First (this) version is to be delivered:
by Thursday, 14th of May 1998 for the course in Humanitarian Issues.
Further work will be done at
http://an.org/humanitarian/ where is also the permanent location for
this paper, http://an.org/humanitarian/14may1998.html
The site will tell the current status and author info.
2. Internet in humanitarian development
2.1 The World of Choice (for those who have it)
2.2 Participation
2.3 Limits and dangers
2.4 Networking developing countries
2.5 A new form of cultural imperialism?
2.6 Africa
2.7 New world borders
3. Humanitarian issues on the Internet
3.1 The current domain name debate and Internet governance
3.2 Human Rights of the Net Users
3.2.1 Cryptography and Privacy
3.2.2 Data surveillance problem
3.2.3 How to protect privacy
Furthermore, during the introduction it became clear that the course would have close connections to the UNDP and other human developmental issues that I have been following in order to find out more about possible work in developing countries on the field of the Internet.
Now, there's the magic word, the big I. As a concept, sometimes as an icon of belief for us netheads, it is undefineable - probably as something too close. Sure there are the encyclopedia definitions, like "the network of networks" or more down-to-earth wise, in my own words: "The largest computer network in the world with hundreds of millions of users worldwide providing, among other services, e-mail communication and so called World Wide Web (WWW) information services. Has no owner or centralized control but loose standard protocols for connecting separate networks to a whole."
What has that Internet to do with Humanitarian Issues, then? A good question. I'm afraid it does not, as such. But as the broader, perhaps ideological, concept that we are justed to thinking it of, I would say it does. Explanation is at place:
Internet is not a one thing and many may disagree with this, but there are values and practices that related, like the following:
Many believe that it is changing the ways we learn, work, communicate, even marry and eventually form our societies. Much of that hype is not shown true but a lot is undeniably happening and the Internet is one of the strongest indicators demonstrating the change. Don Tapscott's "Growing up Digital" is a good fact-book of the subject with a lot of interviews of especially young people, 8-16 years old, around the Internet.
I prefer to use the term Internet instead of, say, "Information Technology", because the Internet refers to certain case of current development, not just faceless (valueless) technology. Other options would be expressions like "information and communication networks" but they also say less. On another opposite is the term "new media" which is a meaningful term but to my mind also less suitable here - after all, the new forms of the media are only one aspect of the Internet.
It may be that the concept of the 'net can remain vague for the readers who I don't share the same view with. Perhaps it still does not have to bring down the value of the studies here: after all, they are about Humanitarian Issues the world of the net being only the perspective where things are looked at from.
Those three different approaches cover a wide area which can not be covered with a modest work like this. Quite the opposite - this is a mere a sketch to begin with as the author wishes to work further on some of the subjects in the future. Therefore the paper should not be read as something definite but as a way to open paths to reach later goals. I am most delighted to recieve all feedback, like criticism, flames, encouragement and naturally references to other works that the readers could recommend!
In practise, however, changes in informations technology, especially
the introduction of the new
communication tools the Internet provides, are affecting the work on
humanitarian issues in many
ways. This part aims at providing an overview from this perspective.
An important part of the humanitarian work is information gathering for decision making and, perhaps more than before, immediate reactions. These two activities are utterly unalike mainly because of the different time scale and form of actions taken. The first is the normal daily routine performing relatively steady long-term tasks and the latter something current that happens, a crisis, causing change of plans.
Apart from governments, NGOs and alike working for humanitarian development
and in crisis prevention, the media, traditionally the populat print press
and increasingly TV, are an important player. This point is discussed for
example in the book "News, Media, Civil War and Humanitarian Action" that
I read and comment from the Internet new media point of view in the last
part of this chapter.
