Access to Knowledge 2008

Technologies for Access

For panel descriptions and links to bios see: http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/7118.htm

buy alprazolam Buy Prescriptions Ativan buy valium us pharmacy
buy non genaric ambien online Us Pharmacy No Prescription Valium Fedex xanax order online no prescription
xanax cheap no prescription! Buy Hydrocodone And Xanax With Mastercard xanax sales online
what color is generic xanax Cheap Online Genric Ambien No Prescription buy xanax without perscription?
cheap alprazolam order now no prescription Cheap Valium Online Pharmacy Ambien fedex zolpidem fedex next day u s 396.
discount generic xanax Buy Ativans Overnight Delivery buy brand name xanax
cheapest xanax pills Order Cod Online Xanax Ambien ativan lorazepam buy cheap ativan online
lorazepam on line fedex Cheap Ativan Buy Pharmacy Online Now ambien cr buy fed ex delivery
buy alprazolam from mexico Buy Non Genaric Ambiens cheap generic overseas ativan,
cheap ambien without prescription Buy Valium Online 32 buy diazepam saturday delivery
buy valium madre natura Buy Xanax Without Presription ativan for sale
cheap diazepam Xanax For Sale No Prescription xanax generic price!
order ambien from canada Buy Xanax Valium cheapest xanax no prescription
xanax peach pill Buy Cheap Xanax At Kalesaedu Org valium cheap
all about buy xanax! Ambien Cr For Sale buying xanax without presciption,
ambien blue pill Xanax Overnight Fedex Delivery xanax compare prices
prices for sleep aid ambien Ambien On Sale valium online order
buy xanax from india no rx, Diazepam Ups Shipping buy cheap ambien
pharmacies that send xanax by fedex Cheapest Valium order xanax online
lorazepam depresses hiccups Cheap Online Pharmacies Xanax Cod buy ativan from discount store
cheap ativan online discount pharmacy! Tbuy Ambien Online buy xanax by electronic check
ativan for panic disorder Buy Xanax Now buy ativan 2.5 mg from india?
Rishab Ghosh:

Access is not as important as ensuring that individuals have the ability to create and participate on the local level. Access in the conventional sense of the term is too often a passive term for many developing countries – facilitating the ability to create and participate on the local level is a much more active way to engage individuals in developing countries.

Somalia is the paradigmatic case of a sort of “basketcase” government given its intense level of political corruption. However, what we see, almost surprisingly, in Somalia is a strong and continuously developing telecom infrastructure which has led to an incredible spike in internet use over the last eight years from virtually 0 in the year 2000 to nearly 100,000 users today.

The locally developed M-Pesa, also is a revolutionary mobile payment system that sits on an individual’s mobile device and has allowed many locals to engage in more, faster, safer financial transactions.

Exemplified by Somalian internet use and the deployment of M-Pesa is the importance of facilitating innovation and creativity at the local level, not just passively thinking about giving developing countries access.

Critical to facilitating innovation and creativity is the deployment of free software & open source software. Both allow for skill development and economic growth by ensuring local users have the ability to create and add value to the economic and social health of their community at large.

Corinna Aichele

Infrastructure technologies are critical to the access discussion. Bridging the digital divide is possible through the deployment of cheap Wi-Fi hardware and open source software.

It is important to note that whatever network infrastructure is deployed, a proper Internet uplink is necessary (V-SAT is expensive, slow and has high latency). As such, a suggested strategy for network deployment leverages optical fiber (WAN), wireless long shots (WAN) and wireless mesh networks (last mile).

Optical fiber is expensive (15,000 $USD/km) but offers a sea of bandwidth and should provide the backbone of the network. Wireless SoHo routers are commonly used routers with the Linksys WRT54GL with OpenWRT/Freifunk Firmware. Antennas can be DIY.

Wireless mesh networks are great because they are cheap, can be grown organically, require only a minimal level of network planning and maintenance, are self healing and self organizing, and the performance is decent (0.5-2.0 Mbits/node).

Costs can go down to approximately $30/node.

Laura DeNardis

Internet Protocol (IP) is the New Intellectual Property (IP). The issue of technical standards is a crucial component of Access to Knowledge and greater openness in standards is necessary. Many critical battles over Access to Knowledge are taking place not only at the content level but at the level of technical architecture, and especially in technical standards. These conflicts occur under the radar; they are much less visible to the public or even academic communities than battles over content. The forces that seek to preserve dominance over information production and dissemination are increasingly meeting these goals not only through content control and regulation but through technology – and in particular, through information and communication standards.

Many presentations at this conference have alluded to “standards.” This is an important thread within this conference because technical standards are the least visible but arguably most critical component of both the technical and legal architecture of the global information society. Standards are not material products like software or hardware but exist at a much deeper level of abstraction and control.

They provide technical interoperability. They are literally blueprints for developing technologies that can communicate and exchange information with other technologies.

Most Internet users are familiar with well-known standards such as Bluetooth wireless, “Wi-Fi,” standards, MP3, and HTTP. These are only a few examples of thousands of standards enabling the production, exchange, and use of information.

