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IP: Freidman: Webbed, Wired and Worried
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 03:47:29 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com> Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 00:41:16 -0400 (EDT) To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com Cc: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>, <declan () well com> Subject: Freidman: Webbed, Wired and Worried
From the New York Times ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/opinion/26FRIE.html Webbed, Wired and Worried By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Ever since I learned that Mohamed Atta made his reservation for Sept. 11 using his laptop and the American Airlines Web site, and that several of his colleagues used Travelocity.com, I've been wondering how the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley were looking at the 9/11 tragedy whether it was giving them any pause about the wired world they've been building and the assumptions they are building it upon. In a recent visit to Stanford University and Silicon Valley, I had a chance to pose these questions to techies. I found at least some of their libertarian, technology-will-solve-everything cockiness was gone. I found a much keener awareness that the unique web of technologies Silicon Valley was building before 9/11 from the Internet to powerful encryption software can be incredible force multipliers for individuals and small groups to do both good and evil. And I found an acknowledgment that all those technologies had been built with a high degree of trust as to how they would be used, and that that trust had been shaken. In its place is a greater appreciation that high-tech companies aren't just threatened by their competitors but also by some of their users. "The question `How can this technology be used against me?' is now a real R-and-D issue for companies, where in the past it wasn't really even being asked," said Jim Hornthal, a former vice chairman of Travelocity.com. "People here always thought the enemy was Microsoft, not Mohamed Atta." It was part of Silicon Valley lore that successful innovations would follow a well-trodden path: beginning with early adopters, then early mass-appeal users and finally the mass market. But it's clear now there is also a parallel, criminal path starting with the early perverters of a new technology up to the really twisted perverters. For instance, the 9/11 hijackers may have communicated globally through steganography software, which lets users e-mail, say, a baby picture that secretly contains a 300-page compressed document or even a voice message. "We have engineered large parts of our system on an assumption of trust that may no longer be accurate," said a Stanford law professor, Joseph A. Grundfest. "Trust is hard-wired into everything from computers to the Internet to building codes. What kind of building codes you need depends on what kind of risks you thought were out there. The odds of someone flying a passenger jet into a tall building were zero before. They're not anymore. The whole objective of the terrorists is to reduce our trust in all the normal instruments and technologies we use in daily life. You wake up in the morning and trust that you can get to work across the Brooklyn Bridge don't. This is particularly dangerous because societies which have a low degree of trust are backward societies." Silicon Valley staunchly opposed the Clipper Chip, which would have given the government a back-door key to all U.S. encrypted data. Now some wonder whether they shouldn't have opposed it. John Doerr, the venture capitalist, said, "Culturally, the Valley was already maturing before 9/11, but since then it's definitely developed a deeper respect for leaders and government institutions." At Travelocity, Mr. Hornthal noted, whether the customer was Mohamed Atta or Bill Gates, "our only responsibility was to authenticate your financial ability to pay. Did your name and credit card match your billing address? It was not our responsibility, nor did we have the ability, to authenticate your intent with that ticket, which requires a much deeper sense of identification. It may be, though, that this is where technology will have to go to allow a deeper sense of identification." Speaking of identity, Bethany Hornthal, a marketing consultant, noted that Silicon Valley had always been a multicultural place where young people felt they could go anywhere in the world and fit in. They were global kids. "Suddenly after 9/11, that changed," she said. "Suddenly they were Americans, and there was a certain danger in that identity. [As a result] the world has become more defined and restricted for them. Now you ask, Where is it safe to go as an American?" So there is this sense, she concluded, that thanks to technology and globalization, "the world may have gotten smaller but I can't go there anymore." Or as my friend Jack Murphy, a venture capitalist, mused to me as we discussed the low state of many high-tech investments, "Maybe I should have gone into the fence business instead." "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" - Pierre Abelard John F. McMullen johnmac () acm org ICQ: 4368412 Fax: (603) 288-8440 johnmac () cyberspace org http://www.westnet.com/~observer ------ End of Forwarded Message For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- IP: Freidman: Webbed, Wired and Worried Dave Farber (May 26)