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TheStar.com - Bridging the digital divide
LAW BYTES
Global efforts to bridge the technology gap between the developed and developing world focus appropriately on building the capacity of developing countries by providing much needed hardware, software, and skills training. E-commerce development, although a vital global issue, is a long-range goal for those engaged in digital divide work, since for many developing countries basic telephone service and computer availability are more realistic aims for the short-term.
While the legal issues associated with the digital divide may seem like a mere afterthought, an effective, reliable, and internationally consistent legal framework may foster foreign investor confidence and provide tangible benefits once a critical mass of technological infrastructure and skills are in place.
The challenge of bridging the legal digital divide should not be underestimated. Earlier this month I participated in a United Nations-sponsored conference on Asian e-commerce law development and harmonization in Bangkok. It was hosted by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, in cooperation with a large number of U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the International Trade Centre, and the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law. The conference succeeded in demonstrating both the energy and enthusiasm of the developing world for e-commerce as well as highlighting the difficulty of delivering effective legal training and policy-making skills.
On the positive side, the realization that e-commerce can play an important role in economic development has clearly reached every corner of the globe. Sitting side-by-side with Asian e-commerce leaders such as South Korea and Singapore were representatives from Myanmar to Maldives and Bangladesh to Bhutan, countries rarely seen at e-commerce events.
It was quickly revealed that Asia is not content to sit on the e-commerce law sidelines. While the existence of e-commerce statutes in countries such as India, Malaysia, and Thailand is known, many were surprised to learn that countries such Myanmar and Bhutan have draft e-commerce regulations awaiting enactment.
Although such enthusiasm for e-commerce legislation is admirable, it also points to some significant dangers. While e-commerce legislation is a valuable tool to ensure online contractual certainty, it does not replace the core components of economic development.
In fact, some presentations left the distinct impression that there are countries that have put the cart before the horse. For example, one presentation on Cambodian e-commerce noted that the country faced barriers such as poor infrastructure, weak institutions, low levels of literacy, and poverty. Yet the same presentation stated that the "greatest challenge" is the enactment of an e-commerce law.
Developing countries should be aware that beginning with e-commerce legislation is likely to result in disappointment, not development. The basic information technology building blocks must first be established, an achievement that may then lead to e-commerce and finally to e-commerce legislation.
The conference also highlighted the unfortunate fact that many developing countries are being very poorly advised in this area. Interspersed among the delegates were consultants ready to terrify developing countries that their failure to act promptly on the legislative front would lead to e-commerce ruin. Moreover, the now-discredited Internet self-regulatory visions of the 1990s were also on display. One major multinational company extolled the benefits of a "value driven legal model" that would ensure no new or higher compliance costs to businesses as the best approach to Internet and e-commerce regulation.
Most troubling was the advice provided on the intellectual property front. Rather than focusing on matters of real concern to developing countries such as potential economic benefits from protection of traditional knowledge, the use of open source software, or the emergence of internationalized domain names that will allow people in developing countries to use their native language online, the delegates heard a presentation on the benefits of database legislation and business method patents. Keeping in mind that developed countries, including Canada, have resisted these reforms, they have no place in a discussion on developing country concerns.
The U.N. and the other participating agencies have consistently demonstrated great commitment in seeking to bring information technology law capacity to the developing world. With conferences, training materials, and exchange programs, the obvious desire to assist on this issue is matched only by the interest and enthusiasm from the developing world.
For these initiatives to succeed, however, more than just good materials and good intentions are needed. As a starting point, at least three issues must be addressed.
First, the narrow vision of e-commerce law development that focuses primarily on enforceable online contracts must be discarded in favour of a broader mandate, one that builds a legal framework premised on the actual needs of the developing countries. Broadening the discussion will mean focusing on cyber crime and anti-spam legislation, since certain developing countries risk being cut-off from some Internet communications if they are either viewed as harbouring spammers or as prime sources of fraud. Privacy legislation may also prove essential, particularly for those developing countries hoping to benefit from the global movement toward data outsourcing.
Second, groups whose chief concern it is to address developing country interests should be the primary sources of training and policy advice. That approach will both require a sharp reversal in the intellectual property protection dialogue and action to keep conflicted consultants at bay.
Third, training programs must focus on all levels of the legal environment including policy makers, lawyers, judges, and law students. E-commerce development will not come overnight to the developing world, but when it does, we must ensure that everyone is ready.
July 25, 2004 at 03:27 AM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Will Internet satellite fly?
Launching a satellite must be one of the most stressful events in the communications industry.
Hundreds of people spend years of their lives designing and building these high-tech, solar-powered "birds." They cost millions of dollars, including the launch fees and just-in-case insurance policies. The business plans of a handful of companies are also on the line.
At launch time, you basically cross your fingers and spend the next few hours silently praying that all goes as planned.
"Think of it as a four-year pregnancy and we're now getting ready for the first phase of its birth, which is launch," said Paul Bush, vice-president of corporate development at Telesat Canada, the BCE Inc.-owned company that has brought us six generations of Anik satellites over its 35-year history.
Speaking last week over his mobile phone from the Arianespace launch zone in Kourou, French Guiana, preparing for the launch of Telesat's 15th satellite, Bush was calm. He said there was no nail-biting going on but anticipation was making people anxious.
The launch was supposed to take place a week ago today but an "anomaly" in the launcher discovered hours before lift-off postponed it until Thursday. Bad weather bumped the launch again until Friday, 8:43 p.m.; another launch-pad problem pushed lift-off back a third time to Saturday. They've got one shot to get this Boeing-built satellite into orbit, and nobody wants to take chances. Insurance and launch costs alone account for nearly half of Anik F2's $400-million-plus (U.S.) price tag.
"Boeing and Arianespace literally hold the future of Telesat in their hands," chief executive Larry Boisvert told a satellite conference in March.
Anik F2 was launched at 8:44 p.m. aboard an Ariane 5G rocket. When finally ignited, the rockets slowly lifted off, then sped up rapidly after a few minutes. Within 28 minutes the satellite left the atmosphere and was ejected from the rocket. A large onboard thruster took over and jetted the satellite to its orbital slot about 35,000 kilometres above the Earth's equator.
Once in place, a panel of solar arrays nearly 50 metres across unfolded in the darkness of space. They use the sun's energy to supply power to Anik F2 until it is retired in 2020. Smaller thrusters will spend the next 15 years or so keeping the spacecraft from straying out of its orbital position.
Canadians should care about this moment about this particular satellite. Anik F2 is more than just the largest and heaviest of commercial satellites in the world, it's also the first to combine cutting edge Ka-band technology with older and less powerful Ku- and C-band transponders.
The latter two will continue to carry Canada's television and telecommunications signals, but the powerful Ka-band "spot beams" will, for the first time, let an Anik satellite deliver two-way, broadband Internet service to any location in North America at a price that's competitive with residential cable or DSL high-speed services.
Previously, you'd have to spend at least a couple hundred dollars a month to get high-speed access to your cottage or rural business. Bush estimates Telesat's consumer high-speed Internet service, which will be sold through a distribution network yet to be announced (but likely to include Bell Canada), will cost only 5 to 10 per cent more than what Torontonians pay for high-speed services from Sympatico and Rogers.
This single bird, fixed in space, will let Ottawa attain its goal of bringing broadband Internet access to every community in Canada. But let's not kid ourselves. When the service is officially switched on this fall, the biggest group to benefit from Anik F2's ubiquitous broadband coverage will be baby boomers who are fleeing our cities en masse and cocooning themselves in rural homes and upscale cottages.
By 2026 half the population will be over 43 and one in every five people will be a senior, according to Statistics Canada. Roughly 7 million Canadians will be in retirement, and they'll be healthier and wealthier than previous generations their age.
Mortgages will be paid off and pensions will kick in. As more move away from the city, either to year-round country homes or summer cottages, they'll want the same amenities they've come to enjoy from urban living. And for those still working toward retirement, having the ability to telecommute particularly during the summer months means more time at the cottage.
A recent Royal LePage poll found that a quarter of cottage owners and a third looking to buy a cottage consider Internet access important. But dial-up service no longer cuts it. This reporter gets complaints every week from cottagers who lament the lack of affordable high-speed Internet service outside the city. The frustration is growing.
"What you're seeing in the north of Toronto is not unlike what you're seeing north of Ottawa or Winnipeg. It's this whole phenomenon of recreational properties, where more people are choosing to work and play outside the cities," said Bush. "We think there's pent up demand for those areas of the country using dial up to get online, or who have nothing. If you choose to live outside of an urban area, it doesn't mean you should be offline."
