blogg för Ásta Helgadóttir

Open Internet on the verge of being a rare commodity

Ásta Helgadóttir — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:26:56 +0000

Språk Engelska

Open Internet is on the verge of being a rare commodity. Not because it's so difficult to manage, or because the resources for it is scarce. On the contrary. When telecom operators are inquired how much the bandwith costs, how much data transfer costs, beside the actual service cost and the investment in the infrastructure, they cannot give any numbers.

Yesterdays conference, coorganized by Access, Marietje Schaake MEP and Sabeine Verheyen MEP, guaranteeing competition and open internet in Europe, was enlightning. The European Commissioner of Digital agenda, Ms Neelie Kroes gave the opening speech about how important it is to have transparent, open Internet services and ensrue consumer's right in the digital era.

There she spoke, of course, about Net Neutrality. What is Net Neutrality? Net neutrality "is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication."

Ms Neelie's speech was not well suited for the crowd. Among the speakers and attendees, there were expert on open access, net neutrality, human rights, people who have been fighting for the openness. Some of them are in direct touch with everything that's been going on in Turkey the past few days, and haven't had much sleep. This was the crowd that make sure people have access to secure internet, that's not filtered or tracked by the local government.

A particular sentence struck me:

"Openness and liberty are values I am determined to defend everywhere. I'm just back from a trip to Egypt. The Arab Spring showed us the power of the internet. So I am determined to support and champion that network. A network that is open and unified, and delivering democratic values. Across the world, and here in Europe."

Arab spring did not happen on Youtube or Twitter. It happened in real life. The Arab spring, and now the Turkish summer, is showing us how powerful people can be when they are fed up with the oppression and fake impression of safety and security. Our network is not open and unified, it is not delivering democratic values. It is highly filtered, censored and controlled by telecom operators and other people in power who look the other way when people's basic human rights have been affected. Why should there be any difference between the right of assembly on the internet versus away from keyboard? Why should there be any difference between free speech on the internet and in the real world?

There are huge problems with today's internet. There is too little awareness about the fact the we, as in we the people, are too much dependant on our telecom operators on what we can see and what we are allowed to do with this amazing tool the Internet is. There's too much power in the hands of the telecom operators, too little will of the governments to regulate it. We are locked inside walled gardens, and those fences are just getting taller as we speak.

"But I do not propose to force each and every operator to provide full Internet: it is for consumers to vote with their feet. If consumers want to obtain discounts because they only plan to use limited online services, why stand in their way? And we don’t want to create obstacles to entrepreneurs who want to provide tailored connected services or service bundles, whether it’s for social networking, music, smart grids, eHealth or whatever. But I want to be sure that these consumers are aware of what they are getting, and what they are missing." This is what Ms Kroes wrote in 2012. This is in stark contrast with what she said in her speech yesterday, where she wanted to defend the values of liberty and transparency. What is more important, ensuring that enterpeneurs get a tailored market they can control people's communication, or a market which protects the consumer from being locked inside walled gardens, where his freedom of speech and of assembly is being restricted?

It is always possible to say something comforting about whatever you're supposed to be talking about. Ms Kroes is in the rare position that she is capable to take action, and has been in that position for the past four years. I would like to see something happen, finally, along the lines she has been drawing these past years.

Mission: Space Debris

Ásta Helgadóttir — Thu, 30 May 2013 11:51:08 +0000

Språk Engelska

Rumour has it that Amelia is building a Death Star. It is a very serious project, and because of that she has been appointed as the main rapporteur from the European Commission for a report on Space Surveillance and Tracking with regards to Space Debris.

Space Junk, also known formally as “Space Debris” are all man made objects in space that do no longer serve a function. They just float on 10 km/s around the orbit and heighten the risk of damaging to functional satellites and spacecrafts. There's a lot of junk up there, especially after the Chinese anti-satellite missile test in 2007 when the Chinese space agency controlled a collision of a Chinese satellite by a kinetic kill vehicle. This collision alone created more than 2,000 debris and raised the amount of debris significantly.

How is it possible to prevent further developments of space debris in the space? It's difficult, but there are ideas with funky lasers or robotic arms to remove debris from our orbit. But right now, the most viable solution is to track the known space debris, building powerful radars and gather data on where everything is in the Orbit. With this data it is possible to move satellites away from possible danger and avoid the creation of more debris, also known as the Kessler syndrome, when debris create more debris.

One might think that it's easy. Technically, it is possible to create radars, keep track on what's happening and collect data. However, the military has their own defense satellites up there and other countries have their own satellites up there. Those parties are not necessarily very happy with the fact that they are traceable. It is also a question about data policies regarding the acquired data, who can access it and how should the member state share it?

