Digital Citizen Pulse

To say that expectations run high would be an understatement: and now all eyes are on the man who will assume charge of our country on January 20, 2009: U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

Not the least because he has set an ambitious agenda for e-governance. And he might just be the man to pull it off, since Obama has already very successfully used information technology (IT) in his presidential campaign.

For example, according to reports on www.barackobama.com, more than 280,000 people created accounts, users created over 6,500 grassroots volunteer groups and organized more than 13,000 off-line events using the website and over 15,000 policy ideas were submitted through the website. This Internet operation was governed by 95 people. As a result, Obama has now accumulated a valuable database of more than 10 million supporters.
In addition, since change was the main plank of Obama's election campaign, the transition site has been named for change, set up at http://change.gov/.

Once he enters the White House, he will be expected to deliver on his promises.
So, what then is Obama's agenda for e-governance? In a word: Open Government. While he has a host of items on his digital agenda, the following ten are of particular interest:

• Transparent and Connected Democracy: The agenda proposes "to integrate citizens into the actual business of government" by a number of measures including, "Making government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities," and by "Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials."
• Open Government: All available technologies and methods are proposed to be used to open up the federal government, "creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago." Most modern communications infrastructure will be used to realize this vision. The agenda visualizes "opening up the closed practices of governance to greater citizen engagement and participation."
• Federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO): The agenda proposes to "appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices."
• Openness of the Internet: Realizing the importance of the Internet as "most open network in history," the agenda proposes to maintain the openness of the Internet. The agenda "strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans." The agenda "supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others."
• Protection of Children: An important item on the agenda is protection of children on the Internet. The agenda proposes to "work to give parents the tools to prevent reception of programming that they find offensive on television and on digital media. Again, it will "encourage improvements to the existing voluntary rating system, exploiting new technologies like tagging and filtering, so that parents can better understand what content their children will see, and have the tools to respond." The agenda treats a "sanity not censorship" approach of the Common Sense Media, a private entity, as a model.
• Public Media 2.0: The agenda "will encourage the creation of Public Media 2.0., the next generation of public media that will create the Sesame Street of the Digital Age and other video and interactive programming that educates and informs. The agenda "will support the transition of existing public broadcasting entities and help renew their founding vision in the digital world."
• Right to Privacy: The agenda notes that "Dramatic increases in computing power, decreases in storage costs and huge flows of information that characterize the digital age bring enormous benefits, but also create risk of abuse. We need sensible safeguards that protect privacy in this dynamic new world." The agenda, therefore, proposes to "strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and will harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy."
• Next Generation Broadband: The agenda realizes the importance of broadband in so many words: "Full broadband penetration can enrich democratic discourse, enhance competition, provide economic growth, and bring significant consumer benefits. Moreover, improving our infrastructure will foster competitive markets for Internet access and services that ride on that infrastructure." This is sought to be achieved by (i) redefinition of broadband (currently defined at low 200 kbps), (ii) universal service reform, and (iii) public-private partnership.
• Protection of Intellectual Property Rights at Home and Abroad: The agenda recognizes the importance of intellectual property rights by stating that "Intellectual property is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age" and emphasizes the "need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated." The agenda proposes to protect intellectual property rights at home and abroad.
• Health Care: The agenda proposes to "invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records" and "phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT and commit the necessary federal resources to make it happen."  It cites a study by the Rand Corporation that found if most hospitals and doctors offices adopted electronic health records, up to $77 billion of savings would be realized each year through improvements such as reduced hospital stays, avoidance of duplicative and unnecessary testing, more appropriate drug utilization, and other efficiencies."

Three of the above goals are worthy of further note.

First, Open Government. This will be a challenge indeed. The issues here are the extent to which government will open up consistent with the requirements of security and protection of privacy of citizens, and making government transparent and accountable. Obama, of course, has taken up the gauntlet when he makes a daring commitment in his agenda: (he) "will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists." Obama stressed this in a speech in Des Moines, IA November 10, 2007:

"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists -- and won. They have not funded my campaign, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."

Blueprint for Change: Obama and Biden's Plan for America declares: "Obama and Biden will close the revolving door between the executive branch and K-Street lobbying shops. Their appointees will serve the American people, not their own financial interests." It will be quite interesting to watch as to how Obama and his team goes about it as lobbyists are firmly entrenched in Washington, D.C.

Second, Citizen Participation in Government Decision-Making. An integral part of open government, it is also a very challenging area as despite living in democratic regimes citizens have no participation in decision-making, a task performed singularly by the legislators who, once elected, forget about the citizens until the next election. The nearest governments have gone for citizen participation in government decision-making is to seek citizen's views on government's specific proposals. But this is usually a meaningless process as citizens views may be taken as a mere formality without being taken into account in decision-making, leave alone having an impact in decision-making.

If citizen participation in government decision-making is going to be meaningful, citizen's views must be able to influence decision-making. What would be the modalities of such citizen participation in government decision-making? Would a citizen in such circumstances become a tier-2 legislator? And what would be its legal implications.

Third, National Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This has been talked about for quite some time. It is going to be a very challenging task for the incumbent as co-ordination is no cakewalk. On the contrary, it is quite problematic, as CTO/CIO will protect his turf and the method of working. Quite often, he is immune to external advice. The agenda proposes to suitably legally empower him. In such a case, he will be a Super-CTO or Super CIO and his authority is likely to be resented by agency CTO/CIO.

Obama's agenda is ambitious indeed, and we wish him nothing but the best of luck in implementing it.

A few days ago Nokia today announced that it plans to launch Nokia Life Tools, a range of innovative Agriculture information and Education services targeted to non-urban consumers.

Designed specifically for emerging markets such as Asia and Africa, Nokia Life Tools helps overcome information constraints and provides services to this next generation of mobile users. Nokia plans to launch the service, beginning in the first half of 2009 with the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic as the lead devices in India and expand across select countries in Asia and Africa later in 2009.

"Filling in the information gaps in agriculture and education with Nokia Life Tools, we strive to contribute towards empowering people with the right tools to help them make informed decisions in their daily lives" said Jawahar Kanjilal, Global Head of Emerging Market Services, Nokia. "Nokia Life Tools was developed to help bridge the digital divide in the emerging markets."

"Nokia has a strong sense of local markets. Here in India, agriculture employs more than 60 percent of the workforce; but this sector of the economy needs fresh inputs via technology for it to achieve a 3 percent growth" said Shiv Shivakumar, Vice President, Nokia India.

Nokia plans to conduct a limited scale pilot in India before the end of 2008. Reuters Market Light (RML) is the content service provider collaborating with Nokia for agriculture services in the pilot, where accurate and regular information on weather, prices and availability of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and prevailing market prices for the produce are sent to the farmer. The information is customized to the farmer's location and selection of crops, and will be delivered directly to his Nokia mobile phone. By getting the latest information directly on their mobile phones, farmers can overcome uncertainty and get just the right information that they need to grow and sell their crops.

"Technology is changing the way farmers, their families and their surrounding communities are contributing to the economy, as well as benefiting from it. Reuters Market Light has already proven the value of customized and localized information to the farming community, with thousands of farmers having already made significant additional profits using RML" said Amit Mehra, Managing Director, Reuters Market Light. "Through our collaboration with Nokia, we hope to reach even more farmers so that they can make informed decisions that have a direct and positive impact on their productivity and yield"

"Nokia Life Tools was developed in collaboration with the target users and the industry. The success of this initiative can be assured through regular consumer feedback to ensure that their needs are best met. More importantly, it will require a collaborative effort between Nokia, our operator partners, industry participants and information providers across the agriculture and education sectors as we connect the next billion mobile phone subscribers - many of whom will indeed hail from these developing regions" added Mr Kanjilal.

Nokia Life Tools services use an icon-based, graphically rich user interface that comes complete with tables and which can even display information simultaneously in two languages. Behind this rich interface, SMS is used to deliver the critical information to ensure that this service works wherever a mobile phone works, without the hassles of additional settings or the need for GPRS coverage.

Nokia Life Tools will be available in local languages for the target audience. The pilot will be enabled on the Nokia 2600 classic and the Nokia 1680, and available in Marathi, Hindi and English.

More information and photos in print quality can be found at www.nokia.com/press/entry.

By most recent polls the U.S. presidential race will not go down to the wire, but if it should the winner may be decided by a new group of voters: those Americans under thirty who have more or less been raised on bits and bytes and who are now given their first chance to flex political muscle.

