Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas: Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule

This set of studies seems to indicate that Internet access can be successfully controlled for state ends in practice. How? Not mainly through technological means but through intimidation. You don’t need to monitor everyone’s email and web access to frighten people – you just need a society where people censor themselves and are aware that at any time their Internet access could be being monitored. Indeed by making state government more effective and efficient it may even strengthen authoritarian regimes.


The book mentions an interesting resource – the Global Internet Liberty Campaign – “a free-lance journalist is traveling the world to report on the methods of Internet censorship used in the various countries and the ways possible to gain access to sites that are censored by governments and other groups”.home accredited loansunion acu creditcollege online accreditedamerican credit expresscredit alpena alconaaea credit unioncare accreditation ambulatory for association healthassociation american laboratory for accreditation Map

The BBC reports to my total lack of surprise that E-voting failed to stir the public in the local elections and it still didn’t work that well, either. At least two of the 18 areas which tried it had to go back to paper after the technology failed. The Swindon “success story” had 11,000 people voting via the Internet and just 339 voting via digital TV out of an electorate of 137,000 – and of course we don’t know how many of these would have voted conventionally anyway. My guess is “quite a few”.

Quite apart from the already well-rehearsed arguments about why it doesn’t appear to make much of a difference to turn-out (“conventional” voting isn’t that much trouble to begin with, for example) I would add that technology tends to be used more the more it is used (if you see what I mean).

If people were used to using the Internet to deliberate with their local and national governments throughout the year, it might be a natural move to vote electronically too. Without that, you are asking people to jump through security hoops and learn often un-familiar technologies for a once in four years chance to make their voting experience slightly better. No wonder they don’t seem too keen.

Solve the democratic deficit with local government first, make the Internet a useful way for local government to engage with the public year-round second, and e-voting would at last become significantly used. Indeed, turnout would rise to the point where e-voting wouldn’t be sought as a solution to a desperate problem of voter disenchantment but would be just one more way for citizens to work with councils.

For more detail on the e-voting trials check this report from before the results were announced, including some sagely skeptical comments from one of my profs, Stephen Coleman.

The Register reports that Westminister council plans to install WiFi across Soho – initially to help council workers and possibly to help with their ubiquitous CCTV surveillance plans – but later, apparently, the network may be opened to the public. (Doubtless the more techno-savvy members of the public are finding ways to get their WiFi free in central London already).

It is not clear whether the access it would provide would be free of charge or not. Let’s hope they don’t decide to try to recoup their costs of installation by charging people – the council is Conservative so that’s the sort of thing you might expect from them…

Thanks to iSociety for the heads up

First British Telecom generously agreed to ADSL-enable exchanges it had hitherto intended to bypass as long as enough potential customers registered an interest. Now (the BBC tells us) it is producing a kit to help members of the public lobby their neighbors to get them excited about broadband. I wonder if the cable companies could be persuaded to do similar campaigns? Though it’s a seemingly off the wall idea I have a dim recollection that there were other similar campaigns when electricity was first being introduced in the US (though perhaps not directly aided by the electric companies themselves?). Women campaigners were lobbying to get electricity into their communities because of its labour-saving properties.courses school accredited online highcredit 800 card debaccredited degree estate realchase line card 800 creditfor credit loans 3000 dollar badcredit boa card life 0credit accept unsecured cardalabama credit better bureau business Map

Now that Saddam has been removed, it seemed clear to me that the sensible thing for America to do would be to withdraw from their bases in Saudi Arabia, thus denying fundamentalists an excuse for their anti-Americanism. I never expected that the US would actually do it though. If they don’t end up with permanent bases in Iraq either it will be more difficult for cynical people (like myself) and fundamentalists to argue that the invasion of Iraq was merely a big ploy by the US to give itself more military leverage in the Gulf region.

… my parents write to tell me they watched something about it on TV. Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour just did a segment about weblogs – my mother told me about it (thanks, Mum!) and you can watch it, listen to it or just read the transcript. Not full of new insight but a nice little overview of the subject (including a short analysis of how weblogs may have knocked Trent Lott out of power). It also rehashed the old argument, “are weblogs journalism?” And it did reveal to me something I didn’t realise – MSNBC has editors who copy-edit what their webloggers write?movie teen chris another not evansmovies lesbian dirtymovies free easyboyfriendmovies sucking 69 freebestiality free movieblack pussy free moviesdownloadable movies sex freefuck movie free clips Map

It was through Julian Bond’s RSSify utility. Check it out yourself – though of course it won’t be long before this is built into all weblogs automatically. I have discovered to my surprise via my site survey (please try it out!) that almost a third of respondents visit this site via my RSS feed.

It’s nice to see high tech being used to help with those on low incomes like bus users as well as businesses and the technology elite. I was envious when HP publicised its Real-time Transport Tracker which let Finns know when their next bus was approaching a stop near them via their mobile phone. Now I hear in the North of England a pilot scheme is using a central computer to coordinate the running of a fleet of door to door buses.

The Centre for Technology and Democracy has tried to determine the things that get you spammed the most. Their report seems to indicate posting your email address up on public websites is the worst thing you can do, but there are lots of other ways spammers can get at you. Also, they found that contrary to popular believe unsubscribing to a spammer’s email does not seem to increase your likelihood of receiving further spam.

There are lots more useful details in the report but if you don’t want to read the whole thing, the BBC offers a quick summary.

The Homeland Security Secretary has named the department’s privacy officer – Nuala O’Connor Kelly who, it turns out, used to be vice president for data protection and chief privacy officer for DoubleClick Inc – the people who use cookies to serve banner ads at you. DoubleClick faced heavy criticism in the past for its policies (though her appointment at the time was in response to the reaction to some of their less attractive policies – I don’t know where she stood on them herself).asian losing virginity teensasian beastialityfriends mom my mrs. saskia hotpissing /shittingshitting gaymilf interracial dplesbians fucking freehuge tits milk squirtingteches mom dads daughter dickhairy puissy