Amelia Andersdotter - Telekommunikation

Korta observationer om terrorism, upphandling och övertag

Amelia Andersdotter — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 06:45:46 +0000

Språk Svenska

Mexikanen Slim äger América Móvil, en av världens största telekombolag som har väldigt stora marknadsandelar i de flesta latinamerikanska marknader och delvis i Australien. Slim är en av Telefónicas främsta konkurrenter om makt över Sydamerikas kommunikation. Nu vill han in på den europeiska marknaden, via nederländska före detta statsmonopolet KPN (motsvarigheten till TeliaSonera i Sverige-Suomi). Det har fått den nederländska terroristbekämpningskoordinatorn att slå bakut: KPN sitter på mycket upplevt säkerhetskritisk infrastruktur eftersom de tidigare varit helt integrerade med staten (de verkar mena 112 och hjälptjänstkommunikation). Riskerna för att Slim ska utnyttja nederländernas larmtjänst för att tjäna terrorister får antas vara liten, men Slim har sagt att han drar tillbaka sitt bud om Nederländerna gör sig alltför besvärliga.

Det fick mig, egentligen osökt, att tänka på en kommentar om reglerna i Världshandelsorganisationens (WTO) upphandling av Stewart Baker (ärkekonservativ republikansk jurist från Washington) för ett tag sedan angående amerikanska önskemål att inte köpa kinesisk informationsteknologi i sina upphandlingsprocesser: "I was surprised to see that the US Trade Representative’s office had negotiated a strikingly weak security exemption for the WTO procurement code. The first paragraph of the exemption (article XXIII) only allows the US to restrict procurements that are “indispensable for national security or for national defence purposes.” In other words, the exemption is based on the nature of the goods being bought, and not on the nature of the threat. The US can make a good case that attacks on the Commerce Department or the Justice Department information systems threaten national security, but it’s hard to argue that the IT systems those departments buy are themselves indispensable for national security."

Bakers andra, och roliga, kommentar är att om Huaweis filialer i Tyskland och Storbritannien upplever att de är diskriminerade av USA i USA:s upphandlingsprocesser kan de stämma amerikanska regeringen under WTO:s konfliktlösningssystem.

Vara som det vara vill med Slim och 112. Personligen har jag inte mycket till övers för Slim och América Móvil av helt andra skäl. De har bland annat argumenterat för fortsatta offentliga subventioner för utläggning av koppartråd i Australien: en knappt försvarbar offentlig utgift oavsett hur man vänder på det. Vad Europa främst behöver är kanske inte heller en till multinationell, ärkekonservativ telekommarknadsaktör á la Telefónica. I EU har vi i Bryssel istället försökt vända detta till investeringar i öppna fibernätverk, eftersom vi tror att det är mer framtidssäkert.

What kind of Net Neutrality for France?

Julien Bencze — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:36:50 +0000

Språk Engelska

The French government should be now working on a possible legislative proposal on Net Neutrality. It received an opinion from the Conseil National du Numerique (CNN) which contains strange recommendations which waters down, if not could kill, Net Neutrality.

Wrong legal framework

The CNN recognises that freedom of speech is not enough protected with today’s threat of blocking, filtering…and therefore NN deserves the statute of fundamental right standing on the top of the law hierarchy, having a kind of constitutional value.

It’s great, we agree with that! That is why the CNN proposes the French government to put NN in…An old, basic law of 1986 that was passed to liberalise the TV sector and enable private broadcasters to emit.

It is very strange that the Net neutrality of the internet is part of this law that was set up for the TV sector, where communication goes in one way, via very few canals and is centralised, all of these not really applying to the internet concept! Doh n°1

The result of this strange integration would be that right after the beginning of article 1of the law stating that electronic communication to the public should be free, net neutrality would have to be applied the list of limitation to the free communication principle also embodied in the same article, and which includes the respect of human dignity, the right of property and childhood protection. Those limitations are of course excessively used by private actors to justify discrimination and fundamental rights violation on the internet.

This could dangerously facilitate the work of private companies to invoke its property right to avoid Net Neutrality and apply access restriction measures. Crap n°1

“Technical constraints” are also in the limitation list without having a precise definition. Here again, it would be very easy for a telecom operator to invoke technical constraint that he would have defined itself, to justify access hindering. Crap n°2

Weak or no definition

In the CNN opinion, Net Neutrality is not really defined, rather included in the sentence of Article 1 as such (free translation):

“The neutrality of the communication networks, infrastructures and electronic services of access and communication to the public, guarantees the access to information and to the means of expression, in non-discriminatory, equal and transparent conditions”.

