- KICTANet - KICTANet

'Net Neutrality' rules attacked
by Judy Okite 23 Sep '09

23 Sep '09

interesting read..... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8267366.stm Kind Regards, -- "When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place."

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One Web Day TODAY - Press Release
by emko＠internetresearch.com.gh 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

Dear All, Hope your day is well. Please find attached. Sorry for crossposting. Eric here

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Re: [kictanet] [ke-internetusers] Internet charges to be regulated
by Walubengo J 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

interesting...i missed the opening ceremony of the Fiber summit this morning but I would have loved to ask the good PS, Dr. Ndemo how the internet (price) regulation could be implemented...If successfully executed, it will definitely be a 1st globally... walu. --- On Tue, 9/22/09, Alex Gakuru <gakuru(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [ke-internetusers] Internet charges to be regulated > To: "ke-users" <ke-internetusers(a)bdix.net> > Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 3:59 PM > BY Evelyne Njoroge > Updated 20 minutes ago > > NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 22- The government has warned that it > would be > forced to step in and regulate internet connectivity > charges if the > prices will not come down significantly in the next one > month. > > Information Permanent Secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo said on > Tuesday that > Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were still making obscene > profits > from the high cost of bandwidth despite the > operationalisation of the > fibre optic cables. > > “They are being mischievous. We have been talking about > $6000 per > Megabyte, telling us that they are lowering to $600 which > from our > calculation their payback would be in less than six months > that is not > what we want,” he stressed. > > It was widely believed that with the coming live of the > SEACOM and The > East African Marine System (TEAMS) cable, the cost of > bandwidth would > come down significantly but this has not happened. > > The cost of one megabyte of bandwidth locally has been > going for > between Sh298, 000 and Sh445, 000 ($4000-$6000) until > recently when > the fibre optic cables landed. > > Many ISPs say they have reduced this to Sh45, 000 ($600) > but the > government wants this lowered to Sh15, 000 ($200). > > “We have many options but it’s always good to leave the > competition to > push the pricing down, but it doesn’t the regulator > (Communication > Commission of Kenya), would step in,” the PS emphasised. > > He said the argument that the providers have increased > capacity for > the same pricing is not valid since majority of Kenyans > cannot access > affordable and after internet connectivity. > > “That is nonsense. If Kenyans are not able to afford, > then I’m not > happy because for me to ensure that the economy grows it is > to make > broadband available to Kenyans. But now it cannot be used, > not many > people have this in their homes,” he complained. > > The providers have been accused of behaving like a cartel > but they > have defended themselves arguing that they need to recoup > their > investments which have been dependent expensive satellite > links. > ... > http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/Kenyabusiness/Internet-charges-to-be-re…> > > _______________________________________________ > ke-internetusers mailing list > ke-internetusers(a)bdix.net > http://www.bdix.net/mailman/listinfo/ke-internetusers >

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Re: [kictanet] Brian Omwenga - Thesis and Introduction
by Brian Omwenga 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

Hi all, I take it you had a restful weekend. I recently completed my M.Sc. in Technology and Policy and thought to share my thesis with the listers. The thesis is on a "Technology Strategy Analysis for the Deployment of Broadband Connectivity for Economic Development in Emerging Economies: Studying the Case of Kenya Using the CLIOS Process." A good number of discussions as well as people within this list contributed substantially to my thesis and the least I can do is offer a generic thank you to all of them. An ecopy of the thesis is temporarily stored at http://web.mit.edu/bomwenga/Public/ and should soon be available on the MIT library's DSpace. I believe reading the entire 194 pages may be a bit painstaking, so I'm currently working on a 10-15 page paper that should be available soon, I have also attached a copy of the abstract that should be a shorter read. I made use of a policy analysis framework developed by my thesis supervisor (Prof. Sussman) called the Complex Large Interconnected Open Sociotechnical (CLIOS) Process. My belief is that the thesis has contributed a systems understanding and summary to the question of broadband deployment, paying particular emphasis to the open system quality of broadband deployment. It may be taken as a treatise or foundation for further analysis of broadband using engineering analysis tools in the development and evaluation of a strategy. I'm back in the country now working part time at the Nokia Research Center. I will definitely be more active within the list now and I would like to hear your comments on the thesis in addition to those of Dr. Warigia and Mr. Kisia who graciously accepted to be my thesis readers. I also look forward to seeing most if not all of you in the near future. Thanks again, Brian G. Omwenga.

