Caught in the net

 

Histories can be twisted, maligned, because we believe that which is given on a website, written in a manner that is unambiguous and spoon-fed to us, requiring no commitment from our end

When was the World Wide Web released to the public? Searching for an answer, I went to the only place that can provide me with an instant response — the World Wide Web. An NPR article informed me that it was created by Tim Berners-Lee and gifted to humanity on April 30, 1993, free of charge. By the end of the 1990s, this information web had covered the globe to such an extent that the post-90s generations don’t know of a time before the internet.

This one platform has revolutionised information access, learning, knowledge production and connectivity. And this has happened at a speed which is unfathomable. The number of technological developments that have aided, enhanced and accelerated these processes are mind-boggling. With Artificial Intelligence bursting onto the scene, things are only going to get even more unbelievable, literally and metaphorically. On an aside, it is philosophically valuable to consider Roger Penrose’s argument that Artificial Intelligence is a ‘misnomer’. That the computer can only ‘mimic’ intelligence. He argues that consciousness is not computation. Anyway, let me not wander.

Before you jump the gun and assume that this piece is about fake news, deep fakes, post-truth or the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, let me inform you that it is not. The drawbacks of not having the internet and the democratising role the medium has played are there for all of us to see, acknowledge and appreciate. Therefore, I am not going to dwell on the obvious. Neither am I going on a nostalgic rant on ‘the good old days’. But there are other questions about the pre-networked age that require consideration.

Let us begin with something as simple as thinking, a process that every human being engages in by default. To receive information, comprehend and make decisions is nearly automatic. The question before me is whether there was something different about the way we thought before the online network became a permanent fixture in our lives. Similar to how technology helped us reduce the time we spent on gathering, cooking and consuming food, the Cloud has greatly reduced the burden of remembering dates, times or exact events. Such information was given great importance in the past. Unfortunately, the lifting of this unnecessary weight has not meant that we engage earnestly with serious questions. The ease with which the Web provides us with answers somehow curtails the extent of our questioning.

The rapidity of search results and the way material is presented on and for the Web do not make us curious. Furthermore, the tone is more often than not, definitive. In other words, the internet has surreptitiously removed doubt from learning. Doubt is not distrust. It is a prerequisite for education. It is the opening that leads to further investigation. This does not happen by accident. It is part of knowledge creation. In the sharing of what we know, we embed the possibility of doubt, change and growth.

The virtual information highway largely functions in the opposite manner where you get more hits if you present an assured face. Your fingers itch to click the first possible link and people pay to place their links on top. It requires great effort to go past these innumerable layers of ‘surety’ to get to a place where learning is exciting; dare I even say true! This makes me consume in an unthinking manner. Questioning is stunted and people hold on to the programmed opinion they clicked on.

Hence, we should not be surprised that ‘educated’ folks fall prey to blatant lies. This problem did not begin with social media. The algorithms that nurtured cyberspace have always been designed to lessen the time used for assimilation. Speed in time spent on accessing a page and the way the information is presented are key to its success. The moment we foreground the paucity of time, urgency or the claim that we can do more productive things in those extra minutes that are needed to read, read again, think, read again and pause, we lose the ability to learn.

Is the internet a reality? Since creators, developers and participants are real people, we have to accept that the virtual universe is a part of a larger reality. But this agent has drastically reduced physical interactions. Childhood in the 1980s and 1990s entailed feeling the soil, being close to the trees, and meeting people in person. Today, it is all about video calls, playing games and learning via iPads and mobile phones. Parents say technology has made children smarter at an early age. I am no child psychologist, nor an educationist to counter such a claim confidently. Yet, I have to wonder about this smartness. Building the capacity to solve arithmetic or mathematical problems, or remembering things, or cleverness without empathy, love and care is not intelligence. I will argue that true intelligence is felt and every emotional connection is intelligent. When this is missing, humanity goes into hiding. Watching videos on YouTube or Instagram of the horrors that are unfolding in Palestine or Manipur will not make a person more empathetic. Love and compassion have to be learnt and shared physically, directly, without an intermediary.

If something does not exist on the Web, is it real? And, as an extension, is everything that happened before the virtual age and has not been digitised irrelevant? The first question may sound moot because we cannot imagine that there are people or things that do not find mention on the internet. The falsity of this belief stems from the fact that we trust it as a democratic space. The internet is a marketplace, a bazaar where everyone is selling. The fact that anyone can open a shop without paying rent does not imply equality. Social equations that govern our everyday interactions also control the internet. Hence, there are many unheard, wrongly represented and lost voices.

