It's only a short article but I thought it went with the whole internet crime thing and how people might just be messing around but it can lead to serious concequences.
February 25, 2008
What's the penalty for creating a fake Facebook page?
Three years in the clink if you happen to live in Morocco, and the target of your gag is the King's brother. On Friday, a Moroccan judge sentenced Fouad Mourtada, a 27-year-old computer engineer, to three years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dinar (about £660 pounds, a big chunk of a techie's salary in Morocco) for creating a fictional Facebook identity for King Mohammed VI's brother, Prince Moulay Rachid.
Amnesty International told AFP that they were "shocked by such a heavy verdict", and the civil rights group has already begun questioning the veracity of the evidence, which they say was extracted from Mourtada under duress.
The news is already rippling through the Facebook community. A host of groups critical of King Mohammed VI have been created plus "Help Fouad" petition groups in multiple languages. As one erratically spelt Facebook petition reads, "There are on Facebook 41 Nicolas Sarkozy, 10 prince William of England, Many Jackes Chirac (Former France president), Roger Federer, Georges Bush, Osama Benladen and so on...Fouad's initiative was a pure innocent act without any personal gain or harmful intent. Since Facebook Launch on 2004, a big number of young adults in many countries profile public figures and stars on Facebook for reasons of admiration or entertainment, without malicious intent."
There are now 2,720 members, including a "Prince Moulay Rachid" who says: "This is truly a farce. I am deeply ashamed by this."
At least one Prince Moulay Rachid is.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2008/02/whats-the-crime.html
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Are Girls The New Cyberpioneers?
New research in the USA suggests that 'the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls'.
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Is MySpace Good for Society?
A collection of short articles reflecting on the impact of social networking software over on the Freakonomics blog.
One Laptop per Child... in Australia
The newly elected Australian government has promised a 'digital education revolution', at the heart of which is their own version of having one laptop per child in Australia.
However, some of the media are unsure such a scheme will work in practice. Indeed, The Age suggest that 'Giving every high school student their own laptop is a recipe for disaster'.
However, some of the media are unsure such a scheme will work in practice. Indeed, The Age suggest that 'Giving every high school student their own laptop is a recipe for disaster'.
Special Report on Technology and Government
I keep forgetting to include the link... :
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10638002
Special Report on Technology and Government
Once again The Economist, but this time its a 14 page special report on technology and government! There are about 6 different articles, including: the pros and cons of e-government, e-government is only the beginning etc... They're all REALLY relevant. Its also got some graphs such as broadband penetration stats and mobile phone subscribers. The graph on the left, also included in this report, compares the investment / success ratio of implementing e-government. Britain isn't in the ideal situation.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Machine to match man by 2029
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7248875.stm
This was an article on the bbc news website about claims made about the advancement of robots and machines. Although the predictions of nano robots that will make us more intelligent is interesting i found the "challenges facing humanity" very telling.
This was an article on the bbc news website about claims made about the advancement of robots and machines. Although the predictions of nano robots that will make us more intelligent is interesting i found the "challenges facing humanity" very telling.
Make solar energy affordable
Provide energy from fusion
Develop carbon sequestration
Manage the nitrogen cycle
Provide access to clean water
Reverse engineer the brain
Prevent nuclear terror
Secure cyberspace
Enhance virtual reality
Improve urban infrastructure
Advance health informatics
Engineer better medicines
Advance personalised learning
Explore natural frontiers
Along with star trek type ones such as "Explore natural frontiers" and "Provide energy from fusion" there is "Provide access to clean water".
Is this evidence of an ever increasing technological divide between the poorest in the world and the richest?
Along with star trek type ones such as "Explore natural frontiers" and "Provide energy from fusion" there is "Provide access to clean water".
Is this evidence of an ever increasing technological divide between the poorest in the world and the richest?
Wikileaks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7250916.stm
An interesting article about a whistle blowing website that allowed people to anonymously upload dodgy government documents.
An interesting article about a whistle blowing website that allowed people to anonymously upload dodgy government documents.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Week 6 Presentation
Hi Everyone, I'm not here on thursday so this is a post with all the ideas and examples surrounding IBNIS which would be explored in the presentation.
What do Burrows et al mean when they say that Internet Based Neighbourhood Information Systems (IBNIS) are ‘being used to ‘sort’ places and the people who live in them in particular ways’?
What are IBNIS?
- ‘Neighbourhood Images’ used to be used to choose a location to move to. These were a creation of the neighbourhood residents and primary local sources (such as shopkeepers or estate agents). These were the ‘key information holders’ and the information was passed mainly verbally.
- Nowadays, the internet can do all of this for us through IBNIS.
- An example of a IBNIS is www.upmystreet.com
- I entered my postcode to get a description of my area and a summary of what came up is as follows:
Here is an overview of the likely preferences and features of your neighbourhood:
Family income- medium
Interest in current affairs -Medium
Housing - with mortgage - High
Educated - to degree - High
Couples with children - Low
Have satellite TV - Low
In addition, they give you a general description of the area:
‘Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be white-collar singles or sharers living in terraces.’
Also, a suggestion of other cities in the UK where I might find areas like this came up and even what newspaper my neighbourhood tends to read.
Types of IBNIS
- From the previous example it is easy to see how Burrows et al can identify IBNIS as a way of ‘sorting people’
- Nevertheless, there are different types of IBNIS
§ e.g. www.citystats.org is a policy research based one with some signs of social software while www.checkmyfile.com is a very commercial one.
§ Some IBNIS are derived from the government itself- neighbourhoodstatistics.gov.uk
Advantages and optimism VS disadvantages and pessimism
Advantages-
- Makes information ‘colourful’
- Makes information available at different ‘levels’ of geography and it is easy to more from one ‘location’ to another (end of geography argument).
- Could help the government identify areas in which more schools or better education are needed. (Targeting)
- This system of ratings and grouping fits in with the contemporary tradition of classification and data collection and use.
- ‘Local knowledge’ could help communication within and between neighbourhoods.
- IBNIS are essentially a service for people
- Finally, the last advantage is one that could also be a disadvantage- the possibility of neighbourhoods to‘re-invent’ themselves as poor aspects of their locality could be focused on and changed. Neverthless, this is supposing that if a problem is identified it will be fixed.
Disadvantages-
- The traditional time-consuming activity of searching for a house will not be replaced in certain places where the relationship between realtors and purchasers is valued (the US for example) and so it becomes just an extra thing to go through.
- ‘We are where we live’ will stop being applicable as our purchases or interests are recorded and prioritised by these systems. This leads to people being ‘what they consume’ and their identities arising from that.
- Technology of this type together with tracing can be considered as a form of surveillance. An example of how far this can go is www.followus.co.uk where by paying a certain amount per month it is possible to track down any registered mobile phone.
