The 463: Inside Tech

John Thompson?

If the Huffington Post writes about, it must be something that we already know.

And, indeed, we mentioned the John Thompson as Commerce Secretary rumor a couple of weeks ago. It's reached full-blast IMPENDING status now. (Although, please do know that while a decision may indeed be imminent, who it will be won't be a sure thing until the WH actually makes a final decision). [UPDATE 2/3: Senator Gregg's nomination to the post certainly underlines this fact. It will be interesting to see what happens with Thompson next].

Whether he actually gets appointed or not, if you aren't familiar with Thompson, do yourself a favor and check out this quick video of the Symantec CEO and Chairman giving a few words at TechNet's inaugural reception. Credit goes to Tech Daily Dose.

And, if it isn't already abundantly obvious, having a such a worthy representative of Silicon Valley as Commerce Chairman would be a big deal, indeed. For the past two decades, some of the most powerful tech-policy advocates in the Bush and Clinton administrations have either been under-secretaries of Commerce or have been leaders at the Commerce bureau of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Having the busy boss fully understand what these people do and why would be invaluable.

Basic background on the Commerce Department:

The historic mission of the Department is "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce" of the United States. This has evolved, as a result of legislative and administrative additions, to encompass broadly the responsibility to foster, serve, and promote the Nation's economic development and technological advancement. The Department fulfills this mission by:

a. Participating with other Government agencies in the creation of national policy, through the President's Cabinet and its subdivisions.

b. Promoting and assisting international trade.

c. Strengthening the international economic position of the United States.

d. Promoting progressive domestic business policies and growth.

e. Improving comprehension and uses of the physical environment and its oceanic life.

f. Ensuring effective use and growth of the Nation's scientific and technical resources.

g. Acquiring, analyzing, and disseminating information regarding the Nation and the economy to help achieve increased social and economic benefit.

h. Assisting states, communities, and individuals with economic progress.

Below is a snapshot (literally) of the different Commerce bureaus:

Things That Make You Go Hmmm: Sex Offenders Who Use Mug Shots on MySpace Profiles

Check out the the registered sex offender page below:

Now take a quick glance at this MySpace page ...

Well then, quite clearly, this Texas sex offender has set up shop on MySpace.

And, yesterday, CNET's Elinor Mills (whom I like and respect) ran a story about the "independent research" that fingered the social networking sex offender above:

In carrying out his research, (the private investigator) said he ran a list of 40,000 registered sex offenders against more than 2 million MySpace member pages. He came up with nearly 12,500 likely matches. After comparing the MySpace member photos with mug shots on a registered offender database, Rambam found 100 confirmed matches and said he would have found more if he had continued the research...

..."Based on the number of hits we're getting as a percentage of genuine MySpace users we believe that there are anywhere from 3,000 to 39,000 sex offenders on MySpace," Rambam said on Friday.

But, wait. Look closely. And, consider this about the cornerstone piece of evidence so prominently displayed on CNET:

--Why would anyone use a mugshot as their profile picture -- let alone a sex offender trying to use a social network to lure victims? And, especially one as unappealing as this one? Is this the one digital photo of himself that this guy has access to?

--This profile claims that he'd like to meet "your daughter." Really? That is supposed to appeal to people like, um, your daughter? Just like claiming that he is a bi swinger who "likes kids"?

--Scientologist, too? That knocks the possible population to less than one percent.

--And, why would he list his weight and height accurately but fudge his age by almost a decade? Is the thinking here that a 78-year-old just wouldn't have the same pull with a minor as a 68-year-old?

--As noted in the piece, the investigator who did this research was working on behalf of a lawyer currently in a legal battle with MySpace.

Certainly stupider and more brazen acts have been done. So, there is a possibility that this is a true match. And, if so, it's a bad thing and, regardless of the investigative source, it's good that he's weeded out of the system.

But, it makes you go hmmmm, indeed, when this is the exemplar of research that is currently being reviewed by several state attorney generals.

UPDATE: The investigator, Steven Rambam, writes into the comments below and says, among other things:

I am the Investigator that is the subject of your slightly snarky comments.

While I certainly understand a cynical attitude - I am similarly afflicted - you should have done a bit more careful analysis.

As Michael Carter points out, the Myspace page was posted during 2007. As I do not own a magic time machine, I am not capable of falsifying 2 year old myspace pages (which seems to be what you are implying). (BTW, Michael, we did find dozens of myspace.com pages for current and active accounts.)