So Net Neutrality is not defined as such, and non-discriminatory conditions rather remind the competition “wording”, which could imply that there would be a kind of scale of intensity to set up and to assess (by the judges!) in order to determine whether a behaviour is discriminatory or not. This could be in fact the open door for the categorisation of the internet including based on commercial ground. Crap n°3

No sanction

The CNN opinion does not refer to any need of sanctions, nor does it foresee the possibility for the French national telecommunication authority (ARCEP) to set-up preventive administrative sanctions for Net neutrality infringers.

Here again it is very strange that the CNN opinion regrets that the European Parliament did not refer to sanctions in its 2011 resolution on Net Neutrality , and in the same time does not propose the French government to put sanctions… Doh n°2

It would have been clearer to propose a new, positive law for NN and indicate that under this principle information traffic is not hindered otherwise clear sanctions would apply. Basta.

For those who read French you can refer to the well-argumented position of La Quadrature du Net

Keynote på Open Source Days, Köpenhamn (9 mars)

Amelia Andersdotter — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:02:45 +0000

Språk Svenska

Jag hade den stora äran att få närvara vid Open Source Days, en stor dansk konferens om öppen källkod och öppen mjukvara som anordnas varje år i Köpenhamn sedan 1998. Nedan följer det anförande jag gjorde under konferensen, och efteråt var det många som ställde frågor och förde diskussioner som jag också besvarade så gott jag kunde. Det var många intressanta presentationer utöver min egen som DNS-censur, privatlivsskyddande teknologier för din mobiltelefon (specifikt Android och orbot), samt en mycket intressant historia om hur man kan porta mjukvara från slutna plattformar till Linux, och vilka avväganden man som företag då behöver gå igenom. Jag träffade PROSA, KLID, Superusers och ett makerbot-team som tillverkade små bystar (alltså statyer). Också närvarande var Ung Pirat Malmö:s nya ordförande Janni! Stort tack för sällskapet och jag hoppas vi ses snart igen :-)

I'm very happy to see so many people here. Welcome.

Most of you have come here because you are developers, or implementers, of open source solutions. Am here in a slightly different role. Even if I have been known to use open source software, I'm here because I am a member of the European Parliament, a publically elected representative, and, as such, legislating and creating norms for interactions in society are some of the tasks for which I m responsible and accountable. I am, optimally, responsible and accountable both for choices that I make, and choices that I don't make.

We all make choices, on a daily basis. In the vast majority of cases they don't have a big impact on the people around us, nor do they impact our surrounding world a lot. Many of the choices I make, when I work in Brussels, by contrast impact the framework in which the 500 million citizens of the European Union find themselves.

So I would like to talk about responsibility and accountability.

Last year I was awarded the honour of being named the fifth most influential internet activist in the world by online internet social community magazine Daily Dot, because of my work in the European Parliament against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Now, ACTA is an interesting piece of work since, ultimately, the European Parliament rejected the agreement. The international federation of phonogram industries issues a press release on the day after the vote, July 6th 2012, urging the parliament to be more responsible ”next time”.

But the agreement was already from the outset an example of devastatingly bad allocation of responsibility and accountability.

One of my major concerns in the agreement was the proposition that businesses make their own agreements on how copyright law or trademark law should be enforced.

The reason I don't like this is because I recognise that business, ultimately, doesn't have the olbigation to make difficult and sometimes costly judgement of which particular society benefit should be given preference over another at some given time.

It is us, the legislators, who make that balance through the laws that we enact, and up to the courts to implement these balances.

We have to be able to trust our legislators and our courts to uphold our rights and freedoms. We, the people, everyone of us that interacts every day, need to feel safe that our legislators take responsibility for our common interaction spaces. In the case of ACTA they did, so that is good.

But returning to the issue of responsibility: earlier this week the European Economic and Social Committee had invited me to hold a keynote at one of their meetings. They are not a legislative institution, by the way, so they do not necessarily cause a lot of harm. I was invited to hold a keynote on the responsible use of the Internet. Their thematic conference concerned children, nasty comments on the internet and how we can ensure that the Internet become a friendlier and funner place.

I said at that meeting, and I will maintain, that we have a fundamental political problem in how we define interaction spaces in society when all responsiblity for friendlieness is hurled towards the individual rather than us assessing whether the interaction frameworks are in fact wrongly defined.

We know, for instance, that at the World Summit for Information Society in 2005, ”communciation” was left out from the list of expected benefits from public access to information benefits. An arbitrary exclusion, given how important communication is for society and group cohesion.

