The Flat World

I've recently been reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, in which he describes the rising impact of globalization on our modern world and the forces which led to this rise. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to modern wireless communication technology, Friedman describes how the world is quickly becoming a place in which participation is based not on your location but rather your desire.

This flattening of the world means that more people are playing in the same field. If I want to get the top programming jobs, I don't just need to be the best at BYU or the best in Utah; I'm competing against Romanians, Indians, Russians, and Africans as well. As the world becomes flatter and smaller, location matters less and less. Telecommuting is becoming increasingly feasible in technical fields, so I can't just rely on my proximity to major companies any longer.

Competition isn't the only result of the flattening world, though.  International collaboration has the odd twist that there is no supreme governing body.  The United Nations, NAFTA, and other such organizations may have some say in the trade relations of various nations, but there is no Supreme Court Justice or universal code of laws to which all nations have agreed.  Many nations with which we collaborate may still have gross human rights violations.  Taxation issues aren't as clear-cut, labor compensation laws will vary—overall, these increase of globalization increases the complexity involved in doing business.

There are moral issues as well.  If Mexican or Chinese laborers will build your Go-Kart for 15% the cost of building it in the United States, should a businessman be required to take into account the working conditions of those laborers?  Regardless of the legality of such things, I feel that ethically, it's a concern.  The globalization of the economy forces us to confront issues we might never have faced before.

Technology is a good thing; it helps us be more efficient, more productive, more healthy, more focused, and more able.  There's no question about these things.  But we need to be aware of the consequences before we dash headlong in to the future.  We need to pay attention to our surroundings.  We need to be sure that technology doesn't turn us into slaves to the economy.  We need to be sure to keep our eyes up, carefully watching the coming changes.  We need to be sure that as the world goes flat, we don't get caught underneath.

The Silent Uprising

There has been a lot of talk lately about the recent Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook fame) interview at the SXSW conference.  Audience members, who felt that Sarah Lacy handled the interview poorly, began to call out for an open Q&A session.  Tired of Lacy's interviewing style, the audience protested and ultimately got its way.  The interesting part of the story, though, isn't the audience reaction—it's the technology that led up to it.  At last year's SXSW conference, a social coordination tool called Twitter was introduced.

Traditional etiquette dictates that audience members remain relatively quiet while attending an event out of respect for the presenters.  In the pre-Web-2.0 world, this meant that apart from a quick note to your neighbor, nobody shared ideas until after the event had ended.  The new web has changed that, though; the Zuckerberg uprising was build of the collective feedback of the audience through Twitter.  A few discontented listeners in the back row began complaining online, other responded, and before long the crowd had coordinated a protest without speaking a word.

There's no question that user-generated content is changing our world.  Now we just wait to see how.

Voicemail for the homeless

Yesterday in San Francisco, Google announced a program to provide free voicemail for every homeless person in the city.  In recent years there has been a lot of talk about the "Digital Divide," that invisible chasm between those who have access to technology and those who do not.  In today's society, these digital "have-nots" struggle to find jobs and improve their situation.  It is difficult for employers to contact them, and even when they can be reached, they often don't have the skills necessary for many jobs.  Efforts such as the OLPC have attempted to bridge this divide, but these efforts are largely focused on third-world countries.   I applaud Google's push to help those at home, those hidden among our own.

The Cuckoo's Egg

A few months before beginning this semester, I read a news article about a hacker who had recently been sentenced to a prison term. I don't remember all the details of the story, but I specifically remember that the hacker said he first became interested in hacking after reading The Cuckoo's Egg. I decided then and there that The Cuckoo's Egg was a book I should never read.

Ever since we first got internet access at home, I've found myself intrigued by the idea of hacking. I've been fascinated with the idea that, with the right piece of knowledge, a person can gain access to increased stores of hidden information. The allure of “secret” information available only to those smart enough to find it was great. I've never been one to intentionally seek out illegal activities, but I can't deny a strong innate sense of curiosity. It didn't take me long to realize, though, that if I learned to hack, I'd quickly end up in more trouble than I wanted to face.

This semester, I was assigned to read The Cuckoo's Egg for a Computer Science class. I was actually excited to read it; I hadn't stayed away earlier because of dislike for the book, just fear of what it would do to me. In some sense, I was right to avoid the book—I finished reading with a slight desire to find out just what I could do.

