Helping men pursue women: another lesson learnt in e-governance

BBC News reports that a text messaging service launched in Madhya Pradesh was withdrawn after complaints that it was being used to gain contact details of women and harrass them !

Virtual thieving = thieving: Its that plain and simple

An arrest for virtual theft. Read the story.

Tch, tch.... wrongful arrests..and who can you trust ?

An IANS report states that a man ( a tech guy) was arrested on "suspicion of having posted insulting images of Chhatrapati Shivaji on Internet networking site Orkut". His innocence was later discovered - and a certain telecom company (who revealed the identity of its customer) and an ISP ( whose networking site the images were posted on) were said to be at fault for providing the wrong information to the police.

See what happens when we leave it to the ISPs?

Chris Soghoian offers an analysis of the events.

Will we get a landmark damages judgment here?

Buddies now -Google and My Space

A BBC report states that MySpace is to join Google's OpenSocial.

And so the Facebook - Google competition is expected to hot up ( in terms of their applications being thrown open to outside software developers.)

Huh, according to a very geekie friend of mine and in anticipation of advent... Its all about Google now

You better watch out ....
Google is taking over town.

So much for the Facebook hype, can we please talk about Orkut now?

Orkut in the dock in Brazil

Google found itself in a not so good position after it reportedly put ads on Orkut beside images of pictures of naked children and abused animals. The ads were suspended and Google's Brazilian Head of Operations is facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to turn Orkut users' data over to police. Orkut has been accused of becoming a portal for criminal acitivities ranging from child porn to racist speech [vide Prof T N De Oliveira's report on the matter]

Update: Reporters Without Borders has urged the Sao Paulo state prosecutor, Rodrigo Cesar Rebello Pinho, to safeguard freedom of speech on 13 November 2008, when an attempt at conciliation between the Brazilian judicial authorities and Google’s Brazilian subsidiary is due to take place.

Truth, distortions and manipulations: Indian ISP liability in the dock

An article in the Times ( a much impassioned one, I must say), alleges that there is a clear and present danger to the Internet in India( don't hold your breath!). Read the full article.

So I thought I would check this out.

And then I saw this- Naavi's rebuttal of the Times of India report.

I shall defer my opinion till more comes to light.

Watch this space.

More data sharing plans

While the plan to merge to merge the U.K.'s General Register Office (which deals with the registration of births and deaths), into the nation's Identity and Passport Service have come under criticism from several quarters- perhaps this is a necessary evil?

Ode to ID Cards

The Pet Shop Boys show their dispproval for ID cards in their new single.

The song is called Integral and is supposed to be an authoritative rant for privacy - perhaps, this form of protest may generate a heightened interest in the debate!

All things real and virtual…

Problem with your company in the real world?
Make a virtual protest…especially if your company has a significant online presence.

Read Outlaw’s Report on Second Life picketing.

There are “real” problems,
There are “virtual” problems,
And there are problems that are both.
Take a “virtual” problem, make it “real”
And a “real,” “virtual”
And that’s the way it should be (is).
© RERodrigues

Creative Commons licenses take a bit of heat with Virgin Mobile being sued over it allegedly using a photo of a girl in an ad without her permission.

Recommended: The ICO's films on identity

I enjoyed ( rather was more than amused) to see the ICO's films on protecting personal information and identity. Have fun watching.

Here's to the Manifesto of Radical Inaction

The Manifesto for Radical Inaction in relation to the legal challenges/ threats posed by Web 2.0 was proposed at the SCL Law 2.0 Conference held in London. It can be found at PanGloss.

My pithier/shorter version:

1. LEGISLATE NOT IN HASTE, NOR GET CARRIED AWAY BY THOSE THAT KNOW NOT WHAT TO DO (BUT LIKE TO PRETEND THEY DO!)

2. LET WEB 2.0 BLOSSOM

3. WHAT (LAW THERE) IS, MUST BE EXTENDED AND APPLIED.

4. AND WHILE WE FIGURE OUT THE BEST SOLUTION, IP AND PRIVACY MUST TAKE CENTRESTAGE!

I think I'm going to carry these in my wallet as a perpetual reminder. Hurrah to Chris Reed.

Bitten by the bug: so who else can I find on Orkut?

It was hard to undertand why employers were rushing off to ban the use of social networking sites. There was I over the weekend with a bit of time to spare -and decided to take a peek into the going ons in the social networking world. Now I'm in and I understand just how those employers must feel. Everyone seems to be in ( and everything as well!).

It starts like this- you create a profile and start finding friends who have friends who you were once friends with and you want to be their friend again, or simply say hello and then you discover they are connected to another of those elusive acquaintances of yours. I'm sure you get the drift.

I always did wonder

Doctorow gives a very illustrative account of what would happen in a Googled world.

What will the future be, I ponder...

Bored of Web 2.0, then here's Web 3.0

There was me
Just getting friendly with Web 2.0
And now it looks like
it will soon be the next decade and Web 3.0!

Found this very interesting Round-up on web 3.0 and maybe you can also re-think the history of the web.

Identity in the InfoSoc

The Third International Summer School on the Future of Identity in the Information Society was organized by IFIP WG 9.2, 9.6/11.7, 11.6 in cooperation with FIDIS Network of Excellence and HumanIT at Karlstad University, Sweden, 6th – 10th August 2007. It was a very interesting event with some very good keynotes on Social and Political Dimensions of Identity (C Raab), Claims-Based Identity Layer for the "New" Internet (S Kavsan), Second Life - Security and Privacy at Risk(M Swimmer), Second Life Social and Legal Challenges (R Leenes) etc. The workshops conducted focussed on a range of topics like: the forensic frameworks for tracing phishers, Identity, trust and consent, community isolation in an age of infotech overload, Rules for Identity access and Control, entreprise identity management for corporations, fundamentals of anonymity metrics, Digital identity in India, RFID issues.

My personal favourite was Rasmussen and Ortiz on Changing Identities: particularly the point they reiterated about the need to identify identity paradoxes across cultures to empower information societies.

Facebooked privacy !

Pangloss has some interesting comments on Facebook.

I have just one: Facebook is about social networking ( ummm that means connectivity, lack of privacy)... in fact for social networking to fulfil its purpose, openess is often a prerequisite.
For social networking to be effective must bank on a degrees of openess!

For more see the item at Wired: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/facebook_changes

THE CALL ME NOT LIST

Mobile phone users in India are finally set to get a reprieve from unwanted direct marketing calls. TRAI is to set up a "Do Not Call" list which subscribers will be able to register on. A very welcome intiative, but did it have to take a Supreme Court Order to get us going?

See BBC Report.

The MNIC becomes operational and India joins the compulsory identification bandwagon

A report in the Hindu states that the MNIC scheme becomes operational today in India...

The MNIC (Mulitpurpose National Identity Card) is a tamper poof? plastic card with visble data and a microchip requiring a reader. Each citizen would get a unique sixteen digit ID number.

Big-bio brother is here: wanting, taking and keeping your DNA

Here is a link to my Bileta 2007 abstract on the England and Wales National DNA Database- Full paper out now.

Retention of bio information, function creep and sleepless nights

Comments are invited on the retention of bioinformation !

Do you think that the retention of bioinformation obtained from those not convicted of an offence is vital to meet the needs of law enforcement?

I am researching this area at the moment... and will come up with some scenarios that would if not enlighten you, definitely make you think twice about how law enforcement is becoming subservient to a certain administrative function creep.