Information-
People doing humanitarian work are not information scientists and presumably do not wan't to be disturbed with techniques related to those processes. Certainly it is not the purpose of the people working on this field to develope information technology as such. It us quite agreeable that these often technical issues are not addressed in for example the study program we had. It remains important, however, that the developments in the area are followed and right tools used for right tasks. That is as true for almost any other work as well, but there are certain special to look at here:
Patrick Ball demonstrates in his work "Who did What to Whom?", which is a book about Planning and Implementing a Large Scale Data Project mostly Human Rights in mind, the importance of information management systems in humanitarian work (Ch. 1). His book goes through many problems, like information security, of the work in this sensitive field where "units" are real people and their humanity is the concern. The book is on-line at http://shr.aaas.org/www/cover.html
As the Internet provides a virtually infinite room for humanitarian information and means to provide access to them for many at low cost the effect on both finding more and providing new information is positive. There is also potential in new ways of knowledge processing and representation techniques. Search engines help getting the right information when needed so that less background knowledge is needed and different graphical, nowadays even animated and interactive intuitive interfaces for complex databases are developing. Another interesting field of research here is the social simulations.
The United Nations (www.un.org) has been using the Internet for years already and has many special initiatives, like the UN Reliefweb (www.reliefweb.int), to serve the information needs of the communities. Thousands of other humanitarian organizations have their services on-line as well, one collection of humanitarian efforts is available at the Nerd World Media, http://www.nerdworld.com/nw1279.html
In some ways that kind of immediety can be seen as traditionally non-UN like. The high comissioneer's office is said to be effective thanks to it's smallness - and that is something that the UN is not. It has shown in some of the recent crisis that small groups and even individuals, for example by having access to global communications systems, can do more in times of crisis than big powers, which of course have their important role elsewhere.
A well known case is the Radio B92 in Belgrade,the government (Milosevic) first shut off the broadcast, but when the people managed to transmit their audio message abroad using the Internet and it was broadcasted back from there using normal radio waves, so that all the people could hear what was going on, violations were believably avoided. One press release of theirs: http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive-1996/0545.html
There has been speculations that perhaps the whole war would have been prevented with more local activities - Ivo Skoric and other acticists in an Internet mailinglist called Nettime (also in printed on paper magazine called ZKP) have been writing a lot about the case.
(many lately reported happenings also include some local hackers who play an essential role in preventing humiliation. These cases, success stories even, are mostly about real time reporting and fast reactions in order to deliver fast relief. In for example Mexico and Bosnia some net-capable people have helped the group, that has been offended by the country's own or foreign army/government forces, to get their message out to the world, where it has gotten redistributed and ultimately broadcasted by media giants in the west - thus drawing global attention on the spot and preventing the gov/army forces from violent actions)
One different case, where the Internet served as a platform to form support communities for the worried relates, was the disaster in the Baltic Sea when the ship Estonia sunk. The Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel #Estonia, that was formed right when the first news came, might still hold the record of most simultaneous participants.
This brings us to the question on the changing role of the media.
The media - meaning the journalists on the field and big print publishers, TV channels and nowadays websites and e-mail publisments - is pictured as the third player in humanitarian crisis, accompanied by the traditional governments and humanitarian organizations (The Crisis Triangle, p.2)
Boutros-Boutros Ghali, being the UN Secretary-General, even stated in the famous quote that "CNN is the sixteenth member of the security council". In the book CNN and the big media in general is characterized as the slow, one-eyed giant Cyclops.
Internet, on the other hand, is more like a bounch of ant mounds - or an insenct swarm - which I find much more enthusiastic and flexible, efficient information gatherers. There is hope that all important things all around the world, both geographically and in the cyberspace of ideas, get more equally attention, enough care so to say.
Having soon perhaps 500-1000 million users around the world there's
a good chance that basically everything is noted in the new media. If content
producing remains trivial, perhaps even develops to be easier than today,
the net could be a powerful decentralized source for locally based reporting.
To put it simple: in every humanitarian issue there is a human involved
and if that person, or some is his/her friends, has a voice in the global
media and the issue is important it will be heard and amplified by others.
Moreover, a lot there is based on straight personal contact, with less
mediators, which among other things makes things feel more concrete, closer
- interactivity is not statistics but real.
On the other hand the Internet provides good means for archiving practically infinite amounts of detailed historic information and the addressing system supports stability - things can stay where they are so that they get some continuous attention even when the main hype turns elsewhere.
The big old media still has it's leading role and the change to networked decentralized communication is (slighter) than we sometimes hope, but at least some of it is really happening. Even though the news comes from the giants - or cathedrals like the recent software house analogue goes - the ants, or the bazaar, are buzzing about the things on their own and have better chances of getting attention by at least someone.
Internet is a world of choice. It offers opportunities to open paths to basically achieve any information and contact many organizations and individuals across the globe.