- The wealth (or type of information) may not be welcomed by those who live there. This is either because of the large amount of detail or because of the fact that the way we see ourselves and our neighbourhood is not necessarily the way that other people would rate it or write about it.
- In certain areas a description could be inaccurate and result in ‘red-lining’ with it being difficult to challenge the image that has already been created by IBNIS.
- The people who would have access to, or knowledge of, these web-sites would be within the richer 50% of the population so the result is that they find the best places to go with the best schools, best cultural activities, less crime etc. This leads to a larger gap between the richer and the poorer.
What do Burrows et al mean when they say that Internet Based Neighbourhood Information Systems (IBNIS) are ‘being used to ‘sort’ places and the people who live in them in particular ways’?
What are IBNIS?
- ‘Neighbourhood Images’ used to be used to choose a location to move to. These were a creation of the neighbourhood residents and primary local sources (such as shopkeepers or estate agents). These were the ‘key information holders’ and the information was passed mainly verbally.
- Nowadays, the internet can do all of this for us through IBNIS.
- An example of a IBNIS is www.upmystreet.com
- I entered my postcode to get a description of my area and a summary of what came up is as follows:
Here is an overview of the likely preferences and features of your neighbourhood:
Family income- medium
Interest in current affairs -Medium
Housing - with mortgage - High
Educated - to degree - High
Couples with children - Low
Have satellite TV - Low
In addition, they give you a general description of the area:
‘Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be white-collar singles or sharers living in terraces.’
Also, a suggestion of other cities in the UK where I might find areas like this came up and even what newspaper my neighbourhood tends to read.
Types of IBNIS
- From the previous example it is easy to see how Burrows et al can identify IBNIS as a way of ‘sorting people’
- Nevertheless, there are different types of IBNIS
§ e.g. www.citystats.org is a policy research based one with some signs of social software while www.checkmyfile.com is a very commercial one.
§ Some IBNIS are derived from the government itself- neighbourhoodstatistics.gov.uk
Advantages and optimism VS disadvantages and pessimism
Advantages-
- Makes information ‘colourful’
- Makes information available at different ‘levels’ of geography and it is easy to more from one ‘location’ to another (end of geography argument).
- Could help the government identify areas in which more schools or better education are needed. (Targeting)
- This system of ratings and grouping fits in with the contemporary tradition of classification and data collection and use.
- ‘Local knowledge’ could help communication within and between neighbourhoods.
- IBNIS are essentially a service for people
- Finally, the last advantage is one that could also be a disadvantage- the possibility of neighbourhoods to‘re-invent’ themselves as poor aspects of their locality could be focused on and changed. Neverthless, this is supposing that if a problem is identified it will be fixed.
Disadvantages-
- The traditional time-consuming activity of searching for a house will not be replaced in certain places where the relationship between realtors and purchasers is valued (the US for example) and so it becomes just an extra thing to go through.
- ‘We are where we live’ will stop being applicable as our purchases or interests are recorded and prioritised by these systems. This leads to people being ‘what they consume’ and their identities arising from that.
- Technology of this type together with tracing can be considered as a form of surveillance. An example of how far this can go is www.followus.co.uk where by paying a certain amount per month it is possible to track down any registered mobile phone.
- The wealth (or type of information) may not be welcomed by those who live there. This is either because of the large amount of detail or because of the fact that the way we see ourselves and our neighbourhood is not necessarily the way that other people would rate it or write about it.
- In certain areas a description could be inaccurate and result in ‘red-lining’ with it being difficult to challenge the image that has already been created by IBNIS.
- The people who would have access to, or knowledge of, these web-sites would be within the richer 50% of the population so the result is that they find the best places to go with the best schools, best cultural activities, less crime etc. This leads to a larger gap between the richer and the poorer.
The limits of leapfrogging
Completely forgot to include the link...
Monday, 11 February 2008
Technology in emerging economies
Found this great article in the economist, "The limits of leapfrogging". In it there is also a link to a very interesting World Bank report on technology.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Future Living?
I read the Usborne Book of the Future at school when I was 7... which was some time ago.
Apparently the book first came out in 1979 and this is how the writers thought things would be today... not bad as a set of predictions... except for the robot serving drinks... and the clothes aren't quite right either!
(click image to open larger version)
Apparently the book first came out in 1979 and this is how the writers thought things would be today... not bad as a set of predictions... except for the robot serving drinks... and the clothes aren't quite right either!
(click image to open larger version)
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Mobiles narrow digital divisions
Mobile phones and net access are helping narrow the gulf between rich and poor nations, says a UN report.
The efficiencies these technologies bring has boosted development in poorer countries, said the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Mobile phone users in developing nations now make up 58% of handset subscribers worldwide, it said.
But it warned that the digital divide meant that developing nations still lagged far behind richer countries.
Big gap
The annual Information Economy report by the UN body looks at the way that science and technology can drive long-term economic growth.
It was now well-established, said the report, that greater use of technology in businesses, schools and at home could raise standards of living and help people prosper.
In many developing nations the mobile phone had become the standard bearer for these changes, it said.
"In Africa, where the increase in terms of the number of mobile phone subscribers and penetration has been greatest, this technology can improve the economic life of the population as a whole," it said.
In rural communities in Uganda, and the small vendors in South Africa, Senegal and Kenya mobile phones were helping traders get better prices, ensure less went to waste and sell goods faster.
The take up of mobiles was allowing developing nations to "leapfrog" some generations of technology such as fixed line telephones and reap more immediate rewards, said the report.
Greater use of computers in small businesses in countries such as Thailand made staff boost productive, it said. A study of Thai manufacturing firms showed that a 10% increase in computer literate staff produced a 3.5% productivity gain.
The developing world was also catching up in terms of net availability. In 2002, said UNCTAD, net availability was ten times higher in developing nations. In 2006, net availability was only six times higher.
But despite the improvements mobiles and greater computer use were bringing in their wake, the report warned that a big gulf remained between rich and poor.
Developed countries still had many more net users and since 2002 had the gap in terms of broadband users had widened.
To make the most of the transformative potential of the net, mobiles and other technologies the UN report recommended that countries update cyber laws, intellectual property regulations, upgrade infrastructure and invest in training.
BBC
The efficiencies these technologies bring has boosted development in poorer countries, said the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Mobile phone users in developing nations now make up 58% of handset subscribers worldwide, it said.
But it warned that the digital divide meant that developing nations still lagged far behind richer countries.
Big gap
The annual Information Economy report by the UN body looks at the way that science and technology can drive long-term economic growth.
It was now well-established, said the report, that greater use of technology in businesses, schools and at home could raise standards of living and help people prosper.
