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I forgot to mention yesterday that I had an article on IDNs in The Guardian: “How engineers tamed the internet’s Tower of Babel“, which was basically an attempt to explain one of the other sides of the Internationalised Domain Names by referring to Patrik Fältström’s comment at the IGF that the technical side of things [...]

I mentioned about a month ago how I was considering setting up a second blog so I could more easily separate my personal and professional life. And yesterday, twice, I was reminded that there is a bit of an unusual overlap when I spoke to two people: one, the spokesman for a company I regularly [...]

The secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum, part of the United Nations, has updated its website to include all the session transcripts, plus Markus Kummer’s “informal summing-up” of them.
More interestingly though it has also stuck up an online form asking for feedback on the meeting, asking the broad questions: What worked well? and What worked [...]

I’ve a piece in The Guardian today which is a broad summary of the IGF last week. It basically says that what could have been a disaster ended up being a success and finishes with Nitin Desai’s arranged marriage analogy – which I think was brilliant.

You’ve seen the show, read the reviews, bought the T-shirt, but now it’s time to reveal the *real* Internet Governance Forum, the kind of IGF that only photographs with pleasingly childish captions can provide…

I was at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Athens last week taking pictures, among other things. I have finally been through all the snaps and have posted a few below amid a quick rundown of events.

The remainder can be found at my IGF photo gallery/archive at kierenmccarthy.co.uk/photos/igf/. If anyone has any questions or queries, [...]

The Greeks drove me to it. Last night, under the cover of conference quietness, I sneaked into the Apollon hotel store room and stole a waiter uniform. I’m not proud of it, but I am proudly wearing it today one for simple reason – I want my own coffee and water, and I don’t want [...]

You reach a certain level of frustration and then, suddenly, you relax. The struggle becomes impossible and then you realise that, ultimately, it’s not that important. You’re still breathing air, you still have legs, this will come to an end.
What on earth am I talking about? The mild insanity of hosting a global, revolutionary Internet [...]

I don’t know how it happened but Vint Cerf’s on his feet, Paul Twomey is being pulled into the conversation and despite a panel of 16 people, all pretty much determined not talk about ICANN, we are talking about, yes, ICANN.
I’ve not been able to get a feel for how this first session of the [...]

The Internet Governance Forum will start on Monday morning but already the debate has started – and it is surrounding freedom of speech online.
There are several reports that the Greek authorities arrested a man for linking – not writing, but linking – to blog posts that had satirised a businessman (possibly a TV evangelist). The [...]