If you are in the DC area, this should be very interesting and registration is FREE:
- Internet Commons Congress, March 24-25
The question of who owns the Internet seems in the same category as who owns the oceans or who owns outer space. Governments or private interests might own individual elements of the Internet, but the power of the Internet comes from collecting these contributions as a unified commons. By definition, the global Internet commons belongs equally to everyone. Each new application of the Internet inevitably gets attacked as trespass against the jurisdiction of some status quo interest, but movement away from equal ownership diminishes the Internet. The Internet Commons Congress provides a venue for users of the commons to educate each other, discuss ways of expanding the reach of the Internet as a commons, and organize resistence to the tendency of public and private interests to assert dominion over the Internet commons.
The schedule is impressive:
- Wednesday, March 24, 2004 8.00 am – 8.50 am Registration
8.50 – 9.00 Welcome, Daniel Berninger, ICC Host
9.00 – 9.30 John Perry Barlow, co-founder EFF
Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (link)
9.30 – 10.30 Session One: The rise of unlicensed spectrum
Harold Feld, associate director, Media Access Project
Stuart Gannes, director, Stanford Digital Vision Project
Tim Pozar, co-founder, Bay Area Wireless User Group
Kevin Werbach, CEO, Supernova Group
Panelists will share their vision for unlicensed wireless in making Internet access low cost and ubiquitous
10.30 – 11.30 Session Two: Broadband & bridging first mile disconnects
Dave Burstein, editor, DSLPrime
Bruce Kushnick, president, New Networks Institute
Terry McGarty, CEO, Merton Group
Phil Shapiro, moderator, DC Non-Profit Tech
The 90’s ended with surplus and high performance capacity in the middle of the Internet and in the edge local area networks. The challenge of bridging local access bottlenecks dominated by cable and telecom monopolists remains.
11.30 – 12.30 Session Three: Internet architecture, governance, IPV6, DNS, and open access
Jeff Chester, executive director, Center for Digital Democracy
Bob Frankston, entrepreneur, Frankston Innovating
Andrew Odlyzko, professor, University Minnesota
Greg Peterson, DMTS, Lucent Technologies
The panelists will address the forces associated with efforts alter the basic nature of the Internet for better or worse as regards the Internet as a commons as well as issues like the Internet tax moratoriums.
12.30 – 1.30 Lunch
1.30 – 2.00 Daniel Sieberg, technology reporter, CNN
Internet and freedom of the press
2:00 – 3:00 Session Four: Internet communications, VoIP, and the telephone monopolies
Dwayne Goldsmith, CEO, Inflexion Communications
Lior Haramaty, co-founder, VocalTec Communications (invited)
Jim Kohlenberger, former, White House communications policy advisor
Scott Petrack,CTO, edial (invited)
Discuss progress and prospects for Internet communication applications to displace telecom monopolies.
3:00 – 3:15 ICC Roundtable – Introduction – Information freedom and the ubiquity of the Internet, computers, and code
Richard Stallman, founder, GNU Project
Conversation with Richard Stallman in Boston via remote hook up
3:15 – 5:00 ICC Roundtable Part One: Issues – Information freedom and the ubiquity of the Internet, computers, and code
Ann Bartow, professor, USC Law Center
Julie Cohen, professor, Georgetown Law
David Chaum, founder, DigiCash
Seth Finkelstein, activist, Infothought blog
Seth Johnson, activist, There is no spoon
Jon Lebkowsky, president, EFF-Austin
Fred von Lohmann, staff attorney, EFF
Jamie Love, exec director, CPTech
Anthony McCann, lecturer ethnomusicology, UC Santa Barbara
Jay Sulzberger, director, NYFair Use (demo) A Palladiated Computer
A open discuss of information freedom issues with short presentations and audience participation. Issues – VoIP, broadcast flag, Palladium and TCPA, database data, software patents, DMCA, EU IP enforcement directive, shared knowledge/scientific research, reverse engineering, digital exclusive rights, diebold/electronic voting, site finder, SCO vs. IBM, webcasting, privacy, anonymity, PATROIT Act, CAPPS II, Total Information Awarness, FTAA, RFID, computer security, encryption, ICANN/Internet governance, national ID, UCITA, Bayh-Dole, censorship, and censorware.
5.00 – 5.30 Jeff Pulver, CEO, pulver.com
Report from a serial entrepreneur
Thursday, March 25, 2004 8.00 am – 9.00 am Registration
9.00 – 9.30 Larry Irving, President, Irving Information Group
9.30 – 10.30 Session Five: The push to trade freedom and privacy for security
Chris Hoofnagle, assoc director, EPIC
Declan McCullagh, Washington DC correspondent, CNET
Brett Wynkoop, president, Wynn Data
The global war on terrorism increasingly targets the Internet as a venue for open communication.
10.30 – 11.30 Session Six: Digital Democracy
William Finkel, outreach manager, meetup.com
Jock Gill, founder, Greater Democracy Blog (invited)
Eric Hensal, activist
Nicco Mele, webmaster, DeanforAmerica (invited)
Panel covers e-voting, engaging and organizing voters via the Internet
11.30 – 12.30 Session Seven: The Internet Commons and Media Concentration
Mark Cooper, director research, Consumer Fed of America
John Mitchell, principal, InteractionLaw.com
Manon Ress, research associate, CPTech
Panel covers indymedia, campaigns fighting FCC media concentration, internet radio, blogging, etc.
12.30 – 1.30 Lunch
1.30 – 2.00 Michael Capellas, CEO, MCI (invited)
A vision of communication in the 21st century
2.00 – 3.00 Session Eight: Open scholarship, texts, journals, knowledge centers
Alan Bushnell,technical advisor , DC Indymedia
Michael Hart, founder,Gutenberg Project
Tom Poe, founder, Open Studios
Sonia Schmitt, educational specialist, World Bank
Fred Stutzman, staff manager, ibiblio.org
Panel covers the Internet as a platform allowing users to become producers of information and knowledge.
3:00 – 5:00 ICC Roundtable Part Two: Projects – Information freedom and the ubiquity of the Internet, computers, and code
Eric Blossom, founder, GNURadio
Norbert Bollow, founder, DotGNU
Lucas Gonze, software developer, WebJay
Robin Gross, founder, IP Justice
Adam Kosmin, founder, WindowsRefund.net
Laurie Racine, president, Center for the Public Domain
Drew Streib, founder, SourceForge
David Sugar, software developer, Bayonne GNU
Pete Tri Dish, radio activist, Prometheus Radio Project
Serge Wroclawski, founder, DC-Free
Follow up Part One ICC Roundtable issues discussion with presentations and discussion about current information freedom projects.
5.00 – 5.30 Dr. C.D. Mote, Jr., President, University of Maryland (invited)