International Beat

Usually the High-Level Segment (HLS) meeting of the ITU - the Geneva, Switzerland-based United Nations leading agency for information and communication technologies that acts as the global focal point for its 191 Member States and more than 700 Sector Members - is an annual event that provides its Councilors with an opportunity to exchange views on issues of emerging trends in the ICT sector.

But this year's HLS segment meeting held over two days on November 12 and 13, was particularly notable for drawing attention and addressing two of the most burning issues in the cyberworld today: ensuring that the online world is a safe place to work and play, and the role ICT can play in the critical area of climate change.

ITU feels that climate change is emerging as a profound challenge because it is  transforming the face of the world. ITU believes that Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a critical role in combating climate change through mitigation of its effects and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Not least is the fact that the growing use of ICTs contributes to global warming, For example, the many billions of mobile phones, often left to charge overnight. But moreover, ICTs are also a key part of the solution, in monitoring, mitigating and adapting to climate change.

But, points out the ITU, while ICT contributes around 2.5 percent of Green House Gas emissions, with 40 percent of this deriving from the energy requirements of personal computers and data monitors, plus a further 23 percent from data centers, it also has the potential to assist the remaining 97.5 percent of the global economy in reducing its emissions through such things as telework and teleconferencing.

Another area that ITU feels requires immediate attention is the alarming rate of the growth of crimes conducted online. While elders always warn children about whom to speak to and where to go in the world of bricks and mortor, too few are aware that children need to exercise a similar level of caution in the cyber world.

In this year's HLS meeting, ITU launched a new and "a significant" initiative to safeguard children, whom it considers the most vulnerable users of the Internet. Called the Child Online Protection (COP), this initiative brings together partners from all sectors of the international community with the aim of creating a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere. While the virtual world offers unlimited opportunities in many respects, it is also the hunting ground for cybercriminals and paedophiles.

According to ITU the world moves forward towards an all-inclusive information society it must also ensure that children everywhere can enjoy the benefits of ICTs while being protected from the risks posed by inappropriate use. And in that regard, "It is vitally important that children across the world can go online safely and ITU's Child Online Protection initiative is a significant step in that direction," says Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA.

COP has an impressive agenda (keep an eye out for an indepth analysis of this initiative in the feature section to be published soon) and aims to be a platform for global cooperation as well as to coordinate efforts behind protecting children online and make them more effective and accessible.

Underscoring its importance ITU also plans to hold the first World Congress on Child Online Protection in 2009 in Geneva.

The International Telecommunication Union's global cybersecurity agenda that has been in the making for the past 18 months will finally see the light of the day in a few days from now.

The ITU -- the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies -- has announced that in this year's meeting of its 46-member council, to be held in mid-November, it will operationalize its Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA). This aims to provide ITU's 191 member nations with the expertise, facilities and resources to enable the global community to effectively address the most serious forms of cyber threats.

Launched on 17 May 2007, GCA is an ITU framework for international cooperation for crafting and implementing solutions to enhance confidence and security in the information society.

According to Geneva-based Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division, ITU, although there are many large, or even global-scale initiatives on cybersecurity, there isn't yet one that builds an international framework of cybersecurity principles and best practices that countries around the world could follow, maximizing and coordinating efforts to stamp out cybercrime.

"There was a feeling that more needs to be done and much more could be done." says Ntoko, "And GCA stems from exactly that realization."

He adds that GCA is unique in the sense it aims to link all existing initiatives and provide an overarching framework for consensus, which will allow a coordinated set of actions to strengthen cybersecurity on a global basis.

For effective implementation of this agenda, ITU has also tied up with International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism (IMPACT), a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based organization that claims to be the first global public-private initiative against cyber-terrorism.

In the high level meeting of the ITU council -- which is something like a board meeting of a company -- scheduled for November 11th and 12th, "the IMPACT-GCA" initiative will be ratified

The collaboration is aimed at building synergies to provide: real-time analysis, aggregation and dissemination of global cyber threat information; early warning system and emergency response to global cyber threats; and training and skills development on the technical, legal and policy aspects of cybersecurity.

GCA will be housed and operate from the IMPACT Centre in Kuala Lumpur, but it will also maintain  ITU's 'virtual showcase' in its headquarters in  Geneva, from where it will expand and evolve over time to increasingly provide services in ITU's GCA.

