[NLnet Press] NLnet foundation tries to bridge digital privacy divide

[NLnet foundation press list]

NLnet foundation tries to bridge digital privacy divide
'Boosting confidentiality and standardisation of online communication'

                                 18/1/2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands


Dutch charitative venture capitalist NLnet [1] has picked online
confidentiality as one of its two main themes for 2008. The foundation
wants to bridge the digital divide of privacy between corporations and
governments moving to adopt tools tools allowing fully encrypted
communication while private individuals are left without protection.
Once safer technologies are available consumers will be able to
successfully use them and demand them from service providers.

"Controlling who can reach you and who has access to your communication
has been a weak point of mainstream internet communication," states
NLnet's strategy manager Michiel Leenaars, pointing to both the
dominance of players like Skype, MSN and AOL on the one hand as well as
the enormous growth of 'lawful intercept' activities around the world.
"It's like not owning your own doorbel, and at the same time being
broadcasted live over the radio with every single conversation you have.
That is not going to work - not in private life, but surely also not in
business".

NLnet's activities are backed up by a significant trust fund that was
created at the sale of the first ISP in the Netherlands a decade ago.
Since then, the foundation has spent a vast amount of money on open
standards, open source and community building. The foundation believes
that with the convergence of all modern communication technologies
towards the internet there is a window of opportunity to break into the
market and recapture some of the privacy that was lost in recent years.

"Confidentiality is not a crime, it is a basic element of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights", says Leenaars. "Especially in repressive
political systems, but also in democracies under threat of irresponsible
anti-terrorism measurements - like the European data retention directive
[2] - we need technological guarantees to ensure that the private domain
is again separated from the public domain and from commercial misuse."

For 2008, the focus in this area will be on safe, trustworthy and robust
realtime presence and session technology as an enabler for privacy. The
foundation will focus on technology development as well as creating
awareness, and will be actively pursuing the further enhancement of
online privacy and standardisation in internet based communication and
presence tools such as voice, chat and videoconferencing. The foundation
has already started funding work on open source implementation of
internet standards such as SIP/SIMPLE and MSRP through its open calls,
but will increase its activities after this recent board decision.

[1]http://nlnet.nl
[2]http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006L0024:EN:HTML
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*** Note to editors

This press release is online here:

http://nlnet.nl/news/2008/20080116-theme-privacy.html


Media contacts:

Michiel Leenaars
Strategy Manager NLnet
+31 6 27 050 947
m.leenaars at nlnet.nl

About NLnet Foundation

NLnet Foundation is a private charity fund supporting open standards and
open source worldwide, and has over the years actively contributed to
(internet) standards, open source projects and subsidiary or enabling
activities such as the development of GPLv3.  NLnet foundation is an
independent organisation whose means came initially from interest on a
very substantial own capital formed in 1997 by the sale of the first
Dutch Internet Service Provider. Its private capital ensures an absolute
independent position. The articles of association for the NLnet
foundation state: "to promote the exchange of electronic information and
all that is related or beneficial to that purpose". NLnet believes in
open standards and open source. At the moment, dozens of projects and
organizations are supported financially. Amongst them: research
laboratory NLnet Labs, the Free Software Foundation, ThinkQuest,
Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems, and the Internet Society.