[Home]
[Themes]
[Comments]
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [By Date] [By Thread] [Top]
- - E-Mail for All - - - EMFA-EVENT - - - Universal Access - -
Theme: Universal E-mail - Essay 4
Author: Artur Serra et al, Universitat Politecnica de
Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
E-mail: artur@ac.upc.es
The Internet Community Address
O.Ardaiz , L.Navarro, A. Serra, J.Turro,
cANet-UPC, Centre for Internet Applications.
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. Barcelona, 4-5 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.ac.upc.es/homes/artur/gica.html
1. An step forward a global inter-networked community.
* Rand Co. suggested in 1995 the "Universal Access to E-mail"
as a way to help the people will learn about information society
and information economy. We agree in designing a Internet-based
universal service for every citizen in every country of the
world. Internet is global and this new universal service can
be also global. But at the same time, it is crucial to build
it bottom up, as a way to enhancing the economic, political
and cultural life of the local communities. How to do that?
2. What is the Internet Community Address (ICA)?.
* In the Internet, you can separate community and
connectivity. You can have one e-mail account with two
e-addresses. Local authorities, ISP, research centres can
cooperate to design a universal service based in a
distribution of responsibilities.
* The Internet Community Address is the local Internet address
of every citizen in our community. (f.e. first name.family
name@district.city.nation).
* That may be complementary with your Internet Professional
Address (IPA), given by your company, university or ISP.
* The ICA is the Internet address facilitated, in a voluntary
base, by local authorities to every citizen in every democratic
city in order to fulfill the basic requirements for a digital
citizenship and as a condition for an extensive electronic
market.
* It is founded in the local democratic culture that
organized the cities based in residential addresses (demos:
local circumscription). Internet is now the new digital
space for creating digital communities. We want
collaboration between both cultures, the democratic-civic
one and the high tech one.
* Within Internet,as a global system, this local service can
be expanded to every democratic country worldwide.
* That can be an Internet version of traditional "Universal
Service" (as in Post or Phone era).
3. What are the dangers?
* Giving to local authorities a Big Brother control over their
citizens.
* Explosion of the spamming industry.
* Many others ...
4. How ICA Service works?.
* From the computer point of view:
o The whole system can be considered as an big alias system.
o How to do it step by step:
+ Creating an Internet directory of citizens (based
on local census ), with citizen data (f.e.
names, address,...) including the IPA. The
implementation can be based on X.500 or
LDAP) supported basically by the local Administration.
+ Preserving the domain of you city or community as
neutral domain for every member of your community (it is
not a property of the City Hall). This domain will
define the Internet Community Addresses.
+ Creating a redirection service that forwards messages
from ICA to IPA. This service can be supported by a new
organism or by the same ISPs.
+ Protecting the identity of their users with a
digital certificate (issued by a public certification
authority) that will provide the proper security
and confidentiality to their members.
+ Additional measures to avoid misuse of the service
(junk mail, spamming, etc.)
* Politically:
o Launching a community public debate about this service.
o Creating a public-private partnership based in a civic
organism with participation of the City Hall plus
local civic actors (companies, ISP, universities,...)
to develop the system
o Establishing an organisation to manage the service,
funded by all interested parties.
* Economically:
o The local administration doesn't provide the Internet
connectivity but the citizen directory and partially
the redirection service.
o The ISP will provide the Internet connectivity, and
partially the support of redirection service.
o The public certification authority is still to be
defined.
- end -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Markle Foundation's E-Mail for All Universal Access Event
WWW/Un/Subscribe Info: http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa
EMFA-EVENT posts may be forwarded via e-mail, for details
on other uses or for general comments: emfa@publicus.net
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -