[LINK] UNESCO Observatory Newsletter - 75

[by way of Tony Barry]

UNESCO OBSERVATORY ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/observatory

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsletter - No 75 - November 24, 2000

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Briefs selection (below), is ordered into the major themes of the
Observatory:

- Action Plans and Policies
- Privacy and Confidentiallity
- Content Regulation
- Access to Public Domain


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Action Plans, Policies: international, regional and national levels


[AFR - 24.11.2000] CybercafÈs for Senegalese Universities, Schools  (All
Africa)
Salta Services, a Senegalese private enterprise supported by foreign
partners, has signed a agreement with the government for the creation of
cybercafÈs in the universities of Dakar and Saint-Louis, as well as in
public schools. The initiative raises much hope as it will help Senegalese
students to access the information super highways.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200011230054.html

[AFR - 20.11.2000] E-Commerce Paper to Be Launched On Monday  (All Africa)
The government Green Paper on e-commerce will be launched to the public on
Monday, after being delayed several times. Minister of communications Ivy
Matsepe-Casaburri is expected to head the launch, and will be sharing the
podium with Reserve Bank deputy governor Gill Marcus, and South African
Revenue Services commissioner Pravin Gordhan.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200011170052.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Privacy & Confidentiality: transborder privacy, global e-commerce,
cryptography


[TRA - 24.11.2000] FBI Gets Carnivore Approval ...  (Wired News)
A review by a private contractor of the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance
tool concludes that the FBI should continue to use the system, but raised
the possibility that it could be abused to grab more data than a court
allows. The review, which was was posted on the Justice Department's
website, is the result of a month long, $170,000 contract to provide an
independent analysis of the controversial surveillance system.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40335,00.html

[TRA - 24.11.2000] ... But Not Everyone Approves  (Wired News)
House Republican leader Dick Armey added his voice Wednesday to those
accusing an outside review panel of whitewashing a controversial FBI cyber
surveillance tool. "The Department of Justice stacked the deck for this
report," said Armey, a Texas Republican known as a champion of smaller, less
intrusive government. "It selected reviewers and set the rules in order to
ensure they would get the best possible review."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40342,00.html

[PRI - 23.11.2000] Bosses use spy software on workers, says report.
(ZDNetAsia)
Some firms in Wenzhou are using spy software to monitor their employees'
online activities, according to Eastday.com, an official Web site backed by
the Shanghai government.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/dailynews/story/0,2000010021,20157963-1,00.htm
l

[TRA - 21.11.2000] Report: Carnivore Works Just Fine  (Wired News)
The Chicago law school dean who reviewed the FBI's controversial e-mail
surveillance tool said Monday his report concludes it works the way the
bureau described and generally doesn't "overcollect" evidence as feared by
privacy advocates.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40304,00.html

[TRA - 21.11.2000] European council moves Net crime treaty forward  (CNET)
A European coalition is a step closer to creating the first international
cybercrime treaty after ironing out language to appease critics who called
earlier versions a threat to human rights. The 41-nation Council of Europe
(COE) is expected to post the latest draft of the treaty on its Web site
Tuesday, a representative for the Strasbourg, France-based council said. The
council has been hastily redrafting the treaty after Internet lobby groups
labeled it as a possible human-rights threat and as a way for the police
authority of national governments to be improperly extended.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3785827.html?tag=st.ne.1002.lthd

[TRA - 20.11.2000] Do telecommuters invite intrusions? (ZDNet Asia)
Some experts say telecommuting may compromise secure corporate networks. Is
anybody guarding the back door? Home is where the heart is. It's also where
the back door to your enterprise is. In the wake of the hack into Microsoft
Corp.'s network, many security administrators have turned their attention to
what some believe is the greatest security challenge facing corporations:
teleworkers.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/dailynews/story/0,2000010021,20157470-1,00.htm

[PRI - 20.11.2000] Carnivore Can Read Everything  (Wired News)
The FBI's controversial e-mail surveillance tool, known as Carnivore, can
retrieve all communications that go through an Internet service, far more
than FBI officials have said it does, according to a Bureau documents and a
recent FBI test. An FBI official involved with the test stressed Friday that
although Carnivore has the ability to grab a large quantity of e-mails and
Web communications, current law and specific court orders restrict its use.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40256,00.html