These are the children of baby boomers. In the last election, less than half of eligible voters under thirty actually dragged themselves to the polls; even so making up seventeen percent of the total vote. There is, however, strong evidence that a far higher percentage of the bits and bytes generation will turn out this time and that most of their votes will go to Barack Obama: The bits and byters may well come to Obama's rescue.

Statistically, youth turnout has risen steadily since the 2000 presidential election, but this year it has soared. During several state primaries, youth turnout doubled, some even tripled, compared with 2004.

And not only that, bits and byters, who overwhelmingly oppose the Iraq war and President George W. Bush's policies--and who can blame them--have done more than just vote; they have jumped into politics--to be sure, their style of politics: using Facebook to share information at a phenomenal pace, raise money, and set up rallies, and mostly for Mr. Obama. They have also used YouTube, in its infancy during the 2004 campaign, to reach millions of potential voters through music.

All signs are that they are very motivated about this election, and that they may well decide its outcome. This may come as a surprise to some pollsters, but should not when you consider what happened at the start of the primary season. In Iowa in January, Obama lost decisively to both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the thirty-plus vote, while he won the under-thirty vote by a 5-to-1 margin, enough to propel him to victory.

Those bits and byters are still for Obama; in fact, two-thirds of them say they are Democrats. According to John Della Volpe, director of polling for the Harvard Institute of Politics, the youngest age bracket (eighteen to twenty-four) favor Obama over John McCain by more than twenty percentage points; and it's unlikely that the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee will change that, given that young people are much less socially conservative than she is.

Obama's huge lead in the youth demographic may be partially obscured by current polling techniques. Although most pollsters do call people on cell phones, they still rely primarily on landlines, according to Della Volpe. Better than half of the eighteen to twenty-four bracket do not even own land-line phones, he said, and as a rule have sharply different views on the big issues--the war(s), the economy, who should run that country--than those who do.

Of course, it's still not a given that young voters will in fact Obama into office, but the bits and byters are turning into a political juggernaut that will dominate and change U.S. politics in the future. They have the numbers to do it: By 2015, once they are all old enough to vote, they will comprise a full third of the electorate; and they have at their fingertips the most powerful information, organizing, and mobilizing tools--and know how to use them.

And they will most likely not settle for politics as usual. Having grown up on the instant communication of bits and bytes they will want to be involved in the act of governing by contributing ideas before decisions are made. What's more, they serve as a collective watchdog that will ensure that politicians do keep their word: if they don't, millions will know about it a few keystrokes later.

So, no matter who wins, the new president will have a tiger by the tail.

And this just in:

In a poll that has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since it began running in 1992, classroom video news network Channel One has Barack Obama trouncing John McCain by a 17-point margin, with 58.5% of the vote to McCain's 41.5%.

Several million teen voters have Obama taking every single swing state except Missouri, including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Let's hope so.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Ulf Wolf writes about the Digital Divide and Cyber Crime for Words & Images (ulf@words-images.com)

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, cybercrime is up again for 2007. Hardly news, of course; it is no secret that this plague is spreading farther and deeper by the hour.

And here's another unsurprising piece of news: at the head of the pack, same as last year: Internet Auction Fraud.

The FBI Numbers

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NWC3), recently released its 2007 figures on cybercrime complaints received and referred to law enforcement.

Again, the numbers showed that Internet Auction Fraud was by far the most reported offense in 2007, comprising at it did 35.7% of all complaints (see Chart below). In addition, during the same period, the non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment from non-auction internet transactions represented another 24.9%, pegging the combined total of on-line sales related fraud complaints at 60.6% of all Internet fraud.

Internet Auction Fraud

What far too many users fail to realize is that when something is purchased via an Internet auction, it is not bought from the auction house (say eBay, or Yahoo) but from an individual or company. The auction site--acting as a go-between--merely provides a forum where individuals can trade with one another, and it usually adopts--and prominently displays--a firm policy of washing their hands of legal responsibility for any loss suffered from using their service.

Once the bidding has concluded the payment for and delivery of the goods bought and sold is negotiated between the purchaser and seller. If the item is not delivered after it is paid for or is not what was represented on the auction site, the auction house will not refund any money. It is up to the buyer to approach the seller to negotiate a fair and proper settlement.

The statutory warranties that normally cover trade do not cover goods bought at on-line auction. The seller's only obligation is to give clear title.

