Last Tuesday we launched a National Emergency Library—1.4M digitized books available to users without a waitlist—in response to the rolling wave of school and library closures that remain in place to date. We’ve received dozens of messages of thanks from teachers and school librarians, who can now help their students access books while their schools, school libraries, and public libraries are closed.

We’ve been asked why we suspended waitlists. On March 17, the American Library Association Executive Board took the extraordinary step to recommend that the nation’s libraries close in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In doing so, for the first time in history, the entirety of the nation’s print collection housed in libraries is now unavailable, locked away indefinitely behind closed doors.  

This is a tremendous and historic outage.  According to IMLS FY17 Public Libraries survey (the last fiscal year for which data is publicly available), in FY17 there were more than 716 million physical books in US public libraries.  Using the same data, which shows a 2-3% decline in collection holdings per year, we can estimate that public libraries have approximately 650 million books on their shelves in 2020.  Right now, today, there are 650 million books that tax-paying citizens have paid to access that are sitting on shelves in closed libraries, inaccessible to them. And that’s just in public libraries.

And so, to meet this unprecedented need at a scale never before seen, we suspended waitlists on our lending collection.  As we anticipated, critics including the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have released statements (here and here) condemning the National Emergency Library and the Internet Archive.  Both statements contain falsehoods that are being spread widely online. To counter the misinformation, we are addressing the most egregious points here and have also updated our FAQs.

One of the statements suggests you’ve acquired your books illegally. Is that true?
No. The books in the National Emergency Library have been acquired through purchase or donation, just like a traditional library.  The Internet Archive preserves and digitizes the books it owns and makes those scans available for users to borrow online, normally one at a time.  That borrowing threshold has been suspended through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency.

Is the Internet Archive a library?
Yes.  The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and is recognized as a library by the government.

What is the legal basis for Internet Archive’s digital lending during normal times?
The concept and practice of controlled digital lending (CDL) has been around for about a decade. It is a lend-like-print system where the library loans out a digital version of a book it owns to one reader at a time, using the same technical protections that publishers use to prevent further redistribution. The legal doctrine underlying this system is fair use, as explained in the Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending.

Does CDL violate federal law? What about appellate rulings?
No, and many copyright experts agree. CDL relies on a set of careful controls that are designed to mimic the traditional lending model of libraries. To quote from the White Paper on Controlled Digital Lending of Library Books:

“Our principal legal argument for controlled digital lending is that fair use— an “equitable rule of reason”—permits libraries to do online what they have always done with physical collections under the first sale doctrine: lend books. The first sale doctrine, codified in Section 109 of the Copyright Act, provides that anyone who legally acquires a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display, or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. This is how libraries loan books.  Additionally, fair use ultimately asks, “whether the copyright law’s goal of promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts would be better served by allowing the use than by preventing it.” In this case we believe it would be. Controlled digital lending as we conceive it is premised on the idea that libraries can embrace their traditional lending role to the digital environment. The system we propose maintains the market balance long-recognized by the courts and Congress as between rightsholders and libraries, and makes it possible for libraries to fulfill their “vital function in society” by enabling the lending of books to benefit the general learning, research, and intellectual enrichment of readers by allowing them limited and controlled digital access to materials online.”

Some have argued that the ReDigi case that held that commercially reselling iTunes music files is not a fair use “precludes” CDL. This is not true, and others have argued that this case actually makes the fair use case for CDL stronger.

How is the National Emergency Library different from the Internet Archive’s normal digital lending?
Because libraries around the country and globe are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Internet Archive has suspended our waitlists temporarily. This means that multiple readers can access a digital book simultaneously, yet still by borrowing the book, meaning that it is returned after 2 weeks and cannot be redistributed.  

Is the Internet Archive making these books available without restriction?
No. Readers who borrow a book from the National Emergency Library get it for only two weeks, and their access is disabled unless they check it out again. Internet Archive also uses the same technical protections that publishers use on their ebook offerings in order to prevent additional copies from being made or redistributed.

What about those who say we’re stealing from authors & publishers?
Libraries buy books or get them from donations and lend them out. This has been true and legal for centuries. The idea that this is stealing fundamentally misunderstands the role of libraries in the information ecosystem. As Professor Ariel Katz, in his paper Copyright, Exhaustion, and the Role of Libraries in the Ecosystem of Knowledgeexplains: 

“Historically, libraries predate copyright, and the institutional role of libraries and institutions of higher learning in the “promotion of science” and the “encouragement of learning” was acknowledged before legislators decided to grant authors exclusive rights in their writings. The historical precedence of libraries and the legal recognition of their public function cannot determine every contemporary copyright question, but this historical fact is not devoid of legal consequence… As long as the copyright ecosystem has a public purpose, then some of the functions that libraries perform are not only fundamental but also indispensable for attaining this purpose. Therefore, the legal rules … that allow libraries to perform these functions remain, and will continue to be, as integral to the copyright system as the copyright itself.” 

Do libraries have to ask authors or publishers to digitize their books?
No. Digitizing books to make accessible copies available to the visually impaired is explicitly allowed under 17 USC 121 in the US and around the world under the Marrakesh Treaty. Further, US courts have held that it is fair use for libraries to digitize books for various additional purposes. 

Have authors opted out?
Yes, we’ve had authors opt out.  We anticipated that would happen as well; in fact, we launched with clear instructions on how to opt out because we understand that authors and creators have been impacted by the same global pandemic that has shuttered libraries and left students without access to print books.  Our takedowns are completed quickly and the submitter is notified via email. 