The imperative to give every­thing a digital avatar wipes out all that does not find space in this all-encompassing network. Innumerable cultures, stories and peoples are lost to posterity not only because we do not look beyond the infobahn but also because we have forgotten to remember from life experiences, from what we hear, see and learn in person. Even lived histories have to be virtualised. Histories can be easily twisted, maligned, because we only believe that which is given on a website, written in a manner that is unambiguous and spoon-fed to us, requiring no commitment from our end. Naysayers may argue that all this is hocus-pocus theorisation. That the website is merely the new avatar of the book. Books also spread lies and wipe out people. This is true. But a book required the writer to explain and demanded attention and time from the reader. The internet, on the other hand, celebrates loudness and preys on the lack of attention.

T.M. Krishna

The Telegraph: 1/03/24

Is the Internet making us stupid?

 

Without giving us time to think, it shows us multiple options to choose from

The other day, an over-the-top platform suggested for me a Web series called “How to get away with murder”, based on my recent views. I immediately turned to my trusted adviser, the Internet search, to read reviews about the series. As I started to type the title of the series, the search engine immediately gave me a list of choices to select: “how to get pregnant”, “how to get periods immediately”, “how to get COVID-19 vaccination certificate” and so on. I was attracted towards the third choice since I had not got the certificate yet.

After several minutes of searching and clicking on multiple tabs on COVID certificate, hyperlinks on the state’s pandemic control measures, images on statistics about upcoming COVID waves, the mandatory WHO website and several conspiracy theories about COVID, I realised that I had forgotten my primary intention of searching. It was like going through a cavalcade of many tableaux but not able to focus on any one. It’s the same experience that you get on a conducted tour wherein you get a glimpse of everything, but nothing completely about anything.

Has the Internet made us less intelligent? Possible, since it impedes our thinking process. The Internet prompts and suggests many things, but blinds us with its offerings. Even before we think, it shows us multiple options to choose. Often these choices are the popular ones, or the ones selected based on our previous searches. Our previous selections are usually our favourite ones, which makes us follow the trails like rats following Pied Piper. Even if we stick to watching one, the nefarious “auto-play” feature automatically plays the next video even before we recognise. Or the next episode of the Web series plays within a few seconds even before we come out of the trance. As if a master chef is sending us our favourite delicacies one after the other in sequence.

The Artificial Intelligence of video channels, search engines, social media and OTTs do not allow us to think. After a period of time, like a mind master, it decides on what we want and what we have to watch. Political affiliations, communal hatred, regional and religious biases, fan base and racial prejudices are often promulgated through these Artificial Intelligence networks on social media, leading to outrage and polarisation.

The other feature of the Internet which can hinder our intellectual growth is its plethora of information. This is actually a paradox. While the Internet provides a huge repository of information to build our knowledge, I believe that our intellect is becoming restricted to what we can search on our smartphones, at that particular moment. The Internet spoon-feeds the information but do we assimilate all the information? This is similar to seeking the address of a particular place. Previously, we used to find the way through the many roads by creating a map in our brain. Now, the smart-maps have made us geographically challenged. We don’t bother to remember the directions to a particular place anymore. We follow what the app tutors us to do. Now, without the app, many of us feel lost and handicapped.

Knowledge is accumulation of information and, intelligence is using this knowledge effectively. The brain retains the acquired knowledge by the linkage of neuronal pathways, which get stronger by linking different information. The more relatable and more repeated an information is, it gets strongly wired in our brain, making us remember the information and use them at the appropriate moment. But now we hardly task our brain with such challenges, and we are increasingly dependent on technology for even simpler stuff. Remember the days we used to remember the phone numbers of at least 10 of our family members. Now if one can know the phone number of the spouse, it is an achievement. Simple mathematical functions have been removed from our routine, and have been elegantly replaced by the smartphone calculator. How many birthdays of our beloved ones do we remember now? The pleasure we get by looking forward to that day and wishing them at the stroke of 12 is unparalleled. Now we are prompted by the calendar apps and social media reminders, and wishing a friend on a birthday has become mechanical.

