jeudi 17 novembre 2016 - Lille Centre - Lille-Wroclaw à vélo... sur Skype
▻https://lille.demosphere.eu/rv/4785
#artivisme
-
-
When Disaster Strikes, He Creates A ’Crisis Map’ That Helps Save Lives : Parallels : NPR
▻http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/10/02/495795717/when-disaster-strikes-he-creates-a-crisis-map-that-helps-save-lives
via Alexandre Sanchez que je remercie infiniment
Back in January 2010, Patrick Meier, a Ph.D. student in international relations at Tufts University, was checking email at home, with CNN on in the background, when he was jolted by a breaking news alert. An earthquake had struck Haiti, and tens of thousands were feared dead.
“I froze,” he says. “Just paralyzed.”
His girlfriend, Christine Martin, a fellow student whom he wanted to marry, was doing research in Haiti when the earthquake hit. Meier tried everything he could think of – phone calls, social media, Skype, text messages – to get in touch with her or anyone else who might know if she was safe, but couldn’t get a response.
#cartographie #cartographie_humanitaire #désastres #catastrophes
-
Skype Tease ’Exciting News’ for Linux Users - OMG! Ubuntu!
▻http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/07/skype-linux-exciting-news-announcementIt’s desktop client is, to put it mildly, practically #abandonware; Skype for Linux was last updated two years ago.
-
Swarm.js+React — real-time, offline-ready Holy Grail web apps – Swarm.js
▻http://swarmjs.github.io/articles/todomvcThe state of sync in web apps is that sync sucks. GTalk loses messages inbetween desktop and mobile. Apple iCloud can’t merge back document replicas if those were edited concurrently. Google Docs needs some ungodly chemistry to resync after working offline. These are SNAFUs I personally experienced and I have also heard other folks complaining about Evernote, Skype, Dropbox, you name it.
#ot
-
The Journey from Syria, Part One
One afternoon last April, a Syrian jeweller named Aboud Shalhoub sat in a messy apartment in Istanbul, wrapping his legs in plastic film. For two and a half years, Shalhoub had tried to build a life in Turkey, away from the perils of wartime Damascus, where his wife, Christine, and their two young children would remain until he could afford to relocate them. As Shalhoub learned Turkish and took on several jobs, his children came to know him mostly through Skype calls. Finally, he decided that his best option was to travel to Europe as a refugee, apply for asylum, and submit paperwork for family reunification. If all went according to plan, his new country could facilitate travel out of Syria for Christine and the children.
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-journey-from-syria-part-one?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo
#réfugiés #asile #migrations #vidéo #documentaire #parcours_migratoire #itinéraire_migratoire #Syrie #réfugiés_syriens-
The Journey from Syria, Part Two
In the first episode of “The Journey,” Aboud Shalhoub travelled from Turkey to Greece aboard a small dinghy packed with refugees that puttered across the Aegean Sea under the cover of darkness. Now, having reached Athens, Shalhoub hikes up to the Acropolis, in the center of the city. “We’ve reached a country where there’s real freedom,” he tells the filmmaker Matthew Cassel. “I’m speaking from the birthplace of democracy.”
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-journey-from-syria-part-two
-
The Journey from Syria: The Balkans Trek
In the third episode of a six-part series, about a hundred Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, and Afghans decided to walk together through the Balkans.
▻http://video.newyorker.com/watch/the-journey-from-syria-the-balkans-trek
-
The Journey from Syria: By Air or By Land?
In the second episode of a six-part series, Aboud Shalhoub sets out to reach the Netherlands to seek asylum for his family.
▻http://video.newyorker.com/watch/the-journey-from-syria-by-air-or-by-land
-
-
This Man Wants Magic to Be a Branch of Psychology - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/this-man-wants-magic-to-be-a-branch-of-psychologyIn his rather untidy office at Goldsmiths, University of London, the cheerful and vaguely rumpled Gustav Kuhn grabs what looks like a wire-frame pyramid off of an otherwise empty shelf. Holding it gently, his Swiss-English accent crackling over our transatlantic Skype connection, he says, “I tried to investigate pyramid power—the idea was that you could put a razor blade or food under the pyramid and the blade would sharpen or the food would stay preserved.” In San Francisco, I raise an eyebrow. Kuhn grins in response, pauses, and baits my question in a way only a professor can. But before I can ask, he places the pyramid back on the shelf, chuckles to himself, and says, “It doesn’t work, of course. Real magic doesn’t exist.” Kuhn should know. Born in Aarau, Switzerland in 1974, he became (...)
-
Refugee Crisis: Asylum Seekers in Greece ’Must Use Skype’
Migrants in Greece are struggling to submit claims for asylum using a new Skype-based system, according to a senior aid worker.
