Amar E. Chakravarthi’s Blog

If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time online. However, considering how much of an influence the Internet has in our daily lives, how many of us actually know the story of how it got its start?

Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.

While the complete history of the Internet could easily fill a few books, this article should familiarize you with key milestones and events related to the growth and evolution of the Internet between 1969 to 2009.

1969: Arpanet

Arpanet was the first real network to run on packet switching technology (new at the time). On the October 29, 1969, computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time. In effect, they were the first hosts on what would one day become the Internet.

The first message sent across the network was supposed to be “Login”, but reportedly, the link between the two colleges crashed on the letter “g”.

1969: Unix

Another major milestone during the 60’s was the inception of Unix: the operating system whose design heavily influenced that of Linux and FreeBSD (the operating systems most popular in today’s web servers/web hosting services).

1970: Arpanet network

An Arpanet network was established between Harvard, MIT, and BBN (the company that created the “interface message processor” computers used to connect to the network) in 1970.

1971: E-mail

Email was first developed in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the “@” symbol to separate the user name from the computer name (which later on became the domain name).

1971: Project Gutenberg and eBooks

One of the most impressive developments of 1971 was the start of Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg, for those unfamiliar with the site, is a global effort to make books and documents in the public domain available electronically–for free–in a variety of eBook and electronic formats.

It began when Michael Hart gained access to a large block of computing time and came to the realization that the future of computers wasn’t in computing itself, but in the storage, retrieval and searching of information that, at the time, was only contained in libraries. He manually typed (no OCR at the time) the “Declaration of Independence” and launched Project Gutenberg to make information contained in books widely available in electronic form. In effect, this was the birth of the eBook.

1972: CYCLADES

France began its own Arpanet-like project in 1972, called CYCLADES. While Cyclades was eventually shut down, it did pioneer a key idea: the host computer should be responsible for data transmission rather than the network itself.
1973: The first trans-Atlantic connection and the popularity of emailing

Arpanet made its first trans-Atlantic connection in 1973, with the University College of London. During the same year, email accounted for 75% of all Arpanet network activity.

1974: The beginning of TCP/IP

1974 was a breakthrough year. A proposal was published to link Arpa-like networks together into a so-called “inter-network”, which would have no central control and would work around a transmission control protocol (which eventually became TCP/IP).

1975: The email client

With the popularity of emailing, the first modern email program was developed by John Vittal, a programmer at the University of Southern California in 1975. The biggest technological advance this program (called MSG) made was the addition of “Reply” and “Forward” functionality.

1977: The PC modem

1977 was a big year for the development of the Internet as we know it today. It’s the year the first PC modem, developed by Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington, was introduced and initially sold to computer hobbyists.

1978: The Bulletin Board System (BBS)

The first bulletin board system (BBS) was developed during a blizzard in Chicago in 1978.

1978: Spam is born

1978 is also the year that brought the first unsolicited commercial email message (later known as spam), sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk.

1979: MUD – The earliest form of multiplayer games

The precursor to World of Warcraft and Second Life was developed in 1979, and was called MUD (short for MultiUser Dungeon). MUDs were entirely text-based virtual worlds, combining elements of role-playing games, interactive, fiction, and online chat.

1979: Usenet

1979 also ushered into the scene: Usenet, created by two graduate students. Usenet was an internet-based discussion system, allowing people from around the globe to converse about the same topics by posting public messages categorized by newsgroups.

1980: ENQUIRE software

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN) launched ENQUIRE (written by Tim Berners-Lee), a hypertext program that allowed scientists at the particle physics lab to keep track of people, software, and projects using hypertext (hyperlinks).

1982: The first emoticon

While many people credit Kevin MacKenzie with the invention of the emoticon in 1979, it was Scott Fahlman in 1982 who proposed using after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie. The modern emoticon was born.

1983: Arpanet computers switch over to TCP/IP

January 1, 1983 was the deadline for Arpanet computers to switch over to the TCP/IP protocols developed by Vinton Cerf. A few hundred computers were affected by the switch. The name server was also developed in ‘83.

1984: Domain Name System (DNS)

The domain name system was created in 1984 along with the first Domain Name Servers (DNS). The domain name system was important in that it made addresses on the Internet more human-friendly compared to its numerical IP address counterparts. DNS servers allowed Internet users to type in an easy-to-remember domain name and then converted it to the IP address automatically.

1985: Virtual communities

1985 brought the development of The WELL (short for Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the oldest virtual communities still in operation. It was developed by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant in February of ‘85. It started out as a community of the readers and writers of the Whole Earth Review and was an open but “remarkably literate and uninhibited intellectual gathering”. Wired Magazine once called The Well “The most influential online community in the world.”

1986: Protocol wars

The so-called Protocol wars began in 1986. European countries at that time were pursuing the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI), while the United States was using the Internet/Arpanet protocol, which eventually won out.

1987: The Internet grows

By 1987, there were nearly 30,000 hosts on the Internet. The original Arpanet protocol had been limited to 1,000 hosts, but the adoption of the TCP/IP standard made larger numbers of hosts possible.

1988: IRC – Internet Relay Chat

Also in 1988, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first deployed, paving the way for real-time chat and the instant messaging programs we use today.

1988: First major malicious internet-based attack

One of the first major Internet worms was released in 1988. Referred to as “The Morris Worm”, it was written by Robert Tappan Morris and caused major interruptions across large parts of the Internet.

1989: AOL is launched

When Apple pulled out of the AppleLink program in 1989, the project was renamed and America Online was born. AOL, still in existence today, later on made the Internet popular amongst the average internet users.

1989: The proposal for the World Wide Web

1989 also brought about the proposal for the World Wide Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee. It was originally published in the March issue of MacWorld, and then redistributed in May 1990. It was written to persuade CERN that a global hypertext system was in CERN’s best interest. It was originally called “Mesh”; the term “World Wide Web” was coined while Berners-Lee was writing the code in 1990.

1990: First commercial dial-up ISP

1990 also brought about the first commercial dial-up Internet provider, The World. The same year, Arpanet ceased to exist.

1990: World Wide Web protocols finished

The code for the World Wide Web was written by Tim Berners-Lee, based on his proposal from the year before, along with the standards for HTML, HTTP, and URLs.

1991: First web page created

1991 brought some major innovations to the world of the Internet. The first web page was created and, much like the first email explained what email was, its purpose was to explain what the World Wide Web was.

1991: First content-based search protocol

Also in the same year, the first search protocol that examined file contents instead of just file names was launched, called Gopher.

1991: MP3 becomes a standard

Also, the MP3 file format was accepted as a standard in 1991. MP3 files, being highly compressed, later become a popular file format to share songs and entire albums via the internet.

1991: The first webcam

One of the more interesting developments of this era, though, was the first webcam. It was deployed at a Cambridge University computer lab, and its sole purpose was to monitor a particular coffee maker so that lab users could avoid wasted trips to an empty coffee pot.

1993: Mosaic – first graphical web browser for the general public

The first widely downloaded Internet browser, Mosaic, was released in 1993. While Mosaic wasn’t the first web browser, it is considered the first browser to make the Internet easily accessible to non-techies.

1993: Governments join in on the fun

In 1993, both the White House and the United Nations came online, marking the beginning of the .gov and .org domain names.

1994: Netscape Navigator

Mosaic’s first big competitor, Netscape Navigator, was released the year following (1994).

1995: Commercialization of the internet

1995 is often considered the first year the web became commercialized. While there were commercial enterprises online prior to ‘95, there were a few key developments that happened that year. First, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption was developed by Netscape, making it safer to conduct financial transactions (like credit card payments) online.

In addition, two major online businesses got their start the same year. The first sale on “Echo Bay” was made that year. Echo Bay later became eBay. Amazon.com also started in 1995, though it didn’t turn a profit for six years, until 2001.