How much do we multi-task our brain? People of the older generation would be running multiple to-do things in their brain while performing a task. But now we keep a “to-do” list app, multiple alarms, email reminders, periodic pop-offs, automated pays, and so on for everything, while keeping the brain idling. Writing a nice email or an article is no longer intuitive and thoughtful, but prompted by suggestions by the AI-driven email app. The in-built dictionary “auto-corrects” our mistakes and we hardly give a thought to the grammatical or spelling correction we made. While perfecting the Artificial Intelligence of our smartphones, our intellectual growth remains stunted.

The biggest strength of humans which allowed us to evolve much rapidly than other animals is the brain. It is a supercomputer with an unparalleled ability to take information, assimilate, correlate, retain and express. Of late, the brain’s job has slowly been taken over by the Internet and smartphones. They have become like our external brain — a hard drive with information in hand. The Internet “knows” more about us than what we know about ourselves based on our search history and views on social media. It knows our likes and dislikes and feeds us more of our “likes”, blinkering us to the other side. It does not allow us to reflect, think and act. I am afraid that we are losing our intellect and knowledge to the Internet. In the past two decades, the Internet has given a huge impetus to human communication and technical growth in every sphere of our lives. But like every other technological innovation, we need to realise the pitfalls of the Internet before it makes our brain redundant.

Rishi Kanna

Source: The Hindu, 26/09/21

There is no evidence that Internet shutdowns work

Extensive arguments have been made by many organisations and researchers, who have clearly established that Internet shutdowns, set a domino in motion that damages fundamental rights, the digital economy and in instances even public safety and order

Internet shutdowns have many names. An online curfew, network bans, information blackouts, and our favourite for its augury, the digital kill switch. It captures the growing centrality of electronic communications in modern society. Going beyond the mere disruption to a flow of information, to a halt to life itself. Access to the Internet is not only a recognised human right but practised tangibly in Digital India by the second highest number of Internet users in the world. A growing number, which according to the telecom regulator, includes about 4 in 10 Indians. But worryingly the Internet continues to be shut down, in more states and with higher frequency. Take the case of a recent state services exam in Rajasthan for which mobile Internet services were shut down in the cities of Ajmer, Bharatpur and Jodhpur in early August. This was the third such instance in recent months.

Such disruptions are clearly disproportionate and even counterproductive. Extensive arguments have been made by many organisations and researchers, who have clearly established that Internet shutdowns set a domino in motion that damages fundamental rights, the digital economy and, in instances, even public safety and order. Despite these, there seems to be a hardening of positions both in the legal rules which authorise shutdowns, and their increasing execution which is becoming a standard measure in the administrative toolkit. What explains this?

Two key levers leading to a policy gridlock are a lack of transparency and irrationality. Both are playing dutiful twins, supporting each other in the state apparatus which is approaching this issue under the blanket of national security but is ultimately being used in instances to prevent cheating in entrance exams. Since the practice of state governments to shut down the Internet was first noticed in India in 2013, people started keeping count. By maintaining a number with the date, the reasons and the place of occurrence. With the when, where and why, we could be educated and form a national policy that weighed the competing interests at play. While some organisations maintained trackers built primarily off press reports (given that most RTIs were refused), there were constant demands, even questions by members of parliament, across party lines, to gain knowledge of such data.

The answer has been evasion as the central government till date has refused to provide any count or centralise a reporting and disclosure system. We should not fear such data, and that such calculation may put us to shame, for even existing news reports , India enjoys the top rank as the global leader in the number of Internet shutdowns. These trends were apparent even in 2016 before the central government made legal rules to regulate Internet shutdowns. These rules were made without any public consultation or even a ministerial or high-level bureaucratic statement despite the prominence of the issue.

What was further worrying was several of its clauses seemed to be broadly drafted, giving extensive grounds to shut down the Internet without safeguards or oversight mechanisms as has been recently pointed out in an analysis by Nakul Nayak, legal fellow at the Internet Freedom Foundation. To get to know more about these rules, the Internet Freedom Foundation filed a series of representations, that culminated in RTIs and Appeals. The result was another dead end, in which the response refused information on who was consulted for the drafting of the rules, what were their comments on them, and vague references were made to national security. This secrecy prevents an objective examination of not only the rules but permeates their implementation which fails on any definition of reason.

