- isoc - Skunkworks Site

Google takes hit in fight with feds over foreign data
by WANGARI KABIRU 15 Sep '17

15 Sep '17

Q: In Kenya, does such fall as a concern to legislators, citizen...any of the houses or it is a non-issue? Is there talent and capacity? http://thehill.com/policy/technology/350735-google-takes-hit-in-fight-with-… "Google lost a battle with the federal government over a previously undisclosed request to turn over data stored on servers outside of the U.S., according to court filings.In the filings, which were first reported on by Politico, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a move by Google to challenge a warrant demanding data from the company being stored overseas.On Sept. 5, Howell decided to hold the search giant in contempt for not turning over the documents, and fined Google $10,000 a day until it complies." Blessed day.Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

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New Apple iPhone X "the future of the smartphone."
by WANGARI KABIRU 15 Sep '17

15 Sep '17

"...I understood what Tim Cook meant when he called it "the future of the smartphone." Apple's not the only company betting on this version of the future, where phones have amazing cameras and no bezel, but it's doing a lot of things right....It's an absolutely beautiful device, especially in black.........And the X appears perfectly suited for the augmented reality future Apple imagines: I tested an app similar to Snapchat's lenses, and the front-facing camera perfectly mapped a series of masks onto even the tiniest contours of my face. The animoji flexed with even the most minute twinge of my eyebrows. I played a game and it worked seamlessly through the rear camera. What developers make of augmented reality is one question, but Apple's hardware appears ready to handle the future." https://www.wired.com/story/hands-on-with-the-iphone-x?mbid=nl_091417_gadge… Blessed Furahi day! Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

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ISACA The State of Cybersecurity 2016 Report - 6 out of 10 Do Not Believe
by WANGARI KABIRU 06 Sep '17

06 Sep '17

http://www.isaca.org/cyber/Documents/State-of-Cybersecurity-infographic.pdf "...6 out of 10 do not believe that their staff can handle anything beyond simple cybersecurity incidents...'' For organisation wide vulnerability reduction, and especially with SMEs for whom minor shocks may be catastrophic, the skills and know-how must be organisation wide, not just resident with the tech teams and increasingly with the Boards who determine the investment direction. Be blessed. Regards/Wangari--- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

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Berkley: Online Media 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
by WANGARI KABIRU 26 Aug '17

26 Aug '17

https://cyber.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.harvard.edu/files/2017-08_electionES_… You will find the research resourceful to the online media and election discourse in the lists. Would be a good analysis by having such done by local (public interest) national agencies. Have a blessed day. Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | | | Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | | | | In this study, we analyze both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election. We document that the majority of mainstream media coverage was negative for both candidates, but largely followed Donald Trump’s agenda: when reporting on Hillary Clinton, coverage primarily focused on the various scandals related to the Clinton Foundation and emails. When focused on Trump, major substantive issues, primarily immigration, were prominent. Indeed, immigration emerged as a central issue in the campaign and served as a defining issue for the Trump campaign. We find that the structure and composition of media on the right and left are quite different. The leading media on the right and left are rooted in different traditions and journalistic practices. On the conservative side, more attention was paid to pro-Trump, highly partisan media outlets. On the liberal side, by contrast, the center of gravity was made up largely of long-standing media organizations steeped in the traditions and practices of objective journalism. Our data supports lines of research on polarization in American politics that focus on the asymmetric patterns between the left and the right, rather than studies that see polarization as a general historical phenomenon, driven by technology or other mechanisms that apply across the partisan divide. The analysis includes the evaluation and mapping of the media landscape from several perspectives and is based on large-scale data collection of media stories published on the web and shared on Twitter. |

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Coding Boot Camps Won’t Save Us All
by WANGARI KABIRU 12 Aug '17