Still, critics of Telesat's broadband satellite plan say the market won't be large enough to sustain the service, and that competing against well-established cable and DSL services will be a challenge, even though those products aren't available outside the city. Indeed, certain areas of the GTA are still not served by Rogers or Bell when it comes to high-speed access.
Bush said all one has to do is look at the direct-to-home satellite market to see the potential for broadband satellite service. There are 25 million direct-to-home subscribers in North America, a market Anik F2 can easily cover.
In Canada, we have about 2.2 million subscribers spread between Bell ExpressVu and Star Choice. Of those, roughly 60 per cent or 1.3 million live in rural areas. Over-all, Telesat estimates that about 25 per cent of the population can't get cable or DSL broadband services.
"I think we're where we were with direct-to-home 10 years ago," said Bush. "There were a lot of naysayers then that said this isn't going to take off. But what you actually see is 25 million subscribers. It's a huge business."
It should be pointed out that the modem to be used with Telesat's broadband satellite service is based on the same technology standard as cable and DSL modems.
Once service is connected at the cottage,users can easily hook up Wi-Fi wireless networking gear.
Imagine, sitting with your coffee on the dock. The lake is calm and the sun is shining. Your laptop, rigged with a wireless card, is on your lap and you're . . . well . . . working.
Where do we sign up?
July 25, 2004 at 03:24 AM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Banking evolution
There were banks. They got computers. And finally . . . The computer is the bank. For good, bad,.
When most of us think of a bank, we conjure up a place bricks and mortar, mostly where we sat down to open our account, signed a few papers and walked away with a chequebook in hand. Inside, tellers and a loan manager tapped away at computers tools of the trade, we thought.
Think again.
In fact, turn that whole image inside out.
Those computers aren't just tools of the bank. Increasingly, they are the bank. And the buildings are the tools we use to access them ones we are using less and less frequently as the inner workings of the banking world are transformed in subtle but important ways by those keyboards and screens.
"Many banks don't realize that if I turn off the computer, I don't have a bank," says Gabriel David, managing director of Global Capital Markets at EDS, a technology service company.
Canadians are among the world's top digital bankers. Eighty-six per cent of us have used bank cards to make a purchase in the past year, according to Interac, the association linking the computers of banks and trust companies. In fact, we use debit cards more often than cash.
"A lot of the time, the only time they go to the bank is to do more complicated transactions or purchase a product or to negotiate a loan," says Jeff Van Duynhoven," the vice-president of e-banking at Toronto Dominion Bank.
TD Bank last week announced a deal to contract out its automated banking machines to Hewlett Packard for $420 million. The plan is to use HP's expertise to make the ABMs more user-friendly. But the heart of the computer, where the transactions are processed and digital money moved around, will stay with TD.
"That technology is still core," says Van Duynhoven.
He describes the ABMs, like bank branches, as "access points" to the bank. And that bank, says Joseph Paradi at the University of Toronto, is a computer.
"Without the computers, there are no banks," says Paradi, executive director of the school's Centre for the Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship.
There is more to the transformation of banking than simply the digital transactions of banks' customers. At least, that's what the most successful banks have figured out, says David at EDS.
The smart banks, including giants Citibank, Chase and HSBC, have realized that computers can change not only the way their customers bank, but how the banks themselves can translate tight margins into huge profits, he says.
"The banks are sort of drifting into it rather than by design. It's almost by accident. The ones who do it by design will be the big winners," he says.
In such banks, the computers have been used to integrate all aspects of the banks' operations from the retail side to the corporate side to take advantage of each other's strengths.
For instance, when a branch manager makes a loan, he can use the computer to send the loan to the corporate side of the bank at head office, which can then sell the loan on the market and get the money back to the branches to loan again to someone else, David says.
All the transactions are done digitally, of course, but the key element is that the computers have enabled two previously separate branches of the bank retail and corporate to work together in a way that was never possible before. Too few banks, he says, have fully comprehended the potential of that development.
"The retail side runs the retail side and the corporate side runs the corporate side," he says. "The problem is, the two are linked."
Most banks, like their customers, still think of computers as mere tools of the trade, he says. But as anyone who has negotiated a loan recently will attest, computers are not just helping loan officers calculate interest and process loans, they are deciding who will get a loan. And overriding the computer's decision can be next to impossible.
Paradi said leaving such decisions to computers makes sense.
July 25, 2004 at 03:23 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Blogging Catches Business Interest
Sat Jul 24, 3:31 AM
Matt Hicks - eWEEK BERKELEY, Calif Webloggers and businesses are increasingly shaking each other's hands and putting a more human face on corporations in the process, say bloggers and their proponents.
The inaugural BlogOn 2004 conference held here on Friday focused on the growing intersection between blogging and business. A series of panels explored how the collaborative form of online publishing could open more of the inner workings of companies to the public.
Blogs, which post content in a simple, diarylike format, have caught on among individuals wanting to share their opinions, report on events, exchange Web links and write about their daily lives.
While today's crop of non-corporate bloggers is often challenging the way corporations communicate with the public by writing instant feedback on products and breaking corporate news, enterprises themselves also are beginning to embrace the technology.
Among them is Microsoft Corp. In April the company unveiled a new blog site for Microsoft developers, called Channel 9, and is already drawing 700,000 unique visitors a month to it, technology evangelist Lenn Pryor said during a conference demo.
The launch of the site has allowed Microsoft employeesfrom product managers to executivesto talk with developers. Channel 9 has focused heavily on posting short video clips with interviews and demonstrations of products.
But the project, named for the airline audio channel that feeds cockpit communication, hasn't been without its challenges. Chief among them has been making employees understand the conversational nature of social media tools, project leaders said.
"The challenge is, How do you teach a corporation to turn on dime and to talk to your customers?" Pryor said. "This is a tough thing There's this fine line between controlled messaging and brutal honesty."
Microsoft has about 1,000 internal bloggers, who write without censorship but follow a "basic policy of being smart" about the type of information to disclose when working for a public company, Pryor said.
Read more about the social issues impacting social software.
Microsoft isn't alone. A range of technology companies from Sun Microsystems Inc. to Google Inc. have started corporate and employee blogs.
Though experiments have begun, blogging still is in its infancy within enterprises. The tools vendors themselves have just begun to address the corporate market. For example, Six Apart Ltd., the maker of the Movable Type software, in May began offering more traditional licensing to address the enterprise market.
Reid Hoffman, CEO of social networking service LinkedIn Ltd. and an investor in Six Apart, said enterprises are eyeing blogging and other social software such as wikis for internal collaboration as an alternative to e-mail, which is plagued with problems such as spam.
"We're in the very first steps," Hoffman said. "My guess is we're about six to 12 months away from real hockey stick [of increased use]."
July 24, 2004 at 06:47 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Skype phone service closer
Sat Jul 24, 6:46 AM ET
By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Mercury News
Internet telephone upstart Skype on Friday moved one step closer to offering local phone service.
The Luxembourg company finalized deals that will let 7 million Skype users make phone calls from their computers to standard phones for less than 1.5 cents a minute. However, a person using a land line phone will not be able to call Skype users over the service, called SkypeOut.
It's a milestone for Skype, the Internet phone service launched in August by the two technology renegades that created the Kazaa file-sharing phenomenon. The software allows people to place free phone calls anywhere in the world. But previously both the caller and the person receiving the call had to talk over computers that had downloaded Skype's software.
"For Skype it's a big deal, because it takes them out of the computer-to-computer only calling and it puts them into the computer to real-world calling sector," said Ben Silverman, a telecommunications analyst for FindProfit.com, an investor newsletter. "It's significant especially in light of what's been going on."
Said Skype co-founder and Chief Executive Niklas Zennstrom in a statement: "We will now move quickly and offer SkypeOut calls to land line and mobile phone numbers around the world."
The announcement comes at a time of upheaval in the telecommunications world. AT&T announced Thursday it would no longer seek new residential customers. And Verizon Communications introduced its own Internet phone service.
Daryl Schoolar, a senior analyst for researcher In-stat/MDR, said traditional phone companies are under attack from all sides. Once-lucrative long-distance revenue is being undercut by cellular phone plans that don't charge for nationwide calling.
And flat-rate Internet telephone services, such as Vonage and AT&T's CallVantage, are cutting into the market for second home phone lines and advanced calling services, said Schoolar.
The early popularity of Skype, with more than 16.8 million downloads, only fuels such competitive pressures.
On Friday, Skype announced a deal with Level 3, a leading telecommunications wholesaler with a fiber-optic network of 23,000 miles throughout North America and Europe. Level 3 provides what is known as voice termination: taking a phone call placed from a computer and seamlessly connecting it to the local phone network. It's a significant player, with $4 billion in revenue.
Skype also unveiled agreements with Colt, iBasis and Teleglobe to provide the same sorts of call termination services worldwide.