Therefore, keep the following in mind when dealing with on-line auctions, or whenever you buy anything online, especially from a private party:

• Understand how the auction works, what your obligations are as a buyer, and what the seller's obligations are before you bid.
• Find out what actions the auction house will take if a problem occurs, and consider insuring the transaction and shipment.
• Be aware that if a problem does occur with an auction transaction, it will be more difficult to resolve if the seller is located outside the United States--laws can differ widely country to country.
• Learn as much as possible about the seller, especially if the only information you have is an e-mail address.
• Before you make a payment for an auction purchase, you should verify the seller's identity and contact details in case there is a problem with the delivery of the item.
• Ask the seller when delivery can be expected and whether the merchandise is covered by warranty if you need to exchange it.
• Use registered or certified mail to enable tracing; this will eliminate claims that the parcel was sent but must have been "lost in the mail."
• Check that the auction account information matches email, phone number and any bank account and location information.
• Use auction house feedback forums to check out the seller's history before agreeing to pay any money. Please note however, that sellers sometimes post positive feedback on themselves or organize other people to do so on their behalf.

And here is the most important advice of all:

• If you have any doubts about the integrity of an on-line auction seller--and even if you're not: use an escrow agent. An escrow agent or company is an independent third party which holds payment in trust until the buyer receives and accepts the item from the seller. While this service does incur a fee, it protects the buyer because the third party will hold the money until the goods have been received in good condition, inspected, and accepted; and only then released to the seller.

Internet Escrow

The principle and process of Internet escrow is the same as with buying and selling real estate--where, of course, the escrow company is deemed indispensible due to the amounts involved.

• The buyer or seller opens an account with the online escrow company;
• The prospective buyer of an item sends payment by wire transfer, check or credit card to the escrow company;
• The escrow company verifies that the funds indeed do exist, or that the buyer is who he represents himself to be and is in possession of the credit card used;
• Once this checks out, the escrow company asks the seller to ship the merchandise;
• Merchandise is shipped, and seller submits tracking information;
• Once the shipping site shows the merchandise as delivered the escrow company double checks to ensure the buyer has the goods in hand;
• The buyer now has an agreed-upon amount of time to either accept the goods or return it to the seller;
• Once accepted by the buyer, the escrow company releases the funds to the seller, less any processing fees and commissions.

Straightforward enough. If, that is, you are dealing with a legitimate online escrow company.

Fighting the Fighter

But the world, as we know, likes to throw us curves; and in this instance in the curve comes in the guise of escrow fraud.

Handling, as it does, substantial amounts of money, the escrow company is often itself a target of fraud--where look-alike phishing sites try to con you into using them rather than the bona fide site; and the escrow company concept itself is also flagrantly abused by criminals who set up fraudulent escrow sites where money will only travel one-way: you guessed it, away from you.

In fact, the problem of fake on-line escrow sites is so substantial that some reputable and legitimate escrow sites have simply thrown in the towel.

Buyer Guardian, for example, recently shut its doors due to Internet fraud stealing their business, and posted the following note on their site: "We are sad to report that after careful and lengthy consideration we have made the decision to cease operations at BuyerGuardian.com. This is a very difficult decision, and one that is made primarily due to the rapid growth of online escrow fraud."

Many of these apparently bona fide escrow companies, established for the sole purpose of enriching the criminal, are set up off-shore--predominantly in Russia or China--where lax cyber crime laws (and sometimes questionable cooperation with U.S. Authorities) makes it more difficult to shut the sites down and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Enter: Escrow.com

Actually, Escrow.com entered this fray nearly ten years ago during the dot-com boom and has over the years shown itself to be the online escrow company to turn to for secure and fraud-less auction and other online sales/purchase transactions--with the credentials and staying power to prove it.

Licensed by the state of California--as well as by the States of Idaho and Arizona, who require separate licenses--Escrow.com is the only on-line escrow company credentialed to serve every state of the Union, and who indeed does so 24/7.

While Escrow.com will handle transactions of any size, it may not make financial sense to turn to them for low cost items since their transaction fee is $25, and their commission is $63 per $1,000 value of the transaction if payment is by credit card and $32.50 per $1,000 for wire transfers.

But, if you value your sleep, Escrow.com would be indispensible for any transaction of $250 on up.