12 Aug '17

We are certainly here...With "coding schools" coming up locally and some opting for them or out of higher education. For educationists and the labour market; Is accreditation, recognition really relevant? Are they a band-aid, add on professional skills versus the actual education pathway. Blessings! Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/coding_boot_c… Coding Boot Camps Won’t Save Us All 456156 A couple of recent closures prove that there are no shortcuts in education. Coding boot camps were supposed to be the next big thing in higher education, promising a compressed, career-focused alternative to traditional graduate school. In the past five years, startups offering these programs have raised millions in investment and won praise from policymakers as an innovative way to prepare (or retrain) workers for the jobs of the digital future.The enchantment around the model appears to be wearing off, though. In July, Dev Bootcamp, one of the largest and earliest coding boot camp providers,announced it would close because leaders could not find a sustainable business model. Just a few days later, another pioneer in the space, the Iron Yard, said it would also shut down this year.“I haven’t talked to a ton of coal miners who have done a boot camp and become developers.”Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course ReportDespite their high-tech subject matter and slick Silicon Valley messaging, most boot camps take a decidedly old-fashioned approach to instruction—focusing on in-person classrooms and high student-to-faculty ratios. But because they lack accreditation, their students aren’t eligible for federal financial aid. “We’ve determined that we simply cannot reach a sustainable business model without compromising our mission of delivering a high-quality coding education that remains accessible to a diverse population of students,” leaders of Dev Bootcamp said in their farewell statement. The statement from Iron Yard cited “challenges of a nascent market” and “the demands facing all institutions in the higher education marketplace.” Get Future Tense in your inbox. That doesn’t mean the rest of the boot camps are doomed. In fact, there are at least 95 other coding boot camp companies in the U.S., and some say they are still growing. But it should bring a dose of realism to what had been a narrative of unending growth and the idea that somehow boot camps were a silver bullet for what ails higher education.“The problem with education is that we keep coming back to this one-size-fits-all approach,” says Adam Enbar, CEO of Flatiron School, who insists that he’s seeing “more demand than ever” for his company’s programs. Rhetoric around coding schools has suggested that they present an easy way to teach anyone to code, regardless of background. Flatiron, he says, has crafted its main program to be highly selective, and it runs a longer program with a different curriculum for those with less familiarity with coding. “There’s no model that fits everyone,” he says. And by the same logic, he says, no one can make a blanket statement that boot camp programs as a group can’t work.“What we really see in these boot camps is a lot of career changers,” says Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course Report, which researches and runs reviews of coding boot camps. While there’s plenty of talk these days of retraining blue-collar workers for “new collar” jobs in tech, that hasn’t been the norm at coding boot camps. “I haven’t talked to a ton of coal miners who have done a boot camp and become developers.” More typical, she says, is someone who already holds a college degree and wants to move from the marketing department of a high-tech firm to the development team.Jessica Dembe is a good example. She graduated from the Iron Yard’s D.C. campus in January, seeing it as a “high-risk, high-reward gamble” that the training would let her jump a few rungs in her career ladder. “I wasn’t making a lot of money at my old job” as a research assistant at a consulting firm, she says. “I thought, If I could make this work, I could make a good deal more in a new position.” So she saved up roughly six months’ worth of living expenses and quit her job, thanks in part to support from a parent, and enrolled in the three-month program, which cost her about $12,000 after a diversity scholarship and a discount.She says she did her homework before plunking down that kind of cash. “At first I was really skeptical about it,” she says of the boot camp idea. For a few months she tried teaching herself with free online resources, and she even attended a hackathon for people trying to learn coding, but felt she wasn’t getting what