Fair enough: So I also note in the comments:

It actually never crossed my mind that you or anyone associated with you would have posted this page in 2007 (and, I noticed that date, too). My guess is that, if it is not "real", the page was created by some joker with too much time on their hands. I'll happily make this more clear on the post, itself.

My issue with this is not the body of your research, but that this particular page was used as the exemplar of it.

Geeks Held Hostage: CTO Watch Day 74

Steve Hamm of Business Week narrows the National CTO finalists down to two today. And, based on what we currently understand the job description to be, both would be excellent picks.

They are Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer of Silicon Valley networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO), and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title in the government of Washington, D.C., the sources say.

The two candidates offer President-elect Obama a clear choice of skills. Warrior, who previously was CTO at Motorola (MOT), represents hard-core technology expertise. Kundra, who was named to the D.C. post in 2007, has held similar government positions in the past and has a reputation for using technology to make government more open and inclusive. Neither the Obama transition team nor the two executives would comment on their potential selection by Obama.

The President-elect is expected to announce his pick for CTO in a matter of days. One of the sources says the selection is being held up because it's not yet clear how the person selected as CTO will interact with the government's chief information officer, a position now held by Karen Evans, and with the new cyber-security czar, another position that has not yet been filed.

Kundra has been on the tip of most lips since the Post ran a flattering profile on him earlier in the month.

One caveat that Hamm doesn't raise: There is some talk that the Obama team might yet pick someone with more of an "academic" background (as opposed to business management). Ed Felten of Princeton has been on numerous short lists and would fall under this category.

And, in other appointment rumor news, former Symantec CEO John Thompson has moved from CTO speculation to Commerce Secretary talk. That would be a great spot for him.

Tech Stimuli

The tech industry is, naturally, pleased about today's proposed $825 billion stimulus package from House Democrats.

The $6 billion for broadband and wireless services will get a lot of the attention, but, there is much, much more in the proposal that underlines how technology is a core component of solutions for multiple sectors.

Below is my cut and paste of tech elements of the plan...

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Broadband

• Wireless and Broadband Grants: $6 billion for broadband and wireless services in underserved areas to strengthen the economy and provide business and job opportunities in every section of America with benefits to e-commerce, education, and healthcare. For every dollar invested in broadband the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment.

Energy

• Reliable, Efficient Electricity Grid: $11 billion for research and development, pilot projects, and federal matching funds for the Smart Grid Investment Program to modernize the electricity grid making it more efficient, secure, and reliable and build new power lines to transmit clean, renewable energy from sources throughout the nation.
• Electric Transportation: $200 million for a new grant program to encourage electric vehicle technologies.
• Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees: $8 billion for loans for renewable energy power generation and transmission projects.
• Advanced Battery Loans and Grants: $2 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee and Grants Program, to support U.S. manufacturers of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems. America should lead the world in transforming the way automobiles are powered.

Scientific Research

• National Science Foundation: $3 billion, including $2 billion for expanding employment opportunities in fundamental science and engineering to meet environmental challenges and to improve global economic competitiveness, $400 million to build major research facilities that perform cutting edge science, $300 million for major research equipment shared by institutions of higher education and other scientists, $200 million to repair and modernize science and engineering research facilities at the nation’s institutions of higher education and other science labs, and $100 million is also included to improve instruction in science, math and engineering.
• National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research: $2 billion, including $1.5 billion for expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease - NIH is currently able to fund less than 20% of approved applications – and $500 million to implement the repair and improvement strategic plan developed by the NIH for its campuses.

Small Business

• Industrial Technology Services: $100 million, including $70 million for the Technology Innovation Program to accelerate research in potentially revolutionary technologies with high job growth potential, and $30 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships to help small and mid-size manufacturers compete globally by providing them with access to technology.

Government

• Social Security Administration Modernization: $400 million to replace the 30 year old Social Security Administration’s National Computer Center to meet growing needs for processing retirement and disability claims and records storage.
• Farm Service Agency: $245 million for critical IT improvements to systems that have been unable to handle workload increases.
• State Department Technology: $276 million to upgrade and modernize information technology platforms for the Department to meet security requirements post-9/11.