Doesn’t my local library already provide access to all of these books?
No. The Internet Archive has focused our collecting on books published between the 1920s and early 2000s, the vast majority of which don’t have a commercially available ebook.  Our collection priorities have focused on the broad range of library books to support education and scholarship and have not focused on the latest best sellers that would be featured in a bookstore.

Further, there are approximately 650 million books in public libraries that are locked away and inaccessible during closures related to COVID-19.  Many of these are print books that don’t have an ebook equivalent except for the version we’ve scanned. For those books, the only way for a patron to access them while their library is closed is through our scanned copy.

I’ve looked at the books and they’re just images of the pages. I get better ebooks from my public library.
Yes, you do.  The Internet Archive takes a picture of each page of its books, and then makes those page images available in an online book reader and encrypted PDFs.  We also make encrypted EPUBs available, but they are based on uncorrected OCR, which has errors. The experience is inferior to what you’ve become accustomed to with Kindle devices.  We are making an accessible facsimile of the printed book available to users, not a high quality EPUB like you would find with a modern ebook.

What will happen after June 30 or the end of the US national emergency?
Waitlists will be suspended through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later.  After that, the waitlists will be reimplemented thus limiting the number of borrowable copies to those physical books owned and not being lent. 

The post The Internet Archive defends the release of the National Emergency Library appeared first on P2P Foundation.

When: Thursday, 27 June – Friday, 28 June
9:00 am – 8:00 pm

Where: University of London, Malet Street, London

In previous years, we’ve promoted platform co-ops in a traditional conference format. This year we’re doing things differently and will be exploring opportunities to increase decentralised collaboration in a completely open space format. We’re proud to be working on collaboration with Phoebe Tickell and Nati Lombardo from Enspiral, to convene and facilitate the event.

Who is OPEN 2019 for?

OPEN 2019 is an inter-network event for community builders, network organisers and key connecting members of organisations from a wide range of progressive communities. We welcome all cooperators, rebels, mavens, network builders, systems architects, open source developers, and anyone else who is interested in designing and building our collective future. The idea is to network the networks by creating deeper connections and relationships between some of the key connectors from a wide range of mutually aligned communities.

What will we be doing?

To kick off each day attendees will be introduced to a handful of new, distributed, cooperative, technical and social projects, through a selection of lightning talks. After that attendees will be guided to co-design the event by proposing, refining and voting on the content for the rest of the two days’ sessions. Experienced facilitators from the Enspiral network will help us create a ‘container’ for our time together. Working in small groups we will discuss, debate and feedback ideas to the wider group, to ensure everyone has a chance to have their say and that the collective wisdom of the group is captured and shared.

With an informal evening dinner and drinks and more networking opportunities, there will be plenty of time for building deeper understanding and relationships too.

What will you get out of it?

Recognising that effective collaboration, at any scale, can be hard to define and even harder to achieve OPEN 2019 does not aim to build immediate collaboration between attendees. Having studied the key ingredients of collaboration we know that the first step towards effective collaboration is building deeper connections and trusted relationships, and that is what OPEN 2019 aims to deliver.

By introducing more connectors to each other, getting to know one another, and working together over two days we aim to strengthen our relationships, deepen our understanding and to cross-pollinate and fertilise the pre-existing projects and evolving ideas within our networks.

We will explore opportunities to coordinate our existing organisations better, to keep each other better informed about what we are working on and to potentially cooperate if we can find opportunities to do so. Ultimately, as a result of the networking, we aim to pave the way for any collaborative opportunities which might arise as things evolve…

When and where is it?

The OPEN 2019 Community Gathering will take place on the 27th and 28th of June at the University of London in Holborn, London.

What should I do if I want to come?

Spaces are limited to 150 attendees in order to keep the group small enough to be effective so, if are interested in being involved, please order your tickets below asap. If this event becomes over-subscribed we will explore the possibility of running additional events. If you have a project you would like to present at a lightning talk we’d love to hear from you (please email a short description of your project) but please note – all attendees, including presenters, will be required to buy a ticket.

Please join us to discuss, explore, connect and decide how we can deliver systemic change, together.

For more information and tickets click here!

The post OPEN 2019 Community Gathering – Decentralised Collaboration appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The interest for citizens co-production of public services is increasing and many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed in order to improve participatory democratic processes.

During the Sharing City Summit in Barcelona last November we discovered the DDDC, i.e. the Digital Democracy and Data Commons, a participatory platform to deliberate and construct alternative and more democratic forms of data governance, which will allow citizens to take back control over their personal data in the digital society and economy.

Barcelona is already known as a best practice in this field: the city and its metropolitan area constitute anexceptional ecosystem in terms of co-production of public policies and citizen science initiatives. The City Council has created an Office of Citizens Science and the Municipal Data Office, as well as the first Science Biennial that just took place in Barcelona (from 7th-11th February 2019). At the same time citizen science projects abound.

In this frame Barcelona is famous to have launched in February 2016 Decidim.Barcelona (we decide), a project of the City Council to give citizens the opportunity to discuss proposals using an interface for group-discussions and comments. Decidim is indeed an online participatory-democracy platform that embodies a completely innovative approach. First of all it is entirely and collaboratively built as free software. As remembered by Xabier Barandiaran Decidim is a web environment that using the programming language Ruby on Rails allows anybody to create and configure a website platform to be used in the form of a political network for democratic participation. Any organization (local city council, association, university, NGO, neighbourhood or cooperative) can create mass processes for strategic planning, participatory budgeting, collaborative design for regulations, urban spaces and election processes. It also makes possible the match between traditional in-person democratic meetings (assemblies, council meetings, etc.) and the digital world (sending meeting invites, managing registrations, facilitating the publication of minutes, etc.). Moreover it enables the structuring of government bodies or assemblies (councils, boards, working groups), the convening of consultations, referendums or channelling citizen or member initiatives to trigger different decision making processes. The official definition of Decidim is: a public-common’s, free and open, digital infrastructure for participatory democracy.

