I recently concluded a two-day seminar-workshop on Accounting basics for non-accountants in my city. This was organized by the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry in cooperation with a local association of food producers in my province. With more than 30 participants, mostly entrepreneurs in the food business and some NGOs, the two-day workshop on accounting basics, book-keeping, pricing methods and a bit of taxation, was very interesting. The variety of participants were engaged in medium-sized businesses, basically in manufacturing but with little knowledge on analyzing their financial statements, income statements, recording their inventories or even with appropriate pricing methods that are now subject to E-VAT (Extended Value Added Tax). All throughout the workshop, participants were engaged in actual balancing of assets and liabilities. Discussion and questions centered on how to lower cost in production for SMEs. The manufacturing business complain of labor costs and how to heavily distribute their products without availing the high cost of advertising.  This is understandable since the capital used for these enterprises are geared towards production costs but with little budget for marketing. Competition is very stiff with big manufacturers who have the lead in the market.

But where do these local entrepreneurs get their share of the market? They display their products in big supermarkets and “souvenir” shops. These big local supermarkets do not exactly order their products in COD (cash on delivery), rather, these items are ordered on a consignment basis. Consigned items are paid after several weeks even if the goods were already bought within the week. Then local entrepreneurs deliver again. They wait for their cheque. I learned that this is a strategy for big markets to keep the money rolling and to use the sales from the consigned goods for other business transactions. Hence, local entrepreneurs are at the mercy of big enterprises. Why do they stick to this arrangement? They need these big supermarkets as outlets to sell their goods.

Now, why do these local entrepreneurs want to know about accounting? It’s because entrepreneurs want to fully understand why there is a need to have an objective evidence to analyze accounting records and reports to assess financial gains or loses in their business. Sometimes, some entrepreneurs have this idea that as long as they have enough capital outlay and skills to produce their product, they can venture into a business without any knowledge about inventory and record-keeping. They think as long as they receive money, it’s a sign of success. The accounting part is only realized when they are already losing money. The whole process of providing information in accounting starts with the identification of business stakeholders. Once the different stakeholders are identified, the stakeholder’s informational needs are analyzed. Then this is when there is a need to design an accounting information system in order to meet the needs of the stakeholders. Thus, all economic data about the business events and activities are recorded. Once everything is in order, the accounting reports are prepared for stakeholders.

The whole concept of providing information in accounting represents relevant business transactions. SMEs can truly benefit from this skill since it can help them analyze their assets, their liabilities and their rights as owners (or called owner’s equity). They can now devise their own system to suit their own purpose and can help them further their success with objectivity. They can also analyze trends based on their financial statements to predict return of sales, gross profit, cost and expense through a ratio formula that will allow them to analyze if they will earn profit for the succeeding years – favorable trends, so to speak. What I realized in the end, and after talking to several entrepreneurs in the room, is that they are wary of going into an e-commerce venture. There is a solid lack of knowledge in e-commerce and this gives them the fear to venture into something which they are aware can minimize their costs.  They fear the competition in the real world without realizing the benefits of even just having an informational website for their products. They post their email addresses in their product label but no one, they say, seems to ask them about their products. I explained that by putting a website address in their label can allow people to even just view their products and read about the nutrition facts of their products. They can start this way. Next, they can even sell their products nationwide and can just limit delivery within certain regions of the country. There is more to be done to motivate local entrepreneurs in my province to try venturing in e-commerce. Our government promotes local entrepreneurship since more businesses in the region mean more jobs for the local people. Maybe promoting e-commerce will hinder this goal to provide more local jobs?

These local entrepreneurs are ready to venture in e-commerce in terms of having the resources to do so. The only problem is to take out that fear about doing business online. But it is truly rewarding to note that more local people are interested in entrepreneurship as our government has been very strict in the adherence of local policies and at the same time government agencies have been giving free skills training. Local people are now aware of setting their goals for success. As one speaker in the workshop said, it is not enough that you simply say you want to buy something. So if you buy something, for instance, “I want to buy a delivery van in 6 months,” you should say “I want to buy a delivery van worth 200,000 pesos in 6 months.” This way this plan becomes concrete and can be integrated in your accounting system as an expense. Without a specified number, it doesn’t become part of your financial statement. So this will set a goal to achieve.

