December 2007 - KICTANet

ICT Opportunity alert: Will the true entrepreneurs stand up?
by Al Kags 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

In these heady political times in Kenya, it is perhaps not sensible to discuss issues surrounding development. But then another school of thought would have it that, there isn't a better time to discuss matters surrounding development than these heady political times – even at the risk of seeming to campaign for one candidate at the expense of another. Then there is the thought that the electioneering (who came up with that word?) period is a brief interlude in the journey of life that we must go through so we must not interrupt our thoughts on development because of political events. Having said that, I find myself unable to proceed without joining the rounds of applause that have been going round for the remarkable team that the Minister for information and communications, Hon. Mutahi Kagwe and his Permanent Secretary, Dr. Bitange Ndemo for being the first in the leadership of that ministry to make huge significant strides in the development of ICT in Kenya – right up to setting up the infrastructure (Kenya will fully be networked and connected with fibre connectivity by May 2009) and the framework for capacity building through the fairly young Kenya ICT Board. The Kenya ICT Board has been mandated to mainly market Kenya as an ICT destination and to build capacity for the country to be competitive as an ICT destination – and taking from the speed and work ethic of the minister and the PS, the board does not have the luxury of slow development. In fact, the word "rapid" appears more than once in the various documents that it must work with and its mission. Through support from the world bank and the central government, the Kenya ICT Board has a significant budget that it is going to use to build capacity in various areas including the digital inclusion program that is going to be carried out through the facilitation of entrepreneurs across the country to start digital villages – essentially glorified cyber cafés that will provide access to training and to government and other services through the internet. The digital villages program will see the board provide training, direct IT support, business support and even a revolving fund to ensure that entrepreneurs can start the digital villages and sustain it as a business long after the Transparency and Communications Infrastructure Project (TCIP) has come to a close – the money is finite, after all. The outsourcing industry has also seen some significant attention as a key component of the ICT sector because of its strategic take-outs in terms of employment and wealth creation in the ICT industry. Before the fibre connectivity kicks in, the Kenya ICT Board is empowered to provide bandwidth capacity support (jargon for a bandwidth subsidy) that will enable the outsourcing industry players to enjoy the comparatively lower bandwidth costs that they would, if fibre connectivity was already in place. The intention is that that support will spur growth. These two projects in particular come together in various ways. Of course, the most obvious is that singularly and together they provide a very strong opportunity for employment and wealth creation for many Kenyans across the board, in a fairly short time. But the potential benefit to the economy goes beyond that direct benefit. An easy way to illustrate this is with an example that I have heard Dr. Ndemo give a number of times and that makes a lot of sense. The key challenge to having justice done is the time it takes for cases to continue. One of the key contributing factors is the amount of operational work that a judge must do in order to record a case and therefore come to a fair judgement. A judge must write down in English all of the evidence that he or she will hear as he listens to the witness. Writing being what it is, the evidence is given for a long time, factoring the pauses that the judge needs to write down what he hears. That information must then be collated, synthesised and understood for a fair judgement to then be issued and they have to write that down as well. Multiply this by the number of cases pending in the backlog of the courts and you will understand the delay in getting justice. The perils of such a system we already have experienced with corruption and sloppiness being a necessity for convenience. How many times do innocent Kenyans plead guilty so that they can pay a fine and move on with their lives instead of having to remain along the corridors of the courts of years on a minor case? How many times have Kenyans chosen to give "Kitu Kidogo" to the clerk or the judge or someone to hasten their case – and while hastening it have the judgement placed in their favour? This is easily solved with the help of ICT. We could record the proceedings of the court, outsource an audio recording to a digital village that has the transcription facility, where the proceedings are transcribed to text and then sent back to the judge to make a ruling. Time becomes less of an issue and transparency and accountability then become strengthened. In fact, if you have such a facility, you can ask some firm questions about the delay of cases because of the effectiveness of it all. It is clear that the government and the Kenya ICT Board have the concepts right in terms creating the opportunities for wealth and employment creation. What must now be ignited is the private sector. The entrepreneur must seize the opportunity that is beginning to show itself and make the most of it. Sadly, so far, the developments in the ICT sector have largely had the attention of activists – even those who have their businesses. When else did you hear of entrepreneurs fervently asking the government to regulate them?