1995: Geocities, the Vatican goes online, and JavaScript

Other major developments that year included the launch of Geocities (which officially closed down on October 26, 2009).

The Vatican also went online for the first time.

Java and JavaScript (originally called LiveScript by its creator, Brendan Eich, and deployed as part of the Netscape Navigator browser – see comments for explanation) was first introduced to the public in 1995. ActiveX was launched by Microsoft the following year.

1996: First web-based (webmail) service

In 1996, HoTMaiL (the capitalized letters are an homage to HTML), the first webmail service, was launched.

1997: The term “weblog” is coined

While the first blogs had been around for a few years in one form or another, 1997 was the first year the term “weblog” was used.

1998: First new story to be broken online instead of traditional media

In 1998, the first major news story to be broken online was the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal (also referred to as “Monicagate” among other nicknames), which was posted on The Drudge Report after Newsweek killed the story.

1998: Google

Google went live in 1998, revolutionizing the way in which people find information online.

1998: Internet-based file-sharing gets its roots

In 1998 as well, Napster launched, opening up the gates to mainstream file-sharing of audio files over the internet.

1999: SETI@home project

1999 is the year when one of the more interesting projects ever brought online: the SETI@home project, launched. The project has created the equivalent of a giant supercomputer by harnessing the computing power of more than 3 million computers worldwide, using their processors whenever the screensaver comes on, indicating that the computer is idle. The program analyzes radio telescope data to look for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

2000: The bubble bursts

2000 was the year of the dotcom collapse, resulting in huge losses for legions of investors. Hundreds of companies closed, some of which had never turned a profit for their investors. The NASDAQ, which listed a large number of tech companies affected by the bubble, peaked at over 5,000, then lost 10% of its value in a single day, and finally hit bottom in October of 2002.

2001: Wikipedia is launched

With the dotcom collapse still going strong, Wikipedia launched in 2001, one of the websites that paved the way for collective web content generation/social media.

2003: VoIP goes mainstream

In 2003: Skype is released to the public, giving a user-friendly interface to Voice over IP calling.

2003: MySpace becomes the most popular social network

Also in 2003, MySpace opens up its doors. It later grew to be the most popular social network at one time (thought it has since been overtaken by Facebook).

2003: CAN-SPAM Act puts a lid on unsolicited emails

Another major advance in 2003 was the signing of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, better known as the CAN-SPAM Act.

2004: Web 2.0

Though coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, the term “Web 2.0″, referring to websites and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that are highly interactive and user-driven became popular around 2004. During the first Web 2.0 conference, John Batelle and Tim O’Reilly described the concept of “the Web as a Platform”: software applications built to take advantage of internet connectivity, moving away from the desktop (which has downsides such as operating system dependency and lack of interoperability).

2004: Social Media and Digg

The term “social media”, believed to be first used by Chris Sharpley, was coined in the same year that “Web 2.0″ became a mainstream concept. Social media–sites and web applications that allow its users to create and share content and to connect with one another–started around this period.

Digg, a social news site, launched on November of 2004, paving the way for sites such as Reddit, Mixx, and Yahoo! Buzz. Digg revolutionized traditional means of generating and finding web content, democratically promoting news and web links that are reviewed and voted on by a community.

2004: “The” Facebook open to college students

Facebook launched in 2004, though at the time it was only open to college students and was called “The Facebook”; later on, “The” was dropped from the name, though the URL http://www.thefacebook.com still works.

2005: YouTube – streaming video for the masses

YouTube launched in 2005, bringing free online video hosting and sharing to the masses.

2006: Twitter gets twittering

Twitter launched in 2006. It was originally going to be called twittr (inspired by Flickr); the first Twitter message was “just setting up my twttr”.

2007: Major move to place TV shows online

Hulu was first launched in 2007, a joint venture between ABC, NBC, and Fox to make popular TV shows available to watch online.

2007: The iPhone and the Mobile Web

The biggest innovation of 2007 was almost certainly the iPhone, which was almost wholly responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design.

2008: “Internet Election”

The first “Internet election” took place in 2008 with the U.S. Presidential election. It was the first year that national candidates took full advantage of all the Internet had to offer. Hillary Clinton jumped on board early with YouTube campaign videos. Virtually every candidate had a Facebook page or a Twitter feed, or both.

Ron Paul set a new fundraising record by raising $4.3 million in a single day through online donations, and then beat his own record only weeks later by raising $4.4 million in a single day.

The 2008 elections placed the Internet squarely at the forefront of politics and campaigning, a trend that is unlikely to change any time in the near future.

2009: ICANN policy changes

2009 brought about one of the biggest changes to come to the Internet in a long time when the U.S. relaxed its control over ICANN, the official naming body of the Internet (they’re the organization in charge of registering domain names).

The Future?

Where is the future of the Internet headed? Share your opinions in the comments section.

Sources and Further Reading

A People’s History of the Internet: from Arpanet in 1969 to Today: A timeline of the Internet from guardian.co.uk.

History of the Internet: An early timeline of the Internet, from precursors in the 1800s up through 1997.

A Brief History of the Web: A series of videos from Microsoft to celebrate the launch of Internet Explorer 8.

The History of the Internet – Tim Berners-Lee: A brief history of major developments associated with the Internet from About.com.

Hobbes’ Internet Timeline – the definitive ARPAnet & Internet History: A very thorough timeline of the Internet, starting in 1957 and going up through 2004, with tons of statistics and source material included.

Internet Timeline: A basic timeline of Internet history from FactMonster.com.

“Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’ then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone. For the times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan

The Global Recession

Re-ces-sion \ri-se-sh?n\ “a period of reduced economic activity”1

Recession: it’s an ugly word, but unfortunately a fact of life—especially these days. The current economic crisis not only affects individuals and businesses in North America, but those around the globe as well.

Nearly every day during the last six months when I’ve opened up the newspaper, there’s been some story about a company that has laid off its employees. The sad truth is that many of these layoffs are targeted toward individuals who have been working for the same company for many years and now are finding themselves looking for work in a job market for which they may not possess the skills required.

So what are these individuals and businesses doing to weather the storm? Well, I guess you could say it depends on the individual and what business he or she is in. Some industries have been harder hit than others (e.g., construction and manufacturing), but one thing is certain—the recession’s effect is being felt by everyone everywhere.

Unemployment Rates on the Rise

During the Great Depression (from 1929 to the mid 1930s), the unemployment rate reached 25 percent. Those kinds of numbers make today’s economic difficulties pale in comparison. That being said, today’s unemployment rates are still steadily rising—with no immediate end in sight.

According to the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)2, in February 2009, the overall unemployment rate was at 7.2 percent—a 15-year high. Since the current recession began in December 2007, the news has been full of reports of job layoffs. More recently, the US government released a report showing that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits was at its highest level in 25 years, as more and more workers sought government assistance.

The Human Element

Managing your workforce when times are good is hard enough; managing it when times are tough can be extremely taxing on everyone involved. Dealing with people and emotions can take its toll, even on the most change-resilient businesses.

One important factor that has to be considered throughout this period of economic difficulty is your people. People are a business’ greatest—and most important—asset. In the Webster Buchanan Research report Managing Change and Growth, the author brings this fact to light by saying: “The importance of the people/performance equation is only just starting to be understood but has important implications for organizations that rely on their human assets to deliver financial success.”4

If this statement is indeed true, then what does a company do when it must lay off the very employees that aid in its success? A financial crisis often allows a business to take a deeper look at its staff and their potential to grow with the company; then, it makes the decision about which ones are expendable. This decision can be based on many factors; however, reasons often given to employees are due to “downsizing” or “a lack of performance.” Another reason may be the simple fact that one employee has less seniority than another.

