Māori Data Sovereignty

Using a Creative Commons Aotearoa list of Māori words from Te Ngutu Kura, Taipo and Indigenous developer has created a Māori Diceware word list to create pass phrases. The instrucitons and download can be found here https://github.com/Taipo/MaoriDiceware   This list can be used for kura kaupapa, kura, whanau, iwi and hapu to generate secure passphrases that … Read more

Uncle Api Mahuika was an esteemed Māori leader with his people and the government. Moe mai ra e te rangatira. The first I heard about it this tragedy was on Facebook when via Te Wananga o Takiura were seeking some form of authoritative clarification that the devastating news. Immediately you may be saying “Huh?” But … Read more

Latest .nz statistics today show little change with Indigenous Domain names despite registrations being made directly at .nz and the new .kiwi.nz and .kiwi domains. Stats for March 2015 .maori.nz = 1059 registered domains with 126 renewals with 19 cancellations (in line with previous months) and 17 new registrations. .iwi.nz = 87 registered domains with … Read more

Typing macrons in Microsoft Surface tablet is the same as with an Apple i-device such as an iPhone or iPod, but the macrons are installed by default. To create a macron,  hold down the key of the vowel you want to add a macron to and a list of characters will appear. It is important to … Read more

This is a positive step forward for Māori society and for tax payers. The money is being administered by a government entity that has a proven track record in administering large amounts of funds, is publicly accountable and who are being transparent with the way they plan to structure the organisation.   The Māori ICT … Read more

The Minister of Māori Affairs, Hon Dr Pita Sharples announced a proposed change in te reo strategy but failed to miss the fact that technology plays a vital role in this area. For any language to be spoken by the masses it must be normalised and easy to access and widely used in not only … Read more

With so much emphasis on te reo Māori being normalised; it looks as though spammers are now using Google Translate to translate spam into te reo Māori according to Robyn Gallagher http://www.robyngallagher.com/2014/01/11/te-reo-Māori-419-spam/ . Is this a new avenue of normalisation albeit an annoying but normal part of our online lives? I suspect so! and that … Read more

Google recently announced its support for several minority languages to translate into and from English with Māori being one of the minority languages. Background information from my October 15 2009 post is here. To use the translator visit http://translate.google.com For years a computer generated system to translate to and from te reo Māori has only … Read more

The World Internet Project New Zealand released their latest report “World Internet Project, New Zealand; The Internet in New Zealand 2013.” with some interesting statistics based ethnicity and in particular, Māori.   I have extracted the ethnicity statistics and have included commentary.    Māori and Pasifika internet users, especially those in lower income households, take the … Read more

Responding to Stuff.co.nz story about sexism against women titled “Shocking sexism in Google search” I have written about the way Google autocomplete discriminate against Māori. It is unfortunate that no effort has, nor has ever been made to discuss the racist and offensive auto complete relating to Māori or any other Indigenous Peoples of the … Read more

I was asked to present to the ICANN 47th meeting Durban South Africa about Indigenous perceptions of the new GTLD program. The speech I gave is written below and on YouTube. Considering I only had 5-7 minutes and a few weeks to prepare, it was very light on details but does cover a number of … Read more

Introduction Only this year have I seen an increase in Māori politicians joining and using Social Media and the web. Recently one Māori politician told me that the web and social media were a waste of time, as the old people have the votes and want to see him at birthdays, tangi and various other … Read more

Introduction A review and comparison of Māori with Native American Indian rights, based on the award winning research “Uncharted Domains and the New Land Rush: Indigenous Rights to Top-Level Domain”; Miss Lucy Yan, accessed via http://www.law.asu.edu/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=67fmPnuMWEY%3d&tabid=803 . Background information about the author and her research here Yan discusses the colonisation of the Internet Domain Name … Read more

What is Spectrum The Treaty Claim Who will benefit from the Claim Groups involved Radio Spectrum is largely unheard of in our non-technical society and especially in Maori culture, despite radio spectrum being recognised as a Taonga by the Waitangi Tribunal which resulted in the New Zealand government giving Maori $5 million dollars to invest … Read more

It really surprises me that people are still trying to hold the dot iwi dot nz domain name to ransom, or cybersquatting of domain names. All the cyber squatters are doing is making .iwi.nz more authentic for the public and valuable to Iwi. In 2002 I with Ross Himona and Te Rangikaiwhiria exposed a businessman … Read more

I read this in an email signature this morning. It struck me of the technological age we live in now and what our future generations technology will be like in 100 years time. It also raises the important issue of that Māori are now facing over spectrum rights and what the future issues and opportunities of … Read more