International, European and national politics intertwine in space. It is an established fact that it is important to prevent further collisions as much as possible, but when it comes to space it is not clear cut how to operate. The EU legislations for space has so far been very undeveloped, so it's a challenge to find the right balance between European and national politics as well as global, to build trust and interdependence. This is after all, a global issue which will require cooperation and mutual understanding.

Exciting report, not only because we get to meet loads of amazing space people from European Space Agency and other space companies, but also because it'll definitely give us a good kick start in Amelia's Death Star mission! I'll keep you updated with how the process is going for the upcoming weeks :)

German Pirates sure know how to organize!

Ásta Helgadóttir — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:36:41 +0000

Språk Engelska

Rumour has it that the Pirates are a bit unorganized. It has also been an European inside joke for centuries that Germans are, extremely and uncanningly organized.

So what happens when German Organization skills and Pirates unite? The results were amazingly well organized general assembly which again resulted in productivity and happiness.

As soon as we entered the town, Neumarkt, we were greeted by signs of the German Pirate party which led the way to the Assembly. It was a bit like treasure hunt.

The assembly comfortable hosted over 1000 pirates, participating, a well equipped press room and accessible food stalls. Everything organized by pirates.

I must say that I was very happy to see that they decided not even bother with trying to have a wireless internetconnection for everybody, but instead provided a high quality internet through wired connections. Therefore therer was no frustration because of flunky wireless connection and people could get their Twitter and facebook fix.

I was equally impressed with the organization of the food. There was something for everyone, vegan, meat-dishes, grill and beverages. It was nicely organized, even one booth which was selling coupons for food so there was never a hassel because of lack of change or something alike. It is not easy to make enough food to feed ten dozen people and I must say that the Germans did splendidly.

There is one exception though. The coffee management was a borderline crisis situation. Apparently, the coffee machine was somehow broken. The fact that there was not another coffee machine or some alternative method to make the coffee to make sure that the Black Essence of Life was available to the attendees was, in my opinion, the only flaw of the organization of the assembly. But, people could of course retire to Club Mate.

Overall, I enjoyed the assembly. Lots of good people attending, the organization was superb and it showed. A well organized assembly means that people are not worrying about that the food takes too long time or that the wifi is down again. This meant that the German Pirate Party managed to have a productive assembly which got good reports from the media and made a great impression on us, the international guests.

This also made me realize how important it is to meet in person. To share an experience of something like this assembly, get to meet new people and participate in a discussion which would otherwise not happen. It builds trust and relations and I really hope the Germans will continue to have general assemblies, as they are great fun!

Thank you for an amazing weekend!

The Pirate Party International assembly

Ásta Helgadóttir — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:59:29 +0000

Språk Engelska

The Pirate Party International assembly was held in Kazan, Russia the weekend 20-21st April. We had a remote hub in our external office in Brussels where we welcomed Pirates from all over Europe to participate. In whole, we had around fifteen participants in our remote hub, from six countries.

This was my first event I had to organize for the EuroPirates here in Brussel. Suddenly I had to turn into a video conference expert. With good help from Elin and Cristian, we managed to put up quite decent video conference setup in the external office. I was quite happy with the result and had a lot of fun taping all the extension cords to the floor and on the table in order to make sure that nobody tripped!

The aim of this General Assembly of the Pirate Party International was to elect a new board, discuss about the infrastructure of PPI, voting on amendments to statutes and admittance of new members and observers of the PPI. The new board is co-chaired by Grégory Engels from the German Pirate Party and Vojtěch Pikal from the Czech Pirate Party.

Fourteen new members and six observer memberships were admitted, there amongst was both the Swedish Pirate Party and the Young Pirates admitted as observers. The Icelandic Piratey Party was admitted as full members of the PPI and the Besti Flokkurinn, or the Best Party which was established by the comedian-turned-mayor, Jón Gnarr. For some reason he is not a member of the Icelandic Pirate Party, but from the Best Party (which was only for the local city council elections), they have formed another party which they call “Björt Framtíð” which translates as “Bright Future”. It is good to see that the Pirate movement is spreading and I know that the Icelandi Pirates were very happy about the fact that they could relate their competitors for the upcoming Parliamentary elections to the Pirate party :)

Pirate Party International is turning into an important platform for Pirates to communicate and meet. It will be interesting to follow PPI and see where it takes us. Alot of new parties joined the PPI which shows how the Pirate movement is evolving and growing. It was a lot of fun, not only because we were taking part in building something new with this assembly, but also it's important to meet and share something together.