Analysts say it's too soon to predict winners in the fast-emerging realm of Internet phone service, where Skype will compete for business with Verizon, AT&T and Vonage.
"The people they've attracted so far, between this and Kazaa, are people who don't want to pay for something," said Schoolar, the analyst. "It's like inviting 2 million shoplifters into a store hoping to have a sale."
Contact Dawn C. Chmielewski at dchmielewski @mercurynews.com or (800) 643-1902.
July 24, 2004 at 06:45 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Online Media Drop Gimmicks for Conventions
Sat Jul 24,11:23 AM By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK - Gone from Internet coverage of the political conventions are most of the gimmicks, like 360-degree cameras that Web surfers can control from their homes. Also gone are television-style reports at USA Today's Web site and an original newscast from America Online Inc.
While 2004 brings better use of high-speed Internet connections, Flash animation technology and independent Web journalists known as bloggers, media organizations are largely returning to the basics on the Internet.
They are dropping the bells and whistles in favor of what they do best: covering the news.
Internet media descended on the 2000 conventions declaring a revolution, prompting many pundits to recall the arrival of television at a convention in 1948.
Last time, two online outlets, Pseudo Programs Inc. and AOL, produced original programming from skyboxes typically reserved for broadcasters. Republicans had their "Internet Alley," Democrats their "Internet Avenue" where online outlets were grouped together in the media center.
Pseudo, out of cash, shut down just one month later. AOL passed on a skybox this year. Next week's Democratic National Convention in Boston won't have an Internet Alley or Avenue (though it will have "Bloggers Boulevard" for the independent bloggers making their debuts).
ABC News is dropping 360-degree images "gimmicks that turned out to be a waste of time and energy," said Bernard Gershon, general manager for the ABC News Digital Media Group. "Except for the people who created it, very few people looked at it."
Though ABC plans only three hours of broadcast coverage all next week, it will run several more over the Internet, on mobile phones and through the relatively few TV sets capable of receiving digital signals.
The added video coverage, anchored by Peter Jennings, will be available on ABC's site to paid subscribers only, but the feed will be given for free to AOL customers, letting AOL focus on adding online polls, chat rooms and other interactive features for its subscribers.
While AOL's resources were "pretty spread" when it tried original programming in 2000, "now we can concentrate on what we know how to do and work with ABC on what they know how to do," said Lewis D'Vorkin, editor in chief for AOL News.
Not that the conventions will be devoid entirely of the bells and whistles common in 2000. The New York Times' Web site will have 360-degree images, while CNN's convention-floor webcam will offer 24-hour feeds, including those of janitors cleaning up.
But the focus will be on complementing other media, not duplicating or replacing them. MSNBC.com won't do gavel-to-gavel webcasts, and CNN's online video feed will draw upon fewer camera angles, reporters and analysts than its cable counterpart.
"If you're in front of the TV, that's where you should watch it," said Mitch Gelman, executive producer of CNN.com. "What you want to come to online for is for in-depth analysis and complementary elements like quizzes and quick votes."
He said the Web site will also be the place for people at work to catch up on the previous evening's proceedings, through transcripts and video clips available on demand.
USA Today, meanwhile, is dropping TV-style video, choosing not to compete with Web sites of broadcasters, given their extensive access to footage, said USAToday.com's editor in chief, Kinsey Wilson.
The site will instead focus on producing multimedia pieces using Flash, a technology for combining text, audio, photos and video. Its delivery is made easier by the growing availability of high-speed connections in homes.
The Boston Globe's Web site will supplement hometown coverage of the parties, protests and proceedings by asking readers with camera-equipped mobile phones to e-mail photos. Along with other media outlets, it also arranged with delegates to file blog entries.
In fact, blogs are being heralded this year just as traditional Internet outlets were four years ago.
Democrats have given media credentials to more than 30 independent bloggers. Many traditional news organizations, including The Associated Press, will have their own blogs offering analysis and insights. CNN's BlogWatch will review other blogs at the convention.
Sites are also committing less to better respond to news development. The Boston site is dropping prescheduled chat sessions, while the Times is forgoing its twice-daily, 20-minute video segments on politics.
"We wanted the flexibility to tell the story in the best possible way," said Leonard Apcar, editor in chief of the Times site.
With less emphasis on technology for the sake of technology, this year's coverage on the Internet will be mostly about playing to its strengths reaching the work audience already done with the morning paper and lacking access to television.
"The big difference between here and four years ago is that the gee whiz element of the Internet has ended," said Stephen Bromberg, executive editor for Fox News Channel's Web site. "People now just expect to get the news from the Web site."
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Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org
July 24, 2004 at 02:36 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home
washingtonpost.com: States Prepare E-Gov Push
By Cynthia L. Webb
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, July 22, 2004; 2:53 PM
Tight budgets in Washington are draining vital dollars away from various federal e-government efforts, but a new report predicts that state and local governments are preparing to unleash a wave of technology spending aimed at improving citizen services.
According to the report, released this week by Reston, Va.-based Input, e-government spending in the state and local market will more than double by 2008, with rapid growth predicted for 2006 and 2007. The growth, Input says, will come as more government agencies consolidate their back-office systems and as more citizen services go online.
The market research firm said "state and local e-government growth will be moderate over the next two years as governments exhaust opportunities to further broaden website operations and engage consulting and research efforts to develop comprehensive plans for the next phase of e-government." By 2006, growth will pick up more, the report found. "As governments complete plans and begin widespread integration and process improvement across agencies, services will increasingly be tied to new more fully interactive portals that will be automated for citizens," James Krouse, Input's manager of state and local market analysis, said in a statement.
The second phase of e-government market development "will be led with exploratory research initiatives that outline agency-by-agency process reviews, and develop comprehensive plans for integration and system consolidation. As governments complete plans and begin widespread integration and process improvement across agencies, services will increasingly be tied to new more fully interactive portals that will be automated for citizens," Krouse said.
Washington Technology noted that Input's finding that "[s]tate and local e-government spending peaked in fiscal 2002 at $700 million and then declined about 60 percent over the next year. Spending dropped another 50 percent by 2004, Input's analysis said. The decline was driven by state and local budget shortfalls and disillusionment in the effectiveness of e-gov services, according to the report."
InformationWeek had a slightly different take on the Input numbers: "State and local government spending on E-government topped out at $650 million in 2002, but plummeted nearly 81% to $125 million this year as governments struggled to pay for all types of services as tax receipts and other revenue plunged. But with the economic recovery, spending on E-government projects will slowly bounce back over the next two years, to $150 million in 2005 and $175 million in 2006. Then, spending will quickly accelerate to $300 million in 2007 and $575 million in 2008."
Washington Technology said despite the expected spending uptick, there are potential pitfalls for e-government funding: "Obstacles facing state and local governments in the next phase of e-government development still include budget constraints, the report said. Other obstacles include difficulty producing measurable returns on investment and disagreements where agencies must integrate operations."
An Eye On State and Local E-Gov Work
Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland this week reported on one Michigan county's broad e-government efforts: "[T]ech experts say Oakland County is breaking away from the pack to become one of the nation's most progressive purveyors of digital democracy. In the county, residents can go online to buy park permits, file complaints, pay traffic tickets, order birth certificates and pay current property tax bills and that's just for starters. Soon, for instance, county courts will be able to hold arraignments entirely online, with prisoners, investigators and lawyers hooked up on high-speed video connections."
According to Wendland, Oakland County has invested more than $100 million so far in the effort. "Officials say it's beginning to pay off big-time, making government workers more efficient and letting citizens go online instead of standing in line. 'Oakland is one of a half-dozen or so places in the country that is considered a leader in e-government,' said Terri Takai, director of the state Department of Information Technology. 'They're really pioneers in this.'"
Fairfax County, Va., located just outside Washington, may not be as savvy as Oakland County with its e-government approach, but county leaders are catching on, particularly with dumping paper for electronic communications, The Washington Post reported last week. "The county may be the region's epicenter of high technology, but its government lags in one pervasive way that it does business: It's awash in paper. The burdens of an excess of paper became clear to Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) as soon as she took office in January. She says she was inundated with faxes, electronic messages and mail (the post office-routed kind). Land-use lawyers, fellow supervisors, civic groups, the county clerk, even telemarketers were writing. But the same correspondence was arriving on her desk three times, once through each medium. The Board of Supervisors meeting agenda, for example, can run hundreds of pages."
Fairfax County's answer is the Paper Reduction Task Force a "group of experts from departments as varied as public affairs, archives and information technology that has been meeting to map out change. The goal? To fully usher in the electronic age in Fairfax. ... Other changes are in the works: more printing and copying on both sides of the page instead of one, more correspondence and other county business through e-mail, and more production of big documents on CD-ROM, such as the publication of the Park Authority's recent annual report."