5 5

Notice of Implementation Date for WHOIS National Laws Procedure -- Registrars please read]
by alice 19 Dec '07

19 Dec '07

Notice of Implementation Date for WHOIS National Laws Procedure 18 December 2007 * * Today ICANN is publishing a notice of implementation of the ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law. The procedure will be posted for 30 days, and implemented on 17 January 2008. The draft procedure was first posted for comment on 3 December 2006, see http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois_national_laws_procedure.htm <http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois_national_laws_procedure.htm>. ICANN sought input on the draft procedure from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). The procedure has been revised to incorporate advice from the GAC, and is available at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/revised-draft-whois-procedure-18… [PDF, 29K]. New language has been inserted into Sections 1.4, 2.1, 3.1 and 5.1 of the procedure, based on input received from the GAC and from members of the ICANN Board in the Los Angeles meeting. The ICANN Board discussed the draft procedure during the public meeting of the Board on 2 November 2007 in Los Angeles, and noted that "the next step now would be for the staff to update their procedure in taking into account that advice [from the GAC]." The procedure describes how ICANN will respond to a situation where a registrar or registry indicates (and seeks to demonstrate) that it is legally prevented by local/national privacy laws or regulations from complying with the provisions of its ICANN contract regarding the collection, display and distribution of personal data via WHOIS. The procedure is for use by ICANN staff. While it includes possible actions for the affected gTLD registry or registrar, this procedure does not impose any new obligations on registries, registrars or third parties. It aims to inform gTLD registries, registrars and other parties of the steps to be taken when a possible conflict between other legal obligations and the ICANN contractual requirements regarding WHOIS is reported to ICANN. Since publication of the first draft procedure, ICANN staff has been applying the draft procedure in handling potential conflicts between WHOIS provisions and national laws to test its effectiveness. * Background* In December 2003, the Whois Task Force 2 of the GNSO recommended the development of a procedure to allow gTLD registry and registrars to demonstrate when they are prevented by local laws from fully complying with the provisions of ICANN contracts regarding personal data in Whois. In November 2005, the GNSO concluded a policy development process on establishing such a procedure. The policy includes 'well-developed advice on a procedure' created through: extensive solicitation of community comment, recommendation by the WHOIS Task Force, and approval by the GNSO Council. In May 2006, the ICANN Board adopted the policy and directed ICANN staff to develop and publicly document a conflicts procedure. The draft ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois_national_laws_procedure.htm) was published on 3 December 2006. ICANN sought input on the draft procedure from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). On 28 March 2007, the GAC published its Principles Regarding gTLD WHOIS Services (http://gac.icann.org/web/communiques/gac27com.pdf [PDF, 209K]). GAC Principle 3.2 states that "gTLD WHOIS services must comply with applicable national laws and regulations." The GAC Communique from 28 June 2007 (http://gac.icann.org/web/communiques/gac28com.pdf [PDF, 177K]) included specific reference to the draft procedure: "The GAC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the 'draft ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law.' Since this draft procedure was produced in December 2006, the GAC has prepared its 'Principles regarding gTLD WHOIS Services.' These principles provide the framework for dealing with potential conflicts. "We recognise the importance of effective conflict resolution mechanisms for the WHOIS regime, and we expect to see this as an integral part of the GNSO proposals for a future ICANN WHOIS regime. "We will provide formal advice on the conflict procedures based on the GAC WHOIS principles at the meeting in Los Angeles. The GAC recommends that the Board reviews the draft procedure in light of this substantive contribution. "In the interim, specific cases should be referred to the relevant national government for advice on the authority of the request for derogation from the ICANN gTLD WHOIS policy." The GAC Communique issued on 31 October 2007 in Los Angeles (http://gac.icann.org/web/communiques/gac29com.pdf [PDF, 73K]) noted that: "the GAC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the 'draft ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with National Privacy Laws.' Due to the complexity of this issue related to the diversity of national policies and procedures among GAC members the GAC does not believe a uniform process is workable and accordingly the interim solution from the GAC's San Juan communiqué should be the basis for resolving any potential conflict: . specific cases should be referred to the relevant national government for advice on the authority of the request for derogation from the ICANN gTLD WHOIS policy." On 2 November 2007, the ICANN Board noted that staff would update the procedure to incorporate GAC advice (http://losangeles2007.icann.org/files/losangeles/LA-BoardofDirectors(Part1)… <http://losangeles2007.icann.org/files/losangeles/LA-BoardofDirectors%28Part…>). The revision described in this notice reflects the input received since the publication of the draft procedure on 3 December 2006. _______________________________________________ AfrICANN mailing list AfrICANN(a)afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann

1 0

Application Round for Fellowships for ICANN Paris Meeting 2008 OPne: Program makes sure global voices heard at ICANN¹s International Public Meetings
by alice 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

ICANN press release on fellowships for the Paris meeting: <http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-07dec07.htm>http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-07dec07.htm Application Round Opens for Paris Meeting Fellowships Program makes sure global voices heard at ICANN¹s International Public Meetings 7 December 2007 MARINA DEL REY, Calif. : The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is putting out the call for fellowship program applications for its 32nd International Public Meeting to be held in Paris from 22-27 June 2008. "The fellowship program plays a key role in making sure that global voices are heard at the ICANN meeting and in our various public forums," said Theresa Swinehart, ICANN's Vice President, Global and Strategic Partnerships. The 23 fellows from 22 countries who played an active role at the Los Angeles meeting were chosen from 167 applications received. An additional 10 candidates chosen in this round were deferred to the New Delhi meeting in February. Of the fellows at the Los Angeles meeting, 10 had never attended an ICANN meeting before, and seven were alumni from the inaugural program in San Juan this past June. Priority is given to applicants who are current residents of developing and least developed nations and interested in participating in ICANN and its supporting organizations, such as the Governmental Advisory Committee, the Country Code Names Supporting Organization, and the Generic Names Supporting Organization. The fellowship will assist in covering airfare, hotel and a stipend. Recipients will be expected to actively participate in and contribute to ICANN processes. As always, registration for ICANN¹s meetings is free for anyone wanting to attend. Applications will be accepted from now until 1200 PDT ( UTC -7) on 11 January 2008. More information, as well as a link to the application for a fellowship, is available online at: <http://www.icann.org/fellowships/>http://www.icann.org/fellowships/ About ICANN: ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: <http://www.icann.org/>www.icann.org. Media Contacts: Jason Keenan Media Adviser, ICANN (USA) Ph: +1 310 382 4004 E: <mailto:jason.keenan@icann.org>jason.keenan(a)icann.org International: Andrew Robertson Edelman (London) Ph: +44 7921 588 770 E: <mailto:andrew.robertson@edelman.com>andrew.robertson(a)edelman.com

1 0

Living with confusion – African operators find themselves pulled in new directions
by alice 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

