New York, December 1, 2009 - How we allocate and manage our digital infrastructure is perhaps the central question surrounding the development of the .nyc TLD. What is an effective, efficient, and equitable domain name distribution policy and how do we govern its implementation and oversight?
Our Governance Ecology page provides a number of thoughts on this and today we add two others - common pool resource and common pool regimes.
Elinor Ostrom, an American political scientist and winner of the 2009 Noble Prize for economics, identifies eight “design principles” of stable local common pool resource (CPR) management. Typical common-pool resources include irrigation systems, fishing grounds, pastures, forests, water, and the atmosphere. A first reading of her work indicates many similarities between these resources and a TLD. What can we learn from these, her 8 principles?
Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external unentitled parties);
Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources are adapted to local conditions;
Collective-choice arrangements allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
There is a scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
Mechanisms of conflict resolution are cheap and of easy access;
The self-determination of the community is recognized by higher-level authorities;
In the case of larger common-pool resources: organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.
New York, August 28, 2009 - New York City’s voters approved a city charter amendment in 1988 that required publishing a Public Data Directory detailing the city’s “computerized information.”
In 1993 the first, and so far only, edition of the Public Data Directory was published with details of 300 or so databases. In recent weeks we’ve been working with the NYC Open Government Coalition to help make a digital version of the paper Directory available. The thinking is that many of the databases still exist and that this will be a starting point for a more robust detailing of current city databases.
The multi-step conversion process first scanned the Directory’s 156 pages into digital images. Next, these now digitized “pages” were read by an OCR program (Optical Character Recognition) which converted the digital images into computer readable characters. We’re now on the third step which requires two human inputs: 1.) copy the OCR text and paste it into the appropriate data fields, and 2.) with OCR delivering only 99% accuracy (e.g., it doesn’t do well differentiating a g and a q), after pasting you’ve got to compare if it accurately represents what was in the printed Directory, making any necessary corrections. The correct interpretation is not always obvious so each page is served and interpreted several times with a Levenshtein algorithm deciding on the correct version. The Transparency Corps has added a modicum of pleasure by incorporating a game-like scoring feature.
Visit the site and help make some of the conversions, each takes about 5 minutes. With the small commitment of time, this is an excellent example of an appropriate wiki task. 25% of the tasks were completed as of September 7, 91% on November 1.
When you’re done, go to our Internet of Things page and help imagine ways we might collaborate to wring more benefits out of the city’s databases and other ‘things.’
New York, July 22, 2009 - When Queens Community Board 3 first considered recommending the development of the .nyc TLD as a public interest resource in 1999, the ICANN was engaged in a fierce debate as to its internal governance structure, with a key issue being the role of Internet users in selecting members to its board of directors.
Over the ensuing decade the ICANN tested the direct election by Internet users to 5 regional seats on its board (in 2000) and, since 2005, it has been responding to global pressure for a more independent and effective operation centered around the United Nations initiated Internet Governance Forum.
One of the more difficult tasks before Connecting.nyc Inc. (or more broadly, the people of New York) is establishing a governance structure for the .nyc TLD. Perusing our wiki pages one will find a dozen or so pages dealing with different aspects of the governance issue - a work in progress.
Today, with ICANN supportive of city TLDs and the city administration supportive of .nyc, its time to start a conversation toward a governance structure that’s acceptable to ICANN and to the people of New York City. As an initial step, we’ve begun organizing and consolidating the wiki pages under the concept of a Governance Ecology.
The Governance Ecology - NYC Element page describes the above graphic and presents 1/3 of the story, with links to the other 2/3’s of the puzzle available via our Governce Ecology - Home Page. It’s a work in progress, but with your help we hope to complete a governance ecology for a .nyc operated in the public interest by summer’s end.
Here’s a Washington Post story indicating it might be time to hasten the transition of the city’s official websites from the Federal .gov TLD to our locally controlled .nyc TLD. Note: Connecting.nyc Inc. has committed to reserve the gov.nyc domain for use by the city of New York, Inc. as part of The Civics Project.
House Lawmakers Question Privacy in Cyber-Security Plan
House lawmakers yesterday raised concerns about the privacy implications of a Bush administration effort to secure federal computer networks from hackers and foreign adversaries, as new details emerged about the largely classified program.
The unclassified portions of the project, known as the “cyber initiative,” focus on drastically reducing the number of connections between federal agency networks and the Internet, and more closely monitoring those networks for malicious activity. Slightly more than half of all agencies have deployed the Department of Homeland Security’s program.
But administration officials have not said how far monitoring would go, and whether oversight would extend to networks operated by state, local, and private sector entities, including government defense contractors… (See the full story from the February 29, 2008 Washington Post.)
On Monday, November 26, 2007 Thomas Lowenhaupt appeared before the Commission on Public Information & Communication (COPIC), a New York City policy agency with members representing the city council, borough presidents, several mayoral departments, community boards, the public, and the publishing industry, with the Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, serving as chair.
The City Charter says the “commission shall … undertake, by itself, or in cooperation with other entities, activities to educate the public about the availability and potential usefulness of city produced or maintained information … assist the public in obtaining access to such information … review all city information policies … make recommendations regarding the application of new communications technology to improve public access to city produced or maintained information … programming for the municipal cable channels and broadcasting system.”
Mr. Lowenhaupt reviewed Connecting.nyc’s history and goals and requested an opportunity for a more detailed presentation at a future meeting.
During the Q&A that followed the presentation, Mr. Lowenhaupt noted his organization’s commitment to make the gov.nyc domain name available for city use. Council Member Gale Brewer, Chair of the Technology in Government Committee, and City Council representative on COPIC, made note of the favorable response Connecting.nyc received during a recent presentation to the city’s IT agency, DoITT.
Why COPIC? COPIC could help make city agencies aware of the opportunities presented by the .nyc TLD and coordinate city government’s plan for using .nyc domain names.
New York, December 1, 2009 - How we allocate and manage our digital infrastructure is perhaps the central question surrounding the development of the .nyc TLD. What is an effective, efficient, and equitable domain name distribution policy and how do we govern its implementation and oversight?
New York, August 28, 2009 - New York City’s voters approved a city charter amendment in 1988 that required publishing a Public Data Directory detailing the city’s “computerized information.”
New York, July 22, 2009 - When Queens Community Board 3 first considered recommending the development of the .nyc TLD as a public interest resource in 1999, the ICANN was engaged in a fierce debate as to its internal governance structure, with a key issue being the role of Internet users in selecting members to its board of directors.