Blog Updates

Internet Society India Chennai Chapter's Web is now at the URL http://isocindiachennai.org which is periodically updated.

A conversation with Internet Inventors

Conversation with Steve Crocker and Vinton Cerf, two of the Internet's founding fathers. Crocker established protocols necessary for the workings of the Internet, and Cerf, a computer scientist, was instrumental in the development of the first commercial email system.
The recorded video is at page http://wwwhatsup.com/c+c/cerf+crocker_smithsonian_11-9-2011.flv A better video may be available after some time.

APRICOT 2012 FELLOWSHIPS NOW OPEN

apricot

The annual APRICOT conference is a unique and successful educational  forum for Internet builders in the Asia-Pacific region, to learn from their peers and leaders in the Internet community.

Senior practitioners from the Asia Pacific and around the world contribute their time to APRICOT as presenters, teachers and trainers, to produce a non-commercial high quality conference.

Since 2000, APRICOT has incorporated a Fellowship Program to provide opportunities to developing country personnel to participate in APRICOT. The Program provides financial assistance to selected applicants to cover some of the expenses associated with attending the conference.

The APRICOT Fellowship Committee now cordially invites applications for fellowship funding to participate in APRICOT 2012 in New Delhi,India, from 21 February to 2 March 2012.

For more information about the Fellowship award package, Criteria, and application form, please visit our website:

http://www.apricot2012.net/fellowship

PLEASE NOTE: The deadline for applications is Monday, 24 October 2011.

Internet Society 2010 Annual Review

Internet Society 2010 Annual Review ..

Comments invited on Internet Society's Draft Paper on DNS Filtering Trends

Efforts to address illegal online activities using DNS filtering techniques have been cropping up all over the globe.  Attached is a DRAFT ISOC paper that outlines the issue and offers ISOC's concerns with this approach.  This paper is aimed at a non-technical audience.  This is a draft paper prepared by the Internet Society.

Internet Society's Draft Paper on DNS Filtering Trends

Comments Invited. Please post your comments here, or mail it to isocindiachennai aT gmail d0t c0m

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Introduction to W3C Mobile Web and Application Best Practices

This very popular course has been substantially revised for 2011 and now includes a lot of new material concerning Web applications. Delivered online over 8 weeks beginning Monday 5th September, the course will help Web designers and content producers who are already familiar with the desktop world to become familiar with the Web as delivered on mobile devices. It is based entirely on W3C standards, particularly the Mobile Web Best Practices and Mobile Web Application Best Practices.

Participants will:
• learn about and use the recommended versions of HTML and CSS to
use for mobile today;
• understand the constraints of working on mobile and how to overcome
them to deliver the best possible experience to the widest range of
users;
• practice client side and server side content adaptation techniques;
• learn about and use the exciting new APIs available on modern mobile
platforms.

The course will be lead by Phil Archer who was a member of the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group from the outset. Phil is an acknowledged contributor to many W3C Recommendations related to mobile and gained praise from participants in the earlier course for his enthusiasm and subject knowledge.

The full price for the Introduction to Mobile Web and Application Best Practices is €195 but a strictly limited number of places are available at the early bird rate of €145.

Full details of the course and how to register are available at http://www.w3.org/Mobile/training/MobiWeb109/

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Magna Carta of the Internet: Consent of the Networked

”Consent of the Networked,” will be published by Basic Books in January 2012. This is a book by Rebecca MacKinnon, an Internet scholar at the New America Foundation, who argues that private corporations are exerting excessive power over the Internet and should have that power checked. Just as the English barons crafted the original Magna Carta in 1215 to constrain the power of the unpopular King John, she says, Internet users should organize and push back against the companies.

The control that companies exert over the Internet in areas ranging from banking to freedom of speech has raised increasing levels of concern, especially in the wake of the controversial WikiLeaks release of State Department cables last year. Several companies constrained WikiLeaks, including Amazon, which kicked WikiLeaks off its servers after pressure from American lawmakers; PayPal, which suspended WikiLeaks’ account; and credit card companies, which refused to take donations for it.

Governments at this point rarely act directly to constrain the Internet; instead, their policies are mediated through privately owned and operated services, Ms. MacKinnon said. This is true of China, which maintains the famed Great Firewall that blocks sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook in favor of local services. But domestically, every year the Chinese government gives out “China Internet Self-Discipline Awards” to honor companies that voluntarily cooperate with its censorship policies. Baidu, which had been Google’s rival in China before the search giant redirected China users to its uncensored Hong Kong site in 2010, has been among the honorees.

One company that has drawn attention is Apple, whose market power allows its review process for iPhone applications to become a de facto censor in many countries. In China, the company has restricted access to Dalai Lama-related iPhone applications, and earlier this year it removed a Palestinian protest iPhone application called ThirdIntifada in response to the Israeli government’s complaints. Even in the United States, Apple banned an iPhone app from a political cartoonist in 2009 because it ridiculed public figures, a decision that was reversed after the cartoonist won a Pulitzer Prize.

Companies should start thinking of their users more as constituents who have a voice in the policy making, she said. Also, good corporate governance policies, like the ones that have become standard for clothing manufacturing companies, could become more widespread. Google, for example, regularly releases a transparency report, which lists how many requests for information it receives from each government. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have helped develop a code of conduct around Internet freedom through the Global Network Initiative. However, , limiting the impact of the code.

She says that at this moment, we have not figured out how to achieve, define and opearationalize the consent of the networked, buTwitter and Facebook have not joined int it is time to start.

(Excerpts and links from New York Times)

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for newcomers

The short video below which describes the work of the  Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)  to newcomers and novices.  The Internet Society is the organisational home for the IETF and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). 



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Internet for the IT Sector: The impact of altered Core Interent Values in Business

ISOC India Chennai organized a panel discussion on Core Internet Values at IIT Research Park, Chennai on June 26, 2011. This short duration event was webcast live by Joly MacFie of ISOC New York from New York together with Chandramohan at Chennai.

Sebastien Bachollet, Member, Board of Directors of ICANN chaired the session with Dr Olivier Crepin LeBlond, Chair of ICANN At Large, Dr Apparao, Vice President, Technology at Cognizant Technology Solutions and Sivasubramanian M were on the panel with active participation from all present in the room and on the Webcast.

The webcast is archived in two video streams. The second stream is embedded below:

 

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