▻http://europe.newsweek.com/refugee-crisis-skype-greece-453908
#asile #migrations #réfugiés #Grèce #skype-
Skype or smugglers? This is the choice for refugees in Greece
Ibrahim was two years into his studies at Aleppo University, on track for a prestigious civil engineering degree, when he fled Syria. His younger brother went to school one day and never came back. A bomb had fallen on the classrooms where his brother and friends were studying, in the middle of the school day. Ibrahim loved studying but he decided he wasn’t willing to also pay for his education with his life.
▻https://medium.com/@laurakyrkesmith/skype-or-smugglers-this-is-the-choice-for-refugees-in-greece-6f9360737732
-
Non-Syrians denied asylum claims under EU-Turkey deal - MEPs
Politicians say interviews with refugees reveal they were not given chance to ask for asylum in Greece or Turkey
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/non-syrians-denied-asylum-claims-under-eu-turkey-deal-meps
#catégorisation #non-Syriens #réfugiés_syriens
-
-
Not earning enough to live with your spouse
Since 2012 any UK citizen who wants to bring their non-EU spouse to live with them in this country have had to earn at least £18,600 a year.
This has resulted in so-called “#Skype_families”, families which have been split up by the change in rules, and there are thousands.
▻http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03k9p35
#UK #Angleterre #regroupement_familial #familles #migrations #séparation #unité_familiale #pauvreté -
EI : la Russie pourrait mener des frappes unilatérales
24.09.2015
▻http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20150924/1018365500.htmlLa Russie envisage la possibilité d’effectuer des frappes aériennes unilatérales contre l’EI en Syrie, si les Etats-Unis rejettent une proposition visant à coordonner leurs actions avec Moscou, rapporte l’agence Bloomberg.
Parallèlement, selon Bloomberg, qui cite des sources proches du Kremlin et du ministère russe de la Défense, Moscou préférerait que le gouvernement américain accepte d’allier ses forces avec la Russie, l’Iran et l’armée syrienne afin de lutter contre Daech.
« La Russie estime que le bon sens prévaudra et qu’Obama acceptera la main tendue par Vladimir Poutine. Mais la Russie agira de toute façon, même si cela ne se produit pas », a déclaré à Bloomberg la spécialiste du Moyen-Orient à l’Institut russe d’études stratégiques, Elena Souponina.
Selon une source anonyme à Washington, les Etats-Unis seraient prêts à discuter de la coordination des attaques afin d’éviter des incidents avec des avions russes, mais ils n’ont pas encore reçu une proposition « concrète » de Moscou. En outre, la coalition n’envisage pas la possibilité de coopérer avec les troupes d’Assad, ajoute la source.
Auparavant, le président russe avait déclaré qu’il serait nécessaire d’unir les efforts afin de lutter non seulement contre le terrorisme, mais également contre d’autres problèmes urgents et croissants, à savoir le problème des réfugiés.
“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
Putin plans air strikes in Syria if no U.S. deal reached - Bloomberg
World | Thu Sep 24, 2015
▻http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/09/24/mideast-crisis-russia-airstrikes-idINKCN0RO01420150924-
Jaysh al-Islam déclare la guerre aux Russes qui combattent en Syrie - Dania Akkad -
24 septembre 2015
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/reportages/jaysh-al-islam-d-clare-la-guerre-aux-russes-qui-combattent-en-syrie-1Jaysh al-Islam, l’un des plus importants groupes rebelles en Syrie, a déclaré la guerre aux soldats russes qui combattent aux côtés des forces pro-gouvernementales syriennes dans la guerre civile, a déclaré un porte-parole du groupe à Middle East Eye mercredi.
La confirmation du porte-parole survient alors que la Russie renforce activement son soutien militaire en Syrie, notamment par l’envoi de 28 avions opérationnels dans le pays, selon des responsables américains.
De nouvelles images satellites publiées mardi semblent indiquer que la Russie développe deux nouvelles bases aériennes près de la ville portuaire clé de Lattaquié, un bastion du président syrien Bachar al-Assad.
Jaysh al-Islam, qui serait financé par l’Arabie saoudite, a posté une vidéo vendredi dernier montrant des combattants du groupe attaquant l’aéroport international de Bassel, à environ 20 km de Lattaquié.
Dans la vidéo, les combattants déclarent que l’aéroport est devenu une base pour l’armée russe, puis ils tirent plusieurs roquettes soi-disant en direction d’un avion-cargo russe, bien qu’il n’y en ait aucune preuve dans la vidéo.
Dans une conversation sur Skype avec MEE, le porte-parole de Jaysh al-Islam a bien insisté sur le fait que le groupe avait déclaré la guerre aux soldats russes, « non à la Russie en tant que pays ».
La dernière semaine, des combattants rebelles ont déclaré à Reuters avoir rencontré une résistance plus forte de la part des forces pro-gouvernementales, en particulier dans les zones côtières de Syrie, et qu’une intervention russe prolongera la guerre et encouragera les bailleurs étrangers des rebelles à accroître leur assistance militaire.(...)