"The IMPACT-GCA collaboration is notable because it will result into the first early warning system for cybercrime," says Ntoko adding that the council meeting will also reveal the responsibilities and the action plan of the IMPACT-GCA collaboration.

Besides launching the IMPACT-GCA collobaroation, the November's  meeting is also significant for the fact that it will announce ITU's first online protection plan for children.  "As many as 60% of children and teenagers use online chatrooms regularly, and evidence suggests that as many of three-quarters of these may be willing to share personal information in exchange for online goods and services. In some countries, as many as one in five children may be targeted by a predator or paedophile each year. These trends are increasingly true in many emerging and developing countries as well," says ITU.

France may have emerged as a country with one of the world's most developed online banking markets but as far as online security goes, this country surely has a long way to go. How else can you describe the online security of this country's financial system where even the President can find that his personal bank account has been hacked by cyber criminals?

Early this week, France's online security systems received quite a jolt when the French Cabinet revealed that online hackers managed to break into the personal bank account of President Nicolas Sarkozy, and "swindle" some money -- not a large sum though. The government admitted that this incident demonstrated that the country's online banking security is not perfect.

Amusing as this incident may look on its face, it is nevertheless a serious breach, especially considering that close to half of France's Internet users access their bank accounts online. Additionally, Europe's online banking also has its highest adoption rate in France.

Just the day after the Sarkozy bank account embezzlement was reported, comScore -- who claim to be a leader in measuring the digital world -- released a report on the French online banking sector. This, in essence, said that France is one of the world's most developed markets for online banking.

comScore found that of the 37 global markets, France ranked fourth in penetration of online banking, with 46 percent of French Internet users accessing online banking sites in August 2008.  Countries ahead of France are Canada (64 percent), the Netherlands (51 percent) and Sweden (47 percent).

With an average of 6 usage days and 7 online banking visits per visitor, comScore said French Internet users also exhibited high frequency in accessing online banking sites. Clearly, as says Herve Le Jouan, Managing Director, comScore Europe, online banking has emerged as "an important business sector in France, with one of the highest adoption rates in Europe," and "with competition in the online banking sector in France already fierce, marketers need to ensure that they meet their needs online, and ultimately capitalize upon the growing popularity of the sector."

But have the French banks and the other eCommerce players in that country realized that? It doesn't seem so if reports that are available on the website of Bank of France, the country's central bank are any pointers to that problem.

For instance in a report on Internal Security Standards, Bank of France said, "The Bank found that reports from a number of large institutions showed that internal standards lacked proper support, often being limited to control points for transactions handled by their branch network."

Of course one can argue that the situation was what it used to be since that report was published in 2006. Still, not much may have improved since then. For that matter, an IDG News Service report warned even last year that French banks and merchants are not putting in place anti-fraud technology to catch bad online transactions.

According to Marc Andries, head of the oversight division for the Bank of France, the country's central bank, who was quoted in that report saying that  some banks, deterred by high deployment costs, don't even have some basic security measures in place, such as a password authentication system.

Of course, a big reason why online security measures are lacking in France is that its online users themsleves are not highly security conscious and are often reluctant to use even passwords. "French customers are somewhat exceptional in that they show medium adoption rates (of security) despite having the most concerns," said Thomas Meyer, the author of a Deutsche Bank study on online banking in Europe, released last year.

Still, it is strange that unlike in USA, where the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which supervises U.S. financial institutions, mandated that all banks implement a double-layered authentication system at the least, the France's central bank imposes no such binding.

According to Andres -- as quoted in the IDG report -- the Bank of France does not dictate how banks should strengthen their security or what technology they should use.

But perhaps the Sarkozy incident will change all that now. Reports suggest that it has rattled the powers that be with Luc Chatel, secretary of state for consumer affairs, admitting that the French government has realized no one is safe from Internet fraud and that more work needs to be done to tighten Internet banking security in France. Additionally, according to the national crime agency, the country has seen a 9 percent rise in Internet fraud offenses this year.

Meanwhile, this incident should at least come as an eye-opener for the close to 14.8 million  French Internet users who visited at least one online banking site in August 2008. Interestingly, most of these users are matured enough; consumers in the 35 - 44 year age segment and those 55 years and older visit online banking sites most frequently, says comScore.