It is not unique in the sense that, in most places where it is accessible, the telephone, paper mail and often book shop or library networks have existed already offering principally the same capabilities. The Internet is stronger in some, weaker in some aspects compared to the old networks like the ones mentioned and at the moment works best when combined effectively with existing services.
But what about places where the telephone is rare and expensive and paper networks are untrustworthy and poor? This is the case for most people in the world, especially compared with the services and infrastructure to rich and technologically advanced places like my home in Finland. Does it make any sense to talk about Internet concerning areas where telephone is only a word and people have enough trouble getting their daily nutrition? How would they use it? Would they even want to have it?
I know that the whole issue of the Internet as a part of humanitarian aid and development sounds ridiculous to many. For some others, however, it is every-day reality as they are working to build communications infrastructure even in the least developed areas and teach the inhabitants the basics of the Internet.
Some of their main arguments are that the Internet is:
With an e-mail account and web page an individual can participate many activities, often following personal and professional interests but also political decision-making.
TV and radio don't provide people with opportunities like this and are therefore resented by Internet activists who embrace participation - a value that is also an important factor behind the emphasis of education and literacy in for example the HDI (Human Development Index) evaluations.
Another possible danger is the negative effects on quality of people's
lives that the so called Internet-addiction (which the author, being a
happy addict, finds a bit ridiculous) might have. That important question
is not addressed in this paper (yet).
The Internet Society has been focusing on networking the least developed (ie. least internetworked) countries for years and is proud to announce, when telling about their Developing Countries Workshops, that "from September 1993 to September 1995, every new country connected to the Internet was assisted by one of the workshop graduates". Last summer, year 1997, the whole annual meeting was held in a developing country (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). The next conference in the sequence, Inet'98, is located in Geneva which traditionally is an important base for developing countries issues and the workshop is an essential part of the program as always. <http://www.isoc.org/inet98/>
Many influential people working on and for the Internet have had strong believe in it's power to make things better. Like George Sadowsky, a long term activist resident at the University of New York and a great contributor for the Internet Society, stated in the society's magazine back in late 1996 in his article about the developing countries: "The correlation between information, communication, and economic growth is well-known, making the usefulness of networks nearly self-evident".
If one would read his now a bit agy article from an opposite view, like the devil is said to read the bible, it could be seen to show some scary elements, like promoting "unanticipated collaboration" and that the "movement towards democratization cannot be downplayed". He also notes that "the need to decentralize (the limits states set to individuals and) control over information and over networks themselves is clear". Is freedom of expression and access to information only a western value so that promoting that is in fact cultural imperialism? Can it actually do harm?
For me these questions remain unanswered so far. A strong agrument for spreading the Internet is that being interactive the new channel would give a voice to speak globally for the ones, for example in Africa, that we haven't really listened so far. There I would like to see the nature of the Internet being - instead of a power-hammer in the hands of imperialistic powers - more like the one of the butterfly's in flower fields: attracted by different colours and transferring the seeds in between with a gentle touch for lasting flourishment.
Another well-known utopist is Nicholas Negroponte, the famous founder of the MIT Media Lab and author of the best-seller Being Digital, who is active in networking the developing countries with especially their children in mind. The project, namely 2B1, can be found at http://www.2b1.org/ .
Actually Sadowsky notes it pretty strongly as well by writing about New York in the same Internet Society and Developing Countries paper. He concludes by stating the following: "extending Internet access to developing regions of the world implies activity in almost all countries of the world".
Oguibe expresses this aspect even stronger. He states that "the real 'third world' is a global zone" existing as well in California than in Chad. Already before it is known there are rich and poor in every country and social groups form cross nations but especially in the naturally global networks, where internationality is no question but presumed without mentioning, the traditional measures focusing on countries (e.g. UN reports) are difficult to use. Oguibe urges for people to "discard old, deceptive categories".
The next issue of CyberSociology, an on-line magazine published at http://www.socio.demon.co.uk/magazine/magazine.html , is titled "Digital Third Worlds" and is currently in the making. The interview of Nigerian Olu Oguibe referred here is provided as background material for papers and can be read at http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/springer.htm .
There's a lot talk about human rights, like the preserving the freedom of expression on-line and, on the other opposite, taking care of people's privacy.