she needed. A mentor at work had completed the Iron Yard program and recommended it, and she sought out other graduates to see if it had helped them land the kind of job she wanted. “I don’t make rash decisions,” she jokes.Dembe was “shocked” to learn the school was now closing, but she’s happy she went—after all, she found a job six weeks after graduation. If the boot camp business was so precarious, though, she wonders why the schools often occupy pricey real estate: The campus she attended was just a few blocks from the White House, for instance.When making their pitch to students, coding boot camps don’t usually talk about amenities. They often stress one number: job placement rates. Several boot camp companies have joined efforts to independently verify the percentage of students who get jobs in the field soon after graduating, such as the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, formed by a group of boot camps, and a broader quality-control framework proposed by Entangled Solutions, a consulting firm.Neither Dev Bootcamp nor the Iron Yard joined such efforts, as their competitor Flatiron School is quick to point out. “They just weren’t releasing transparent data,” says Enbar. The Flatiron CEO isn’t part of the CIRR or Entangled framework, either, but says the company releases independently verified employment rates. “The line is being drawn around quality,” he says.Another giant in the space, General Assembly, believes success will come down to the strength of providers’ relationships with employers to create a reliable pipeline to employment. “Our vision was never, ‘Let’s build a boot camp,’ ” says Jake Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of General Assembly. “The idea was: Can we build a new way to think about people’s careers and how to build people’s careers?”Some evidence suggests that many employers aren’t yet convinced of the educational merits of coding boot camps. A report in Bloomberg in December even suggests a boot camp diploma could be seen as disqualifying.Back when Dev Bootcamp was flying high, one of its co-founders, Dave Hoover, gave an interview to a networking site for entrepreneurs that inadvertently betrayed a dirty little secret of the coding boot camp model. He said the most valuable thing a mentor gave him at a startup he worked for: You don’t need to know everything. What you need to do is be the guy who knows how to find the answer. That was eye-opening because it made me realize, especially as a software developer, you don’t have to know everything, but thanks to Google and search technology and all the online resources we have, the answers are just a few seconds away. Some academic critics of boot camps argue that the companies represent a shift to requiring workers to pay more of the bill for their own training, and one that falls disproportionately on low-income or underrepresented groups. Tressie McMillan Cottom, an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, recently made that argument on her blog: “Boot camps are a tax paid by suitably credentialed workers who do not have enough capital (economic, social, or cultural) to enter a high status field of work in which some job is undergoing an actual or projected short-term demand bubble,” she wrote.Boot camp leaders often take pains to distance themselves from an earlier generation of for-profit education providers like Corinthian Colleges, which shuttered after a federal investigation found that the company misrepresented to students the percentage of graduates who landed jobs. But legacy for-profit players had pushed into the nascent boot camp space: In fact, Dev Bootcamp was acquired by Kaplan in 2015, and the Iron Yard had been purchased that same year by Apollo Education Group—which also owns University of Phoenix. (Disclosure: Slate is a subsidiary of Graham Holdings Co., which also owns Kaplan and is an investor in EdSurge.)Top CommentCouldn't community colleges offer the same type of immersive short term course, but far cheaper and with accreditation? I would think if this were possible they'd be all over it. What am I missing? More... The lasting legacy of education boot camps may end up being found on traditional campuses. Several colleges are trying the boot camp approach, even in other fields like health care and political science. In fact, many upstart coding schools are now partnering with those old-fashioned campuses they were intent on replacing.Future Tense is a collaboration amongArizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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A Civics Lesson for Facebook - social network’s new democratic-minded tools
by WANGARI KABIRU 12 Aug '17

