Geospatial Digital Rights Management (GeoDRM)

Geospatial Digital Rights Management is as a set of technologies and legal frameworks that are fit for a certain organisational need, enabling rights-managed geospatial networks like SDIs, where all rights over geospatial assets are specified by licensors and any licensee would be trusted to honour the licensor’s conditions within and beyond the network’s trusted environment like remote clients.
Since the introduction of the OGC Web Map Service in 2000 many SDI components are available as products and many are already deployed worldwide. The released service implementation specifications do not cover business aspects at all and thus an OGC specific legacy problem is evident. A clear separation between expert service, like WFS, and business services, like Security, offers additional advantages. An example is that a single GeoDRM implementation can cover multiple OGC Services.
For the licensing of digital content, different standards already exist but the existing standards describe the licensing of digital media content and cannot be used for licensing of geographic information unless they are extended. In March, 2007 the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) membership approved the Geospatial Digital Rights Management Reference Model (GeoDRM RM), an abstract specification for the management of digital rights in the area of geospatial data and services. GeoDRM has legal and technological aspects. The GeoDRM Abstract Rights Model key purpose is to create a simplified model of geospatial Intellectual Property so that it may be practically licensed, and most importantly, rights to that Intellectual Property may be managed and protected. It is about establishing shared notions, conventions and practices that express the boundaries within the Intellectual Property “landscape”. With defined Intellectual Property boundaries, we are then able to share exchange and trade rights to geospatial resources in a clearly defined and managed way
The goal of the GeoDRM effort in the OGC is to make sure that a larger market has access to geospatial resources through a well understood and common mechanism that enables more than today’s “all or nothing” protection. A major motivation for this effort is the need to manage the “ownership obstacle to data sharing” in spatial data infrastructure scenarios.
As technology pushes various industries toward the digital frontier, many types of content are becoming available solely in digital format, and geospatial data is no exception. Copyright-protected geospatial content used to be sold on paper sheets but is now available in digital format. As a result, such content can now be used by a variety of users and devices. Digital geospatial datasets moving across computer net­works can be easily copied, transformed, or incorporated into new value-added products and services. Geospatial-data producers and owners are faced with the challenge of controlling the dissemination of their digital geospatial assets down­stream in the geospatial value chain.

Relevance of Geospatial DRM
The Rights Model for digital geographic content must accommodate licensing for different types of business relationships and participants with different roles. Direct licensing as well as sub-licensing can take place for business-to-business or business-to consumer relationships. For sub-licensing, it must be possible to grant licences for issuing licences, which is not covered by existing ISO-REL Rights Models.
 Licensing in the GeoDRM domain must support the licensing of digital content, based on different infrastructures, licensing can take place for a static product as it can be delivered on CD-ROM. More important is the aspect that licensing can also take place on geographic information as it can be dynamically created by using OpenGIS Web Services. For example, maps can be created by using a Web Map Service and feature collections can be created by executing a Web Feature Service. The GeoDRM Rights Model therefore supports the capability to describe rights for executing a service using certain constraints on parameters. This capability is also not covered by other Rights Models.
 Licensing of geographic information requires support to declare and enforce rights, as they are based on the geometry of the digital content. This capability is described in this standard by defining geo-specific conditions on a right.

 Geospatial DRM Roadmap
To support GeoDRM-enabled licensing of geographic information, as it can be available offline or online in a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), different functionalities can be identified as necessary. These will allow the definition of interfaces between the packages to ensure interoperability and responsibilities for each package to return the expected result upon a given request.  Below are the possible packages:
Rights Model
 It defines the basis for developing a geo-specific Rights Expression Language as well as other specifications necessary to establish a GeoDRM- enabled SDI.
Rights Expression Language
It provides the capabilities to express usage rights in the form of a machine-readable and machine-processible representation.
Encryption
It includes required functionality to protect a GeoDRM-enabled SDI against fraud. Encryption enables the protection of a licence so that it cannot be modified by an adversary in order to obtain additional rights. Encryption is also useful to protect the digital geographic content against unlicensed use. An example from the music industry exists, where the encrypted music file can only be decrypted (and played) by a certified software or hardware device.
Trust
Every type of business relationship that has been represented in an electronic way needs a mechanism to differentiate between reliable and unreliable partners. In that sense, trust tells a relying partner that the other behaves in a certain predictable (loyal) way.
License Verification
This package defines the functionality that is required to validate a licence. The licence verification has to occur before the rights of the licence can be enforced.
Enforcement and Authorization
The rights expressed in a Geo-License need to be enforced. In this specification, this package functionality is represented by the “Gate Keeper” metaphor. The acceptance or denial decision for a particular request (with its associated licences) is based on the authorization decision, as it is derived by the authorization engine.
Authentication
The basic requirement for trust, licence verification and enforcement/authorization is proof of identity, as it is provided by the functionality of this package. Different international standards, which define how to enable this functionality, exist.