Education

• School Construction: $20 billion, including $14 billion for K-12 and $6 billion for higher education, for renovation and modernization, including technology upgrades and energy efficiency improvements. Also includes $100 million for school construction in communities that lack a local property tax base because they contain non-taxable federal lands such as military bases or Indian reservations, and $25 million to help charter schools build, obtain, and repair schools.
• Education Technology: $1 billion for 21st century classrooms, including computer and science labs and teacher technology training.

Health Care

• Health Information Technology: $20 billion to jumpstart efforts to computerize health records to cut costs and reduce medical errors.
• Indian Health Service Facilities: $550 million to modernize aging hospitals and health clinics and make healthcare technology upgrades to improve healthcare for underserved rural populations.

Blair Levin Says That Broadband Stimulus Will Happen Under "Existing Structures"

Blair Levin, a key technology policy adviser on the Obama transition, kicked off today's Congressional Internet Caucus State of the Net Conference. It's believed that this was the first on-the-record comments from the Obama transition on their innovation agenda. Levin said, in his relatively brief remarks, that this is the first time that he, himself, has been out of the "transition bubble."

Levin, the team leader of the technology, innovation and government reform task force, had a particular focus on the broadband stimulus plan.

He felt that the current reports on the stimulus are "off target." Mostly because there is still a lot of work to do with Congress and the fact that people are confusing it with national broadband goals.

Levin contends that this effort is part of something much bigger. "In thinking of broadband in the economic stimulus package, don't confuse a piece of puzzle with the puzzle," said Levin.

Broadband growth in this context is merely a key component of the overall economic recovery package, and Levin illustrated this by drawing a big circle that represented the holistic economic stimulus plan and then drew a smaller circle in the middle of the bigger one to show where broadband enhancements fit. In this context, any broadband effort has to be "timely, targeted and temporary", and, work within "existing structures".

Clearly, the "existing structures" comment was meant to set expectations about what companies will be relied on to support the plan; provide a simple rationale why; and, answer criticisms about "rewarding incumbents."

Julius Genachowski, Your Next FCC Chairman

The longtime rumor appears to have met its end as a true story. Obama confidant, law school buddy and tech adviser before, during and after the campaign will be the next FCC Chairman if confirmed. Genachowski was also the Chief Counsel to former Chairman Reed Hundt of the FCC.

We'll see if the CTO position is announced prior to the Congressional Internet Caucus annual conference on Wednesday. An unnamed Obama tech advisor will speak at the event. (And, it could be that Genachowski repeats his role from last year's conference as the tech policy voice for Obama).

From the Amy Schatz and Co at the WSJ on what we do know:

During the campaign, Mr. Genachowski served as the top technology adviser to Mr. Obama, putting together a detailed technology and innovation plan that expressed support for open Internet or "net neutrality" protections; media-ownership rules that encourage more diversity; and expansion of affordable broadband access across the country.

An early supporter of the president-elect, Mr. Genachowski also served as a bundler for the campaign, raising more than $500,000 in donations.

If confirmed, Mr. Genachowski will take over an agency that has had rocky relations with Congress and major companies in the telecommunications industry under current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The agency may also still be coping with the U.S.'s transition to digital-only television, which is scheduled to take place Feb. 17 but could be pushed back to the summer.

While at IAC, Mr. Genachowski served several roles at the media and e-commerce conglomerate, first as general counsel and later as head of business development and part of the top core of executives.

Would Multiple Identities on Facebook be a Good Thing?

One of the more interesting threads from Tuesday's Tech Policy Central privacy panel was started by almost a throw-away question about whether you would someday be able to have multiple identities for your multiple audiences someday soon on Facebook (for example, your work face for your work colleagues your personal face for your close friends and so on).

Sonia Arrision was at the event and picked up on this thread today:

(Facebook's Chris) Kelly also said that Facebook was trying to give its users more control over their profiles using privacy settings.

Currently, 60 percent of Facebook's teen users have implemented privacy controls, compared with only 25 percent to 30 percent of adult users. This is an interesting statistic, given the common assumption that members of the younger generation don't care who sees their data. It is probably also a sign to entrepreneurs that there will be greater demand in the future for people to do more with their profiles, meaning more than one. That particular question brought up more controversy than one might expect.

If people could have more than one profile, argued Facebook's Chris Kelly, the user experience would break down.

"It is important to have a single identity, and you may want to show different parts to different people," he said.

Not everyone was convinced. Indeed, as Dempsey pointed out, in real life people often showcase very distinct identities in different situations.