In many developing nations the mobile phone had become the standard bearer for these changes, it said.
"In Africa, where the increase in terms of the number of mobile phone subscribers and penetration has been greatest, this technology can improve the economic life of the population as a whole," it said.
In rural communities in Uganda, and the small vendors in South Africa, Senegal and Kenya mobile phones were helping traders get better prices, ensure less went to waste and sell goods faster.
The take up of mobiles was allowing developing nations to "leapfrog" some generations of technology such as fixed line telephones and reap more immediate rewards, said the report.
Greater use of computers in small businesses in countries such as Thailand made staff boost productive, it said. A study of Thai manufacturing firms showed that a 10% increase in computer literate staff produced a 3.5% productivity gain.
The developing world was also catching up in terms of net availability. In 2002, said UNCTAD, net availability was ten times higher in developing nations. In 2006, net availability was only six times higher.
But despite the improvements mobiles and greater computer use were bringing in their wake, the report warned that a big gulf remained between rich and poor.
Developed countries still had many more net users and since 2002 had the gap in terms of broadband users had widened.
To make the most of the transformative potential of the net, mobiles and other technologies the UN report recommended that countries update cyber laws, intellectual property regulations, upgrade infrastructure and invest in training.
BBC
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Fraud and the Welfare State
Combating fraud in the welfare stateMonday, September 24, 2007
Adrian Carr at SPSS looks to the private sector for inspiration.
Benefits fraud cost the UK taxpayer £2.6 billion last year and calls to cut this figure back and improve efficiency have never been stronger. Reported holes in the system, the 'one size fits all' approach to service and the automation of request processing are all combining to enable fraudulent claims to slip through the net.
By the very nature of its work, the public sector collects vast amounts of data and information, and the Department for Work and Pensions is no different. This puts it in a strong position to identify fraudulent or inaccurate claims.
However, the downside is that there's a real danger of data deluge leading to information overload. And, if you can't be completely sure whether or not the data is accurate, you're starting out from a weak position. Low confidence in the quality of information means it's barely worth having it in the first place.
Accurate data is the first step to raising user confidence in the insight on file. Once systems and processes are in place to check and verify information, confidence rises and organisations can then analyse data and use the resulting information in their fight against fraud.
To begin the journey towards a reformed welfare state we should be looking to the private sector for inspiration. Plenty of parallels can be drawn with the global insurance and financial sectors for example. Both of these have the same valid aspirations to improve customer service and efficiency and reduce fraud, albeit to the benefit of shareholders rather than tax payers.
A whole host of solutions have been tried and tested in these sectors to achieve these goals, and I've seen various approaches succeed. For instance, an increasing number of companies are using data mining technology to draw on insights from previous customer behaviour to tackle these issues. By trawling through existing data, the technology can be used to identify models and profiles of those who are most likely to make fraudulent claims.
However, while analysis of past behaviour is a good indicator of future activity, there is a need to continue to monitor behaviour as it changes over time. By deploying these proven models in a real-time environment, such as a call centre, they can begin providing agents with caller insight that will help identify potentially fraudulent applications. This approach is known as Predictive Analytics.
As many as 20 of the top 25 global banks are using Predictive Analytics to detect and prevent fraudulent activity and money laundering, as well as to achieve higher standards of customer service. Large international insurance companies such as Corona Direct – Belgium's second-largest direct insurance company, and Natexis Assurances, the insurance division of French bank group Group Banque Populaire – have been using the technology for some time.
Alpha Credit Belgium, a subsidiary of Fortis Bank, is a good example of how Predictive Analytics has been used in the consumer credit business to help assess loan applications on an individual basis. By undertaking data analysis, through planning, data collection, access and management, the bank was able to create continually-updated customer credit profiles.
Having established these, the bank was able to analyse a customer's credit risk on a case-by-case basis, by guiding call centre operators through the initial call, and determining which requests could be fast-tracked and which should be further investigated. Alpha Credit reported that it was then able to accept as many as 90 per cent of loan applications on the spot, by having trusted data on hand that identified customers as 'low risk'. With up-to-date profiles in place, there was also less need for human intervention. The same techniques could easily be applied to the benefits system, and it is easy to see where they could lead to greater efficiency, such as being able to speed up those claims that are genuine by establishing them right from the call centre stage.
Another financial services example is Lloyds TSB which recognised the need for a proactive fraud prevention measure. The company estimated that as many as one in six insurance claims were fraudulent. By using analysis of real-time customer behaviour, within a matter of days a number of models and profiles of fraudulent activity were created to help the bank immediately recognise abnormalities, and Lloyds TSB made an estimated annual saving of £2.5 million.
Applications such as this have enabled private sector companies to better identify potentially fraudulent claims early, leading to a dramatic improvement in insurance claims handling. Along with a reduction in fraud it's prompted an improvement in customer service as legitimate claimants are easily fast-tracked and directly compensated.
We're all aware of the limited resources that the public sector has access to, so it's really important that they are used to their full potential. The expensive fraud investigation resources should be focused where they are needed, instead of being spread too thinly.
By using data to fast-track bona fide claims as early as the initial call and make helpful suggestions about related issues to claimants, many of the processes can be automated. This enables call centre workers to handle a greater volume of calls, or frees up their time to investigate potentially fraudulent claims. I believe that the sharing of information, and making the most of existing public data to act quickly and clamp down on fraudsters, is the easiest step the welfare state can take to achieving efficiency in benefits delivery.
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=8215
This article seems to use the neo-liberal rhetoric that the private sector can provide the answers to benefit fraud. I personally don't see how there can be such direct comparisons between online-banking which is a service in which banks are free to decline customers and benefit claiming which is a fundamental right of citizenship. A benefit's agency cannot turn down a claimant simply because they may fit a pattern can they?
As discussed last week maybe some form of benefits/Id card is the only way to combat online applications for benefits. Or maybe benefits simply should not be available online???
I do however agree with his point that maybe the sharing of information when it comes to benefits would help speed up applications and reduce fraud. This would however be incredibly hard considering the large numbers of agencies and departments that deal with the different benefits, maybe it's time for a centralised body to co-ordinate the system? Not only would this lead to greater efficiencies and a reduction in fraud (hopefully) it would be a lot easier for claimants to fill out one form to claim for all their benefits at once.
Adrian Carr at SPSS looks to the private sector for inspiration.
Benefits fraud cost the UK taxpayer £2.6 billion last year and calls to cut this figure back and improve efficiency have never been stronger. Reported holes in the system, the 'one size fits all' approach to service and the automation of request processing are all combining to enable fraudulent claims to slip through the net.
By the very nature of its work, the public sector collects vast amounts of data and information, and the Department for Work and Pensions is no different. This puts it in a strong position to identify fraudulent or inaccurate claims.