What do creators of a software application used by criminals do when their product gets so popular that it starts attracting worldwide attention? Simple; just declare themselves bankrupt and go underground until the hoopla dies. And then come back with a new version to make up for the lost business.

That's exactly what has happened with Neosploit - the most notorious and most advanced infection kit used by online criminals to infect computers with malware for extracting sensitive information remotely.

Neosploit first surfaced in the e-crime scene in 2007 and was sold undercover over the Internet through blogs and ICQ sites to online criminals. But unlike its infamous predecessors such as MPack, Icepack and WebAttacker, it was far more advanced. For instance, say experts, Nesploit could hunt out vulnerabilities in operating systems like Windows and Linux and launch attack codes automatically. Besides it also had sophisticated statistical analysis and management tools.

This is why it gained popularity so rapidly: within a year not only were criminals but also almost everyone concerned with online security were downloading it -- some for e-crime use, while others wanted to crack how it worked to take counter-offensive actions. Then in an ironic twist, e-pirates started circulating a pirated versions to cash in on its demand.

"Its notoriety even attracted the attention of many federal security agencies around the world that started tracking it to pin down its users," says Ian Amit, director of security research at the Tel Aviv-based information security company, Aladdin Knowledge Systems.

Scared by this attention, Neosploit's creators adopted a smart survival strategy. They announced on a website in July that Neosploit was facing financial problems due a draught of orders and is going out of business.

According to RSA FraudAction Research Labs -- first to notice the announcement -- the creators said; "Unfortunately, supporting our product is no longer possible. We apologize for any inconvenience, but business is business since the amount of time spent on this project does not justify itself."

The announcement also added, "We tried hard to satisfy our clients' needs during the last few months, but the support had to end at some point. Now we will not be with you, but nevertheless we wish that your businesses will prosper for a long time."

Interestingly, so convincing was that announcement that Computerworld, while reporting the shutdown, said Neosploit "has been retired from service by its criminal creators, most likely because it was priced too high compared to the competition."

"But in hindsight it seems it was just a clever tactic to escape attention because they were underground for just a few weeks," explains Amit who discovered in August that Neosploit was not only back in circulation, but had come out with an enhanced version called  Neosploit 3.1.

It was indeed a smart move because no one in the security industry anticipated that a newer version of Neosploit would be doing rounds. "In fact, when newer attacks that contained the signature of Neosploit were noticed a few months back, even the largest of security vendors thought that it was some other new hacking software," says Amit.

Amit believes Neosploit creators actually planned to create a newer version of Neosploit but since they didn't want to attract any more attention, they simply went out of circulation for a while. "My guess is when they came back, they did it equally surreptitiously because the newer version of this software is not available for downloads though the earlier used bogging or ICQ sites. Quite probably Neosploit 3.1 is selling though direct selling channels now," says Amit  

Neosploit's re-introduction is a truly notable instance of how the huge demand from the cybercrime world is forcing cybercriminals to come up with innovative strategies to beat the system. The profitability of developing newer versions in Neosploit's case not only compensated them for going underground and losing a few week's or month's business It also allowed the infamous software to move from established, but compromised distribution channels to others and still thrive, says Amit.

Nevertheless, now that Neosploit's resurfacing has been identified, it will be easier for the security industry to identify some of the unsolved attacks of the past few months and even predict newer attacks, says Amit.

Meanwhile, digging for the spoils of Neosploit 3.1 has led Amit to yet another significant discovery -- the existence of the biggest organized e-crime operation ever. But that's another story which I will cover in greater detail soon as a feature in Digital Communities. So keep an eye out...

Having failed to achieve the ambitious target it had set for itself during its formation in 2005, OLPC seems to have embarked upon a corporate restructuring strategy to reenergize its famous one-laptop-per-child concept.

According to Satish Jha, President and CEO of the recently formed OLPC India, the Boston-based foundation OLPC has set up region-focused operations in various parts of the world to give an impetus to the proliferation of the concept under an "organized format."

Already OLPC has been divided into about 4 broad divisions, with a CEO in each responsible for crafting and implement ambitious growth strategies in their respective regions. These are OLPC Europe, OLPC China, OLPC India, and OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean.