I think venturing into e-commerce for our local entrepreneurs can be another outlet for them to showcase their local produce and gain another market outside their area. This will also “un-monopolize” the way big supermarkets can take the rein in setting the arrangement of “consignment” basis for local products  because they are in a position to assert their position in their selling ability – having a wide share of the market. There are always alternative solutions for marketing problems. I only hope this realization can take effect soon in the long run.

OK this is my first posting on this blog and I would kind of like a personal touch to it. Today I will have a look at the recently touted overhauling of the Internet (whatever that means).

On June 26, 2008 the ICANN board took some decisions, which in the opinion of many writers, would have far reaching impacts on the Internet as we know it today. The BBC called it an overhaul of the Internet while CNN claimed it could potentially trigger a domain name gold rush. Another proposal to introduce domain names in non ASCII characters was also approved by the board. While I agree that the decisions reached by ICANN are long overdue, I think there is no need for excitement as the creation of new frontiers on the Internet may not have the far reaching impacts which we all fell it should. 

According to the ICANN announcement,  ICANN is not “selling” new top level domain names. There will be a limited application period where any established entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will go through an evaluation process. It is anticipated that there will be additional rounds relatively soon after the close of the first application round. Dr. Paul Twomey, the CEO of ICANN, in a BBC Interview stated as follows ‘’Like the United States in the 19th Century, we are in the process of opening up new real estate, new land, and people will go out and claim parts of that land and use it for various reasons they have.”

It appears that the official position of ICANN is that the new gTLDs which would come into existence would be designed to provide reasonable opportunities for the expansion of Internet presence through the licensing of additional top level the domain names. However the CNN claims that ICANN has said that the price for the extended domains could start at $100,000. This is certainly a real expensive real estate for people from the developing countries.

Industry critics have already cited the failure of the recently approved top domain names like “.aero” as a good example to show that availability of top level domain names does not necessarily mean that people or companies would take them up. Very few airlines have actually applied to get on the aero top level domain. The critics actually argue that the new domains would go the same way as the last ones that were approved.

While I am not a good critic, but I would tend to agree with them. Come to think of it, who would actually pay $ 100, 000 - $ 200,000 for a top level domain when you can get a second level domain for $4 or free if you allow the service providers host your web presence. Perhaps the only reason I would pay $ 200,000 for a top level domain is for branding and certainly I don’t think I would be from a developing country. Also I would certainly disagree with Dr. Twomey. The real estate is not the domain names, it is actually the tetra bytes of space on servers used for activities raging from ecommerce to social networks. You certainly do not need to have thousands of dollars to get on that space.

Another issue would be the internationalisation of domain names. By this other characters apart from ASCII characters would now be permitted on top level domains. While I am not a technical person and would not go into the technical implementation of this protocol, my fear is the availability of inputdevices to realise the dream of Internationalised domain names. I spoke with a colleague and he assured me that my fears were unfounded. Good but if I have a top level domain in Cyrillicscript, what is the possibility of a Japanese computer with imputes of Japanese character locating my site? Or maybe I will have to duplicate the sites on all languages available. Now this is only for the domain, what about the content?

Just my thoughts.

On June 16, 2008, more than 150 participants from 15 countries gathered in Seoul, South Korea, for the Civil Society – Labor Forum “Making the Future of the Internet Economy Work for Citizens, Consumers, and Workers. The event was organized by the Public Voice coalition, the Trade Union Advisory Committee, and the OECD Civil Society Reference group, which includes the Association for Progressive Communications, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public interest Clinic, Consumers Korea, the European Digital Rights Initiative, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Internet Governance Project, and the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue.

This Forum addressed the issues of utmost importance for the internet economy. Prominent advocates from the academic, consumer, development, digital rights, labour, and privacy communities engaged government delegates on topics of relevance to the Ministerial, as well as issues of fundamental concern to civil society and organized labor.

The Forum consisted of interactive policy roundtables, covering the future of the Internet from 5 perspectives: the Human and political dimension; Towards a better future – Decent work, social justice and sustainable development in a global internet economy; Fuelling creativity and access to knowledge (A2K); Ensuring consumer and privacy protection and benefitting from convergence.