Peace of Mind

Michigan-based telecomclassifiedads.com, which buys and sells expensive telecommunication switching equipment concurs, would not, according to Mickey Fivenson, complete any online transactions without Escrow.com.

"I use Escrow.com for all my equipment transactions, and without them I would not be in business. It's as simple as that.

"I deal with buyers and sellers on a daily basis who do not know each other and who live in different parts of the world. Escrow.com is the only way I can complete a transaction between them.

"As a result, after five years of doing business through Escrow.com I have never had anything but satisfied customers."

Dave Kurko of RPM Auto Wholesale in Pleasant Hill, CA could not agree more:

"Escrow.com provides a safety net for both seller and buyer, delivering certainty in an uncertain world.

"Most people understand the concept of escrow, particularly if they have bought and sold real estate in a jurisdiction that uses an escrow company rather than an attorney to settle a real estate transaction; in fact, we have modeled our transaction on the real estate transaction. Escrow.com has made this approach not only possible but also very effective.

"They are also very customer centric, and thanks to their tech support we have been able to integrate opening an escrow account with them into our own web-hosted application, allowing our CRM software to talk directly to their database over a secure link.

"Really, they're the only game in town. We've searched other companies, and nobody else measures up."

Escrow.com--The Detective

While Escrow.com is gaining increasing recognition as the Internet escrow company to turn to for peace of e-commerce mind, their staff, on a daily basis, also hunt and diligently work to shut down fraudulent impostors, which are encountered daily.

And they spring up like mushrooms, these impostors: there are days that Escrow.com staff discovers as many as ten new such sites.

A couple of clever fraud specimens can be found (if they are still up at time of print) at http://www.safe-wayonline.com and http://www.escrow-holdings.net, both of which have been confirmed as unlawful. You certainly cannot fault these criminals for lack of professional design.

The good news is that as these sites are tracked down, authorities are alerted and the sites are soon off the air.

eBay Weighs In

To quote the biggest auction site of them all, eBay:

Pay safely - beware of fake escrow services when you consider using them to pay for your eBay item.

For eBay transactions, you should use eBay's only approved Escrow Company: www.escrow.com

To avoid being deceived by fraudulent email from a fake escrow service, you should visit the escrow service's Web site to verify information you received via email.

Make sure you type the entire Web address (for example, www.escrow.com) into your Web browser. Don't let your Web browser auto-complete the Web address for you. It could mistakenly auto-complete a fraudulent Web address.

Learn more about escrow: http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/payment-escrow.html

Escrow.com--The Household Name

More importantly, however, as Escrow.com gains further and further recognition on its way to become a household name, it gets harder and harder for impostors to defraud the public for the excellent reason that they are not Escrow.com--the only name you know you can trust.

Here's to peace of mind and a good night's sleep.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Ulf Wolf writes about the Digital Divide and Cyber Crime for Words & Images (ulf@words-images.com)

It is hard to conceive of a more liberating communication medium than the internet; and holding the promise, as it does, of fully engaged citizens--of a populace enjoying the give and take with both state and local government which makes for true participation--few things are as dismaying, and as threatening to that promise and vision, as the very real possibility of cyber crime ambush.

And he is very real indeed, the cyber criminal--the individual who for reasons best known to his darker side have chosen to use today's open information technology to commit serious crimes and harm others.

You've heard of his schemes: lottery scams, internet auction frauds, Nigerian advance fee fraud, phishing, identity theft, the list goes on and seems to grow almost daily as innovation is bent toward the quick and dishonest digital buck rather than creative contribution to others around him.

And to make matters worse, cyber crime seems to be "everywhere" now. But just how everywhere is it?

The IC3

The IC3 report for 2007 has recently been released and does shed some light on just that question.

IC3 Background

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3--http://www.ic3.gov), launched in May 2000 as the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). In December 2003, the IFCC was renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to better reflect the range of internet crime encountered.

Shortly thereafter IC3 established a partnership with the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to serve as the main federal vehicle to receive, develop, and refer to state and local authorities complaints regarding the rapidly expanding underbelly of the internet: cyber crime.

IC3 was intended to and continues to serve the broader law enforcement community, including federal, state and local agencies, which employ key participants in the growing number of Cyber Crime Task Forces.