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Secure ICT 2009 Conference Presentations
by Evans Kahuthu 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

Dear Listers, On behalf of the Secure ICT 2009 Conference Committee, I would like to thank all who attended and supported our event. For your reference, below please find a link to download the conference presentations. http://secureict.co.ke/2009presentations.aspx If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me (+254-725-996321) Regards, Evans Kahuthu, Chair Secure ICT 2009 Conference

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Fwd: - call - [important] DiploFoundation Begins Research Survey on the Impact of the IGF
by Judy Okite 21 Sep '09

21 Sep '09

Hi All, Diplo, highly appreciates the time that you will take to fill in the questionnaire as regards the IGF process. Kind Regards, ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vladimir Radunovic <vladar(a)diplomacy.edu> Date: Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 4:11 PM Subject: - call - [important] DiploFoundation Begins Research Survey on the Impact of the IGF To: IGCBP(a)diplomacy.edu Dear friends, Diplo is happy to inform you that we have undertaken a complex initiative to research on the impact of the IGF process! To come up with the most balanced results from all stakeholders worldwide, we need as many inputs and feedbacks as possible. There we need your assistance primarily, to fulfil the short questionnaire, as the fellows involved with local, regional or global IGF processes. *Please take 10 minutes to fill in the survey* available at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=y7VRGPKsJUE2fJie_2bX2eaA_3d_3d As soon as you can, of course – preferably within the next few days, but already today if possible :o) We hope to get many of your responses! Please also circulate the message below to all your colleagues involved in the IGF process in any way (again local, regional or international level). The more responses we get – the better survey will be! Thank you! Vlada P.S. For more information please visit: http://www.diplomacy.edu/display.asp?Topic=IGF-impact or read the info below. DiploFoundation Begins Research Survey on the Impact of the IGF The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) process is a direct result of the UN World Summit on the Information Society. It offers a forum for developing discussions about Internet Governance in a multistakeholder environment which allows for not only cross-border but cross-stakeholder sharing on an equal basis of partners from governments, civil society, business, academia and the technical community. The fourth IGF will take place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in November, 2009. As it enters its fourth iteration, the IGF is undergoing a process of review and evaluation, which makes a survey of its impact particularly relevant and important. DiploFoundaton has recently begun a research survey to identify this impact. This information will be valuable for all stakeholders to consider as best practices, examples or what has worked, and where we need to focus our efforts to improve. The process of developing and analyzing the results of this survey will be conducted by DiploFoundation and other partners, supported by a grant from AT&T. The project aims to collect a wide range of responses to questionnaires in two formats: an *online survey<http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=y7VRGPKsJUE2fJie_2bX2eaA_3d_3d> * which will provide input for a statistical analysis of trends in impact (), and an interview survey of stakeholders from government, civil society, business, academia and host countries which will form the basis for a narrative report. The interviews and questionnaire will also collect recommendations for future enhancements of the IGF and related activities. This information will be valuable for all stakeholders to consider as best practices, examples of what has worked, and where we need to focus our efforts to improve. The project will be conducted during September and October, 2009, with the release of a report at the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh, November 15, 2009. Please address any questions to IGF.Impact(a)gmail.com. * Save a tree. Don't print this e-mail unless it's really necessary. * _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Vladimir Radunovic Coordinator Internet Governance Programmes DiploFoundation email: vladar(a)diplomacy.edu web: www.diplomacy.edu/ig _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ "Kome zakon lezi u topuzu, tragovi mu smrde necovjestvom." "Along his path who make the Might his Right Rise stenches of inhuman cruelty." /by James Wiles/ Petar II Petrovic Njegos (1813-1851) _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ ------------------------------ I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter <http://www.spamfighter.com/len>. We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 27540 of my spam emails to date. The Professional version does not have this message. -- "When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place."