For many of these concerns, a standard response is that Internet shutdowns are used in states with problems of militancy and as precautionary measures for security. Let us be clear. There cannot be any higher value than human life. But we certainly cannot punish entire populations of a region, deprive them of Internet access to secure their safety. This by itself, even if a measure limited in time to a few hours, is a precipitous path. Restrictions on rights, when left to unaccountable systems, ultimately increase in severity as they become a normalised implement of administrative control. This is precisely what has happened over time on the issue of Internet shutdowns. Coming back to Rajasthan, there is little to no evidence on how and what cheating was curbed with cutting off access to the Internet. There is a complete absence to engage meaningfully in other policy alternatives which are less restrictive, or even the consideration of more traditional, natural options such as more invigilators in exam halls, better measure for depositing mobile phones at entry gates or in case of paper leaks, launching a criminal investigation. In an age and time, in which data-driven policymaking is de rigueur, there is almost a fatalist humour which often characterises the excess of state power. Two days before the Internet was shut down, a tweet from the Twitter handle of the Ajmer Police was hastily deleted after being ridiculed on July 12. It translated to, “From midnight 13 July Internet will be shut down in all of Rajasthan due to the Entrance Exam. Candidates are requested to download their admit cards in advance by the e-mitra service”.

While we hope this makes the reader smile, our sincere hope is that this subject is addressed with greater seriousness by the government.

Apar Gupta is a lawyer and the executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation. Raman Jit Singh Chima is the Policy Director at Access Now.

Source: Hindustan Times, 13/11/2018

It’s time to fix our Internet shutdown laws

This year alone there have been more than 100 Internet shutdowns. Surely, nobody can seriously contend that there have been over 100 instances of “public emergencies” in the last 9 months

Internet shutdowns are carried out when the State cuts off access to the Internet, more commonly mobile Internet. Due to their indiscriminate use, the social impact, deprivation of individual rights and the huge financial losses this is a growing issue of public concern. Hence, it becomes important to look at whether the legal rules which govern this power fulfil their public policy objectives and whether they have adequate safeguards. In August last year, the government made the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017 which are the basis of passing orders to shut down the Internet.

The Rules give state governments and the central government the power to suspend telecom services such as mobile Internet during public emergencies. In practice, however, governments have regularly used the tool for routine policing and even administrative purposes. Examples range from preventing cheating in exams to defusing local crime – both of which do not rise to the level of large scale public concerns and certainly do not amount to a “public emergency”, which is a requirement under the Rules.

The numbers lay bare the governmental abuse of power to enforce shutdowns. This year alone there have been more than 100 Internet shutdowns. Surely, nobody can seriously contend that there have been over 100 instances of “public emergencies” – however defined – in the last nine months. As for effects to the national economy, one estimate pegs the opportunity costs of Internet shutdowns between 2012 and 2017 at a staggering $3.04 billion. Another estimate of losses to telecom operators from shutdowns stands at $18,000 per hour. However, numbers only speak half the story. The Internet has silently in many ways become the bedrock of our daily lives. Communications and commerce – together making up the nuts and bolts of social, economic, and political life – are now conducted over WhatsApp groups, online shopping applications, and (sometimes) healthy Facebook debates. By frequently suspending access to the Internet, governments have intruded on a number of fundamental rights with grave ramifications.

Those intrusions may possibly be justified if accompanied by necessary checks and balances codified in law and practice. The Rules, which forms the legal basis for suspending the Internet, suffer from several design flaws that require immediate repair if they are expected to perform those checks and balances. I argued in a recent research paper that the Rules have problems in three core areas which require urgent reform.

First, and foremost, the Rules lack a sunset clause that places a time limit on a shutdown order and automatically terminates the order on its expiry. The absence of a sunset clause gives the government a carte blanche to authorise, enforce, and perpetuate shutdowns even in times of peace when it should be reserved only for egregious instances of public unrest, if ever.

Second, the sole safeguard contemplated in the Rules collapses on examination. The Rules have created a committee to review any shutdown order and examine its legality. However, due to sloppy drafting, the Rules do not authorise the review committee to do anything should it find the order illegal. This is counter-intuitive and renders the review committee with the academic task of evaluating the legality of a shutdown order without the further power to strike it down. Third, the Rules require the review committee to evaluate the legality of a shutdown order within 5 working days. On inspection of available data, any notion that 5 working days is a reasonable period of time to sit and review an order is incongruous. Data suggests that in recent years, states are suspending the Internet more frequently, but at the same time for lesser durations. As current data indicates, over 84% of shutdowns complete their life-cycle – of the Internet being suspended, fundamental rights being affected, and the Internet being restored – before 5 days.

