[Greennet-l] GreenNet Newsletter: Winter/Spring 2003/4

[Joanne Doyle]

GreenNet Newsletter: Winter/Spring 2003/4

GREENNET STRATEGY/
WEB SERVICES/
SUPPORT NEWS/
ONLINE RESOURCES/
GREENNET POLICY/
GREENNET STAFF/
GREENNET TRAINING/
APC NEWS/

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GreenNet Newsletter:
--> www.gn.apc.org/news/newsletter/n_win03.html
A quarterly e-bulletin for our user community on strategic uses of the 
Internet to promote social justice and equality. From GreenNet, an online 
community for peace, the environment, civil rights and social justice since 
1986.

Past issues of GreenNet Newsletter:
--> www.gn.apc.org/news/newsletter/

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GREENNET STRATEGY

GreenNet had a major strategy review meeting at the beginning of this year 
from which we emerged, after a long day, with a clear vision of some new 
directions for our work. In order to invest in a higher quality service for 
our members and meet our mission, we have looked carefully at the services 
we provide.

STANDARD MEMBERSHIP
GreenNet will stop offering standard membership on its own. This was a 
difficult decision to arrive at, but we are no longer able to sustain the 
level of support needed for this service, and remain competitive. We will 
still provide this service to existing members and continue to provide 
email accounts.

Our focus will be concentrated on informing you of the best ways to make 
the most of the communication technologies available, and use ICTs 
strategically.

BROADBAND
As part of this commitment, and given our resources, GreenNet has come to 
the difficult decision not to provide broadband. This follows on from long 
discussions with potential suppliers about what we could offer members and 
various testing of modems and packages to see what could be suitable.

After many years helping people to sort out a basic internet connectivity, 
we believe that access has become so widely available, that the need is to 
support our community, and other not for profit organisations, in learning 
to use the online tools available to use the internet strategically. This 
means not competing with big ISP's on the broadband/access market, which 
would mean that we couldn't offer an affordable service with the level 
support that we want to continue to provide.

We feel that no matter how you connect, the services GreenNet offers, 
including: email, webhosting, dynamic website development and consultancy, 
training, will remain the best option for civil society organisations. In 
short, our focus in the next 3 years is on developing web related services; 
consultancy around FLOSS (free/libre open source solutions) e.g. migration 
to GNU/Linux desktop, coupled with support; online collaboration and 
strategic use of ICTs including training and research around ICT policy.

Follow up:
We will also have a half day strategy meeting in April/May to organise 
these priorities and would like to incorporate feedback from you to inform 
this process and guide us in the development of these services. So, we have 
prepared a questionnaire which will take you about 10 minutes to complete 
(and the last one we asked you to fill in was nearly 2 years ago now so we 
would really appreciate your time!).

Fill in the questionnaire online here:
--> www.gn.apc.org/services/questionnaire.shtml

Any questions or comments, please send to joanne at gn.apc.org

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WEB SERVICES

GreenNet is putting more resources into web related work, especially online 
content management systems. We will work closely with other APC members to 
increase overall capacity to develop the technology and increase awareness 
of this tool and other innovative FLOSS ICT solutions.

In the immediate term, GreenNet has a number of exciting projects in the 
pipeline:

GreenNet will be developing ActionApps powered webspaces for African 
telecom regulators to share VSAT licensing information. The web spaces will 
form a 'One Stop Shop' about African VSAT  regulations, with an online 
application form for potential VSAT providers. It's a very exciting 
project, which aims to improve internet access in Africa using VSAT technology.

More information here:
--> www.catia.ws

GreenNet is currently developing a new site with 'Publish What You Pay', 
Privacy International and continuing working with EIN to develop their site:
--> www.ein.org.uk/

NEW WEB PAGES

On the GreenNet site, we have developed our Jobs page on the GN site using 
ActionApps. This allows you to easily add any new job and volunteer 
opportunities with your organisation. You do not need any knowledge of 
html, just copy in the advert in plain text and submit.
If you have any difficulties, please email joanne at gn.apc.org
--> www.gn.apc.org/jobs.shtml

The APC has developed a collaborative news page on their site that includes 
RSS news feeds from some of its members, and their partners, around the world.
--> www.apc.org/english/news/rss/apc.shtml

CSEWEB
Greennet has developed the online archive of Capital & Class magazine. The 
site is built using ActionApps. ActionApps allows visitors to search or 
browse quickly through more than 2000 articles from past C&C issues as well 
as and download them in the high quality PDF format. On the CSE side, 
ActionApps helps CSE website editors to quickly publish new issues, and 
also provides a tools for maintaining online subscribers database. The 
archive is only available to subscribed visitors.
--> www.cseweb.org.uk/

TPP
This Jobs Recruitment site features a comprehensive search and an elaborate 
subscription tool which enables users to get latest subject-specific jobs 
by email.
--> www.tpp.co.uk/

OTHER SERVICES
GreenNet has upgraded organisational membership. This package now includes 
10 pop accounts.

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SUPPORT NEWS

Suspicious emails:
We have been alerted that a number of fraudulent emails are currently 
circulating in the UK encouraging bank customers to visit a website where 
card or internet security details are then requested.  We have had a email 
forwarded by one member they received in reply from their bank saying they 
never send emails that ask for confidential or security information. It is 
best to presume that this is the practice of all banks. If you are in any 
doubt, contact your bank for advise.