In the European Union similarly we are not reforming the opyright laws. They create only uncertainties and risks for those who try to express themselves through use of culture, or those who turn to culture to build commonalities with others. Being a user of cultural works is associated with nothing but risk – all rights and certainties are kept for rightsholders. But because we either do not value communication or because we, the legislators, are unwilling to acknowledge the huge impact our work or, as it were, non-work, has on the abilities for people to interact, the reforms aren't coming.

I will give you an example: in December of last year, the current European Commissioner in charge of copyright issues Michel Barnier said in front of a parliamentary meeting that he did not want to look closer at users' rights in the European legislation because he didn't want to make copyright weaker.

I would argue that a legal framework made in such a way that it creates fear, uncertainty and doubt for those who try to build social networks and communities with each, is a weak legal framework. Our legal system can never be stronger than its legitimacy, and the legitimacy of the current copyright framework with its few limitations is very low.

When teachers, librarians, e-book consumers, radio stations, organizations helping out the visually impaired or Djs find themselves in a situation where they cannot, at any other than severe cost in time, money or to themselves, comply with or respect the law, that is the definition of a weak legal framework.

Laws have no purpose if they don't minimize conflicts between different members of society, or make the conflict resolution between these members as painless as possible if a conflict nevertheless arises. Copyright does exactly the reverse: it generated a multitude of conflicts, and makes the resolution of those conflicts painful and traumatic.

To no reassess users in copyright is irresponsible. It is an avoidance of responisibility that users and citizens themselves can't remedy. It falls upon politicians and elected representatives to take this responsiblity, but the political fear of action in this field is harming our society and our communication places.

Many here will be private persons, entrepreneurs or business people who are deeply concerned with policy areas like competition, standards development or patent law, trademarks or worse: trade-secrets, one of my biggest problems in legal development today.

Also here, unarguably, we are suffering from a gret number of problems over which politicians largely do not exercise much responsibility. Because of the very unclear value-base which guides all policy around communication, be it innovation, group work, personal or economic endeavours or what, the very concept of ”responsible use of the internet” is naturally confusing.

Is it responsible to have built a market model entirely dependent on the removal of freedom, choice and privacy of your customers?

I would argue that it isn't, but politically we have huge difficulties acknowledging concepts like indutrial leadership or the consequences of showing, or refusing to show, such leadership. What we seem particularly unable to determine, politically, is how to discuss the frameworks for interaction that we are making.

Because politicians, publically elected officials, decide the frameworks within which all other actors in society operate, it is incredibly important that they have a vision and some values to impose on that framework.

So for instance, I believe that we need a much stronger policy against vertical integration. Competition policy, which today deals msotly with cartels, mergers and dominant actors need to have a shift of focus towards market entrance barriers. For each level of a different product chain we should not only ponder, but also enforce, functional separation. This will make market entrance on each level of the vertical chain much easier and more actors will be able to join in innovation and product development.

What we are seeing instead is a less conflictful application of competition law now than in the past. When Apple locked its platform sot hat developers only by locking in themselves could participate in the AppStore, the European Commission was happy to accept only a weak commitment from Apple to open partially the developer kit in 2010.

Clearly a more useful discussion or investigation to have been had could and should have been the exact control exercised by Apple over every step of their value chain, and whether anti-trust laws should actually be given a larger role in contravening such practises.

Similarly, when Apple and four publishers were doing price-fixing and locin-in for the e-book sectors, the Commission cautiously criticized the license market they were engaging in as potentially in violation of competition laws, but in the end the Commission decided to not go in and actually just ban the market that they though was not in any way competitive, but instead accept the voluntary commitment to discontinue these market practises for a period of two years.

Clearly more political evaluation over what type of market models we are actually willing to accept would have been useful here.

Even in the Commission's merger investigations, they will very rarely scrutinize the conglomerating effects of merging patent portfolios on a licensing market. But the market for licenses of certain types of patents can be very heavily influenced by large mergers.

The type of competition overhaul that I would like to see would of course demnd involvement not only of competition authorities, but politicians and sector-specific national regulatory authorities as well. It is possible, but it reuires consistent and responsible politicians that are willing to be accountable, and responsible, for the decisions and values they implement.

We as citizens should not be letting our publically elected officials get away with losely referring to industry self-regulation or how they do not want to stop some business development from happening.

Even if it is clear that vertical integration and centralization can have some benefits, freedom, choice and the liberty to make new things is to me more important, and comes only from a structural framework of functional separation.

This brings me over to a last point that i would like to propose on the topic of responsibility. I say that often we hear politicians avoiding responsibility by stressing their unwillingness to interfere with business development or the development of new business models. It is already quite clear that all businesses emerge inside a society context, and that politicians, parliamentarians, governments and commissioners have the responsibility for how that framework is set up.