The civil society and labor participants brought the attention of the assembled OECD Ministers and Member countries to important concerns and aspirations of people around the world. These participants also prepared Civil Society Background paper that was distributed at the OECD Ministerial. And the civil society and labor representatives prepared the Seoul Declaration, which has been signed by more than 80 organizations.

The groups said that the Future of the Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication infrastructures and services. Economic growth should be for the many and not the few.

The Civil Society Labor Declaration urged the OECD Ministers and member countries to:

• Defend freedom of expression and oppose mandated filtering, censorship of Internet content, and criminalisation of content that is protected under international freedom of expression standards.
• Support the OECD Privacy Guidelines of 1980 as a fundamental policy instrument setting out minimal requirements for the transborder flow of personal data.
• Ensure that consumer protection laws are properly enforced and cover digital products to the same extent that other consumer goods and services are covered.
• Promote learning and training opportunities for workers and to address the challenges brought about by the change of corporations and work by combining policies facilitating both technological and organizational change.
• Support open access to government-funded scientific and scholarly works. We further emphasize access to information as a fundamental right and support the OECD’s continued work in this area.
• Support Internet governance structures that reflect democratic values and are transparent and publicly accountable to users.
• Oppose discrimination by network providers against particular applications, devices, or content and to maintain the Internet’s role in fostering innovation, economic growth, and democratic communication.
• Maintain a balanced framework for intellectual property protection based upon mechanisms that are least intrusive to personal privacy and least restrictive for the development of new technologies, and to promote creativity and learning.
• Develop a better understanding of the challenge industry consolidations pose to the open Internet.
• Support the efforts of the OECD to promote access to the full range of the world’s cultures and to ensure that the Internet economy reflects the true diversity of language, art, science, and literature in our world. The deployment of International Domain Names should be a priority.

Civil society and organized labor further urged the OECD to establish the Civil Society Advisory Committee. The creation of the OECD Civil Society Advisory Committee will help meet the democratic goals of inclusion, participation, transparency and accountability in international decision-making.

The Public Voice works to promote public participation in decisions concerning the future of the Internet. The Civil Society Seoul Declaration is open to additional signatures. Send confirmation to thepublicvoice (AT) datos-personales (DOT) org.

Key Issues in Civil Society Declaration are:

• Freedom of expression.
• Protection of Privacy and Transparency.
• Consumer Protection.
• Employment, Decent Work and Skills.
• Promotion of Access to Knowledge.
• Internet Governance.
• Promotion of Open Standards and Net Neutrality.
• Balanced Intellectual Property Policies.
• Support for Pluralistic Media.
• Inclusive Digital Society.
• Cultural Diversity.

The Public Voice
Facebook: The Public Voice
OECD Civil Society Forum in Seoul
Recommendations and Contributions to the OECD Ministerial Meeting (pdf)
The Civil Society and Organized Labour Seoul Declaration (English) (pdf)
The Civil Society and Organized Labour Seoul Declaration (Korean) (pdf)
The Civil Society and Organized Labour Seoul Declaration (Spanish) (pdf)
The Civil Society and Organized Labour Seoul Declaration (Hungarian) (pdf)
Declaration Signatures (as of June 23, 2008)  (pdf)
Sign on to the Civil Society Seoul Declaration
Source: Electronic Privacy

With the slogan “Shaping Policies for Creativity, Confidence and Convergence in the Digital World”, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) held the 2008 Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy in Seoul, South Korea on June 17 and 18. The Meeting, which was the first OECD Ministerial Meeting held in Asia, brought together Ministers, senior government officials, the heads of major intergovernmental organisations, industry leaders and representatives of the Internet technical community, civil society and organised labour. In all, close to 2,200 participants from 68 economies attended the Meeting, which was webcast. In addition to the participants, many more contributed to the Meeting via the Internet.

The Government of Korea hosted the Meeting, which was chaired by Mr. See Joong CHOI, Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission. Opening addresses were made by Mr. CHOI and Mr. Angel GURRÍA, Secretary-General of the OECD. A congratulatory address was made, via video, by Mr. BAN Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Mr. Myung-bak LEE, President of the Republic of Korea, welcomed Ministers and participants and highlighted the importance of the Internet for the global economy and society, and the need to strengthen international co-operation in key areas, including information security. Chairmn CHOI stated in the summary of the conference:

The growing impacts of the Internet on economies and on society were highlighted, as was its role in spurring innovation and growth. While the number of users and high-speed access are growing rapidly worldwide, concerns were expressed about digital divides, both within and among countries. Efforts to expand access need to continue. Mobile devices with Internet access, it was noted, could contribute importantly in this regard as their use in developing countries is advancing rapidly; this is expected to continue.