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Advantages of Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM enables content creators to get paid
There is need to control at least some of the content some of the time, or piracy rates will get so high that content owners cannot stay in business.

DRM enables new business methods
Having content in digital on-line form, in conjunction with ubiquitous Internet access, creates many opportunities for creative content businesses. This has been true for some time, but only in a few cases, like iTunes, has it been taken proper advantage of.

 DRM can help save history
If I have truly acquired a RIGHT to content, as opposed to a physical medium containing the content, then there is the potential for one to get that content anywhere, anytime, in any format required by evolving technologies.

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Digital Rights Management for Geospatial Content

To create and support a large-scale, open market in geospatial resources, Digital Rights Management for Geospatial Content is needed to assure that a “fair value for work (investment)” ethic can be guaranteed so that suppliers of geospatial content can be sure of fair return on individual sales, and users can be sure of fair value for purchases and uses of the geospatial resources.
In a digital world, due to the nature of digital resources and commerce, most digital entities are not sold in the usual sense. When a user acquires an application, he actually acquires the right to use a copy of the application. Possession is not equal to ownership and a system of software and resource licensing has grown up in the digital world that ensures:

• The user may legitimately act upon a resource if he has a corresponding license for that act
• The owner should maintain the resource, fixing error and assuring a guaranteed level of functionality
• The user may be asked to pay the owner of the resource based upon agreed criteria, whether that is a one-time fee, a per-machine fee, a usage fee or some other mechanism stated in the legal contract or license between user and owner
• The user agrees to protect the owner’s rights based on the agreement. This usually means he cannot backward engineer code or resource, nor redistribute the resource without proper permission
• The owner agrees to maintain the resource and allow a reasonable access to the users for any fixes that may be required. Again, the extent or degree of maintenance is stated in the user agreement

Digital Rights management, DRM, is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that are not desired or intended by the content provider and includes specific instances of digital works or devices. For digital content it means preventing the consumer access, denying the user the ability to copy the content or converting it to other formats, while for devices it means restricting the consumers on what hardware can be used with the device or what software can be run on it.
The first-generation of Digital Rights Management focused on security and encryption as a means of solving the issue of unauthorized copying, by locking the content and limiting its distribution to only those who pay. It represented a substantial narrowing of the real and broader capabilities of DRM. The second-generation of DRM covers the description, identification, trading, protection, monitoring and tracking of all forms of rights usages over both tangible and intangible assets including management of rights holders’ relationships. Thus, DRM manages all rights, not only the rights applicable to permissions over digital content.
Although DRM does come in many different forms, it usually has four common stages:

• Packaging is when DRM encryption keys are built right into the software, the music file, or the movie file.
• Distribution is when DRM-encrypted files are delivered to the customers. This is usually through web server downloads, CD’s/DVD’s, or via files emailed to the customers.
• License Serving is where specialized servers authenticate legitimate users through an Internet connection, and allow them to access the DRM files. Simultaneously, license servers lock up the files when illegitimate users try to open or copy the files.
• License Acquisition is where legitimate customers acquire their encryption keys so they can unlock their files

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Surprising facts about sex

1. Wife Swap:
The Australian Aborigines temporarily exchange wives as a gesture of friendship and goodwill at the ceremonies where puberty rites are held for their kids. The wives often initiate this, enjoying the change of ”scenery” as well.

2. Bisexuality is more the rule, not the exception:
Homosexual relationships are an accepted practice among the men and boys of the Siwans of Africa. The few who do not participate are considered peculiar.


3. It’s OK to watch:
Lesu children are permitted to watch adults, other than their parents, copulate.


4. No Virgins over 10:
The Ila people of Africa encourage their children to fully develop their sexual capabilities, permitting them any form of sexual expression they wish to partake in. It is claimed there are no virgins older than age 10 in this society!


5.  Knowledge is power:
Upon reaching puberty, boys of Mangaia (one of the Cook Islands) are given sexual instruction – including many details of positioning, and delaying their own satisfaction so that their partner women may experience multiple orgasms.


6. Why wait for marriage?
In a survey in 1949 of 849 societies, 75 percent were found to permit premarital intercourse.


7. Experience preferred:
Some Hindu sects require a priest to deflower a virgin before she consummates her marriage with her husband.
8. If one is good, two is better:
The most common universal form of marriage is actually Polygamy – one husband with two or more wives. Of those 849 societies, 70 percent are polygamous. Conversely, polyandry, defined as a wife with two or more husbands is the least common form of marriage.


9. Keep it simple:
The Aweikoma of Brazil are a very literal people, as eating and intercourse each involve entering bodily orifices, they use the same term for both activities. 


10. Speak up
The inhabitants of Bali and the Lepcha of Sikkim have no elaborate rituals or practices of seduction. If sex is desired, one only need ask for it – this is true for both men and women.


11. You break it, you buy it
 If a Goajiro woman of Colombia successfully trips a man during a ceremonial dance, he is required to have intercourse with her.


12. Three’s a charm:
Pacific-dwelling Marquesan men have acquired the ability to prolong their erections indefinitely until their partner is fully satisfied. It is considered normal for the women to experience at least 3 orgasms.


13. Sisterly love:
During the latter stages of a Hidatsa woman’s pregnancy, her husband is allowed intercourse with her sister.


14.  Endless love:
It’s not uncommon for the Aranda of Australia to copulate three to five times nightly, sleeping for short intervals in between activity.


15. All bets are off
Anytime there is a show of blood from the uterus (during menses or after birth) a Jewish woman must not engage in sex with her husband. There are laws of family purity that say when and when not to engage in sex. During pregnancy, however, is the one time in a Jewish woman’s life when it is permissible to have sex all the time. This explains a Jewish man smile when he says, “My wife is pregnant.”

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To Certify or not the GIS Practitioners in Kenya

Geospatial technology, data and services encompasses professionals, practitioners and users from all walks of life. The need certification of those in the geospatial industry is a debate that has been ongoing for a long time.

GIS certification has been a contentious issue for many years. Many arguments for it have been advanced, the key one being that certification is the only way through which GIS profession can be defined for the consumer public. Arguments against certification have also been brought forward, an example being that certification will limit the widespread adoption of GIS technology, which is a tool that anybody should be free to use and it will increase the cost of hiring the GIS professionals.

Certification has been applied within many fields, from medicine to surveying. Accreditation is defined as evaluating the educational programs from where the individuals in a certain field received their training and education. Certification is defined as directly evaluating the competency of the individual in a certain field.  Certification defers from licensure in that certification endorses expertise while licensure protects the public from incompetent practice.  In addition, licensure is administered by a governmental body while certification is usually administered by one’s professional peers. A practitioner is someone who engages in an occupation, profession, religion, or way of life. A GIS professional is someone who makes a living through learned professional work that requires advanced knowledge of geographic information systems and related geospatial technologies, data, and methods. GIS certification is defined as a process by which an institution evaluates the level of one’s experience in GIS.
The Geographic Information Systems Certification Institute (GISCI) is the certifying body for all GIS professionals in the US whose applications have been accepted. The program is a point-based system that is self-documented and calculated by the individual seeking certification. It does not include an examination. The certification programme is voluntary and is intended to acknowledge the professional achievements of those people whose primary job responsibility involves the use of geospatial data technology. It is not a program for general users of GIS technology.
In Kenya, professional certification programs in areas such as accounting, engineering and survey are long-standing but GIS certification is yet to be set up. Despite efforts by vendors and academicians to develop and improve training and educational programs in geographic information systems, there are increasing calls for programs to certify GIS professionals. Much of the interest in implementing formal programs is tied to the need for explicit quality control. As of to date there is no widely accepted certification available for GIS professionals in Kenya. This is partly tied to difficulties in identifying desired qualifications of professionals within the multidisciplinary field of GIS.

Arguments for GIS Certification

The URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) GIS Certification Committee, in the year 2000, while in the process of coming up with the guidelines to setting up of the Geographic Information Systems Certification Institute (GISCI)  came up with a number of important reasons why GIS certification is needed:

• To provide a means for attaining recognition by one’s colleagues and peers that the GIS professional has demonstrated professional competence and integrity in the field;
•  To encourage long-term professional development that will help existing professionals maintain currency in GIS technology and methods;
• To ensure ethical behaviour by members of the profession and provide a basis for judging the validity of allegations or complaints against GIS practitioners;
• To assist prospective employers to assess and hire GIS professionals;
• To ensure that those who produce geographic information have a core competency of knowledge;
• To define and protect professional bodies of knowledge;
• To assist aspiring GIS professionals and professionals outside the GIS profession choose their educational opportunities wisely;
•  To contribute to the development of geographic information science;
• Develop standard GIS job descriptions; and
• To establish and maintain links to GIS education bodies

The committee came up with the GIS Professional Certification Program and the GIS Professional Code of Ethics which contain guidelines for GIS professionals to use when making professional career and ethical choices. The purpose of both programs is to provide professionals who work in the field of geographic information systems with a formal process that will allow them to be recognized by their colleagues and employers as having demonstrated professional competence and integrity in the field by maintaining high stan-dards of professional practice and ethical conduct.

Arguments against GIS Certification

Many of the arguments against GIS certification are based on the fact that GIS embraces so many different professions that it is difficult to get anybody to agree what GIS is and what it is not. Opponents of GIS certification argue that GIS is too broad for a common set of competency standards or that more time is needed for the field to evolve.  Others note that certification will increase the cost of hiring GIS professionals and that professional organizations may initiate certification as a means of generating income. Others explain that not all GIS activities affect public welfare and safety and thus do not require oversight and are against the increased bureaucracy that is necessary for any certification or licensing program. Others base their arguments on historical pattern of GIS use by land managers and others that has been successful without certification.

Implementing GIS Certification

With several organizations taking an interest in promoting GIS, the establishment of rival and competing certification programs could be problematic and would almost certainly create confusion for persons entering the profession, as well as employers and the public. For GIS the greatest barrier to the establishment of certification programs is the broad nature of GIS applications.  Ideally, certification should represent an individual’s commitment to GIS as a profession.  Rather than address proprietary hardware and software packages, it should emphasize GIS fundamentals and principles.  Likewise, instead of being viewed as a pinnacle of achievement, certification should represent experience and competency coupled with a commitment to quality and integrity.   A possible model for certification involves identification of two categories of knowledge and competencies associated with GIS:

• Core knowledge needed by all GIS professionals, and,
• Specialized knowledge and experiences needed by individuals working in more narrowly defined GIS application areas.

GIS Certification will not become widely accepted unless organizations representing the range of GIS professionals agree to participate in establishing certification standards and methods of evaluation.  A solution would be for representatives from existing organizations with substantial interest in GIS to form an umbrella organization for the purpose of administering certification. Additional delegates to this group should include persons from academia and especially government and industry.  For certification to ultimately succeed among the entire spectrum of GIS professionals, these widely different groups must work together to build a cohesive set of standards and general testing criteria that are applicable and acceptable to all constituencies.
 

The first step towards developing a certification program is defining a set of core knowledge and competencies that are considered essential for all GIS professionals.  GIS professions in industry and government must take the lead in this process.  The core set of competencies and standards must be applicable throughout the broad range of GIS applications and professions to lend credibility to the certification process.  If the core competencies are not applicable to all professionals, then various groups may choose to opt out of the program.
 

Representatives from application areas must be willing to assist in identifying experience and competency needed for GIS professionals involved in specialty fields such as natural resources management, surveying, or the analysis of socioeconomic data.  Using guidelines provided by the umbrella certification organization, professional associations should be invited to develop explicit criteria for certification in the form of knowledge, work experience, and professional development.  While the core competencies must address those criteria deemed necessary for all GIS professionals there must also be a system for testing and evaluating knowledge and experience within specific GIS application areas. 
 

An important function of certification is to provide incentives for GIS professionals to continue developing or improving skills and knowledge.  This is critical in a field experiencing rapid change such as GIS.  A program to recertify GIS professions by requiring them to present evidence of professional development and continuing work experience should become a component of an overall plan for implementing certification. GIS Certification must include updating criteria, in that while the applications and development of GIS technology may not be in their infancy any longer, the field continues to experience rapid growth and change.
 

Although most GIS practitioners earn profits honestly, at times all GIS professionals are faced with choices influenced by personal ethics. The nature of GIS means that its results can easily be misconstrued or distorted.  The minority of GIS professionals who are unconcerned with the use of questionable data, the application of inappropriate or poorly applied analyses, or the integrity of interpretations have the potential for damaging the reputation of all persons involved in GIS. Thus professional ethics and behaviour must be a centrepiece within the development of standards for certification and recertification.

