Legal Protection: National Legislation

Intellectual property - comprising industrial property and copyright - in general is protected by national legislation. Therefore those rights are limited territorially and can be exercised only within the jurisdiction of the country or countries under whose laws they are granted.

TEXTBLOCK 1/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611725/100438659540
 
Timeline BC

~ 1900 BC: Egyptian writers use non-standard Hieroglyphs in inscriptions of a royal tomb; supposedly this is not the first but the first documented example of written cryptography

1500 an enciphered formula for the production of pottery is done in Mesopotamia

parts of the Hebrew writing of Jeremiah's words are written down in "atbash", which is nothing else than a reverse alphabet and one of the first famous methods of enciphering

4th century Aeneas Tacticus invents a form of beacons, by introducing a sort of water-clock

487 the Spartans introduce the so called "skytale" for sending short secret messages to and from the battle field

170 Polybius develops a system to convert letters into numerical characters, an invention called the Polybius Chequerboard.

50-60 Julius Caesar develops an enciphering method, later called the Caesar Cipher, shifting each letter of the alphabet an amount which is fixed before. Like atbash this is a monoalphabetic substitution.

TEXTBLOCK 2/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438659084
 
Identificaiton in history

In biometric technology, the subject is reduced to its physical and therefore inseparable properties. The subject is a subject in so far as it is objectified; that is, in so far as is identified with its own res extensa, Descartes' "extended thing". The subject exists in so far as it can be objectified, if it resists the objectification that comes with measurement, it is rejected or punished. Biometrics therefore provides the ultimate tool for control; in it, the dream of hermetic identity control seems to become a reality, a modern technological reconstruction of traditional identification techniques such as the handshake or the look into somebody's eyes.

The use of identification by states and other institutions of authority is evidently not simply a modern phenomenon. The ancient Babylonians and Chinese already made use of finger printing on clay to identify authors of documents, while the Romans already systematically compared handwritings.

Body measurement has long been used by the military. One of the first measures after entering the military is the identification and appropriation of the body measurements of a soldier. These measurements are filed and combined with other data and make up what today we would call the soldier's data body. With his data body being in possession of the authority, a soldier is no longer able freely socialise and is instead dependent on the disciplinary structure of the military institution. The soldier's social being in the world is defined by the military institution.

However, the military and civilian spheres of modern societies are no longer distinct entities. The very ambivalence of advanced technology (dual use technologies) has meant that "good" and "bad" uses of technology can no longer be clearly distinguished. The measurement of physical properties and the creation of data bodies in therefore no longer a military prerogative, it has become diffused into all areas of modern societies.

If the emancipatory potential of weak identities is to be of use, it is therefore necessary to know how biometric technologies work and what uses they are put to.

TEXTBLOCK 3/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611729/100438658096
 
Basics: Introduction

Copyright law is a branch of intellectual property law and deals with the rights of intellectual creators in their works. The scope of copyright protection as laid down in Article 2 of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty "... extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such." Copyright law protects the creativity concerning the choice and arrangement of words, colors, musical notes etc. It grants the creators of certain specified works exclusive rights relating to the "copying" and use of their original creation.


TEXTBLOCK 4/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611725/100438659520
 
The Romans

The Romans can be called the great inventors of myths with the purpose of propaganda. Think of Caesar, Augustus or Nero. Caesar wrote his war-documentation by using incredible (e.g. the numbers of hostile soldiers) but he also emphasized the barbarity of the foe, creating images of hatred. People back at home had to believe these manipulative stories.
Or Augustus: he reunited the Roman Empire; part of his power was due to huge efforts in propaganda, visible e.g. in the mass of coins showing his face, being sent all over the empire. He understood very well, that different cultures used different symbols - and he used them for his propaganda.
Politically the Roman army was an important factor. Propaganda in that case was used for the soldiers on the one hand, but on the other hand also for demonstrating the power of the army to the people, so they could trust in its strength. Even then security was an essential factor of politics. As long as the army functioned, the Roman Empire did as well (Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p. 48).

TEXTBLOCK 5/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611661/100438658320
 
Who owns the Internet and who is in charge?

