The “BlackBerry Riots” — What Should RIM Do? (via The Business Ethics Blog)

We have learned that Chris MacDonald quickly analyzes current events for ethical issues and can be counted on to get a post up in a day or less. This is one of those.

Chris MacDonald

My favorite paragraph is this one -

The question is complicated by questions of precedence. Tech companies have come under fire for assisting governments in, for example, China, to crack down on dissidents. Of course, the UK government isn’t anything like China’s repressive regime. But at least some people are pointing to underlying social unrest, unemployment etc., in the UK as part of the reason — if not justification — for the riots. And besides, even if it’s clear that the UK riots are unjustifiable and that the UK government is a decent one, companies like RIM are global companies, engaged in a whole spectrum of social and political settings, ones that will stubbornly refuse to be categorized. Should a tech company help a repressive regime stifle peaceful protest? No. Should a tech company help a good and just government fight crime? Yes. But with regard to governments, as with regard to social unrest, there’s much more grey in the world than black and white.

We’re going to come across this issue again and again. Modern social unrest, justified, unjustified or simply beyond our understanding, is now also a product of social networking. As these machines gain complexity and power, so will the possibilities of social action. We are entering a new world in which a protest or similar action can be organized in very short chunks of times. Flyers and bullhorns are as obsolete as Egyptian hieroglyphs in this new climate of computer assisted unrest.

James Pilant

The intersection of social media with social unrest is a massive topic these days. Twitter has been credited with playing an important role in coordinating the pro-democracy protests in Egypt, and Facebook played a role in helping police track down culprits after the Vancouver hockey riots. But the mostly-unstated truth behind these “technologies of the people” is that they are corporate technologies, ones developed, fostered, and controlled by c … Read More

via The Business Ethics Blog

House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history (via THE INTERNET POST)

Yes, it’s all true. I went and checked to make sure there was no exaggeration here because this is so scary. Well, there it is, a congressional attempt to clobber all privacy on the internet and create huge databases of personal information that can be used against American citizens.

James Pialnt

This has actually precious little to do with finding pedophiles, and everything to do with spying on everyone using the net. Lawmakers are about to push the American people under a bus with this legislation, and into the dark abyss of Code Napoleon Law, where everyone was considered guilty until proven innocent. First and 4th Amendment to the Constitution, rest … Read More

via THE INTERNET POST

Japan Passes Law To Cleanse Internet Of ‘Bad’ Fukushima Radiation News (via THE INTERNET POST)

Predictable, I wonder why it took so long. As radiation is detected in larger and large amounts further and further away from the damaged nuclear plants, I guess things just started to get annoying. So, we’re just going to give all those nasty news agencies a good talking to!

James Pilant

'The supposedly free democratic nation of Japan, which supposedly values and promotes freedom of speech, has officially issued orders to telecommunication companies and webmasters to remove content from websites that counter the official government position that the disaster is over and there is no more threat from the radiation. The government charges that the damage caused by earthquakes and by the nuclear accident are being magnified by irresp … Read More

via THE INTERNET POST

The Biggest Offshoring Myth (via John Akerson’s Thoughts)

I believe the key paragraph here is this one (from the article).

I think Offshoring fails because offshored processes, deliverables and costs are almost never measured objectively. I think Offshoring fails because offshoring projects define success as “the expansion of offshoring” rather than as the “delivery of improved services, products, projects, or results for the same or less cost.” I think offshoring fails because the jobs lost to offshoring result in incredible losses for our country, our future, our tax base, and for things that are much harder to quantify.

I couldn’t have said it better.                                     James Pilant

Eweek has an interesting article – “Outsourcing Myths have no Grounds, Says Deloitte CIO” Deloitte’s CIO does his best to debunk various offshoring myths.  The first myth that he debunks is that “Offshoring… has not been successful.”  his response is: “That’s absolutely not true,” Quinlan said. “We’re seeing significant upticking in global offshoring activity.” With the maturation of the offshoring market, there has been an accompanying decreas … Read More

via John Akerson’s Thoughts

Hydrogen Production and Sosei Advantage (via Water Team)

I loved this article. It was not only informative but it took some fairly difficult science and made it seem simple.

Of course, I have the secondary motive of contributing to a better energy future. This is one of many kinds of technology that are inevitable in a world where fossil fuel is becoming more expensive and harder to get.

I have read a number of the posts from this site. Many of them are about water and water supplies. This is a site for any one interested in the field. I liked it.