We all exist inside this framework, which defines how and when we interact in which way with whom. It defines our social interactions, our interactions with businesses, public authorities or the way that businesses interact with each other or public institutions.

These frameworks are made to reduce th total amount of conflicts and bad blood. They are here to help us make bad blood that nevertheless appers go away in some process least traumatic to the parties involved.

So clearly, in order to preserve these conflict minimizing properties of our framework for interaction, we should not be scared of, or avoid, showing an appropriate amount of industrial leadership.

Privacy, data protection or security are good examples of where a larger degree of political responsibility is needed.

In one place I read, and I think this captures beautifully this point: one national data protection authority based in a member state of the European Union stated that it feels its mission is to mitigate the negotative consequences brought on to private persons and citizens in their interactions with business and public authorities by the large scale deployment of information and communication technologies.

Mitigating the negative consequences implies that all is lost, and you would wonder why we at all make public investments in data protection authorities if all is lost.

As we see, and as many of you know, we could simply politically decide not to accept some economic models which create the need for ex post crisis management and damage mitigation with respect to privacy concerns.

We need stronger leadership, responsibility and enforcement of the privacy and data protection measures that we want.

I'm not saying politicians must necessarily favour some technology over another, but I do believe strongly that we both can and should consider the properties which technologies that get deployed at large-scale have to possess.

As business models deal a lot with interaction and communication, we can and should also exercise responsibility in open, democratic debates about which business models we find ok, and which ones we don't.

Now finally, then, if one is a private person and one would like to interact with policy making institutions because one is concerned about the lack of responsibility or one wants to increase accountability? I would suggest writing e-mails, letters or give phonecalls to deputies, that are personal. One person writing a heartfelt, personal email to their deputy easily counts more than any lobbyist or any other interest. Keep in touch with your deputies, ask what they are doing, get in touch when you know that they are addressing issues relevant to you.

Preserving a free and open internet!

Julien Bencze — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 13:51:53 +0000

Språk Engelska

The European Parliament has just adopted a resolution (version subject to technical modifications) to which Amelia and the Pirate Party played a central contribution, that underlines the importance for the EU and its Member States to preserve a free and open internet as a condition for democracy and social inclusion.

This resolution was needed in the context of the reforms of the International Telecommunication Regulations that will be discussed and voted by the UN International Telecommunications Union (the ITU, where all the 27 EU countries take part) at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in early December in Dubaï.

Some of the reform proposals constitute a serious threat to the open and free internet as we know it today, by transferring the regulatory powers (i.e. deciding how someone can be connected online and communicate with others) from global multi-stakeholder organisations such as the Internet Society or ICANN to the intergovernmental-exclusive ITU. These proposals would also provide nation states with explicit sovereign rights over the management of the digital information that enters or exits their territories, and encourage monopolies based on rent and information discrimination between citizens. A proposed reform from ETNO, the European voice of the main telecom operators, wants to implement interconnection charges to "enable" the good flow of information between their networks. These charges could lead to disastrous price increases for small telecom operators, the internet content providers and users, and dramatically harm competition and innovation on the internet. Only the big players would be able to pay these charges without affecting the quality of their service.

This resolution is without any doubt a political achievement.

Although the European Parliament resolution sends a significant signal to the outside world in the defence of a free and open internet by refusing these negative telecommunication reform proposals, it is also important that the EU citizens ask their Member States to do the same at the WCIT conference, since currently the EU itself is not a negotiating party at the ITU, but its individual Member States are.

LSUMEP - the only CERT we need

Amelia Andersdotter — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:37:31 +0000

Språk Svenska

The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has been operating on Greek soil since 2004. Their task is to improve network and information security in Europe, and do research or help coordinate research and structural improvements in the member state. Exactly as any public organisation, sometimes their operations are evaluated and decisions are made on how or if (usually how) their operations can continue.

In a proposal from the Commission from 2010 it's quite clear that they are happy with the way ENISA has worked, they want to continue their operations. The MEPs working working on the file, though, want to expand their activities to include, say, cyber security. They suggest to enhance ENISA's cooperation with Europol (the pan-European police force established to coordinate national police forces in the fight against organised crime - they actually publish very nice terrorism reports every year if you're interested: TESAT 2010). This enhanced cyber security vision for European public institutions could take the shape of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) which are proposed to be established at a European level and in all the member states, later to enhance cooperation in between themselves to develop better resilience against situations where two or more member states are at risk of being exposed to a cyber attack.