-
Europe nudges US, Russia to walk the talk on Syria
By M K Bhadrakumar – September 21, 2015
▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2015/09/21/europe-nudges-us-russia-to-walk-the-talk-on-syriaWithout doubt, this is a defining moment. Notwithstanding the immense pressure from detractors and critics within the US (and abroad in Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, et al) to shift gear to a hyperactive interventionist role in Syria, President Obama has preferred the diplomatic track.
This primarily emanates out of the ground reality that the decade-old US strategy to force a regime change in Syria has reached a dead end. Besides, the regional scenario has also changed phenomenally. Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two countries that did all they could to destabilize Syria, are marooned in their own existential problems — and Qatar too has rolled back its regional ambitions built around the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring. In a dramatic shift, Egypt has actually swung to the Russian side and would see Assad as a bulwark against radical Islamist groups.
Above all, the US’ European allies have lost faith, caught up in a protracted struggle to cope with the refugee flow and agonizing over the spectre of the IS. The melancholy, long, withdrawing roar of their retreat from the US’ regime change agenda in Syria should be audible in Washington. The debris of the conflict has reached Europe and although the US remains safe and untouched, it cannot wash off its hands off the political and moral responsibility for the horrific tragedy that is unfolding.
Meanwhile, the Syrian conflict itself has transformed. The Islamic State is today the real beneficiary of the regime change agenda pursued by the US and its regional allies. The ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition has become the butt of jokes. Which means that what is shaping up is a confrontation between the Syrian government forces and the IS. With air strikes against the IS not having much effect, Washington should show the practical wisdom to utilize whatever capabilities available on the ground.
What lies ahead? Kerry’s weekend visits to London and Berlin to consult key allies have prepared the ground for some intense discussions involving the various protagonists — Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, in particular — that can be expected to take place through the coming week in New York where the world leaders are gathering for the UN General Assembly session.
The manner in which the West has swiftly welcomed Russia’s military intervention in Syria underscores that a new chapter is beginning in their mutual relationship. This augurs well for conflict resolution in Syria. The bottom line is that the US’ trans-Atlantic leadership demands a quick solution to the Syrian conflict, which is threatening European security. In an extraordinary remark, Steinmeir actually urged all concerned — including the US — to “put aside national interests for the time being” and to rise to the occasion. (Transcript is here : ▻http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/09/247077.htm .)
-
-
Skype communication app is down across the globe — RT News
▻https://www.rt.com/news/316056-skype-messaging-down-globeMauvaise nouvelle : Popular communications application Skype went down across the world on Monday. Numerous users are currently complaining on social media that they are not able to sign in.
-
Tor Project : Pluggable Transports
▻https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports.html.enPluggable transports transform the Tor traffic flow between the client and the bridge. This way, censors who monitor traffic between the client and the bridge will see innocent-looking transformed traffic instead of the actual Tor traffic. External programs can talk to Tor clients and Tor bridges using the pluggable transport API, to make it easier to build interoperable programs.
Des méthodes alternatives de transport de Tor pour lutter contre ses points faibles ou dissimuler son utilisation (en particulier par des tunnels qui sembleront « légitimes » et « innocents » (encapsulation HTTP, Skype, etc.) en cas de DPI).
Ça devient sérieux...
#Anonymat_sur_Internet #Crypto-anarchisme #Deep_packet_inspection #Internet #The_Onion_Router #Tor
-
Syrian opposition defends Eastern Ghouta situation - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/syria-jaish-al-islam-ghouta-bombing-alloush-islamist.htmlAnother man from the area, a lawyer by profession now living in northern Europe but in daily contact with several individuals inside the area under JAI control, told Al-Monitor in a Skype conversation that the Tawbah prison is filled with several thousand people imprisoned without a fair trial by the groups active in the JAI-dominated area, and that the Al-Baton jail reportedly held a few hundred women and children taken prisoner from the Adra al-Omalia area. The men who had been taken alongside them are believed to have been executed, as were many fighters from the rival and recently disbanded Jaish al-Umma group more recently.
While the group has long called for a state run on the basis of Islamic law, Capt. Alloush sidestepped the question as to whether the group supported elections in a hypothetical post-Assad future, saying only that it wanted “what the Syrian people want.”
The extent of the group’s Islamist stance is unclear.
Zahran Alloush is the son of a Salafist preacher living in Saudi Arabia and was born in Douma, in the Damascus outskirts. He has three wives, as do several other major leaders in the opposition — including even Jamal Maarouf, who headed up the reportedly nonreligiously-associated Syrian Revolutionary Front prior to its routing from its base in Idlib by local al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.
When asked for an opinion about Harakat Hazm — formed in early 2014 and the first to receive TOW anti-tank weapons from the United States, weapons that were later taken by Jabhat al-Nusra when it routed this group as well from the Idlib region in late 2014 — Capt. Alloush told Al-Monitor that it was “a very, very good group.”