OLPC Europe is headed by maverick Belgian entrepreneur Walter De Brouwer  -- as President and CEO -- who is most known for forming the European company Starlab, the first private blue sky research laboratory. OLPC's website says that OLPC Europe will function with the cooperation of Foundation Roi Baudouin, a NGO that assists in funding and setting up of investment syndicates for least developed countries, newly industrialized countries and failed states. This division also has Matt Keller of the World Food Program as a Director with the responsibility of introducing and distributing the XO laptops in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Similarly OLPC China, headed by Anthony Wong -- the ex-honcho of China Telecom -- is charged with promoting OLPC's mission in China and South East Asia. And Satish Jha has taken up the responsibility of XO's penetration in India, coupled with a few other regions in Asia that are outside the domain of OLPC China.

OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean -- headed by Rodrigo Arboleda --, as the name suggests, will look after all the Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas, Brazil, and the Caribbean region, while the whole of North America would be under OLPC's president and COO, Charles Kane. Additionally, according to Jha, OLPC has also roped in Jorge Castañeda, the "very powerful and influential" ex-foreign minister of Mexico to promote XO in the newly industrialized federal constitutional republic.

In each of these regions according to Jha, OLPC will work with partner organizations if required to achieve its objectives. "OLPC still believes that there is a huge potential for XO globally and for it to be able to tap that potential, OLPC had to create a corporate format."

But that doesn't mean that these divisions and the OLPC Foundation will function as a company. "We are not hardcore businessmen," says Jha. "We are evangelists; we are organizers. We will act as managers to oversee the entire distribution framework of the concept while leaving the implementation and many other related functions to partners who are experts in their domains."

Ever since its launch, with a brazenly ambitious target of providing 100 million laptops by 2008 to the children of all the developing countries -- and thereby changing the face of third world education systems from a paper/slate-based system to a screen-based one -- OLPC has not only failed to achieve its target but has suffered from a multitude of setbacks, some of which almost threatened to send OLPC to the brink.

The setbacks were serious. Starting with doubling of the cost of an XO-from the $100 estimated initially to current cost of around $200, to the challenge of a similar low-budget computer for developing countries launched by Intel, to the exodus of key officials from the project, this project has faced rough times.

However, OLPC's most daunting challenge was -- and continues to be -- its acceptance globally. Although the concept received glowing reviews at the time of launch, few governments around the world were willing to bet on it. In fact, in an admission of OLPC's disappointing track record, Negroponte even told The International Herald Tribune last year that he had "to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written."

Consequently, against the targeted 100 million XOs, OLPC has been able to ship about a million so far.

Nevertheless, it appears Negroponte and his current team remains determined to turn around OLPC's fortunes. "We are doing all that it takes to achieve our goals," says Jha who is stationed at the OLPC headquarters in Boston. "Starting from re-structuring OLPC as an organization, to roping in some of the most influential heads of operations, to even tying with world's top names for manufacture (Qunta of Taiwan to manufacture XO) and distributing XO (with Amazon.com for its Get-One-Give-One program that starts in November)  OLPC has adopted a renewed strategy to aggressively promote the concept again globally."

And that thrust will start from China and India, adds Jha. "China and India are our biggest markets," he says.

OLPC India plans to distribute "three million XO laptops in India in the next 12 months" and engage "all the state government, large companies, social foundations, and NGOs to give a new thrust to the OLPC agenda in India."

The cost of the XOs in India is going to be fairly high -- at about $300 each. But that's because the XOs will come with additional features like a camera, USB ports, and even a CDMA modem for wireless Internet connection, says Sumit Chowdhury, of Digital Bridge Foundation, the NGO in India that launched XO on its own about a year back. It is now one of the implementation partners of OLPC India.

According to Chowdhury who is the CIO as well of Reliance Communication, one of the largest telecom service providers in India, the CDMA (USB) modem that The Digital Bridge Foundation has "specially developed" for XO, "not only connects the XO to the Internet wirelessly, but also turns the XO into a phone -- a first in the world so far."  

Although Anthony Wong couldn't be reached to comment on OLPC's China plans, Jha said that China's potential is as big as India's, since "just like India, every fourth child in the world is a Chinese."

Even so, the question that still remains (despite the renewed thrust, potentials, et al): can the XO really reach the target that OLPC India ( and OLPC China as well for that matter) has set for themselves? Only time will tell.