However, the downside is that there's a real danger of data deluge leading to information overload. And, if you can't be completely sure whether or not the data is accurate, you're starting out from a weak position. Low confidence in the quality of information means it's barely worth having it in the first place.
Accurate data is the first step to raising user confidence in the insight on file. Once systems and processes are in place to check and verify information, confidence rises and organisations can then analyse data and use the resulting information in their fight against fraud.
To begin the journey towards a reformed welfare state we should be looking to the private sector for inspiration. Plenty of parallels can be drawn with the global insurance and financial sectors for example. Both of these have the same valid aspirations to improve customer service and efficiency and reduce fraud, albeit to the benefit of shareholders rather than tax payers.
A whole host of solutions have been tried and tested in these sectors to achieve these goals, and I've seen various approaches succeed. For instance, an increasing number of companies are using data mining technology to draw on insights from previous customer behaviour to tackle these issues. By trawling through existing data, the technology can be used to identify models and profiles of those who are most likely to make fraudulent claims.
However, while analysis of past behaviour is a good indicator of future activity, there is a need to continue to monitor behaviour as it changes over time. By deploying these proven models in a real-time environment, such as a call centre, they can begin providing agents with caller insight that will help identify potentially fraudulent applications. This approach is known as Predictive Analytics.
As many as 20 of the top 25 global banks are using Predictive Analytics to detect and prevent fraudulent activity and money laundering, as well as to achieve higher standards of customer service. Large international insurance companies such as Corona Direct – Belgium's second-largest direct insurance company, and Natexis Assurances, the insurance division of French bank group Group Banque Populaire – have been using the technology for some time.
Alpha Credit Belgium, a subsidiary of Fortis Bank, is a good example of how Predictive Analytics has been used in the consumer credit business to help assess loan applications on an individual basis. By undertaking data analysis, through planning, data collection, access and management, the bank was able to create continually-updated customer credit profiles.
Having established these, the bank was able to analyse a customer's credit risk on a case-by-case basis, by guiding call centre operators through the initial call, and determining which requests could be fast-tracked and which should be further investigated. Alpha Credit reported that it was then able to accept as many as 90 per cent of loan applications on the spot, by having trusted data on hand that identified customers as 'low risk'. With up-to-date profiles in place, there was also less need for human intervention. The same techniques could easily be applied to the benefits system, and it is easy to see where they could lead to greater efficiency, such as being able to speed up those claims that are genuine by establishing them right from the call centre stage.
Another financial services example is Lloyds TSB which recognised the need for a proactive fraud prevention measure. The company estimated that as many as one in six insurance claims were fraudulent. By using analysis of real-time customer behaviour, within a matter of days a number of models and profiles of fraudulent activity were created to help the bank immediately recognise abnormalities, and Lloyds TSB made an estimated annual saving of £2.5 million.
Applications such as this have enabled private sector companies to better identify potentially fraudulent claims early, leading to a dramatic improvement in insurance claims handling. Along with a reduction in fraud it's prompted an improvement in customer service as legitimate claimants are easily fast-tracked and directly compensated.
We're all aware of the limited resources that the public sector has access to, so it's really important that they are used to their full potential. The expensive fraud investigation resources should be focused where they are needed, instead of being spread too thinly.
By using data to fast-track bona fide claims as early as the initial call and make helpful suggestions about related issues to claimants, many of the processes can be automated. This enables call centre workers to handle a greater volume of calls, or frees up their time to investigate potentially fraudulent claims. I believe that the sharing of information, and making the most of existing public data to act quickly and clamp down on fraudsters, is the easiest step the welfare state can take to achieving efficiency in benefits delivery.
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=8215
This article seems to use the neo-liberal rhetoric that the private sector can provide the answers to benefit fraud. I personally don't see how there can be such direct comparisons between online-banking which is a service in which banks are free to decline customers and benefit claiming which is a fundamental right of citizenship. A benefit's agency cannot turn down a claimant simply because they may fit a pattern can they?
As discussed last week maybe some form of benefits/Id card is the only way to combat online applications for benefits. Or maybe benefits simply should not be available online???
I do however agree with his point that maybe the sharing of information when it comes to benefits would help speed up applications and reduce fraud. This would however be incredibly hard considering the large numbers of agencies and departments that deal with the different benefits, maybe it's time for a centralised body to co-ordinate the system? Not only would this lead to greater efficiencies and a reduction in fraud (hopefully) it would be a lot easier for claimants to fill out one form to claim for all their benefits at once.
One Laptop Per Child
For those that haven't heard of this scheme it was developed a couple of years ago with the intention of providing children in developing countries with a laptop each for the ultra low cost of $100. This was to be paid directly from governments which would then mean no money would be wasted on marketing etc.
It was pioneered by a MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte at Davos (same place where the Bill Gates video is from). The idea was to get all the big computing countries onboard top donate then help develop the XO laptop, these included giants such as Google, Intel, AMD, Ebay, and Red Hat. Its goal is: "To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves"
The laptop is by no means a top-of-the-range system and relies on cheap parts and free open-source software. For instance it uses Linux as opposed to Windows as an operating system along with open source office programs. However in recent months Intel have rocked the boat considerably by leaving the group to promote their own laptop in direct competition. http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=939 Intel seem to think there is some profit to be made from these low costs laptops and have even gone as far as to employ some dirty marketing tricks to convince companies of their "superior" laptop (see the digital divide article for more details)
Due to the competition and the loss of the Intel chips it has pushed the price up to almost double. They OLPC scheme has also introduced a "buy one, get one free" or "Give one, Get one" type scheme in which people in developed countries such as our own may now buy one for ourselves for around $400 and one is then sent to a child in a developing world.
Check out the website http://laptop.org/ Its a really interesting scheme and product, however a few questions should probably be asked in terms of how effective it will truly be?
digital divide
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/
Is a really interesting website which seems to be trying to foster a community around the issues of the digital divide.
Is a really interesting website which seems to be trying to foster a community around the issues of the digital divide.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Presentations
Hi, Just wondering if anyone could possibly swap presentations with me. My topic is in week 6 and it's:
What do Burrows et al mean when they say that internet based neighbourhood information systems (IBNIS) are 'being used to ‘sort’ places and the people who live in them in particular ways'?
Its not out of lazyness, I'm actually physically not in the country so I would really appriciate a swap!
Thank you!
What do Burrows et al mean when they say that internet based neighbourhood information systems (IBNIS) are 'being used to ‘sort’ places and the people who live in them in particular ways'?
Its not out of lazyness, I'm actually physically not in the country so I would really appriciate a swap!
Thank you!
