January, 2009

Count me as very impressed and grateful for the innovation focus by Google for improving Internet accessibility for the blind and sight-impaired.

This kind of commitment to focus technology innovation to promote more 'open access' to the Internet for those with sight, hearing or other disabilities can be embraced, and is to be commended, by everyone.

I recommend you read an excellent Sunday New York Times piece by Miguel Helft: "Going where no guide dog can." 

• It profiles Mr. T.V. Raman, a Google computer scientist who is focused on innovations to improve use of the Internet by the blind, the sight impaired, and even sighted people when they cannot see a computer or smartphone screen. 
• It is obvious to see that the many innovations Mr. Raman and Google have produced or facilitiated, eventually will help tens of millions of blind and sight-impaired people around the world gain access to technology and information in ways and amounts that they never could before. Well done.

Don't miss the Financial Times' excellent editorial opposing net neutrality regulation/legislation.

They clearly grasp that net neutrality is not a pressing problem, recognize that net neutrality regulation/legislation would cause unintended consequences, and that regulators are up to the task, if a real problem were in fact to materialize.    

Evidence mounts that the real problem on the Internet is not that the Internet is not open enough, but that it is not as safe/secure as it needs to be.

The threat of cyber-attacks pose the biggest risk "from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities" said FBI official, Shawn Henry to a  New York conference Tuesday per a story in the Sydney Herald.

• "US experts warn of "cybergeddon", in which an advanced economy - where almost everything of importance is linked to or controlled by computers - falls prey to hackers, with catastrophic results. Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety in New York state, described "a huge threat out there" against everything from banking institutions to water systems and dams. Henry said terrorist groups aim for an online 9/11, "inflicting the same kind of damage on our country, on all our countries, on all our networks, as they did in 2001 by flying planes into buildings."

Rick Hodgin of TG Daily added in his coverage of the conference:

My fellow panelists on the Thursday 1:30-2:30 CES convention panel: "The Internet -- How do we keep the road open" are:

• Paul Misener of Amazon;
• Brent Olson of AT&T;
• Ben Scott of Free Press;
• Rick Whitt of Google; and
• the moderator is Rob Pegoraro, colunmist for the Washington Post.

I plan to share an especially pertinent native american proverb to make my point... 

The reality is that the net neutrality debate has narrowed greatly over the last three years, and could narrow further as the recession puts a public policy premium on growing the economy, creating jobs and promoting investment.

Here's an ominous assessment of the state of the open Internet and the future of cloud computing -- "The web is under attack, as are corporations and consumers" per Mary Landesman a senior security researcher for Scansafe -- in an excellent ZDNet post I recommend: "Security lessons not learned will haunt us in 2009."

Landesman's Internet prognosis is sober and realistic:

Let me offer a new organizing term -- "cybrastructure" -- to describe the myriad of digital investments being discussed in the pending economic stimulus package.

Its odd to me that with technological convergence, the Internet which interconnects all things digital, the evolution towards cloud computing and smart power grids, the digitizing of health records, and the promotion of universal broadband deployment and adoption, etc. -- that there is not a holistic term describing all the different but inter-related infrastructure investment involved that is being enhanced. 

Kudos to the group of Internet security experts who came up with the Top 25 coding flaws that lead to ~85% of all cyber-criminal activity on the Internet -- thanks for the heads up from Zero Day Threat and Byron Acohido's article in USA Today.

I look at this ~85-25 insight as the cyber-security community's version of the old 80-20 adage that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. 

• While the numbers are slightly off in this instance -- the concept is dead on. 
• If you want to get anything done in the real world, one has to use tried and true strategies like the 80-20 rule. 

To explain the rest of my mixed metaphor...

The start of robust broadband deployment in the U.S. was delayed for several years in the late 1990's because of regulatory uncertainty over whether broadband investment could earn a competitive return.

• Today's release of the proposed economic stimulus package is extremely relevant to the question of investment in Universal Broadband; it says: "For every dollar invested in broadband, the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment."
• Recent guidance from the OBama transition team spearheading the Universal Broadband effort is also encouraging. At the State of the Net Conference, Blair Levin said: "You don't want to do anything that makes a competitive market more difficult."  

The 'open' question for the new Government is whether open Internet means promoting the consensus goal of expanding Internet access to all Americans through expanding broadband deployment and adoption, or whether open Internet means transforming the Internet from the current voluntary commercial cybrastructure to a regulatorily coerced and dictated cybrastructure.