12 Aug '17

Blessed Saturday! Let's get into social-democracy now in the political space! Read on... Blessings. Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/facebook_now_… A Civics Lesson for Facebook Why there’s reason to be wary of the social network’s new democratic-minded tools. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out in a sizable manifesto earlier this year, Facebook has grand ambitions to create a platform that goes beyond just connecting family and friends. More than social media, it wants to create the social infrastructure that powers communities from niche interest groups to nations. But can tools to improve civic engagement from a clickbait-driven company really be good for democracy?As part of its new Town Hall project, Facebook recently unveiled three new features aimed at linking government representatives with the citizens they’re elected to serve. The first, constituent badges, enables users to voluntarily identify themselves (via address verification) as residents of a particular district. Politicians will then be able to see these badges, allowing them to determine whether, say, a commenter on their page resides in the area they represent. The second, district targeting, will allow elected officials to create posts and polls soliciting feedback that will only be visible to their constituents. Finally, there’s constituent insights, which will permit politicians to view and comment on news stories that are popular in their political districts.Whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image.This all sounds nice on the surface. After all, it seems like Facebook finally is beginning to acknowledge its political influence, a role it initially rejected in the aftermath of the 2016 election. And it’s seemingly channeling that power for public benefit by making it easier for constituents to engage with elusive politicians.Yet, there’s reason to stop short of lauding the social media network’s attempts to better our representative government. Not only is it unclear whether these tools will actually foster meaningful engagement, it’s also questionable whether private companies like Facebook—even if they’re well-meaning—should be trusted to keep democracies’ best interests at heart. Get Future Tense in your inbox. For starters, whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image. The Town Hall tools all revolve around attention: They encourage both politicians and users to find ways to better grab one another’s eyeballs (to use the social media term of art). But the kind of attention Facebook demands from us—incessantly chasing what’s trending, viral, getting clicks—rarely works in favor of the long-term public interest. Think of Donald Trump, obsessively monitoring his ratings and flitting to whatever message gets a rise from his base. Such messaging may get attention, but it’s not what’s best for the American people. Yet this kind of frenetic attention baiting is essential to Facebook’s business model. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which these new tools end up pushing politicians to primarily focus on the whims or dank memes of the day, instead of heeding to the more substantial issues.I’m also concerned about the assumptions about human behavior and demographics that Facebook appears to be making with these features. For one, the Town Hall tools assume that what people read and share on the social media platform makes for a reasonably good representation of what they want their politicians to be concerned about. But there’s little reason to believe this is true. Users often post articles that they dislike, disagree with, find hilariously stupid—I certainly do. But it’s unlikely that Facebook will be successfully categorizing these posts as such before they share them with politicians. Does what you read when you’re slacking off at work actually represent the big issues you’re concerned about, or is it just what happens to catch your eye at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday? Is a news story important just because it happens to be trending?What’s more, we don’t actually control what we see in our Facebook feed; Facebook does. Unlike a newspaper or magazine that shows readers stories the editorial board deems significant, Facebook’s algorithm is designed to show stories it thinks an individual user wants to view. The website simply isn’t that motivated to get you to eat your vegetables (if vegetables are “dry foreign affairs stories with large words”). Its interests lie in keeping you scrolling endlessly through your feed. Research has shown that this filtering distorts the content that people see, possibly creating damaging filter bubbles and further polarizing politics. It also gives Facebook outsize control over what media it chooses to promote—a state of affairs that benefits the company but may not always benefit you.This distortion isn’t just coming from the company, either. As Facebook itself admitted, governments and other actors have exploited the platform to spread misinformation. The company’s efforts to eradicate this issue are still at an early stage, and from the limited information provided, it’s not hard to imagine these propaganda bots and digital information warriors gaming the address-verification system and pretending to be constituents.The second big assumption that the Town Hall tools idea makes is that Facebook users are reasonably representative of the actual opinions of the population. Except this isn’t a sure thing: There’s ample evidence that privileged groups are more “visible” in big data sets (for example, people with regular internet access are more likely to be engaged in social media than those without). While 68 percent of U.S. adults use Facebook—making it the most widely used social media platform in the country—these users are more likely to be young, low-income, and female.Bias may also impact who actually uses and engages with Facebook’s Town Hall tools. Just 9 percent of social media users say that they regularly discuss or comment on politics, and only 25 percent of social media users follow political figures. Users concerned with privacy may not feel comfortable handing over sensitive information like their home address to the company (with good reason), even if it means they can’t be verified as a constituent. Others may feel pressured to disclose their private information as a prerequisite for interacting with their representatives. While Facebook likely could correct for these biases, it might not want to; after all, the company directly benefits from more users and more user data.Finally, Facebook makes a third problematic assumption: that elected officials and their teams are capable of sifting out important, policy-actionable items from a constant, minimally curated stream of what their constituents are reading and posting. It’s a worldview with an exceptionally optimistic perspective on the filtering abilities of most people—let alone politicians. It’s not just the barrage of data that’s the issue, but the fact that it’s also essentially meaningless if it can’t be properly analyzed. Considering there are entire industries of highly trained professionals who spend their careers trying to do this—and still regularly get things wrong—what makes Facebook think these tools will be anything but a distraction for elected officials?Beyond thinking about how these tools might influence the responsiveness of politicians to their constituents, it’s also worth considering the motivations of the politicians themselves. During the 2016 election, for example, the Trump campaign worked to dissuade potential Clinton supporters from turning out through something called “dark posts”—in this case, targeted negative ads that were invisible to anyone but the recipient, obscuring them from public scrutiny. It remains unclear how much of a difference, if any, these posts made on the outcome. But the tactic is unlikely to go away—and may be made more powerful by leveraging the social media platform’s Town Hall tools by enabling politicians to better tailor their messaging to constituents’ particular pain points. Elected officials might also be able to gain an advantage over potential electoral challengers, as it doesn’t appear that Facebook offers similar tools to candidates yet. Has the company gamed out these unpleasant but realistic possibilities?We don’t know because Facebook isn’t transparent about its processes or about its overarching goals with these recent forays into democracy building. And it’s important to remember that it doesn’t have to be. It’s a publicly held company whose primary responsibility is to its shareholders. It’s not a representative government. Nor is it a public utility. Though it may be using lofty press releases and Zuckerberg’s not-so-subtle appearances at Iowa truck stops to promote a new, civic-minded image, it has no obligation to be inclusive or representative, or to do what’s best for citizens.This does not mean Facebook is evil or ill-intentioned; it simply means that Facebook can only be what it is. As Donald Trump is proving, you can’t run government like a real estate business. We shouldn’t run government like a social media company, either.This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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Research Report: Free Basics in Real Life - “poor internet for poor people” or "offering some web experience"
by WANGARI KABIRU 10 Aug '17