Other important issues would also need to be addressed. Users are concerned, for example, about malware, identity theft, privacy and security. On the technological front, convergence of information and communication platforms, new generation networks and high-speed Internet access are benefitting society, but their rapid development is challenging regulatory bodies, as existing approaches are often inadequate to respond to rapid changes in markets. It was suggested that changes in policies and regulations might best focus on two principles – promoting competition and protecting consumers.

Chairman CHOI also acknowledged the role of civil society and organized labor:

Civil society and organised labour urged that policy goals for the Internet Economy be considered within the broader framework of the protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communications networks and services. They made a number of recommendations, stressing the need for OECD countries to: i) defend freedom of expression and, in this context, oppose mandated
filtering, censorship and criminalisation of content that is protected under international freedom of expression standards; ii) protect privacy and transparency by, for example, establishing international data standards that are legally enforceable; and iii) address the learning and training needs of workers and environmental issues. In addition, they urged that a civil society advisory committee to the OECD be established to formalise its participation in the work of the Organisation.

Chairman CHOI affirmed the ongoing importance of privacy protection at the Ministerial conference, stating that “the protection of privacy was identified as a cross-cutting challenge to be systematically addressed at the earliest possible design stage of technology.”

Mr. Angel GURRÍA, the Secretary General of the Paris-based organization also spoke about privacy protection and described the 1980 OECD Privacy Guidelines as the “foundation guidelines for most countries’ privacy standards”. He remarked that the Privacy Guidelines have “stood the test of time”, but that the growth of business models built around data mining and the multiplication of social networking sites require that we understand and ask ourselves: “[W]hat are the risks, what are the benefits and how to adapt policy to this new environment?”

A major accomplishment of Civil Society organizations of the Public Voice coalition was the recommendation made by the Secretary General of the OECD to “begin the process of formalizing the participation of Civil Society and the Technical Community in the work of the OECD on the Internet economy”.

The OECD Ministerial Meeting ended with the adoption of the OECD Seoul Declaration, a document signed by Ministers and representatives of 42 countries. Also the OECD released “Shaping Policies for the Future of the Internet Economy”, a report which links the Seoul Ministerial Declaration on the Future of the Internet Economy to the analytical work and policy guidance developed for the Ministerial by the OECD. The OECD also issued Policy Guidance for Protecting and Empowering Consumers in Communications Services and Policy Guidance For Addressing Emerging Consumer Protection And Empowerment Issues In Mobile Commerce. Other important recommendations include the OECD Policy Guidance on Radio Frequency Identification and the OECD Policy Guidance on Online Identity Theft.

The OECD offered an important forum for the discussion of policies concerning the future of the Internet. Civil Society welcomed this dialogue and urged the Ministers and Members Countries of the OECD to fully engage Civil Society and Labor Organizations within their own countries. Ministers agreed to review the OECD Declaration and the progress made towards the achievement of its goals and principles by 2011.

In a related development, EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva set out, on June 24, five priority areas for action for consumer policy in the digital age. She stressed the need “to eliminate the next generation of unfair commercial practices rapidly arising online” and “to ensure that in the heated debates surrounding privacy, the voice of the consumers is clearly heard”. She emphasized: “informed consent is the central privacy issue that consumer policy must next address”.

