Als Informationen des öffentlichen Sektors gelten alle Arten von Daten, die von öffentlichen Einrichtungen generiert werden, wie beispielsweise Karten und Informationen zum Wetter, zum Recht, zur Verkehrslage sowie zu Finanzen und zur Wirtschaft. Diese sollen offen gelegt werden, wie es die Unterstützer von "Open Government Data"-Initiativen rund um den Erdball (Hier finden Sie einige Videos zu dem Thema) bereits länger fordern. Diese Daten könnten dann beispielsweise für Smartphone-Apps wiederverwendet werden, so die EU-Kommission in einer Aussendung. Scheinbar könnte der App-Boom dem Konzept Open Government Data Auftrieb verleihen.Mit der kostenlosen oder gebührenpflichtigen Wiederverwendung öffentlicher Daten wird einer Studie von 2006 zufolge ein Umsatz von schätzungsweise mindestens 27 Mrd. Euro pro Jahr in der EU erzielt. Beiträge, die zu dieser Konsultation bei der EU-Kommission eingehen, fließen in die Überprüfung der PSI-Richtlinie mit ein und sind Teil der Digitalen Agenda für Europa, die einen Beitrag zu den Zielen der EU – höhere Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, mehr Innovation und Arbeitsplätze – leisten soll. Die Konsultation läuft bis zum 30. November 2010.
thinkahol * on 29 Dec 10On July 29th, returning from a trip to Europe, Jacob Appelbaum, a lanky, unassuming 27-year-old wearing a black T-shirt with the slogan "Be the trouble you want to see in the world," was detained at customs by a posse of federal agents. In an interrogation room at Newark Liberty airport, he was grilled about his role in Wikileaks, the whistle-blower group that has exposed the government's most closely guarded intelligence reports about the war in Afghanistan. The agents photocopied his receipts, seized three of his cellphones - he owns more than a dozen - and confiscated his computer. They informed him that he was under government surveillance. They questioned him about the trove of 91,000 classified military documents that Wikileaks had released the week before, a leak that Vietnam-era activist Daniel Ellsberg called "the largest unauthorized disclosure since the Pentagon Papers." They demanded to know where Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was hiding. They pressed him on his opinions about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Appelbaum refused to answer. Finally, after three hours, he was released. Sex, Drugs, and the Biggest Cybercrime of All Time Appelbaum is the only known American member of Wikileaks and the leading evangelist for the software program that helped make the leak possible. In a sense, he's a bizarro version of Mark Zuckerberg: If Facebook's ambition is to "make the world more open and connected," Appelbaum has dedicated his life to fighting for anonymity and privacy. An anarchist street kid raised by a heroin- addict father, he dropped out of high school, taught himself the intricacies of code and developed a healthy paranoia along the way. "I don't want to live in a world where everyone is watched all the time," he says. "I want to be left alone as much as possible. I don't want a data trail to tell a story that isn't true." We have transferred our most intimate and personal information - our bank accounts, e-mails, photographs, ph