Friday, 1 February 2008
Havoc on deadline: the Great Tax Crash
Found this article in the Times, thought it was quite relevent to the semina today. Shows kinda where we are in terms of online services...
The Treasury is to review spending on government IT projects in an effort to halt a series of scandals as Gordon Brown’s ambitions to computerise public services were dealt another blow yesterday.
Hundreds of thousands of people were given an extra 24 hours to file their returns online after the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) computer filing system crashed hours before the annual deadline. The website failed to work for nearly six hours on the biggest day of the tax year, denting Mr Brown’s plans to make all taxpayers file online within four years.
A major review of public spending will seek to draw lessons from recent IT disasters, which have cost the tax billions, The Times has learn. The review, to be conducted by Yvette Cooper, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will look at IT procurement in several areas.
A Treasury source said that the review, across a dozen areas of government spending, would seek to “ensure better value for money” for future IT projects. A recent survey revealed that the cost to the taxpayer of abandoned Whitehall computer projects since 2000 had reached £2 billion.
This comes days after the Prime Minister asked Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, to chair a new cabinet committee on IT and information security, suggesting renewed interest from No 10 in the area. This includes the Child Support Agency’s £486 million computer up-grade – which failed, causing a £1 billion claims write-off – and an adult learning programme subject to major fraud.
Yesterday’s tax crash happened two months after HMRC lost two computer disks containing the details of 25 million child benefit claimants and follows other serious lapses, further undermining government claims that it can handle major IT projects.
About 100,000 people were unable to access the HMRC system after it collapsed shortly after 9am. It was out of service until the afternoon, leaving many unable to file by the midnight deadline and facing fines. HMRC was forced to issue an apology and cancel all fines for nonsubmission, postponing the deadline until midnight tonight.
Politicians and IT experts questioned why the Government had failed to run the system efficiently at a crucial period of the financial year and cast doubts on its ability to introduce an online system for all self-assessment taxpayers by 2012.It is thought that HMRC saves about £5 for each return filed online rather than on paper. It plans to save more than £450 million by 2014 by moving more of its tax collection online. However, the Treasury’s own plans for online filing are based on the proviso that HMRC’s systems can cope.
Yesterday frustrated readers contacted The Times furious that they were spending hours trying to file. One said: “It just shows incompetence about a technical issue and causes unneccesary pressure. If they want people to file online, this system should be bullet-proof and it blatantly is not.”
A Revenue spokesman said: “HMRC takes any disruption of service very seriously and to reflect this no one who files electronically or by paper by midnight Friday 1 February will face a penalty.”
About four million of the nine million people who pay tax via self-assessment are expected to file their return online this year, up from 2.9 million last year. Last night, 3.6 million people had already filed online, but hundreds of thousands are expected to have missed the initial deadline. About 900,000 missed it last year.
Philip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “When will Alistair Darling get a grip? He’s happy to threaten taxpayers with £100 fines if they don’t send in their tax returns on time, but he can’t even provide them with the basic tools to do the job.”
Private firms were baffled about how the Revenue’s website was unable to withstand a surge of visitors. Rob Steggles, of NTT Europe Online, a web hosting company, said: “If an organisation’s web presence fails to perform at a critical time, both reputation and revenue suffer.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the private or public sector – a secure, reliable website is of crucial importance to an organisation’s ability to serve its customers and protect its revenues.”
Last week HMRC admitted that its system was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family, and that thousands of “high-profile” people had been secretly told not to use it.
Website weaknesses
—Potential problems include band width – the size of the pipe that connects a website to the internet. There is typically a peak amount of information that can be communicated. The site owner can, however, call upon its service provider to increase its width
—Another is the web server – the box that stores information on the site and fetches pages when a visitor requests them – which can only handle a limited amount of requests at once
—The could be a fault with the site’s app servers – like web servers but performing more complicated tasks
—A site aware that demand is about to increase can rent more servers or use a hosting company such as IBM to run its servers – known as on-demand computing
—Using a technique called content distribution, sites with global audiences can also store information around the world to ease pressure on the main server
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3285628.ece
The Treasury is to review spending on government IT projects in an effort to halt a series of scandals as Gordon Brown’s ambitions to computerise public services were dealt another blow yesterday.
Hundreds of thousands of people were given an extra 24 hours to file their returns online after the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) computer filing system crashed hours before the annual deadline. The website failed to work for nearly six hours on the biggest day of the tax year, denting Mr Brown’s plans to make all taxpayers file online within four years.
A major review of public spending will seek to draw lessons from recent IT disasters, which have cost the tax billions, The Times has learn. The review, to be conducted by Yvette Cooper, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will look at IT procurement in several areas.
A Treasury source said that the review, across a dozen areas of government spending, would seek to “ensure better value for money” for future IT projects. A recent survey revealed that the cost to the taxpayer of abandoned Whitehall computer projects since 2000 had reached £2 billion.
This comes days after the Prime Minister asked Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, to chair a new cabinet committee on IT and information security, suggesting renewed interest from No 10 in the area. This includes the Child Support Agency’s £486 million computer up-grade – which failed, causing a £1 billion claims write-off – and an adult learning programme subject to major fraud.
Yesterday’s tax crash happened two months after HMRC lost two computer disks containing the details of 25 million child benefit claimants and follows other serious lapses, further undermining government claims that it can handle major IT projects.
About 100,000 people were unable to access the HMRC system after it collapsed shortly after 9am. It was out of service until the afternoon, leaving many unable to file by the midnight deadline and facing fines. HMRC was forced to issue an apology and cancel all fines for nonsubmission, postponing the deadline until midnight tonight.
Politicians and IT experts questioned why the Government had failed to run the system efficiently at a crucial period of the financial year and cast doubts on its ability to introduce an online system for all self-assessment taxpayers by 2012.It is thought that HMRC saves about £5 for each return filed online rather than on paper. It plans to save more than £450 million by 2014 by moving more of its tax collection online. However, the Treasury’s own plans for online filing are based on the proviso that HMRC’s systems can cope.
Yesterday frustrated readers contacted The Times furious that they were spending hours trying to file. One said: “It just shows incompetence about a technical issue and causes unneccesary pressure. If they want people to file online, this system should be bullet-proof and it blatantly is not.”
A Revenue spokesman said: “HMRC takes any disruption of service very seriously and to reflect this no one who files electronically or by paper by midnight Friday 1 February will face a penalty.”
About four million of the nine million people who pay tax via self-assessment are expected to file their return online this year, up from 2.9 million last year. Last night, 3.6 million people had already filed online, but hundreds of thousands are expected to have missed the initial deadline. About 900,000 missed it last year.
Philip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “When will Alistair Darling get a grip? He’s happy to threaten taxpayers with £100 fines if they don’t send in their tax returns on time, but he can’t even provide them with the basic tools to do the job.”