In large companies, employees already feel like they’re “just another number”—with uncertainty about their opportunity for growth within the firm. During tough economic times (often due to cutbacks), these employees feel even more at risk, and are afraid of being laid off when their “number” is up. Stress levels are high, and employees often fear for their future—and the welfare of their families.

Change Is Perpetual—and Inevitable

Change is perpetual—and inevitable (especially if that change comes by way of an economic crisis). But what happens when the change is global? The US and Canada are just two countries working toward fixing the problem. Let’s take a closer look at just what they’re doing.

Government Stimulus Programs

Canada is attempting to tackle its economic situation by taking a deeper look at its Employment Insurance program. Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, says: “The hard working people of this country are getting hammered by job losses. People are fed up with a government that refuses to fix the Employment Insurance (EI) program. Simply put, if the government doesn’t fix the problems with EI now, this recession will get a lot worse, more people will suffer and the recovery will take longer.”

Georgetti goes on to say that Employment Insurance is an important form of economic stimulus. “It helps people deal with tough times like these. It ensures that while the mill or the factory is shut down, money is in peoples’ pockets so the grocery store, shops, and other services in the community aren’t driven out of business too.”

Canadians are not alone in the fight to keep the economy stimulated. In January 2009, the US President, Barack Obama, unveiled a plan to revitalize the economy in the short term with a stimulus package that will immediately inject $75 billion (USD) into the economy—in the form of tax cuts and direct spending targeted to working families, seniors, homeowners, and the unemployed.5

Besides providing an immediate $250 (USD) tax cut for workers and their families and an additional $250 tax cut to workers and seniors if the economy continues to worsen, the stimulus package will also provide relief to homeowners hit by the housing crisis. President Obama believes that the areas hardest hit by the housing crisis (state and local governments) should be provided immediate, temporary funding too so that the decline in property values does not cause these levels of government to reduce critical public services and cut vital infrastructure spending.6

As the economy slows, state and local governments should avoid postponing major infrastructure spending. Doing so would only exacerbate the economic slowdown.

Managing Your Workforce in a Recession

While governments are hard at work putting together their stimulus packages, companies must also do their part to take care of their employees. Many companies understand these fears, but they often lack a strategy or plan to help calm them. Creating a long-range plan will not only help calm the fears of your employees, it can help motivate and reenergize them as well.

Motivation through Rewards Goes a Long Way

Dealing with the up-and-down cycle of the economy is a part of doing business in a changing world. It’s important to remember, however, that change brought on by recession should be handled in a manner similar to that of any other business change (whether due to a merger or acquisition, organic growth, or a change in business model).

While it’s impossible to control a downturn in the economy, it is possible to control how your business—and more importantly you workforce—will cope. The short- and long-term management of your resources is a crucial aspect of managing a business. In order to get the highest level of performance from your people, your business must continue to develop them—even when times are tough.

A recognition program based on a company’s strategy often helps employees understand its goals more clearly—and then rewards them for delivering. One way to develop this is through the use of human capital management (HCM). HCM—often referred to as talent management—is the strategy of acquiring, retaining, and managing employees. It’s a powerful tool that enables businesses to assess the value of key employees within the organization. By using HCM, organizations can create strategic action plans that are recession-proof.

Mass layoffs are also difficult for those employees left behind. It places extra demand on personnel, including the pressure to take on additional tasks and to perform well. How better to put minds at ease than with a program that recognizes and rewards individuals, ignites motivation, and enhances productivity. One of the best ways to weather an economic storm is as a team—one that feels important. If your people feel that they are valued—and that their contribution to your business makes a difference, you will have both their loyalty and support through difficult times.

Another form of motivation is through employee input. Often the best ideas come from people within your organization. Allow them the freedom to state their ideas and opinions—and then reward them accordingly for their efforts.

Recession Checklist: A Guideline to Managing your Workforce

The UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)7 is a firm that helps businesses manage and develop people. Along with the Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service (ACAS)8, it has released an official guideline to managing your workforce during a recession. It’s a great checklist for any business that’s looking to make it through the recession unscathed.

• Think long term
• Maintain employee engagement
• Support your employees’ health and well-being
• Develop a strategy for redundancy so it’s there when you need it
• Think about ways to minimize redundancies if workforce reductions are inevitable
• Consult with your workforce and employee representatives
• Establish fair and objective selection criteria that will help you to retain key people
• Help redundant employees find other work
• Plan for the future

For complete details of the above checklist, visit CIPD’s Web site.

Technology that Can Make a Difference during Times of Change

Change and growth are two forces that can disrupt a business. When change occurs, organizations must take a look at not only their current business processes, but also at the technology they’re using to run the business, to ensure it is capable of handling change effectively. Transactional systems, such as finance and human resources, are the core of a business’s operations and must be able to easily and rapidly adjust to changing conditions.

Recession-proof HR: Agresso Talent Management

One vendor that recognizes and understands change is Agresso. In fact, Agresso has incorporated the whole essence of the word into its product and go-to-market strategy with its Businesses Living in Change (BLINC)™.

Agresso is already widely known for its Agresso Business World (ABW) enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that enables businesses to capture and deliver unlimited amounts of analytical information across their organizations. With over 1.5 million global users in 100 countries, Agresso is considered by analysts to be one of the leaders in this space.

A Setup for Managing Change

The key drivers for changes in business can range anywhere from restructuring to mergers and acquisitions. But even through the current global recession, Agresso takes managing change to the next level. The key to this is its VITA architecture. This service model-based architecture can make adapting to change easy, fast, and efficient.

In 2000, Agresso took its change management ideas one step further by developing a Web-based human resources (HR) and talent management suite and offering it as an add-on to existing ERP infrastructures. Agresso’s BLINC™ plug-ins allow businesses to easily manage their workforces—especially in times of great change.

Agresso’s talent management suite can help businesses effectively manage change—whether that change is due to an economic downturn or other reasons—by helping to optimize workforce coverage, manage and develop employee competency/skills, as well as create regulatory and statutory training plans for employees’ future career goals. It can also be used to predict or plan competency gaps using a range of tools—including business analysis and reporting. This type of broad functionality makes strategizing and preparing for change (i.e., succession planning) a breeze.

Automation allows data to be entered once, when it then becomes available across the enterprise for those departments or individuals that need it the most.

Other features of Agresso’s HR suite include:

• HR administration
• Competency tracking
• Training administration
• Payroll
• Absence tracking
• Expense ledger
• Organization management
• Employee self-service
• Competence portal

Conclusion

Economic recession—while taxing on businesses—is just one of the changes that businesses must weather. For your business it could be the difference between sink or swim. With a well-constructed “recession action plan”—one that includes recognition and rewards—and a system that can change with the times (such as an HCM or talent management system), managing your workforce through an economic downturn is possible.

References

1 – Merriam Webster
2 – Bureau of Labor Statistics

3 – Statistics Canada
4 – Webster Buchanan Research

5 – Barack Obama.com
6 – Barack Obama’s Plan to Stimulate the Economy
7 – CIPD
8 – ACAS

With the doubling of the JAVA stock price on March 18, 2009 based on a Wall Street Journal report that IBM is bidding to buy Sun Microsystems, and with the StockTradersPlace sell action commentary on March 21, one open question is “Should the stock be shorted?”. Here is where other factors have to be considered beyond technical analysis. With speculation that other companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Cisco Systems (CSCO), among others, may want to buy Sun Microsystems, a bidding war can emerge. For this reason, it is probably risky to short the stock at this point, although selling the long position holding is the prudent thing to do.

I continue to be amused by corporate acquisitions and the price paid for such actions.

The previous paragraph was not meant to suggest a similar fate for IBM but was simply old memories coming to the fore as this Sun Microsystems acquisition is being reported. The price is high at $8B. There will be corporate culture clashes and integration issues, as well as clear conflicts in technology in terms of Intel and Advanced Micro Devices microprocessors used in IBM server products versus the Sun Microsystems SPARC architecture microprocessors.