Photo by Jarrett Campbell. Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic

The ongoing tussle between India's security agencies and the department of telecom (DoT) on one side and BlackBerry's maker Research-In-Motion may be resolved; at least that's how it looks.

According to local reports, the Indian government has finally been able to decrypt the data on BlackBerry's local networks, a feat that has come after over six months of acrimony between the country and RIM. The DoT and security agency National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) have conducted successful tests on local service providers like Bharti Airtel, BPL Mobile, and Vodafone-Essar networks for interception of Internet messages from BlackBerry to non-BlackBerry devices. And interestingly, this has been achieved not without the consent of RIM, but with its help.

According to an NTRO source -- who has requested anonymity -- the Indian government have successfully tested the decompression techniques that have been worked out on "some Blackberry" service providers' networks although the Indian government haven't started cracking the networks yet.

If these claims are true, they not only mean that all email messages and SMSs sent out of Blackberry handsets in India would be under government surveillance (and thus no longer be exclusive for the users), but I believe it would also be the first instance for a government being able to snoop on Blackberry data.

RIM's security policy that does not allow any third party or even the company to read the information transferred over its network, is one of the most redeeming feature of Blackberry, making it one of the world's most popular communication tools.

BlackBerry, the revolutionary push email service, has faced a number of controversies in its decade of existence. But perhaps never has Blackberry faced the ire of a country's government for the commercial arrangement it has with telecom operators of the country.

Six months back, the DoT clamped down on RIM for entering into a "routing arrangement" -- and not a "hosting arrangement" as required under the Indian law - with the Indian BlackBerry service providers.

A routing agreement allows communications between BlackBerry owners in India to be hosted on servers outside the country, thereby bypassing the networks of Indian mobile operators and directly hit RIM's servers in Canada. In a hosting agreement the data resides on servers of Indian BlackBerry service providers. Since a routing arrangement does not lawfully allow India's national security agencies to intercept BlackBerry data, DoT wanted either the Indian service operators to create a mirror image of all emails and data sent on these devices in India, saving it for a minimum of six months, or, for RIM to move its servers to India.

DoT believed that Blackberry had emerged as a "security threat to the country," because communications through BlackBerry devices could not be intercepted by anyone. Thus, it could become a favorite tool for terrorists.

But neither RIM nor the Indian telecom operators were willing to accept these conditions, and the growth of Blackberry in India was in a state of limbo as the industry feared that the DoT might ban Blackberry services outright.

Nevertheless, even as NTRO sources claim encryption solution that India has worked out is solely for the security agencies' use -- and not to be shared with any others -- the moot question is whether India is justified in insisting on snooping on BlackBerry data?

According to local Cyberlaw expert Pavan Duggal, although the Indian IT Act 2000 does extend the power to intercept information to the Government, it is not clear whether the law allows for such sweeping surveillance.

Moreover, "Right from consumer banking transactions to enterprises exchanging data between different offices to government organizations -- all use encryption technology in one form or the other," says Alok Shende, the India-based Head, IT & Telco, Datamonitor. "Any initiative to dilute the right of business and consumers to use encryption technology will perforce lead to increased vulnerability for businesses on one hand, and loss of privacy to consumer on the other."

Meanwhile, what is clear though is that the warring factions -- DoT, NTRO, etc and RIM -- have indeed been able to work out a truce of some sort. Two more service providers -- Reliance Mobile and Tata Teleservices -- expanded Blackberry's market in India by launching their services with the latest Blackberry handsets.

Photo by Phil Robinson Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

With over 270 million subscribers -- that's the second largest after China -- and adding almost 9 million each month, India may have wowed the world by becoming the fastest growing telecom market. But, in terms of another major development indicator, broadband penetration, India still has a long way to go -- a very long way to go in fact.

According to the International Telecommunication Union's latest study on Asia-Pacific Telecom scene, at close-to-zero level of broadband penetration India is far behind most economies of the Asia-Pacific region.  "India's success in telecom revolution is restricted to just mobile phone growth and that too in the voice segment while the country has very little to showcase in fixed line and Internet access, or high-speed broadband," says Vanessa Gray, the author of the report, entitled Asia-Pacific Telecommunication/ICT Indicators .

For a country that is the considered to be a global hub for IT/ITeS services and the world's back office, it is indeed strange that Internet penetration remains one of the lowest in the world. But for Gray, that is not really a surprise.