Is this a humanitarian issue at all? There is no refugees or even immigrants coming to borders in search for asylum when their rights have been violated or are in danger on-line. Perhaps more just rich elite, or criminals some say, who are concerned about the enemy - democratic governments, that is - getting too much power to interfere in their actions? Might be, but the very principal rights of every individual are at hand now and some of threats are concrete.
Privacy is a major issue and will be discussed here from perspectives: first the right of an individual to use cryptography to keep confidental data in secret and secondly the dangers of electronic surveillance and especially so called dataveillance on-line.
Before that, however, a short look at the current problems and developments in the governance of the Internet is taken. There the players are the users themselves, the activist groups they have founded and which traditionally form the governing bodies of the net, commercial businesses which somewhat differences and finally the governments.
The issue is far too difficult and complex to be presented here in detail, but it is mentioned as the first example of difficulties in this kind global decision making - Internet governance in fact - which will presumably show later in other policy making related to human rights.
In short this is what has happened since autumn 1996: the Internet activists recognized the problems in the administration and started preparing a new policy. Currently the valuable global addresses (.com, .net, .org etc.) are held by an American company under the contract they have with the government agencies that initially funded the network developement. In December 1996 the working group published a memorandum with a plan introducing new names (.store, .info, .nom and alike) and a program how to put an end to the monopoly the current registration company has. Later both US government and the European Comission offended the plan and demanded more time. Since the summer 1997 most of the parties have been working together, the US government having the lead. Spring 1998 the US government published the so-called green paper introducing a new plan, based on the original written by the Internet activists. Most groups, including the EU and the ISOC (Internet Society) and EFF (Electronic Frontieer Foundation) offended. Even though the government plan included most of the demands, like destroying the monopoly, it was considered too US centric. A new "final" suggestion is coming out of the white house soon, it's contents are yet unknown.
What if we are faced with more severe situations than a mere name game? What if human rights are threatned? Many demand for some sort of global governance - as there are no borders and some things do need to be governed - but at the same time UN-like heavy organizations are opposed. What opportunities are there? A lot is yet to be learned in this area.
Freedom of expression is one of the principal rights that the work of the EFF relies on. It is related to the crypthography issue introduced in the following of which most, however, has to do with privacy.
There are schemes where strong cryptography - meaning practically inbrakeable encoding even using all the computing power the government agencies themselves have - would be allowed so that the government would hold all the keys being able to check things if criminal activity was suspected. That kind of plan, namely Key Escrow has been progressing in the US and was recently introduced in Canada. Many activists are concerned about this and think of it as a threat to their human rights. "This is comparable to asking the front-door keys for 10 million Canadian homes be deposited at the local police station, 'just in case' there was a need to execute a search warrant", says Jeffrey Shallit, vice-president of Electronic Frontier Canada.
http://www.hri.ca/doccentre/cryptography/efc-pr27apr98.shtml is the press release dated on Monday, April 27, 1998 reporting the concern proceedings in Canada showing points of view from both individual's and government's side.
http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Key_escrow/ is a good resource covering the whole topic.
There are cases where companies as accused of using illegal purposes for ackquiring such information and fears that even the most confidental, say medical, files can be stolen or sold illegally. In most cases, however, companies can gathered information of their customers habits and orientations perfectly legally and after the years know more about the individuals that they would probably like the companies to know. The Wolrd Wide Web services, for example, can be build so that each time the users goes to visit the site (to read a magazine, for example) he/she leaves a trace to every article read even with information about how much time was spent reading, what was read next etc. Combined with other data from other services, as big companies have several, an accurate profile can be created.
A radical scenario has been introduced where the company databases containing personal information of the customers would be made illegal and the companies could only get their customers data - like the name, age, address etc. - by accessing the homepage of the customer using the OPS or alike. Then if an individual wants to stop all affairs with a company, that for example keeps sending irritating advertisement, he/she just denies access for that company to the database so they are not legally allowed to know even the name anymore. Furthermore the individual could see from the logfiles who, which companies for example, have been using which data and when. Sounds like power to the people, doesn't it? (the reference I got this thought from is in Finnish and not provided here, if someone knows more about it I'd be happy to learn and can also further information with e-mail of about what I know)
That scenario could be seen as an example how information technology
can be seen as closely related to even legistlative work. If it wasn't
technically possible it could be hardly thought of but now some believe
it could work.