And what is the latest craze with Sun Microsystems anyway? Well, Sun’s legacy is in engineering workstations and server products. But in 2007, Sun changed its stock symbol from SUNW to JAVA to clearly re-orient the company strength and leadership in the JAVA programming language. As significant as the JAVA technology is to the Web computing industry, one must continue to question how they intend to make money from this. As an investor/trader, that is the most important question to answer.

It will be very interesting indeed to see how this unfolds if IBM does end up acquiring Sun Microsystems. Will IBM then customize JAVA for its own internal purposes, thereby creating a potential issue with the open JAVA standard? How does IBM intend to recover the $8B spent predominantly on the acquisition of the JAVA technology which rightly belongs in the domain of open standards.

As an investor/trader of JAVA now and IBM now and in the future, the company fundamentals are extremely important to analyze beyond the technical analysis indicators. This is the time to avoid being over-focused on technical analysis alone.

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On a quite Sunday, you should spent a few minutes and check 2 posts this week by the Internet Commerence Association (ICA).

As a frequent reader to this blog, you should know due to the roll out of the new gTLD’s there is a ton of activity going on with ICANN and many parties are weighing in.

You should also know that because all registries what to be treated the same under ICANN rules, any rules and regulations ICANN imposes for the new gTLD operators will wind up being the rules and regs that existing registries including VeriSign.

The first post by the ICA this week covers the some of the proposals floating around to curtail “trademark” infringing domains, changes in the UDRP, placing responsibility on Registrars to prevent domain registrations that infringe on trademarks and the ICA Policy on this.

The Post states in part:

“””””•    ICANN could establish an “IP Registry” of sanctioned names that could then be restricted to their “owners”. Brand holders would bear the burden of proof, according to ICANN-defined procedures, of establishing their ownership of a brand name.

•    ICANN could establish a “loser pays” policy for the UDRP, where the losing party would pay the litigation costs of the prevailing rights holder. This would provide an incentive for applicants to make sure that they weren’t infringing on a trademark or copyrighted name, or at least quickly to relinquish their claim on a name when the legitimate owner made a complaint.

•    ICANN could place the responsibility on the registrars to enforce these property rights and the liability to pay rights holders’ costs associated with infringement. Registrars may be in the best position to perform this policing function.

The ICA has major concerns about such proposals, and believes that any major revamp of rights protections at the second level of the DNS should be considered carefully and on their own merits, and should not be a negotiating chip in the new gTLD rules debate.

The Internet is a global medium and there are few truly global brand names, and even then they only cover a specific relevant marketplace. Despite any assurances that some reasonable burden of proof will be placed upon brand holders, an IP Registry is likely to quickly resemble a large multilingual dictionary encompassing brands that are less than global, generic words used as brands, and  typographical variations of all of these  out to and beyond six degrees of separation.

A “loser pays” regime for the UDRP could well exacerbate reverse domain name hijacking cases brought by large multinational firms using law firms billing $600 per hour against domainers who believe they acted in good faith but can barely afford their own legal costs, much less pay the Fortune 500’s.

And that is not the only UDRP change sought by TPI – it also advocates “establishing a quick and low-cost way for established trademark holders to protect their intellectual property and prevent cybersquatting and other nuisance registrations on new registries”, but provides no details of what that might be. The UDRP is coming up on its 10th anniversary, and probably deserves a long and thorough review that incorporates the views and legitimate interests of both trademark owners and registrants with the aim of recommending balanced consensus recommendations for reform — and that is entirely separate from the new gTLD uproar.

Also, while registrars may at first find the notion of running ICANN in tandem with registries to be attractive, making them responsible for policing trademark rights, and financially liable to trademark interests, could quickly douse any enthusiasm.

Elsewhere, the Report suggests that Google, Yahoo, and other search engines “are likely to feel competitive pressures from users to guide users to a company’s correct website and not a bogus site”, so TPI apparently feels that they should jigger their algorithms to factor in brand owners.

The fundamental analytic flaw in the TPI report and recommendations is its willful blindness regarding the interests of the true users of the DNS — also known as those who pay the fees that are subsequently upstreamed to ICANN via the registrars and registries after they take their cut for services rendered – that is, the registrants, including domainers who invest in and develop domain portfolios. Contrary to the report’s view that registries and registrars are ICANN’s “direct users”, they should more properly be thought of as its authorized agents. The true users of the DNS are registrants of all stripes, as it is their registration fees that find their way to ICANN and constitute more than ninety percent of the organization’s income. The only registrants referred to in this report are “cybersquatters” and others that TPI regards as nuisances. Its plan translates into nothing less than “Taxation Without Representation” for registrants, as well as a dramatic erosion of due process rights in the UDRP.””

I urge you to read the complete blog post on the ICA site, which you can do by clicking here:

The second post this week of the ICA deals with proposals that are being discussed that would expend current trademark rights and adding new procedures that would amount to quick take down of domains without notice or right to defend.

Again quoting from the ICA site:

“”””Domainers may think that RPMs are something they can check on their car’s tachometer, but WIPO is proposing a new species of RPMs that have the potential to fundamentally change the domain name dispute arbitration process — and substantially increase the risk of reverse domain name hijacking – first at new gTLDs, and later at incumbent gTLDs.

The ICA is actively working to protect registrant rights as this process goes forward.

On March 13, 2009 Eric Wilbers, Director of WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation center, dispatched a letter to several high-ranking ICANN executives regarding the protection of trademarks on new gTLDs. That letter is available at http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/amc/en/docs/icann130309.pdf.

“””It is these further, as yet unknown models that are worrisome, to the extent that they begin to displace the UDRP as the mechanism for resolving allegations of trademark infringement against domain name registrants. Trademark owners have been openly discussing notice-and-takedown procedures for ordinary infringement allegations. ICA believes that such expedited procedures are appropriate for websites that are engaged in illegal activities such as phishing, malware distribution, or the hosting of illegal content such as child porn, but that they do not afford adequate due process in situations now subject to the UDRP. Registry applicants will be under intense practical pressure to offer the full range of RPMs – including “further models” – as the WIPO letter makes it clear that a registry’s endorsement of such mechanisms will assist its application and its implementation of “adequate RPMs” will be a significant consideration in any post-delegation case leveled against it.

The UDRP is far from perfect, and domainers have many of the same complaints about it as trademark holders, including its cost and the lack of uniform appeals mechanisms and binding precedents. But reform of the UDRP is a serious subject worthy of separate consideration – “complimenting” it in the context of developing the final rules for the rollout of new gTLDs, where trademark owners are the very squeaky wheel demanding to be greased before ICANN can open the new gTLD floodgates, is a near-certain formula for domainer rights getting short shrift – despite WIPO’s statement that it “appreciates the need to strike a reasonable balance between the protection of trademark rights…and the legitimate expectations of good-faith domain name registrants”.

The ICA will continue to actively monitor and participate in the new gTLD process as it relates to trademark protections and all other matters relevant to our members. We learned last week that the IPC was open to having non-constituency members serve on its task force preparing trademark protection recommendations and we nominated ICA President Jeremiah Johnston, who oversees Sedo’s Rights Protection Program. While we hope the IPC will incorporate the domainer viewpoint within their working group we will provide input no matter what. We are also actively participating in the GNSO’s Registration Abuse Policy Working Group and in the Business Constituency’s own internal discussions of appropriate trademark protections. In all of these endeavors we will continue to be guided by the initial position on rights protection staked out in our December 2008 comment letter.

•    Strong, cost-effective, and readily implemented protections for rights holders should be established but they must be limited to enforcing their rights under existing law and not be premised upon the creation of broader rights by ICANN fiat. It is for this reason that we object to creation of a reserve list of trademark names as this would provide rights protections beyond the geographic and relevant marketplace limitations of trademark law. We also object to the imposition of any new rights or procedures that would supplant or supplement the UDRP absent extensive consideration of such proposals in a process that ensures that registrant concerns about current UDRP enforcement trends are heard.