Since its inception, IC3 has received complaints across a wide variety of cyber crime matters, including online fraud (in its many forms), intellectual property rights (IPR) matters, computer intrusions (hacking), economic espionage (theft of trade secrets), child pornography, international money laundering, identity theft, and a growing list of additional criminal matters.

IC3 provides victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that immediately alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, and local level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.

Cyber Crime Statistics

Caveat: The following statistics give a good overview of reported instances of cyber crime. It would, however, serve you very well to keep in mind that researchers (for once) agree that only one instance in seven is actually reported to the authorities, or to sites such as IC3. The true figures, then, are roughly seven times higher.

2007 Complaints

From January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007, 206,884 complaints were filed online with IC3. This is actually a 0.3% decrease compared to 2006 when 207,492 complaints were received.

Dollar Loss

The total dollar loss of $239.09 million to reported cyber crime was at an all-time high in 2007.

Contact Method

Leading the field by a very wide margin as the cyber criminal's favorite mode of contact is email (73.6%), followed at a distant second by the webpage (32.7%). It stands to reason that the anonymous nature of email and websites would be favored since they allow perpetrators to solicit a large number of victims with just a few keystrokes.

Other contact methods included telephone (18.0%), snail mail (10.1%), chat rooms (2.3%) and in-person (1.7%).

"With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed."

If Abraham Lincoln had said this on CNN today, it would have held as true as it did 150 odd years ago. The only difference being the channels that now influence and measure public sentiments.

Horse and buggy--along with town criers--then; television debates, and the Internet now. Same principles, different media.

Government 2.0 with its counterpart Digital Citizenry depends on the digital give and take between government and the citizen.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known as NASA by most, is an interesting government agency in that they mostly get heavy media coverage when things go wrong.

As in, how many shuttle missions were covered before one of them went terribly wrong? Except, of course when things go extremely well: as in landing on lunar surfaces and such.

However, in-between these two extremes, the day-to-day smaller successes and lesser setbacks are rarely covered to any great extent by television or the press. Just not interesting enough, I guess.

Therefore, if Muhammad does not want to come to the mountain, it is time for the mountain to make a digital stab at coming to the citizen. And NASA is really doing that.

The experimental initiative at NASA is called CoLab, with the stated goal of acting as "advisor and consultant to groups within NASA, building direct and open collaborations between the public and NASA scientists and engineers...[and] use technology to facilitate public contributions to NASA activities."

John Bell of Ogilvy PR recently pointed out that great "emerging" brands like eBay, YouTube, and Netflix are "authentic, adaptive, relevant, transformative, fresh, immersive, and social." And now it seems like Peter Gray, the NASA CoLab Program Manager, must have has ripped a page out of eBay's playbook when he recently bandied about the much used--by these emerging brands, that is--buzzwords like "participate, collaborate, and innovate," when he talked about CoLab. Sounded like an emerging NASA brand, in fact; and Government 2.0.

NASA CoLab is trying some innovative things to reach out to the public. There is currently a co-working space in Silicon Valley open seven days a week. Eventually they hope to host co-working spaces in major U.S. cities that are "the NASA equivalent of an Apple Store" as Mr. Gray put it. That would be very hip indeed.

Additionally, the "Luna Philosophie" series, held at San Francisco's Yahoo! Brickhouse incubator (in coordination with the full moon, no less), is a series of open conversations on different topics broadcast using USTREAM.TV. CoLab has also participated in national conferences, and held Camp CoLab brainstorming sessions with NASA staff about how to change and adapt CoLab across the ten or so different NASA facilities around the country.

And more to the digital point, there is also an elaborate NASA presence on "CoLab Island" in Second Life, providing information about all sorts of activities with an additional emphasis on having "launch parties" and the like. However, despite this high quality (and perhaps necessary) presence, because Second Life has very few habitual users, it may not have the desired effect of reaching the multitudes.

It is a work in progress, no doubt, and it isn't yet an outstanding model of government "CoLab-oration" with its citizens. Nonetheless, seeing as this is the vision and product of an agile, lightly-funded staff, CoLab must be given a lot of credit for experimenting with new ideas, reaching out to the public, and doing more than most any other government agency in taking advantage of new media.

The U.S. presidential election is more or less just around the corner; and as we speak our two candidates are grappling with issues more pressing than the future of Digital Citizenry; nonetheless, that issue does remain on their books and in their campaign material, and have been addressed by both Obama and McCain.