Barandiaran remembers also that “Decidim was born in an institutional environment (that of Barcelona City Council), directly aiming at improving and enhancing the political and administrative impact of participatory democracy in the state (municipalities, local governments, etc.). But it also aims at empowering social processes as a platform for massive social coordination for collective action independently of public administrations. Anybody can copy, modify and install Decidim for its own needs, so Decidim is by no means reduced to public institutions”.

As of march 2018 www.decidim.barcelona had more than 28,000 registered participants, 1,288,999 page views, 290,520 visitors, 19 participatory processes, 821 public meetings channeled through the platform and 12,173 proposals, out of which over 8,923 have already become public policies grouped into 5,339 results whose execution level can be monitored by citizens. […] It comes to fill the gap of public and common’s platforms, providing an alternative to the way in which private platforms coordinate social action (mostly with profit-driven, data extraction and market oriented goals)”.

But Decidim is more than a technological platform, it is a “technopolitical project” where legal, political, institutional, practical, social, educational, communicative, economic and epistemic codes merge together. There are mainly 3 levels: the political (focused on the democratic model that Decidim promotes and its impact on public policies and organizations), the technopolitical (focused on how the platform is designed, the mechanisms it embodies, and the way in which it is itself democratically designed), and the technical (focused on the conditions of production, operation and success of the project: the factory, collaborative mechanisms, licenses, etc.). In this way thousands of people can organize themselves democratically by making proposals that will be debated and could translate into binding legislation, attending public meetings, fostering decision-making discussions, deciding through different forms of voting and monitoring the implementation of decisions (not only the procedures but also the outcomes).

Coming back to our DDDC, the main aim of this pilot participatory process is to test a new technology to improve the digital democracy platform Decidim and to collectively imagine the data politics of the future. It was developed inside the European project DECODE[1] (Decentralized Citizen Owned Data Ecosystem – that aims to construct legal, technological and socio-economic tools that allow citizens to take back control over their data and generate more common benefits out of them); it is led by the Barcelona Digital City (Barcelona City Council) and by the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute of the Open University of Catalonia (Tecnopolitica and Dimmons), in collaboration with the Nexa Center of Internet & Society, Eurecat, CNRS, Dribia, aLabs, Thoughtworksand DYNE.

The pilot project was launched in October 18^th 2018 and will end April 1^st 2019, for a total of 5 months. It has mainly three goals:

1. to integrate the DECODE technology with the Decidim digital platform in order to improve processes of e-petitioning, to provide more safety, privacy, transparency and data enrichment;
2. to enable a deliberative space around data law, governance and economics within the new digital economy and public policy, in order to provide a vision oriented to promote a greater citizen control over data and their exploitation in Commons-oriented models[2];
3. to experiment with the construction and use of a data commons generated in the process, in order to improve the inclusion of the participatory process itself.

The goals will be reached through several phases that foresee also face-to-face meetings, inside the dddc.decodeproject.eu platform. The infographic illustrates the phases:

Figure 1 DDDC’s phases. Source: https://dddc.decodeproject.eu/processes/main

The pilot project is currently in its second phase. The first 1 was that of  presentation & diagnosis,dedicated to the elaboration of a brief diagnosis of the state of regulations, governance models and data economy. The diagnosis emerged from a kick off pilot presentation workshop, the DECODE Symposium, aimed to imagine possible proposal to move towards a society where citizens can control what, how and who manages and generates values from the exploitation of their data; i.e. to imagine how use digital technologies to facilitate the transition from today’s digital economy of surveillance capitalism and data extractivism to an alternative political and economic project. In this phase a sociodemographic survey was also launched to collect information about the perceptions on the digital economy and to design communicative actions to improve the inclusiveness of the process.

The current phase (2) is that of proposals for a digital economy based on data commons, lunached considering the current situation of data extraction and concentration and based on the diagnosis made on the digital society in the first phase. During the Sharing Cities Summit for example a dedicated meeting took place, divided into a talk and four group work sessions, one for each axes of the pilot project (legal, economic, governance and experimental – see below). During this workshop 64 proposal were collected and in the next phases they will be voted, discussed and signed. The DDDC staff underlines that the process is prefigurative since they are trying to create and practice data commons while deliberating and talking about data commons.

In this phase the results of the survey on sociodemographic data were also analyzed with the aim to define, implement and experiment data use strategies for inclusion in participation (these strategies can potentially be used in future by platforms such as Decidim). The analysis is made by the Barcelona Now – BCNNOW.

The next phases are:

Phase 3 – Debate: discussion on the proposals received.

Phase 4 – Elaboration by the DECODE team and the interested participants

Phase 5 – Signing: collection of support for the pilot project results using DECODE technology for secure and transparent signature (based on encryption techniques and distributed ledger technologies). Crucial phase: this technology, integrated with DECIDIM, will help in the construction of a more secure, transparent and distributed networked democracy.

Phase 6 – Evaluation: closing meeting and launch of a survey to help in the assessment of the satisfaction or participants with the process and with the DECODE technology

Legal aspects, governance issues and economic topics are the three main axes followed during the different phases, since they provide a differential approach to discuss around data. A fourth axis is the experimental one, dedicated to the use and definition of collective decisions around the database resulting from the data shared during the pilot project. Il will become a kind of temporary commons useful to improve the deliberative process itself, a practice that could be incorporated in future Decidim processes.