It is critically important that IP rights protections adopted in conjunction with the gTLD process be limited to protecting existing rights conferred by relevant law and do not create newly expanded rights beyond the scope of current law.

Any extralegal expansion of IP rights resulting from the gTLD process has the potential to find its way into and further bias the UDRP against good faith registrants. This concern is particularly acute given that the World Intellectual Property Organization, which is inherently biased in favor of IP rights and their expansion and also serves as a leading arbiter of UDRP cases, is the only designated provider of dispute resolution services for legal rights objections and that such disputes will be decided by a single panelist.

Notwithstanding that caution, we support requiring gTLD applicants to adopt strong best practices to protect IP rights and, if the method chosen is a sunrise period, we would urge that trademark owners be charged only a reasonable minimum fee to register their protected names at the second level on the new gTLD.

However, we strongly object to suggestions that ICANN establish a near-term requirement for cost-free takedown procedures for domains alleged to be established in bad faith for both new and existing gTLDs, as establishment of bad faith registration is already one of the key elements of the UDRP – it should remain one of three elements in a balanced proceeding, and not become the single determinative element in a biased proceeding. Any alteration or supplementation of the UDRP should not be implemented as a footnote to new gTLD implementation but only after presentation to and consideration by the community — and such process must take into consideration and redress concerns with the present UDRP voiced by registrants and not simply react to the complaints of trademark interests.”””

Once again you should read the entire post where you can do by clicking here.

The ICA is the ONLY group representing domain holder in this process.

There is a mind blogging amount of issues arising from the new gTLD’s.   It’s a full time job.

You need representation in this process.  You need someone to represent your interest.

You need to join the ICA.  It’s a lousy $295 a year.

Not only do they need the money but just as important they need the numbers.

The ICA needs to have hundreds if not thousands of members to give them more credibility and a bigger presence in these proceedings.  The ICA needs to represent not just the “big” guys but all domain holders.

Believe me, if ICA does not get the support they need its going to cost you a lot more than the $295 a year in fees, legal fees, and losing domains.

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http://domains.afxisi.com

Gmail storage is currently rising at 1/1000 MB every 25 seconds. This means that:

* It takes a little over 6 hours 56 minutes to increase 1 MB
* Every day storage increases by 3.456 MB
* It takes 289 days to increase 1 Gigabyte
* By the turn of the next millenium, Gmail users will have 1,257,183 MB of storage, enough to store about 100 million emails
* Every .003125 seconds, Gmail users get one additional bit of storage, enough to store either a 1 or a 0

The old adage that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it is no longer valid.

Today, two countries have the ability to control weather around the world: the United States and Russia. Other countries are working feverishly to catch up.

The search for the mastery of the elements that began with Nikola Tesla in the late 1800s, involving the transmission of electrical energy through space, has become a reality.

The consequences are monumental. Weather can be used as a blessing or as a weapon.
All the necessary elements are in place.
In 1969, the US Patent Office granted a patent for “a method of increasing the likelihood of precipitation by the artificial introduction of sea water vapor into the atmosphere”

In 1971, a patent was issued to the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for a system for irradiation of planet surface areas.
In 1971, a patent was issued to the national Science Foundation for a weather modification method.
In 1978, the United States launched an experiment which created a downpour of rain over six counties of northern Wisconsin. The strom generated winds of 175 miles per hour and caused fifty million dollars in damages.
In 1995, the US Patent Office issued a patent for a satellite weather modification system.

Russia, meanwhile, has developed an ‘elf‘ system thirty huge transmitters that form high-pressure blicking systems that can change weather patterns around the world. ‘Elf’ waves started in the early 1980s and strange weather patterns began to occur, with unusual droughts, flooding and storms.

The danger of a devastating confrontation between the United States and Russia became so great, that in 1977, a UN Treaty against weather modification for hostile purposes was signed by the United States and Russia.
In spite of signing the UN Treaty, The Unites States is in the process of building a huge weather experimental complex called HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) www.haarp.alaska.edu, in a remote part of Alaska.

The historical of the National Security Agency (NSA) presented here includes and depends on information reported in three books. The vast majority of data on the National Security Agency comes from James Bamford’s book The Puzzle Palace [1982]; all quotations are taken from Bamford unless otherwise noted. As Tim Weiner says, this book is “The best — the only — history of the NSA.” Material about NSA’s secret funding comes entirely from Weiner’s Blank Check [1990], which also provided budget estimates and supporting material for other sections. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks [1980 edition, originally published 1974], provided background information and a glimpse of the NSA from within the intelligence community but outside the agency itself.

—————————————————————————-
The oppressive atmosphere of Orwell’s 1984 arises from the omnipresence of Big Brother, the symbol of the government’s concern for the individual. Big Brother controls the language, outlawing words he dislikes and creating new words for his favorite concepts. He can see and hear nearly everything, public or private. Thus he enforces a rigid code of speech and action that erodes the potential for resistance and reduces the need for force. As Noam Chomsky says, propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism. Control thoughts, and you can easily control behavior.

U.S. history affords a prime example in the era named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, though he had many supporters in his attack on freedom of thought and speech. Perhaps his most powerful friend was J. Edgar Hoover, who fed him material from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files (some of it true) which he used to attack individuals for their supposed political leanings. By the time of Watergate, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had become at least as notorious as the FBI, due largely to its assassinations of foreign leaders and support for military coups around the world.

The Creation of the NSA

Budgetary authority for the National Security Agency (NSA) apparently comes from the Central Intelligence Act of 1949. This act provides the basis for the secret spending program known as the black budget by allowing any arm of the government to transfer money to the CIA “without regard to any provisions of the law,” and allowing the CIA to spend its funds as it sees fit, with no need to account for them.

Congress passed the C.I.A. Act despite the fact that only the ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees knew anything about its contents; the remaining members of Congress were told that open discussion, or even clear explanation, of the bill would be counterproductive. There were complaints about the secrecy; but in the end the bill passed the House by a vote of 348-4, and the Senate by a majority voice vote.

The NSA’s estimated $10 billion annual allocation (as of 1990) is funded entirely through the black budget. Thus Congress appropriates funds for the NSA not only without information on the agency’s plans, but without even a clear idea of the amount it appropriates; and it receives no accounting of the uses to which the funds were put. This naturally precludes any debate about the direction or management of such agencies, effectively avoiding public oversight while spending public funds. (Weiner notes the analogy to “Taxation without representation.”)

Watching and Listening

“The NSA has also spent a great deal of time and money spying on American citizens. For 21 years after its inception it tracked every telegram and telex in and out of the United States, and monitored the telephone conversations of the politically suspect.” (Weiner, Blank Check)

Due to its unique ability to monitor communications within the U.S. without a warrant, which the FBI and CIA cannot legally do, NSA becomes the center of attempts to spy on U.S. citizens. Nominally this involves only communications in which at least one terminal is outside the U.S., but in practice target lists have often grown to include communications between U.S. citizens within the country. And political considerations have sometimes become important.

During the Nixon administration, for example, various agencies (e.g., FBI, CIA, Secret Service) requested that the NSA provide all information it encountered showing that foreign governments were attempting to influence or controls activities of U.S. anti-war groups, as well as information on civil rights, draft resistance/evasion support groups, radical-related media activities, and so on, “where such individuals have some foreign connection,” probably not that uncommon given the reception such groups usually receive at home. Clearly it would have been illegal for those agencies to gather such information themselves without warrants, but they presumably believed that the NSA was not similarly restricted when they included on their watch lists such as Nixonian bugaboos as Eldridge Cleaver, Abbie Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Joan Biaz, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and the Rev. ralph Abernathy. Presumably the name of Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr., was removed from the list the year Nixon was elected; certainly it was a targeted name before that time.

