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Kenyan techies headed to jail

Written by Rebecca Wanjiku

Tuesday, 24 July 2007

If the new Kenya Communications Amendment bill becomes law, all Kenyan techies and computer owners with pay a fine of shs 1 million, or risk a jail term or both. Why? Section 86 of the KCA bill states

No person shall

- Operate an electronic Certification system

- Update a repository

- Administer a sub-domain in the ccTLD

To do any one of the above one must have a license. Michuki Mwangi, the Chief Executive of KENIC , which is charged with trusteeship of the .ke country-code-top-level-domain, reckons that there are many Kenyan technology architects and managers who have been infringing on this rule and will face the full force of the law once Presidential assent is gained.

In interrogating these issues, Michuki asks, what is a repository? He argues that a repository could constitute a computer hard disk, mainly because the bill has not properly defined what a repository is. "I have a self signed certificate, I create sub-domains and so many other Kenyans do. The government will have to give licenses to 32million potential sub-domain users. That's a whole load of licenses to issue," said Michuki.

Section 87 and 88 of the proposed law provides that:

â€¢ The dot KE registry and the Digital Certificate Registry need a license.

Michuki reckons that .KE model is globally recognized but adds that the new law will open room for subdivision of the registry, provided one can pay the cost of the license.

For instance in South Africa, the .CO.ZA , .AC.ZA and other domains were operated by different entities and this is the time they are trying to integrate registry operations under one registry.

"It has the right intentions but needs a bit of tweaking and rewording. The bill could have captured other areas of IT like local content and other matters which were not well addressed," said Michuki.

Rebecca Wanjiku
		About the author:
		Rebecca Wanjiku is a Kenyan journalist and entrpreneur. She writes on technology and media issues and publishes the BeckyIT blog.

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written by aeichener , July 23, 2007

Thanks for averting the public to the dangers, Rebecca. Alas, such blundering is typical for the standard of legislation: nobody able to do decent and diligent diligent drafting. Just see the Sexual Offences Act. Most Kenyan laws are not worth the paper on which they are printed.

Alexader

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written by Stephen Wanyama , July 24, 2007

At the risk of sounding obnoxious, what exactly does this mean

Michuki reckons that .KE model is globally recognized

What model? I do not think this is made sufficiently clear in the article. The entirety of the article could do with a lot more explanation, not all of us are familiar with the techie argot. What is it the South Africans are trying to do? Are they copying us?

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written by editor , July 25, 2007

Meanwhile, our Wanjiku is not going to jail. She has instead been nominated for the Excellence in Journalism award which is part of the array up for grabs at the annual African ICT Achievers Awards. It is still a long way to the awards night, but we would like to wish Wanjiku the best of luck, and pledge our continued support for her and her efforts.

So here's to more articles, and a greater revelation of the tangled world of IT.

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written by Tim Norwood , July 25, 2007

Like poor Stephen I am not sure I understand what the gist of Wanj's article is. Maybe an elucidation from her or a fellow traveller will help?

Congratulations on your nomination Rebecca, now elucidation for the nation!
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I was always of the idea that the .ke registry would be able to make us millions in domain hacks,in a way similar to what the .tv has done for Tuvalu. Imagine the possibilities, http://ba.ke marketed simply as ba.ke, or http://co.ke. Anyone heard of del.icio.us?

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written by bex , July 26, 2007

i meant that the .ke domain ig globally recognised because the .co.ke, .ac.ke, .or.ke among other domains are operated under the same roof.

in other countries like south africa you fine .co.za is operated by one entity, the .ac.za by another entity which makes harmonisation harder.

this is the time they are working to bring all domains to one country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) registry, like kenya.

what the the bill seeks to do is to take us where south africa and in deed many other countries are coming from.

if the bill is passed, then it means if you get a licence, you can also operate your own ccTLD registry which will only make it difficult.

about making money, that could be the case but we are yet to convince kenyans to buy their own domain i.e .ke there is this notion that one can only be perceived to have a website if its a .co m or .net others go to generics like .biz yet they dont even have have .ke

i think thats because even the companies like ISPs e.g wananchi have a .com account, it would have helped if they had a .ke.

Tuvalu has been helped by the TV part for stations even .fm and to some extent .tk which has brought in alot of cash for the small pacific islands of Tokeleou.

i guess i will blog about the idea of making money from the domains and whats typosquating, cameroon is making along of mone on the .cm among other issues.

beckyit.blogspot.com

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