OECD Ministerial Meeting
Facebook: How can Internet make the world a better place?
Summary of the Chair of the OECD Meeting (pdf)
2008 OECD Seoul Declaration on the Future of the Internet Economy (pdf)
Shaping Policies for the Future of the Internet Economy (pdf)
Shaping Policies for the Future of the Internet Economy: Annexes (pdf)
1998 Ottawa Ministerial meeting on E-Commerce.
European Commission sets out 5 priorities for consumer policy in a digital age.
Source: Electronic Privacy Information Center – Alert

The Civil Society has recommended to the OECD, through a report read by Mr. Marc Rotenberg of EPIC last June 17, that an advisory committee be established in the OECD such as TUAC and BIAC for the technical and business stakeholders, respectively. Mr. Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary General, gave his response to this in the closing ceremonies of the OECD Ministerial today. Here is an excerpt of that speech:

A more decentralised, networked approach to policy formulation for the Internet Economy that includes the active participation of stakeholders needs to be the norm. We appreciate the participation of the stakeholders in this Ministerial meeting. I recommend that we begin the process of formalising the participation of civil society and the technical community in the work of the OECD on the Internet economy.

The entire speech can be read through this link.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak attended the opening ceremony of the OECD Ministerial Meeting. Security was tight at the event. Also in attendance were OECD Secretary General Mr. Angel Gurria of Mexico and Korea Communications Commission Chief Mr. See Joong CHOI.

As for the formal panel discussion today, I have enumerated some thoughts here:

[1] Ms. Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, from the European Commission, talked about Net Neutrality. She said that the issue of NN is not a technical question anymore but rather it is political question. She gave an example of the denial-of-service-attack that occurred in Estonia. She also talked about the use of IPv6 by the year of 2010 (there was an IPv6 summit being held in Korea, too), and the .eu domain name.

[2] Mr. Masahi Nakano who is the senior vice minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry of Japan, talked about “Green IT” which is a energy-saving initiative in the IT use. Such mechanisms to be considered are to visualize the net impact and to incentively implement energy efficient activities for both suppliers and consumers.

[3] Mr. Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States, talked about having an open and dynamic Internet through investments and innovation.

[4] Mr. Tae Won Chey who is the chairman of SK Group, made interesting viewpoints when he said that the power shift of the internet global economy is to the consumers to make choices easier and quicker. I would like to pinpoint these items from what Mr. Tae Won Chey said:

a) He talked about “digital natives” and consumer rise in Media domain – sort of a media power shift;

b) With regards to direct participation in Politics, this is generally about the direct and simultaneous exchange of information and that the shifting of power is now to the people and how they participate in politics;

c) There is the ability to catch the trend faster in the future. This is so because of the ability to understand and catch this moving trend that will eventually decide who will be the winner in this race.

d) There is a foreseen mobile lead in the next 10 years of the Internet economy;

e) The web in your palm will be the enxt driver for the Internet economy as mobility will add creativity.

f) Everything will be connected with Internet intelligence and new socio-economic values will be created as more devices are enabled;

g) The fast diffusion of mobile communications in developing countries is also presupposed by the lack of necessary infrastructure such as banking and commerce that make users in developing countries rely on mobile;

h) There are efforts to bring the rest of the world into the Internet economy and that there is a need to work together to level the Internet disparity between countries. Such global coordination is needed to establish the innovative environment for technological development and diffusion;

i) The potential of the Internet could fade if we cannot control some of the negative side effects of the Internet;

j) It is important that we all need to create the right conditions for business while fostering consumer confidence at the same time and preparing for the next 10 years;

[5] Josh Silverman, CEO of Skype, also talked about the inevitable momentum for information to be free, and that there is always a path for periodic changes happening in the Internet and it is always the consumers who will make these changes. Skype expects to have 300 million users and that 5% of these calls will be made though Skype. Mr. Silverman said something about how communication used to be a hardware application but now it shifted to a software application because of the voices and the mobile connected to the Internet. I read in an English newspaper in Korea that Skype expects to open its market in Korea. Some critics in Korea were skeptical since Korea has always been “made in Korea” advocates (as you will notice the use of SK telecom and LG phones exclusive to a certain subscription).  It seems that Skype is offering free skype-to-skype calls in Korea so this is threatening other Korean telecoms in Korea since subscribers are paying for these calls. It would be interesting to know how the Korean subscribers will respond to this initiative by skype.

After the dinner hosted by the Prime Minister of Korea, a candlelight demonstration was held outside by Korean protestors. We all couldn’t directly go out of the COEX North area so instead we were directed to the COEX Intercontinental Hotel entrance. I have seen some protestors near the Seoul City hall previously but they were quietly positioning themselves outside the COEX with placards and candlelight at this time, and chanting something in Korean. I asked a Korean volunteer from the OECD preparation office what the chanting from the protestors meant but as we were led to the other building, it was too faint to understand what they were actually saying in order for it to be translated to English. All I can decipher was that they were berating President Lee somehow.

