Dr. Antonio Nucci

By Kevin McTiernan

An employee of a large US corporation was fired for excessive use of the Internet during work hours. After his employment was terminated in 2003, the employee filed a lawsuit charging his employer with wrongful termination. He claims that his employer offered programs to assist fellow employees “with much more severe psychological problems?” including drugs and alcohol and thusly, he should have been offered counseling instead of being fired. His employer claims that he was in Internet chatrooms where sexually explicit topics were discussed and visited a website containing sexual content, all of this while using one of their computers. The employee claims the chatrooms were “self medication?” to help cope with post traumatic stress due to his experiences in Vietnam.

This brings up interesting comments about today’s Internet-driven culture. Employers are finding their employees requiring physical therapy for the “thumb tendonitis?” which results from the constant use of smartphones (such as Blackberrys, Treos and Sidekicks). Treatment centers are finding their clientele increasing and needing help with addictions including online gambling, cybersex and online shopping.

It is interesting – could the Internet, by making it possible to communicate with anyone around the clock, by providing an unending supply of information, and by enabling technologies (such as VoIP or videoconferencing), cause dependencies similar to that of nicotine, alcohol and drugs? When you look at the statistics released with a Stanford University study (see “A Stanford University study finds…?” below), there may be a new addiction for the healthcare industry to keep an eye out for.

In this Internet-driven culture, what will the responsibility of an employer be? Would employers be required to monitor all Internet traffic and analyze to look for dependencies? Will employers continue to offer Internet access? How long before we see a pamphlet on our HR admin’s desk on Internet addiction? Will schools need to provide guidance to students similar to teen pregnancy or alcohol abuse?

Stanford University’s Office of Communication and Public affairs has information on their study, here.

By Kevin McTiernan

Those outside the San Francisco Bay Area may or may not be aware of the juggernaut underway in San Francisco over Municipal WiFi (or maybe they are witnessing their own version). After a nearly two-year process, Google/Earthlink were selected to provide inexpensive WiFi to the city. Similar to other locations, the business model would offer free, ad-sponsored and a paid, premium service. While most hoped to be able to access the service by the end of this year, it will most likely be available in late 2007. The delays are mostly political and are evidenced in the criticisms voiced thus far in town-hall meetings sponsored by Google and Earthlink. Requests range from no ads for the free service to Google paying to bus kids to the zoo; and, requests for changes such as not requiring users to log in. While an outsider may characterize it as lunacy, it really demonstrates how many perspectives people can have on the same issue and what makes San Francisco such a great city.

But is Muni-WiFi a social program or a utility? Whether free or not, people will expect a certain quality of service. How can Google/Earthlink maintain the integrity (and thus QoS) if anyone is allowed to attach to the network? What’s worse, in the event of a natural or other disaster, such “openness?” could be used against the network to frustrate the efforts of first responders or citizens looking to be informed. An untraceable, open network full of users and the potential for press is the dream scenario for most hackers. When such attacks happen, and they will, law enforcement will be called on to investigate and punish those behind the deed. With no logins, nothing to verify the user, law enforcement’s investigative ability will be severely hampered – unless they infiltrate the bus ride to the zoo.

Which brings me to my angle on the situation – such networks will need to assist law enforcement with investigations. WiFi at 300kbps (the rate for free WiFi in San Francisco) is broadband. If it accesses the public Internet, it is Internet Access. Broadband Internet Access is required to comply with CALEA (The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) by May of 2007. This means that all of these Muni-WiFi networks will have to enable the ability to assist law enforcement with investigations (including lawful intercept).

I think people might want to stop looking at Muni-WiFi as a social program and start looking at it for what it is, a utility - just like electricity. It is expected to be there when needed and it must be allowed to put in measures such as power meters (to get paid) or the ability to turn off a node (block access) to ensure the grid stays up. The fact that it may be accessed for a cheap price must not change this view.

By Kevin McTiernan

A story appeared on the Time magazine website in October describing a serious problem in India – the city of Delhi is inundated with Rhesus monkeys. With monkeys considered sacred by Hindus, a feast of bananas and peanuts left out for them is commonplace. Encroachment on their habitat, coupled with years of inaction and the “feasts,?” have brought the monkey population in Delhi proper to as much as ten thousand. In search of food, they have attacked people, broken into Parliament, kept people from entering homes and wreaked havoc to offices (in 2002, a pack of monkeys attacked students in a girl’s college in Darjeeling India; and, in 2004, monkeys were blamed for ransacking the offices of the Ministry of Defense). Initial responses to the problem were for offices to glue windows shut. But a new solution has taken hold - langurs (large black-faced apes) are now being deployed by office building managers and city officials to protect buildings and scare away the monkeys.

Primatologists believe that using langurs is a bad idea for several reasons. First, the apes only scare the smaller monkeys, just moving them to another building or part of the city. Second, there is evidence that the apes will eventually coexist with the monkeys and no longer scare them. Third, the apes are scary (and potentially dangerous) to humans. Fourth is the obvious cruelty aspect. The final reason comes from me, hasn’t anyone there ever watched Planet of the Apes?