Private firms were baffled about how the Revenue’s website was unable to withstand a surge of visitors. Rob Steggles, of NTT Europe Online, a web hosting company, said: “If an organisation’s web presence fails to perform at a critical time, both reputation and revenue suffer.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the private or public sector – a secure, reliable website is of crucial importance to an organisation’s ability to serve its customers and protect its revenues.”
Last week HMRC admitted that its system was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family, and that thousands of “high-profile” people had been secretly told not to use it.
Website weaknesses
—Potential problems include band width – the size of the pipe that connects a website to the internet. There is typically a peak amount of information that can be communicated. The site owner can, however, call upon its service provider to increase its width
—Another is the web server – the box that stores information on the site and fetches pages when a visitor requests them – which can only handle a limited amount of requests at once
—The could be a fault with the site’s app servers – like web servers but performing more complicated tasks
—A site aware that demand is about to increase can rent more servers or use a hosting company such as IBM to run its servers – known as on-demand computing
—Using a technique called content distribution, sites with global audiences can also store information around the world to ease pressure on the main server
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3285628.ece
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Fennville: example of a creative class region
This is the article I had in my presentation last week, might be useful if anyone wants to do their essay on this.
On its face, Fennville looks like a typical Mayberry-style rural town – no stoplights, a one-block business district along Main Street, a few mom-and-pop stores. But this city of around 1,500 between Saugatuck and Douglas is in the midst of a cultural renaissance that is helping transform it from a sagging agricultural berg into a bohemian center.
Art galleries are springing up around town, and earlier this year the Allegan County Children's Museum opened its doors. The Journeyman Café restaurant and bakery is quickly becoming regarded as one of West Michigan's true culinary jewels."You're just surrounded by really great stuff, and I think a lot of young people who have a lot of really great ideas have decided to live here and are starting their own thing," says Kristin Gebben, co-owner of Gebben/Gray Gallery. "It's really exciting."
Suddenly Fennville is a hotspot. It's a development that could be called a triumph of the so-called "creative class." The creative class concept is a product of the work of social scientist Richard Florida, who posits that certain types of workers in creative pursuits – artists, architects, gallery owners, etc. – are harbingers of urban redevelopment.
That concept underpins much of Michigan's Cool Cities initiative.What most of the new businesses have in common is a commitment to low-volume, high quality offerings. "We're all striving for something that's real," says Dawn Stafford, owner of the Peachbelt Studio and Gallery on the outskirts of town.
Many credit the pioneering work of Journeyman Café with helping nurture this growth. From its launch in 2003, what began as a simple coffee shop, has become an exemplar of the slow foods movement, with an emphasis on organic, locally grown and artisan foods. "I don't want to take credit for it here, but I think the restaurant did have something to do with shining a light on things," says Journeyman co-owner and executive chef Matthew Millar. "We have this kind of broken down old town here that hasn't had the greatest of reputations for a long time, and we just stumbled on this piece of real estate. We decided to take a chance on it and when we did, we started to see a little more clearly that there were a lot of people in the area who were doing a lot of cool things. We've got this weird little collection of misfits who have just been fantastic."
Millar and his wife Amy Cook had been informally looking for a location to start a restaurant in Saugatuck or Douglas when they found the storefront at 114 E. Main St. The couple stumbled on the restaurant's location one morning after eating breakfast at the Blue Goose Café down the street. It had previously been "a really bad coffee house," Millar says. Because the concept was to make the restaurant a destination they were willing to take a chance on Fennville.
"We didn't want to fill up with 400 fudge-seeking tourists every Saturday afternoon being in downtown Douglas or Saugatuck," Millar says. "And downtown Saugatuck is going to be just as dead as we are in the wintertime. So what's the point of this 10-week season where we're feeding people we don't want to feed in the first place?"Millar says the rent on the building was far cheaper than anything they could have found in Saugatuck or Douglas. And, by being located away from the center of the tourist trade, Journeyman was able to grow at a more leisurely pace."We were able to grow into this in a way that I think that we wouldn't have been able to do in a community where we would have been busy right off the bat," Millar says.Journeyman's presence was a draw for Gebben and partner Theresa Gray. The pair worked together in a gallery in Saugatuck before opening the Gebben/Gray Gallery next door to Journeyman two years ago, and she says the restaurant had a lot to do with their choice of location.Gebben says business in Fennville has been "surprisingly good."
"For us, with the type of market we have selling art, it really is a destination-type business. I think Theresa and I both believe if you do something well and believe in what you're doing, people will find you. And people have," Gebben says.Neighboring gallery owner Bruce Cutean wasn't planning on opening a new location when he sold the original ThirdStone Gallery& Art Works building in Laketown Township between Holland and Saugatuck last year after 11 years in business. His apartment above Journeyman and the Gebben/Gray Gallery became ThirdStone's new home out of necessity last year when the space he was planning to use for his lucrative annual holiday show didn't pan out. Someone suggested using his apartment, and before he knew it, he was back in the gallery business, doing as well as he ever has. "This thing has a life of its own, apparently. It's not following my basic plan. But something tells me I need to go with that natural evolution, because it's happening for a reason," Cutean says.
Fennville is ethnically diverse – with nearly a third of the city Latino – and that diversity is one of the things credited for helping Fennville's rise. Locals describe Fennville as more like a big city on a small scale, rather than a typical small town."You just wander through the grocery store, you'll talk to a dozen people from all walks of life. You'll have cottage people from the Lakeshore; you'll have Hispanics who don't even speak English to ones who have lived in this community for a long time. You've got farmers. You've got artists. It's a genuine little melting pot, which is what I like about it," Cutean says.The mix of people reminds Cutean of his hometown of Chicago, he says, adding: "In a small town to have that big of a mix, it's unusual."Millar agreed that Fennville's ethnic blend is a contributing factor to its success."There's a cultural diversity here that is akin to what you would see in a big city," Millar says. "I think you're foolish if you think the Latino population hasn't had a huge impact on what the city is today."
What makes the current culturally rich business climate so remarkable is that it seems to be a grassroots thing – it's not a result of tax incentives or grants or other government assistance."I found that the city government and the Chamber of Commerce and the (Downtown Development Authority) board were as mystified as everybody else, but were liking it," Cutean says.Cutean now sits on the Downtown Development Authority board, and things are being done to capitalize on Fennville's rising profile. For example, the DDA has decided to fund the removal of some city-owned buildings downtown in the hopes of attracting some much-needed retail space."The thing is, everybody functions as community, as friends," Cutean says. "There is a good local community energy here now, and everybody seems to be supportive of everybody else," Cutean says.