Finally, what is most perplexing is also what is most patently unreasonable. The entire enterprise of shutdowns is mired in official secrecy and authoritarianism. From the secretive manner in which the Rules were drafted, to the opaque manner in which they are carried out, in many cases without so much as a notification to those affected by it, to failing to maintain an official record of the number and duration of shutdowns imposed, governments in India have approached the whole shutdowns process in a manner that is unparalleled in other domains. The unique position that the Internet commands in modern society aggravates this situation further.

On July 31, 2018, Husain Dalwai, a Member of Parliament, introduced a statutory motion in the Rajya Sabha seeking annulment of these Rules. However, the statutory motion was never taken up for business. By failing to do so, Parliament missed a golden opportunity to remedy them, which currently fails the tests of valid law or sound public policy.

Nakul Nayak is a legal fellow at the Internet Freedom Foundation and is currently pursuing his LLM from the University of Pennsylvania Law School

Source: Hindustan Times, 25/09/2018

950m Indians not connected to Net: Study

New Delhi: IANS





At a time when the government is aiming to convert cash economy of the country to a digital one, a study on Monday provided a reality check to this move -nearly a billion Indians do not have Internet connections.Though mobile data plans in India are among the cheapest in the world and average retail price of smartphones is steadily declining, yet nearly 950 million people -out of a population of 1.25 billion in the country -or over three-fourths, do not have access to Internet, according to the joint study done by Assocham and Deloitte.
“Internet penetration is increasing in India, the access to affordable broadband, smart devices and monthly data packages is required to spread digital literacy to make their ends meet,“ said the study . The study titled `Strategic national measures to combat cybercrime' said: “Existing government infrastructure assets should be further leveraged for provision of digital services at remote locations.
The Modi-government started emphasising on digital economy after it embarked on a demonetisation drive on November 8.

Source: Times of India, 27-12-2016

Bridging the gap: Tech giants bring the internet to women in rural India

This Diwali is going to be a cracker of a festival for Nisha Chanderwal, a second year BA student.

“I bought a bright red kurta with gold-colour zari dupatta from Snapdeal, my first online purchase,” the 19-year-old resident of Alwar’s Umren village told HT recently.

“No courier service reaches my village. So I gave my aunt’s home address in Alwar. They paid in cash…I paid her when I picked up the parcel,” she added, explaining the circuitous delivery and payment process that is common in rural India.

Nisha is elated for one more reason: She has finally got even with her 20-year-old brother, Ashok. “He has a smartphone, but doesn’t even let me touch it, saying girls should not use the Internet. But now thanks to Google’s Internet Saathi Programme (ISP), I don’t need his phone or his help,” said an elated Nisha.

In July 2015, technology giant Google launched ISP in partnership with Tata Trusts, one of the country’s oldest philanthropic organisations, to bring rural women online in India. Today, the initiative is live in 25,000 villages across 10 states with 1,900 saathis. The final mission is to reach 300,000 villages. Google is adding up to 500 additional ‘saathis’ per week. More than 100,000 women have been trained so far.

Google started this programme because Internet usage by women in rural areas is low.

“Only one in 10 Internet users in rural India is a woman,” Sapna Chadha, marketing head, Google India, told HT. “With ISP, we are creating an enabling environment that empowers them while also bridging the technology gender divide. We believe that easy access to information can transform lives. Our mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible”.

Along with access to information, getting more and more women online has other benefits: “If women are a minority online, they become vulnerable to harassment and violence. Women can’t only be consumers of the Internet but must contribute their views, and make the space equitable,” said Rohini Lakshané of the Bangalore-based The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), which is funded by the Kusuma Trust.

Google and Tata Trusts are leveraging their core strengths for ISP. While Google provides the hardware (phones and tablets), training and Internet connectivity. Tata Trusts does the identification of saathis and the monitoring.

“We tie up with government departments to roll out the project. For example, in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, we are working with the rural livelihood mission. The government helps us to identify villages, set selection criteria and logistics such as venues,” explained Prabhat Pani, project director, Tata Trusts.

The programme first chooses a few women and trains them on how to use a mobile phone, shoot photos and videos and the basics of Internet. Then the women are sent out on bicycles with a smartphone and a tablet to teach others in their villages.