"There is a very strong link between income level and broadband penetration simply because broadband infrastructure is expensive," she says. "The per capita income of India [at about $1000] then doesn't allow the country to spend much on growing the broadband infrastructure and a low income level is also the reason why Indian government has a limited amount of influence on broadband penetration as well."

The other is big problem is the dispersement of population. About 65 percent of Indians still live in rural areas that suffer from very poor infrastructure -- like roads, electricity, etc -- and "that makes it very difficult to increase the level of broadband penetration," she says.

Moreover according to Rajesh Chharia, president, Internet Service Provider Association of India, "The dismal penetration could be attributed to a slew of other factors like government policy failures, inadequate of fixed line infrastructure, a barely profitable ISP business, and low domestic PC penetration."

Nevertheless, in terms of Information and Communication Technologies, Asia-Pacific is mind-boggling in many ways. It is home to almost half of the world's fixed telephone lines, and with over a billion mobile cellular subscribers, the region has the largest mobile phone market share globally. The other areas in which the region stands out most are, advanced Internet technologies including broadband Internet access and mobile data communications.

According to Gray in the region's high-income economies in particular, ubiquitous access is progressing through a competitive race to provide ever faster fixed broadband access. Operators in Hong Kong and Japan for instance have launched one-Gigabits per second broadband and triple-play services aimed at the residential market, featuring applications such as Internet telephony and television.

And Korea, which already leads the world in terms of the percentage of households with fixed broadband access, has also emerged as world leader in fibre optic connections, which is essential for supporting the next generation of ultra-high speed Internet applications.

ITU says that the Asia-Pacific region is the world's largest broadband market with a 39 percent share of the world's total at the end of 2007. In terms of broadband access, Asia-Pacific has made remarkable progress in the past few years, with subscriber numbers growing almost five-fold in five years: from 27 million at the beginning of 2003 to 133 million at the start of 2008.

But like India, not everyone in the region lives in the ultimate high-speed Internet access experience; and the contrast is stark.

"The regional broadband divide is striking, with poor economies having a close-to-zero broadband penetration, compared to that of rich economies where one in four persons is a broadband subscriber," says Gray

The gap in available broadband speeds between rich and poor countries is as wide as broadband penetration. In Japan, Korea and Hong Kong for example, the minimum advertised broadband speed is faster than the maximum broadband speed in Cambodia, Tonga, Laos and Bangladesh.

As far as India is concerned, the good news is that the low level of penetration is not going to last long. That's because, India has just released spectrum for rolling out 3G and WiMAX services-the next generation wireless technologies -- and those services are expected to start in about 6 months. "A lot might change once India launches its 3G network because that will help broadband penetration over the much cheaper mobile phone to spurt," says Gray.

Moreover, the 3G roll out will also encourage new operators, including foreign ones, to enter the Indian market. And that in turn could "stimulating competition, liberalizing the broadband business even further to make broadband access cheaper for higher broadband penetration," says Pradeep Baijal, a former telecom regulator.

Mobil ASL, the software that the University of Washington has just developed for deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans may be the first software that enables an American to use sign language over mobile phones. But thanks to its unique features, this software may also be ideal for the developing world as well.

Discussing the significance of this development Eve Riskin, the principal investigator, who is a professor at the Washington University and a part of the team that developed this software explained, "The software is tailored for American Sign Language. But since it is based on cutting edge technology, it could be modified for use for any sign language because all sign languages basically have similar gestures."

According to Prof. Riskin, the biggest challenge of transmitting sign language -- which the deaf use to communicate with each other -- over cell phones is not to compress the video of the gestures of sign language compact enough to be transmitted and received over cell phones, but rather to use an algorithm simple enough for a cell phone to do the real time encoding and decoding fast enough.

"Cell phones posses far lower hardware resources in terms of processor speed and memory, and that is a big hurdle for video communication over cell phones," she said.

Riskin added that the advantage of Mobile ASL lies in a sign language encoder designed by the team that not only adheres to the ITU compression standard -- new H.264/AVC -- but also nearly doubles the compression ratio. Consequently, the software can compress the gestures tight enough to make it comprehensible on low-resolution video.

"This is why we feel that the new software would a big help for people in the developing world because all developing countries suffer from poor bandwidth problems" says Riskin. "And even if some of them do have access to faster networks, they are usually very highly priced for most."