There has already been a lot about this in the mass media.  It seems to be 
a repeat of what happened a few months ago:
--> www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/33598.html
--> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3405993.stm

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ONLINE RESOURCES

Writing for the web - Four Things Every Web Site Headline Must Do. By Nick 
Usborne:
--> www.uieroadshow.com/articles/usborne_article_4.html

MMTK materials
The Multi Media Toolkit is a project to develop a range of training 
materials around content, tools and strategic use on the Internet. A number 
of units are now online and available to use at:
--> www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/mmtk/.

Transnational Civil Society in the Networked Society: on the relationship 
between ICTs and the rise of transnational civil society:
--> www.ecdc.nl/publications/reports/terra_eindrapport.pdf

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GREENNET POLICY

VOLUNTARY CODE OF DATA RETENTION
Parliament enacted an Order which came into force on December 5th 2003, 
approving a voluntary code of practice in relation to ISP retention of and 
access to 'Communications Data' - confidential user information.

As a not-for-profit ISP dedicated to supporting and promoting groups and 
individuals working for peace, human rights, gender equality, social 
justice and the environment through the use of ICTs, we aim to realise the 
rights of all individuals in the UK to enjoy full access to information and 
communication services.

GreenNet has participated in good faith in various consultations throughout 
this process, outlining its concerns with respect proposals for retention 
of data, whether voluntary or mandatory. We remain deeply concerned that 
the voluntary code is not compliant with data protection principles and 
Human Rights standards.

To this end, GreenNet will not participate in the voluntary retention 
scheme and is principally bound to retain its current data retention 
policy, outlined below, in the interest of defending the rights of our user 
community.

Our responses to the consultation and further justification of our position 
are online at:
--> www.gn.apc.org/userpolicy.html

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GREENNET STAFF

After a year in Ethiopia working for our umbrella network, the APC, Anna 
Feldman has returned to GreenNet as our Web Projects Developer. During her 
time away, Anna developed a range of training materials for the Multi Media 
Tool Kit Project (MMTK).

Anna also worked with our technician, Marek, on staging an open source 
content management  workshop in Addis Ababa for East African service 
providers. Anna has now returned to London with a partitioned hard drive on 
her laptop that allows her to boot up in Linux and Windows - and is happy 
to preach to anyone who wants to be
converted about the benefits of working - in the Horn of Africa and rest of
the world - using the Linux operating system.

Alongside managing GreenNet's web projects, Anna will continue to work with 
the APC developing ICT training materials for online activists.

We are delighted to welcome Anna back to the GreenNet family (although we 
never really parted). She has already taken on a number of very exciting 
projects including developing a new site with 'Publish What You Pay' and 
managing the CATIA 1A project.

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GREENNET TRAINING

Upcoming courses in web design using Dreamweaver:
April 24th & 25th (Saturday & Sunday) 11.00-18.00

Full course outline available online at:
www.gn.apc.org/training/web.html#dream

Trainings are held at our offices, Islington, London, unless otherwise 
requested.
Further information from joanne at gn.apc.org

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APC NEWS

WSIS II
APC will go to UN ICT Task Force meeting in March: WSIS II is slowly 
getting off the ground for 2004, but much confusion, fragmentation and 
frustration abounds - certainly amongst civil society actors. In the past 
few weeks, we have heard bits and pieces of news about proposed meetings, 
the complete lack of funding, uncertainty of ITU's role in the follow up 
process, the ongoing discussions about Tunis (the next WSIS venue in 2005) 
with respect the government's human rights record.

A few meetings have been held recently (briefings) but primarily held in 
Geneva to which almost none of us have access. The notes from the recent 
Geneva briefing meeting have been posted to apc-wsis at lists.apc.org (If you 
would like a copy please email karenb at apcwomen.org). The first prepcom is 
likely to take place in Tunis, June 2004 (though the ITU and Tunis 
governments have been unable to agree on a date), and this will be preceded 
by a 'brainstorming' meeting to which representatives from all stake-holder 
groups will be invited.

To join APC's WSIS related work, you can join the apc-wsis at lists.apc.org list.

APC COUNCIL MEETING

Michael, GreenNet support techie, attended the APC council meeting in 
Cartagena, Columbia at the end of last year. This was also a planning 
meeting, involving APC members from all over the world. The main aim of the 
meeting was to establish the strategic priorities for the network for the 
next 3 years. These have yet to be finalised but the event was a great 
success in bringing together ICT activists for social change and 
formalising some great ideas into action areas that have already had a real 
impact on consolidating the way we approach ICTs and ICT policy.

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GreenNet Newsletter: A quarterly e-bulletin for our user community on 
strategic uses of the Internet to promote social justice and equality. From 
GreenNet, an online community for peace, the environment, civil rights and 
social justice since 1986.

Past issues of GreenNet Newsletter:
www.gn.apc.org/news/newsletter/

If you have any questions about any of the news in the edition of our 
newsletter, please get in contact with us. We are happy to go through any 
of the services outlined or any queries you may have.

The GreenNet Newsletter is edited by Joanne Doyle on behalf of the GreenNet 
Collective. For more information, contact joanne at gn.apc.org.

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