So where do they stand?

It's no secret that Barack Obama has used the Internet more successfully than any other candidate in any election before him. By the end of the campaign he expects to raise as much as US$1 billion online, that's 12 times what John Kerry raised in 2004. Also, his online activities have mobilized over two million people to work for him, and he used the Internet to get more people up and running earlier and at a better clip than any of his opponents during the primaries.

As expected, Obama's IT savvy approach to political campaigning is reflected in his stated technology policy. If elected, he says, he will appoint the country's first true Chief Technology Officer, responsible not only for government technology infrastructure, policies and services, but also for technology policy across the country.

Obama's digital aim, which I find rather promising, is to create a "transparent and connected democracy" in these United States.

According to campaign material, his policy states: "Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making."

The policy then goes on to promise that more data will be available to citizens on the Internet, that government meetings will be made viewable, and even "participatable" on the Internet, and that cabinet officials will hold national online town hall meetings.

Today, with voter-numbers declining and citizen political engagement weakening year by year (except during national financial emergencies, as today), Obama's technology policy should be viewed as a firm step to improve democracy by digitizing it. Bottom line: Obama, if elected, will be the U.S.'s first technology-savvy president.

John McCain's technology policy is, you may have guessed, not quite of the same caliber. While it does recognize the importance of making more information available to Americans on the Web, it never refers to the use of social networking tools as a means to expand democracy and participation in government.

It is easy to assume that this divergence in policy between McCain and Obama may be based on a generation gap--McCain is 71 and Obama is 47, after all-- but there are many citizen in McCain's age bracket that know how to use email, and plenty more besides, that in fact use their computers and the Internet in many creative ways.

While the age gap might serve as a plausible reason/excuse, I think the difference in approach boils down to political beliefs. Obama is pursuing an agenda that squarely aims at increasing citizen participation in government through the use of the internet, while McCain hasn't quite caught on to the importance of Digital Citizenry just yet.

Photo by Beth Can. Creative Commons Lic. Attribution 2.0 Generic

What precisely does the Digital Divide--this sweeping, seemingly all-encompassing designation--mean? It's bandied about enough, it's catchy enough--rolls nicely off the tongue--but it's has now also become ubiquitous enough to be almost meaningless, like the cliché--once so apt--that's lost its sting.

And yet: Government 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever release the thing will have reached once it finally gets its entire act together, will not--axiomatically, I should add--get there while Digital Divides still exist: a fully digitized citizenry, by definition, would be a prerequisite to true digital government.

Digital Divide Defined

So, I ask again, what, precisely, is the Digital Divide?

Knee-jerk reply of Michael Powell, former US Federal Communications Commission Chairman: It's like a Mercedes divide, "I would like to have one, but I can't afford one." About as simplistic as you can get.

My knee-jerk reply: Many different things.

Digital Connect

Okay, let's come at this from another angle: what's the opposite of the Digital Divide? What would constitute a full Digital Connect?

In other words, what does the Ideal Digital Citizen (IDC) look like? It's important that we establish this, for everything that separates the IDC from the current analog, if you will, citizen (where- or whoever he or she may be) is in fact the Digital Divide--or, more accurately--the Digital Divides.

IDC Ingredients

Let's reel of the easy ones first:

Computer -- Yes, our IDC has to have one of those, and has know how to turn it on and off.

Software -- The IDC has to own and know a few of those, and he or she has to feel comfortable enough with them, and trust them well enough to find them of use in his or her own life. They must be more than toys, in other words.

Broadband Connection (Access) -- Yes, it has to be broadband. Our IDC can no longer live with 56K, it just won't do the trick--for one, the average government web page requires something like 30 seconds to download over a 56K modem. Not workable.

Skill and Training -- Our IDC is at home with the Internet, knows how to navigate and feels at home there.

Trust -- Our IDC feels secure in using the internet, and "dares" do online banking, investment, even voting, knowing it will be secure.

Purpose -- Our IDC feels that both the computer and the Internet enhances his or her survival, that he or she lives better for them in all strata of life. Has "What's in it for me?" figured out, and it came down on the side of Digital Connect.

Awareness -- Our IDC is aware of the many sites offered by States and Municipalities to interact and do business with.

