Netizens-Digest Tuesday, March 2 2004 Volume 01 : Number 535 Netizens Association Discussion List Digest In this issue: [netz] Re: What the net did next [netz] 10th anniversary of the online publication of Netizens [netz] On the 2004 election [netz] New issue of the Amateur Computerist [netz] ITU hears advocacy for role of netizens Re: [netz] ITU hears advocacy for role of netizens [netz] [IP] from icannwatch -- UN/ITU vs. ICANN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:11:07 -0500 (EST) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: [netz] Re: What the net did next The new year starts with the bbc (and Dave Farber's IP list) presenting views of the internet that take us backwards. I sent this to him for his list and it will be interesting to see if Dave is willing to present a correction of the BBC nonsense that he sent out. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:02:35 -0500 (EST) From: Ronda Hauben To: Dave Farber Cc: Ronda Hauben , dewayne@warpspeed.com, ronda@ais.org, ip@v2.listbox.com, editor@bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [IP] What the net did next Dave, Is there some reason the BBC can't understand what the Internet is about, or take the trouble to spread an accurate understanding of it, rather than a mistaken conception that makes the Internet into the one network APRAPANET? Specifically the Internet is a network of networks - or a metaystem of networks. It makes it possible for diverse networks to speak to each other. The ARPANET was a connection of different computers and operating systems, not at all as the BBC story portrays it. See the following which is the BBC version of the ARPANET and Internet. And below I have included a quote from a paper where the creation of the Internet is described: On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Dave Farber wrote: > > What the net did next > By Mark Ward > BBC News Online technology correspondent > (...) > > TCP/IP was key to turning the Arpanet into the internet. > > Small start > > The Arpanet came before the net and demanded that all computers that > connect to it do so with the same hardware and software. > > By contrast, the net, thanks to TCP/IP, could let people on different sorts > of computers running different software, swap information. > The real contrast is quite different, however. >From a paper about the ARPANET and the Internet: "The ARPANET solved the difficult problem of communication in a network with dissimilar computers and dissimilar operating systems. However, when the objective is to share resources across the boundaries of dissimilar networks, the problems to be solved are compounded. Different networks mean that there can be different packet sizes to accommodate, different network parameters such as different communication media rates, different buffering and signaling strategies, different ways of routing packets, and different propagation delays. Also dissimilar networks can have different error control techniques and different ways of determining the status of network components." .... The challenge in accommodating dissimilar networks is at once a conceptual and architectural problem. Kahn recognized the need for a communications protocol to transmit packets from one network, and reformat them as needed for transmission through successive networks. This would require that there be black boxes or gateway computers and software that would provide the interfaces between the dissimilar networks and which would route the packets to their destination. (18) Also there would need to be software to carry out the functions required by the protocol. Appropriate software modules, and perhaps other modifications to allow efficient performance, would then have to be embedded in the operating systems of the host computers in each of the participating networks and gateways would have to be introduced between them. The design for such a protocol would be a guide to create the specification standard for the software and hardware that each network would agree to implement to become part of an internetwork communications system. The standards or agreements to cooperate would be set out in the protocol." (from The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem) http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt We want the Internet to grow and flourish. It would seem important than to start the new year off with accurate information about its development. Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:11:56 -0500 (EST) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: [netz] 10th anniversary of the online publication of Netizens This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the online publication of "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet". The book was put online in January 1994 at an ftp site. In honor of that anniversary I have written an article online at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netizens2004.doc The book has been reviewed in a number of publications. And other publications present divergent viewspoints, like the book "Politics As Usual" by Margolis and Resnick. Netizens has been mentioned in books and articles in many languages. I was fortunate to get a copy of the Roumanian book "Sisteme Intelligente Orientate Spre Agent" by Boldur-Eugen Barbat. Boldur write in the book " To Ronda and Michael, the first humans who realised that we are not just humans, but netizens too. Without your ideas this book would have been much poorer." Boldur It is an honor to have such a dedication in a book influenced by Netizens. I welcome comments on the article I wrote in honor of this special anniversary. with best wishes Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:45:26 -0500 (EST) From: Jay Hauben Subject: [netz] On the 2004 election The following article appeared in Korean and English at the OhmyNews web site: http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=148854&rel_no=1&adcheck=1&index=1 Will the Internet and Netizens Impact the 2004 US Presidential Election? by Ronda Hauben For a while Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic Party nomination in the US seemed to startle political observers.