Which isn't to suggest that Mobile ASL is not a significant development for Americans as well. "A lot of people are excited about this," said Riskin. That's because, even as faster networks are becoming more common in the United States, such networks are still not fast enough for high rates of data transmission, and that means that there is still a need for software that can operate on slower systems.

Moreover, faster networks are not available everywhere and they also cost more. "We don't think it's fair for someone who's deaf to have to pay more for his or her cell phone than someone who has hearing," feels the team.

Of course, cell phones often have become indispensable for the deaf, just as they are for others - even if text messaging was the communication underpinning for the deaf. That, according to many deaf users, was very limiting, to say the least. For one, text messaging doesn't allow one to communicate rapidly one's native language. And  more importantly, it is slow and does not convey emotions at all.

"Video is much better than text-messaging," says Jessica DeWitt, a UW undergraduate in psychology who is deaf and is a collaborator on the Mobile ASL project. However, low data transmission rates on U.S. cellular networks, combined with limited processing power on mobile devices, have so far prevented real-time video transmission with enough frames per second that it could be used to transmit sign language.

So, that brings us to the next question; is the software ready to hit the market? Not just yet. 

 "It is still in its research stage and not ready for prime time. Work is still on to make it user friendly. But after that we would like a cell phone company to pick it up and release it over the cell phone system," says Riskin.

"The team is already in discussion with a major cellular network provider that has expressed interest in the project," she said, adding that it may hit the market in about 18 months.

And what if the talk fails? "No worries," says Riskin. "We will throw it on the web and turn it open source for anyone to modify it for prime time use."

For that matter, the team is also working to a future version that will incorporate custom tools to get better quality and a feature that will identify when people are moving their hands, to reduce battery consumption and processing power when the user is not signing.
 

The Indian authorities, may claim that the Pan-African e-Network is an extension of the "south-south cooperation" idea, but undoubtedly a major objective of this ambitious ICT project -- to be set up totally by India --, is to woo the resource-rich African nations to ensure a steady supply of resources for its voracious economy.

In fact, a big reason why India is implementing this project with gusto is to remain in step with China. As a resource-hungry nation, India too is wooing Africa in a big way for the same reason. This includes showering the continent with gifts by way of brick and mortar socio-economic infrastructure.

Although mooted in 2004 by the former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Pan-African e-Network faced the usual red tape and delays -- which is so symptomatic of India- for close to four years until the final green signal came from India's Ministry of External Affairs  in March 2008. However, within three months of receiving the "mobilization advance," Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL), the government -owned telecommunication engineering company that is executing this project, has kicked off the first phase.

According to TCIL, the first Hub Earth Station started operation in Dakar (capital city of Senegal) on 31st July, which is a "major step because it marks the commencement of the project." This station is now connected to India data centre of TCIL which in turn is now in the process of hooking up 12 specialty hospitals and 7 universities in India with 5 universities and "at least" 5 hospitals in Africa.

While mooting this idea Kalam said that the objective is to bridge the digital divide in Africa and develop the continent's information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all the 53 countries. He also added that for India, which is funding this $135 million project completely, it is nothing but a part of   "south-south cooperation.

The idea of "south-south cooperation" that started evolving around late 1990s is based on a simple realization that developing nations need not seek the help of developed nations in the rich north to find appropriate, low-cost and sustainable solutions to their problems. Instead, it makes sense to seek solutions in other developing countries, which may possess far more cost effective solutions. For instance, if Africa doesn't have the resource and knowledge to dig out its vast reserves coal or oil, it could go to India or China for help instead of going to say USA,  from where the cost of importing the required expertise could be much higher.

However, even as India says that this project "continues the tradition of
India's close partnership with the countries of Africa in their developmental efforts aimed at the well being of their people," there is also a hope that the effort will bear fruit in the long run.

"We expect that in the long run this project will not only improve the cultural relationship between India and all African countries, but it will also help the growth of trade and commerce, and industry  between India and Africa," said an official from the Ministry of External Affairs, requesting anonymity.

For India, it is indeed very important to cultivate better relationships with the resource-rich African nations. Like China, India's scorching economy (which is growing at about 8% a year and is considered as one of the fastest) too is hungry for everything starting from food to oil, and Africa could play a crucial role there.