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Release of Interisle and TNO reports on Root Scaling
by alice 21 Sep '09

21 Sep '09

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-18sep09-en.htm Release of Interisle and TNO reports on Root Scaling 18 September 2009 In February 2009, with Resolution 2009-02-03-04, the ICANN Board requested the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC), the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), and the ICANN staff, including the IANA team, to study the potential issues regarding the addition of IDNs, IPv6 addresses, DNSSEC and substantial numbers of new TLDs to the root zone. The Terms of Reference for this study are at http://www.icann.org/en/committees/dns-root/root-scaling-study-tor-05may09-…. Interisle was selected to perform this study. In the course of their study, they recommended that a modeling effort be undertaken with the assistance of TNO. TNO produced a model and a companion report. We are hereby releasing the Interisle report as delivered for public comment and analysis as well as a covering note from the joint RSSAC/SSAC/ICANN staff steering group for this study. The steering group will be evaluating the report against the Terms of Reference and preparing recommendations for the Board and the public. The TNO model and simulation system is undergoing verification and will be released, with the TNO report, soon. Related links: Root Scaling Study http://www.icann.org/en/committees/dns-root/root-scaling-study-report-31aug… [PDF, 1,340K] Steering Group transmittal letter http://www.icann.org/en/committees/dns-root/steering-group-transmittal-lett… [PDF, 41K] The Root Scaling Study Steering Group David Conrad (david.conrad(a)icann.org) - ICANN John L. Crain (john.crain(a)icann.org) - ICANN Steve Crocker (steve(a)shinkuro.com) - SSAC Jeremy Hitchcock (jeremy(a)dyn-inc.com) - SSAC Johan Ihrén (johani(a)autonomica.se) - RSSAC Matt Larson (mlarson(a)verisign.com) - RSSAC Danny McPherson (danny(a)tcb.net) - SSAC Ram Mohan (rmohan(a)afilias.info) - SSAC Greg Rattray (greg.rattray(a)icann.org) - ICANN Barbara Roseman (barbara.roseman(a)icann.org) - ICANN Suzanne Woolf (Suzanne_Woolf(a)isc.org) - RSSAC

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Wainaina Mungai wants to share their location with you on Google Latitude
by Wainaina Mungai 21 Sep '09

21 Sep '09

Wainaina Mungai (wainaina.mungai(a)gmail.com) wants to start sharing their location with you on Google Latitude. You need to sign in to Latitude with a Google Account (eg, @gmail.com) and invite Wainaina Mungai. To get started, or to learn more about Latitude, click the link below. To get Google Latitude on your phone, click or type in the link below from your mobile web browser. http://m.google.com/latitude?dc=lati (c) 2009 Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

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Fw: Information-rich and attention-poor
by Matunda Nyanchama 20 Sep '09