At the end of the pilot project a participatory document, with paper or manifesto around the digital economy will be released.

The importance of this kind of pilot project is clear if we think to the huge amount of data that everyday every citizens is able to produce… By now we live in a “datasphere”, an invisible environment of data, quoting Appadurai, a virtual data landscape rich in information, cultural and social data. Our data indeed constitute digital patterns that reveal our behaviors, interests, habits. Some actors, especially big corporations and States, can act upon this data, can use them to surveil and influence our lives, through strategies such as ad hoc advertisements or even intervention in elections (see the case of the Cambridge Analytica or the referendum on an EU agreement with Ukraine) or generation of citizens rankings (such as the Chinese case). These “data misuses” can even influence and affect democracy. Nevertheless, if successful, the knowledge and insight created by the datasphere may become a powerful managing and intelligence tool and the debate about the so-called “datacracy” is indeed growing.

In this frame, and considering the little awareness still surrounding the topic, the DDDC pilot project on the one hand tries to stir critically consciousness and common construction in this arena, on the other tries to provide the necessary tools to go in this direction, improving Decidim and pushing forward the DECODE vision of data sovereignty.

[1]For more information about DECODE browse the projects documents: partners, funding, FAQs or the official website

[2] That is, models where people share data and allow for open use while remaining in control over their data, individually and collectively

The post Digital Democracy and Data Commons (DDDC) a participatory platform to build a more open, transparent and collaborative society. appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The legal right to ramble stems from the Charter of the Forest, the 1217 social compact grudgingly ratified by King John that formally recognized commoners’ rights of access to the forest. The right was part of a larger constellation of rights won by commoners after their long struggle with the Crown over who shall have access to the forest – only the King and his lords and retainers, or ordinary people, too?

Because of the right to ramble, a sprawling network of paths evolved in Great Britain over the centuries, bringing together villages, roads, farms, and natural landmarks throughout the landscape. The pathways were once regarded as vital infrastructure for commerce, social tradition, and everyday convenience. Now the pathways are mostly seen as a beloved cultural heritage and recreational commons. Millions of people roam the pathways every year. 

Like so many social limitations on private private property, however, people forget about what belongs to them – while property owners are ever-alert to the prospect of expanding their rights. Many modern-day property owners in England and Wales despise the right to ramble because it limits, however marginally, their absolute, exclusive control of the land. 

In 2000, property owners prevailed upon the British Parliament to terminate the ancient right to ramble unless a given pathway has been formally mapped and officially recognized. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act set a deadline for such mapping: January 1, 2026. (Parliament originally set a ten-year deadline.) After 2026, unmapped historic pathways will revert to private property and the public right to ramble on such lands will expire forever.

To counter this threat, the Ramblers – a long-time association of walking enthusiasts dedicated to the sense of freedom and benefits that come from being outdoors on foot” — has organized a campaign, Don’t Lose Your Way, along with a guidebook for ramblers, “Protect Where You Love to Walk.” The goal: to help a small army of volunteers map all of the pathways in England and Wales by 2026, and in so doing, keep them available to commoners.

This task is difficult because some historic pathways may not exist on any contemporary maps. Many pathways are known only through informal, customary use.Their very existence is known because one generation introduces the next generation to the joy of walking them. The official maps made by local authorities may or may not recognize the paths, and newer maps may omit older, less-used paths. Sometimes unscrupulous landowners have actually altered pathways to discourage people from using them, or to eradicate local memory of them.

The Ramblers say that identifying and verifying the existence of many pathways really requires a “systemic trawling through archives.” There is no other way to be definitive. But this task is plainly impractical. Chances are good that some pathways will be overlooked and lost to private enclosure. 

But Brits have a history of standing up for their “right to roam.” In a still-remembered episode in 1932, there was a mass trespass on the mountain area known as Kinder Scout — a deliberate act of civil disobedience by hundreds — to protest the lack of access to open countryside in England and Wales.

The mapping requirement by Parliament reminds me of other enclosures in modern life. Think how Indians (on the subcontinent) have had to document the medicinal value of hundreds of traditional plants and herbal medicines in order to keep them available to all.Without such documentation, transnational pharmaceutical companies could patent traditional medicines that have been freely used for centuries. Without affirmative evidence marshaled by commoners — the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library — Big Pharma could claim private, proprietary control over the biowealth of the commons.

I am also reminded of the way that the music industry used copyright law to privatize the commercial use of the 1858 song “Happy Birthday.” Another example of how the culture of commoning is an irresistible target for private commercialization. (Happily, a US federal court declared the copyright of “Happy Birthday” to be invalid in 2016.)

It is encouraging to know that the Ramblers and their allies are on the case. Their campaign to map English and Welsh walking trails serves as another reminder that the rights of commoners cannot be taken for granted. They must be secured through hard work and struggle.

The post A Looming Deadline for the Right to Ramble appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The ExO Foundation’s MTP (Massive Transformational Purpose) is Migrating Society to Abundance. Michalski explores exactly what abundance means in that context.

Jerry Michalski is the former managing editor of Release 1.0, a technology newsletter. He is the founder of Sociate.com and ReX (Relationship Economy eXpedition).

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We’re delighted to be able to distribute the free-to-view copy (embed above) of The People’s Spring, a 2018 documentary made by Ryslaine Boumahdi and her team of supporters. (This post is an update of an earlier post.)