It is undoubtedly so that the Committee appears to desire a kind of European NSA. It's cute, but inefficient, and the texts I've seen produced instead remind me rather vaguely of South Korea. As for CERTs, I must say that it is unfortunate that the Commission and some of the members have missed the fantastic services provided by the European Parliament's very own LSUMEP - Local Service Unit for Members of the European Parliament.

In a network, the biggest security risk are always the users. They are usually the least aware of how the systems work and are set up and therefore most prone to make mistakes that expose the system to vulnerabilities. For all the times when a user is insecure, LSUMEP is there for us. If you want to follow my office's interactions with LSUMEP, we have created a hashtag for them on Twitter.

Earlier today, inspired by the Polish turmoil around the ACTA, the European Parliament itself was exposed to a DDoS-attack by Anonymous. In only two hours, LSUMEP had sent a comforting e-mail assuring us that they were doing all they can to prevent further disturbance! Since I only noticed the disturbances after a journalist (from LeSoir!) wrote me to ask about it, they must be doing one hell of a job.

In the legislative debate, the importance of good IT support units in public institutions is unfortuntely over-shadowed by the desire to create more public institutions.

Ungaria și Uniunea Europeană

Amelia Andersdotter — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:39:23 +0000

Språk Svenska

This is an essay written by yours truly in Romanian about Hungary, to commemorate the debates in the European Parliament and international media of last week. It was actually originally written by me, but corrected by a native speaker who considered "80% of the [original] text intelligible". For Hungarian readers of this text, please see an interview with index.hu I made last year which is along these same lines. For non-Romanian and non-Hungarian speakers, essentially my concern is that the European Commission (in particular) avoids difficult issues about human rights for European citizens and focuses on administrative points because they are afraid of stepping on the toes of sovereignty of, in particular, founding member states (I'm thinking mostly about the non-critique of laws like LOPPSI, HADOPI, Sinde, etc).

Ungaria este o țară din Europa Centrală. Este membră a Uniunii Europene de peste 8 ani. În urmă cu mai puțin de un an, Parlamentul Ungariei a votat o nouă lege pentru mass-media care a redus libertățile jurnaliștilor. Anul trecut, Parlamentul European și-a exprimat nemulțumirea și îngrijorarea privind această nouă lege. Nici jurnaliștilor nu le place noua lege pentru că ea prezintă riscul cenzurii.

Îngrijorarea continuă și astăzi. Unora dintre parlamentarii europeni nu le place noua Constituție a Ungariei pentru că e foarte naționalistă. Guvernul Ungariei, care e susținut în Parlament de 67% dintre deputați (o "majoritate absolută"), și-a propus întinerirea forțată a corpului de judecători. Lipsa de independență a Agenției Naționale pentru protecția datelor cu caracter personal a fost criticată.

La nivelul Comisiei Europene se critică noua lege prin care statul va avea mult control asupra Băncii Naționale a Ungariei.

Navracsics Tibor, vicepremierul Ungariei, a spus pentru Reuters că Guvernul Ungariei este dispus să schimbe legea privind protectia datelor personale, așa cum a modificat și legea media anul trecut.

Lipsa de independeță a agenției naționale nu este cea mai mare problemă, ci riscul cenzurii și păstrarea forțată a datelor. Cabluri de internet traversează Ungaria, mulți alți cetățeni europeni fiind dependenți de acestea. Cenzura din Ungaria poate afecta oameni din afara jurisdicției maghiare.

Sancțiunile propuse împotriva Ungariei sunt sancțiune financiare, iar critica privește doar aspectele administrative (ca și lipsa independenței Agenției).

Dacă nu s-ar limita la atât, Uniunea Europeană ar trebui să critice și alte legi din alte state membre care limitează libertatea informației și cea a comunicării, dar acest lucru ar încălca principiul suveranității naționale.

În Europa se construiește un "internet of holes", un "internet al golurilor".

Språkkommentarer:
lege referitoare la = lag som berör/rör
nici jurnaliștilor nu le place = journalister gillar inte heller (dubbel-negation och ett dativ(!))

Kaniner, bilar och durbaner

Amelia Andersdotter — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:09:54 +0000

Språk Svenska

För en vecka sidan idag satt jag i SVT:s morgonsoffa och pratade om Durbankonferensen och klimatkrisen. Det kändes lite underligt eftersom jag var med och organiserade Piratpartiets delegation till klimatkonferensen i Köpenhamn 2009. Det var vid den tiden Gustav Nipe precis investerat i en Reprap-maskin för Ung Pirat Malmös räkning som presenterades på alternativkonferensen, och första gången som EU på allvar blev totalöverkörda av den nya globala alliansen Kina+USA i klimatfrågor.

