Below is a review of the FSOSS 2007 Symposium at Seneca which had some really great talks and speakers.  See you next year!!

The Free Software and Open Source Symposium 2007 was a successful event.   The broad spectrum of presentations, varying from the open source efforts of proprietary giant Microsoft to democracy within open source communities, addressed significant questions, from open source project management to product applications.  One interesting application from the Shuttleworth Foundation was

  Kusasa, but more on that later. The first talks were on design: what constitutes design, what is design and most importantly who design is for.  These questions were reminscent of a recent talk at Berkman prepared by Michael Maier. Maier suggested that the design of the Internet is still developing and this design affects site usage, citing his own choice not to use MySpace due to its poor design [video available here:http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2007/10/03/participation-design-search-how-the-internet-is-transforming-2/].  At the FSOSS talks, time and again the emphasis was on the user and the purpose of the software, whether that purpose be purely functional or meaningful.  Design without the user in mind produces very low quality software and very unusable products, such as the now obscure CueCat. The purpose of the CueCat barcode scanner was to track URL usage by readers of Wired Magazine, however, typing in the URL was more simple and preferable for the user.  The design of the CueCat did not consider the user; the user must therefore be the primary consideration in such processes.

One pervasive theme of the conference was the democratic (or undemocratic) structure of the open source communities.  The speaker Jesse Hirsch interrelated the ideas of democratic rule and the structures of social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, arguing that the main reason why Facebook has overtaken MySpace is more efficient structures of governance.  Whereas MySpace initially lacked any sort of control or boundaries, Facebook was more structured and included built in control features.  According to Hirsch, like MySpace, Wikipedia too lacks governance.  Accordingly, Hirsch prefers not to use Wikipedia as a source for information, finding the lack of governance affects its legitimacy. Another point that Hirsch discussed was the lack of democracy within open source communities, suggesting that the apathy of democracy in the ‘real-world’ transfers to the open source community.  However, if open source communities became democratic, that enthusiasm could be transferred back into the real world and possibly reverse the democratic apathy that is observable today. 

The open source project of interest is the open source software {Kusasa}, http://www.kusasa.org/, developed by the Shuttleworth Foundation. The idea is to take the software and the technology into schools to make knowledge accessible for children and to inspire them.  Similar in ideology to the One Laptop per Child campaign, the project brings the benefits of technology to those who benefit most.

Book Review

Weber, Steven.  The Success of Open Source.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

This book gives an excellent account of the history and design of open source software communities, interconnecting

the development process with highly relevant examples and case studies (mostly between the proprietary based Microsoft versus open source Linux).  Weber, who is a professor of political science, also manages to relate cooperation strategies, a topic prevalent in international relations theory, with the design of open source communities.  The book delves into technical aspects to investigate some empirical history of computing, however, these sections are not difficult to follow.

Other Books to look at:
Joode, R. van Wendel de, J.A. de Brujin and M.J.G. van Eetan. Protecting the Virtual Commons: Self-Organizing Open Source and Free Software Communities and Innnovative Intellectual Property Regimes. The Hague: Asser Press, 2003.

Seneca is hosting the 2007 FSOSS Symposium and Workshop to be held at York University (specific location: 70 Pond Road).  The conference will take place on Thursday and Friday of this week (October 25 and 26th).

Go to:

http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/2007/ to register, and be sure to

sign up for the workshops. 

This Week In Review  

Articles of Review:

International Herald Tribune, Blogging from Havana, secretly  

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/10/business/cubablog.php  

and 

Myanmar’s “Saffron Revolution”: The Geopolitics behind the Protest Movement, Centre for Research on Globalization

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7072  

The effects of the Internet and blogs as a communication tool has been a central topic in the analysis of information dissemination in the pro-democracy protests in Burma; the same topic has recently been raised in regards to disseminating information of life in Cuba. The Internet has become an effective means of relaying information to a global audience with significant impacts. 

This week the article on bloggers begin to tell the realities of life in Communist Cuba, from the International Herald Tribune, discusses how bloggers use their blogs to relay information about the conditions of life in the state, where the government has tight control of information. The government not only controls information but also access to the Internet.  For example, blogger Yoani Sanchez, being a local, is prohibited from using the Internet in hotels, where Internet access is reserved for tourists and visiting foreigners.  