For Millar, the joy of being part of the community comes from discovering a hidden gem and pitching in to help make it better. "One of my favorite things about being down here the last couple of years was discovering what was really in this community and how many unique things were just kind of bubbling under the surface," says Millar."There's something to be says for being in on the ground floor, something to be says for coming into a town when you can help define how the community is going to grow, rather than coming into a community that's already got a personality and trying to fit in," Millar says.
On its face, Fennville looks like a typical Mayberry-style rural town – no stoplights, a one-block business district along Main Street, a few mom-and-pop stores. But this city of around 1,500 between Saugatuck and Douglas is in the midst of a cultural renaissance that is helping transform it from a sagging agricultural berg into a bohemian center.
Art galleries are springing up around town, and earlier this year the Allegan County Children's Museum opened its doors. The Journeyman Café restaurant and bakery is quickly becoming regarded as one of West Michigan's true culinary jewels."You're just surrounded by really great stuff, and I think a lot of young people who have a lot of really great ideas have decided to live here and are starting their own thing," says Kristin Gebben, co-owner of Gebben/Gray Gallery. "It's really exciting."
Suddenly Fennville is a hotspot. It's a development that could be called a triumph of the so-called "creative class." The creative class concept is a product of the work of social scientist Richard Florida, who posits that certain types of workers in creative pursuits – artists, architects, gallery owners, etc. – are harbingers of urban redevelopment.
That concept underpins much of Michigan's Cool Cities initiative.What most of the new businesses have in common is a commitment to low-volume, high quality offerings. "We're all striving for something that's real," says Dawn Stafford, owner of the Peachbelt Studio and Gallery on the outskirts of town.
Many credit the pioneering work of Journeyman Café with helping nurture this growth. From its launch in 2003, what began as a simple coffee shop, has become an exemplar of the slow foods movement, with an emphasis on organic, locally grown and artisan foods. "I don't want to take credit for it here, but I think the restaurant did have something to do with shining a light on things," says Journeyman co-owner and executive chef Matthew Millar. "We have this kind of broken down old town here that hasn't had the greatest of reputations for a long time, and we just stumbled on this piece of real estate. We decided to take a chance on it and when we did, we started to see a little more clearly that there were a lot of people in the area who were doing a lot of cool things. We've got this weird little collection of misfits who have just been fantastic."
Millar and his wife Amy Cook had been informally looking for a location to start a restaurant in Saugatuck or Douglas when they found the storefront at 114 E. Main St. The couple stumbled on the restaurant's location one morning after eating breakfast at the Blue Goose Café down the street. It had previously been "a really bad coffee house," Millar says. Because the concept was to make the restaurant a destination they were willing to take a chance on Fennville.
"We didn't want to fill up with 400 fudge-seeking tourists every Saturday afternoon being in downtown Douglas or Saugatuck," Millar says. "And downtown Saugatuck is going to be just as dead as we are in the wintertime. So what's the point of this 10-week season where we're feeding people we don't want to feed in the first place?"Millar says the rent on the building was far cheaper than anything they could have found in Saugatuck or Douglas. And, by being located away from the center of the tourist trade, Journeyman was able to grow at a more leisurely pace."We were able to grow into this in a way that I think that we wouldn't have been able to do in a community where we would have been busy right off the bat," Millar says.Journeyman's presence was a draw for Gebben and partner Theresa Gray. The pair worked together in a gallery in Saugatuck before opening the Gebben/Gray Gallery next door to Journeyman two years ago, and she says the restaurant had a lot to do with their choice of location.Gebben says business in Fennville has been "surprisingly good."
"For us, with the type of market we have selling art, it really is a destination-type business. I think Theresa and I both believe if you do something well and believe in what you're doing, people will find you. And people have," Gebben says.Neighboring gallery owner Bruce Cutean wasn't planning on opening a new location when he sold the original ThirdStone Gallery& Art Works building in Laketown Township between Holland and Saugatuck last year after 11 years in business. His apartment above Journeyman and the Gebben/Gray Gallery became ThirdStone's new home out of necessity last year when the space he was planning to use for his lucrative annual holiday show didn't pan out. Someone suggested using his apartment, and before he knew it, he was back in the gallery business, doing as well as he ever has. "This thing has a life of its own, apparently. It's not following my basic plan. But something tells me I need to go with that natural evolution, because it's happening for a reason," Cutean says.
Fennville is ethnically diverse – with nearly a third of the city Latino – and that diversity is one of the things credited for helping Fennville's rise. Locals describe Fennville as more like a big city on a small scale, rather than a typical small town."You just wander through the grocery store, you'll talk to a dozen people from all walks of life. You'll have cottage people from the Lakeshore; you'll have Hispanics who don't even speak English to ones who have lived in this community for a long time. You've got farmers. You've got artists. It's a genuine little melting pot, which is what I like about it," Cutean says.The mix of people reminds Cutean of his hometown of Chicago, he says, adding: "In a small town to have that big of a mix, it's unusual."Millar agreed that Fennville's ethnic blend is a contributing factor to its success."There's a cultural diversity here that is akin to what you would see in a big city," Millar says. "I think you're foolish if you think the Latino population hasn't had a huge impact on what the city is today."
What makes the current culturally rich business climate so remarkable is that it seems to be a grassroots thing – it's not a result of tax incentives or grants or other government assistance."I found that the city government and the Chamber of Commerce and the (Downtown Development Authority) board were as mystified as everybody else, but were liking it," Cutean says.Cutean now sits on the Downtown Development Authority board, and things are being done to capitalize on Fennville's rising profile. For example, the DDA has decided to fund the removal of some city-owned buildings downtown in the hopes of attracting some much-needed retail space."The thing is, everybody functions as community, as friends," Cutean says. "There is a good local community energy here now, and everybody seems to be supportive of everybody else," Cutean says.
For Millar, the joy of being part of the community comes from discovering a hidden gem and pitching in to help make it better. "One of my favorite things about being down here the last couple of years was discovering what was really in this community and how many unique things were just kind of bubbling under the surface," says Millar."There's something to be says for being in on the ground floor, something to be says for coming into a town when you can help define how the community is going to grow, rather than coming into a community that's already got a personality and trying to fit in," Millar says.
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Searching for the truth online
The world wide web is a modern miracle - a source of boundless information; a publishing place for budding authors, musicians, movie makers and opiners.
The problem is that when any old Joe can contribute to the global information bank, how can we trust what we find?
It was one of the topics under discussion at the recent Internet Governance Forum in Rio.
Some people are saying that the web has been dreadfully oversold, and that user generated content, rather than being interesting and insightful comment about the times we live in, is instead an unbroken stream of unmediated and opinionated chatter.
Wisdom of the many
The publishing and broadcasting revolution that has seen the rise of sites such as Flickr and YouTube is seeing a new blog created every second and the people previously known as the audience now produce the content.