För ungefär ett år sedan skrev jag en bloggpost om elektronik i bilar och hur ökad användning av, framför allt sluten, mjukvara i bilar riskerar att begränsa bilförarnas kontroll över sina fordon och därmed också utgöra en säkerhetsrisk för individen utanför individens egna kontroll.

Hur hänger dessa frågor ihop? Jo. Bilar som automatiseras och digitaliseras kan med datorernas hjälp finkalibreras att minimera till exempel bränsleförbrukning. För transportindustrin är det här väldigt intressant ur kostnadsperspektiv och enligt Svenska dagbladet tidigare i år ska de första pilotprojekten hamna på Sveriges vägar redan nästa år. Även vad gäller transport av privatpersoner kan man få ned bränsleförbrukning en hel del om man frånhänder privatpersonerna själva kontrollen över fordonet.

Den resulterande krocken mellan privatpersoners intresse att ha full kontroll över sin huvudsakligen mekaniska ägodel bilen, samhällets intresse av att få bukt med den stora bränsleförbrukningen samt begränsa dödstalen i trafiken samt vårt gemensamma intresse av att på ett så bra sätt som möjligt inarbeta teknikens ~~teknologins~~ alla nya möjligheter i vår vardag är en intressant paradox. Jag är inte övertygad om att fri mjukvara i bilarna är en lösning på kontrollproblemet - att påtvinga biltillverkarna öppna standarder och öppen källkod kan måhända skapa ett bättre företagarklimat kring tillhandahållandet av reservdelar och underhållstjänster i bilindustrin, men kontrollen över bilarna ligger fortfarande hos dem som kan koden. Särskilt om ~~teknologierna~~ tekniken ska vara trådlös.

Att det skulle vara mer miljövänligt att "digitalisera bilarna", som Europakommissionen uttrycker det, kan det knappast råda något tvivel om. Ej heller att trafiken, så länge ~~teknologin~~ tekniken fungerar, blir betydligt säkrare än om man i varje ögonblick gör sig beroende av en mänsklig faktor. Man kan hårdkoda i bilens fartmätarsystem att det inte ska vara möjligt att köra fortare än vissa hastigheter på särskilda sträckor, och sedan justera bilens interna hastighetsbegränsning efter vad GPS-apparaten rapporterar om bilens position.

Och föreställ er situationen att din öppenkällkodsbil utsätts för samma risker som din dagens Androidtelefon. En del av bildigitaliseringsproblemet är att valfriheten inte sträcker sig längre än att vi ha möjlighet att välja appar, men inte hur de fungerar, vad de gör, eller välja bort möjligheten att välja appar.

Klimatdiskussionerna i Durban handlade naturligtvis inte om skärningspunkterna mellan informationsfrihet, användarnas (i detta fall förarnas) makt över hårdvaran eller piratpolitiska spörsmål om informationssamhällets inneboende konflikter utan om hur man i så hög utsträckning som möjligt ska kunna undvika att vidta aktioner åt varesig klimatvänligt håll, eller det energiförbrukande hållet.

Ovanstående inlägg ska kanske ses som en uppmaning till piratpartister att tänka över ~~teknologins~~ teknikens stundtals dubbeltydiga roll i andra samhällsprocesser. Om någon får för sig att ämnet var väldigt intressant bidrar jag gärna med andra länkar och artiklar på området som jag samlat på mig under året!

Re nätneutralitet i Nederländerna

Amelia Andersdotter — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:39:31 +0000

Språk Svenska

I takt med att rökförbud införs på fler och fler platser blir det viktigare att vi bevarar våra andra möjligheter till distanskommunikation, till exempel med nätneutralitetslagar som den som idag ska röstas igenom nederländska underhuset och således träda i laga kraft.

Vad som händer i Nederländerna idag är ännu inte säkerställt. Det som borde ha hänt igår var en omröstning om ett förslag på nätneutralitet som regeringen med innovationsminister Verhagen i spetsen lade fram för ungefär två veckor sedan. När förslaget presenterades var det en sensation - Verhagen representerar nämligen i regeringen det politiska partiet CDA, eller mainstream-kristdemokraterna (som i Nederländerna har ungefär samma status som moderaterna i Sverige), och regeringen är en koalition mellan CDA, VVD (högerliberaler, har ungefär samma status som moderaterna i Sverige) och PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid, en del av den här konstiga, europeiska populist-xenofob-nationalist-libertarian-socialist-folkhems-rörelsen som i Sverige tar sitt uttryck i Sverigedemokraterna och i Norge som Fremskrittspartiet) varav de två förstnämnda är uttryckliga motståndare till nätneutralitetslagstiftning, i gott sällskap med nederländernas största operatörer och nätverkstillhandahållare.