The control of media and access to information can be compared to the situation in Burma, on the grounds of government attempts to create a closed information society. As has been written in commentaries spanning the past two weeks, the Burmese government attempted to control information dissemination about the pro-democracy movement.

The two cases are similar in that the government feels that the Internet is a threat to their position of authority since the information that is being disseminated may undermine their capacity to exercise power. Thus, each government exercises their authority with their actions to contain the tools that disseminate information, in this case, the Internet.   

This type of response is worrisome for two reasons. The model of this type of government response serves as a model for other states. As the Burmese and Cuban governments display these kinds of actions, they become more available to others. However, although in each case there is an attempt to control Internet access, this tactic is somewhat ineffective given the growth of information communication technologies worldwide.   

The second cause for concern is that in an information based society, controlling information or access to it is an infringement on human rights.  The right to access information is a human right as declared by Article 19 and should be protected. Therefore, the precedent setting effects of such actions by states and the infringement on human rights are two aspects of the Cuban and Burmese cases that are similar between the two situations.  

The potential political impacts of the technology of the Internet cannot be underestimated, especially towards the support of democracy and political change.

Syria should immediately release writers and activists detained solely for expressing their opinions or reporting information online, Human Rights Watch said today. Syrian authorities have held two men in incommunicado detention since June for expressing online views that are critical of the Syrian government. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts of the detained men to their families. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced a third man to two years in prison for posting online comments that displeased the authorities. 

Syria: Stop Arrests for Online Comments

Two Internet Activists Held Incommunicado, May Be ‘Disappeared’

(New York, October 8, 2007) – Syria should immediately release writers and activists detained solely for expressing their opinions or reporting information online, Human Rights Watch said today. Syrian authorities have held two men in incommunicado detention since June for expressing online views that are critical of the Syrian government. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts of the detained men to their families. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced a third man to two years in prison for posting online comments that displeased the authorities.

“The fact that Syria arrests people solely because they criticize the state speaks volumes about the government’s utter disregard for the most basic human rights,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Even worse, Syrian intelligence has the nasty habit of not telling families where their loved ones are being detained – in effect, disappearing them for periods of time.”  
 
On June 7, the Mantaqa Branch of Military Intelligence detained Karim `Arbaji, 29, allegedly for moderating www.akhawia.net, a popular online forum for Syrian youth covering social and political issues. Persons familiar with the case told Human Rights Watch that the Mantaqa Branch may have transferred him to the Palestine Branch in Damascus, but the authorities have provided no official notification of `Arbaji’s whereabouts. On June 30, 2007, Military Intelligence in the coastal city of Tartous arrested Tarek Biasi, 22, because he “went online and insulted security services,” according to a person familiar with the case. Biasi remains in incommunicado detention, his whereabouts unknown. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Ali Zein al-`Abideen Mej`an to two years in prison for “undertaking acts or writing or speeches unauthorized by the government … that spoil its ties with a foreign state” because he posted comments online attacking Saudi Arabia.  
 
The UN General Assembly condemned “enforced disappearances” as “a grave and flagrant violation” of human rights, and defined the violation in these terms: “[P]ersons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government … followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.” The UNGA Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance states that enforced disappearance violates the right not to be subjected to torture, and constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.  
 
Syrian security services frequently require internet cafe owners to spy on customers that access “sensitive” sites. On December 13, 2006, Political Security arrested `Ahed al-Hindi, 23, and one of his relatives, in an internet cafe in Damascus, because al-Hindi was sending comments and information to opposition websites outside Syria. The owner of the internet cafe had filmed al-Hindi posting the comments. Al-Hindi and his relative were released on January 15, 2007.  
 
Syrian authorities recently took measures to restrict the use of anonymous comments that many Syrian writers rely on to escape state surveillance. On July 25, 2007, the Syrian minister of communications and technology, `Amr Salem, issued a decree requiring all website owners to display “the name and e-mail of the writer of any article or comment [appearing on their site] … clearly and in detail, under threat of warning the owner of the website, then restricting access to the website temporarily and in case the violation is repeated, permanently banning the website.” In the first documented application of the directive, the Ministry of Communications and Technology restricted access to www.damaspost.com, a popular Syrian news website, for 24 hours after a commentator identified as “Jamal” criticized the head of the Journalists’ Union and the al-Ba`ath newspaper for nepotism.  
 