Still Accountable at the Federal Level
Federal e-government spending may be on the back-burner, but agencies are still being held accountable for meeting aggressive e-gov goals.
A report released in March detailed the federal government's progress on e-government initiatives from fiscal year 2003. And the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees e-government reform, recently noted that several federal agencies were making e-government progress.
But clearly, there is major room for improvement. In the latest government scorecard rating, released in June, the performance of agencies in different management areas, the Transportation Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Small Business Administration all received "green" scores, the highest rating on the OMB's scale for grading e-government work. So too did the Office of Personnel Management and the National Science Foundation, which maintained green ratings they achieved in the previous scorecard.
"One major disappointment is the Department for Homeland Security. It is failing in several areas of the management agenda, and appears to be moving backwards on e-government with its rating dropping from yellow to red. Embarrassingly the OMB itself also failed to improve its ratings, receiving four red scores and a yellow across the management agenda," according to a report from Kablenet.com, reprinted on ZDNET's UK site.
Washington Technology also reported last week on the scorecard's findings. See a Government IT Review I wrote in May on the previous scorecard results.
E-Government Victories
Agencies aren't shy about showing off their e-government progress. On Wednesday, OPM said its USAJOBS Web site had added new features. "With the latest enhancements, job seekers are now receiving expanded information in their job search notices including salary and closing date. This enhanced content gives job seekers more decision making data right in their e-mail," OPM said. For the month of May, OPM said it sent more than 3 million USAJOBS e-mail notices to people. That's a good sign it's a service that is getting used. Meanwhile, in May the SBA started a new Web site that businesses can use to obtain federal government information.
Fancy online tools and sites are not only helpful, but help federal agency sites get good reviews. "Americans are reasonably happy with e-government Web sites, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which gave them an overall score of 70.3 for the second quarter," CMP Media's Transform Magazine reported. E-gov sites bested the NYTimes.com's score of 70, yet not surprisingly fell below the top scores of e-retail sites (84) and travel sites (77). The rankings are based on online surveys voluntarily filled out by site visitors on criteria such as accuracy of information, freshness of content, usefulness of information, ability to accomplish desired tasks and ease of navigation."
Favorite Government Web Sites
Is there a government Web site that you find particularly helpful? Drop me a note telling me why and I will include selected reader comments in an upcoming column. Please include your full name and the city and state you are writing from.
E-Gov's Global Reach
The e-government push is not just an American phenomenon. Thom C. de Graaf, the Dutch Minister for Government Reform and Kingdom Relations and deputy prime minister, posted his e-government plans on a government Web site, according to the EurActiv.com European news portal. De Graaf concluded that "relatively few transactions are being conducted digitally as yet" and "now is the time for local authorities to make the leap from digital information services to digital transaction services. In order to be able to do this they have to establish a link between the electronic front office and back office."
The United Kingdom has been particularly bullish with its e-government efforts. But a recent survey indicates that taxpayers might not notice all the hard work. "Nearly three quarters of the public have not noticed the impact of the investment in the UK's e-Government initiative, while almost half of those who have noticed are unhappy with it, a new report concludes. The survey, undertaken by eService software provider Transversal, has revealed that the majority of UK citizens have a poor perception of e-Government," the Netimperative site reported.
The European Commission has a Web portal that links to information about a number of EU e-government initiatives.
Digital Rx
Back in the USA, there's a federal push for patient health care records to be digitized. Earlier this summer, President Bushannounced that he wants paper records to go by the wayside in 10 years. Yesterday, more details of the president's plan were released. "The plan, while short on specifics, marks the biggest effort by the federal government so far to encourage the use of computer technology to modernize health care, just as other industries have turned to technology to cut costs and improve quality," USA Today reported. "More than 90% of the nation's health care transactions still occur via phone, fax or an exchange of paper. Technology could cut the nation's $1.6 trillion-a-year health care bill by at least 10%, says Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. He added that it might not take 10 years to meet Bush's goal: 'In the next couple of years, we will see electronic health records.'"
Reuters cited an HHS statistic showing that only "13 percent of hospitals and 14 to 28 percent of physicians' practices say they have electronic health systems."
According to The New York Times, "[c]ost has been a big hurdle. Most hospitals do not make money, so they forgo technology investments that seem to have an uncertain return. And until recently, bedside technology has often been expensive and cumbersome. The spread of light, low-cost hand-held computers has changed that making it much more practical for the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to promote standards for ordering and processing electronic prescriptions."
Federal Computer Week reported this week that a federally funded program in California, Arkansas, Massachusetts and Utah is trying to help doctor's officers move patient records to the digital age.
RIP CAPPS II
The federal government's controversial CAPPS II airline passenger screening program was put on ice last week, with the Bush administration acknowledging the program would have to be retooled before it would be ready to fly. The news was heralded by privacy advocates, who blasted the program for prying too much into passenger data to attempt to spot potential terrorists. (Read my Filter column last week for a rundown of media reports on the program's demise in its current state.)
The Associated Press reported this week that "[t]echnology problems and privacy concerns doomed the passenger prescreening program, while the enormous cost an estimated $5 billion has held up progress installing large bomb-screening machines in airports. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, worries that the political pressure needed for such initiatives is waning. 'The further away you get from 9/11, the louder the voices become for a normal approach to security,' said Mica." Officials at the Transportation Security Administration said in January that the prescreening project called Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System, or CAPPS II could be up and running this summer. But the agency never was able to allay concerns about privacy, and last week acting TSA Administrator David Stone said CAPPS II would be 'reshaped and repackaged.'"
Wired News posted a feature article looking at former Army spy Bill Scannell's efforts to discredit CAPPS through a Web site he set up called BoycottDelta.org a site he set up after news leaked that Delta was among several airlines that turned over passenger data to the government so it could test CAPPS II technology. "He created the firestorm," Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Wired. "Beginning with Boycott Delta, he sort of showed that there was a huge reservoir of bad feelings about these passenger-screening programs."
With the cancellation of CAPPS II, the big loser may be Lockheed Martin Corp., which has landed a $12 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to help with the screening program. According to a report from Federal Computer Week, "Suzanne Luber, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department 'declined to speculate whether the $12 million CAPPS II contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. would be revised. There is no projected timeline for the completion of the revamped program, Luber said."
The Nine Lives of E-Voting
E-voting reformers are starting to see some payoff from their efforts to get high-tech voting machines to produce paper receipts for every vote. Advanced Voting Solutions Inc. of Frisco, Tex., "has agreed to load election security technology from VoteHere Inc. on some of its machines to test the encrypted vote verification system in the fall election. The Bellevue, Wash., company has developed software that produces an encrypted receipt that could let voters verify that their ballots were accurately counted," Government Computer News reported this week.
CNET's News.com explained more: "The companies will team to integrate the technology into AVS's WINvote touch-screen voting terminal and will test the device during the November election. Rather than allow for a centralized re-count, the system gives voters the ability to check their vote online by matching a coded number on a receipt with the same number in a database."
Back in Washington this week, a House panel "struggled with the questions of how to set standards for acceptable error rates in voting technology and how to achieve those standards. Government officials, computer scientists and technology vendors agreed that it is too late for legislation or technology to have much of an impact on the 2004 election," Washington Technology reported.
In other e-voting news, Ohio is the latest state to hand down strict e-voting guidelines. "Three counties that were considering electronic voting machines made by Ohio-based Diebold Inc. cannot switch by November because tests have shown security problems, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said Friday," the AP reported.
IRS Security Slip
More taxpayers than ever flocked to the Internal Revenue Service's Web site this past tax season to file their taxes electronically. But now the agency is getting blasted over security gaffes. "Private contractors revamping IRS computers committed security violations that significantly increased the possibility that private taxpayer information might be disclosed, Treasury Department inspectors say. An investigation by the department's inspector general for tax administration found that employees working for contractors, or an experienced hacker, could use the contractors' computers to gain access to taxpayer data," The Associated Press reported.
Federal Computer Week had more details: "The report, with the contractors' names and other sensitive data removed, revealed that root access privileges had been granted unnecessarily to about 50 contractor personnel. Root access permits users to make changes to computer systems without detection. Other contractor employees had violated IRS security procedures by installing e-mail and instant-messaging software on IRS computers. In some cases, the report says, contractors blatantly circumvented IRS policies and procedures, even when IRS security personnel pointed out the inappropriate practices. The IRS has more than 900 contracts with private contractors and consultants who perform many tax administration activities."
In other IRS news, the agency is touting its new taxpayer database program capable of processing 1040EZ forms for the first time, Government Computer News reported. "For the first time in 40 years, the IRS is processing returns and issuing refunds on a new computer system," said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, according to GCN. "While long overdue, this is an important first step in modernizing our return processing technologies."
