Following from the ICANN meeting today in which they took up the issue of the whois privacy debate. The outcome is, unsurprisingly, motion 2.  Motion 2 is basically the do-nothing option.  It says that there is no consensus and more study is needed.  This after years of study by the ICANN commissioned whois Task force.   I really don’t know what else the expect to find out, this really is just a ‘we don’t want to decide, so lets put it off‘ option.

Comments on the decision:

Thomas Roessler:

In practical terms, this means that the ICANN community’s attempt to come to consensus about WHOIS is over for now. It is pretty clear that there is indeed no WHOIS policy that that community can agree on without a change to the political environment that it is operating in; it is also clear that this is not due to a lack of factual knowledge or background research, but because of deeply divergent views on the issues. Maybe taking time out would help. Nevertheless, the GNSO (and ICANN as a whole) also suffers horror vacui: ICANN is, after all, the organization tasked with coming to consensus about these kinds of issues, and ICANN giving up means a big opening for others to step in.

Wendy Seltzer:

Now, it’s time for the Council to vote. Council’s draft motions.

Motion 1: Approve OPOC as modified, 7 yes, 17 no. fails. The PDP is over. Long live the privacy-sapping WHOIS stalemate. Ross Rader, Registrar rep from Tucows, puts it best: “I do not think we have done the community any favors as a result of this discussion.”

The negotiation-forcing sunset proposal failed on a close vote: 10 yes, 13 no. It would have called for the elimination of WHOIS requirements from contracts in a year if consensus were not reached in the interim.

Instead, the Council called for — wait for it — more study. Don’t hold your breath.

It’s clearly time to go outside ICANN for help on the privacy front. I would like to see someone offer a _true_ privacy-preserving registration service — one that does not merely offer up the domain registrant’s personal information upon request. Any takers?

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The SMH tech section has picked up on an ongoing debate about the whois service & what it should contain.  ICANN was accepting submissions on a new set of proposals on how the whois database should work up until 00:00 UTC 30th Oct 2007 (that was 10:30am AEDST yesterday).

So what’s the actual issue?  Wendy Seltzer has a good run-down on her site:

The specifics of the current debate, apart from the substanceless comments filling the forums, is a proposal to allow domain registrants to substitute an “Operational Point of Contact,” or OPOC, in the public listing. While all their private information would still be collected, it need not be published. Instead, the OPOC would route messages to the right recipient, for operational, technical, or legal inquiries. Thus OPOC would simultaneously make WHOIS a better technical contact resource and improve domain registrants’ privacy options. Even OPOC doesn’t go so far as I would like — I’d allow anonymous registrations, rather than insisting that data be collected if not displayed — but it’s better than the status quo.

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Apparently this has been happening since last year & I just didn’t hear anything about it.  The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) is going to be merged into the Federal Attorney General’s Office by July 2007.  All staff & authority relating to policy have already been moved over, the remainder of the functions to be merged by 1 July 2007.

Despite public perception, and it’s name, the OFLC was/is not responsible for the actual classification of films, computer games and some publications.  That is done by the Classification Board and subsequntly reviewed by the Classification Review Board.  The legislation for classification is set down by an agreement between the Federal Government and the states and territories. Also the classification boards are not responsible for regulating the Internet, radio or television, this is covered by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and governed by the Australian Broadcasting Authority.  Music is covered by the Recorded Music Labelling Code of Practice [pdf] jointly managed by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and the Australian Music Retailers Association (AMRA).

Confused yet?

The OFLC is basically an administrative support agency for the other two classification boards.  Makes sense that this would be rolled into the Attorny General’s ’s office; I can’t see why we need yet another layer of bureaucracy.

The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment Bill 2006 [pdf] outlines the changes:

• facilitate the abolition of the Office of Film and Literature Classification
  fold OFLC’s administrative and policy functions into the Attorney-
  Department
• remove agency management powers and financial responsibilities from
  the Classification Board
• ensure the Convenor of the Classification Review Board and the
  Classification Board have equivalent functions and powers regarding
  Boards, and
• streamline the film classification process by fast-tracking the classification
  additional content released with already classified or exempt films.

 Sounds good, but whether it results in any practical changes to policy & procedure remains to be seen.

The carrier said that the plan would see an 8Mbps ADSL service offered to around 250,000 homes and businesses that currently only have access to satellite based internet service, expanding its terrestrial broadband coverage from 91 per cent to 95 per cent of the population.

“This ADSL broadband rollout would mean that even remote outback towns would for the first time be able to enjoy all of the social and economic benefits that come from being connected to high speed broadband,” Telstra Country Wide group managing director Geoff Booth said.

Australian IT: Pollies get broadband push

This is a great idea, the communications infrastructure in the bush is pretty bad. Reliable phone connections are rare, never mind the internet.  There doesn’t seem to be any time frame attached to this plan mentioned in the article, but if it was going to happen, it should be soon.

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The Northern Territory government is going to try implementing the $100 laptops for remote regional schools.

NORTHERN Territory schools will become the first in Australia to test a revolutionary new laptop computer that costs just $US100 ($128).

…

 ”(The Department) is keen to look at an extended pilot where a whole class of students use the laptops for an extended period to establish the learning benefits and identify the associated teaching strategies and resources required,” a spokesman said. “The department is particularly interested in how the $US100 laptops can be used to extend the already substantial computer and network resources installed in remote schools, into the homes and lives of indigenous students.”

Despite what the article states, the laptops aren’t ‘hand cranked’.  That was going to be part of the original design, but was dropped because the movement could damage the machine.

There’s some pretty extensive info on the Wikipedia page for the project.  To be honest, I’m surprised the NT government is considering this.  Seeing as the laptops are specifically designed for ‘developing’ countries, is this the beginning of the government admitting that we’re allowing our remote regional communities, especially Aboriginal communities to live in 3rd world conditions? According to the article, the Queensland Education Department has described the machines as “far below the requirements” of students in developed countries. Either the NT government disagrees, or they indeed believe that regional NT is ‘developing’.

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The amendments to the Australian Copyright law have themselves been amended and re-submitted. Failing some extraordinary event, they will become law in January 2007.

The reservations of many groups about some aspects of the new bill were at least partly appeased with the changes. Most of these seemed to be with the on-the-spot penalties for non-commercial copyright infringements, which appear to have been removed.

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