From Balancing Act Living with confusion – African operators find themselves pulled in new directions Once it was simple. There was the Government incumbent and all the other operators were against it. Then the incumbents ceased to be the incumbents and some of the new mobile operators found themselves taking on that mantle. With new power comes new responsibilities. Or does it? Once it was all about voice. Now there’s all this fancy convergence talk and anything you can think of sending down a phone connection will be sent. Increasingly operators are being pulled in new directions. Russell Southwood looks at three issues that are tugging from the edges. Three news items this week touched on some of the things that are pulling operators into looking at where their company’s activities begin and end. The pull towards content provision: This week France Telecom signed a “multiyear agreement” with MGM to be allowed to offer the studio’s movies to its video-on-demand customers. According to the reports, Orange is counting on video-on-demand as a new source of income for its fixed line business as its calling revenues go down. Cote d’Ivoire Telecom became the next of Orange’s African subsidiaries to start rolling out its “livebox” product that offers voice, Internet and television. But all is not easy in the new world of telco as content provider. In Senegal, Orange had to reach a content agreement with the more-or-less monopoly supplier of French-language, satellite pay TV content. As a result, it has to peg the price of its offer to that of its satellite content provider. Mauritius Telecom, despite having 15,000 people sign up for its “livebox” service again found itself talking unsuccessfully to what will probably become its competitor about getting content. In this context, having a large parent company sign global content deals makes a great deal of sense. But what if you’re not part of a global company? How do you sort out content to stay in the game? Or do you simply say, we’ll sit out this one out and stick to what we know? Deals between Vodacom and DStv may be easy in the short-term on a reseller basis but when it goes beyond this, who ends up getting the lion’s share of the revenues? Content is beset with a whole new range of problems that no-one in the African telco business seems to have thought their way through. Rights holders like Hollywood are not known for their generosity and too many of the available rights are still being given on a monopoly or duopoly basis. The court battles in Senegal over whether a third TV channel had the right to show Prison Break illustrate how far the market still has to develop. The pull towards infrastructure: At least three African countries – Kenya, South Africa and Uganda – have Governments that are in the advanced stages of putting together public interest companies to roll out national fibre infrastructure. Although the mobile operators bandy about the size of sums they are going to invest in infrastructure, they haven’t really worked out whether as the new incumbents they should be building infrastructure or not. It is one thing for MTN and Vodacom to announce infrastructure build-outs in South Africa but are they really going to extend the same principle to all of the countries they operate in? Mmm…Maybe. MTN is certainly putting down fibre in Ghana in order to overcome the historic inadequacies of both the network it acquired and that provided by the incumbent Ghana Telecom. Nevertheless an exchange at a regulators meeting in West Africa exemplifies the problem. Two of the large mobile operators chains had representatives on a panel who were asked why were they not rolling out cross-border links, given their networks were almost touching each other in several countries. Their responses were almost identical: we don’t think there’s enough traffic to justify it and therefore it is the Government’s responsibility. Nobody had thought that the private sector might create its own “carriers’ carrier” to act as a trusted transit operator to solve this problem. However, if the private sector operators sit on the sidelines of this discussion, they can hardly complain when Government decides to take the initiative and start taking responsibility through public interest backbone companies. The international fibres which everyone has shouted long and hard for will be here in 2009 and without regional connectivity, their impact will be frittered way. So the private sector really has to find a way to “put up or shut up”. All of which makes even stranger the announcement by Namibia’s power utility Nampower that it has granted a large contract that will connect several different power grids in South Africa. The line will connect the electricity networks of Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique and South Africa to create an alternative route for power imports and exports to and from neighbouring countries. Slipped rather quietly into the announcement was the fact that the transmission line would be fitted with a fibre-optical ground wire which will, apart from providing essential transmission communication, “expand NamPower's communication capacity”. Is any private sector company talking to Nampower about using this capacity or indeed increasing this available capacity for private operator’s voice and data traffic? Not as far as we know….So are operators interested in solving these problems either individually or together? Mmmm…That’s a bit difficult to tell. The pull towards energy provision: Recently MTN revealed the scale of money it was spending on generator fuel in Nigeria. Taken over a year, it was US$65 million. Try to imagine that if that is calculated on the basis of 5,000 base stations for one country, what the total cost looks like for all mobile operators across the continent. Unlike the pull towards infrastructure described above, this is straightforwardly a short-term, bottom-line issue. If the operators could find a way of using generators just for redundancy, then the amount paid in this direction would drop substantially. So what can the operators do? Well, there’s the high road and the low road. The low road is finding base station equipment that will not eat as much fuel. This week Vodafone Germany announced that it was the first operator to put in Ericsson’s new BTS that will make “an important contribution to cutting carbon-dioxide emissions” by lowering energy use. Compatible with all its base stations since 1995, it claims to save between 10-20 per cent of energy consumption “depending on the network traffic pattern.” During periods of low network traffic, the feature effectively puts those parts of the network that are not being used in standby mode - overcoming the traditional practice of having radio equipment continually turned on, which can result in energy being wasted. The high road is self-provisioning power transmission, either through an operator consortium JV or by one operator taking the initiative. The energy industry takes a long-time to respond to demand, sometimes as long as 10-15 years. So why not set up a small-scale power generation and transmission company that can address those base stations nearest to each other? Small-scale providers can generate power at scale: 40% of Holland’s energy needs come from small-scale providers. Then it is a case of delivering this power and possibly distributing it to a small number of other paying customers. Is it in the immortal words of Telkom SA’s new CEO Reuben September (talking about his mobile strategy) is it a case of “everything that is feasible is desirable”? Where do you draw the line in terms of what a company needs to be able to do in order to thrive? For without addressing these kinds pulls on company time and resources, all of Africa’s operators will continue to operate below their full potential. Balancing Act <http://lists.balancingact-africa.com/t/397/197296/123/0/>

