What is Internet 2

May 18, 2007 at 8:06 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing, internet, social media, stubs, technology, web2.0

Ok, you have heard of Web 2.0, but what about Internet 2.0? Internet 2 is a new style of high-capacity networking.

Internet2 is working with Level 3 Communications to provide the U.S. research and education community with a dynamic, innovative and cost-effective hybrid optical and packet network. The new network is designed to provide next-generation production services as well as a platform for the development of new networking ideas and protocols. With community control of the fundamental networking infrastructure, the new Internet2 Network will enable a wide variety of bandwidth-intensive applications under development at campuses and research labs today. The new network is one component of Internet2’s “systems” approach to developing and deploying advanced networking for the research and education community: Network Technologies, Middleware, Security, Performance Measurement, Community Collaboration (link).

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From Community to Gemeinschaft: Belief or Truth?

March 30, 2007 at 7:57 pm · Filed under digital humanities, gemeinschaft, humanities computing, stubs, web2.0, wiki

Community is a hackneyed phrase. It is like the word ‘democracy’ or ‘friends’ or ‘freedom’; the more it is spoken, the less of it there is. There is a lot of talk (again) about online communities; especially considering that it is a central component of Web2.0. But what is a community? I grew up in a community; in a small island on the edge of the Western world. It was fun for a while, but then I discovered that it had boundaries. The word community is often applied to individuals who exchange opinions and text online, but is this a community or is it just sending text? Can we understand online communication without the need for the word community? I hope so. I like the German word Gemeinschaft much more. It refers to a ‘community of belief’. It has religious undertones, just like the bad old days of Web 1.0. An online community is just a belief; and belief all too often overrides truth. The belief is that the online community actually exists; in a word where’ social capital’ and community is on the decline.
By all means start a Wiki, but please don’t call it a community. A community requires boundaries and as soon as you believe that online messages and communication is a ‘community’; you are missing the real one in which these activities are embedded.Here

Here is an article ZDnet on how to get people to use your Web 2.0 applications. Also here is an a new system called Wikipatterns that is built on the assumption that communication is not good nor bad nor is it neutral. (Or, you have a right to be a Libertarian, but I have a right not to be killed!).

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The OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data

September 1, 2006 at 1:16 pm · Filed under key points, politics, stubs

Along with balancing the rules that govern Intellectual Property, the battles over the protection of personal data becomes another area of potential conflict within a society where information storage and global retrieval devices have become cheap and ubiquitous. Here is the international guidelines set by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Also see the primer that I wrote earlier this year about privacy and why it is important.

The development of automatic data processing, which enables vast quantities of data to be transmitted within seconds across national frontiers, and indeed across continents, has made it necessary to consider privacy protection in relation to personal data. Privacy protection laws have been introduced, or will be introduced shortly, in approximately one half of OECD Member countries (Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United States have passed legislation. Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have prepared draft bills) to prevent what are considered to be violations of fundamental human rights, such as the unlawful storage of personal data, the storage of inaccurate personal data, or the abuse or unauthorised disclosure of such data.OnOn

On the other hand, there is a danger that disparities inationalegislationsnsns could hamper the free flow of personal data across frontiers; these flows have greatly increased in recent years and are bound to grow further with the widespread introduction of new computer and communications technology. Restrictions on these flows could cause serious disruption in important sectors of the economy, such as banking and insurance.
n OECD Member countries considered it necessary to develop Guidelines which would help to harmonise national privacy legislation and, while upholding such human rights, would at the same time prevent interruptions in international flows of data. They represent a consensus on basic principles which can be built into existing national legislation, or serve as a basis for legislation in those countries which do not yet have it.
The Guidelines, in the form of a Recommendation by the Council of the OECD, were developed by a group of government experts under the chairmanship of The Hon. Mr. Justice M.D. Kirby, Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission. The Recommendation was adopted and became applicable on 23rd September, 1980 (link).

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The man with walrus eyes…

June 19, 2006 at 1:50 pm · Filed under stubs, web2.0

(The return of cyber-punk?..sorry about this..a bit juvenile I know, but I was bored).

I am siting in a crappy bar in the outskirts of New Sydney. I feel a little tired from spending the night with the I-CAD drafter that I met the night before. Where did he learn to do these things? I have never really liked the gymnastic types; it all seems just a little theatrical. Luckily I didn’t give him my implanted IP address; I get enough hassle from that Esteem salesman I met in New-New York.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The rise of the network spider

June 18, 2006 at 1:09 pm · Filed under politics, stubs, web2.0

Since Manual Castells’ seminal book The Rise of Network Society and to a lesser degree, Michael Hardts’ and Antonio Negri’s Empire, it is generally accepted that networks, and the technologies that enable networks (either social or economic), are playing a greater role in how human beings live. However, the process of creating and maintaining a network is not an end in itself; it is just part of the play of networks as networks are far from politically neutral.

There are a lot of people who benefit from the formation of networks and usually the people who benefit the most are the people who created them. The creators can define the rules of the network and have the most mobility and power within the network. The creator of a network needs to maintain their popularity to keep their power and they also need to have the economic and social capital to move around the network. They are what I term a ‘network spider’.

more to come >>>

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