He praised the high number of defected military officers and said that they were well trained with what he called “a good ideology,” that of moderate Islam.
JAI, like all the Islamist groups, does not use the “revolutionary national flag” since “there are so many extremist groups in Syria right now that would fight” the group if they did, Alloush said.
He noted that JAI had always fought against the Islamic State and was responsible for getting it out of the area now under its control. He admitted, however, that it was fighting on the same side as many other groups that have views similar to those of the group’s sworn enemy.
But while IS “has an ideology that is takfiri, and they kill everyone except IS,” other groups in the opposition may “have the same ideology but don’t make the same chaos — for their fighters, for our fighters or for the Syrian people.”
Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/syria-jaish-al-islam-ghouta-bombing-alloush-islamist.html#ixzz3eeFzTyqI
-
Skype summoned to court in Belgium for refusal to wiretap
▻http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20150526/1016275133.html
Selon les medias belges, le parquet agit en justice contre Skype, car celui-ci n’a pas autorisé les enquêteurs à accéder à des conversations privées entre deux ressortissants d’Arménie soupçonnés de contrebande.
D’après l’enquête, les deux suspects ont expressément utilisé Skype en 2012 afin de s’entretenir de la livraison de biens volés ou illégaux.
Skype a expliqué son refus par le fait qu’il n’était pas enregistré en tant qu’opérateur téléphonique en Belgique et n’était pas soumis à la législation belge.
▻http://www.wsj.com/articles/belgian-court-summons-skype-over-refusal-to-hand-over-suspects-data-1432666262
In the event the court deems Skype to be either a telecom company or a company that provides communication services, the firm could face fines of up to €24,000 ($26,000).
The case will also examine whether Luxembourg-based Skype is obliged to cooperate with Belgian justice.
“Law enforcement plays an important role in keeping communities safe but the legal process should also protect personal privacy, respect international borders and recognize technological differences,” a Skype spokesman said.
NOTE:
An earlier version of this story was incorrect in saying Skype is being summoned before court because it declined to hand over two criminal suspects’ data. The company is being summoned to court because it refused to allow the two suspects’ communications to be wiretapped.
-
.:Middle East Online:::.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=71394Gazan software firm growing despite Israel blockade
Luzu, co-founder of Unit One, says his company now employs 89 people, mostly women, deals with his clients through Skype.
-
Skype’s real-time translator makes us all instant multilinguists - Quartz
▻http://qz.com/404057/skypes-real-time-translator-makes-us-all-instant-multilinguists
▻https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/skype-translator1.jpg?w=755▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kUFq8F4YpQ
futuristic, Star Trek-esque real-time translator, and made it available for the general public.
The app is basically like having your very own United Nations translator at your side. It can translate both voice-to-text and text-to-text instantaneously.
-
Le message de la vidéo est #terrifiant !
Sous la dégoulinade de #bons_sentiments et de développement #néolibéral, on n’a même plus besoin d’apprendre la langue de ses amis.
#merci M$ !
-
-
The Data That Threatened to Break Physics - Issue 24: Error
▻http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-data-that-threatened-to-break-physicsAntonio Ereditato insists that our interview be carried out through Skype with both cameras on. Just the other side of middle age, his salt-and-pepper hair frames wide open eyes and a chiseled chin. He smiles easily and his gaze captures your attention like a spotlight. An Italian accent adds extra vowels to the end of his words. We talk for 15 minutes before he agrees to an on-the-record interview. He tells me he has no desire to engage journalists who might subvert his words into a sensational, insincere story. The reason he agreed to Skype with me is because I am not a journalist, but a physicist and writer who spent 13 years in the trenches of experimental particle physics. And he has no tolerance for entering another debate about behavior rather than science. But finally, he (...)
-
#science #physique #recherche #relativité #bug #communication
the performance of the OPERA team in finding a single loose cable among the thousands of electrical channels of experimental equipment was remarkable.
(...) Most science journalists are not scientists. “They pretend to treat scientific information the same way as murder or kidnapping.”
-
-
Ukraine government, militants reach agreement to withdraw tanks from frontline
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ukraine-government-militants-reach-agreement-to-withdraw-tanks-from-frontlThe office of the chief Ukrainian representative in the Contact Group confirmed that a Ukrainian initiative for the mutual withdrawal of tanks from the frontline was raised during a Skype conference on Wednesday between the Contact Group and representatives of some districts in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
(intégralité de la brève)
Voilà une bonne nouvelle : sur le terrain, on se parle et on se met d’accord pour un retrait !
-
Infographic: The Apps That Know Everything About You
▻http://www.vocativ.com/tech/internet/mobile-apps-privacy-settings/?page=allAs you’ll see from our chart, running down the left side, we’ve listed 25 of some of the most popular apps in the Google Play store, including Skype, Facebook and WhatsApp. There are actually about 60 permissions that these apps can ask for—everything from making your phone vibrate to accessing your camera. (You can find a full list of all the potential permissions here.) For practical reasons, we asked Hong to highlight four permissions that he thought were potentially the most alarming. Across the top, we list those four: contacts, text messages, call log and microphone. All of these are pretty straightforward, but the microphone permission is especially eerie. Imagine all the audio around you being recorded by some app, without your knowledge.