The Kenyan situation
A prerequisite for setting up a viable certification program is the presence of a strong professional association that brings together most practitioners from the GIS industry. In Kenya, such a body does not exist and thus needs to be established first, to unify the profession and develop uniform standards for certification. This will go a step ahead and eliminate the issues that arose in the computing industry with the advent of many computer colleges leading several graduates with certificates but incompetent in the field.

GIS application areas cover a wide range of academic and professional preparation fields.  Because GIS professionals come from a wide variety of backgrounds and academic preparation, no one group can claim to represent all approaches and applications within the GIS community.  Also, given the volatile nature of the field, and the rapid change currently underway in software development and application deployment, adequate preparation today does not guarantee competency in the future.  Thus, an overarching program to ensure appropriate professional preparation and competency must be developed by those parties interested in safeguarding the viability of the field and the competency of those claiming professional status. By including a wide range of professional organizations within the certification development process, and working to include the interests of all GIS professionals by developing both a reasonable core set of competencies and appropriate specialized evaluations within the certification process, all groups will benefit from certification.

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Web based mapping

Web mapping is the process of designing, implementing, generating and delivering maps on the World Wide Web and its product. It primarily deals with technological issues, while web cartographyadditionally studies theoretic aspects which include but not limited to the use of web maps, the evaluation and optimization of techniques and workflows, the usability of web maps, and social aspects. Web GIS on the other hand emphasises on analysis, processing of project specific geodataand exploratory aspects. Often the terms web GIS and web mapping are used synonymously, even if they don't mean exactly the same. Web maps are often a presentation media in web GIS and web maps are increasingly gaining analytical capabilities.

Mobile maps, displayed on mobile computing devices, such as mobile phones, smart phones, PDAs and GPS are a special case of web maps; they are regarded as mobile web maps if they are displayed by a mobile web browser or web user agent.

The use of web maps can be regarded as a major new trend in cartography and has opened up new opportunities like real-time maps, cheaper dissemination, more frequent and cheaper updates of data and software, personalized map content, distributed data sources and sharing of geographic information. With web mapping, freely available mapping technologies and geodata potentially allow every skilled person to produce web maps. The cheap and easy transfer of geodata across the internet allows the integration of distributed data sources, opening opportunities that go beyond the possibilities of disjoint data storage. Everyone with minimal knowhow and infrastructure can become a geodata provider; this puts geodata in the hands of untrained people who potentially violate cartographic and geographic principles and introduce flaws during the preparation, analysis and presentation of geographic and cartographic data.

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Fraud

Fraud is a million dollar business and it is increasing every year. Fraud involves one or more persons who intentionally act secretly to deprive another of something of value, for their own benefit. Fraud is as old as humanity itself and can take an unlimited variety of different forms. However, in recent years, the development of new technologies has also provided further ways in which criminals may commit fraud. In addition, business reengineering, reorganization or downsizing may weaken or eliminate control, while new information systems may present additional opportunities to commit fraud.

Traditional ways of data analysis have been in use since a long time as a method of detecting fraud. They require complex and time-consuming investigations that deal with different domains of knowledge like financial, economics, business practices and law. Fraud often consists of many instances or incidents involving repeated transgressions using the same method. Fraud instances can be similar in content and appearance but usually are not identical.

In the technological systems, fraudulent activities have occurred in many areas of daily life such as telecommunication networks, mobile communications, on-line banking, and Ecommerce. Fraud is increasing dramatically with the expansion of modern technology and global communication, resulting in substantial losses to the businesses. Consequentially, fraud detection has become an important issue to be explored.

Fraud detection involves identifying fraud as quickly as possible once it has been perpetrated. Fraud detection methods are continuously developed to defend criminals in adapting to their strategies. The development of new fraud detection methods is made more difficult due to the severe limitation of the exchange of ideas in fraud detection. Data sets are not made available and results are often not disclosed to the public. The fraud cases have to he detected from the available huge data sets such as the logged data and user behaviour. At present, fraud detection has been implemented by a number of methods such as data mining, statistics, and artificial intelligence. Fraud is discovered from anomalies in data and patterns. The objective of fraud detection is to maximize correct predictions and maintain incorrect predictions at an acceptable level.

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