all
• Sustain those who are already involved in their community
• Link communities, organizations, and groups working on specific issues and specific areas
• Motivate youth to take part in Youth-Led development projects
• Provide useful resources for youth to take actions.

For more details click on the First Step website.

Contributed by Holly Raiche

A recent highlight for ISOC-AU was a reception held jointly with our lawyers for ISOC Trustee and Internet guru, Fred Baker. Fred took us back to the early days of the Internet and its development and he offered his insights into where he thought the Internet is heading. Attendees (a combination of corporates and academics) were engaged with his presentation, and there was much demand for a copy of his presentation.

ISOC-AU was also part of the Working Group that helped establish a new peak telecommunications consumer organisation, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN); our ED was appointed as a member of the ACCAN initial Board. ISOC-AU Board members also attended workshops hosted by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy on capabilities and the digital economy.

ISOC-AU has made two submissions on policies impacting on the Internet. The first was to Australian Domain Name Administrator, auDA’s review of competition policy in the DNS. The second was to a Senate Committee on broadband provision in Australia.