Från högerliberala partiet VVD kommer Europakommissionens kommissionär med ansvar för telekommunikationsfrågor Neelie Kroes, aka Steely Neelie (känd från generaldirektoratet för konkurrensfrågor som Microsoftmonopolets fiende número uno under åren 2004-2009), vars inställning till nätneutralitet är att nätneutralitet visst är bra och önskvärt, men att det inte finns några uppenbara problem med frågan för närvarande och att reglering eller lagstiftning vore "före sin tid". Hon har kallat det nederländska förslaget "förhastat". I Nederländernas underhus (motsvarande svenska riksdagen) sitter också en föredetta KPN-lobbyist, nu VVD-politiker, som hårt motsatt sig nätneutraliteten. Hon har kritiserats hårt för jäv i frågan.

Det som först hände i Nederländerna med förslaget var att regering och tillhörande partiet var emot nätneutralitetsförslaget som stöddes av oppositionen. Plötsligt svängde regeringen, och den parlamentariska grupp som utgörs av PVV ställde sig också bakom förslaget, vilket gav parlamentsgruppen för nätneutralitet en majoritet. I Nederländerna har de dock ett två-kammarsystem. I överkammaren (Eerste kamer) satt en calvinistisk ledamot som representerar, tydligen, en valkrets i södra Nederländerna där många människor sällar sig till ganska strikta calvinistiska kriterier för leverne på och bortom internet. Där har det tydligen uppstått niche-operatörer vars främsta erbjudande till slutkonsumenterna är calvinistiskt-korrekt förcensurerade uppkopplingar.

Denna ledamot tyckte inte att lagstiftningen som föreslogs (ofiltrerade uppkopplingar utan prisdifferentiering på innehåll) var bra och motsatte sig förslaget. Igår berättade någon att denna ledamot inte kan blockera förslaget så länge PVV fortfarande stödjer frågan i underhuset, men det spelar nog ändå en liten roll i den förvånande utveckling som utspelade sig igår:

Den omröstning om ny telekomlag som skulle ha utförts igår sköts upp! Tydligen efter att det framkommit att oppositionspartiet PvdA (Partij voor de Arbeider, socialdemokrater) röstat ja till ett motionsförslag de inte stödde, men som tydligen stöddes istället av SP (Socialistische Partij, socialdemokrater). Enligt @nlsp löd förslaget "allows provider to hinder services when subscriber explicitly requests so on ideological grounds, giving no financial advantage", vilket jag antar på något sätt är kopplat till calvinisten (Calvin, har jag lärt mig, är en av de två katolskkritiska 1500-talspräster vars inflytande spred sig över norra Europa - i Sverige var det Luthers kritik av katolska kyrkan som slog igenom). Tumult utbröt i underhuset. Ingen visste vad som hände. Omröstningen sköts upp till idag.

Lägg märke till att stödet för lagen som sådan inte har dalat. Det här är Europas första nätneutralitetslag och den har för närvarande starkt stöd i nederländska underhuset. Jag frågar mig när Sverige ska våga följa efter.

Nu väntar jag på att eftermiddagen ska inledas. Man kan följa eftermiddagens händelser i Nederländerna via t ex @bitsoffreedom (mest nederländska, lite engelska) eller @samirallioui (mest nederländska, engelska vid request). Jag kommer att twittra på svenska från @teirdes. Kan man nederländska och struntar i EU:s knäppa vidaresändningsregler live-sänds tydligen debatten på Tweede Kamer Live nu i eftermiddag (nederländska, inga undertexter).

Kipkipkupkupkapkapkappade uppkopplingar

Amelia Andersdotter — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:44:46 +0000

Språk Svenska

AT&T har nedladdningsbegränsningar! Det har också Belgacom, Telenet och alla dominerande belgiska aktörer på den belgiska bredbandsmarknaden för i Belgien bryr man sig om hur kunderna upplever tjänsterna. Ilska, frustration och raseri är bara några exempel på typiska kundupplevelser belgiska operatörer bryr sig om på daglig basis.

I Sverige har vi begränsningar på våra mobila uppkopplingar (trafikbegränsningar) liksom i större delen av Europa. I Storbritannien har Telefónicas vänliga dotterbolag O2 till och med frälst användarna med en opt-out porr-blockering så att de inte av misstag ska förledas se så mycket naket att någon ska bli tvungen att ta ansvar för höga/dyra telefonräkningar (det här är en referens till en komedishow av Magnus Betnér om Aftonbladet, telefonräkningar och ansvar).