A Welcome Win for EDS
EDS's performance on the massive Navy-Marine Corps Intranet project has been in the spotlight over the past year, as the program incurs cost-overruns and complaints from some quarters about the system's performance (See my June 24 Government IT Review for more background.) But the company has received a welcome contracting win: EDS stands to reap some $93 million over the next decade by offering employee travel services to the Agriculture Department, Washington Technology reported. "The Agriculture contract is the first under the E-Travel vehicle for EDS. According to EDS officials, the department is the largest agency to make an E-Travel award to date. EDS's e-travel system, called FedTraveler.com, handles planning and authorizing of travel, reservation and fulfillment services, approval of travel expenses, and reporting and auditing of travel expenses," the article said.
EDS is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings next Wednesday.
E-mail government IT tips, comments and links to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com
© 2004 TechNews.com
July 24, 2004 at 01:41 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
washingtonpost.com: In a Wireless World, Hearing Is Believing
By Rob Pegoraro
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page F06
The appeal of a wireless media receiver -- a box plugged into your stereo to play the music saved on your computer -- got a simple demonstration after I recently moved. I had dozens of boxes to open and unpack and needed a soundtrack for the work, but all the CDs were still imprisoned in cardboard.
Fortunately, I had already set up the stereo, the computers and the WiFi access point. All I had to do was plug in two media receivers that I'd been testing, Apple's AirPort Express and Slim Devices' Squeezebox, and I had my digital-music library blasting through the speakers.
But unlike my earlier experiences with this type of hardware, these two devices actually worked, more or less, out of the box. The AirPort Express and the Squeezebox have their faults, but they get most of the basic tasks done; if you could just combine their best parts, the results would be close to perfect.
I tried the Squeezebox first, a $279 black box with a small antenna for its 802.11b WiFi receiver, plus analog and digital audio-output jacks to connect to a stereo. (A $199 version supports only wired networks.)
Setting it up involved installing its SlimServer software on my computers -- it runs on Win 98 or newer, Mac OS X and Linux and is also available as source code for use on other platforms. After this software is loaded, you'll need to let it index your music collection; when you add or remove a song from a computer, you must repeat this chore, since SlimServer can't track those changes automatically.
Then I used the Squeezebox's remote to point it to my wireless network (a relatively straightforward process, except for the irritating labor of typing out a 26-character WiFi encryption key on the remote's numeric keypad).
The Squeezebox never dropped a connection when networked to a Mac desktop. But it failed with numbing regularity when paired with a Windows laptop, even when I moved both devices to a friend's wireless network.
I've heard from enough happy Squeezebox owners to think that this problem must be rare. Still, you'd do well to give this thing a thorough test before its vendor's 30-day money-back guarantee expires.
The Squeezebox plays MP3 and Windows Media Audio music files, as well as the MP3 streams broadcast by many Web radio stations. The SlimServer software can also read AAC files created by Apple's iTunes program, but since it sends them to a Squeezebox as bandwidth-hogging uncompressed audio, don't expect reliable play over WiFi.
Slim Devices' system doesn't accept song downloads bought at such stores as iTunes, Wal-Mart or Napster. This isn't Slim Devices' fault -- this Mountain View, Calif., firm (www.slimdevices.com) has yet to get the necessary programming information from Apple and Microsoft, the creators of those sites' copy-controlled music formats -- but it's still a major hindrance.
While Slim Devices works on this point, it ought to address a few other issues. The Squeezebox crashed a few times, requiring a forced reboot. Its bright, two-line LED display is impossible to miss but difficult to read, with characters maybe half the size of those on a DVD player's readout. And the way to view the artist and album of a song, instead of just its title, is less than obvious (pressing the "Now Playing" button won't do the trick).
I had no such problem with Apple's AirPort Express -- it includes neither a status display nor a remote control. I had thought those omissions would negate the utility of this tiny gadget, but after a week of living with it I've changed my mind.
The beauty of the AirPort Express -- $129, plus a $39 bundle of analog and digital audio cables -- is its slick integration with Apple's iTunes software. Installing this device can be tricky: Its setup software works only on Mac OS X 10.3, Win 2000 or Win XP, and XP users may need to download a semi-obscure Microsoft WiFi software update. But once it's on your WiFi network, there's no other program to run; just select your AirPort Express from a drop-down menu in the iTunes window to send your songs to the stereo.
You can do this with your computer's MP3 and AAC files -- including purchases from the iTunes Music Store -- and even those on other computers at home, if you employ iTunes' music-sharing feature to broadcast their collections across your network. The AirPort Express also plays MP3 Web-radio streams. And its fast 802.11g WiFi receiver never dropped a connection, even when I tried to jam the wireless network with massive file downloads.
(Without the audio-cable bundle, the AirPort Express can serve as a tiny WiFi access point or extend the range of Apple's AirPort Extreme WiFi routers.)
But, alas, there is that no-remote-control thing: Unless you have a deep set of playlists or Web-radio picks, or you don't mind leaving a laptop in the living room full time, you'll get a lot of exercise running over to the computer each time you cue up a different set of songs.
Apple says it's aware of this; Greg Joswiak, the company's vice president of hardware product marketing, even went so far as to note that the AirPort Express's USB port would be a convenient way to add this missing capability.
Knowing how obvious this feature is, and how relatively simple it should be to implement, it doesn't seem like any real risk to buy an AirPort Express now. But it may be a real pain -- this device has been on sale for only a week, but it has already sold out through much of next month.
Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
July 24, 2004 at 01:37 PM in Wireless | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home
Beijing blocks overseas websites, shuts local ones in "war" against porn
BEIJING, (AFP) - Beijing has blocked 988 overseas websites and shut down 67 local ones as part of a nationwide campaign to weed out pornographic content on the Internet.
The websites shut down during the July 6-21 special operation included Hong Kong websites. The popular search tool Google was also inaccessible this week.
So far, the Chinese capital has arrested 13 people suspected of operating the websites, the Beijing Youth Daily said.
Police received 10,660 tips from the public, a majority of which were complaints about inappropriate sexual content on the Internet. Other complaints involved pornographic mobile phone short messages, the report said.
The central Chinese government this month launched a "people's war" against pornography on the Internet, giving websites a deadline until September to rid themselves of indecent content or lose their license to publish decent material, such as news.
Officials have so far identified 500 websites across China that carry pornographic pictures and film clips, the China Daily reported.
Hundreds of websites, including the most influential ones, publish "indecent or even pornographic content" to attract users, the Xinhua news agency had reported.
The crackdown on Internet porn reflects two top concerns of the Chinese leadership, about the ethical standards of the young and about the subversive potential of the Internet.
With 80 million registered users in China, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to control the Internet, but that has not stopped it from trying.
State media reported last month that the government had suspended the registration of new Internet cafes, following a three-month sweep in which it closed 16,000 existing ones.
July 24, 2004 at 01:36 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Report Faults Cyber-Security
Fri Jul 23,10:39 AM By Jonathan Krim, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to battle computer-network and Internet attacks by hackers and other cyber-criminals suffer from a lack of coordination, poor communication and a failure to set priorities, according to an internal report released yesterday.
The report, by the department's inspector general, said the shortcomings of the National Cyber Security Division leave the country vulnerable to more than mere inconvenience to businesses and consumers.
The division "must address these issues to reduce the risk that the critical infrastructure may fail due to cyber attacks," the report said. "The resulting widespread disruption of essential services after a cyber attack could delay the notification of emergency services, damage our economy and put public safety at risk."
Among the report's recommendations is that the division develop a process for overseeing efforts of federal, state and local governments to better protect their systems.
The report cited progress in some areas since the division was formed in June 2003 as part of the federal reorganization that created the DHS. It praised the creation of a cyber-security coordination center called US-CERT, and an alert system that includes a Web site and automated notification to tech-security professionals of security threats making their way through cyberspace.
But the report comes at a time of heightened frustration among technology company executives and members of Congress that cyber-security is not getting enough attention and is poorly understood by some senior department officials. The issue is not just the possibility of a broad cyber-terrorist attack, those people say, but the daily attacks that are costing U.S. businesses and computer users hundreds of millions of dollars a year and countless hours of lost productivity.
"If we are at war, as Bush and [Homeland Security Secretary Tom] Ridge say we are . . . based on this report, we are clearly not on a war footing on cyber-security, or in DHS," said F. William Conner, chief executive of Entrust Inc., a Texas cyber-security company. "I read about the progress, but they've got the wrong measuring stick. Progress has to be measured against external risk."
Especially irksome to some executives and security experts is that the department has not adopted some of the practices they argue that government agencies, companies and organizations should employ to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks.