To be clear, these apps don’t actually activate your microphone until you tell them to (e.g. you make a phone call on the Skype app), but in the future, that may change. Facebook freaked out users in May when it announced a new (optional) feature that would let the microphone listen in on your conversations.
Our chart ranks the apps (top to bottom) that ask for the most permissions. As you can see, AntiVirus Security, Viber and Facebook top the charts in terms of the number of permissions they request. But it’s not at all uncommon for apps to request the four pieces of personal data that we’re hightlighting. In fact, more than half of the 25 apps have access to your contacts, and about a third tap into your text messages, call log and microphone.
-
Skype or WhatsApp is a beautiful mobile application tilts you want to use this application on your mobile Download it here. ▻http://skype.indirsk.com
-
Firefox Hello : un concurrent de Skype et Hangouts en WebRTC ▻http://www.numerama.com/magazine/30968-firefox-hello-un-concurrent-de-skype-et-hangouts-en-webrtc.html
-
Egypt Begins #Surveillance Of Facebook, Twitter, And Skype On Unprecedented Scale
▻http://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/egypt-begins-surveillance-of-facebook-twitter-and-skype-on-u#4fze83kJERUSALEM and CAIRO — Egyptians’ online communications are now being monitored by the sister company of an American cybersecurity firm, giving the Egyptian government an unprecedented ability to comb through data from Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others.
#See_Egypt, the sister company of the U.S.-based #Blue_Coat, won the contract over the summer, beating out the British Gamma System, and the Israeli-founded Narus System. See Egypt has begun monitoring Egyptians’ online #communications, according to several Egyptian government officials who spoke to BuzzFeed News.“See Egypt has already worked with the government and has strong ties to the State Security Services,” said one official. He asked to remain anonymous, to protect his position within the government. “They were a natural choice and their system is already winning praise.”
While Egypt has tracked online communication in the past using surveillance systems that allowed officials to loosely monitor local networks, See Egypt is the first time the government will be widely using the Deep Packet Inspection technology that enables geolocation, tracking, and extensive monitoring of #internet traffic.
-
Juste mentionné avant ! ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/294422
-
-
EXCLUSIVE: Egypt Begins Surveillance Of Facebook, Twitter, And Skype On Unprecedented Scale
▻http://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/egypt-begins-surveillance-of-facebook-twitter-and-skype-on-u#2otl7iun a copy of the tenders issued by the interior ministry, and published on several Egyptian news sites, the ministry spelt out the type of online communications they will be searching for:
Blasphemy and skepticism in religions; regional, religious, racial, and class divisions; spreading of rumors and intentional twisting of facts; throwing accusations; libel; sarcasm; using inappropriate words; calling for the departure of societal pillars; encouraging extremism, violence and dissent; inviting demonstrations, sit-ins and illegal strikes; pornography, looseness, and lack of morality; educating methods of making explosives and assault, chaos and riot tactics; calling for normalizing relations with enemies and circumventing the state’s strategy in this regard; fishing for honest mistakes, hunting flesh; taking statements out of context; and spreading hoaxes and claims of miracles.Voilà voilà !
-
‘U.S. monopoly over Internet must go’ - The Hindu
▻http://www.thehindu.comMost of Pouzin’s career has been devoted to the design and implementation of computer systems, most notably the CYCLADES computer network.
Interview with Louis Pouzin, a pioneer of the Internet and recipient of the Chevalier of Légion d’Honneur, the highest civilian decoration of the French government
Louis Pouzin is recognised for his contributions to the protocols that make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet. Most of his career has been devoted to the design and implementation of computer systems, most notably the CYCLADES computer network and its datagram-based packet-switching network, a model later adopted by the Internet as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP). Apart from the Chevalier of Légion d’Honneur, Mr. Pouzin, 83, was the lone Frenchman among American awardees of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, given to the inventors of Internet technology in its inaugural year, 2013.
Ahead of the ninth annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) from September 2-5 in Istanbul, Mr. Pouzin shared his concerns regarding the monopoly enjoyed by the U.S. government and American corporations over the Internet and the need for democratising what is essentially a global commons. Excerpts from an interview, over Skype, with Vidya Venkat.
What are the key concerns you would be discussing at the IGF ?
As of today, the Internet is controlled predominantly by the U.S. Their technological and military concerns heavily influence Internet governance policy. Unfortunately, the Brazil Netmundial convened in April, 2014, with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), following objections raised by [Brazilian] President Dilma Rousseff to the National Security Agency (NSA) spying on her government, only handed us a non-binding agreement on surveillance and privacy-related concerns. So the demand for an Internet bill of rights is growing loud. This will have to lay out what Internet can and cannot do. Key government actors must sign the agreement making it binding on them. The main issue pertaining to technological dominance and thereby control of the network itself has to be challenged and a bill of rights must aim to address these concerns.