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content Regulation: intellectual property rights, copyright, freedom of
expression


[FRE - 23.11.2000] Yahoo! vows to stop pedophiles. (MSNBC)
Managing director of Yahoo!, confirmed that the company is about to employ a
Yahoo! "inspector" charged with ensuring that Yahoo!'s Messenger system is
not polluted with pedophile content.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/493473.asp?cp1=1

[CON - 21.11.2000] Court to Yahoo: Use Nazi Filter  (Wired News)
In a landmark ruling with potential implications for Web users around the
world, a French court on Monday ordered U.S. Internet giant Yahoo to bar
French users from sites selling Nazi memorabilia.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40285,00.html

[IPR - 21.11.2000] Hackers Worldwide Fan Flames In Middle East Conflict
(Newsbytes)
As tensions in the Middle East continue to simmer, more than a hundred Web
sites have been defaced or shut down by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli
hackers, often with the assistance of activist hackers from several
countries not actively involved in the conflict, according to security
experts.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/158423.html

[FRE - 20.11.2000] Denial of Service Attacks Planned For Christmas - ISS
(Newsbytes)
X-Force, the research and development (R&D) team of Internet Security
Systems [NASDAQ:ISSX] (ISS), has warned that hackers are planning an online
attack-fest this coming Christmas. The attacks, if they occur, will take the
form of distributed denial of service (DDOS) invasions, a hacker flooding
technique used earlier this year - and since - to effectively flood out a
major Web site and prevent normal users from gaining access, ISS said.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/158336.html

[IPR - 20.11.2000] Do We Really Need New Domains?  (Wired News)
People who support the creation of new top-level domains for the World Wide
Web tend to have the same argument. All the nice, short, easy-to-remember
dot-com addresses, they say, have already been taken. A poor entrepreneur
just starting out online will wind up either paying big bucks to a domain
speculator or getting stuck with a Web address that's long, obscure and
impossible to remember.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/158336.html



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Universal Access - Public Domain: access for all, on-line governance,
virtual libraries, multilingualism


[MUL - 24.11.2000] Hotmail predicts Chinese users to surge  (Yahoo)
Microsoft's Internet portal MSN expects the number of users in mainland
China, Taiwan and Hong Kong of its free email service, Hotmail, to surge by
50 percent within the next two months. The aggressive forecast comes on the
heels of the launch of a Chinese language interface for Hotmail this week.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/001124/80/apyfr.html

[ACC - 21.11.2000] Damaged undersea cable cuts Net traffic  (ZDNet Asia)
Most people on Telstra's Big Pond network were relegated to an ox bow lake
as an undersea cable was damaged yesterday. At about 3:20 pm yesterday the
39,000km SEA-ME-WE 3 cable was damaged about 100km off the coast of
Singapore. Damage to the sea-floor cable is expected to slow Internet access
for many Australians over the next few days.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/dailynews/story/0,2000010021,20157881,00.htm

[EQU - 21.11.2000] Microsoft to translate e-books into braille  (CNET)
Microsoft and Pulse Data International said Monday that they are planning to
develop an e-book reader for the blind and visually impaired. The two
companies said they will work together to integrate Microsoft Reader
software with Pulse Data's BrailleNote, a family of screenless devices that
translate text into speech and braille.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3786579.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.ni

[VIR - 20.11.2000] New network links libraries online  (CNET)
A group of public and private libraries from around the world is developing
a free online reference service to answer research questions from a public
often overwhelmed by the Internet's wealth of information and uncertain
about its sources. A Web site, expected to be available by June, will help
direct a query to the appropriate library. That could produce answers, for
example, from a library in Australia if the question concerns the history of
Aborigines. Continue
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3765668.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.ni


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNESCO Observatory on the Information Society mirrors:

Japan (by the United Nations University):
http://mirror-japan.unesco.org/webworld/observatory/index.html

United States (by the University of Nebraska):
http://mirror-us.unesco.org/webworld/observatory/index.html