(1) His use of the Internet and his volunteer campaign staff of netizens were succeeding in unexpected ways to change campaigning procedures and practices. Many of his volunteers have been recruited via the Meetup.org online web site, and his campaign staff sponsors a "Deanblog for America" web site that allows readers to comment on his campaign articles.(2) There are other web sites like blogforamerica.com which provide both articles from the Dean campaign and comments by supporters.(3) Dean's campaign also surprised other contenders for the nomination by raising significant campaign funds online. As the campaign for the Iowa caucus votes and then the New Hampshire primary gathered steam, the news media in the US is focusing less on the potential of the Internet to help candidates gain the Democratic Party nomination. Instead the conservative media organizations are encouraging the old means of campaigning that has led the Democratic Party to become increasingly harder to distinguish from the Republican Party. Negative or positive campaign ads on television, leaflets in mailboxes, newspaper and television editorials, and televised debates are forms of campaigning that bring the old guard of the major political parties back on the political stage they have dominated for so long. This is the kind of politics that led to the situation in the 2000 Presidential election where the distinction between the major party candidates was so slim that the Supreme Court was allowed to decide the election. Can the Internet help overcome the barriers to defeating an incumbent in the 2004 US Presidential election? Observers of the role played in the South Korean Presidential election by netizens and the Internet are wondering if the success of their efforts are a phenomena that can be repeated in the upcoming US Presidential election. In 2002, a South Korean netizens movement was able to effectively challenge the political old guard by waging an Internet campaign first to nominate and then elect Roh Moo-hyun as the South Korean President.(4) Netizens challenged the previous forms of campaign strategy. Critical to the success of the South Korean netizens was an online press that welcomed discussion of its articles by online users. Even more important, however, was the way it promoted the practice of "Every citizen a reporter."(5) The most notable of these is the media organization "OhmyNews." This organization started online in February, 2000 with little money and four full time reporters. The publisher, Yeon-ho Oh welcomed articles from volunteer reporters he called "citizen reporters". The online newspaper soon had contributions from 737 citizen reporters and the interest of a growing number of readers. By September 2003, the number of professional journalists working for OhmyNews had climbed to 53, and there were 26,700 citizen reporters contributing articles. Citizen reporters are paid a small fee for their articles. They contribute their articles to make OhmyNews a force to challenge the conservative news organizations that had previously monopolized Korean politics. There is not a similar kind of news media organization in the US, though the different Democratic candidate campaigns, especially the Dean campaign, are using webblogs to promote communication among their supporters. A recent event in China, however, demonstrates the power of participation online. Recently the Chinese online press described the death of a Chinese peasant and the injury of several others in Harbin, the capital of the Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. The woman, Liu Zhongxia, was killed after a BMW driven by Su Xiuwen hit her. The BMW had had its rearview mirror slightly damaged after Liu's husband Dai Yiquan, who was driving a tractor, swerved slightly to avoid hitting a vehicle that was coming into him on the narrow road.(6) The driver of the BMW got out of her car and reportedly threatened Dia and his wife. Then Su got back into her BMW, and instead of backing away from the accident, drove the car forward killing Liu and injuring several of the bystanders. The case went to court and the BMW driver was given a suspended sentence. The fact that none of those injured, or who had been bystanders testified at the trial, however, was part of the troubling circumstances that led to a public outcry over the events of this case. Dai and the others injured received cash settlements from the BMW driver's husband. In exchange, they agreed not to speak about the case. Chinese netizens learned of the case, and the court verdict and began posting to Internet forums. Soon there were 70,000 comments on the news web site Sina.com, a famous Chinese web portal.(7) By the second week in January, 2004, the Washington Post reports that there had been over 310,000 messages posted at the Sina portal, when the Chinese government had the site delete 20% of the messages as being too critical of the government. By Thursday, January 15, 2004, the 250,000 messages that remained were deleted as well.