"The department as a whole isn't leading by example," said Alan Paller, head of the SANS Institute in Bethesda, a computer security research group. Paller, who praises some of the cyber division's work, said the department should take the lead in using its buying power to demand that software vendors make their products more secure. Paller said the agency is not doing so.
Paul Kurtz, head of the recently formed Computer Security Industry Alliance, a corporate trade group, said the HS was reluctant to participate in a cyber-security exercise sponsored by Dartmouth University, and did so only after pressure from the White House.
Kurtz added that follow-through has been poor on the government's highly touted public-private partnership with industry to address security issues. That effort was part of a White House directive on cyberspace that mandated tighter controls for federal agencies but called for a voluntary plan for the private sector. After a meeting late last year, the partnership yielded five major reports and dozens of recommendations, but little in the way of further action.
"Not enough is happening" even to fulfill the Bush directive, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif)., who represents Silicon Valley.
To try to increase attention on cyber-security, several industry groups are supporting a bill co-sponsored by Lofgren and Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.) that would elevate the director of the cyber division, currently Amit Yoran, to assistant secretary with more direct access to top DHS officials.
But Robert P. Liscouski, assistant secretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection, who oversees the Cyber Security Division, said the notion of separating attention on cyber-threats from overall infrastructure protection would be bad policy.
"Cyber . . . is a very key priority for us," said Liscouski, a former police officer and Coca-Cola Co. security executive. But elevating it to special status "is a step back," he said, arguing that physical and cyber-security are closely connected.
Thornberry said that philosophy is "kind of a dumbing down of our cyber-security efforts. Cyber has some unique features."
Liscouski said he also has to focus on where the greatest threat lies and that overall he thinks the division is making progress.
"The fact that I'm not on the bully pulpit is more a reflection of where our threat is," he said, referring to tech industry's desire that the Homeland Security Department take a lead role in pushing companies to make cyber-security a top priority. "The dominant threat has been a physical threat."
He acknowledged the department's initial reluctance to participate in the Dartmouth exercise because the division was still organizing itself and might not have been able to "engage in a meaningful way." But he said it was highly valuable in the end.
Industry executives say that if, as the administration has said, it wants to rely on their expertise to help formulate cyber-security policy, it should heed their advice now.
Harris N. Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, said his group "continues to be concerned that DHS does not have adequate resources devoted to cyber-security and that the cyber-security head does not have adequate visibility within the bureaucracy. Improvements are coming, but slowly. The question is whether the nation can afford to wait."
July 23, 2004 at 10:48 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
Survey: ID theft costing UK billions in taxes - ZDNet UK News
ZDNet UK
July 14, 2004, 17:10 BST
Public sector organisations are losing billions each year due to ID theft, according to a survey by risk management firm SPSS
Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money is stolen each year through ID theft and other fraudulent activities, according to a survey of public sector security analysts and IT managers.
The survey, which was conducted by risk management consultants SPSS, found that only 1 percent of fraudulent activity in the public sector is being detected, which means billions of pounds could be saved each year by tightening up prevention and detection techniques.
Noel Coloe, general manager of SPSS UK, said that public sector organisations need to protect themselves from both internal and external threats.
"In the commercial sector, the increasing prevalence of fraud incidents -- such as phishing scams -- shows all too clearly how criminals will continue to take advantage of technology developments for illegal gain. This survey reveals how fraudsters are apparently also infiltrating the public sector to their advantage," Coloe said.
According to the survey, employees are responsible for around one-quarter of all fraud, but the worrying figure is that 99 percent of fraud in the public sector is never detected.
The government has been fast-tracking its scheme to roll out ID cards, which it said will be used to fight terrorism, but the SPSS survey recognises that ID cards could help combat one of the most common uses for ID theft -- benefit fraud.
"Illegitimate claims for benefits cost the taxpayer around £2bn per year. Given the increasing pressure on Whitehall to improve efficiency and local government to make budgets work harder, the public sector must act immediately to improve detection and prevention of fraud," said Coloe.
July 23, 2004 at 04:01 PM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Parking 'smart card' gets overhaul
Fri Jul 23, 4:53 AM ET
By L. Stuart Ditzen, Inquirer Staff Writer
The Philadelphia Parking Authority's "smart card" program, introduced in October as a coin-free method for motorists to buy time on parking meters, has suffered two major glitches leading to lower-than-expected card sales.
But Richard D. Dickson Jr., director of on-street parking for the authority, said the problems are being fixed, and a new marketing program to encourage use of smart cards is to begin next month.
"We believe that once we get these glitches worked out, 40 to 50 percent of our meter revenue will come from smart cards," Dickson said.
Currently, smart cards account for only 1.5 percent of the city's meter revenue, or $192,000 of $12.3 million over the last nine months.
July 23, 2004 at 01:10 PM in Smart Cards | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
finextra news: Nationwide to invest over £300m in retail network
22 July 2004 - The UK's Nationwide Building Society is to spend over £300m on revamping branches and improving Internet and telephone banking services over the next six years.
Under the initiative, all of the society's branches and agencies will be refurbished. In the first two years, 100 branches will undergo major refurbishments, while a further 85 branches and agencies will be upgraded.
Nationwide says it will also place more Internet terminals in branches to enable members to conduct transactions online and get help from staff. New appointment and call-management systems will be installed in branches and new technology will be rolled out across the society's call centres to speed up service. The company will also invest in staff training.
Earlier this year, Nationwide announced plans for a substantial investment in its UK call centre operations, in contrast to many of its competitors which are shifting work to overseas centres.
Commenting on the £600m investment, Philip Williamson, chief executive, Nationwide, says: "While others are taking their service proposition abroad, or encouraging people to use the Internet instead of branches, we are investing in high streets across the country and in our UK call centres.
"In addition, those who prefer to do business online will benefit from improvements to our Internet bank and from our plans to have Internet terminals in more branches."
Williams says the investment programme is designed to improve ease of access for customers, however they choose to do business.
July 23, 2004 at 08:07 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home
Sifry's Alerts: Technorati tracks 3 million blogs
At 6:38PM PST on July 6, 2004, Technorati tracked its 3 millionth weblog. The growth of the service has been pretty remarkable - here's some stats: We're currently seeing anywhere from 8,000-17,000 new weblogs created every single day.
July 22, 2004 at 10:42 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home
CANOE -- CNEWS - Tech News: Japanese turn cell phones into wallets
TOKYO (AP) - As it is, you don't leave home without it. In a world of cashless payment, why not simply make your cell phone a wallet?
Japan has long been phasing out the hassle of coins and bills with microchip-laden "smart cards," which let people make electronic payments for everything from lunch to the daily commute.
But even smart cards could be on their way out, their plastic presence overtaken by virtual-wallet technology now available in the everyday cell phone.
Other countries, led by South Korea, already have so-called mobile commerce payment schemes in place that let people punch keys on their cell phones so that the devices trigger transactions.
But a series of phones going on sale this summer in Japan, for use on NTT DoCoMo's wireless network, are the world's first with an embedded computer chip that you can fill up with electronic cash.
To pay, you simply wave your cell phone within a few centimetres of a special display found in stores, restaurants and vending machines around Japan. A fairy-like tinkling sound means your purchase is being deducted from the embedded chip using radio-frequency ID technology.
It's instantaneous.
Unlike infrared or other mobile payment schemes that require clicks on the handset, you don't even need to open your clamshell-shaped phone.
It's an idea that makes sense, given that almost every Japanese has a cell phone and relies on it so much that being stranded in the street without one almost causes panic. There are 81.5 million cell phones in the country of 127 million people.
For the wallet phone tech to really take off, stores, theatres and restaurants that accept electronic payments need to become more widespread. They total around 9,000 in Japan so far and the number is quickly growing.
Computer experts have suggested hackers could develop a way to pickpocket cell phone wallets merely by getting close to people's handsets. That hasn't happened - yet.
Another concern is a telecom company - or a government - could find out too much about your spending proclivities and your physical movements. But other features on Japan's richly endowed cell phones offer marketers plenty of information on consuming habits as it is: almost all phones have e-mail and Internet connections for restaurant searches, ringtone downloads, news and weather.
One Japanese airline lets passengers use the wallet phone to speed up check-ins at airports and next year you'll be able to use the phones to begin paying for train rides and video rentals.
Later this year, Japanese credit-card company JCB Corp. plans to offer a service that will let corporate clients use chip-embedded phones as electronic keys to get into office buildings.
And if you lose your wallet phone?
Well, DoCoMo can lock it. Which means no one else can use it for calls. And no one else would be able to add more money to the cash-dispensing chip.
But whatever money is stored on the phone is like a virtual wad of cash.