What is the way forward if the U.S. dominance has to be challenged?
Today, China and Russia are capable of challenging U.S. dominance. Despite being a strong commercial power, China has not deployed Internet technology across the world. The Chinese have good infrastructure but they use U.S. Domain Naming System, which is a basic component of the functioning of the Internet. One good thing is because they use the Chinese language for domain registration, it limits access to outsiders in some way.
India too is a big country. It helps that it is not an authoritarian country and has many languages. It should make the most of its regional languages, but with regard to technology itself, India has to tread more carefully in developing independent capabilities in this area.
As far as European countries are concerned, they are mostly allies of the U.S. and may not have a strong inclination to develop independent capabilities in this area. Africa again has potential; it can establish its own independent Internet network which will be patronised by its burgeoning middle classes.
So you are saying that countries should have their own independent Internet networks rather than be part of one mega global network ?
Developing independent networks will take time, but to address the issue of dominance in the immediate future we must first address the monopoly enjoyed by ICANN, which functions more or less as a proxy of the U.S. government. The ICANN Domain Naming System (DNS) is operated by VeriSign, a U.S. government contractor. Thus, traffic is monitored by the NSA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can seize user sites or domains anywhere in the world if they are hosted by U.S. companies or subsidiaries.
ICANN needs to have an independent oversight body. The process for creating a new body could be primed by a coalition of states and other organisations placing one or several calls for proposals. Evaluation, shortlist, and hopefully selection, would follow. If a selection for the independent body could be worked out by September 2015, it would be well in time for the contract termination of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) with the U.S. government.The most crucial question is should governments allow citizens to end up as guinea pigs for global internet corporations ?
Breaking that monopoly does not require any agreement with the U.S. government, because it is certainly contrary to the World Trade Organization’s principles. In other words, multiple roots [DNS Top Level Domains (TLD)] are not only technically feasible; they have been introduced in the Internet back in 1995, even before ICANN was created. This avenue is open to entrepreneurs and institutions for innovative services tailored to user needs, specially those users unable to afford the extravagant fees raked in by ICANN. The deployment of independent roots creates competition and contributes to reining in devious practices in the domain name market.
The U.S. government is adamant on controlling the ICANN DNS. Thus, copies (mirrors) should be made available in other countries out of reach from the FBI. A German organisation Open Root Server Network is, at present, operating such a service. To make use of it, users have to modify the DNS addresses in their Internet access device. That is all, usage is free.But would this process not result in the fragmentation of the Internet ?
Fragmentation of the Internet is not such a bad thing as it is often made out to be. The bone of contention here is the DNS monopoly. On August 28, nearly 12 millions Internet users subscribing to Time Warner’s cable broadband lost connectivity due to a sudden outage in one day. In a world of fragmented Internet networks, such mass outages become potentially impossible. The need of the hour is to work out of the current trap to use a more interoperable system.
In this context, a usual scarecrow brandished by the U.S. government is fragmentation, or Balkanisation, of the Internet. All monopolies resort to similar arguments whenever their turf is threatened by a looming competition. Furthermore, the proprietary naming and unstable service definitions specific to the likes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and more, have already divided the Internet in as many closed and incompatible internets of captive users.Recently, the Indian External Affairs Minister had objected to U.S. spying on the Bharatiya Janata Party. Can governments like India use a forum like IGF to raise concerns relating to surveillance ?
Even if governments do attend IGF, they do not come with a mandate. A major problem with the Internet governance space today is that they are under the dominance of corporate lobbies. So it is a bit hard to say what could be achieved by government participation in the IGF. This is a problem of the IGF : it has no budget or secretary general, it is designed to have no influence and to maintain the status quo. That is why you have a parallel Internet Ungovernance Forum which is not allying with the existing structure and putting forth all the issues they want to change. Indian citizens could participate in this forum to raise privacy and surveillance-related concerns.
Do you feel Internet governance is still a very alien subject for most governments and people to engage with ?
Unfortunately, the phrase “Internet governance” is too abstract for most people and governments to be interested in. The most crucial question is what kind of society do you want to live in? Should governments allow citizens to end up as guinea pigs for global Internet corporations? The revelations by NSA contractor Edward Snowden have proved beyond doubt that user data held by Internet companies today are subject to pervasive surveillance. Conducting these intrusive activities by controlling the core infrastructure of the Internet without obtaining the consent of citizen users is a big concern and should be debated in public. Therefore, debates about Internet governance are no longer alien; they involve all of us who are part of the network.❞
-
’Holding this medal insults my relatives, slain in Gaza by Israel’
91-year-old Henk Zanoli returned his Righteous Among the Nations medal to Israel after six members of his Palestinian family were killed in a bombing in Gaza.