I think some of you might have heard that this started as a protest from the lifting of the US beef ban of Korea because of the mad cow disease. I have talked to many Koreans here and they think that this protest has been elevated to something political – that such public opinion was not heard and a ban that has been hastily lifted. This whole thing was what was heavily talked during the civil society forum – that the Internet was used as a tool to converge protests, relying on the inherent freedom of expression that we all rationalize when we want our own views heard. Public opinion should be encouraged – no doubt about that.  One Korean university student whom I have talked to informally told me that because of the Internet, the protest escalated.

The demonstration reminded me of a few points that was pointed out by Consumers Korea during the Civil Society Forum last June 16, with regards to Neoliberalism and the Internet:

[1] that information technology is seen as a means of control in capitalism and could strengthen capitalistic view;

[2] that the Internet, as an agora where people converge/gather to oppose neo-liberal globalization and which would imply that we gather and access information and then go oppose policies of government;

The “Agora” mentioned here was the Greek open space/place of assembly. I think the relation to the “agora” is how people can directly respond to information they see/read- the same way Greek people assemble in an agora when they want to hear any declarations.

In my honest opinion, if we talk about the Internet generally in reference to this, scientific technology should be something that should be socially constructive. It is all up to us to promote democracy and such demands for human rights in the digital era should encompass realizing our freedom of expression, upholding privacy and sharing of knowledge.

Ahn Neyong Ha Seyo (Hello!) from Korea !

The Korean government through the Korea Communications Commission did a wonderful job of organizing the event. I have to commend the organizers for sticking to the time limit for each session so everything was always on schedule.

I just want to share my impressions on the OECD Civil Society-Organized Labor and the Ministerial Meeting here in Seoul.

Last June 16, was the Civil Society-Organized Labor forum (Katitza Rodriguez, who headed the Public Voice coalition, has shared the civil society declaration, I believe, to the Diplo community). I would like to point out specific interesting points here during the session that I have jotted down. This is more or less the gist of the forum so for easier reading, let me enumerate these thoughts:

[1] Technology should be used with good intentions. By this, we mean the quality by which technology should be used for better consumer benefits. This would also mean to seek ways to good strategies. I think the point that was being presented was to focus more on consumer protection.

[2] Roland Schneider of Trade Union Advisory Committe (TUAC) said that “power” comes from the people. He pointed out an aspect by which social unrest or protests are spreading to the Internet. It would challenge us to think of how the Internet can make democracy better – like how civil society participants can promote democracy. He feels that there is still room for improvement in this case. I think that if we talk about democracy in general, we not only push for democracy per se, but we also push for social policies.

[3] The president of Consumers Korea, Jaoik Kim, made a good point when he said that IT should continually contribute to the improvement of human life, even if we simply talk about consumer protection. I think the general idea here is that if we aim to improve the quality of life in general, then it also raises the quality of life.

[4] With regards to the human and political dimension of the Internet in general, Ambassador David A. Gross of the US Department of State made significant points here to ponder. He mostly talked about the transformation of the Internet in terms of its impact in our social lives. He talked about this transformation in the impact of free flow of information that can politically drive challenge. It was interesting when he said that in the Phase 1 of the WSIS, he was quite disappointed. I think he was referring to the 1948 human rights declaration which he feels suppresses freedom as much as those who forwarded them. But he was quite pleased, according to him, on the 2005 WSIS because of the powerful language used that referred to paragraph 4 of the Tunis agenda (reiterating that the US is for openness).

[5] Ambassador Gross also shared that in February 2006, US secretary of State C. Rice, created a state task force to look at the tools that the US already have with regards to Internet freedom and raise the following issues: a) revising the document of human rights by raising this issue explicitly with bilateral meetings with other countries; and b) that the issue of Internet freedom is powerful only if you have access to the Internet which leaves other countries behind so there is a need to work with other countries to advance access, create/enable partnerships and hopefully in the next few years the number of Internet users would reach more than 1.4 billion (as he mentioned that in the year 2000, there were 300 Million Internet subscribers only). Ambassador Gross also reiterated the need to advance political freedom, and advance access. I think by advancing access, I previously thought he was merely talking about forging partnerships to bridge the digital divide. But I think he was pointing out on the issue that we shouldn’t confuse people about access in general. By access, we mean that people in all walks of life can have that access to the Internet because it is important that people speak clearly. This is the more reason that we include discussions of all voices.