The programme has opened a new world for many. “Google is like a book. You can get whatever information you need. I am illiterate but I use voice search for information,” said Phoolwati, a 45-year-old resident of Nangli Jamawat, Umren.

Her friend Manju is now the village’s undisputed ‘selfie queen’. “I love taking videos and photos,” she said, adding that she also searches for information on MGNREGA or education loans for her children.

According to Google, the new online entrants are searching for news, recipes, designs for clothes, images and information on pilgrimages, farming and cattle-related information and government schemes.

For Google, it makes immense sense to get more people online. “The company is targeting huge and untapped demographics who are entry-level users. Going forward, they will have a huge first-mover advantage if there is scope to monetise Google’s services,” explained Lakshané.

By 2020, about 315 million rural Indians will be connected to the Internet, compared to around 120 million now. That’s about 36% of the country’s online population. By 2020, this share of rural India will jump to 48%, creating a huge opportunity for brands and marketers in places where establishing stores is a challenge,” says a study by the Boston Consulting Group, The Rising Connected Consumer in Rural India.

The first signs of this market potential were evident during the pre-Diwali online festival season sale. E-tailers posted growth in sales compared to last year thanks to growing smartphone penetration in small towns and villages, cheaper data tariffs and free hotspots. While Google did not divulge the exact revenues that it is spending on ISP, Chadha said it has helped the company to understand the needs of users in rural areas and what role the Internet can play.

Along with ISP, Google is also working with the Indian government on two projects that aims to give more people access to the Internet.

First, the Project Loon, which uses high-altitude balloons to create an aerial wireless network with up to 4G speeds for providing Internet access to rural and remote areas.

Second, the company is partnering with RailTel to provide free wi-fi access in stations.

“The ISP has no immediate profits for Google. The average revenue Indian per user is less than say a user in US. But getting more people online helps Google because its search engine is most used,” Praneesh Prakash, policy director, CIS, told HT. “In the long run, the company will earn when people access its services and also from advertising revenue.”

Nevertheless, the ISP is addressing a major problem. “Many are afraid to go online because they don’t know how they can benefit. While the Saathi programme is not a philanthropic effort, it’s good that Google is addressing this issue through its training programmes,” Prakash said.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28-10-2016

We live disconnected lives as our connection to virtual world increases

Even if you haven’t read Andrew Sullivan’s longish article called “I Used to be a Human Being” in New York Magazine, chances are you might recognise his Internet addiction.

Sullivan, an author, editor and blogger, talks about his “personal crash” following years of what he calls a web obsessive lifestyle, publishing and updating blog posts multiple times, seven days a week.

The rewards were a profitable new media business, an audience of 100,000 people a day and a “niche in the nerve center of the exploding global conversation”. Yet, as his health began to suffer, as vacations became occasions for catching up with sleep, and as “the online clamor became louder”, he realised, “This new way of living was actually becoming a way of not-living.”

Most of us aren’t as deeply immersed in our online lives as Sullivan but it’s a difference of degree. A 2014 study by AT Kearney Global Research, for instance, found that 53% of Indian respondents said they were connected to the Internet every waking hour — higher than the global average of 51%.

Easier Wi-Fi access and the proliferation of affordable tablet and mobile devices, including Reliance Jio’s aggressive 4G plans that include free voice calls and rock bottom data price, has deepened this connection.

What does this mean to the way we live, communicate and interact?

The borders between the virtual and real world are now blurred. Look around you. That couple at dinner at a restaurant checking their mail. Holidays spent posting pictures on Snapchat and Instagram. The desperation for validation in the form of “likes” and retweets. At the doctor’s clinic, people swiping their phones rather than rifling through dog-eared back issues of Readers Digest.

The human race has never been better connected — earlier this year, I watched the coup in Turkey unfold in real time on my twitter feed — and yet, I find that my mails are increasingly perfunctory — send itinerary, read this story, free for dinner? — staccato bursts with no space for communicating ideas or even concern. Thumbs up emojis responding to reposts of articles I’ve not yet had the time to read. Facebook reminding you to send birthday greetings to “friends” you can’t remember.Some call this an age of mass distraction. I pick up my phone to make a call and before I know it I’m swirling down the rabbit hole of pings and updates, phone call quickly forgotten only to be substituted by a hastily remembered text message much later. I struggle with information overload. That guy whose book I read and loved six months ago? I need to Google his name.

