Monday, December 22, 2003
Day-2, Dec 10.
The official opening day for the WSIS.
I woke up late again, and somebody was knocking so hard on the door, I found I already had my clothes on, I made my way through in the room trying to avoid walking on two people whom I didn’t know sleeping on my floor. I went downstairs, found the three Iranian girls, the two Iraqi women, Jo …all of them were waiting for me.
I arrived at the WSIS place at 10:30, and started to look for all the sources in the Internet about Internet development, and kept on reading things until 1:30 when I had to attend a five hour-long seminar about the new version of the Internet Protocol known as IPv6. I took all the information I needed in the first hour, and sat after that listening to what they were saying. Subjects started to get boring after an hour so I left and got back to my place in the Media Center, and started editing the information I got, I needed to make some interviews with people from ITU and ICANN so I went and did. I also made interview with spokesmen from Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Sharp, and couple of other corporations that is involved or that make benefits out of developing the Internet. I went back to my place, continued my research on the Internet, replied my msgs, and downloaded everything I wanted/needed, I just liked to make full use of this damned 2Mbps connection.
I could not find anything interesting or useful either to me or to Iraqis or to the Middle East, actually, I could not find anything interesting for the whole world from my prospect. Therefore, I left early that day.
At night, I received an e-mail reporting on dirty ways of security that were discovered in the WSIS, like a tracking chip inside every Plastic ID, that makes censorship able to know where every stick holder is, what is he/she doing and with whom he/she is walking or talking or standing or sitting with. Moreover, with the help of the Internet proxy, ‘they’ can know what pages are browsed and who is browsing them and which PC he/she is using, and that was completely shocking. (For more information about those security managements, please check http://www.nodo50.org/wsis/pictures/)
When I knew that information, I just lost every seed of optimism I had about that Summit. Therefore, I stopped caring personally about that summit.
Indymedia
I went to that ‘alternative’ place that Indymedia people stayed in the night before but found it closed. I also found a paper telling me to go to the ‘Palladium’ and directions to it. I went and found that big cinema place called Palladium, inside it I found all these people from Indymedia gathering. Many computers connected among each other, video-editing devices and the big screen was showing some documentaries; obviously made by Indymedia people. I was later that the Palladium was given by the city after it felt “sorry” for them, in addition to a free phone line and an espresso machine.
I spent time talking with some people there about politics, the situation in Iraq, the Al-Muajaha paper situation, and couple of things… they were generally interested about it… we had dinner that was collected from the best food dumpsters in Geneva. (?)
The official opening day for the WSIS.
I woke up late again, and somebody was knocking so hard on the door, I found I already had my clothes on, I made my way through in the room trying to avoid walking on two people whom I didn’t know sleeping on my floor. I went downstairs, found the three Iranian girls, the two Iraqi women, Jo …all of them were waiting for me.
I arrived at the WSIS place at 10:30, and started to look for all the sources in the Internet about Internet development, and kept on reading things until 1:30 when I had to attend a five hour-long seminar about the new version of the Internet Protocol known as IPv6. I took all the information I needed in the first hour, and sat after that listening to what they were saying. Subjects started to get boring after an hour so I left and got back to my place in the Media Center, and started editing the information I got, I needed to make some interviews with people from ITU and ICANN so I went and did. I also made interview with spokesmen from Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Sharp, and couple of other corporations that is involved or that make benefits out of developing the Internet. I went back to my place, continued my research on the Internet, replied my msgs, and downloaded everything I wanted/needed, I just liked to make full use of this damned 2Mbps connection.
I could not find anything interesting or useful either to me or to Iraqis or to the Middle East, actually, I could not find anything interesting for the whole world from my prospect. Therefore, I left early that day.
At night, I received an e-mail reporting on dirty ways of security that were discovered in the WSIS, like a tracking chip inside every Plastic ID, that makes censorship able to know where every stick holder is, what is he/she doing and with whom he/she is walking or talking or standing or sitting with. Moreover, with the help of the Internet proxy, ‘they’ can know what pages are browsed and who is browsing them and which PC he/she is using, and that was completely shocking. (For more information about those security managements, please check http://www.nodo50.org/wsis/pictures/)
When I knew that information, I just lost every seed of optimism I had about that Summit. Therefore, I stopped caring personally about that summit.
Indymedia
I went to that ‘alternative’ place that Indymedia people stayed in the night before but found it closed. I also found a paper telling me to go to the ‘Palladium’ and directions to it. I went and found that big cinema place called Palladium, inside it I found all these people from Indymedia gathering. Many computers connected among each other, video-editing devices and the big screen was showing some documentaries; obviously made by Indymedia people. I was later that the Palladium was given by the city after it felt “sorry” for them, in addition to a free phone line and an espresso machine.
I spent time talking with some people there about politics, the situation in Iraq, the Al-Muajaha paper situation, and couple of things… they were generally interested about it… we had dinner that was collected from the best food dumpsters in Geneva. (?)
# posted by Majed Jarrar @ 2:59 pm 