Here’s the blurb from Ryslaine:

In the 20th century, public life revolved around government; in the 21st century, it will center on citizens.

— Matt Leighninger, The Next Form of democracy  

“The People’s Spring” explores a world where Democracy is being transformed to be a better fit with our times.  New ideas and new capabilities have collided with a public that has begun to reject traditional political representation of the people.

Argentina, Iceland, Spain, France, the USA… throughout the world we enter the heart of democratic innovation. Seeing the different solutions that are being experimented with, and listening to the young innovators who suddenly found themselves at the center of a major shift in politics. The documentary explores the many ways to improve our democracies, currently undermined by a disengaged public, lack of transparency, and new modes of discourse.

“The People’s Spring” provides an accessible, wide-ranging view of the different solutions that are emerging. The film investigates the concrete projects, new technologies, and people that are reshaping our democratic systems.

The protagonists: simple citizens, activists, elected officials, technologists, academics – all of whom are using the sparks of innovation to re-boot our concepts of the relationship between citizens and power. 

“The People’s Spring” is above all a message of hope and action. It shows that many people out there agree that it is possible to do politics differently, and that we can build a system in which we want to live. We are more than just a ballot paper.

Speaking in the documentary:

Armel Le Coz, Designer & cofounder of the organization Démocratie Ouverte, France

Loïc Blondiaux, professor of political sciences, Sorbonne, France

Ada Colau, Barcelona’s Mayor, Spain

Águeda Bañón, head of the Communication Department at Barcelona’s City Council, Spain

Pablo Soto, councilor for Citizen Participation, Transparency and Open Government of the City of Madrid, Spain

Miguel Arana Catania, Director of the Madrid City council participation project, Spain

Arnau Monterde, Doctor in Information Society and Knowledge by the Open University of Catalunya, Spain

Pere Valles, CEO Scytl, Spain

Lawrence Lessig, activist, professor of law at Harvard, United States

Ásta Guðrún Helgadóttir, MP Piratar, Iceland

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, MP Piratar, Iceland

Katrín Oddsdóttir, Assembly member of the Constitutional Council, Iceland

Gunnar Grímsson, co-founder of Citizens Foundation, Iceland

Róbert Bjarnason, founder Citizens Foundation, Iceland

First Þórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir, Laywer in charge of the International Relationships at the Piratar Party, Iceland

Bergþór Heimir Þórðarsson, member of Piratar, Iceland

Kristín Elfa Guðnadóttir, member of Piratar, Iceland

Hrannar Jónsson, member of Piratar, Iceland

Santiago Siri, founder of Democraty Earth, Argentina

Ana Lis Rodríguez Nardelli, member of the Network Party, Argentina

Stephania Xydia, co-funder Place Identity, Greece. 

More here.

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Dehui Chen: This is an idea about a new model of social network, to solve some common problems we have on the current social network platforms, such as data safety, the life span of personal data, distribution of personal data, fake news…this new model can also bring new features that we have never experienced until now.

ANYI network system is a decentralized social network composed by personal data units which is managed by users themselves. The data unit represents the individual of ANYI network, the units and the connections among them constitute the entire network.

General principle: Like physical properties, An individual should have full authority of his/her personal information, including personal data, social relationships, and so on.

Goal: To improve the social network both online and offline by rebuilding the relationships among the individuals, based on personal information units.

Features:

• Individuals manage their personal information by themselves and contact with others directly without using any servers.
• Ensure the security of data storage and transmission by using the asymmetric encryption technology.
• Achieve efficient and reasonable info resource interaction based on personal information units.
• Realize the circulation of reputation, help to spot fake news, amplify the effect of reputation in the real world.
• Realize the circulation of information resource in the social network which to maximize the benefits of social resources.

1. Current Troubles in Social Lives

We are enjoying the excellent benefit and convenience of the rapid development of the Internet and various technologies both online and offline. However there are still many outdated processes and new problems which are followed by the rapid changes.

• Data breaches occur frequently on various network platforms, It has already become a worldwide problem. Most people don’t think it is safe to save and manage important information on social softwares, And “Delete XX” movement also got massive support. Current social softwares only stay at the entertainment level and it is difficult for the social softwares to assist people’s social lives better without getting enough trust.
• Large amount of fake news and vague information on the Internet are seriously bothering us. The bad information spread so fast that we can not protect innocent people such as children from them.
• People identify information based on their own judgment. The limitation of individuals’ judgment gives the fake news much space. Furthermore, the fake news on the internet influences more widely and endless.
• It is an important way for people to get information from real social environment in daily lives. Currently, the information on the internet is disordered, Most of times, people obtain useful information from social environment occasionly. People cannot utilize the resource information in their social environment with high efficiency.
• Crisis of Trust. The Internet makes people’s social scope wider but there is no corresponding credibility support system. People don’t know the credibility of a new friend, so we are bearing the risks of being cheated or losing opportunities.
• It is common to use personal sensitive information (such as name,address, phone number, email…) as keyword to build the the relationships with different institutions. Our sensitive information is spreading widely due to the diversification nowadays.The risk of personal information leakage is high. Correspondingly, the institutions also have to cost on keeping these data safely. Moreover people can not manage the relationships easily.
• Nowadays, Filling out the application forms online or offline is normal to submit personal information. Everyone suffers the process of filling out the forms and waiting in long queues for the clerks to check. It will be worst if some mistakes happen. This incompetent way is wasting so much time again and again.
• In most business models, the customers’ data are stored and managed centralized. that makes individuals exist around various platforms like “fragments”. Personal social information is heavily dependent on the commercial platforms, influenced by the the rules and life cycle of them. Individual autonomy in current information age is rarely noticed.