July 22, 2004 at 09:09 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home
The New York Times > Business > Struggling for New Role, AT&T to Stop Marketing to Consumers
By KEN BELSON
Published: July 22, 2004 AT&T Corp., which for more than a century has been synonymous with phone service in the American home, announced today that it will no longer market it services to consumers. The move comes as the venerable company struggles to find a role in the volatile and competitive telecommunications industry that was created from the breakup of the AT&T monopoly in 1984.
The announcement is setback for one of the most significant companies in American corporate history and one of the nation's most storied brands. The company, once known as Ma Bell, in one form or another has been at the center of phone service in America since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1875.
In the two decades since AT&T lost its exclusive franchise to sell phone service, the company has moved in and out of businesses at a frenetic pace, trying everything from selling computers to providing cable and wireless services, often with dismal results. While it has maintained a big business in long-distance calling, the collapse of the telecommunications bubble four years ago has hastened its decline as the cost of phone calls have plummeted.
The company made the decision to abandon the consumer market after the government in June reversed rules that helped AT&T provide local phone service at subsidized rates. Without those subsidies, AT&T said it can no longer offer affordable local service to consumers, who are more and more buying packages of phone, data and video services from cable, satellite and phone carriers.
"Whether I'd call it is strategic, financial or practical or pragmatic, the fact is we can read," said David Dorman, AT&T's chairman and chief executive. "American households are buying bundles, and these bundles are getting more complex and sophisticated, and we have to face the fact that without a local component, a basic component, were at a disadvantage."
AT&T will continue selling telephone and data services to corporate users, a business that already generates nearly three-quarters of its revenue. As the battle for the consumer market intensified, the company has tried to reposition itself as the telecommunications provider of choice to corporate America. But this market, too, remains in flux as rivals like MCI and Sprint try to grab big-name customers that demand ever-cheaper service.
Still, AT&T's retreat from the consumer market is a startling admission of defeat for a company that is still the market leader in long distance calling. It still serves about 35 million consumer customers, but is third behind Verizon Communications and SBC Communications. Though AT&T remains a well-known name with American households, it has had a hard time competing with other phone carriers, cable companies and cellular providers, all of which are selling phone service.
AT&T customers are not likely to be immediately affected by today's decision, and the company said it would not turn away new customers who ask for its service. But the company will stop trying to attract new customers or to retain those who wish to defect to other providers.
Additionally, the company will offer Internet phone service to consumers, though it did not say whether it would aggressively pursue that market.
AT&T hopes to build up its corporate business by using money generated by its consumer operations and spending less on advertising, direct marketing and others costs associated with acquiring retail customers. However, industry analysts say AT&T will only be able to harvest these savings for a year or two because the consumer business is deteriorating so quickly.
"It was a matter time before they would have more steady erosion on the consumer side," said Michael Weaver, a telecommunications analyst at Fitch Ratings, which cut its credit rating for AT&T's debt to BB+, a speculative rating, after today's announcement. "It's kind of a race."
That erosion was starkly apparent in the company's second-quarter results, which were also announced today. AT&T's revenue in the period plunged 13.2 percent to $7.6 billion, with sales from the corporate group sliding 12.7 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. Sales in the consumer group fell 14.6 percent.
The company overall earned $108 million, or 14 cents per share in the quarter, 80 percent lower than in the second quarter of 2003.
In an ironic twist, AT&T's decision to leave the consumer market makes it more likely that the four dominant local phone providers Verizon, SBC, Bell South and Qwest can reassert their increasing market power. With the Telecommunications Act of 1996, these so-called Baby Bells were allowed to enter the long distance market and compete head-on with their former parent, AT&T.
July 22, 2004 at 07:26 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
Thursday, July 22, 2004. Page 3.
Internet Extortion Foiled
By Bernhard Warner and Oliver Bullough
Reuters Hard-pressed police forces have scored a significant victory in the battle against Internet crime by smashing a Russian extortion racket preying on British businesses and betting web sites.
A multinational investigation culminated with the arrest this week of the suspected ringleaders -- three men aged between 21 and 24, police said Wednesday. They were held after raids in St. Petersburg and the Saratov and Stavropol regions. Further arrests may be pending.
Police said the gang had unleashed digital attacks over the Internet on dozens of occasions.
"These were the main people behind the organization. They were coordinating it and laundering the money," said a source at the British Embassy in Moscow.
They are accused of threatening to shut businesses down with a massive barrage of data -- a denial-of-service attack -- if they did not pay up. The gang often demanded sums of $10,000 or $20,000 from owners of betting web sites and struck on the eve of big sporting events like Britain's Grand National horse race.
Protection rackets have sprung up over the past few years preying on e-commerce businesses of all sizes.
Investigators around the globe have been building a profile of the culprits -- typically, crooked programmers from Eastern Europe. But until now they have had little luck in tracking them.
The suspects are thought to be part of a larger group. Last November, police arrested 10 members of the group in Latvia -- a breakthrough that eventually led to this week's swoops, police said.
Following a complex trail of wire transfers and e-mail correspondence, police tracked the trio to their hometowns. One, a 21-year-old from the Saratov region, was a part-time student who worked in a computer shop.
"Two of the suspects were technically proficient. The third was the money man," said a spokeswoman from Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit.
The three men could be charged under new federal computer crime and extortion legislation, officials said. The British police spokeswoman said it was unlikely Britain would seek extradition.
July 22, 2004 at 07:22 PM in Online crime | Permalink | TrackBack (25) | Top of page | Blog Home
Microsoft to fund anti-phishing group
By Dinesh C. Sharma, CNET News.com
The software giant will donate money and make a full-time analyst available to an agency dedicated to fighting phishing
Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it will donate $46,000 (£24,981) worth of software to an agency fighting phishing and will make a full-time analyst available to the group.
The recipient of these contributions is the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, an organisation set up jointly by the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Centre, Carnegie Mellon University and West Virginia University.
"It is basically a place to all get together to share information about consumer fraud and phishing," said Stirling McBride, a senior investigator in Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement group, the team from which the full-time analyst will be drawn. "Increasingly, we are recognising that cybercrime is not a problem that we are going to solve unilaterally, and law enforcement has come to that same conclusion."
The Microsoft analyst will help the alliance make sense of data related to Internet crime, including violations of the federal Can-Spam Act, as well as phishing, the software giant said. Additionally, the analyst will work with the group to make sure that law enforcement has timely industry data and to help design training programmes for police.
The alliance was founded as part of an effort to build a collaborative environment for fighting Internet crime. In a statement, Microsoft said that such efforts are important.
"The tactics of spammers, hackers and other online con artists are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and as a company, Microsoft is dedicating resources to help law enforcement find those responsible for harming consumers," Nancy Anderson, deputy general counsel for the company, said in a statement.
Phishing has become a significant problem for financial institutions. The practice involves sending phoney emails to customers of banks and other institutions, asking them to update their personal security information. In this manner, phishers steal bank account details, credit card information and Social Security numbers, and they use this data to defraud businesses and their customers.
As incidents of spam, email attacks and phishing increase in number, technology companies are stepping up their efforts to educate consumers, as well as devise ways of preventing such incidents.
Dell has announced an education programme for its customers, and Microsoft is running a cash prize programme to reward people for providing information about writers of malicious software, such as Sasser.
July 22, 2004 at 07:15 PM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
7/22/2004 5:00:00 PM - Prepare to say goodbye to subsidized handsets, exec says
by Greg Meckbach
TORONTO - Rogers Wireless Inc., which announced its EDGE high-speed data service Tuesday, plans to bundle Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) hotspot access with its personal communications service (PCS) rate plans.
The Toronto-based carrier has not announced pricing plan for the bundles, nor has it set a launch date, but it's unlikely it will be available before 2005, said David Robinson, Rogers Wireless' vice-president of business development.
Combining Wi-Fi with its general packet radio services (GPRS) and Enhanced Data Rates for GPRS Evolution (EDGE) would allow Rogers to offer "3G-like services," Robinson said during a keynote address at the Wireless & Mobile WorldExpo, held Wednesday and Thursday at the National Trade Center.
He was referring to third-generation cellular services, which are supposed to allow transfer rates of 2 Megabits per second (Mbps) to fixed locations and 384 Kilobits per second (Kbps) to mobile users.
EDGE allows data transfer rates of up to 200 Kilobits per second (Kbps), about three to four times the speed of GPRS, which is comparable to dial-up Internet service.
Wi-Fi hot spots, which connect access points to wireless PC cards using IEEE 802.11 standards, are available in public places such as coffee shops, airport terminals, train stations and hotels. They typically let users connect to the Internet at speeds of 1 Megabit per second (Mbps) or better.