By Amira Hass | Aug. 19, 2014 Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.611272In a few words, a letter that arrived by messanger at the Israeli embassy in Holland on Thursday afternoon told the story of three bereaved families whose lives were intertwined: Zanoli, Pinto and Ziadah. Enclosed in the letter was the Righteous Among the Nations medal that was granted to Johana Zanoli-Smit (posthumously) and her son Henk for hiding and rescuing a 12-year-old boy, Elhanan Pinto, during the Nazi occupation of Holland.
On Thursday, Henk Zanoli, 91, returned the medal to the State of Israel because, he wrote, the state murdered six of his relatives, members of the Ziadah family from the El Boureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
Zanoli, a lawyer, wrote to Ambassador Hayim Davon that “...for me to hold on to the honour granted by the State of Israel under these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those in my family, four generations on, who lost no less than six of their relatives in Gaza at the hands of the State of Israel.”
At his mother’s request, Henk set out for Amsterdam one day in 1943 and returned with Pinto, whose parents had been sent to concentration camps from which they would not return. The trip by train to their village in the Utrecht region was difficult and frightening; the campaigns to catch Jews were at their height. The Zanolis were already involved in resistance to the occupation. Johana’s husband was arrested and exiled to Dachau, and a few months before Germany surrendered, he died in the Mauthausen concentration camp. The Nazis executed her son-in-law in the dunes of The Hague for his participation in the Dutch resistance movement. Another of her sons was engaged to a Jewish woman, who was arrested for the crime of being Jewish and murdered. Elhanan Pinto was saved and eventually emigrated to Israel.
Johana Zanoli and Henk didn’t talk much about the years of the occupation, said Angelique Eijpe, 41, Zanoli’s great-grandniece, who is a diplomat in the Dutch foreign service. Johana Zanoli died in 1980. She didn’t expect to receive a prize for her deeds, nor did her son initiate the receipt of the Righteous Among the Nations award at a ceremony held in 2011 at the Israeli embassy in The Hague.
The initiator was the survivor, Pinto.
“Only recently did I discover that they were actually traumatized after losing three family members: a husband, a son-in-law and a fiancee,” said Eijpe. “The entire family was involved in resistance to the occupation, but they didn’t talk about it much. I only remember that they disliked Germans.”
In the late 1990s Eijpe was studying at Birzeit University on the West Bank where she met Isma’il Ziadah, an economics student who was born in the El Boureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The family originated from the village of Faluja (on whose land is present-day Kiryat Gat and other Israeli communities). They married several years later and since then have been living together abroad. Since 2012 they have been living with their three children in Oman, where Eijpe works as the deputy head of the Dutch diplomatic mission. In June they went to The Hague for their summer vacation and often spoke with their family in Gaza via Skype.
Skype is a poor substitute for a real meeting. But a real meeting is almost impossible due to the limitations that Israel imposes on the movement of residents of the Gaza Strip. Isma’il and his two older sons (ages 6 and 7), who were registered in the Palestinian population registry, are not allowed to leave or enter the Strip to travel to the West Bank via the Erez checkpoint, to land at Ben-Gurion International Airport, to enter the West Bank via the Allenby terminal on the Jordanian border, or to stay on the West Bank.
As a Dutch woman, Eijpe, the wife and mother, is allowed to land at Ben Gurion, enter the West Bank via Allenby and visit there. She is not allowed to enter the Gaza Strip via the Erez checkpoint or the Rafah terminal, which aside from a short period after the revolution in Egypt has been open only to Palestinians who are residents of the occupied territories. Isma’il and his two sons last visited the Strip in 2010, entering via Egypt. The Egyptians denied entry to Eijpe. “For us the siege of Gaza is a very concrete, very personal matter,” said Eijpe, who last saw her mother-in-law in 2005.
In Oman the Skype connection is blocked, so they all particularly enjoyed the unlimited conversations from The Hague. Isma’il spoke with his brothers in Gaza and with his mother, Muftiyah, 70. The children spoke a lot with their cousins and their grandmother, whom they called “Tiyah.” “How you’ve grown,” she said proudly, never tiring of looking at the third grandson who appeared on the computer screen, and whom she didn’t know yet. Since the start of the July 8 assault, they have become more emotionally dependent on these Skype conversations.
On Sunday, July 20, at noon Isma’il Ziadah spoke to the daughter of one of his brothers who lives in Gaza City. She suddenly received a phone call informing her that “something has happened in El Boureij,” and then the Skype connection was interrupted. That morning it was reported that in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza seven Israeli soldiers were killed, as well dozens of civilians living in the neighborhood, whose homes were bombed with their occupants inside or who were shot while fleeing from the neighborhood. Ziadah was unable to contact his family in El Boureij.