Ett lågt, men kanske inte oförväntat, drag från Telia här om månaden var att plötsligt börja skjuta in små referenser till att ta extra betalt för "innehåll" som "VoIP-tjänster".

Nu nämnde en vän för mig här om dagen att om man redan har infrastruktur, som t ex Belgacom (äger 100% av all belgisk koppar), Telenet (äger 100% av all belgisk kabel) eller Telia (äger 53% av all svensk fiber, vill jag minnas) så finns det ju bara en begränsad mängd saker man kan göra med den infrastrukturen: man kan sälja uppkopplingar till fler personer, och man kan underhålla infrastrukturen. Eftersom alla företag måste få konkurrera på infrastrukturen (Tele2 måste beredas plats även på Telias kablar), och det bara finns ett begränsat antal medborgare på ytan inom vilken man äger infrastruktur kan man bara expandera antalet uppkopplingskontrakt så långt, och underhåll är givetvis bara löpande uppgifter. Så vad gör man när företaget, i sann marknadsanda, ändå måste växa? Någonstans tar förmågan att växa ekonomiskt via infrastruktur- och uppkopplingstillhandahållande slut. Man kan då vidga verksamheten till webbhosting (vilket jag tror Bahnhof gör, förmodligen andra också), eller skapa en modell där den befintliga verksamheten kan ge ännu mer pengar. Som att ha trafikbegränsningar eller att ta extra betalt för olika typer av "innehåll".

Aldrig har det verkar så vettigt för mig som just nu att totalt och obönhörligt dela upp marknaderna för infrastruktur och tjänstetillhandahållande inom telekommunikationsbranschen. De ska över huvud taget inte ha med varandra att göra.

Därför vill jag slå ett slag för den sydostasiatiska operatörslicenseringsmodell som innebär att marknaden för tjänstetillhandahållande blir en de facto virtuell marknad. En operatör som samtidigt innehar infrastruktur tvingas nämligen, för att få agera på marknaden som operatör, hålla sin roll som infrastrukturägare och sin roll som operatör strikt isär. Med ett sådant system undviker man peering-kostnader, roaming-kostnader och praktiskt applicerbart på Sverige skulle det innebära att Tele2, Telia och 3 inte skulle ha olika mycket täckning på olika ställen, utan solidariskt behöva dela på samtliga, goda, fullständiga täckning överallt och därigenom också kunna fokusera på sin kärnverksamhet vilket då, enligt mig, inte är att tillhandahålla tre separata infrastrukturer för basstationer.

I Hongkong har de en infrastruktur och ett otal virtuella operatörer. Ge oss, konkurrensverket!

Om man inte hajjar referensen i rubriken bör man kolla upp "Skiffel i skafferi" av Grodan Boll.

Hasta [...] siempre

Amelia Andersdotter — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 23:39:36 +0000

Språk Svenska

Only one. Be quick.

The Peruvian Congress has declared free and unrestricted internet access a human right. Free as in gratuito, not as in libre, apparently, and in Spanish there can be no mistake as to whether that concerns beer or speech. The suggestion comes from the center-left party Apra, but is supported by the left government. The President of the Transport Commission Yaneth Cajahuanca says that gratuito should not be interpreted as a future disappearance of rental agreements (monthly fees paid by consumers to get internet access provided), but as the public not making downpayments on infrastructure.

This sounds to me as if the public will not have to invest in infrastructure, which to me appears not too much different from anywhere else. I have yet to determine whether the law also includes a method different from public investment to reach the objective of higher broadband access (currently at 3% of the population).

Further down the gratuito-road is a warning from largest Perúvian telecommunications operator Telefońica dated 2001: AT&T wanted to use Telefonica infrastructure for free (gratuitamente).

As for the unrestricted access part though, the way it's presented it seems suitably unconditional(!!) and in Perú desperately needed. I wrote in December last year that Telefónica being the hero of the day has both GB download limits and simultaneous connections limits per household in Perú. Download caps were at the time set to between 20 and 60GB/month, and number of simultaneous TCP-connections to 200. I asked around a bit about this, but have as yet not found out whether or not 200 TCP-connections per moment could also be made to apply to UDP. It depends on how the amount of connections are monitored, apparently.

Peru has just came out of their 2011 elections (April 11). Apparently a left coalition has won (far left) the elections for the second time in a row (they now have leftists in power since 2006), and there will be a stand-off between left candidate Ollanta Humala and right candidate Keiko Fujimori on June 5th.

I am cautiously optimistic. Remember that Chile approved a net neutrality law last year that conditioned the unrestricted access on "legal activities".