But the range of 802.11 is limited to 100 metres. As a result, customers who want network access outside of hotspots need a wireless plan such as Rogers' EDGE, GPRS (available in Canada from Rogers and Microcell Telecommunications) or 1XRTT (available in Canada from Telus Mobility and Bell Mobility).
But mobile workers who want to use Wi-Fi hot spots typically have to sign up for a given period of time with the individual operator and pay through their credit cards.
Robinson said Rogers wants to let customers sign up for Wi-Fi access from hot spots operated by its partners as part of a PCS plan, meaning they would not have to pay hotspot operators separately.
Wai-Sing Lee, an industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan Canada, said a bundled package would discourage subscribers from canceling their Rogers PCS plans and signing up with rival carriers.
"It does make sense for them to bundle everything, because you basically lock in the customer and there's less chance of the customer straying if they find a better service elsewhere."
But he added a recent Frost & Sullivan online survey of U.S. customers indicated most would rather pay for Wi-Fi service separately.
"I'm just really curious as to how much more a person will have to pay for this," he said. "I'd love to know what their footprint's going to be, what their pricing's going to be like and how convenient it's going to be. There are a lot of unknowns here."
Robinson said Rogers is not disclosing details like pricing yet.
Last March, Rogers signed a co-branding agreement with Bell Mobility, Microcell, Telus Mobility, which would allow all four carriers' customers to access hotspots operated by all carriers or their partners. For example, Rogers customers would be able to access a Bell Mobility hotspots as if they were accessing Rogers hotspots. The carriers plan to allow subscribers to roam this fall.
Allan Rosenhek, Telus Mobility's director of business development, said his company "will likely" offer a bundled Wi-Fi and PCS service.
Robinson said during the next six months, Rogers will work on resolving the technical issues involved in both the Wi-Fi networks and the back-end billing services.
Wi-Fi service is a "best efforts" technology normally used by workers with above-average technical knowledge, Robinson said, noting the 802.11 standard was originally designed for wireless local-area networks, rather than public access.
"It was designed to extend (the range of) your blue (Ethernet) cable by 300 feet," he said. "It was never intended for my computer to plug into someone else's network and to do it securely."
During his keynote address, he suggested Rogers would soon charge more for handsets. Carriers typically subsidize customers' handsets, reselling them to customers at a loss of $100 or more per unit.
This means if 1.5 million customers sign up or buy new handsets this year, Rogers profit drops by $150 million.
"The faster we can run away from this (business model), the faster we add $150 million to the bottom line," Robinson said.
July 22, 2004 at 07:02 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Japanese Carrier Makes Cell Phone Wallet
Wed Jul 21, 9:05 PM
By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
TOKYO - As it is, you don't leave home without it. In a world of cashless payment, why not simply make your cell phone a wallet? Japan has long been phasing out the hassle of coins and bills with microchip-laden "smart cards," which let people make electronic payments for everything from lunch to the daily commute.
But even smart cards could be on their way out, their plastic presence overtaken by virtual-wallet technology now available in the everyday cell phone.
Other nations, led by South Korea (news - web sites), already have so-called mobile commerce payment schemes in place that let people punch keys on their cell phones so that the devices trigger transactions.
But a series of phones going on sale this summer in Japan, for use on NTT DoCoMo (news - web sites)'s wireless network, are the world's first with an embedded computer chip that you can fill up with electronic cash.
The wireless company loaned me a P506iC handset from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and I was in business. Well, almost.
First I had to find a machine that's used to stoke smart cards with cash. They can be found in some convenience stores and offices in Japan. You place the phone in a special slot and slip bills into the machine. The phones have a 50,000-yen ($450) limit.
Now you can spend.
To pay you simply wave your cell phone within a few inches of a special display found in stores, restaurants and vending machines around Japan. A fairy-like tinkling sound means your purchase is being deducted from the embedded chip using radio-frequency ID technology.
It's instantaneous.
Unlike infrared or other mobile payment schemes that require clicks on the handset, you don't even need to open your clamshell-shaped phone, the style of choice here.
It's rather fun to pay for things this way.
It's also an idea that makes sense, given that almost every Japanese has a cell phone and relies on it so much that being stranded in the street without one almost causes panic. There are 81.5 million cell phones in this nation of 127 million people.
For the wallet phone tech to really take off, stores, theaters and restaurants that accept electronic payments need to become more widespread. They total around 9,000 in Japan so far, and the number is quickly growing.
To buy a diet Pepsi from a vending machine, I pushed an "electronic payment" button on the machine and pushed another button to pick the soda. When a display the size of a small greeting card lit up with the price, I put my phone next to the display.
Shazaam. The soda pop rolled out, and the display blinked with the amount of money left in the phone.
To pay for my fried-rice lunch at a restaurant in our office building, I brought my bill to the register and told the clerk I wanted to pay electronically. When he rang it up, the little display lit up with the price. I just flashed my phone.
I also played Virtua Fighter arcade games at one of the two Sega amusement centers in Japan where the phone payments work. And I bought gum and bottled tea at a convenience store with the phone.
Like millions of other Japanese, I have a few smart cards. One, the Suica, works as my commuter train pass. The other, an Edy card, works as a wallet at some stores and its "cash" machines are the ones NTT DoCoMo uses for its phones.
I carry my Suica practically every day. But I don't always remember my Edy. So the P506iC wallet phone was handy, indeed. After all, what reporter is without a cell phone these days?
Computer experts have suggested that hackers could develop a way to pickpocket cell phone wallets merely by getting close to people's handsets. That hasn't happened yet.
Another concern is that a telecom company or a government could find out too much about your spending proclivities and your physical movements. But other features on Japan's richly endowed cell phones offer marketers plenty of information on consuming habits as it is: Almost all phones have e-mail and Internet connections for restaurant searches, ringtone downloads, news and weather.
One Japanese airline lets passengers use the wallet phone to speed up check-ins at airports and next year you'll be able to use the phones to begin paying for train rides and video rentals.
Later this year, Japanese credit-card company JCB Corp. plans to offer a service that will let corporate clients use chip-embedded phones as electronic keys to get into office buildings.
And if you lose your wallet phone?
Well, DoCoMo can lock it. Which means no one else can use it for calls. And no one else would be able to add more money to the cash-dispensing chip.
But whatever money is stored on the phone is like a virtual wad of cash. The clerk at the DoCoMo store repeatedly told me not to put any more money into the phone than I could afford to lose.
July 22, 2004 at 01:25 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
LONDON (Reuters) - Television watchers will not be forced to switch over to a digital signal until 2012, two years later than originally planned by the government.
"While the broadcasters have not reached a full consensus on the optimum timetable, some -- including the BBC -- have suggested that 2012 may be the most appropriate date for the completion of switchover," Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell told Parliament on Thursday.
Digital television providers, which offer a wider array of programming beyond the five channels available with an antenna, have been stepping up their efforts to lure new customers in anticipation of the analogue switch-off.
Some regions could see their analogue signals of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and five, turned off as early as 2007, however, as the switchover is gradually rolled out, she said. The government originally had hoped to finish the switchover by 2010.
The BBC, the publicly funded broadcaster, said last month it would not be against an earlier switchover to digital, but suggested that 2010 would be a "stretch". It has been considering a stand-alone free digital satellite service or partnering BSkyB on its recently announced free venture.
Jowell also served notice that televisions should be marked with dates to indicate when their usefulness will run out as part of an effort to encourage the purchase of digital sets.
"We are therefore engaged with retailers and manufacturers -- who also need to plan ahead -- to see that good clear information is given to consumers currently planning to buy a television or an item of recording equipment," Jowell said.
She asked media regulator Ofcom to devise a plan to ensure that help is provided to "vulnerable consumers", such as the elderly, who may be unable to afford digital upgrades.
"The government's final endorsement of a timetable will be subject to being satisfied that adequate measures are in place to meet this objective," she said.
About half of households already have digital TV in some form. Freeview, a digital service without subscription fees, has boomed, reaching 3.5 million households in less than two years.
Digital satellite service from pay-TV provider BSkyB has about 7 million subscribers, and cable providers NTL and Telewest have another 2.4 million digital viewers.
July 22, 2004 at 01:22 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
TheStar.com - Movie, software industries shut out of music piracy fight
- Record industry to go it alone
- Groups sought intervener status
TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
A federal judge has denied associations from the movie and software industries from getting involved in the recording industry's courtroom efforts to crack down on Internet music piracy.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association a lobby group representing the country's major record labels is upset over a controversial March 31 decision from the federal court that sheltered the identities of 29 alleged music pirates.
Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that making songs available for sharing over the Internet is not illegal under Canadian copyright law, an opinion that sent shockwaves through the broader intellectual-property community.
The recording association filed an appeal, arguing earlier this month that the judge made "sweeping" errors regarding copyright law and rules