When I first read the article, I laughed out loud and explained the story to nearby coworkers. I then found myself intrigued about the subject and read more, realizing the business lessons it provided; in particular to network security:

The monkeys are similar to hackers or botnets. The growth of the Internet and a limitless “feast?” of resources consisting of unprotected home computers and only slightly more protected computer networks have resulted in their population and audacity to swell. Some businesses completely lock down networks through firewalls (glue their windows shut), and while seemingly protected, in turn actually keep employees imprisoned and customers disinterested. And, some of what people would assume to be the most secure facilities (Ministry of Defense or Parliament), turn out to be vulnerable to the most basic of attacks or exploits. The quick reaction of deploying a “bigger hammer?” (langurs) to scare away attackers will work only with the smaller threats. But in reality, this approach will simply cause the tactic to change to another location or to come back in a larger group - but you can be assured, they will be back! Finally, a static system, over time, will not be much of a deterrent at all - only by learning and adapting can the threat be eliminated while not affecting service. This agility gained through learning and adaptation will ensure that when the next threat changes shape (from monkey problem to lion problem, for example) your security solution does not become a zoo of deterrents.

Check out the original story in Time Magazine and another one from HTT.

An Aside

The whole saga is oddly reminiscent of an episode of the Simpsons (“Bart the Mother?”) where Bart is forced to care for two eggs after killing a bird. The eggs turn out to be that of a lizard that eats bird eggs. The town decides the lizards must be killed, but change their minds after they learn the lizards kill pigeons. With “feathered rats?” out of the picture and lizards running rampant, the next plan becomes to deploy snakes to wipe out the lizards. To rid the town of snakes the plan is to use gorillas that like snake meat. They hope the task will be completed by winter as the next plan is to let the apes freeze to death.

Radar has a great timeline of how this story is the beginning of our path to the Planet of the Apes.

The Simpson Archive has the “Bart the Mother?” episode.

By Doug Miller, Director-Channel Management

Just when you thought it was over, here come the politicians again trying to revive Net Neutrality legislation. Political pressures have forced the issue to become a potential roadblock to the AT&T–Bell South merger. Without it, pundits say that the FCC may block the merger. It’s definitely something to watch for in this post-election environment.

While there are very real and valid arguments both for and against this type of open structure, for me it should come down to a free market. The Internet should be no different than the rest of our society in that consumers get to choose with their purchasing decisions. With carriers, service providers and content owners openly competing for purchasing dollars, it would seem that they will make the best choices for the consumers and ultimately for themselves. Competition, reinforced by anti-trust laws, is thus a far better protector of the interest of consumers, carriers and content providers than government ownership or regulation.

Let’s take an example of an environment without Net Neutrality regulation (today’s status quo). Say that DSL Provider A decides to charge content providers to ride its network. Google and Yahoo! pay the fee, but Ebay and Amazon do not. In this case, it stands to reason that many consumers would rather go to Cable Operator X for their service where they have equal access to everything (a conscious choice made by Operator X). Provider A then changes its structure to keep up with the dreaded churn and innovates to launch new services that will bring customers back. Operator X sees this and launches its own new services like managed VoIP or P2P services, and sets QoS higher for those services to ensure that customers get the best possible experience. There’s competition, new services are conceived and launched, billing plans are changed. Everybody, including the consumer, wins.

Now, let’s take a similar example with Net Neutrality regulation. All of a sudden, Provider A and Operator X are relegated to nothing more than bit pipes that can only compete on aggregate speed and price. Sounds a lot like a commodity, right? Sure, they can bundle data services with home phone service and maybe TV, but they have lost any incentive to launch new branded services since they really can’t legally guarantee QoS or QoE. In essence, Net Neutrality, with all of the good intentions that go along with it, would have effectively stifled new service delivery, innovation, desire for growth, etc. Why would carriers continue to pour literally billions of dollars into their networks if their only payback is to sell bits? Sure, it would be a big win for content providers, but that’s not going to get carriers to increase the network performance and security to the point that the services would be valuable and worth paying for.

The “access?” honeymoon is over. The market is demanding more than just fast service to check e-mail, stock quotes and weather reports. Where will the money be made? If it’s not going to be made by the carriers, why will they continue to spend the money so that content providers can reap the rewards? Basic economics says that just won’t happen. It’s time for carriers to get broadband in every home and to give them free reign to manage their networks based on consumer demand. And let’s all get real here. Will any carrier in their right mind block or otherwise limit access to Google, Yahoo!, Ebay, Amazon, etc.?

So, do we let the politicians decide for us? Do they have the networking knowledge and insight to make these decisions? Or, do we let carriers and service providers with advanced DPI tools, monitoring systems, security solutions, and other key network management applications and skills go head-to-head with each other and let them fight for our monthly Internet budget? I, for one, am up for a good fight and one that is conducted not in the courtroom or on Capitol Hill, but on my computer and in my monthly bill.