The Internet Governance Forum has done an admirable job setting up in very short order a number of means for remote participation at the meetings, which conclude tomorrow. These include webcasting, a discussion forum, live text chat, email, SMS, blog aggregation, and even submissions via video! All admirable and welcome to see. The question being:…
Chinese rep: “we don’t have software blocking Internet sites.”
Yesterday, during the "openness" session at the Internet Governance Forum, there was a fascinating interchange among the panelists, the audience, and finally a member of the Chinese government delegation on the question of Chinese censorship of the Internet. The controversy kicked off with a representative of Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres, a group legendary for their media-stealing…
Dramatic example of network (in)security at IGF
There was a real world demonstration of the difficulties and dangers of network security at the session on security this afternoon. Someone, hopefully from the IGF secretariat, had set up a wifi network called "free_wifi_net" accessible in the conference plenary hall. The moderator noted in his introductory remarks that if you connected to this network,…
My talk on e-democracy and the IGF
I prepared a statement for the panel on "Internet Governance for Participation," which I just finished speaking at. Time was running short, so I gave the abridged version of this session. Here’s the complete presentation, which is entitled “Top-down, Middle Layer and Bottom-up e-Democracy”…
IGP06 : Liveblogging Session on Openness
During the morning of Day Two of the first Internet Governance Forum, there was a multi-stakeholder dialogue on issues of “opennness.” The session spent the bulk of time talking about freedom of expression issues and particularly the responsibility of companies in using their influence to pressure governments to be more open. Then the moderator moved…
Internet Governance Forum06: Day 1 Wrap-up
So the first day of the first Internet Governance Forum is over, thank goodness. I clearly look like hell, cause all my old friends from the WSIS walk up to me and say, “Hi Rik, good to see you! Man, you look like hell.” Here are some of my highlights that I can summon from…
Crappy wifi stymies liveblogging the IGF
Ugh, I just lost a fairly detailed post on the Internet Governance Forum because of the crappy wifi here. Sigh, irony. The IGF began this morning in Athens, which I walked into not-so-fresh from an overnight flight. To get get a sense of what’s going on, you can check out the webcasts of the event,…
Panelists confirmed for Thursday Machinima Fest Pre-screening
We’re only a couple of days away from the first of two Second Life events held in conjunction with the 2006 Machinima Festival in New York. Lots of buzz among the machinimators and blogosphere about this, so I think we’ll get a good turnout. For the Thursday pre-screening (at 8PM EST in the Laguna Beach…
Survey of recent e-consultations
As I prepare my remarks for the Internet Governance Forum next week, I’m interested in what can be learned from recent ICT-enabled consultations that have taken place around different political processes. Here are a few notable ones: Minnesota just finished an interesting multi-modal e-debate among all six candidates for governor A joint US/Canadian consultation took…
Me and Hiro hanging in Talib’s crib
I love this pic of Hiro Quasimodo (my RL-roommate) and me hanging out in Talib Kweli’s virtual crib. In related news, Spin Martin is working on a cool little hip-hop inspired build nearby in Saijo City (192, 48, 31). Worth a visit just for his ghetto-fied listening stations. Where’s that head-nodding animation?