Communications-Related Headlines for October 31, 2003
*** The Ghost and Goblins Halloween Edition ***
E-GOVERNMENT
E-Government in South Africa: Why Are We Waiting?
Helping Hand for UK E-Government
INTERNET
Commentary: The New Road to the White House
EDTECH
Cyber Security for the Digital District
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Commentary: Defending the Net from the UN
No Decision Yet on US Leader for WSIS
IN CASED YOU MISSED IT...
Scientist Debate Solar Flare-Halloween Connection
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E-GOVERNMENT
E-GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA: WHY ARE WE WAITING?
South Africans have been waiting almost a year for phase one of their
national e-government rollout, in which the government would consolidate
information and existing services, then establish a call center and portal
to allow citizens to access this information. "There is progress, we just
haven't launched yet," explains Jack Shilubane, acting government Chief
Information Officer. Despite administrative delays, Shilubane says the
development work on the project is complete. He attributes the delay to
necessary caution. "Every department has to agree that they offer particular
services," he says. Some municipalities have already launched their enhanced
customer service portals; however, this is not part of the national rollout
and does not fall within the government's definition of e-government. "What
we are doing is integrating all government information on a single portal,"
says Shilubane. "There have been departments, provinces, municipalities that
have been doing e-government projects, and they were started before we
established the gateway. They will ultimately fit into what we are doing."
SOURCE: AllAfrica.com; AUTHOR: Georgina Guedes, Itweb (Johannesburg)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200310300848.html
HELPING HAND FOR UK E-GOVERNMENT
[Commentary] E-government services in the United Kingdom are still a long
way off, so maybe we should be doing it ourselves, argues technology analyst
Bill Thompson. He says e-government initiatives have failed to reach the
promise land, in which departments work together, offering seamlessly
integrated web-based services to citizens. As of now, e-government is a
disparate collection of poorly used services that often fail to meet
people's needs. The Society of IT Managers recently published Better
Connected: Advice to Citizens, a report evaluating government sites in terms
of meeting the needs of users such as providing advice on housing, debt and
health. The report, based on a survey in collaboration with Citizens Advice,
the network of Citizens Advice Bureau, shows that the predicament of
e-government is worst than people think. They tested 10 central government
sites and found that although the sites are filled with information, they
are not well signposted or coordinated with other government sites, so
relevant information is difficult to find. A great website is worthless if
nobody can find it, says Thompson. He points to two successes, though: the
websites VoxPolitics and MYSociety, which are helping transform the
relationship between citizens and state.
SOURCE: BBC News; AUTHOR: Bill Thompson
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3230645.stm
INTERNET
THE NEW ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE
[Commentary] When the 2004 campaign account is written, it will include a
word never seen in any account of presidential history: blog, says Lawrence
Lessig, professor at Stanford Law School. Blogs (or Web logs), Lessig
writes, are transforming presidential politics. "The blog may be the first
innovation from the Internet to make a difference in election politics," he
says. For the past 50 years the most efficient tool for engaging the public
has been broadcast media, but in the information age, the blog is changing
the engagement landscape. This space, when done right, is a tool for
building community and inspiring action and dialogue. However, the blog
community must be authentic and members must feel they own their space. "A
managed community works about as well as a managed economy," Lessig
continues. He says the challenge is to build community without the community
feeling been built. The Howard Dean campaign is a prime example of how blogs
can be incessantly effective. (Lessig has even had Dean fill in for him on
his own blog while on vacation.) Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi,
adopted a method for campaign development that takes inspiration from the
open source movement. Traditional politics would never allow such a thing,
but Lessig says blogs are changing that.
SOURCE: Wired; AUTHOR: Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/view.html?pg=5
EDTECH
CYBER SECURITY FOR THE DIGITAL DISTRICT
Last week at the National School Board Association's Teaching + Learning
Conference, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) announced a new
national leadership initiative: Cyber Security for the Digital District. The
initiative will provide education technology leaders and policymakers with
strategies and tools that they can use to ensure the privacy of data and the
safe operation of technology within their school districts. CoSN will
develop high-quality, vendor-neutral resources built around the issue of
cyber security. CoSN will explore the topic of cyber security in an upcoming
webcast, free to CoSN members, on November 19. Registration and additional
webcast information can be found at http://www.cosn.org/events/2004.html.
SOURCE: Consortium for School Networking
http://securedistrict.cosn.org/
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
DEFENDING THE NET FROM THE U.N.
[Commentary] Freedom to access, read, and publish information is one of the
beauties of the Internet, note the editors of the Christian Science Monitor.
But authoritarian governments could try to justify restricting that freedom
during the UN's upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). In
December, WSIS will bring together leaders from 185 countries to Geneva to
talk about issues ranging from Internet regulations to Web access for the
poor. If the US is not careful, the editors write, countries like China and
Cuba may try to co-opt the final document and insert language regarding the
right of governments to restrict Internet freedoms. About 60 percent of
participating countries do not have freedom of the press, but do have equal
votes at the meeting. Some governments seek to use national security as an
excuse to filter and censor private media. The US delegation must ensure
that the pre-conference draft of the WSIS document defends basic Internet
freedoms. "The WSIS should uphold Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, which states: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion
and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through
any media and regardless of frontiers,'" the editors write.
SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1031/p10s03-comv.html
NO DECISION YET ON U.S. LEADER FOR WSIS
According to the State Department's top telecom official, the Bush
administration has not decided who will lead the US delegation at December's
World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva. Ambassador David Gross,
deputy assistant secretary of state for international communications and
information policy, told industry representatives that the composition of
the US delegation and the US position paper to be presented at WSIS are
still being worked out. At a State Department meeting this Wednesday,
private sector representatives expressed concern that developing countries
might unite on telecom-information technology policy principles at odds with
the Bush administration, potentially leading to a stalemate similar to
September's global trade talks in Cancun, Mexico. Some private sector
parties questioned how US interests would be furthered at the summit. Gross
said he believes WSIS is too important for the United States and industry to
downplay it, even if that means using the conference as a stage to air
differences.
SOURCE: RCR Wireless News; AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva
http://www.rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=15714
IN CASED YOU MISSED IT...
SCIENTIST DEBATE SOLAR FLARE-HALLOWEEN CONNECTION
Scientists from across the globe gathered in a cornfield at an undisclosed
location in rural Iowa to discuss the potential connection between this
week's massive solar flares and tonight's Halloween celebrations. "We
usually don't get coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on this particular scale at
the end of October," said Dr. David Martensen. "I mean, when was the last
time you saw the aurora borealis on Halloween as far south as Memphis?" One
conference attendee, who only identified himself as "Linus," presented a
lengthy paper on the phenomenon. "Frankly, I'm pretty spooked by the whole
thing," he said following the presentation. "I've been studying
Halloween-related disturbances since the 1960s and I can only attribute this
event to one thing: the reappearance of the Great Pumpkin." Other attendees
were more skeptical. "Great Pumpkin, my foot," snorted one researcher,
appearing at the conference in a vintage Star Wars children's costume with
the words "Darth Vader (tm)" imprinted across the flimsy plastic
breastplate. "It's so obvious the CME was created by a group of homeowners
to discourage children from pulling pranks on houses that don't deliver
enough candy tonight." A final report on the conference is due before the
Thanksgiving holiday, when scientists reconvene to examine the amount of
Internet traffic generated by the exchange of leftover Turkey recipes.
SOURCE: The Benton Headlines Staff -- Happy Halloween, everyone!!!
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