To solve these above mentioned issues, We strongly believe that the ANYI network system is the best solution.

2. Introduction

Personal information unit is the basic element of ANYI network system. (hereinafter collectively referred to as ‘node’) The nodes are interconnected by peer-to-peer network technology (P2P) to form ANYI social network.

The node is composed of two parts: data and software (processing of data). In order to secure the data, the software part should be subdivided into two layers: intermediate layer and application layer.

The asymmetric cryptography technology is used to ensure the security of data storage and transmission, and the public key is used as the unique ID for the node in ANYI network.

The peer-to-peer network technology is used to realize direct communication among nodes by unified interaction rules, and center server is not needed anymore.

Individuals manage their own personal information autonomously; ANYI community customizes and maintains the interaction rules. The software that obeys the rules can be freely provided by any software vendor. No one can access or use any data without node owner’s permission.

2.1 Data

Personal data are only controlled by the node owner.
Data are independent of the application and users can freely choose applicaions to manage the data.

The data are divided into personal information (personal basic information, resource information, social information, access control, etc.) and ANYI network system setting information. Personal information is stored encrypted, the items is stored in a key-value form and the item-keys are uniformed defined. The owner can store any information on the node, including the information from outside.

ANYI node uses asymmetric cryptography technology to secure data. We also use the public key of the asymmetric cryptography as infividual’s ID at ANYI network. The ID will be used when building new relationships, sending/receiving messages with other nodes, and manage the access control. Moreover, multiple IDs can be derived from the original ID, to satisfy the anonymity requirements fo certain scenarios.

2.2 Intermediate layer

The intermediate layer is responsible for data processing, network interface and application software layer interfaces.

In the aspect of data, the intermediate layer realizes encryption/decryption of data and accesses data by using item-keys; In the aspect of interaction with the network, the common interaction interface of ANYI network should be realized; In the user interface aspect, the intermediate layer encapsulates data and keys to provide basic functional interfaces to the application layer.

2.3 Application Layer

The application layer uses the interfaces provided by the intermediate layer to perform data processing and network interaction, and provides a user-friendly operation interface.

To ensure security, the application layer does neither directly process data and keys, nor interact with the network directly.

2.4 Basic rules of personal nodes

ANYI network system runs on a peer-to-peer network protocol and adheres to the following rules to ensure network communication:

• When a node logins to the network, it broadcasts IP to the network if necessary and refreshes the IP info of the related nodes.
• The IPs are used to send messages to ohter nodes.
• If there is no IP of the target node, or the IP is invalid, the message will be sent by broadcast, The IP info will be updated when a valid response is received.
• The IP info will be auto-maintained if necessary when current node receives request or response.

Information exchange rules between personal nodes:

• Can send message or request proactively and have fault-tolerant processing when communication fails.
• Receives message.
• Synchronizes the updates in the network automatically.
• Responds query requests: Checks the permission and returns the result automatically.

3. Application Scenarios of ANYI Network System

3.1 Social network +

ANYI network system implements social functions by obeying the common interaction rules in the real world. User ID (The public key of the asymmetric cryptography) serves as the core part for the functions.

3.1.1 Establishing Relationships and Sending Messages

The two individuals establish the relationship by exchanging IDs, and manage the authorities and groups by using ID.

Messages for a certain node are encrypted. The sender encrypts the message with the recipient’s ID, a signature generated by the sender’s private key is also attached. The receiver can decrypt the message with his private key and verify the signature to confirm the message is not from a impostor.

3.1.2 Groups

Groups can be created and managed freely.

The group management is also based on IDs. There could be multiple administrators, and rules of the group can be freely customized. There will be no more limit from any platform, such as maximum number limit of members.

The sender uses the hashcode generated by all members’ ID to encrypt group messages, using a multi-signature rule (1-N) with a threshold of 1, so any member who contributed to the hashcode can decrypt the group message.

3.1.3 Management of different types of information

Personal daily life information can usually be divided into the following categories:

• Private information for oneself, such as schedule, memo.
• Instant information shared in a small scopes like family, friends, such as moments.
• Resource information such as business-related, like job opportunities, product discount, etc.

The life circles and targets of the above information are different. ANYI nodes can manage different kinds of information by classification and authority designation for each category.

For resource information, it is necessary to obey appropriate rules so that others can judge if the resource is still avalible. Generally, time, period, location, target people and conditions should be clear. The appropriate rules for different field will not be the same, ANYI community will keep on improving them.

Within the permission scope, the node can obtain real-time information updates of other nodes, and can search with keywords for certain resource information in the personal social network scope. Every node maintains their own node well, post resource to share with family or other scopes. So everyone can get precious resouce information based on trust.

3.1.4 Social network with Reputation

Reputation is an extremely important part of human social activities. Credit management in business has a long history. Personal credit management in the financial industry involves almost every social individual.

However, we don’t have a social product that can help managing and circulating dignified information in the daily lives. Offline people can only use reputation information in their social networks occasionally. People often miss opportunities or suffer losses because they can not get reputation information timely and effectively. This also provides huge space for continued scams and fraudulent business activities.

ANYI network system seeks to achieve the circulation of reputation information:

• Store the reputation info on ANYI node, and share it to social network.
• Relate people’s daily activities with their reputations.

The circulation of reputation can make people in social networks more self-disciplined, enable people to be able to identify a new face by referring to the reputation info from the proper network scope. The circulation of reputation can help to identify and mark the fake news and the creator, can amplify the influence of reputation and can also affect the development of the real society.