When at work, for example, people have a career persona. When at a spouse's event, they don their spouse persona, and when picking up their children from school, they show their parent persona. Many people like to keep these personas separate. Now, of course, people often tell coworkers about their kids, but they don't necessarily want to be defined that way in the context of their workplace. Being able to keep these identities apart in a more convenient way may very well be the next big social network innovation that consumers can't wait to embrace.

Privacy 2009

So far, it sounds a lot like privacy 2007 and 2008.

But, nevertheless, thanks to the Tech Policy Central folks for pulling together a discussion on Internet privacy today at Facebook HQ that featured Center for Democracy and Technology's Jim Dempsey, Chris Hoofnagle of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Chris Kelly, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer (and potential California AG candidate). Kara Swisher of All Things D moderated and promised to ask "the really hard questions."

Below are the highlights of the talk... Please don't trust my sporadic and distracted note taking as a transcript......

Kara Swisher:  Privacy is something that gets ignored until Britney spears gets her twitter account hacked.

Jim Dempsey: Big issue for 2009 is the issue of government access to information. We have a set of laws that somewhat protect against privacy invasions. Yet, we have a regulatory regime that is based on a 1986 rule for technologies that are moving fast.

While we are encouraging companies to improve their privacy policies, even the best privacy policy in the world is exposed to a subpoena.

Chris Hoofnagle: Prediction for 2009: Privacy is not going to highly prioritized this year in DC because of other big issues. But, states are running ahead and need to be watched. Calif, Mass, Wash, NJ, NY. I would look the states as prime leaders.

Chris Kelly: Big issue for 2009: How we give people as much control as possible while allowing them to do what they want to do.

KS: Do people really know what they are doing when they shove their information on their services?

JD: The love/hate relationship with tech is a constant struggle for consumers. You can’t legislate common sense, but we can use education, better tech design and legislation to create an environment where there is proper balance.

When you think about medical records, you hit the outer levels of consent. Most people consent to things that are put in front of them. But governments can take the issue of consent off the table. For example, consent for access to genetic records by employers have been take off the table by law.

CH: We have a long way to go to get to proper public understanding. Doing a series of consumer surveys. Consumers think that privacy policies prevent a baseline series of protections that don’t exist.

KS: Should we be parternalist to correct this?

CK: there has been a binary approach to rules. But, most people don’t want their choices to be binary and this is the way that FB sets up its privacy settings.

CK: Facebook hasn't taken a formal approach to a federal Internet privacy bill. We have take a tech first approach that would get us ahead of legislation, but we are monitoring.

There are bills that already exist. For example COPA for under 13s.

Our philosophy is that they manner of how people want other people to see them is housed in the privacy settings. But, if you used anonymity, then the workings of the privacy setting loses value. I think privacy is about control, not anonymity.

CK: Anonymity could degrade the political discourse. Responsibility for comments can enhance the dialogue. Anonymity in every context is not necessarily a good thing.

KS: Beacon and advertising?

CK: Beacon was about letting people to share actions on third party sites with friends. Where we made the mistake was that we made it too easy to share.

KS: Why did it hit such a nerve?

CK: I think it was a generalized concern about data and where it is going on the Internet and we didn’t get the product right in terms of giving people control.

Newsfeed was much the same way. We surprised people with it. It was the same info that already existed, but when it was in one package they were surprised.

CH: this just shows how naïve consumers are. I loved beacon and how it showed how consumers react to when information about them is exposed. I think consumers don’t like to be tools of advertising.

KS: What about generational differences and privacy?

JD: I question and reject that kids don’t care about privacy. I think this more about the definition of deviant behavior.

CH: We don’t know if this is a generational or maturational issue. Kids don’t have the same development.

KS: Who are the most dangerous players? Who should we worry the most?

CH: we need to look at the intermediaries: like the ISPs and google is looking more and more like a intermediary. A lot of companies have the same info like Axiom and Lexis, but it’s all about the analytics and how they figure this information out.

KS: Nightmare scenario in terms of privacy?

CK: A hacked system and major security breach.

JD: The single cross platform identity -- personal data linked across the Web

Audience Q: Where do we see things going in the Obama admin?

CH: Obama’s record on privacy is fairly thin, but his appointements will be very important. Promotes Ed Felten for CTO. A change in posture at these agencies will be important. “Self-regulation” will be harder. Need to be better data driven.

JD: The CTO position is likely be more inward looking than outward looking. There will be an improvement in transparency. Who will be the most powerful person. No one knows yet.