Even as we lose focus, it is useful to remind ourselves of the many gifts of the online world. Fund-raising for small causes, online petitions, the ability to interact one-on-one with politicians, democratisation of news. But this comes at a human cost. And here’s the irony, our increasing connectivity is making us less connected to those we still meet physically. How do you make eye contact with the dad at the bus stop dropping off his daughter, when he’s immersed in his phone? If you’re going to buy books online, how can you receive recommendations from the erudite bookshop owner who has, in fact, now gone out of business?What we lose in the name of efficiency is an older, more relaxed way of life, a way of life where people mattered because they were humans not data in some complex algorithm.

Some talk of a weekly day off away from our smartphones. Others reserve family time with phones switched off, even if it’s just an hour a day. The idea is to recognise the need to inhale, the need to switch off but switch on elsewhere.

A friend once tried to explain the marvels of modern technology to his father. “Think of all the time you’re saving,” he exclaimed. The father remained unimpressed. “Time saved for what? To send another message?” There’s a lesson in there for all of us.

namita.bhandare@gmail.com

Source: Hindustan Times, 24-09-2016

30% of Indians put info at risk with bad e-habits

Himanshi Dhawan

New Delhi





Over 30% Indians, the highest among 14 countries surveyed, access or share sensitive information using public Wi-Fi putting their personal information like credit card details and work mails at risk of being stolen. The other countries where citizens share such information freely are Mexico (19%) and Brazil (18%).Findings from a global survey conducted by Intel Security revealed that more than one of three Indians (38%) who went on the vacation with the intent to unplug were not successful in doing so. “Findings from the survey indicate that a huge majority of Indians (84%) connect to the internet while on vacation. While doing so, they often access and share sensitive information without considering the potential cyber risks of divulging credit card details, work mails and personal information on unsecured public Wi-Fi,'' Venkat Krishnapur, Intel Security's India Development Centre R&D operations head said.
Indians (31%) lead their global counterparts in willingly sharing personal information such as credit card number or log in name and password. More than one out of three Indians (36%) shared their personal data even when they realise that this will make them vulnerable.About 1,423 people in India, aged 21-54 years were interviewed and about 14,000 consumers were surveyed globally .

Source: Times of India. 31/08/2016

Need to protect the safety and civility of public discourse on the Internet

The democratisation of communication now brings the talk of the street into our homes and offices. As a result we can communicate without making a personal connection. The communications that actually reach our desktops or our smartphones tend towards the lowest common denominator of civility, a level that is unfortunately very low.

Therefore we have an epidemic expansion and exchange of hatred, anger and violence in our social media interactions. All we can say is that the ‘choice’ to subject ourselves to this lowest level of expression has now become a way of life.

Governments and political parties around the world are learning too. But the roots of these problems lie not in the State, but in the combination of private power in the ‘platform companies’ and our own burgeoning need to take advantage of their services, irrespective of our increasing vulnerability to the harmful speech directed at us by strangers.

There is no doubt that words aimed to wound or harm are appropriate subjects of regulation in any legal system.

There are many reasons why expecting public force to control these words will swiftly lead to disappointment. It is equally unsatisfactory to empower private companies to act as global censors in the interests of civility. This will give the private platforms undemocratic power.

Hence there is a need for a broad social dialogue. This is not just to restore systems of government or private censorship, but to protect the safety and civility of public discourse in a world of democratised communications. In India, we do not need the revival of section 66A or any other similar legislation, neither do we need to turn to the online giants such as Google, Facebook or Twitter for censorship. However there is a need for discussing the means by which both the government and these companies can help us protect our cultural environment. That dialogue should be based on the acceptance of some basic principles which are crucial to democracy and our society.

For instance, the providers of services that enhance democracy of communication must also devise measures to involve the communities they create in the moderation and protection of discourse.

Companies must not become censors in substitution for governments. Instead, they must create communities of civility maintenance, platforms for discussion and support people who are subjected to harm. We are building through the net a community as wide as humankind. How we carry our civility into that new space and how we deal with fighting words on the Internet determines whether we are building a better human civilisation.