The Internet/Matrix still depends heavily on public infrastructure and there is no dedicated owner of the whole Internet/Matrix, but the networks it consists of are run and owned by corporations and institutions. Access to the Internet is usually provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for a monthly fee. Each network is owned by someone and has a network operation center from where it is centrally controlled, but the Internet/Matrix is not owned by any single authority and has no network operation center of its own. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way to ever gain ultimate control of the Matrix/Internet.
The in some respects decentralized Matrix/Internet architecture and administration do not imply that there are no authorities for oversight and common standards for sustaining basic operations, for administration: There are authorities for IP number and domain name registrations, e.g.
Ever since the organizational structures for Internet administration have changed according to the needs to be addressed. Up to now, administration of the Internet is a collaborative undertaking of several loose cooperative bodies with no strict hierarchy of authority. These bodies make decisions on common guidelines, as communication protocols, e.g., cooperatively, so that compatibility of software is guaranteed. But they have no binding legal authority, nor can they enforce the standards they have agreed upon, nor are they wholly representative for the community of Internet users. The Internet has no official governing body or organization; most parts are still administered by volunteers.
Amazingly, there seems to be an unspoken and uncodified consent of what is allowed and what is forbidden on the Internet that is widely accepted. Codifications, as the so-called Netiquette, are due to individual efforts and mostly just expressively stating the prevailing consent. Violations of accepted standards are fiercely rejected, as reactions to misbehavior in mailing lists and newsgroups prove daily.
Sometimes violations not already subject to law become part of governmental regulations, as it was the case with spamming, the unsolicited sending of advertising mail messages. But engineers proved to be quicker and developed software against spamming. So, in some respects, the Internet is self-regulating, indeed.
For a detailed report on Internet governance, click here.

TEXTBLOCK 6/6 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611791/100438658447
 
American Express

U.S. company founded on March 18, 1850, as an express-transportation company, but today operating as a worldwide organization providing primarily travel-related and insurance services and international finance operations and banking. Headquarters are in New York City.

INDEXCARD, 1/6
 
McCarthy

Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy graduated from Marquette in 1935. In 1939, he won election as a circuit court judge. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines and served in the Pacific. In 1944, he campaigned for senator but lost in the Republican primary. In 1946, he ran for Wisconsin's other senate seat.

In a 1950 speech, McCarthy entered the public spotlight by claiming that communists had "infested" the State Department, dramatically waving a sheet of paper which purportedly contained the traitors' names. A special Senate committee investigated the charges and found them groundless. Unfazed, McCarthy used his position to wage a relentless anti-communist crusade, denouncing numerous public figures and holding a series of highly confrontational hearings, ruining the careers of many people.

He died at the age of 49 of complications related to alcoholism.

http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/bios/31.html

http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/bios/31.ht...
INDEXCARD, 2/6
 
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

EDI is an international standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services. It enables trading partners to conduct routine business transactions, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping notices independent of the computer platform used by the trading partners. Standardization by EDI translation software assures the correct interpretation of data.

EDI might become increasingly important to electronic commerce.

INDEXCARD, 3/6
 
Chevron

Chevron is a U.S. petroleum corporation formed in 1926 with the merger of Standard Oil Company of California and Pacific Oil Company. Headquartered in San Francisco, it operates today in more than 90 countries, either directly or through affiliates.

INDEXCARD, 4/6
 
Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin is Russian President, Boris Yeltsin's. Until his appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999, he was nearly unknown. He had been working for the Soviet Security Service, the KGB. In July 1998 he took charge of the Federal Security Service, FSB. In March 1999 he became secretary of the Security Council. He has no experience in being at all. Where he demonstrated power until now is the Chechnya War. Soon after the beginning of this 2nd war in the region his popularity rose.

INDEXCARD, 5/6
 
Amoco Corporation

American petroleum corporation that was founded in 1889 by the Standard Oil trust to direct the refining and marketing of oil in the Midwestern states. By the late 20th century, American operations still accounted for more than half of Amoco's total assets, though the company has been active in some 40 other countries in the areas of production, refining, and marketing. In addition to refining crude oil, Amoco is one of the largest producers of natural gas in the North American continent.

INDEXCARD, 6/6