1 0

Candidates from Africa needed !!!
by Rebecca Wanjiku 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

This is a very lucrative appointment. please fwd your names Dear All, Africa is a region of interest for the Nom Com in 2008, as the ICANN Bylaws specify that there must be at least one director from each of the 5 ICANN regions. Njeri Rionge's term finishes in November 2008. And we have no representatives at the Generic Names Supporting Organisation. The website for the 2008 Nom Com (http://nomcom.icann.org) has complete information on the Statement of Interest and positions available for selection by the Committee. The Committee has also posted translations of the 2008 Nom Com flyer in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Translations of the flyer into Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Swahili will also be posted in the near future. If you need specific information do not hesitate to email me directly. For all who have other lists, please send to people whom you think would be interested and thanks for doing that. cheers, ar 2008 ICANN Nominating Committee Issues Invitation for Statements of Interest in ICANN Leadership Positions 14 December 2007 ICANN's Nominating Committee invites Statements of Interest from the Internet community as it seeks qualified candidates to assist in ICANN's technical and policy coordination role. Interested individuals are invited to submit a Statement of Interest to this year's Committee for the following positions: Two members of the ICANN Board of Directors One member of the Council of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) One member of the Council of the Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Two members of the At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) ICANN's Nominating Committee (Nom Com) is an independent committee tasked with selecting a majority of the members of ICANN's Board of Directors and other positions within ICANN's Supporting Organisations. ICANN is an internationally organised, public benefit, non-profit corporation dedicated to: preserving the operational security and stability of the Internet; promoting competition; achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and supporting the development of policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes. Individuals selected by the Nominating Committee will have a unique opportunity to work with accomplished colleagues from around the globe, address the Internet's intriguing technical coordination problems and policy development challenges with diverse functional, cultural, and geographic dimensions, and gain valuable insights and experience from working across boundaries of knowledge, responsibility and perspective. Those selected will gain the satisfaction of making a valuable public service contribution towards the continued function and evolution of an essential global resource. Considering the broad public interest, nominees will work to achieve the goals towards which ICANN is dedicated in order to facilitate the Internet's critically important societal functions. Current Board members who have been selected by the Nominating Committee include: Harald Tveit Alvastrand, Susan Crawford, Roberto Gaetano, Steven Goldstein, Dennis Jennings, Rajasekhar Ramaraj, Njeri Rionge, and Jean-Jacques Subrenat (see, http://www.icann.org/general/board.html) Statements of Interest for the positions described above can be submitted through nomcom2008(a)icann.org. More information regarding the Nominating Committee can be found at http://nomcom.icann.org . Applications will be considered confidentially and should be received by 15 April 2008 for full consideration. Selections will be announced before mid September 2008. Successful candidates will take up their positions following ICANN's Annual Meeting in November 2008. Questions or comments may be emailed to ICANN at nomcom2008(a)icann.org. Background: The Nominating Committee is designed to function independently from the ICANN Board, Supporting Organisations, and Advisory Committees. Nominating Committee members act only on behalf of the interests of the global Internet community and within the scope of the ICANN mission and responsibilities assigned to it by the ICANN Bylaws. Nominating Committee members contribute understanding of the broad interests of the Internet community as a whole, and knowledge and experience of specific Internet constituencies who have appointed them. The challenge for the Nominating Committee is to integrate these perspectives and derive consensus in its selections. Although appointed by Supporting Organisations and other ICANN entities, individual Nominating Committee members are not accountable to their appointing constituencies. Members are, of course, accountable for adherence to the ICANN Bylaws and for compliance with the rules and procedures established by the Nominating Committee. Successful candidates are not remunerated, although direct expenses incurred in the course of duty will be reimbursed. These positions may involve significant international travel, including personal presence at periodic ICANN meetings, as well as regular telephone and Internet communications. Recent ICANN Meetings have been held in New Zealand, Canada, Luxembourg, Argentina, South Africa, Morocco, Brazil, Portugal, Puerto Rico and the United States. Meetings during 2008 are scheduled for New Delhi, India, Paris, France, and a city in Africa to be announced. The diverse locations facilitate participation across the world's Internet community. _______________________________________________ AfrICANN mailing list AfrICANN(a)afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann -- Best Regards, Becky 254 720318925 beckyit.blogspot.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

