apc.au blog

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is conducting an “End of Term Evaluation” covering the period 2004-2008 so they are asking all members to provide a story about the most significant change the APC has produced during that period. As members of APC, we were invited to include our perspective on the most significant achievement of that period.

Where to begin? During this time, staff & members of APC have been key drivers in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the globalisation of ICANN. To me, this was pretty big stuff as I’m a big believer in the Internet being a global enterprise with equal input required from “we the people” as well as corporate & governmental groups.

Of course, there was much more than that to consider. Over the four year period in question APC has also been achieving great results connecting people in the “Global South” to online information that helps them improve their lives. There has been great work on Gender Issues (including the Gender Evaluation Methodology and GenderIT.org) and the ItrainOnline initiative.

With so much work being done by APC and its members in so many areas, which one thing would we select as being the most significant to us? Well, we actually chose two as they were both fundamental to the work we do.

Here is our submission to APC regarding what we believe was their most significant achievement for 2004 to 2008:

From apc.au’s perspective, perhaps the most significant aspect of APC’s work from 2004 to 2008 has been the publication of resource materials, produced largely in collaboration with contracted members and associates, that members can employ in their own work.

Of specific interest to apc.au has been the development of the APC Internet Rights Charter. Since our beginning in 1997, we have worked towards the goals of equality, freedom and empowerment in the online world. The fundamental concepts expressed in the Internet Rights Charter are a framework that neatly encapsulates the foundations of our work.

Access to knowledge and sharing what we learn are key aspects of the projects we take on and the content we produce. We are frequently recognised as leading the way in the promotion and application of open and flexible content licenses (eg: Creative Commons) and free and open source software. We work within our sector to leverage ICTs to empower people online. All of this is driven by our adherence to the concepts so succinctly captured in the Internet Rights Charter.

The APC Internet Rights Charter, particularly relevant to APC’s strategic planning outcomes for 2004-2008, provides us with a tangible product that expresses our core, fundamental beliefs, our organisational DNA. This allows external groups to understand our motivations and provides us with a measure we can assess our activities against.

In addition to the Internet Rights charter, APC’s engagement with international ICT Policy processes during 2004-2008 has supported our own efforts in Australia, particularly in fostering a broader participation in the early WSIS. Additionally, materials produced through WSIS, such as the ICT Policy Handbook, have greatly assisted in the ease in which complex issues are translated.

The Handbook formed the basis of the “Your Rights Online Forum” events we ran in association with the Arts Law Consortium. These forums gathered representatives from the Australian Creative Commons Clinic, the Australian Performing Right Association, media groups and a number of artists themselves for discussions and debate about what rights artists actually have in an increasingly digital world.

These activities, and the promotion of participation in ICT policy processes was in part a trigger for the co-founding of Open Spectrum Australia with independent and community media representatives.

One recommendation apc.au would like to make, given it’s knowledge of APC’s strategic priorities during the ETA period, from both the perspective of a long-time member and our participation on its Board of Directors, is ensured capacity within APC programs to work consultatively with individual members on their own initiatives. This may not be the case with many members from developing countries, who often enjoy greater participation with APC programs, and so they should, but it ought be far more widespread without taxing the resources of management and staff.

It has been, and continues to be a rewarding expression of solidarity within the APC, both in our relationships with other members and the long-standing engagements with APC’s steady growth, reach and influence.

Grant McHerron & Andrew Garton
Directors, apc.au

Many of you may have seen reports that the Australian government wants to establish an Internet filter system to protect Australians from harmful sites. Akin to the Great Firewall of China, this system introduces moral and legal issues as well as slowing down the Internet within Australia, breaking existing systems and simply not working as intended. It will also bring Australia down to the level of China, Iran, Cuba and other regimes that fear the openness and freedoms of information the Internet can bring.

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is pushing hard to establish this latest step in protecting us from terrorists and the dangers of the Internet. Many comments are being aired related to protecting the children and that anyone who is against such a filter is supporting child pornography. In a chilling indication of the misuse a filtering system could lead to, Senator Conroy’s department has even tried to suppress technical reports critical of the plan.