3.1.5 Management of Authority

As the amounts of information is increasing so fast that people can not catch up with it. People are losing the control of massive information. Currently we are involved in more and more social relationships. It is necessary for us to start managing information around us.

ANYI node supports flexible authority management which is based on the public keys(ID). We can manage the authority by minimum unit(each information item).

1. Pre-set permissions: The application processes the information according to such permissions. This is suitable for social relationships.

• You can classify various kinds of relationships.
• You can classify different types of information.
• You can set authority for any information (or information category).

1. Temporary authorization: It is for the situations such as the submission of personal information forms to non-friendship organizations.

3.2 Individual-centric new application scenarios

3.2.1 One-click information submission

Submitting personal information by means of paper or electronic forms is a very common routine. This is necessary but cumbersome, and it is easy to become a bottleneck in busy places such as airports. It will be worst if hand mistakes happen.

ANYI network system can improve this interaction. Using ANYI System, an individual can finish the submission by clicking one button.

• The organization prepares the request for ANYI interface. The request contains the specific request items and associated information.
• The individual scan the request with the node app and the app extracts the information from the node and generates the response content for the owner to confirm.
• The individual confirms the content and clicks the confirmation button to approve the submission,then the response content will be transferred to the organization at once.

Advantages:

• Efficient (fast, accurate):
  People can do the submission without filling out their basic information by hand repeatedly. There is nothing to worry about hand mistakes, and we don’t need to wait long in a queue for the clerks to check the papers.
• The interaction records will also retain on the personal node, so that the individual starts to be able to master personal interaction history.
• Organizations also can save costs accordingly.

Standardization:
Users have the right to know why these data are collected and how these data will be used. There should also be regulations to make sure the data are properly collected and used.

3.2.2 Reducing the usage of sensitive information & de-entity membership cards

Once one person has a node It means he has at least one ID that uniquely identifies himself. The ID can be used to establish relationships with organizations in daily life.
Sensitive information such as name, address, phone number, email, etc. are not necessary anymore in such cases. It will become safer because the frequency of sensitive information usage will be significantly reduced. Correspondingly, the organizations side can also save cost on keeping sensitive information.

On the other hand, the ID can take place of the entity membership cards or point cards. It does’n only eliminate the cumbersome card management for individuals, but also saves the costs around card issuance.

3.2.3 Individual-centered use of basic information

At the moment, our basic information is scattered in various organizations such as banks, insurance companies, government departments etc. When the basic information changes, we have to inform the organizations of the change one by one. And because we can not list up all the concerned organizations easily, it is possible that we forget some less important organizations like online shops. So we will be affected correspondingly, and the organizations also suffer the loss caused by the outdated data.

ANYI network system can solve this problem by this way:
The organizations stop storing customers’ data. They request the data from individual nodes if necessary.

• When establishing a relationship, the organization requests the individual’s permission of accessing certain items of data(without collecting the data at the moment).
• When some data changes, node owners just update the node.
• The organization requests the latest data through ANYI network system when necessary. (Personal nodes serve as unique source of personal basic data)

Advantages:

• When personal data changes, the only thing for a person to do is just to update his own node.
• We start to be able to manage the relationships, which means all are stored in our personal nodes. We can also inform concerning organizations of the change easily through ANYI network if necessary. When a certain business service is no longer needed, just disable the permission, so that the corresponding organization can not obtain the data anymore.
• The organizations can reduce the period of holding customers’ information or avoid to keep it, low-risk or no risk on leaking customers’ information. Confidentiality matters the most.
• The organizations can avoid the loss caused by outdated information.

3.2.4 Rationalization of information assets

We are used to more and more information services, such as online music, e-books, online education, insurance and so on. These services are our assets. However, we can not deal with such assets like the tangible assets, such as the exchange of ownerships.

Why can’t we sell/give an e-book or music to others?
In ANYI network system, we can use node ID to declare the ownership of the information assets, and the exchage of the ownerships can be realized through a change of the owner ID.

Let us take the online e-book as an example to explain how to realize it:

When the platform delivers a book to a purchaser A, First the platform uses A’s public key to declare that the e-book belongs to A, and encrypts the e-book with A’s public key. In this way, only A can decrypt the e-book.

When A wants to give/sell the e-book to B, A requests the platform to change the owner to B. After the platform verifies the ownership of A, the platform uses B’s pulbic key to re-declare the owner of the e-book and re-encrypts the e-book with B’s public key.

As a result, the e-book is available for the new owner, meanwhile the former owner of the e-book can not decrypt the e-book anymore.

Similarly, physical assets can also be managed by this mode. Because there is no easy-to-copy feature, the transfer of physical assets is simpler.
Furthermore, the manuals, quality guarantees, etc. of physical products can aslo exist in form of electronic information in ANYI network system. So we can get rid of the management of mass appendant materials of various products.

3.3 The future of individual information management

In addition to the cases above, there should be much more possibilities in all aspects of our daily lives. In current information era. the individuals are fragmented:

• In the field of e-commerce, the shopping histories are kept on the e-shops side. It is difficult for one person to view his all shopping history from a personal perspective.
• In medical aspect, medical institutions have personal medical records, but the individuals don’t . We have no a easy way to collect our health information from the medical institutions.
• In the social network aspect, people have their preference on different social network platforms. To keep necessary relationships, many people have to “seperate” themselves to use multi-social softwares.
• For education, a person may use different schools, websites, apps to learn a certain skill. we can not add up how much time we spent on it. This might be a strong encouragement if we can review the process of studying.