Under international law, the rights to privacy and free expression entail a corollary right to communicate anonymously. Allowing persons to speak anonymously, without fear of reprisal or stigma, encourages the sort of expression that is critical to protection of rights and a democratic society – from political pamphleteering, to anonymous tips for journalists, to “blowing the whistle” on corruption by officials or companies. While the right to anonymity is not absolute, the restrictions imposed by the Syrian decree eliminate it altogether in the name of repressing purportedly “criminal” expression.  
 
The Syrian government blocks websites that span a range of categories. Authorities impose most substantial filtering against sites that criticize government policies or support Syrian opposition groups. Censored websites also include Arabic newspapers outside Syria that carry materials critical of the government, such as the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi (www.al-quds.co.uk) and al-Sharq al-Awsat (www.asharqalawsat.com), the Beirut-based al-Mustaqbal (www.almustaqbal.com.lb), the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Seyassah (www.alseyassah.com), as well as websites belonging to Syrian opposition or Kurdish political parties and Islamist websites. OpenNet Initiative, a partnership of four leading universities in the US, Canada and the UK, which monitors government filtration and surveillance of the internet, says that filtering of political websites in Syria is “pervasive.” The Syrian government’s censorship also covers popular websites such as Google’s blogging engine, www.blogspot.com, and www.youtube.com.  
 
The last six years have seen an explosion of internet use in Syria, with close to 1 million of the country’s 18 million people now online, compared to just 30,000 in 2000. The Arab Advisors Group, an Amman-based business-consulting firm, projects that the number of Syrian internet users will exceed 1.7 million by 2009.  
 
Human Rights Watch called on Syria to cease blocking websites that carry material protected by the right to free expression and access to information, and to release all those detained solely for exercising these rights, online or otherwise.  
 
Background  
 
In an extensive 2005 study on online censorship in the Middle East and North Africa (http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/) Human Rights Watch found that “the Syrian government relies on a host of repressive laws and extralegal measures to suppress Syrians’ right to access and disseminate information freely online.” Among those detained in the past for posting information online are:  

• `Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghuri: On February 23, 2003, Syrian secret police agents arrested `Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghuri for emailing articles copied from the Akhbar al-Sharq (Levant News) website, http://www.thisissyria.net. The government said it considered the site’s content “detrimental to the reputation and security of the nation,” and “full of ideas and views opposed to the system of government in Syria.” His captors beat and tortured al-Shaghuri and held him incommunicado at the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus before moving him to the Sednaya military prison on the outskirts of the city. On June 20, 2004, the Security Court found him guilty, under the Press Law, of “publishing lies” and disseminating articles “that harmed the image and security of Syria.” The court sentenced him to three years in prison and then reduced the sentence to two-and-a-half years. He was released on August 31, 2005.  
• Yahya al-Ous and the Qutaish Brothers: In September 2002 two construction workers were reportedly killed while digging a tunnel in Damascus. Over the course of the following few weeks, Haytham Qutaish, his brother Muhannad, and Yahya al-Ous were arrested for sending emails to a Gulf-based newspaper about the incident. They had previously sent articles criticizing the Syrian government’s economic, political, and human rights policies and government corruption. Syrian Military Intelligence held them in Sednaya prison for nearly two years before the Supreme State Security Court found the three guilty, on July 25, 2004, of “receiving secret information on behalf of a foreign state which threatens the security of Syria” and using the internet to publish “false news outside of Syria” under the terms of the Press Law. The court found the Qutaish brothers guilty of “encouraging the transfer of secret information.” The court further found Haytham Qutaish guilty of “writing that threatens the security of Syria and her relations with foreign states.” The court sentenced Haytham Qutaish and his brother Muhannad to four and three years in prison, respectively. They were released on November 4, 2005. Al-Ous spent two years in prison before being released.  
• Mas`ud Hamid: On June 25, 2003, police violently dispersed a demonstration of Syrian-Kurdish children in front of the Damascus office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Mas`ud Hamid, a Kurdish-Syrian journalism student, posted photographs of the event on several websites, including the German-based Kurdish website http://www.amude.com. One month later, on July 24, 2003, Public Security officers arrested Hamid as he was taking an exam. Witnesses told Reporters sans frontières that the manner of his arrest, in which he was handcuffed in front of a room full of students, seemed intended to intimidate the future journalists. The authorities held him in solitary confinement in `Adra prison for one year before allowing him monthly visits from his lawyer and family. Interrogators reportedly tortured him on several occasions and beat him with a studded whip on the soles of his feet. On October 10, 2004, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Hamid to three years in prison after finding him guilty of “membership of a secret organization” and having “attempted to annex part of Syrian territory to another country” – charges frequently leveled against detained Syrian Kurds. Hamid was released from `Adra prison on July 24, 2006.  
• Habib Salih: On May 29, 2005, Military Intelligence officers arrested Habib Salih in Tartus, approximately 100 miles (130 kilometers) north of Damascus, for posting on two websites a series of open letters addressed to the delegates attending the June 2005 Ba`ath Party Conference in which he detailed his prison experiences. In the months since his release, he had also written critical articles for the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar and the banned website http://www.elaph.com. He was sentenced to three years on August 15, 2006 by the Tartus Criminal Court for “spreading false news that weaken the spirit of the nation.” He was released on September 12, 2007.