Maybe it’s an electricity blackout, he thought, perhaps a problem due to the bombings. He asked his sons to go play downstairs in the yard. Their games interfered with his feverish attempts to renew contact with his home. And still he didn’t imagine the worst.
Isma’il’s brother Hassan, 50, a psychologist who lives and works in Gaza, told Haaretz this week: “That night there were many bombings and shellings in the eastern part of El Boureij. Nobody slept, not those in the camp and not us in Gaza. We considered the possibility that they had left the house. Mother and four brothers, their wives and children, live in the house. Khaled, who is a nurse, was in the clinic all the time in any case. His wife and children had gone to her family. The other three brothers, Jamil, 53, Youssef, 43 and Omar, 32, decided in the end to remain, along with our mother. Jamil’s wife, Bayan, also remained, and their 12-year-old son, Shaaban, insisted on staying with them.
“Two of the wives and their young children, and five of Jamil and Bayan’s six children, drove to Gaza, although the road from the camp was also difficult and frightening, with continuous bombings and shellings.”
At about 12 noon Hassan spoke by phone with his brother Jamil, to make sure that the children had arrived safely in Gaza. “See you,” said Jamil.
At about 2:30 p.m. a friend contacted Hassan to tell him that he had heard that the home of someone called Abu Suhayb Ziadah had been bombed. Hassan didn’t imagine that it was the house in El Boureij and that Abu Suhayb was his brother Khaled. He thought that it was one of his relatives, also Abu Suhayb, who lives in Gaza.
Hassan contacted several relatives — and then he got a call from his brother Sa’ed, who also lives in Gaza. He was crying: “Our home in El Boureij was bombed.” It was a four-story house, the pride of the mother and her sons, a house built on land purchased with savings they all contributed, and to which they moved only in 2003 from a small asbestos-roofed home provided by UNRWA.
“We all assumed that the army gives people a warning — by phone, with a warning missile — before it bombs a house or shells a neighborhood, that the army would give them time to leave,” Hassan said. “The grandson Shaaban, who is very close to my mother, remained in the house with them. If my mother had had any suspicion that our house was among Israel’s targets, for some reason that I can’t imagine, she wouldn’t have allowed her sons and her grandson to stay. I’m convinced of that.”
They drove to the hospital in Dir Al Balah to identify the bodies: Four arrived immediately; another two were identified later and brought to the mosque next to the cemetery, just as the funeral was about to begin. Another body was discovered in the ruins of their home: that of Mohammed Maqadmah, 30, a resident of the camp. According to B’Tselem — the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories — he was a member of the military arm of Hamas.
Hassan Ziadah has been working at the mental-health center in Gaza since 1991. He treats trauma victims and knows how to diagnose his condition and that of his family at present. “Mourning always takes time, but how do you deal with it when the loss is of six family members?” Hassan says. “You’re overwhelmed. You think about mother and then you’re angry at yourself for forgetting your elder brother, or think about your nephew and immediately reprimand yourself for not thinking of your younger brother.
“And besides, even before we lost them we lived in a situation of tremendous fear, insecurity and a sense of imminent death. This situation didn’t change even after they were killed. So we couldn’t yet begin to mourn naturally. Mourning has its own rituals, both religious and social, that make things easier. But like thousands of others, we were unable to observe these rituals because of the bombings and shellings.”
One of the trademarks of an Israel Defense Forces assault is the killing of entire families or many members of the same family, inside their homes. B’Tselem has documented 60 such families that were killed during the four weeks of the war: 458 people, including 108 women under the age of 60, 214 minors and 18 men and women aged 60 and over. On July 20 the IDF killed nine families, a total of 73 people.
The IDF spokesman did not reply to Haaretz’s question as to whether the Ziadah home was bombed by mistake — and if not, which family member was the target of the bombing, and whether the killing of the six civilians in the house is considered legitimate “collateral damage.” The spokesman replied that the IDF invests great efforts to avoid harming civilians, is working to investigate complaints about irregular incidents, and will publish the results after the investigations are concluded.
-
Cory Arcangel’s Official Portfolio Website and Portal
Akron & Cincinnati
A perl driven Twitter bot which automatically posts status updates in the common “travel” (city —> city) format, to make it look like the user spends alot time in, and flying between random mid-western cities. - See more at: ▻http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/code-akron-cincinnati#sthash.NDqsobTj.dpufWorking On My Novel
(Twitter Account)
▻https://twitter.com/WrknOnMyNovel
▻http://sorry.coryarcangel.comNot Yet Titled
This was a live performance where I watched TV in NYC, and broadcast it live to the Western Front in Vancouver (via Skype).I also had a glass of white wine somewhere along the way. Yes, that is Erin Brockovich in the still above. The idea here was to do just whatever I would have been doing anyway, except broadcast it across North America to an audience - the ultimate low stress / stay at home performance. - See more at: ▻http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/not-yet-titled#sthash.CsDH6VVX.dpuf