The personal node model of ANYI network system ensures personal priority. Individuals are able to collect all the information regularly, so that we can manage all the transaction information and points status across the organizations in the e-commerce aspect; We can check and use our own health information; We can manage social relationships naturally without being restricted by any third-party platforms; And also, referring clearly to studying our history data, we can adjust how to study in a better way.

On the internet world,the equality with the organizations ensures that we get back our own rights for information. Based on this, I believe everyone will enjoy a better life.

4. Centralization

4.1 Commercial decentralisation

Individual users are not free to migrate data between different social platforms. They cannot freely sell/give out information resources (such as music and e-books) they purchased. Users are enduring the risks of personal information being abused and leaked. Legitimate decision-making changes of commercial companies may affect ordinary users seriously(such as the termination of Email service).
These restrictions and risks on users are the inevitable outcome of the commercial centralization model. Without revolutionary change, the status quo cannot be changed or even prevented from deterioration.

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) issued by the EU declares the rules for business and organizations and rights for citizens, However, GDPR only restricts enterprises by punishment after bad things happened, there is no effective damage recovery measures.

ANYI network system separates personal data from business platforms, individuals will not be so seriously influenced by the business organizations whatever happen on the business organization side.

The controversies about who is the data owner and who has right to control data also can be settled easily.

4.2 Administrative Centralization

As per mentioned in 3.2.1, we need professional judgement if the items collected are reasonable. We need the corresponding legal protection. The legitimate enforcement agency is needed when the information asset is treated the same as the properties. When keys are lost or stolen, we need a mechanism to help recover the control of our own nodes. ANYI network system also requires a real-name authentication mechanism to meet some certain needs.

In conclusion, we need legal lawmakers and law enforcers to protect and manage the world of information assets. This responsibility should only be taken by the governments.

5 Conclusions

Limited by the development of hardware and technology, the server-serving mode(both the client-sever mode and the browser-server mode) of software applications is the best long term solution. Commercial companies provided the resources that not everyone can afford, such as, storage, computing, security and so on that almost everyone can enjoy the applications easily.
However, In such server-serving structures, almost all the users’ data are stored on the servers. There is no independent existence of individuals on the internet. People are fragments around the platforms and anyone could be heavily influenced by the changes of the center platform, even if the changes are legit. Everyone can not collect all the personal data easily. It is impossible to build a real personal priority internet enviroment. As of now it is hard to say that we can continue to improve well in such condition.

Currently, we have got all the necessary conditions of hardware and technology to go without center-platforms. These are the following:

• The popularity of smartphone has enabled people to have independent storage, computing, management and network interaction capabilities.
• P2P network technology makes it possible for individuals to communicate without the third party.
• Asymmetric cryptography technology proves the security of information storage and transmission from theoretical and practical applications.

ANYI network system hopes to establish a new network that is reliable, persistent, efficient and reasonable to people’s lives.

Photo by z.b.p.

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It’s been a rough several months for the world’s dominant social media platforms. The recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was followed by a bruising congressional testimony for Mark Zuckerberg. And Twitter’s Jack Dorsey admitted earlier this year that abuse and harassment are overwhelming the platform.

As a result, users, policymakers and activists are abuzz about potential solutions. And while many talk of regulation, Sophie Varlow and Nick Wood suggest a different approach: introducing a new product from scratch, with radically different principles.

“You can’t change things by pushing against them,” Varlow says. “You need to build a new model.”

Contributors to the Commons Platform mull ideas. Photo via Rikki / @indyrikki

Varlow and Wood are the UK-based community organizers behind the Commons Platform, a nascent social media platform with core values like privacy and decentralization. The Commons Platform is participating in Mozilla’s Global Sprint, an annual, distributed hackathon taking place May 10 and 11. They’ll be working from the Redmond Community Centre in London.

Varlow and Wood began thinking about the Commons Platform long before Facebook and Twitter’s latest episodes. The idea came not from specific incidents, but larger, systemic problems with today’s social media ecosystem. Like “the impacts of not having consent within tech,” Varlow explains. “Or not owning our own data. These relate to structural inequalities within society.”

“We’ve been talking about these things for years,” Varlow adds.

So how is the Commons Platform different than the status quo? “One of the central differences is that everyone would own their own data,” Wood explains. Further, the platform itself would be owned by its members. Varlow likens it to public land: “No part of it can ever be owned by any individual or group in perpetuity.”

Contributors to the Commons Platform mull ideas. Photo via Rikki / @indyrikki

She adds: “Because it is not driven by the attention economy, advertising, and data revenue, people are not encouraged to spend time scrolling. They can curate their content to find the things that are interesting to them and connect to people, issues, and organisations that they care about quickly.”

Privacy features will be baked in from the start. And the Commons Platform is meant for communities, not just individuals. Groups will visit to organize, openly share software, and collaborate on solutions, the duo says. Developers won’t need permission to add or edit software. “We’re putting power back in the hands of communities, so they can create solutions that make their lives better,” Varlow notes.

Currently, Varlow, Wood and collaborators are finalizing the project’s values, aims, culture and ways of working. During the Global Sprint, they’re planning to work with like-minded designers and developers to take the next step forward: “The website, the technical infrastructure, the community standards,” Varlow explains.

But the Commons Platform welcomes more than just technical volunteers — any potential user or community is welcome to share feedback and ideas and co-create the platform. “We try to break down barriers between experts and nonexperts, users and developers,” Varlow says. “After all, we want to build a more equal society.”

Learn more about the Commons Platform. Learn more about the Global Sprint.

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