[6] Laura Newman of the Carter Center talked about “digital disconance.” I initially thought if there was such a word “disconance” maybe refering to “content.” But she clarified that she was talking about “digital chaos.” Ms. Newman was pointing out about a panacea for effective right of access to information. I have to agree with her on this one when she mentioned that people tend to just dump information to the Net and then say you were into openness even if the information is not reliable.

This is so far for the stakeholder’s meeting from the Civil Society point-of-view.

May 26 (First Day)

I followed the IPv6 Pratictal Tutorial, where it was possible to understand all myths and realities about the transition of IPv4 to IPv6.

It is a fact that the IPv4 pool is running out (the end is expected to 2010 or 2011) due to the multiple equipments connected to Internet nowadays (computer, PDA, mobiles, cars, etc), so we need to get an alternative fast. The IPv6 is the alternative choosen by technical community (IETF).

One of the advantages concerning the IPv6 is the auto-configuration tool (today, the IPv4 needs a manual and long-term maintenance).

One of the disadvantages related to the transition of IPv4 to IPv6 is that not all equipments are ready. It means that not all computer and websites work with IPv6 and not all routers accept both versions. So it shall be a real obstacle to developing countries that have older equipments and tools.

It is recommended to keep “dual stack” routers (that work with both IP versions), but it can’t be a long-term solution because sooner or later all connections will be through IPv6 only.

The material concerning this tutorial is available at this link.

Unfortunately not all of them are in English, so please let me know if you need translations.

May 27

7 th NAPLA meeting

This meeting is related to Network Access Points (NAP) and Internet Exchange Points (IXP). There were some specific issues and regional experiences (such as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile) concerning the route servers, IXP and NAPs. It also have an interesting discussion about the IPv6 peering experience.

There were an interesting discussion about the lack of investments in Latin America (specially after the IPv6 peering North-american company that brought some experiences in Europe and Asia). The main argument is that there is no market that brings return to their investment or even some profit perspective. For example, if they set a route in Brazil, the largest market, first they have a 100% tax and they won’t be able to extend to other countries because there is no integration rule among us.

The presentations are available at this link but also if someone needs tranlations let me know.

LACNOG (Latin American and Caribbean Network Operations Group)

There were some regional experiences concerning the transition of IPv4 to IPv6 (which are the main obstacles and how the IPv4 router are settled now).

Also an introduction to a Certification Project and a Time Protocol developed in Brazil which intents to syncronize all dates and time from routers and computers (besides the presentation below, there are some information at: http://ntp.br/).

And finally some statistics data concerning the development of Internet in Brazil. This research has been done for 3 years now and it gives some idea og the growing market in mobiles (the surveys for the past 3 years are available for download in English at this link). There were an interesting question about similar surveys in LA&C countries which could not be answered.

The presentations are available at this link (again, just tell me who needs a translation).

May 28

Network Security Event

During the morning, the main point were the security issues with some examples from different actors.

The pannelist Maria Paula Espnoza spoke about the network security system implemented in the University and the high points were: (i) they used an Open Source Security Information Management (OSSIM), which information are available at www.ossim.net, but there are some private options such as Cisco Mars and Cisco Works; (ii) there are 4 main components in a network: the mainframe, 1 or 2 segments that monitor the network and a Database, so there are different kinds of risks (atacks received) and compromisse (atacks sent by their machines) to each machine. (iii) before the implementation of OSSIM, 99,92% of the atacks were false positive, after it, the number were around 78% of real atacks alarm!

The other pannelists, brotught some interesting information and numbers. For example,  after monitoring 10 machines open proxy in Brazil, there were blocked 500 thousand spam messages that should reach 4 billions people. Around 70% of the messages blocked came from Taiwan and should return to a machine there (so they used the Brazilian network for hidding their origin). Besides, 97% of the atacks were the in gatway 25-TCP, so its highly recommend to change to gateway 587-TCP as a default for e-mails (for further information please see RFC 4954 and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group – www.maawg.org).