It is not feasible to determine in advance which telegrams and telephone calls will be among those the NSA is tasked with intercepting. Therefore, the NSA is normally reduced to recording all traffic on lines it is monitoring, and screening this traffic (by computer when possible) to catch targeted communications. This is called the “vacuum-cleaner approach.”

Also basic to this method is the “watch list” of groups and individuals whose communications should be “targeted.” When a target is added to the watch list, NSA’s computers are told to extract communications to, from, or about the target; the agency can then examine the selected communications and determine whether they constitute intelligence data.

This list of targets usually expands to include all members of targeted groups plus individuals and groups with whom they communicate; thus it has a tendency to grow rapidly if not checked. Some requests seems a bit astonishing: during the presidency of Richard Nixon, a Quaker, J. Edgar Hoover requested “complete surveillance of all Quakers in the United States” because he thought they were shipping food and supplies to Southeast Asia.

Project Shamrock

Project Shamrock was initiated in 1945 by the Signal Security Agency (SSA), which eventually merged into the NSA. Until the project was terminated in 1975 to prevent investigation, Shamrock involved NSA (and its predecessors) in communications collection activities that would be illegal for agencies such as the CIA or FBI.

Under Shamrock, the international branches of RCA, ITT, and Western Union provided access by SSA, and its successor NSA, to certain telegrams sent by those companies. each company’s counsel recommended against involvement on legal grounds; each company requested the written opinion of the Attorney General that it was not making itself liable to legal action. However, none of them received anything in writing from anyone in the government, and they all cooperated without it. (They did get a verbal assurance from the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, who said he was speaking for the President; thus they may have been concerned at his resignation just over a year later, his hospitalization within a week suffering from depression, anxiety, and paranoia, and his suicide less than two months later.)

As Shamrock grew, and the NSA began to develop its own means of intercepting communications, the watch list approach became the accepted standard, since nothing less was effective or worthwhile. the intelligence community became aware that it could enter a name on the watch list more or less at will, and it would soon receive the requested material, marked classified, and gathered in within (or perhaps under cover of) the law.

The Huston Plan

The Huston Plan, formally known as “Domestic Intelligence Gathering Plan: Analysis and Strategy,” was submitted in July 1970 to President Nixon. The goal of the plan was to relax some restrictions on intelligence gathering, apparently those of NSCID No. 6. Some parts of the intelligence community felt that these relaxations would assist their efforts. The proposals included:

• allowing the NSA to monitor “communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities” (presumably facilities located in the U.S., since the NSA already had authority to monitor such communications if at least one terminal was outside U.S. territory) * intensifying “coverage of individuals and groups in the United States who pose a major threat to the internal security”
• modifying restrictions “to permit selective use of [surreptitious entry] against other urgent and high priority internal security targets” as well as to procure “vitally needed foreign cryptographic material,” which would have required the FBI to accept warrantless requests for such entries from other agencies (“Use of this technique is clearly illegal: it amounts to burglary. It is also highly risky and could result in great embarrassment if exposed. However, it is also the most fruitful tool and can produce the type of intelligence which cannot be obtained in any other fashion.”) President Nixon approved this plan over the objection of J. Edgar Hoover and without the knowledge of Attorney General Mitchell. Hoover went to Mitchell, who had been left out of the entire process, and was consequently angry; Mitchell convinced Nixon to withdraw his approval 13 days after giving it.

Project Minaret

The size and complexity of the domestic watch list program became a problem, since it bordered on illegality. Project Minaret was established on July 1, 1969, to “privid[e] more restrictive control” on the domestic products, and “to restrict the knowledge that information is being collected and processed by the National Security Agency.” The agency knew it was close to legal boundaries, and wanted to protect itself.

Minaret continued until the fall of 1973, when Attorney General Richardson became aware of the domestic watch list program and ordered such activities stopped. As the Watergate drama played out, Congress began to hear about the NSA’s projects, and within two years formally inquiring about them.

Uncontrolled Activities

Like most intelligence agencies, the NSA uses words such as “interrupt” and “target” in a technical sense with a precise but often classified definition. This specialized language makes it difficult to legislate or oversee the activities involved. For instance, in NSA terms a conversation that is captured, decoded if necessary, and distributed to the requesting agency is not considered to be the product of eavesdropping unless one of the parties to the conversation is explicitly targeted. However, the NSA does not depend on semantic defences; it can also produce some legal arguments for exempting itself from normal requirements.

On the rare occasions when NSA officials have to testify before Congress, they have claimed a mandate broad enough to require a special legal situation. In 1975, the NSA found its activities under scrutiny by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Frank Church; the House Select Committee on the Intelligence Community, under Otis Pike; and the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, led by Bella Abzug. The agency was notably consistent in responding to those committees.

When Lt. Gen. Lew Allen appeared before the Pike committee, he pointed out that it was the first time an NSA director had been required to testify in open session. Two days earlier, CIA director William Colby had testified that the NSA was not always able to separate the calls of U.S. citizens from the traffic it monitors. The general counsel of the NSA, Roy Banner, joined Allen as witness. he was asked if, in his opinion, the NSA could legally intercept overseas telephone calls from U.S. citizens despite the legal prohibition on wiretapping. He replied, “That is correct.”

The top three officers of the NSA spoke with a single voice to the Church committee. When the committee’s chief counsel said to Allen, “You believe you are consistent with the statutes, but there is not any statute that prohibits your interception of domestic communications.” When deputy director Buffham was asked about the legality of domestic aspects of the Huston plan, he said, “Legality? That particular aspect didn’t enter into the discussions.” Counsel Banner responded at least three times to similar questions that the program had been legal at the time. (Testimony took place on Oct. 29, 1975; Project Shamrock and its watch lists were halted in mid-May of that year.)

The Abzug committee tried to get the story from the communications corporations that had cooperated in Project Shamrock. its hearings in late 1975 were unproductive because RCA and ITT informed the committee, two days before hearings began, that their executives would not appear without a subpoena; and a former FBI agent who had been cooperating was forbidden by his old employer from testifying. When the committee reconvened in early 1976, it issued subpoenas to three FBI special agents, plus one former agent; one NSA employee; and executives from international arms of RCA, ITT, and Western Union. President Ford prevented the five FBI/NSA people from testifying with a claim of executive privilege, and the Attorney general requested that the corporations refuse to comply with the subpoenas on the same grounds. Their testimony in spite of that request brought Project Shamrock to light less than a year after it was quickly terminated.

There may have been some legal basis for the NSA claims of extra-legal status. Despite having no statutory basis or charter, the NSA has considerable statutory protection: various statutes, such as the COMINT statute, 18 U.S.C. 798; Public Law 86-36; and special provisions of the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and safe Streets Act, exempt it from normal scrutiny, even from within the government. Thus the agency may be right in interpreting the law to say that it can do anything not specifically prohibited by the President of the National Security Council.

NSCID No. 6, NSA’s secret charter, includes this important exemption (according to James Bamford’s reconstruction):

“The special nature of Communications Intelligence activities requires that they be treated in all respects as being outside the framework of other or general intelligence activities. Orders, directives, policies, or recommendations of any authority of the Executive branch relating to the collection … of intelligence shall not be applicable to Communications Intelligence activities, unless specifically so stated and issued by competent departmental or agency authority represented on the [U.S. Communications Intelligence] Board. Other National Security Council Intelligence Directives to the Director of Central Intelligence and related implementing directives issued by the Director of Central Intelligence shall be construed as non-applicable to Communications Intelligence unless the National Security Council has made its directive specifically applicable to COMINT.”