(8) By this time, the case had achieved international attention. It had become a symbol of the growing gap between rich and poor in China and of the frustration among the Chinese population with the corruption in government accompanying the government's pro business policy. Even in a country censoring Internet use, like China, netizens have demonstrated the power that online discussion forums can provide for the grassroots. Those discussing the BMW incident online, have been able to bring the case to the attention of the national and international media and are seeking to have the case retried. Can the Dean campaign or the campaigns of other democratic candidates vying for the nomination tap this power of the Internet and of netizens to achieve what seems unachievable? An online press welcoming and encouraging citizen contributions of articles and discussion of those articles would help. In China, netizens are finding ways to counter the censorship of online discussion. In South Korea, netizens were able to create a vibrant online netizens movement to elect the candidate they supported to the South Korean Presidency. The upcoming election in the US is a challenge to US netizens to learn from the experience of others around the world and in the US to be able to tap the power of the Internet to make a significant impact on the 2004 Presidential election.(9) (1) http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/16503/1.html (2) http://www.deanforamerica.com/ (3) http://www.blogforamerica.com/ (4) http://www.seoprise.com/technote/read.cgi?board=min&y_number=106&nnew=2 (5) http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/internet/1063672919p.php (6) http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2004-01/18/content_300105.htm (7) http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/forumpost.shtml?toppid=39672 (8) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21197-2004Jan15.html (9) http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netizens2004.txt - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 23:11:07 -0500 (EST) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: [netz] New issue of the Amateur Computerist The 15 year anniversary issue of the Amateur Computerist is now online at: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn12-1.pdf Along with articles from the past 15 years of issues are several articles on the potential of the Internet to support participatory democracy. The articles include "Doing Democracy", "The Reality behind E-democracy" "OhmyNews: A Case Study". Following is an article from the first issue of the Amateur Computerist. This was written the Floyd Hoke-Miller, who was a pioneer of the 1937 Flint Sit Down strike and who continued publishing in the Flint labor press and the IWW Press for many years. DAWN OF A NEW ERA From the Age of Darkness to the Age of Enlightenment -- from the Machine Age to the Mind Age, here we are. Let not any force or forces keep it under wraps. Let it be free to circulate in the Public Domain. Let us base it upon principle, not on price, like Truth or Love. From the Great Wall to the Great Pyramid, from the hieroglyphics to the screen of the computer, mankind is still progressing. So make the new born science, that has given us the computer for the amateur and not as a prerogative of the pro- fessional to be shrouded in secrecy from humanity, the choice of the individual, not an election of a minority. From the falling star to the falling apple, from the minute to the multitudinous, from secrets to disclosure, I am pleased to endorse the amateur method. Therefore I implore all to plan and to participate even though I have been on disability for 26 years and have not had the opportunity to participate in the great sea of knowledge that has flowed over the Dam of Secrecy since I was inactivated physically and mentally -- in my advanced years and state of general debility I still see the mind of man the greatest computer of all -- So Let Us Continue to Make Use of It to the Advantage of the Masses - Come, Let Us Reason Together. With an open mind and a free spirit, let me reiterate, there is so much more to know, that what we do know, is still insignificant. It gives me great pleasure to endorse this free-for-all program of a restless mind. Floyd Hoke-Miller, UAW Retiree and Flint Sit Down Striker ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 23:47:39 -0500 (EST) From: Jay Hauben Subject: [netz] ITU hears advocacy for role of netizens Hi, We just learned that at an ITU workshop in Geneva on Friday, Feb. 27, 2004, one of the speakers Izumi Aizu of Japan advocated that successful the governance of the Internet's required participation of the Netizens. He said the word was coined by his friend the late Michael Hauben. He went on to quote Michael and to say why Netizens were crucial to the solution of the Internet problems of the future. You can see his talk at: http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/contributions/izumi-contribution.pdf The panel Izumi spoke as part of was chaired by Robert Kahn. Its title was Public Policy Issues in Internet Governance. It is Session 5 and the audio can be heard by clicking on audio at the far right of Session 5 on: http://www.itu.int/ibs/sg/spu/index.html It is a positive event that the ITU was made aware of the importance of Netizens. The ITU is making a bid to bring the UN into Internet governance. I think readers of this the netizens list will find this advocacy of the importnace of the netizens in Internet governance ecourageing. Take care. Jay ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 00:07:53 -0500 (EST) From: Jay Hauben Subject: Re: [netz] ITU hears advocacy for role of netizens Here is the URL for the ITU workshop webpage: http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/ On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, Jay Hauben wrote: > Hi, > > We just learned that at an ITU workshop in Geneva on Friday, Feb. 27, > 2004, one of the speakers Izumi Aizu of Japan advocated that successful > governance of the Internet required participation of the