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The Private against the Public? "The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably lead to cryptology wherever men thrive and wherever they write." David Kahn, The Codebreakers In the age of the vitreous man, whose data are not only collected by different institutions but kept under disclosure, out of reach, uncontrollable and unmanageable for the individual, privacy obtains new importance, receives a much higher value again. The irony behind is that those who long for cryptography in order to preserve more privacy actually have to trust the same people who first created the methods to "produce" something like that vitreous man; of course not the same individual but persons of the same area of science. It is the reign of experts. So far about self-determination. for a rather aesthetic view on privacy and cryptography see: |
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ZaMir.net ZaMir.net started in 1992 trying to enable anti-war and human rights groups of former Yugoslavia to communicate with each other and co-ordinate their activities. Today there are an estimated 1,700 users in 5 different Bulletin Board Systems (Zagreb, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Pristiana). Za-mir Transnational Network (ZTN) offers e-mail and conferences/newsgroups. The ZTN has its own conferences, which are exchanged between the 5 BBS, and additionally offers more than 150 international conferences. ZTN aim is to help set up systems in other cities in the post-Yugoslav countries that have difficulty connecting to the rest of the world. History With the war in Yugoslavia anti-war and human rights groups of former Yugoslavia found it very difficult to organize and met huge problems to co-ordinate their activities due to immense communication difficulties. So in 1992 foreign peace groups together with Institutions in Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade launched the Communications Aid project. Modems were distributed to peace and anti-war groups in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo and a BBS (Bulletin Board System) installed. As after spring 1992 no directs connections could be made they were done indirectly through Austria, Germany or Britain, which also enabled a connection with the worldwide networks of BBS's. Nationalist dictators therefore lost their power to prevent communication of their people. BBS were installed in Zagreb and Belgrade and connected to the APC Network and associated networks. Za-mir Transnational Network (ZTN) was born. Strategies and Policies With the help of ZaMir's e-mail network it have been possible to find and coordinate humanitarian aid for some of the many refugees of the war. It has become an important means of communication for humanitarian organizations working in the war region and sister organizations form other countries. It helps co-ordinate work of activists form different countries of former Yugoslavia, and it also helps to coordinate the search for volunteers to aid in war reconstruction. ZTN also helped facilitate exchange of information undistorted by government propaganda between Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. Independent magazines like Arkzin (Croatia) and Vreme (Serbia) now publish electronic editions on ZTN. |
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Voice recognition The only biometric technology which does not measure the visual features of the human body. In voice recognition the sound vibrations of a person is measured and compared to an existing sample. The person to be identified is usually required to pronounce a designated password or phrase which facilitates the verification process. Voice recognition can be used on the phone, but has the weakness of technology is its susceptibility to interference by background noise. |
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WTO An international organization designed to supervise and liberalize world trade. The WTO (World Trade Organization) is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1947 and liberalized the world's trade over the next five decades. The WTO came into being on Jan. 1, 1995, with 104 countries as its founding members. The WTO is charged with policing member countries' adherence to all prior GATT agreements, including those of the last major GATT trade conference, the Uruguay Round (1986-94), at whose conclusion GATT had formally gone out of existence. The WTO is also responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements. The WTO is governed by a Ministerial Conference, which meets every two years; a General Council, which implements the conference's policy decisions and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a director-general, who is appointed by the Ministerial Conference. The WTO's headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. |
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Citicorp/Citibank American holding company (formerly (1967-74) First National City Corporation), incorporated in 1967, with the City Bank of New York, National Association (a bank tracing to 1812), as its principal subsidiary. The latter's name changed successively to First National City Bank in 1968 and to Citibank, N.A. (i.e., National Association), in 1976. Citicorp was the holding company's popular and trade name from its inception but became the legal name only in 1974. Headquarters are in New York City. |
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