10 Aug '17

https://advox.globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/FreeBasicsinRealL… https://advox.globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/KENYA.pdf "Facebook’s Free Basics program aims to help bridge the digital divide through a mobile-basedplatform that allows users to connect to a handful of online services free of charge. In a visionstatement for the program, Facebook surmises that “[by] introducing people to the benefits of theinternet” they will help justify the cost of mobile data and thereby “bring more people online andhelp improve their lives.”The program has been the subject of controversy since its inception, reviving the debate overopen access and the digital divide. Digital rights experts have argued that the program violatesnetwork neutrality, brings an imbalance to local content and mobile subscription markets, andcreates a “poor internet for poor people” that does not allow users to truly explore and discover theglobal internet.1 Others have praised it for offering users some degree of experience with the web,and for incentivizing operators to make mobile data more affordable for more customers...." --Read on! Blessed day Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

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Fwd: [kictanet] Request for information on technology deployment during elections
by Ali Hussein 08 Aug '17

08 Aug '17

FYI *Ali Hussein* *Principal* *Hussein & Associates* Tel: +254 713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> 13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing, Chiromo Road, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya. Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Grace Githaiga via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 4:19 PM Subject: [kictanet] Request for information on technology deployment during elections To: ali(a)hussein.me.ke Cc: Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga(a)kictanet.or.ke> Listers We hope that you have and continue to perform your civic duty. In today's elections, technology systems deployment is at three levels: a) Voters were registered using the Biometric Voter Registration system (BVR). b) At the polling centres, voters will be identified at first instance using Electronic Voter Identification system (EVID). c) After votes are counted, results will be transmitted using the Results Transmission System (RTS). *Note: The EVID and the RTS is the SAME system. The tablet for identifying voters is the SAME tablet for scanning and transmitting results and which is referred to as the *Integrated Elections Management Systems (IEMS). Apart from the above systems, the public will also access election related information through communication systems, especially the Internet. KICTANet has been observing certain features on IEBC’s use of technology, and other related aspects to access to information. KICTANet is today observing the use of the two systems (EVID and RTS). The Network will additionally continue to observe access to election information during the period. *We request your participation in this survey.* We provide a link to a document which we are using as a guide for observers during the election. The guide covers five activities namely: opening of the polling station and set up; voter identification and assisted voters; vote counting procedures; tallying procedures; and closing procedures. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/ d/198xRPeUMoNsYPLn2rhCtZhTkxd3AxFJVgOFKwKxSjeA/edit?ts=5989b0ae Your participation is completely voluntary and all of your responses will be kept anonymous in the report that KICTANet will produce as a result of this process. As always, we highly appreciate your time and contribution. Asanteni sana. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Co-Convenor Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) Twitter:@ggithaiga Tel: 254722701495 Skype: gracegithaiga Alternate email: ggithaiga(a)hotmail.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga www.kictanet.or.ke "Change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and come together to demand it. I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change – but in yours"---Barrack Obama. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/m ailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhussein.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.

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INVESTOR BULLETIN: INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS
by WANGARI KABIRU 31 Jul '17

