As the Internet spins a web of interconnectivity around the globe, as it grows literally by the hour, India is struggling, not to catch up but to keep from falling further and further behind.
Inside India, things do seem to be improving. Five years ago there was limited Internet access but only in a few major cities, all in the hands of the government. VSNL, the agency responsible for Internet activities, and the DOT (Department of Telecommunications) provided an agonizingly erratic connectivity, with miserly bandwidth and far too few phone lines. Connection rates ran as low as 5% (for every 20 dialups you might get connected once) and users were frequently cut off. And the rates for this pathetic level of service were among the highest in the world. Domestic users paid about $2 per hour, and lease lines, for the few companies that could afford them, ranged over $2000 per month for a 64 Kpbs line. By the end of 1998, after three years of government monopoly, there were barely 150,000 Internet connections in India.
The Spanish Supreme Court has given a green light to internet tracking by the police force, namely, the peer-to-peer file sharing programme E-mule, with a view to track down paedophiles. The high court therefore overturns a judgement of 2 May 2007 by the Tarragona Regional Court, which found a woman innocent of a crime for facilitating children pornographic material, considering it had caused a serious harm to her fundamental right to secrecy in communications.
Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents
Have you received an unsolicited e-mail or phone call from someone who claims to represent your local election board or civic group and asks for your Social Security or credit card number to confirm your eligibility or registration to vote?
According to the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, scammers may send messages asking for your Social Security number or financial information supposedly to register you to vote ˝or to confirm your registration˝ when they really want to commit identity theft.
Pusti odziv