The unchecked ability to intercept and read communications, including those of U.S. citizens within the country, would be dangerous even if carefully regulated by elected officials held to a public accounting.

When the method is available to officials whose names are often unknown even to Congress who work for unaccountable agencies like the NSA, it is very difficult for the intelligence community, the defense community, and the Executive to refrain form taking advantage of such easily obtained knowledge.

The lack of any effective oversight of the NSA makes it possible for the agency to initiate or expand operations without authorization from higher (or even other) authority. Periodic meetings of members of the intelligence community do not constitute true oversight or public control of government; and the same is true of the provision of secret briefings to a small number of senior members of the Congress, all chosen by the intelligence community and sworn to secrecy.

Oversight of such extensive communications capability is important enough; but NSA’s capabilities are not necessarily limited to intercepting and decrypting communications. The NSA can also issue direct commands to military units involved in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) operations, bypassing even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Such orders are subject only to appeal to the Secretary of Defense, and provide the NSA with capabilities with which it could conceivably become involved in operations beyond the collection of intelligence. At least, it does not seem to be legally restrained from doing so.

It appears that the only effective restraint on the NSA is the direct authority of the President, the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Intelligence Board. Since the agency was created and chartered in secret by the President and the NSC, it can presumably be modified in secret by the same authorities.

Nor is the NSA bereft of means of influence other branches of government, as Marchetti and Marks note:

Complete control over a secret agency with at least 60,000 direct employees, a $10 billion budget, direct command of some military units, and the ability to read all communications would be an enormous weapon with which to maintain tyranny were it to arise. A President with a Napoleonic or Stalinistic delusion would find the perfect tool for the constant supervision of the individual by the state in the NSA; not unlike scenarios depicted in novels such as Orwell’s 1984.

Senator Schweiker of the Church committee asked NSA director Allen if it were possible to use NSA’s capabilities “to monitor domestic conversations within the United States if some person with malintent desired to do it,” and was probably not surprised by Allen’s “I suppose that such a thing is technically possible.” Certainly Senator Church feared the possibility:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology …

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return…”

Ultimate Spy
by Peter Kupfer
SF Chronicle Staff Writer

Source: University of California
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

If Kristofer Pister has his way, we will never think about dust in quite the same way again. Pister is leading a team of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley that is developing tiny, electronic devices called “smart dust,” designed to capture mountains of information about their surroundings while literally floating on air.

If the project is successful, clouds of smart dust could one day be used in an astonishing array of applications, from following enemy troop movements and hunting Scud missiles to detecting toxic chemicals in the environment and monitoring weather patterns around the globe.

The idea behind smart dust is to pack sophisticated sensors, tiny computers and wireless communicators onto minuscule “motes” of silicon light enough to remain suspended in air for hours at a time. As the motes drift on the wind, they can monitor the environment for light, sound, temperature, chemical composition and a wide range of other information, and beam that data back to a base station miles away.

Pister, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley, said he came up with the idea for smart dust eight years ago at a conference on future technology. “I realized that sensors, computers and communications were going to shrink down to ridiculously small sizes,” he said. “So why not package them into a single, tiny device?”

Pister submitted a proposal to the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a branch of the Defense Department, which agreed to provide about $1.2 million over three years to fund the project. Each mote of smart dust is composed of a number of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, wired together to form a simple computer.

MEMS are made using the same photolithographic techniques used to make computer chips. Once perfected, they are relatively easy and inexpensive to mass-produce. But unlike computer chips, which are solid, MEMS contain moving parts. Patterns are etched with light into a silicon wafer to create structures such as optical mirrors or tiny engines.

Each mote contains a solar cell to generate power, sensors that can be programmed to look for specific information, a tiny computer that can store the information and sort out which data is worth reporting, and a communicator that enables the mote to be “interrogated” by the base unit. Later versions may also contain a lilliputian lithium battery so the motes can operate at night.

While much of the technology used to develop smart dust already exists, the UC researchers are breaking new ground by integrating these systems into remarkably small, self-powered packages.

Pushing the Limits

“We are pushing the limits of miniaturization, integration and power management,” said Brett Warneke, a graduate student in electrical engineering working on the project.

In one experiment to demonstrate the viability of the concept, researchers deployed a golf ball-sized device on Twin Peaks in San Francisco that measured weather conditions in the area – temperature, light, barometric pressure and humidity – and beamed that information back to a base station in Berkeley, more than 13 miles away.

So far, the smallest device the UC researchers have developed is 62 cubic millimeters – about the size of a pea – but Pister expects to shrink the devices to a nearly microscopic cubic millimeter by next summer. At that scale, they would be truly like dust: small enough to remain suspended in air, buoyed by the currents, sensing and communicating for hours.

One of the biggest hurdles the UC researchers face is building a mechanism that can survive on extremely low power but is still capable of sensing, sorting and sending vast amounts of information. For that reason, they have designed a computer operating system called Tiny OS that can function on a mere 512 bytes of RAM – about the amount of processing power found in a toaster.

The UC researchers are also experimenting with an ingenious optical communicator called a corner-cube reflector, which enables the motes to communicate while expending virtually no energy.

Pioneered at the University of California at Los Angeles, the reflector is essentially a tiny, hinged mirror that can flash millions of Morse code-like signals per second. When a smart mote is illuminated by a laser fired from the base station, the station can “read” the code reflected in the twitching mirror. The mirror itself is powered by electrostatic energy, the force that makes your socks cling together when they come out of the dryer.

Smart dust devices are now capable of communicating only with a single base station, but will eventually be able to share information with each other.

Such a system of “massively distributed intelligence” will vastly increase their ability to organize and communicate information.

“They will be able to do things collectively that they can’t do individually, just like an ant colony,” Warneke said. “An individual ant isn’t very smart, but collectively, they are very smart.”

Researchers are exploring a number of methods for deploying smart dust. One involves the use of tiny, unmanned aircraft that would spray motes over an area like a miniature crop duster and relay the resulting information back to a base station. MLB Co., a Palo Alto firm that develops experimental aircraft, has already built such a plane – an 8-inch radio-controlled aircraft equipped with a video camera that can stay aloft for 18 minutes at a speed of 60 mph.

MLB’s “micro air vehicle” could be useful in a battlefield situation where low clouds impeded satellite surveillance. The tiny, unmanned plane could soar undetected above the battlefield, disperse a swarm of smart dust and begin relaying a stream of data about the movement of enemy troops and equipment.

The UC researchers are also exploring ways to prolong the time smart dust remains airborne by adding “wings” like those on maple seeds. A cubic-millimeter-sized mote dropped at 30,000 feet would normally take five hours to reach the ground. By attaching wings, the researchers hope to extend that period two- or three-fold.

Other researchers are attaching tiny legs to the motes to create so-called microbots or smart insects. Instead of wafting aimlessly through the air like dust, microbots could be programmed to perform specific tasks, such as crawling through a collapsed building to search for warm bodies.

“Smart dust is like the brain, and we’re building the body,” said Richard Yeh, a graduate student researcher specializing in microrobotics who is working on the smart dust project.

Yeh and his colleagues have already developed the basic components of a smart insect – tiny, jointed members, which function as legs, and minuscule motors, the equivalent of muscles. All that remains is to connect the components to a mote of smart dust, a step Yeh expects to accomplish within weeks.

Although the smart dust research is supported by the Defense Department, its proponents see many nonmilitary applications for it, many for motes that would stay in one place.

Crunchless Cap’n Crunch

They could be used to detect fires and earthquakes, tailor the climate in office buildings to suit the preferences of individual workers, and monitor product quality from factory to consumer (a mote of smart dust could tell, for example, if a box of Cap’n Crunch had been exposed to high humidity, and lost its crunch, or if a crate filled with delicate electronic components had been dropped).