31 Jul '17

A great piece below for those interested in the coins space. Would Kenya have ICOs? Blessed week! Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". : https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/… INVESTOR BULLETIN: INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS 07/25/2017 Developers, businesses, and individuals increasingly are using initial coin offerings, also called ICOs or token sales, to raise capital. These activities may provide fair and lawful investment opportunities. However, new technologies and financial products, such as those associated with ICOs, can be used improperly to entice investors with the promise of high returns in a new investment space. The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to make investors aware of potential risks of participating in ICOs. Background – Initial Coin Offerings Virtual coins or tokens are created and disseminated using distributed ledger or blockchain technology. Recently promoters have been selling virtual coins or tokens in ICOs. Purchasers may use fiat currency (e.g., U.S. dollars) or virtual currencies to buy these virtual coins or tokens. Promoters may tell purchasers that the capital raised from the sales will be used to fund development of a digital platform, software, or other projects and that the virtual tokens or coins may be used to access the platform, use the software, or otherwise participate in the project. Some promoters and initial sellers may lead buyers of the virtual coins or tokens to expect a return on their investment or to participate in a share of the returns provided by the project. After they are issued, the virtual coins or tokens may be resold to others in a secondary market on virtual currency exchanges or other platforms. Depending on the facts and circumstances of each individual ICO, the virtual coins or tokens that are offered or sold may be securities. If they are securities, the offer and sale of these virtual coins or tokens in an ICO are subject to the federal securities laws. On July 25, 2017, the SEC issued a Report of Investigation under Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 describing an SEC investigation of The DAO, a virtual organization, and its use of distributed ledger or blockchain technology to facilitate the offer and sale of DAO Tokens to raise capital. The Commission applied existing U.S. federal securities laws to this new paradigm, determining that DAO Tokens were securities. The Commission stressed that those who offer and sell securities in the U.S. are required to comply with federal securities laws, regardless of whether those securities are purchased with virtual currencies or distributed with blockchain technology. To facilitate understanding of this new and complex area, here are some basic concepts that you should understand before investing in virtual coins or tokens: What is a blockchain? A blockchain is an electronic distributed ledger or list of entries – much like a stock ledger – that is maintained by various participants in a network of computers. Blockchains use cryptography to process and verify transactions on the ledger, providing comfort to users and potential users of the blockchain that entries are secure. Some examples of blockchain are the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, which are used to create and track transactions in bitcoin and ether, respectively. What is a virtual currency or virtual token or coin? A virtual currency is a digital representation of value that can be digitally traded and functions as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value. Virtual tokens or coins may represent other rights as well. Accordingly, in certain cases, the tokens or coins will be securities and may not be lawfully sold without registration with the SEC or pursuant to an exemption from registration. What is a virtual currency exchange? A virtual currency exchange is a person or entity that exchanges virtual currency for fiat currency, funds, or other forms of virtual currency. Virtual currency exchanges typically charge fees for these services. Secondary market trading of virtual tokens or coins may also occur on an exchange. These exchanges may not be registered securities exchanges or alternative trading systems regulated under the federal securities laws. Accordingly, in purchasing and selling virtual coins and tokens, you may not have the same protections that would apply in the case of stocks listed on an exchange. Who issues virtual tokens or coins? Virtual tokens or coins may be issued by a virtual organization or other capital raising entity. A virtual organization is an organization embodied in computer code and executed on a distributed ledger or blockchain. The code, often called a “smart contract,” serves to automate certain functions of the organization, which may include the issuance of certain virtual coins or tokens. The DAO, which was a decentralized autonomous organization, is an example of a virtual organization. Some Key Points to Consider When Determining Whether to Participate in an ICO If you are thinking about participating in an ICO, here are some things you should consider. Depending on the facts and circumstances, the offering may involve the offer and sale of securities. If that is the case, the offer and sale of virtual coins or tokens must itself be registered with the SEC, or be performed pursuant to an exemption from registration. Before investing in an ICO, ask whether the virtual tokens or coins are securities and whether the persons selling them registered the offering with the SEC. A few things to keep in mind about registration:If an offering is registered, you can find information (such as a registration statement or “Form S-1”) on SEC.gov throughEDGAR.If a promoter states that an offering is exempt from registration, and you are not an accredited investor, you should be very careful – most exemptions have net worth or income requirements.Although ICOs are sometimes described ascrowdfunding contracts, it is possible that they are not being offered and sold in compliance with the requirements of Regulation Crowdfunding or with the federal securities laws generally. Ask what your money will be used for and what rights the virtual coin or token provides to you. The promoter should have a clear business plan that you can read and that you understand. The rights the token or coin entitles you to should be clearly laid out, often in a white paper or development roadmap. You should specifically ask about how and when you can get your money back in the event you wish to do so. For example, do you have a right