But while China with its ambitious Africa strategy has been showering Africa with almost everything ( starting from building roads, to providing free food, clothes, medicine and the likes) in return for lucrative partnerships with its oil and mineral companies, India has been lagging far behind.
            
With the Pan-African e-Network project though, India may score a brownie point after all. Not only will this be Africa's biggest ICT project ever, but it will be funded totally by India, which will include setting it up on the African side as well.

The e-Network project entails linking 53 African nations (although about 30 countries have signed up so far and about 6 have been linked yet) by a Satellite and Fiber Optic Network that would provide communication and connectivity among the African nations and India.

The network is meant primarily for Tele-education, Tele-medicine, Internet, video-conferencing and VOIP services, but TCIL sources say if a country wants, the network could also be used for e-government and administrative functions.

While science may take too long to come up with an answer, what is increasingly getting clear is that even as cell phones are proliferating around the world, perhaps growing faster that any other cutting edge technology, the health-fears surrounding its use are growing at an equal pace.

The most recent sensational risk warning emerged on July 24 when the director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff urging them to limit the use of mobile phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

This latest warning is significant because no other major scientific-oriented or for that matter even a major academic institute has issued such a warning without adequate scientific data or a definitive study to prove that use of technology can indeed carry a deadly health risks. Besides, numerous studies until now have failed as well to identify a direct link between cancer and mobile phone use.

But what could be more significant is that the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't seems to be worried about the risks mobile phone use may carry even as quite a few of governments around the world have already started issuing similar warnings.

The UK government for instance published a report last year which said that  the Government is clearly worried about the risks mobile phone radiation could have on brain function and warned that 20,000-odd  radio masts in the UK subjects everyone near those masts to constant low level electromagnetic radiation.

In fact so serious is the UK Government that it even commissioned a noted academician and a researcher for a £3- million mass study on more than 200,000 volunteers, to identify if long term use (more than ten years) use of mobile phone poses greater risk of brain cancer.

Although the results of the study are yet to be known- since the study plans to monitor the volunteers for at least five years to plot any serious disease including cancer and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases- the UK Government is not the only one to be worried. Earlier this year, the French government had warned against the dangers associated with the use of mobile phones, especially by kids, while others like Germany and even the European Environment Agency have issues similar warnings to their citizens and urged them to reduce exposure to mobile handsets.

But of all these, perhaps the efforts of the government of a developing country or (undiplomatically speaking) a third-world country, India, is most notable.  Concerned about the increasing noise on the health risks associated with prolonged cell phone usage India has also started working on a policy which will specify safety guidelines to limit public exposure to radio waves from base stations and mobile handsets. To be called "Guidelines for Complying With Limits for Human Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields," this policy is likely to ban telcos from putting up cellular towers near schools, hospitals and the rooftops of large residential buildings, among other measures.

For a country like India where mobile telephony is not only a money-spinner for its economy, but also brings immense benefits to its societies and diverse communities, this is indeed a bold move. Restricting the growth of mobile usage and its proliferation could attract howls of protests from not only the industry players-for whom billions are at stake-, but also from users for whom a mobile phone is an integral part of life.

Yet the authorities feel guidelines must be in place to provide protection against alleged side effects on health from radiation. India has to be conscious to make its citizens aware of the probable health risks of technology, says TV Ramachandran director general, Cellular Operators Association of India. The growth rate of mobile phone is scorching and expected to cross 500 million by 2010-end, a large chunk of which would be children.

This industry lobby is working with the Government and other industry lobbies like the Association of Unified Service Providers of India, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association, and Indian Cellular Association, to formulate an appropriate policy, which is expected to be finalized in two months.

Interestingly, Indians elsewhere too have started coming out with interesting findings. For instance, in March this year UK-based Dr. Vini Khurana, described as a "top neurosurgeon" by the UK's news paper The Independent , came up what the paper said , "the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks." He said that his independent study has revealed that Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, and urges that people should avoid using them wherever possible while governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

However, even as the debate -on cell phones as ticking time bombs-rages amidst the dismissive smirks of the industry players, while the 3 billion -and growing-mobile phone users around the world hope that all the warnings remain just that, warnings, the advice of Ronald B. Herberman,  of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is worth paying heed to. "We shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," he says.