More than a desire to break into a server, though, I came away from The Cuckoo's Egg fascinated with Cliff Stoll's notion of the network as a trusted resource. Stoll asserts that a network is only useful if the network (along with its stored information) can be trusted by its users. I've certainly been familiar with the idea of network security in the context of a wireless network, but it had never occurred to me that the network itself might be considered worthless if not properly secured.

The value of the network becomes even more apparent in light of the recent network outages which took place in the Middle East. Our modern society heavily depends on interconnectedness and information sharing. We've had no major September 11-esque attacks on our networks, and I fear that many are left with a false sense of security. The Cuckoo's Egg demonstrated just how apathetic many people are toward security, and I don't believe the situation has greatly improved in the intervening years. Most people are still security-ignorant, and I only hope that security education catches up before such a catastrophic attack takes place. Otherwise, it won't be pretty.

Interoperability and Data Viability

With the advent of the digital age, there has been increasing concern over the preservation of digitally-encoded information.  Documents created ten years ago cannot be read by today's programs, and emerging forms of entertainment—games, digital music, etc.—created ten years ago are often unreadable today.  The historically tight coupling between content and environment has led to a push for open standards which would enable digital information to outlast its original environment.  Readers may recall an e-mail campaign a few years ago encouraging anyone who received an e-mail with a closed-standard document attached to reject the e-mail.

Microsoft held a press conference today in which they announced changes to their technology and business practices relating to interoperability and data viability.  The technical specifications for all Microsoft Office documents are now openly available, and many of the programming interfaces have been exposed to permit interoperability with other programs.  As the announcement was made over 30,000 pages of documentation were posted online, documentation previously available only to corporations with a trade secret agreement. This new openness obviously comes at some expense to Microsoft, as trade secrets are necessarily being exposed. However, it's the right thing to do.  Office users create documents with the intent of recording information, not with the intent of creating a Microsoft document.  Digital information is only valuable to the extent that it can be accessed, and inasmuch as Microsoft follows through on today's commitments, they've make a large step in reaching that goal.

The power of language

As a participant in today's CS 404 Judgment Day activity, I was struck by the power of a well-spoken phrase. I recently read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, so I've been paying greater attention to the use of language around me, trying to identify the common element in powerful communication. The attorneys and witnesses on each side had meaningful material to discuss and shared his ideas, but only those statements carefully constructed and powerfully spoken had an effect on my thoughts. The same principle applies to writing. Some writing is boring, taking too long to say what it wants to say. Some speech is wordy, obscuring the gem of meaning behind a cloud of dust. But again and again, I find that powerful communication is direct and concise, saying precisely what needs to be said and leaving behind that which does not.

Power and Responsibility

On January 21, 2008, a hacker group calling itself "Anonymous" declared war on the Church of Scientology in response to the church's demand that a video containing copyrighted material be removed from YouTube.  As reported on C|net's News.com, "local chapter sites for the Church of Scientology have been defaced, and in some cases denial of service attacks have also prevented access to the same sites. Real-world attacks have included fax-spamming those same offices."  The group's vigilante attitude proclaims that Anonymous makes the decisions, and anyone who stands in the way will be thrown aside; civil and legal rights are to be ignored when inconvenient.  The showdown has been reported on NBC, SlashDot, Wired, Digg, and thousands of blogs.  This is big news.

Anonymous's actions are disturbing, reminiscent of an anarchistic society governed not by law but by power. The group clearly believes that capability grants authority, and that its mere ability to attack Scientology gives it the inherent right to do so without regard to established authority.  Western society generally disagrees with that notion, so I'm surprised to see the amount of support the group has gained on the internet.  We're a law-abiding group of people, one generally inclined to leave enforcement up to the government.  Then again, it was only a few years ago that Spiderman's Peter Parker reminded millions worldwide that "With great power comes great responsibility."  Isn't that the same idea dressed in different words?  If our heroes get to ignore the law, why doesn't Anonymous?  Why is it right for Spiderman to use his power outside the law, but not for Anonymous to do so?  These aren't simple questions, and they have no easy answers.