1 0

Broadcasting Treaty: Council of Europe Picks Up Where WIPO Left Off
by Alex Gakuru 14 Dec '07

14 Dec '07

******************************************************************************************************** December 10, 2007. Broadcasting Treaty: Council of Europe Picks Up Where WIPO Left Off By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch The Council of Europe is deliberating on whether to negotiate a convention to protect broadcasters' signals against piracy and thereby take up the issue from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) where negotiations on a proposed broadcasting treaty came to a standstill earlier this year. The Councils decision to proceed depends on approval by its Committee of Ministers. The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France, predated and includes the European Union. Link to the article: http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=864 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

6 7

Fw: KICTANET COMPETENCE STATUS SURVERY RPT
by Rebecca Wanjiku 13 Dec '07

13 Dec '07

Here is the report prepared by the lead consultant during KICTANet's institutional assessment. kindly read it and forward your response. best regards, becky ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

1 0

Re: [kictanet] NSIS website hacked?
by James Kagwe 11 Dec '07

11 Dec '07

A dig reveals this; ; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> nsis.go.ke any ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 76 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 5 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;nsis.go.ke. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: nsis.go.ke. 38172 IN MX 10 mta.wananchi.com. nsis.go.ke. 38172 IN MX 20 mail.wananchi.com. nsis.go.ke. 29891 IN A 62.8.88.6 nsis.go.ke. 17830 IN NS dns2.wananchi.com. nsis.go.ke. 17830 IN NS dns1.wananchi.com. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: nsis.go.ke. 17830 IN NS dns2.wananchi.com. nsis.go.ke. 17830 IN NS dns1.wananchi.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: mta.wananchi.com. 63997 IN A 62.8.88.64 mta.wananchi.com. 63997 IN A 62.8.88.63 mail.wananchi.com. 63574 IN A 62.8.88.102 dns1.wananchi.com. 64894 IN A 62.8.64.5 dns2.wananchi.com. 65700 IN A 196.200.36.3 ;; Query time: 15 msec ;; SERVER: 196.200.16.2#53(196.200.16.2) ;; WHEN: Tue Dec 11 17:22:50 2007 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 243 A ping reveals this; C:\Dig>ping www.nsis.go.ke Pinging www.nsis.go.ke [62.8.88.6] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 62.8.88.6: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=54 Reply from 62.8.88.6: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=54 Reply from 62.8.88.6: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=54 Reply from 62.8.88.6: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=54 Ping statistics for 62.8.88.6: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 29ms, Maximum = 50ms, Average = 36ms Wananchi are the victims -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Odhiambo Washington Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 4:18 PM To: James Kagwe Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] NSIS website hacked? On Dec 11, 2007 3:19 PM, John Walubengo <jwalu(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > For those who may not know NSIS stands for National > Security Intelligence Service, the Kenyan equivalent of the > American CIA, Russian KGB, Israeli Mossad and the British > M15 get the drift? > > Now these chaps website seems to have been hacked and > defaced. Check out... > > http://www.nsis.go.ke/ > > and please tell me am wrong. You are right, it's been "cracked". However it's hosted by third party, if you look at DNS records, and this can always happen when a server admin installs on a server stuff they don't quite understand, or even plays with a sensitive configuration without thinking much about it. Hey, Walu, it's just the website, the content of which is for public consumption (and public defacing whenever possible to prove a point). -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: jkagwe(a)kippra.or.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jkagwe%40kippra.or. ke