20 Sep '09

This is an interesting read in this time and age: of data and information glut. Enjoy Information-rich and attention-poor Peter Nicholson From Saturday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 12, 2009 04:09AM EDT Twenty-eight years ago, psychologist and computer scientist Herbert Simon observed that the most fundamental consequence of the superabundance of information created by the digital revolution was a corresponding scarcity of attention. In becoming information-rich, we have become attention-poor. The three technologies that have powered the information revolution – computation, data transmission and data storage – have each increased in capability (and declined in cost per unit of capability) by about 10 million times since the early 1960s. It is as if a house that cost half a million dollars in 1964 could be bought today for a nickel, or if life expectancy had been reduced from 75 years to four minutes. This has unleashed a torrential abundance of data and information. But economics teaches that the counterpart of every new abundance is a new scarcity – in this case, the scarcity of human time and attention. The cost of one's time (approximated, for example, by the average wage) relative to the cost of data manipulation, transmission and storage has increased roughly 10-million-fold in just over two generations – a change in relative “prices” utterly without precedent. This, above all, is what is driving the evolution of online behaviour and culture, with profound implications for the production and consumption of knowledge. The primary consequence is the growing emphasis on speed at the expense of depth. Behaviour inevitably adapts to conserve the scarce resource – in this case, attention and time – and to “waste” the abundant resource. Thus, for example, much of the new technology's capability has been spent on simplifying interfaces and reducing communications latencies essentially to zero; both of these conserve precious time for users. The same motive has also spawned a plethora of indexing and searching schemes, of which Google is the chief example. These are all seeking to be attention-optimizers. Today's information technology is nowhere near its theoretical physical limits, though many engineering and cost hurdles may slow development after 2015. Nanotechnologies and quantum phenomena nevertheless promise to support a new growth path for decades to come. For example, a recently announced storage technology using carbon nanotubes may allow digital information to be held without degradation for a billion years or more – an innovation that would eliminate the major shortcoming of the digital archive. We may think metaphorically of the production of knowledge as a function of “information” and “attention,” with attention understood as the set of activities by which information is ultimately transformed into various forms of knowledge. By virtue of its unprecedented impact on the relative prices of information and human attention, information technology is driving a correspondingly profound transformation of knowledge production, the main feature of which is a shift of emphasis from “depth” to “speed.” This is simply because depth and nuance require time and attention to absorb. So as attention has become the dominant scarcity, depth has become less “affordable.” Moreover, with information so abundant, strategies are needed to process it more quickly, lest something of vital interest or importance is missed. THE 24-HOUR KNOWLEDGE CYCLE Knowledge is evolving from a “stock” to a “flow.” Stock and flow – for example, wealth and income – are concepts familiar to accountants and economists. A stock of knowledge may be thought of as a quasi-permanent repository – such as a book or an entire library – whereas the flow is the process of developing the knowledge. The old Encyclopedia Britannica was quintessentially a stock; Wikipedia is the paradigmatic example of flow. Obviously, a stock of knowledge is rarely permanent; it depreciates like any other form of capital. But electronic information technology is profoundly changing the rate of depreciation. By analogy with the 24-hour news cycle (which was an early consequence of the growing abundance of video bandwidth as cable television replaced scarce over-the-air frequencies), there is now the equivalent of a 24-hour knowledge cycle – “late-breaking knowledge,” as it were. Knowledge is becoming more like a river than a lake, more and more dominated by the flow than by the stock. What is driving this? Most obvious is the fact that the media by which electronic information is presented and manipulated permit it to be changed continuously and almost at no cost. Information products are therefore constantly evolving, for the simple reason that, faced with the option, who would not choose an updated over an outdated version? By the time information products eventually come to rest, they are very likely to be considered obsolete. In the cutthroat competition for attention, they are no longer “news.” Consequently, there is little time to think and reflect as the flow moves on. This has a subtle and pernicious implication for the production of knowledge. When the effective shelf-life of a document (or any information product) shrinks, fewer resources will be invested in its creation. This is because the period during which the product is likely to be read or referred to is too short to repay a large allocation of scarce time and skill in its production. As a result, the “market” for depth is narrowing. There is also under way a shift of intellectual authority from producers of depth – the traditional “expert” – to the broader public. This is nowhere more