This proposed system is flawed on three major levels:

• Technical: It slows down the feed, it breaks some applications and it is possible to bypass it
• Legal: If the ISPs are filtering content without laws to support them, they are open to wrongful disconnection and/or wrongful blocking cases
• Ethical: By what standard is content being filtered? Differing religious beliefs and political leanings frequently result in varying moral codes – that which is offensive to me may be perfectly acceptable for you

apc.au believes that this proposed system is an invalid solution to the problem areas of the Internet. Australia should be enhancing existing methods of tracking down illegal content and online criminals rather than trying to find ways to block them. Australia should also be implementing improved education programmes to teach people how to safely make the best use of the freedoms and information the Internet provides rather than attempting to further protect us from ourselves.

We recommend that anyone concerned about the implications of an Australian Internet filtering system should immediately take action about it. In addition to following the issue on the Electronic Frontiers Australia site, an excellent site about the filter is No Clean Feed where they have a great summary of the steps you can take to voice your concerns. Actions range from an online petition to writing a letter to your representatives and calling Senator Conroy. There is also the Australian Web Industry Association’s site called Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet. For further reference to what’s happening in our government, the Open Australia site is a wonderful source of information about your representatives and how to contact them.

If you are concerned about any erosion of the freedoms that the Internet can provide, act now. Don’t just sit around complaining about it or getting upset, tell your representatives what you think.

Some of you may be trying to deal with quality in the media these days. Who can you trust? What information is heresay and what information has some basis in fact?

We are involved with Open Spectrum Australia and they’re hosting a symposium on “a radical new idea that may change the way we use and consume media in the future.” It’s going to be on Friday, October 17th at the State Library of Victoria’s Theatrette. You can find out more about the event at their website posting and, if you want to come along, send an email to info@openspectrum.org.au.

I’m going to be one of the presenters at the symposium and will also be taking part in the afternoon’s workshops to discuss the practicalities of the concepts being raised. It promises to be an interesting day if you’ve got any thoughts about the quality of the media you’re consuming.

As part of our involvement with Arts Law Week 2008, we are running Open Channel’s Video Slam 02 (Appropriate Original) event.

When Andrew last mentioned the project, he was counting down the days until it started. It is now well and truely under way, with Andrew leading the participants who are busy working up their projects at Horse Bazaar in the Melbourne CBD.

Justin from Horse Bazaar has come up with a great theme and Andrew’s given it a wicked twist that is being kept a secret from everyone outside the SLAM teams. Even the panelists don’t know what’s in store for them so the big reveal happening tonight (7:30pm onwards at Horse Bazaar) promises to be a great time.

You can follow progress on the Video Slam 02 Blog and get the indepth details behind the concept on our Video Slam 02 wiki page.

March 26th, 2008 is the inaugural Document Freedom Day, a global event to raise awareness of the importance of the Open Document Format. Open standards are crucial to allow diverse computer applications to exchange information and for that information to outlive the application that originally created it.

Many of us have experienced the pain of trying to access information created in now obsolete products (anyone remember Wordstar?). We’ve also tried to share documents between other organisations and seen the formatting disasters and corruptions that can occur (MS Word to Lotus, for example?). How about those who have received a document written in the latest version of MS Office but cannot read it because they’re running an older version?

Open document standards have been compared to the Rosetta stone as they allow us to unlock information. They also help promote competition as any application can work with them and, perhaps most importantly, help prevent vendor lock-in. No one organisation should have control over how your store your information.

For our part, apc.au are going to make available 10 years of essays, lectures, reports and articles dealing with information communication technologies for cultural development (ICT4CD). We’ll be loading them onto our wiki in both open and portable document formats, these papers are available for sharing and re-publication under a Creative Commons Australia license. It’s going to take a while to get them all loaded, so we’ll drop progress reports here as time passes.