The Internet and world around is, for the author at least, a big conceptual
space which he is not even able to define. Apart from the computers and
the services provided using them the Internet has it's values which determine
parts of the way it works. It is seen to promote things like freedom of
choice, openess and decetralized power. These are clearly not values that
are truly wanted and good for all the parties, like many governments mostly
in the so called third world have demonstrated by denying or limiting the
use of the Internet. The Internet activists themselves often believe in
the power of the net itself to destroy such obstacles as was shown in the
chapter 2. If this is wanted by the people in the countries or a a new
form of cultural imperialism remains a bit unclear for the author.
New media technology is seen as a new force perhaps changing the role
media has in the humanitarian issues, especially crisis prevention. There
is hope that by connecting the people in the alert areas, by giving them
voice so to say, the public attention in the world would be shared more
equally in the future and humanitarian organisations and governmental policy
makers would have better up-to-date information from the field. Now
we are often dependent on the "parachuting journalist" who drops in the
middle of the situation from home in the west - Internet could give voice
for the local people instead and replace CNN as the "sixteenth member of
the security council" that Boutros Boutros Ghali nominated back in 1995.
Human rights and perhaps later also other humanitarian issues are a
concern also in the on-line worlds of the Internet. There is demand for
policies and slight regulation but as a governing body is lacking, perhaps
even impossible to form, it is problematic. The EFF sees the United Nations
declaration for Human Rights as the guiding principle but also points out
the need for something stronger. Privacy is a major problem in different
ways, of which encryption legistlation and data surveillance were presented
here. High technology is a powerful tool often used to violate people's
privacy but also with potential for good, leaving open space for innovations
that could make life more secure as shown in the end of chapter 3.
In the end I would like to express my gratitude for the friends who
accidentally lead me to the course and for the teacher and all the lecturers
for inspiration. This paper does not focus to show very much understanding
of the topics the lectures were about - I hope the exam we wrote last week
does at least a little - but all this was really born thanks to the course.
Yet I hope that, as explained in the motivation, that this is only a beginning.
The News, Media, Civil War and Humanitarian Action
by Larry Minear, Colin Scott, Thomas G. Weiss
Various documents on the Internet, often linked from the text, especially the following:
On Digital 'Third Worlds', http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/springer.htm
an interview of Olu Oguibe
The discussion list <nettime> and the print publications ZPKs of
them,
http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/
The Electronic Frontieer Foundation, http://www.eff.org/
http://www.eff.org/pub/GII_NII/DNS_control/19980323_eff_ntia.comments
The Internet Society, httpl:/www.isoc.org/
especially: http://www.isoc.org/isoc/publications/oti/articles/isoc.html
The Internet Society and Developing Countries, by George Sadowsky.
also participation in Inet'97 in Kuala Lumpur and in the African Network
Symposium there was great help and influence!
The Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/
http://www.hrw.org/research/worldreport.html
The Human Rights Internet, http://www.hri.ca/
http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord1997/
Growing up Digital, http://www.growingupdigital.com/
a book by Don Tapscott with a lot of facts and statisic about net use
and users
"Who did What to Whom?", by Patrick Ball
is a book about Planning and Implementing a Large Scale Data Project
http://shr.aaas.org/www/cover.html
A number of news on Wired News, http://www.wired.com/
especially: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/11529.html
"
"People don't need the Internet to create democracy," said Salon technology
correspondent
Andrew Leonard, who spent four years in Taiwan reporting on
technology and the Internet. They
just need some gumption."
(http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/10769.html)
Africa Rising, in the print Wired 5th anniversary issue by John Barlow,
also on-line: http://www.wired.com/wired/6.01/barlow.html
"The Media, Military and Private Sector in Conflicts and Humanitarian
Crisis"
a ICHR conference held in Geneva, 5-6 December, 1995
I didn't attend but the conference description was still on-line and
interesting,
http://is.eunet.ch/ichr/december.html
The CyberSoc, Sociology of Cyberspace at http://www.socio.demon.co.uk/home.html
3rd World Bibliography: http://www.socio.demon.co.uk/3rdworld.html
+ more.