Silicon Valley resident Andrew Keen has written a book, The Cult of the Amateur, asking if we are being sold a line here, all for someone else to pocket the profits.
"There are people making a fortune out of the web 2.0 revolution, whether they're from Google, YouTube or Wikipedia," he says. "They've convinced all of us to become authors and they're making a fortune out of us.
"We're giving our content away for free, most of it has no value, and much of it is unreliable and embarrassing for us.
"Meanwhile culture, broadly, is the victim because there's more and more of this user-generated dross out there and professional, high-quality culture, whether it's film, television, music or journalism, is in crisis."
As a charity, Wikipedia does not make money but relies on free labour for its very existence.
Criticised for its lack of authority and vulnerability to vandalism, bias and inaccuracy, the site is also seen as pushing a myth that there is a democracy of talent and that the wisdom of the crowd is equal to that of a hard-working expert.
Andrew Keen calls it the "great seduction". In response, he has been accused of under-estimating how the internet has freed people from the passive acceptance of someone else's information.
Democracy of access
"The internet, for the first time ever, has democratised access to information," says Mark Kelly from the Council of Europe.
"But more than that, social network sites are allowing freedom of assembly and association between people in ways that would have been inconceivable even a few years ago.
"I greatly welcome the diversity of communication that there is on the internet and I don't think quality has suffered."
During last year's demonstrations and government clampdowns in Burma, the internet helped those on the ground get pictures out.
Yes the production values were low but it was journalistically invaluable, especially when government censorship stymied standard reporting.
But can such compelling pictures and reports - the first draft of history, as they say - be trusted?
They may not, for instance, be subject to the same sort of journalistic rigour associated with delivering largely reliable information. This is an issue for the mainstream media that is often itching to use the stuff.
Fact checking
"A lot of people e-mail their pictures, video and e-mail reports of things they've seen [to the BBC]," explains Richard Sambrook, the director of BBC Global News.
"But we don't broadcast any of it until we've gone back to them, talked to them, and checked out the veracity of what they've sent in.
"I think for professional news organisations like the BBC, and others, that kind of fact checking is at its core. You don't get that on social networking sites, blogs and so on. That's really one of the key distinctions that I think Andrew Keen is making."
The internet is disrupting the business models that once supported news, culture and knowledge.
We download for free; let the public report; leave knowledge creation in the hands of the crowd. But is this numbing our tastes and lowering our standards for truth?
In short, is the cost of having more for free that when it comes to quality we are satisfied with less?
"We're undermining culture to such an extent that it's harder and harder to sell the thing," says Mr Keen.
"We're giving it away for free, which means that no-one's buying anything, which you see, for example, in the record business - the collapse of a whole industry, the recorded music business.
"It's not an ideal business, I acknowledge that; it was run by some very short-sighted and sometimes self-interested people. But nonetheless I prefer a world where there are lots of CDs rather than none at all."
The means of production and dissemination are shifting, and the cacophony of internet voices means we all feel lost in the woods.
Perhaps then there is still a role for established and trusted media brands to help people find a way through the muddle and get a clear picture on the other side?
The problem is that when any old Joe can contribute to the global information bank, how can we trust what we find?
It was one of the topics under discussion at the recent Internet Governance Forum in Rio.
Some people are saying that the web has been dreadfully oversold, and that user generated content, rather than being interesting and insightful comment about the times we live in, is instead an unbroken stream of unmediated and opinionated chatter.
Wisdom of the many
The publishing and broadcasting revolution that has seen the rise of sites such as Flickr and YouTube is seeing a new blog created every second and the people previously known as the audience now produce the content.
Silicon Valley resident Andrew Keen has written a book, The Cult of the Amateur, asking if we are being sold a line here, all for someone else to pocket the profits.
"There are people making a fortune out of the web 2.0 revolution, whether they're from Google, YouTube or Wikipedia," he says. "They've convinced all of us to become authors and they're making a fortune out of us.
"We're giving our content away for free, most of it has no value, and much of it is unreliable and embarrassing for us.
"Meanwhile culture, broadly, is the victim because there's more and more of this user-generated dross out there and professional, high-quality culture, whether it's film, television, music or journalism, is in crisis."
As a charity, Wikipedia does not make money but relies on free labour for its very existence.
Criticised for its lack of authority and vulnerability to vandalism, bias and inaccuracy, the site is also seen as pushing a myth that there is a democracy of talent and that the wisdom of the crowd is equal to that of a hard-working expert.
Andrew Keen calls it the "great seduction". In response, he has been accused of under-estimating how the internet has freed people from the passive acceptance of someone else's information.
Democracy of access
"The internet, for the first time ever, has democratised access to information," says Mark Kelly from the Council of Europe.
"But more than that, social network sites are allowing freedom of assembly and association between people in ways that would have been inconceivable even a few years ago.
"I greatly welcome the diversity of communication that there is on the internet and I don't think quality has suffered."
During last year's demonstrations and government clampdowns in Burma, the internet helped those on the ground get pictures out.
Yes the production values were low but it was journalistically invaluable, especially when government censorship stymied standard reporting.
But can such compelling pictures and reports - the first draft of history, as they say - be trusted?
They may not, for instance, be subject to the same sort of journalistic rigour associated with delivering largely reliable information. This is an issue for the mainstream media that is often itching to use the stuff.
Fact checking
"A lot of people e-mail their pictures, video and e-mail reports of things they've seen [to the BBC]," explains Richard Sambrook, the director of BBC Global News.
"But we don't broadcast any of it until we've gone back to them, talked to them, and checked out the veracity of what they've sent in.
"I think for professional news organisations like the BBC, and others, that kind of fact checking is at its core. You don't get that on social networking sites, blogs and so on. That's really one of the key distinctions that I think Andrew Keen is making."
The internet is disrupting the business models that once supported news, culture and knowledge.
We download for free; let the public report; leave knowledge creation in the hands of the crowd. But is this numbing our tastes and lowering our standards for truth?
In short, is the cost of having more for free that when it comes to quality we are satisfied with less?
"We're undermining culture to such an extent that it's harder and harder to sell the thing," says Mr Keen.
"We're giving it away for free, which means that no-one's buying anything, which you see, for example, in the record business - the collapse of a whole industry, the recorded music business.
"It's not an ideal business, I acknowledge that; it was run by some very short-sighted and sometimes self-interested people. But nonetheless I prefer a world where there are lots of CDs rather than none at all."
The means of production and dissemination are shifting, and the cacophony of internet voices means we all feel lost in the woods.
Perhaps then there is still a role for established and trusted media brands to help people find a way through the muddle and get a clear picture on the other side?
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