James Pilant

  Image via Wikipedia Today, there are  numerous efforts to produce  hydrogen gas for environmentally friendly energy applications which either require expensive reactants, reagents, catalysts or other energy sources.  Some emit other harmful gases or  result in other undesirable consequences from extended, extensive use.  Here is a video which offers clear insight into why Dr. Fukai’s Sosei Water is in a keystone position to connect society … Read More

via Water Team

Net Neutrality: Who Should We Be Most Afraid Of? (via Rebecca Reynolds)

Excellent article on net neutrality. Thoughtful and intelligent. We need more like it.

She asks the important questions. What values are at stake here? What are our choices? But she ties all this in with some history of the developing media of the last fifty years.

Good writing. Please go and have a look.

James Pilant

The idea of open, accessible, unmoderated forums for discourse and exchange inspires me. Afterall, that is what I do for a living: I design processes that enable many people to engage in collaborative decision-making. That technology could push this process open even further, to many more people, to a borderless conversation, a churning think tank for innovation is a possibility I dream of. For this reason, I have been an increasing proponent of … Read More

via Rebecca Reynolds

Response to Rep. Marsha Blackburn: A True Conservative Tech Policy (via The Prelator)

This article is concerned with net neutrality. A good part of the article focuses on this issue. But the article takes on some other critical issues. One is Congress’ bizarre lengthening of the copyright privilege to seventy years plus the life of the author. It’s tragic in literature but in the tech world it ties up technology is a disastrous fashion. He also discusses new laws under consideration that would make suppliers of net access vulnerable to legal action over the content of their various customers. This would provoke massive censorship of the web not because there is illegality but to avoid the slightest possibility of illegality.

It’s a good article and his conclusions are very close to my own. I wish the author well.

James Pilant

On January 18, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn gave a speech purporting to give a conservative view of technology policy. As a strong conservative myself, I was deeply saddened to read this speech, which not only displays a deep lack of understanding about important policy issues facing the tech world, but a misunderstanding of the true tenants of conservatism in favor of the very corporate cronyism which Republicans are all too often accused of. … Read More

via The Prelator

Will New Technology Fix The TSA Scandal?

What if you could walk through that airport body scanner, pause for the camera, and know that your naked image would never be pored over by human eyes? If it was software, not TSA screeners, who searched you and other passengers for possible explosives?

That’s the vision of Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole. At a Senate hearing yesterday, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson conjured this future and suggested to Pisole, “It looks like technology can be a solution to the privacy issue.” Pistole responded, “I think so, I’m very hopeful in that regard.”

The lead two paragraphs from an Atlantic Monthly story written by Alexis Madrigal. Mr. Madrigal them goes on to explain why this is probably never going to happen.

From the article –

While vendors like L-3 and Rapiscan are actively trying to come up with a magic technological solution for the TSA, independent experts on body scanning technology and automated threat detection aren’t nearly as optimistic as the TSA head. Setting aside the question of how much real safety would be afforded by body scanners that use algorithms to detect artfully hidden explosives under someone’s clothes (I’ll leave it to our big guns to debate that point), there are fundamental problems that may make it very difficult to deploy them.

This is an excellent description of how the technology used in scanning works. I heartily recommend it.

There is no magic bullet.

Currently our actions are terrorist driven. Have one terrorist hide an explosive near his genitals and suddenly millions of Americans are having the genitals groped by the unfriendly hand of the government.

Tell me, what are we going to do if a terrorist hides the explosive more internally? Do you really want to meet your friendly TSA employee while he’s putting on the rubber gloves?

Let’s stop the nonsense now.

James Pilant

A New Model?

The impact of the new technologies, even something as ubiquitous as e-mail have only begun to be felt in many parts of society. For instance, take shareholder voting. Usually, this ratifies selection of the board of directors and takes place once a year. This is a reflection of the difficulty of getting all the shareholders together to vote or was. Really, it’s obsolete. Shareholders should be empowered by the new technologies and there should be multiple votes each year. For instance, the extravagant pay and benefits offered CEO’s and other officers of the company might require ratification by the shareholders instead of being chosen by a board of compensation often appointed by the CEO himself.

What about government? How many places could the government in this country empower citizens to make a difference in the decision making. Right now, floods of e-mails are fired in whenever a major issue appears. But we can do better. I believe right now we have the technology to eliminate fake e-mails and other nonsense from the process. If one of my websites can screen out spam and confirm my identity so I can download modifications to my video games, surely a congressional office can do the same. I don’t think they want to do this. Floods of e-mail enable a representative to vote anyway they like. Accurate e-mails reflecting the actual views of the citizens, particularly the most energized and interest citizens would likely reflect real public concerns and handicap a representative freedom to do any act they wish for any constituency for instance a corporation having made large campaign contributions.

We don’t think about these things. We act as if the world were connected by horse drawn vehicles from another age when people communicate with every part of the world in tenths of a second. Let’s start thinking and start building a society where people matter.

James Pilant