For now, spare a moment to think about how your information is stored. Can you share it easily with others? Will you be able to access it in the future? Maybe you should consider changing to an application that supports open standards? Food for thought

Update: Here are our links:

• Our media release
• The list of documents we’re making available
• Our DFD 08 wiki page

I’ve been wanting to get more involved with the direction the Internet’s going – I feel that we finally have a tool that could be used to bring out the “peoples’ voice” but governments and media corporations are trying to shackle it into the controlled, guided and restricted world of “traditional” media (eg: newspapers, television and radio). We stand at the beginning of a massive Information Serengeti, a vast plain where anyone can travel to any information sources they want, produce their own information and engage in two way communication with other entities (be they people, businesses, NGOs or governments).

Instead, thanks to the general apathy of many, lack of honest information about the risks we face and, of course, greed & fear, the digital serengeti is being converted into a spigot, where controlled, filtered and sanitised information is fed down the tube to the passive masses. Any information we consume is tracked and any movements we are able to make are monitored and limited to spaces within walled gardens. Our privacy, our access to knowledge and our freedom are in danger of being limited.

To me, this would be a great tragedy that cannot be allowed to occur.

So, to this end, I’m considering getting more involved with the Australian Internet Society, the Internet Governance Forum and ICANN. I see this as being a great lever for our ICT Rights work and to help us get more involved with the big issues facing the Internet. It’s very early days at the moment but you can track what’s happening over on our Wiki with the Net Activism page I’ve set up.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the reasons we moved to DreamHost was their “One Click Installation” system that makes installing packages (Word Press, Media Wiki, etc) so much easier. Tonight I noticed that our blog was running on an older version and it needed updating. So, from the DreamHost control panel, I went to the blog setup and sure enough, there was an “Upgrade” button that I clicked and voila, it did all the work.

How cool is that?

Yes, I’m a geek and yes, I enjoy mucking around with systems, packages and so on, but only when I’m ready for it. I don’t like having to stop, spend some time figuring it out, then doing it, then testing it and (finally) getting back on with what I wanted to be doing. Usually by the time I’ve finished “geeking” I’ve got no time left to do the important thing I originally wanted to be doing.

Now back to the interesting entries that Andrew’s posting from Africa…

As Andrew indicated, I’ve been doing a few things on the technical front over the past couple of months. At last we’re at a point where we can focus on the big picture issues of what apc.au is trying to achieve, rather than being tied down to the draining world of running a hosting operation.

I have a day job (got to pay those bills ) so sadly, I don’t have lots of time to allocate to apc.au, thus whatever time I can put in, I want it to count. The big picture issues I want to address with apc.au include ICANN/IGF, ICT Rights, freedom of knowledge and so on. I also want to ensure that apc.au has the right foundation to support our other big issues that we take on, including Creative Commons, Social Justice, being an open company and many others (check out our Objectives and Strategic Plan for more details).

Sadly, all my time available for apc.au was being consumed by just trying to run our hosting operation. We didn’t have that many hosted clients, our single server did not have all the latest infrastructure required to run great blog & wiki systems and I was forever feeling trapped in a dead-end. I wasn’t able to step up to the big picture and apc.au was being held back as well.

So, towards the end of last year we decided to outsource our hosting to another provider. The goal was to let someone else take care of the infrastructure and we’d use the tools to support our great dreams. While we wanted to keep our hosting within Australia (like with our friends at RUCC where we had our server hosted), we just could not go past the amazing economies of hosting with DreamHost in the USA. For a group with a small income who wanted every dollar to count towards our big ideals, we had to do it. Trust me when I say that this decision was not made lightly nor without some sadness.

We did some trial work around September and moved most of our in-house sites and a couple of clients to the new server. Then, once everything had been running smoothly, we moved all our operations in late December & early January. Athough there are still a few items remaining to be completed, we’ve done the bulk of it and you can see the history at our decomissioning page.

The proof of any endeavour is in the results and I must say that so far, so good. All the hosting related operations are going well and taking almost no time on my part (except for finalising a few things ). It’s been comparatively easy to set up our Wiki and this blog site. Andrew and I are finding we have lots more time to focus on our big issues and the energy levels are starting to build once again.

There’s always lots to do, but at least now I’m spending way more time on the big picture than having to chip away at rocks that had been holding me back. Watch this space for more