These resources necessary for information production and exchange are examples of what Yochai Benkler calls information-embedded tools, similar to enabling technologies for medical and agricultural resources. Many view these as neutral technical design decisions…but technical standards have enormous economic externalities and are politically charged.

It can be said that Standards are Politics by Other Means because they establish public policy in six areas:

Political Processes
- First, technical standards have clear implications for political processes when they are involved in the functioning of technology related to formal processes of political authorization and representation, such as periodic elections. Standards for electronic voting are a prominent example.
- They can also make decisions about the ability of the public to engage in cultural and the global public sphere.

Innovation and Competition Policy
Second, the openness of a standard can determine whether a monopoly will develop or whether there will be competition, and therefore maximum innovation, in products based on that standard.

Global Trade
Third, standards can impede or promote global trade and, increasingly we see how standards-embedded IPR can serve as alternative barriers to trade.

Critical Resources
Fourth, many technical standards create and allocate the finite resources necessary for access to knowledge. (these resources include Internet addresses, electromagnetic spectrum, satellite orbits, and bandwidth). How these resources are distributed, and by whom, can raise political questions and issues of distributive justice, as well as economic concerns.

Civil Liberties
Fifth, the design of standards also can determine our civil liberties, such as the extent of user privacy. Technical specifications can architect freedoms or contribute to the ability of governments to filter, block, censor, or engage in surveillance of information flows.

Public Services
Finally, the level of openness and interoperability in standards can affect important public services such as eHealth services, the ability of citizens to access government services, disaster response, public safety, national security, critical infrastructure protection, and the archiving of public documents.

The truth is that technical standards serve as an alternative form of public policy, but one that is established by private institutions rather than by legislatures.

The hundreds of institutions that establish information and communication standards do not share procedural norms for who can participate; whether the process is closed to the public; for transparency; for whether the standard will be made publicly available; or whether the standard is made available on a royalty-free basis or at least on a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) basis.

This complexity and, in many cases, lack of legitimacy, has pronounced effects on developing countries, both as users and developers of information technologies.

There are many examples and I will highlight only a few.
Political Effects: If a standard has political effects, then the question of who sets technical standards is highly relevant. But there are many cultural, financial, and procedural barriers to participation and developing countries often have little voice in this process. If developing countries do not have enough of a voice in the standards-setting process, their interests are not reflected in the public policy decisions made by standards.
Critical Resources: There is also an issue of the distribution and control of scarce resources, such as Internet addresses. Developing countries can have a disadvantage both in control and possession of these resources.
IPR: Developing country entrepreneurs as well as any emerging company, have IPR disadvantages if they wish to innovate based on a standard.
a. May lack enormous legal staffs required to navigate IPR
b. May lack patent portfolios and cross-licensing agreements
c. Lack history of cross-licensing agreements

So there are many problems..and greater openness is necessary. The framework for open standards must be:
- open in its development
- open in its implementation
- and open in its use

For example,
- participation should be open to anyone;
- there should be procedural and informational transparency
- IPR openness to promote innovation
- and the result should avoid single vendor lock in, maximize user freedom, and promote competition.

There are many ways to advocate for greater openness, either through political or economic levers. For example, developing countries have a potential lever to influence the proliferation and success of open standards that are presumably in their best economic and political interest – establishing government policies to only procure technologies that are based on open standards.

This option does not mandate that private industry adopt standards and does not intervene in standards development.

However, governments in developing countries are increasingly large purchasers of ICT products and, as such, have the ability to encourage open standards accordingly.

In response to increased recognition of the economic, technical, and political implications of openness in ICT standards, some governments have already established technical procurement strategies based on open standards. (e.g. Brazil, Denmark, Thailand, India).

Rinalia Abdul Rahim
Development is dependent on knowledge and ICTs enable access to knowledge, but create divide. Equitable access to knowledge is not possible without ICT. Accordingly, equitable access to knowledge is not possible without addressing the inequalities that ICT create.
ICTs in both developed and developing countries must be affordable, available, mobile, flexible, fast, and secure.

Some statistics on Global ICT coverage:
World Radio Coverage — 95%
World TV Coverage — 86%
Mobile Phone Penetration — 41% — Notably, an extra 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country increases GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points.
Average world Fixed line Penetration — 44%
Average World Computer Penetration — 20%
Global Internet Penetration — 17.4%

Given the proliferation of radio and TV, education in many developing countries relies on those media in transmitting lessons to students.

The digital divide however, is narrowing – between the years 1994 and 2004, the gap between the developed and developing worlds have narrowed in the following ways :
- Internet users: Narrowed 73x to 8x
- Mobile phone subscribers: Narrowed 27x to 4x
- Fixed telephone lines: Narrowed 11x to 4x
However, access to technology, capital and knowledge is uneven and not universal. Multi-stakeholder and multi-Sector partnerships are the mechanisms for mobilizing resources in the universal deployment of ICTs.