In The News

$3 Million U.S. Computer Theft, Hatched It Seems in Pakistan

David Rhode January 20, 2003
Through a complicated system of sham online auctions and falsely registered mailboxes, a 25-year old Pakistani man reportedly stole more than $3 million in computer equipment from U.S. companies. He was able to do all this in his own home through the internet, taking full advantage of the integrated world economy. – YaleGlobal

Patent Your Heritage

Tina Rosenberg December 15, 2002
Online libraries in the making will soon document and patent the traditional and biological heritage that is being exploited by pharmaceutical companies in the industrialized world. India is leading the crusade against the misappropriation of their medicinal patrimony by shielding it instead of trying to take it back from foreigners who patented it. This online library will provide a translation...

A Jurisdictional Tangle

December 10, 2002
A high-court ruling in Australia may make it possible to sue a publication for libel from halfway around the world. An Australian businessman sued the Dow Jones Company using the libel laws in his home state of Victoria, claiming that because he could access the Wall Street Journal website from Victoria, any libelous material on that website could be prosecuted under Victoria’s jurisdiction....

China Has World's Tightest Internet Censorship, Study Finds

Joseph Kahn December 4, 2002
"Defying predictions that the Internet was inherently too diverse and malleable for state control, China has denied a vast majority of its 46 million Internet users access to information that it feels could weaken its authoritarian power." That's the conclusion of a new survey of internet use in China done by a team of researchers at Harvard University. The six-month study found...

Business Key to Internet Use in Poor Nations

Frances Williams November 18, 2002
Regional and global supply chains need to be linked in order for business-to-business internet commerce to expand. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Unctad, reported that poor countries lack the needed infrastructure and skilled labor to establish and expand the business-to-business sector worldwide. Although Africa and Asia enjoyed internet use growth rates of almost 46%...

The Internet: China's Window to the World

Guo Liang November 18, 2002
Why would the Communist Party, which attempts to censor all media in China, allow and even encourage Chinese citizens to surf the internet? So that people can explore the world, of course! Helping Chinese people learn about the world is the big goal, according to President Jiang Zemin. But the cat-and-mouse game played by censoring authorities and news-hungry Chinese reveals the tensions...

Gates Urges IT, Education, Telecom Funds

November 13, 2002
On his four-day tour of India, Bill Gates encouraged investment in India’s information technology sector. Though Americans and Europeans tend to emphasize the recent slowdown in the information technology industry, Gates expressed faith in India’s potential for growth in that area. He dismissed concerns that the Linux operating system would pose a threat to his own company, Microsoft. Gates...