bibekpaudel - Slashdot User

Submission + - How should a constitution protect digital rights ?

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Friday June 12, 2009 @11:47AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Nepal's Constituent Assembly is drafting a new constitution for the country. We (FOSS Nepal [0]) are interacting with various committees of the Assembly regarding the issues to be included in the new constitution. Especially, the "Fundamental Rights Determination Committee" is seeking our suggestions in the form of a written document so that they can discuss it in their meeting next week. We have informed them informally of our concerns for addressing digital liberties and ensuring them as fundamental rights in the constitution. We'd also like to see the right to privacy, anonymity and access public information regardless of the technology (platforms/softwares). Whether or not our suggestions will be incorporated depends on public hearings and voting in the assembly later, but the document we submit will be archived for use as reference material in the future when amendments in the constitution will be discussed or new laws will be prepared.

Below is the mail[1] I wrote to FOSS Nepal mailing list. I wanted to post a similar message to some international mailing list (like FSF, EFF) but I know only of announcement mailing lists of that kind. If you have something to suggest, please do. We're committed to doing everything we can to make sure that in the future Nepal becomes a country where digital liberties are fully respected. It's my personal dream to make our constitution a model for all other developing (or otherwise) countries as far as digital liberties are concerned.

There are many issues on which your suggestions would be valuable. How's it in your country? How would you want to change it? If you've interesting examples from history, they'd help too. If you're a legal expert, please mention the legal hassles our issues could generate. If you're from the FSF, the EFF etc, please provide your insights. If you're just another citizen like me, how'd you like your government to address filesharing, privacy, anonymity, platform neutrality, open standards etc? This slashdot discussion itself would serve as a reference to our document.

[0] http://fossnepal.org/
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal/browse_thread/thread/10cb7162bc5c3998"

Submission + - Microsoft-Novell take open-source to China (theage.com.au)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Monday April 21, 2008 @05:03AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "In a move to tap the growing market of free and open source-softwares in developing economies, Microsoft and Novell have announced they were expanding their alliance into the hot China market. Microsoft and Novell believe big enterprises in China are willing to pay to have the US firms keep hybrid systems updated and running and for assurances that there is permission to use patented software involved. The companies are marketing "supported Linux" in which they take a fee to maintain software systems blending the open-source programs with Microsoft products such as Vista, Office, Excel and Outlook.The longtime US computer software rivals unveiled their alliance in late 2006, saying their engineers were "building a bridge" between Microsoft's proprietary software and Novell programs based on the Linux operating system. Sunday was the first time the firms publicly targeted a specific country with their effort."

Submission + - Comcast, Pando Partner for 'P2P Bill of Rights' (pcmag.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Monday April 21, 2008 @04:43AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Comcast on Tuesday announced that it would partner with Pando Networks to create a P2P bill of rights for file-sharing networks and Internet service providers. Comcast and Pando will meet with industry experts, other ISPs, and P2P companies in order to come up with a set of rules that would clarify how a user can use P2P applications and how an ISP can manage file-sharing programs running on their networks.Last month, Comcast announced that it had reached an agreement with BitTorrent whereby Comcast agreed to alter its network management practices, and BitTorrent acknowledged that Comcast has the right to police its own network.

Comcast's battle with P2P networks started last year after the Associated Press published an article that accused Comcast of blocking peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent. Comcast admitted to delaying P2P traffic during peak times, but denied that any file-sharing applications were being completely blocked.

Nonetheless, the FCC has opened an inquiry into the matter."

Submission + - Google Wants to Index Your DNA, Too (businessweek.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Saturday April 19, 2008 @03:42PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Your DNA falls into the realm of "the world's information," and it seems that Google (GOOG), as part of its corporate mission, is making a play to organize that, too. It is putting money into a second Silicon Valley DNA-screening startup, Navigenics. Navigenics aims to boost disease prevention by providing customers reports on their DNA that they can share with their doctors. Much in the way it invested in 23andMe, Google wants to plant an early stake in a potentially large new market around genetic data. "We are interested in supporting companies and making investments in companies that [bolster] our mission statement, which is organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," Google spokesman Andrew Pederson says. Both Navigenics and Google refused to disclose the size of Google's investment."

Submission + - Ion engine enters space race (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Thursday April 17, 2008 @04:36PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "In a laboratory in a leafy part of Hampshire, where defence and security firm Qinetiq develops and tests its ion engines — a technology that will take spacecraft to the planets, powered by the Sun a huge vacuum chamber has been designed to replicate — as far as possible — the conditions of space.
Using helium gas as a coolant, they can bring down the temperature in the vacuum chamber to an incredibly chilly 20 Kelvin (-253C). The pressure, meanwhile, can drop to a millionth of an atmosphere. The ion engine developed by Qinetiq, the T5, will be flown for the first time on the European Space Agency's Goce spacecraft. The mission will fly just 200-300km above the Earth, mapping the tiny variations in its gravity field. It took 20 to 30 years to develop, at a cost of tens of millions of pounds. In theory, using this technology, a spacecraft can be taken beyond our Solar System, if sustained for long enough."