Netizens. > He said the word was coined by his friend the late Michael Hauben. He went > on to quote Michael and to say why Netizens were crucial to the solution > of the Internet problems of the future. You can see his talk at: > > http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/contributions/izumi-contribution.pdf > > The panel Izumi was part of was chaired by Robert Kahn. Its title was > Public Policy Issues in Internet Governance. It is Session 5 and the audio > can be heard by clicking on audio at the far right of Session 5 on: > > http://www.itu.int/ibs/sg/spu/index.html > > It is a positive event that the ITU was made aware of the importance > of Netizens. The ITU is making a bid to bring the UN into Internet > governance. > > I think readers of this the netizens list will find this advocacy of the > importance of the netizens in Internet governance ecourageing. > > Take care. > > Jay > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 16:02:55 -0500 (EST) From: Jay Hauben Subject: [netz] [IP] from icannwatch -- UN/ITU vs. ICANN The following is forwarded from the IP mailing list. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 12:06:01 -0700 From: Dave Farber To: ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] from icannwatch -- UN/ITU vs. ICANN http://icannwatch.com/print.pl?sid=04/02/29/1711228 ITU Workshop: ICANN's "we don't do governance" line falls flat Date: Sunday February 29 2004, @07:01AM Topic: ITU February 27 might be marked as the date ICANN officially lost control of public discourse on Internet governance. On those dates an ITU workshop brought the Internet folks (root server operators, RIRs, ICANN staff, ISOC, W3C, former ICANN Board members, ccTLD representatives and Robert Kahn), and the academic policy analysts following WSIS and Internet governance into direct contact with the traditionalist national government representatives of China, Brazil, and Syria and some of the political leaders of the WSIS process, notably Swiss "e-Envoy" Markus Kummer.* If the workshop had any lasting effect, it was to lay to rest the ICANN- promulgated myth that the Internet is currently free of governance and thus any discussion of it needs to be avoided or short-circuited. As speaker after speaker called attention to the policy implications not only of the ICANN regime but also of several other Internet-related international rules (e.g., Council of Europe Cybercrime Treaty), it became clear that the intergovernmental system is not going to obligingly go away if ignored. Participants largely dismissed ICANNs (now halfheartedly made) claim that it only does technical coordination, and directly confronted the issue of how technical issues and policy issues can be interrelated. The eerie coincidence of the VeriSign lawsuit only reinforced the point. ICANN is now legally and officially accused of being a rogue economic regulator. Politically, the meeting reinforced the momentum created by the World Summit on the Information Society, which succeeded in inserting "traditional" intergovernmental institutions back into the Internet governance debate. It did this by coopting an energized civil society, a nontraditional factor in the international system. WSIS attracted hundreds of active NGOs and freelance communication-information policy activists, many of them, like Izumi Aizu, people who had become active first around ICANN. These actors seem to feel that they are getting more political traction through their WSIS related activities than through participating in ICANN. (My cynical take on this is that many cyber-activists prefer the WSIS and ITU forums because they can talk about euphonious terms like "participation" or "the peer production of governance" and avoid the tough, tedious, mud-wrestles over policy that happen when they actually are included as participants.) ITU staff members Richard Hill and Robert Shaw successfully courted civil society participants by giving them a platform and showing that, if nothing else, the ITU can give them access to governments and IGOs and treat them as equals. More broadly, ITU showed that it can succeed in bringing together parties that normally talk past each other for a dialogue. Serious questions can still be raised about the superiority of the intergovernmental system over the ICANN-self governance regime, however. This type of workshop is not typical of how governments make real treaties or policy decisions. And as the interventions of the Chinese delegate proved, many governments still don't welcome civil society participation. China, (apparently disturbed by a snowballing discussion of "netizens" and online democracy) opposed allowing any of the workshop materials to be included in the official report, seeing it as merely an information session that could be utilized (or not) in a future meeting of member states. Interestingly, some European governments, notably the Danish, took the same line, although for different reasons (they want EU, not ITU, to take the lead). The ITU is now rather overtly positioning itself to inherit or take control of certain Internet governance functions that seem to require multilateral agreements among governments. However, this positioning is coming more from corridor discussions and over-beer ruminations - there was no discernable manipulation of the program (indeed, the author of this piece complained to Shaw and Hill that the ICANN panel contained only pro-ICANN speakers). *Kummer surprised many in the audience when he noted that he had been approached about chairing the yet-to-be-created UN Working Group on Internet Governance. - ------------------------------------- Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ------------------------------ End of Netizens-Digest V1 #535 ******************************