Among the events of the past week, the main issues have been focused on government restrictions of access to the Internet and access to information. Efforts by the state to restrict information were demonstrated by the actions of governments, actions which limited freedom of expression and access to information. The following comparative commentary analyzes the Internet restrictions imposed by governments in Burma and China.

Nearly two weeks ago the Burmese government decided to turn off Internet access during the pro-democracy protests. This impaired access to information for those within the region as well as those outside of the region trying to receive information about events within the state. What has recently been reported about this situation has been the effect of the Internet in the political realm. The Forbes article, titled “Myanmar’s Net begins to lift”, raises a key issue of the incorporation of the Internet as a communication tool within the state. 

While the Internet improves communication potential, the potential effect of increased communication among citizens is not favourable from the perspective of the government.  Mark Poster, in “Cyberdemocracy:  the Internet and the Public Sphere” [Available at http://www.hnet.uci.edu/mposter/writings/democ.html], notes the emergence of decentralized technologies, a good example of which is the Internet. Due to its decentralized structure, the Internet is difficult to control; while a government may benefit from the technology, the technology is, quite literally, uncontrollable. 

Traditional means of authority exercised by the government do not necessarily translate to the realm of cyberspace. In an attempt to control communication and media, the Burmese government decided to prevent access to the Internet by removing the the Internet as a tool for communication.    

This week, the Chinese government has been prevalent in current events due to the consequences it imposes on Internet users who fail to comply with its regulations. The government is becoming more attuned to the patterns and online activities of its users and thus attempting to use such information in their censorship efforts, such as with cartoon Internet police. Thus, privacy rights and security online are not a priority for the government, effectively infringing the UN declared right of access to information.

The comparison of the Chinese and Burmese governments on Internet access further reveals two issues. The first is that each government strategically censors information online; the second issue arises with their different strategies.  Interestingly, China and Burma block access to information but each carries out this end by very different means.  Whereas China encourages self-censorship, Burma instead censors the communication technology in its entirety.  From the reports this week, China’s censorship strategies are intensifying.  The International Herald Tribune notes, in “China’s Internet controls tightened ahead of sensitive political congress”, that bloggers have had their blogs blocked and have subsequently decided to hold their internet service provider legally responsible; these sorts of tactics appear to be ongoing practices for the government.

Burma, on the other hand, experienced a short disruption in its communication technology which affected access to information; however, it does not seem as though the censorship tactics will continue for an extended period of time.The differing strategies calls into consideration the means by which governments restrict access to information.  One of  the means has included the use of commercial internet filtering software, known as censorware. 

The difficulty with this type of product arises in its skewed purpose; what was intended as a product to block particular sites to support Internet use has had its purpose altered.  While produced in the United States, the censorware products are exported to other states.  These ‘other states’ often use them as content filtering devices, blocking certain sites which prevents access to information.  Although the censorship tactics of Burma and China differ in their approaches and of internet censorship, the differences that accrue lead to the same outcome, in that the freedom of speech and freedom of expression are compromised.   

Article 19 highlights FOI developments around the world on International Right to Know Day 

Tuesday, 2 October 2007, 9:21 am
Press Release: IFEX

Article 19 Press Release:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0710/S00037.htm

The following is an abridged version of a 28 September 2007 ARTICLE 19 press release:

International Right to Know Day: A Whistle-stop Tour of Right to Know Developments across the Globe in 2007

Overview The right to information is essential in the information age. In the past ten years, there has been a steady growth in the number of countries which have adopted Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to give citizens, journalists and organisations the right to demand information from them. To date, 75 countries have now adopted Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and over 80 countries have also guaranteed the right to information in their constitution.