Mishi Choudhary is legal director and Eben Moglen is chairman, Software Freedom Law Centre

Source: Hindustan Times, 12-08-2016

A thousand plus top level domain names added to the Internet, and counting

The Internet web address regime saw a milestone being reached a few days ago, when the number of names available for use in the concluding part of web addresses, like .com or .org, crossed the 1,000 mark. These generic top level domain names (gTLDs) were just 8 in number till 1988.

A new programme to massively boost the number of gTLDs was launched in 2012, by which time their number had increased to more than 20. From October 2013 onwards new gTLDs were added to the Internet month after month, in batches - a process that still continues.

It was after a long process of consultation and study that the organisation dealing with the use and deployment of internet address resources, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), started accepting applications for new gTLDs. It was seen as a business opportunity by many applicants, especially companies operating Internet registry services. Many other companies thought of using it to protect and promote their business space. ICANN received 1,930 applications for new gTLDs during the period the application window remained open in 2012. The largest number of applicants were from North America, followed by those from the Europe and Asia Pacific regions. The few applications that came from India were mostly submitted by companies to uphold their brands.

Other types of applicants too had an opportunity to secure different kinds of gTLDs. For instance, municipalities or public authorities could apply for geographical domain names, like .dubai or .paris. Community-based applicants, like professional associations or other organisations could also leverage this opportunity to apply for gTLDs as well. Many top level domain domain names in different languages, including Hindi, have also come into being as a result of this process. ICANN had also put in place an elaborate mechanism for processing the applications and resolving disputes, as in the case of trademarks, for instance.

As ICANN explains: “An applicant for a new gTLD is, in fact, applying to create and operate a registry business supporting the Internet's domain name system.” The processing fee to be paid by gTLD applicants works itself out to 1,85,000 dollars. And this is an entirely different proposition from the commonplace and usually inexpensive process of acquiring a domain name (a unique website address) - thousands of website addresses are registered every day.

To understand how the opening of the floodgates of Internet gTLDs has unfolded, consider the example of .organic; one of the hundreds of new top level domain names that came into existence in 2015. The company that applied for and secured this domain name says the .organic website addresses would be available only to those associated with the organic products sector. They could be companies, farmers, distributors, restaurants, publications, NGOs, trade bodies and so on. In contrast to such gTLDs there are many others that come with no such restrictions like .website or .xyz. The expectation is that a particular range of websites will naturally gravitate towards certain gTLDs ; for instance an organisation or body that is closely associated with a city might choose to have a domain name incorporating the gTLD of that city, if available. In the end, those looking for website addresses now have a huge array of top level domain names to choose from.

"The expansion of the domain name system to more than 1,000 gTLDs signifies greater diversity in how people and businesses can represent themselves online. It enables communities, cities and brands to more closely align their digital and real-world identities. It's also helping to redefine the internet experience for people across the globe by introducing internationalized generic top-level domains for the first time," said a recent ICANN blog post.

When the processing of applications is completed in the coming months, the Internet could end up with a total of more than 1,300 new gTLDs.

Keywords: ICANN, internet domain names

Source: The Hindu, 4-06-2016

DIGITAL DIVIDE - Nearly 1bn Indians can't access net: World Bank

Despite rapid spread of digital technologies in India, nearly a billion people still need to connect to the internet for pushing growth, creating jobs and accessing public services, says a World Bank report. The Bank also pointed out that India has most restrictive market regulation in retail finance and banking.

“At least 8 in 10 individuals in India own a mobile phone and digital technologies are spreading rapidly . With nearly a billion people still not connected to the internet, the opportunities for increasing access to digital technology for creating higher growth, more jobs, and better public services are significant for India,“ said the World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends, by co-directors, Deepak Mishra and Uwe Deichmann.

Releasing the report in India on Tuesday , Mishra said that dig ital development strategies in India need to be broader than Information and Communication Technology (ICT) strategies.

“There is little doubt about the transformative potential of digital technologies. However, they are not a shortcut to development, though they can be an accelerator when used in the right way ,“ he said.

India is the largest exporter of ICT services and skilled manpower in the developing world.The BPO industry currently employs over 3.1 million workers, 30% of them are women. World Bank country director in India Onno Ruhl said digital revolution is transforming the world, aiding information flow and creating huge opportunities for growth and poverty reduction.

“India's Aadhaar programme is today a model for many countries and recent initiatives like Digital India have the potential to generate greater digital dividends among all sections of its society ,“ Ruhl said.

Source: Times of India, 11-05-2016