treaty

Amendments to U.N. treaty could censor the Internet

While individual countries grapple with their own laws over limitations on the Internet, the United Nations is also looking at possible amendments to a telecommunications treaty that could amount to worldwide Internet censorship.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications is to be held in Dubai this December and more than 190 countries are expected to attend. One of the matters to be discussed at the conference is changes to a 24-year-old telecommunications treaty called the International Telecommunications Regulations, according to the Associated Press.

In preparation for the meeting, dozens of countries have been debating possible changes behind closed doors, according … Read more

U.K. signs anti-counterfeiting treaty as digital activists protest

The U.K. and 21 other European Union member states have signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, better known as ACTA.

The countries signed the treaty, which aims to harmonize copyright enforcement across much of the world, in Tokyo today. However, the signatures of the EU member states and the EU itself will count for nothing unless the European Parliament gives its approval to ACTA in June, and digital activists have urged citizens to lobby their members of the European Parliament against voting yes.

Poland, which was one of the signatories, saw thousands demonstrate in the streets yesterday, protesting against the … Read more

Doomsday Clock moves 1 minute closer to catastrophe

Tick, tock. The infamous Doomsday Clock, which represents how close mankind supposedly is to its annihilation, has been moved one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created and maintains the symbolic clock, announced its decision yesterday.

"It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in … Read more

Anonymous warns NATO not to challenge it

Responding to a recent report from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization condemning Anonymous, the online "hacktivist" group has issued a public response warning the global organization not to challenge it.

Claiming that the NATO report singled it out as a threat to "government and the people," Anonymous defended some of its recent actions in the name of freedom and dissent. In its message (Google cached version), it also asserted that NATO fears the group not because it's a "threat to society," but because it's a "threat to the established hierarchy."… Read more

IBM to create cloud-computing system for NATO

IBM has been tapped by NATO to build a new cloud-based computing system designed to help the 28 member nations better use and share data.

Selected for the project by NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Big Blue will be called upon to design and demonstrate a cloud-computing environment that would help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan and implement critical tasks, such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

The goal is to see if NATO members can use a collaborative cloud to access data faster and make decisions more quickly.

Though NATO's 28 countries share common goals, they … Read more

U.S. offers peek at proposed copyright treaty

After months of secrecy that has rankled public interest groups, the Obama administration is revealing limited information regarding a multilateral anti-counterfeiting treaty currently under negotiation.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Monday released a summary (PDF) of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a treaty for which negotiations began in 2006 with the aim of setting standards for the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

"We look forward to taking more steps to engage with the public in our efforts to make trade work for American families, " U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement that … Read more

Remembering China's May Fourth Movement: slowing the internet to a crawl

Blogspot has re-disappeared, MSN Messenger is inaccessible from an artsy Beijing cafe, searches for Carrefour are just back from going unanswered, and the spring sky is clear. It's the 89th anniversary of China's May Fourth Movement.

In 1919, student activism took a powerful and still-honored turn for the patriotic in China. On May 4, thousands of students gathered at Tiananmen to protest the Treaty of Versailles and its treatment of previously German-held territory in Shandong Province, which was given to Japan rather than back to China.

Today, students have been at the forefront of recent demonstrations of national … Read more

Reports: Thorny antipiracy treaty is dead for now

A divisive treaty that digital rights groups, consumer electronics companies and librarians have warned would gut the public's home and fair use rights to television signals appears to be on its deathbed.

For years, a United Nations committee has been attempting to craft a treaty designed to give TV and satellite broadcasters, cablecasters and, depending on whom you ask, Webcasters extra latitude to combat piracy of their signals.

But now we're hearing reports from the final day of a weeklong meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization panel in Geneva that those efforts have collapsed, at least for … Read more