The past year has seen considerable developments around the world. New laws were approved in Honduras, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Nicaragua and most recently the Cayman Islands. China adopted national regulations which follow the function of FOI.

Norway adopted a new, even more open law while the US is poised to make the first major improvements to their law in a decade. Amendments to weaken FOI laws were rejected in the UK and Bulgaria. Dozens more countries around the world including Chile, Ghana, Malta, Nigeria, and Tanzania also considered bills. In Mexico, the Constitution was amended in 2007 to expand the right of information to the states.

There have also been important developments in the international realm. One of the most important in the last year was the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in Claude Reyes v. Chile, that freedom of information is a basic human right implicit in the right to freedom of expression. This will have a profound effect on countries in the region and sets an important precedent for the rest of the world. FOI is now recognised as an important tool to promote democracy and fight corruption by the United Nations, Council of Europe, Organisation of American States, League of Arab States and the African Union.

The Privacy International Global Survey of FOI laws (In English, Russian and Arabic) and Global Map of FOI is available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/foisurvey

(. . . )

To read the full statement, see: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/international-right-to-know-day-2007.pdf
ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech.
Privacy International was formed in 1990 as a privacy, human rights and civil liberties watchdog. PI is based in London, UK and has organised campaigns and initiatives in more than fifty countries.

The PI Freedom of Information Project has been active in promoting access to information laws globally since 1999. It produces the annual Global FOIA Survey and has assisted campaigns and conducted legal analyses of access to information laws and practices in dozens of countries.

The information contained in this press release is the sole responsibility of ARTICLE 19. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit ARTICLE 19.

The protests in Burma this past week highlighted the Internet as a tool for political activism, with images and videos posted on social networking sites and blogs drawing international attention to the Burmese pro-democracy movement.  The information available from online sites prompted the military regime to turn off the Internet within the state.  While this may have disrupted communications and information flows, the Internet blackout had not caused an information blackout.  The use of other technological tools, such as satellite imagery of the region, provided an alternative means with which to communicate the events unfolding in Burma. 

The Burmese pro-democracy movement brought forth the significance of information communication technology to further the political efforts of the pro-democracy protestors.  The use of social networking sites, such as YouTube and Burmese blogs, was able to extend the protest and political message outside of the state to the international community.  The military regime ruling the region, in an attempt to create a closed information society, attempted to turn off information communication technology.  The ‘just-in-time’ internet filtering delayed but did not prevent information from being revealed about the situation.  The media crackdown was short lived and difficult to sustain due to the flexibility of information communication technologies. 

The idea of a closed information society is an outdated notion in the information age due to the adaptive nature of information communication technologies.  One of the themes of this weeks articles is the right of access to information; in the Burmese protests, access to information, a UN declared human right, was infringed due to the Internet being turned off at a politically convenient point in time.  The violation of access to information was also witnessed with the confiscation of video cameras and cell phones, with which citizen journalists attempted to inform those outside the region on the events unfolding within.  A second prevelent theme was that of right of privacy and security.  The technological equipment used to capture images was confiscated for those in the Burmese region.  The right to privacy was similarly violated in the Bangladesh region, in which authorities went door to door to collect passwords and login information of those with high speed internet.  Thus, in one sense, the politics of the Internet may have little to do with being online.   

The Internet has become an effective tool of political protest.  Jeffrey Ayres notes that the Internet is a tool which has a widespread, global audience which can efficiently diffuse information regarding political protests [Ayres, Jeffrey. "From the Streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.  566: 1999, 132-143.]  Whereas Ayres observes the use of email to facilitate political activism in a somewhat coordinated and organized method, the Burmese pro-democracy protests used the Internet in a different manner.  While the Burmese protests may not have been organized by emails, the use of the Internet as a political communication tool was clearly evident as well as its political impact both within and outside of the region.

Although the right of access to information was infringed due to the military regime turning off the Internet, the Internet became a central tool of political communication for the pro-democracy movement.  The current events articles of the past week demonstrated the effects of the efforts of bloggers and civil society in an attempt to disseminate information across borders and reach the international community.