2 1

Technology SMEs
by Dorcas Muthoni 11 Dec '07

11 Dec '07

You may have heard of the action taken by the Copyright board on software piracy in cyber cafe businesses. This article on Business Daily: http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4522&Item… captures it. We all acknowledge the role of cyber cafe businesses in driving Internet penetration. When small and medium enterprises business owners take decisions to start the Internet shops, they are basically supporting what we all want to see; an e-Kenya. Picking from a recent post on the list regarding the challenges being faced by local computer assembly firms, there is truly an issue with regard to the sustainability of Technology SMEs. These local firms have enabled many Kenyans have affordable computers/clones and Internet access respectively. On average, a cyber cafe with 30 computers requires up to about KES. 1.8million to have genuine copies commodity software frequently used by their customers. Open Source is an approach that can make these commodity software affordable and available to such SME businesses in a way that satisfies customers effectively. We all need to support local technology SMEs because they are really a driver for the this industry. OPENWORLD (www.openworld.co.ke) will conduct an Open Source workshop at the Grand Regency Hotel on, Friday, 14th December 2007 starting 9.00am. The purpose of the workshop is to inform Cyber Café Owners and Operators on how they can benefit from Open Source Software in order to sustain their businesses. It will be interesting to hear from others how we can support technology SMEs since they are a key driver in the growth of the industry. -- Muthoni My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/ -------------------------------------------- Mahatma Gandhi once said:- First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, AND THEN YOU WIN!!!

1 0

Re: [kictanet] Faith in local web hosting
by robert yawe 11 Dec '07

11 Dec '07

Hi Brian, As you rightfully indicate in your post you are coming in late on this discussion, this is the problem with a mailing list unlike a blog or forum the history of a discussion is not maintained. Thus just to get us on the same page your arguments are actually in support of my position, which is that we need to develop local content and hosting capacity as well are reliable country wide connectivity before the arrival of the fiber optic marine cable. The road analogy was to explain my point that the cable is a highway which needs to arrive when we have already created linkages to the rest of the country and not what we seem to be doing which is waiting for the marine cable as the panaceas to all our slow internet issues. You do bring an interested issue in your point on the objective of the roads as a means to cart off our resources, could the fiber optic cable be a modern approach to the same? Regards Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 KEnya Tel: +254722511225 ----- Original Message ---- From: brian <brian(a)caret.net> To: robert yawe <robertyawe(a)yahoo.co.uk> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke>; info(a)mediacorp.co.ke Sent: Tuesday, 11 December, 2007 1:44:53 AM Subject: Re: [kictanet] Faith in local web hosting I am coming late to this debate .... more follows: On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 06:03:46 +0000 (GMT), robert yawe <robertyawe(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Your analogy of a Road from Mwea to Kericho is an interesting one, if you > have noticed all roads have led to Nairobi for many years it is only after > those satellite locations have grown sufficient traffic through Nairobi > that we have developed direct linkages. A case in point is the road > connecting from Machakos to Thika, Kitengela to Rongai, and the now being > constructed Njambini Road. > > Why didn't we develop this roads at independence? I differ strongly on this. Most roads in Africa were built to support the largely extractive industrial practices of colonial masters and the post-independence regimes which turned a blind eye to the economic pillage of our countries. Most of these roads are what we continue to re-carpet, repair and depend on for our basic transport. Same applies to telecommunications and other major infrastructure. Any new infrastructure in an African country, be it a road, an airline route or an optic fibre cable needs to be thought out from a fresh standpoint and a mindset that leans towards building internal capacity or providing the platform/environment/atmosphere for local/internal capacity to be built. I have elaborated on this in an AfrISPA position paper - "One Voice - A VOIP Position Paper" while Mucheru has highlighted the market structure and regulatory regimes to support African country's emergent and blossoming ICT sectors in another AfrISPA position paper entitled "The Rules of Engagement" Copies of these papers can be availed freely upon request. Mblayo ___________________________________________________________ Support the World Aids Awareness campaign this month with Yahoo! For Good http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/

2 1