tellingly illustrated than by Wikipedia, which has roughly 300,000 volunteer contributors every month. The upshot is that thousands of heads working in parallel are, in an environment of information superabundance, presumably better than one, even if that one is an expert. What makes the mobilization of “crowd wisdom” intellectually powerful is that the technology of the Web makes it so easy for even amateurs to access a growing fraction of the corpus of human knowledge. But while hundreds of thousands of Web-empowered volunteers are able to very efficiently dedicate small slices of their discretionary time, the traditional experts – professors, journalists, authors and filmmakers – need to be compensated for their effort, since expertise is what they have to sell. Unfortunately for them, this has become a much harder sell because the ethic of “free” rules the economics of so much Web content. Moreover, the value of traditional expert authority is itself being diluted by the new incentive structure created by information technology that militates against what is deep and nuanced in favour of what is fast and stripped-down. The result is the growing disintermediation of experts and gatekeepers of virtually all kinds. The irony is that experts have been the source of most of the nuggets of knowledge that the crowd now draws upon in rather parasitic fashion – for example, news and political bloggers depend heavily on a relatively small number of sources of professional journalism, just as many Wikipedia articles assimilate prior scholarship. The system works because it is able to mine intellectual capital. This suggests that today's “cult of the amateur” will ultimately be self-limiting and will require continuous fresh infusions of more traditional forms of expert knowledge. With almost all of the world's codified knowledge at your fingertips, why should you spend increasingly scarce attention loading up your own mind just in case you may some day need this particular fact or concept? Far better, one might argue, to access efficiently what you need, when you need it. This depends, of course, on building up a sufficient internalized structure of concepts to be able to link with the online store of knowledge. How to teach this is perhaps the greatest challenge and opportunity facing educators in the 21st century. For now, the just-in-time approach seems to be narrowing peripheral intellectual vision and thus reducing the serendipity that has been the source of most radical innovation. What is apparently being eroded is the deep, integrative mode of knowledge generation that can come only from the “10,000 hours” of individual intellectual focus – a process that mysteriously gives rise to the insights that occur, often quite suddenly, to the well-prepared mind. We appear to be seeing fewer of the great synthetic innovations associated with names like Newton, Einstein or Watson and Crick. THE AGE OF DIGITAL NATIVES So we decry the increasing compartmentalization of knowledge – knowing more and more about less and less – while awaiting the great syntheses that some day may be achieved by millions of linked minds, all with fingertip access to the world's codified knowledge but with a globe-spanning spectrum of different perspectives. The hyperlinked and socially networked structure of the Internet may be making the metaphor of the Web as global “cyber-nervous system” into a reality – still primitive, but with potential for a far more integrated collective intelligence than we can imagine today. Those of us who are still skeptical might recall that Plato, in the Phaedrus, suggested that writing would “create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it.” This is a striking example of a particular kind of generation gap in which masters of an established paradigm can only see the shortcomings, and not the potential, of the truly novel. Today, the electronic screen, with its lack of linear constraint, its ephemeral scintilla and its hyperlinked multimedia content, portends a very different paradigm. How this may condition the habits of thought of the so-called “digital natives” – who, after all, are about to become both the custodians and creators of human knowledge – is one of the deepest and most significant questions facing our species. The challenge is to adapt, and then to evolve, in a world where there continues to be an exponential increase in the supply of information relative to the supply of human attention. Peter Nicholson is president of the Council of Canadian Academies --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day very difficult.” - E. B. White. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matunda Nyanchama, e-mail: matunda(a)hotmail.com Read my Blog: www.matunda.org Visit: www.aganoconsulting.com - for business information Other: www.nsemia.com ________________________________ Click less, mail more: Hotmail on the new MSN homepage!

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Global 'missed call' scam
by Wainaina Mungai 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

Hi I got a missed call from +423662691883 at 7:04am this morning. Being the paranoid Kenyan ;-) that I am, I first Googled for the country code and the result was "Liechtenstein". One of those coutries the skip on the map. I also learnt that the number has been used for a 'missed call' scam where you'd lose airtime and more. 1. Are our networks protecting consumers from such 'known threats'? 2. How does the scam work? Have a careful day, Wainaina -- Sent from my mobile device --- http://www.bungesms.com http://www.madeinkenya.org http://www.wainainamungai.com

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