Moreover, some surveys show funny data, like the atacks fall dowm durin Christmas and New Year Holidays (so even atackers got a Holiday!). There are many kinds of atacks and economic usage of security breaks, like malwares, botnets and DDoS (Denial of Service – which is having more requests than the server can work with).

All presentations and more data are avialable at this link (again, let me know who needs translation).

LACNIC Open Police Forum

During the afternoon and the next days, it took place the LACNIC Open Police Forum, an opportunity to present what has been done in the past year, some similar experiences (from LA&C and “outside” countries and organisations like Afrinic, Icann, IETF, among others), and what should be done this year. Concerning the future proposals, all of them involved the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

It is important to note that LACNIC activities are related to this Forum, since it legitimates the policies and functions it will assume for the year. Which means that in order to develop any police or activity, it has do be accepted during this LACNIC Forum. There were some discussions in order to have some tools for those issues that can`t wait 1 year to be voted. But it will be further discussed in next year meeting.

The related presentations are available at this link.

May 29

There were again more discussions about the IPv6, myths and realities, ho to implement in Latin America and Caribbean, the obstacles, the predictions, and so on.

The material is available at this link.

The second part of the day were the LACNIC Open Police Forum (please see above).

May 30

During the morning we had the chance to experiment the IPv6 connection, where it was possible to check if your computer is prepared to IPv6, if the usual websites you visit are ready for IPv6 (I could only access Google, for example, all others sites I am used to aren`t available) and there were more presentations about it (all availabe at this link).

The afternoon took place an ISOC meeting (INET 200  about general overview and regional experiences, besides antecipating the IGF theme: how to get the next billion Internet users. Material at this link.

[on behalf of Katitza Rodriguez Pereda]

Dear all,
A diverse group of civil society groups have worked on a joint Civil Society Declaration to the OECD 2008 Ministerial on the Future of the Internet Economy, which is currently taking place in Seoul. It raises a number of issues of major importance to the civil society community and makes a number of recommendations to move us towards the future of the Internet that meets the essential needs of all the world’s citizens.

The declaration has been signed by (so far) EPIC, EFF, EDRi, IRIS, IT4Change, Public Knowledge, Association for Progressive Communications, Consumers Korea, Jinbonet, CIPPIC- Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, BEUC – The European Consumers’ Organisation, BEUC – The European Consumers’ Organisation, Centre for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development, Consumer Council of Canada and many individuals (William Drake, Adam Peake, Urs Gasser, Jisuk Woo, Fouad Riaj Bajwaw, Gerry Morgan Foundation, Carolina Rossini, Lisa M.Dr. Mc Lauglin, Esteba Urbie Restrepo Public Internet Advocacy Center).
The full text of the Declaration is at this page.

The declaration is open for sign on by civil society organizations and individual CS representatives by Tuesday 12:00 US EST. If your organization / you are interested in signing on, please email Katitza Rodriguez Pereda of EPIC at katitza@datos-personales.org.

Many thanks and all best.

The 2008 IGCBP brings local and regional issues into the focus and is improved by the introduction of several bilingual groups (English and Arabic, French, Portuguese or Spanish), enabling the participants to map the IG field in their native language. The advanced course and the research phase aim at reinforcing the discussions on advanced topics that are high on the global IG agenda.

The 2008 IGCBP brings local and regional issues into the focus and is improved by the introduction of several bilingual groups (English and Arabic, French, Portuguese or Spanish), enabling the participants to map the IG field in their native language. The advanced course and the research phase aim at reinforcing the discussions on advanced topics that are high on the global IG agenda.

The 2008 IGCBP brings local and regional issues into the focus and is improved by the introduction of several bilingual groups (English and Arabic, French, Portuguese or Spanish), enabling the participants to map the IG field in their native language. The advanced course and the research phase aim at reinforcing the discussions on advanced topics that are high on the global IG agenda.

The 2008 IGCBP brings local and regional issues into the focus and is improved by the introduction of several bilingual groups (English and Arabic, French, Portuguese or Spanish), enabling the participants to map the IG field in their native language. The advanced course and the research phase aim at reinforcing the discussions on advanced topics that are high on the global IG agenda.