IP: Freidman: Webbed, Wired and Worried

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ 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


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