Time -- Our IDC has sufficient time to spend online to exercise his or her Digital Citizenry.
Responsibility -- Important point: our IDC must give a damn. Must in fact care enough about local, state and national issues to keep informed, and to as requested submit his digital votes or input.

A Given?

Now, it seems to be a given that this would be a desirable creature to have around. But is it? Just asking.

If governments and ISPs were truly successful in morphing our analog hordes in to model IDCs--do we look at a better world? I don't know, but it's something to consider: Do we in fact want the digital divide bridged?

Back at the Ranch

Assuming, however, for argument's sake, that we do want the IDC around, in significant numbers, what factors play a part in the divides?

Here's a cursory list:

• Income
• Occupation
• Gender
• Age
• Education
• Geographic centrality
• Ethnicity and race
• Religiosity
• Language
• Family structure
• Physical capacity
• Frequency
• Time online
• Purpose
• Skills
• Autonomy
• Affordability
• Competitive market structure
• Ownership and density of computers and websites
• Communication infrastructure

And others.

In this blog I simply want to state the problem as I see it. I will explore the various divides in more detail in other blogs and articles.

More and more attention is being put on raising good digital citizens, both here and abroad. The effort, which began in the U.K. in the mid-90s, is now making its way onto our shores.

I just came across a great article written by Matt Villano about just this topic, published in The Journal. Well worth perusing.

And while you're at it, you should visit Digizen.org, the U.K. site which has taken good digital citizenry on as a mission, and doing a good job of it, to boot.

Text unto others ...

What is the most mobile and ubiquitous computer in the world? You guessed it: your cell phone.

Perhaps not so slowly, and definitely surely, law enforcement throughout the country are recognizing the truth of this, and are now opening channels for the digital citizen to reach them in need or to report emergencies or crimes observed.

The very first day Boston police began accepting text messaging, a text message tip led to the arrest of a New Hampshire homicide suspect. In Ventura County, California, authorities have apprehended several wanted felons through text and online tips.

"It's the future," says Cmdr. Michael Charbonnier, the Boston Police Department's contact for Crime Stoppers, an international program dedicated to rewarding anonymous tipsters for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Since the Boston Police Department implemented its text program last year, tips have doubled, with nearly half coming in from text messaging. To date, in 2008, the department has logged 720 phone tips and 698 text-messaging tips.

"Sometimes it's the only info and sometimes it's the piece of the puzzle that leads to the arrest," Charbonnier says. "But it's a reality in policing. Some people just aren't comfortable with calling 9-1-1." The success of the program rests on keeping messengers anonymous.

The trend first took off in Boston after Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis showed up at a shooting and watched as bystanders with cell phones text messaged friends the news.

Since then, at least 70 law-enforcement agencies have added text messaging to their tip lines and 100 others are in the process of adopting a text-messaging system.

For years, the Los Angeles Police Department has received crime tips from anonymous callers nervously hoping to remain so as they whisper their way through intimidating one-on-one Q&As with police tip-takers.

But in a bid to get more young people to come forward with information to help snare bad guys, the LAPD may soon join the growing number of law-enforcement agencies that are encouraging people to text message tips via cell phones.

"The younger generation is very text savvy," says Lt. Mathew St. Pierre, head of the LAPD's investigative analysis section.

St. Pierre, whose unit looks at what technologies are best suited for the Police Department, said it's considering setting up a text and online tip service, but also says there are no immediate plans to do so.

However, last year, the LAPD began working with a company to develop a 9-1-1 system that would accept cell-phone pictures from witnesses.

Meanwhile, while Los Angeles is playing catch-up, dozens of police agencies from Boston to San Diego are taking anonymous tips online and via text messages.

San Diego is betting on text messaging to drive up tips beginning in September. By the time first school bell rings, 150,000 high school and middle school students will own school ID cards that instruct them to text CRIMES to report everything from drug pushers to iPod thieves.

"We are hoping they are more comfortable texting than go through the whole dialogue on the phone interacting with a tip-taker," says San Diego police Officer James Johnson.

San Diego County launched a text and a similar web version of the program in April and is already is seeing 10-15% of all tips come in over the Internet. Without advertising.

"It's been the surprise of the electronic boom for us," he said. "For whatever reason, people are more comfortable getting on the computer and sending us information over the web."

And the same no doubt holds true for your cell phone.