Like many other new technologies, smart dust clearly has the potential to be used for nefarious purposes. Foreign governments (or our own), terrorist organizations, criminals and industrial spies could use high-tech motes to spy.

“This is a technology of total surveillance,” said Richard Sclove, founder of the Loka Institute, a nonprofit organization in Amherst, Mass., that studies the social implications of technology.

“I have no doubt that there will be plenty of benign and wonderful applications of this technology, but it’s easier to imagine the lousy ones. The CIA and the National Security Administration would love to get their hands on this, and there’s no way to control what they do with it.”

While Pister acknowledges the possibility that smart dust could be misused, he says the potential benefits of the technology “far, far outweigh” any risks.

“You can find harmful effects in everything,” added Yeh. “But the threat is small. If a rogue state wanted to use them to spy on us, they could do it, but not much more. They probably couldn’t carry enough poison or gas to do much damage.”

The specter of millions, or even billions, of electronic motes drifting around the globe has also raised concerns about the potential ill effects on the environment and health.

But Pister dismissed such concerns. “Even in my wildest imagination, I don’t think we’ll ever produce enough smart dust to bother anyone,” he said. “Most of these materials are not environmentally harmful. Essentially they are made out of sand, and that’s not toxic.”

Potentially, the most dangerous element of a smart dust mote would be the lithium battery, Pister says, but its minuscule size would pose little risk.

“A small town throws away more batteries per year than we can distribute across the entire universe,” he said. “It’s really a question of trade-offs. If you can sprinkle a few ounces of battery over a rain forest and thereby get a better understanding of the ecology, that’s a trade-off worth making.”

And what if someone accidentally inhaled a mote of smart dust? “If by ill chance you did inhale one, it would be like inhaling a gnat. You’d cough it up post-haste. Unpleasant, but not very likely.”

GATHERING DATA ON THE FLY

Researchers at the University of California are developing tiny, electronic devices called “smart dust” designed to capture information about their environment while literally floating on air. Each dust “mote” packs sensors, computers and wireless communicators onto a tiny silicon chip light enough to remain airborne for hours at a time. As the motes drift, they can monitor their surroundings and beam data back to a base station.

Researchers are exploring a number of methods for deploying “smart dust.” One technique involves the use of tiny, unmanned aircraft that would spray motes over an area like a miniature crop duster and then relay the resulting information back to a base station..EARLY PROTOTYPE

Smart dust “macro-mote” made with readily available components.

To test their concept, researchers planted golf ball-sized smart dust devices at Twin Peaks and on Coit Tower. Using a modified laser pointer, the device beamed weather information back to Berkeley.

Potential Uses

Military uses include tracking enemy troop movements from above and detecting chemical warfare agents in the air. — Monitoring weather conditions around the globe and detecting fires and earthquakes are among the nonmilitary uses. — Stationary motes could be used to monitor the quality of products from factory to consumer..

Shoars vs. Epson
An employee was fired for refusing to participate in her supervisor’s monitoring of employee e-mail. She sued for wrongful termination, relying on a California state law that prohibits electronic surveillance. The court held that the statute’s protections did not extend to e-mail.

Bourke vs. Nissan Motors Corp
Nissan fired an employee for sending personal messages (some containing sexual content) through the company e-mail system. Bourke sued for wrongful termination, claiming invasion of privacy. The court denied his claim on the grounds that Bourque had no reasonable expectation that his E-mail was private.

Smythe vs. The Pillsbury Co.
A Pillsbury employee was fired after the company intercepted “inappropriate and unprofessional comments” that the employee had made to his supervisor over the company e-mail system. The Pillsbury Company had repeatedly assured its employees that all e-mail communications would remain confidential and privileged, and that it would not intercept e-mail or use it as grounds for termination.
Smythe was still fired and the court backed Pillsbury.

Huffcut vs. McDonald’s
McDonald’s employee Michael Huffcut began an extramarital affair with an assistant manager at a McDonald’s in a neighboring town.The couple left messages of a sexual nature on each other’s voice mail, which was part of a system linking a dozen franchises. A McDonald’s manager retrieved the couple’s messages and played them to Huffcut’s wife and his boss. The multi-million dollar case is still in litigation.M

In Bohach vs. City of Reno
Reno police officers sent messages to one another over the Reno Police Department’s message system. Faced with an internal affairs investigation based upon the contents of the messages, the officers filed suit. They alleged that the storage of the messages by the Department’s computer network and the subsequent retrieval of those messages from the computer’s files constituted, among other things, violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The officers were overruled.

Electronic mail messages are fast becoming the communications vehicle of choice for much of corporate America.

E-mail is in use, in some capacity, in all Fortune 1000 companies, and it is expected that by the year 2000, 40 million e-mail users will be sending 60 billion e-mail messages a year.

While the efficiency and practicality of e-mail is a major benefit to most businesses, e-mail is not without its problems. For instance, can an employer legally monitor e-mail, and if so should it monitor e-mail? What impact does an employee’s unscrupulous use of employer-provided e-mall have on the employer?

What role will e-mail messages play in litigation? These are just a few of the questions that all employers should consider.

The Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 generally prohibits the interception of electronic communications, including e-mail. However, three major exceptions to the ECPA may allow the interception of employee e-mail.

First, an employer can monitor employee e-mail where the employee has consented to monitoring. Consent can either be express, where the employee actually agrees to the monitoring, or implied, where the employee continues to use the employer’s e-mail system after being expressly informed that the employer intends to monitor e-mail.

It also states that the provider of electronic communication services is free to monitor communications when the monitoring is a necessary incident of the rendition of services or the protection of the rights or property of the provider.

The Electronic Mail Association has interpreted this exception to allow an employer to monitor all e-mail transmitted via an employer-provided system. Note that this exception would not apply to situations in which the employer simply provides the employee access to a commercial e-mail service.

Third, the ECPA provides that the interception of electronic communication is lawful if it is for a legitimate business purpose. Courts have taken two separate approaches to this exception. Under the first approach, an employer may monitor e-mail where the employee has been informed of the monitoring and it is necessary to protect the employer’s business interests.

The second approach examines the content of the intercepted communication. Under this approach an employer may intercept business related e-mails but not personal e-mails. An e-mail message is considered business related e-mail if it is a message in which the employer has a legal interest or the interception is necessarily to guard against the unauthorized use of the e-mail equipment.

A company will have a legal interest in an e-mail message when the message is either in pursuit of the employer’s business or is a detriment to the employer’s business.

An employer that wishes to leave open the opportunity of monitoring employee e-mail messages would be well advised to inform its employees that it reserves the right to monitor e-mail messages.

By informing employees, the employer will be in a stronger position to argue that its employees do not have a “reasonable expectation” of privacy in their e-mail messages and thus avoids having to rely on the court’s own notion of what privacy expectation is reasonable.

Once it has been decided that the employer can lawfully monitor employee e-mail, the tougher question becomes whether it is in the employer’s best interest to monitor. It might allow the employer to uncover inappropriate employee e-mail uses, but it also may scare them away from using the productivity enhancing tool.

The use or misuse of e-mail may also have a serious effect on litigation. While most e-mail users believe that once they have deleted an e-mail message it is gone forever, this is not the case.

Many high-tech firms have been formed for the sole purpose of recovering e-mail messages the sender thought had been erased. The founder of one such firm recently stated, “Don’t put anything in e-mail that you would not want read over the loud speaker throughout the company.” Sound advice.

An additional problem may arise with respect to attorney-client communications via e-mail. While there have yet to be any decisions on the effect of e-mail on the attorney-client privilege, at least one bar association has taken the position that e-mail may destroy it and has likened e-mail to cell phone calls.

It is clear that e-mail is here to stay. In order to use the tool effectively, corporate managers must be aware of the potential legal and practical problems accompanied by the use of e-mail. However, with proper planning and a good policy, e-mail can greatly enhance the productivity of most companies.