Submission + - One atom thick smallest transistor developed (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Thursday April 17, 2008 @04:12PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Researchers at the University of Manchester have built the world's smallest transistor — one atom thick and 10 atoms wide — out of a material that could one day replace silicon. The transistor, essentially an on/off switch, has been made using graphene, a two-dimensional material first discovered only four years ago. Graphene has been hailed as a super material because it has many potential applications. It is a flat molecule, with only the thickness of an atom, and both very stable and robust. Graphene is a single layer of graphite, which is found in the humble pencil."

Submission + - Chinese Blogs, Netizens react to the Tibet issue (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Thursday April 17, 2008 @06:35AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Over the past few weeks Chinese bloggers and people on internet forums have been reacting to events in Tibet and the protests disrupting the torch relay. The BBC and Global Voices [0] have interesting insights on the recent happenings in the netsphere.

A western commentator says, "Lots of Chinese people now view the Western media, human rights groups, and Western leaders' criticisms of their country as part of the Racist Western Conspiracy to Stop China From Being Successful." One of the most vocal appeal by the Chinese blogs, forums and text-messages has been to boycott French goods in response to the protests that accompanied the torch relay in Paris. One of the response posts reads, "Who is abusing human rights? Who is bringing violence to this world?" There also are two versions of music video of the song "DON'T BE TOO CNN". Its lyric has assumed the status of a cult catchphrase. Sina.com, has a popular page [1] : "Don't be too CNN, fire to the Western media." Many analysts believe that the protests over Tibet have only served to strengthen Chinese nationalism rather than evoke sympathy for the Tibetan cause. Sina.com has a petition [2] against the Western media which has reportedly accumulated millions of signatures. There is also a blog by an expatriate in China [3], Mutant Palm, who has been watching and commenting on the fallout from Tibet and torch protests online.

[0] http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/13/china-fallout-from-the-free-tibet-protests/
[1] http://bbs.sina.com.cn/zt/w/08/attackcnn/index.shtml
[2] http://hi.news.sina.com.cn/news/xizang08/index.php?dpc=1
[3] http://www.mutantpalm.org/2008/03/14/schizolympics-chinese-and-english-tibet.html"

Submission + - ISPs, IE meddle with their customers' Web traffic (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Thursday April 17, 2008 @05:51AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "According to a paper by researchers at the University of Washington, set to be delivered Wednesday at the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation in San Francisco, about one percent of the Web pages being delivered on the Internet are being changed in transit, sometimes in a harmful way. "The Web is a lot more wild than we originally expected," said Charles Reis, a co-author of the paper. To get their data, the team wrote software that would test whether or not someone visiting a test page on the University of Washington's Web site was viewing HTML that had been altered in transit. In 16 instances, ads were injected into the Web page by the visitor's ISP. "We're confirming some rumors that had been in the news last summer, that ISPs had been injecting these ads." Among many small ISPs, the paper also named one of the largest ISPs in the U.S., XO Communications, as an ad injector. The data also shows that pages were sometimes changed by pop-up blockers within products such as CheckPoint's ZoneAlarm or CA's Personal Firewall. Even Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is part of the problem, the researchers claim. IE injects HTML into pages that it saves to the computer's hard drive, making those pages vulnerable to attacks when the page is then reloaded from the local disk."

Submission + - Darwin's private papers get Internet launch (newsdaily.com)

Submitted by

bibekpaudel

on Thursday April 17, 2008 @05:18AM

bibekpaudel writes: "ScienceDaily reports, a wealth of papers belonging to the intensely private man who changed science are being published on the Internet on Thursday for the first time. Comprising some 20,000 items and 90,000 images, the release on http://darwin-online.org.uk/ is the largest in history, according to the organizers from Cambridge University Library which holds all the Darwin papers. "This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments, and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free," said John van Wyhe, director of the project. The collection includes thousands of notes and drafts of his scientific writings, notes from the voyage of the Beagle when he began to formulate his controversial theory of evolution, and his first recorded doubts about the permanence of species. It also contains photographs of Darwin and his family, newspaper clippings, reviews of his books and much more. Giving a more personal insight, there is also his wife Emma's cookbook including recipes for delicacies such as 'Ilkley pudding' and a rudimentary recipe for boiling rice, written by Darwin himself. The release of his papers online marks a revolution in the public's access to — and hopefully appreciation of — one of the most important collections of primary materials in the history of science"

Submission + - A Record-Setting Silicon Resonator at 4.5 GHz (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by

bibekpaudel

on Sunday March 30, 2008 @04:12AM

bibekpaudel writes: "Researchers at Cornell University have created a silicon microresonator that vibrates at 4.51 gigahertz, the highest frequency ever recorded in such a silicon device. Other researchers have demonstrated silicon microresonators that vibrate up to 1.5 gigahertz, say the Cornell researchers.The Cornell device is 8.5 micrometers long and 40 micrometers wide, compared with a width of about a millimeter for a quartz resonator.

For decades, quartz-crystal oscillators have served as clocks in all sorts of electronic gadgets. Placing a voltage across the crystal causes it to resonate at a predictable frequency, allowing all parts of a circuit to operate in synchrony. But these quartz clocks are relatively bulky, their size a significant barrier to shrinking circuits.

The high-frequency resonators could find uses as timekeepers for telecommunications and microprocessing. One of the advantages of silicon microresonators is that they can be integrated directly into microchips using conventional manufacturing techniques, making them cheaper to produce and easier to fabricate small."

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