to give the token or coin back to the company or to receive a refund? Or can you resell the coin or token? Are there any limitations on your ability to resell the coin or token?If the virtual token or coin is a security, federal and state securities laws require investment professionals and their firms who offer, transact in, or advise on investments to be licensed or registered. You can visit Investor.gov to check the registration status and background of these investment professionals.Ask whether the blockchain is open and public, whether the code has been published, and whether there has been an independent cybersecurity audit.Fraudsters often use innovations and new technologies to perpetrate fraudulent investment schemes. Fraudsters may entice investors by touting an ICO investment “opportunity” as a way to get into this cutting-edge space, promising or guaranteeing high investment returns. Investors should always be suspicious of jargon-laden pitches, hard sells, and promises of outsized returns. Also, it is relatively easy for anyone to use blockchain technology to create an ICO that looks impressive, even though it might actually be a scam.Virtual currency exchanges and other entities holding virtual currencies, virtual tokens or coins may be susceptible to fraud, technical glitches, hacks, or malware. Virtual tokens or virtual currency may be stolen by hackers. Investing in an ICO may limit your recovery in the event of fraud or theft. While you may have rights under the federal securities laws, your ability to recover may be significantly limited. If fraud or theft results in you or the organization that issued the virtual tokens or coins losing virtual tokens, virtual currency, or fiat currency, you may have limited recovery options. Third-party wallet services, payment processors, and virtual currency exchanges that play important roles in the use of virtual currencies may be located overseas or be operating unlawfully. Law enforcement officials may face particular challenges when investigating ICOs and, as a result, investor remedies may be limited. These challenges include: Tracing money. Traditional financial institutions (such as banks) often are not involved with ICOs or virtual currency transactions, making it more difficult to follow the flow of money.International scope. ICOs and virtual currency transactions and users span the globe. Although the SEC regularly obtains information from abroad (such as through cross-border agreements), there may be restrictions on how the SEC can use the information and it may take more time to get the information. In some cases, the SEC may be unable to obtain information from persons or entities located overseas.No central authority. As there is no central authority that collects virtual currency user information, the SEC generally must rely on other sources for this type of information.Freezing or securing virtual currency. Law enforcement officials may have difficulty freezing or securing investor funds that are held in a virtual currency. Virtual currency wallets are encrypted and unlike money held in a bank or brokerage account, virtual currencies may not be held by a third-party custodian. Be careful if you spot any of these potential warning signs of investment fraud. “Guaranteed” high investment returns. There is no such thing as guaranteed high investment returns. Be wary of anyone who promises that you will receive a high rate of return on your investment, with little or no risk.Unsolicited offers. An unsolicited sales pitch may be part of a fraudulent investment scheme. Exercise extreme caution if you receive an unsolicited communication—meaning you didn’t ask for it and don’t know the sender—about an investment opportunity.Sounds too good to be true. If the investment sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Remember that investments providing higher returns typically involve more risk.Pressure to buy RIGHT NOW. Fraudsters may try to create a false sense of urgency to get in on the investment. Take your time researching an investment opportunity before handing over your money.Unlicensed sellers. Many fraudulent investment schemes involve unlicensed individuals or unregistered firms. Check license and registration status on Investor.gov.No net worth or income requirements. The federal securities laws require securities offerings to be registered with the SEC unless an exemption from registration applies. Many registration exemptions require that investors are accredited investors; some others have investment limits. Be highly suspicious of private (i.e., unregistered) investment opportunities that do not ask about your net worth or income or whether investment limits apply. *** Before making any investment, carefully read any materials you are given and verify the truth of every statement you are told about the investment. For more information about how to research an investment, read our publication Ask Questions. Investigate the individuals and firms offering the investment, and check out their backgrounds onInvestor.gov and by contacting your state securities regulator. Many fraudulent investment schemes involve unlicensed individuals or unregistered firms. Additional Resources SEC Investor Alert: Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currency-Related Investments SEC Investor Alert: Ponzi Schemes Using Virtual Currencies SEC Investor Alert: Social Media and Investing – Avoiding Fraud The Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has provided this information as a service to investors. It is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of SEC policy. If you have questions concerning the meaning or application of a particular law or rule, please consult with an attorney who specializes in securities law.

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Re: [isoc_ke] Winding up of the mailing list
by Barrack Otieno 28 Jul '17

28 Jul '17

Dear Colleagues, This is to notify you that this mailing list will be brought down at the end of the month on 31/ 07/2017. As you may recall this mailing list was set up to coordinate the creation of the Internet Society Kenya Chapter. The Chapter uses the connect platform for discussions meaning the current list has outlived its usefullness. If you are not on the connect platform please visit http://www.internetsociety.org/ and get aquainted with the process. You can also reach out to the Chapter office through https://internetsociety.or.ke/. Thank you Best Regards -- Barrack O. Otieno +254721325277 +254733206359 Skype: barrack.otieno PGP ID: 0x2611D86A

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