Reflections on Media Manipulations

I owe my English readers a short summary of what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I was happily on my way to Italy on vacation: A bright Friday morning I was awakened by a call from one of colleagues in Denmark who to his great surprise had seen a TV 2 Early Morning News broadcast referring to a ‘Joint proposal by EU and IBM’ to have private citizens assist in law enforcement using IT to spy on each other.

The background for this strange headline was obviously an article in the Danish niche-newspaper Information (During the war a renounced and much appreciated underground paper), who had an interview with me under this very same heading. The interview was based on a paper produced together with my assistant Michael Hvass on ’How can e-Government benefit from web 2.0’. The journalist said he had read it, but seemed to be very much more interested in getting my support to statements on how this could be applied to prevent crime. This topic was of course only a tiny bit of the article that was much more focused on the benefit of social networks, and I told the journalist that I would be very careful to have citizens watch on each other, and that I was much more interested in preventive actions like setting up social networks to assist with integration of 2. generation youngsters or between relatives and friends. As we had made referrals to David Osimo, who is an EU Scientist researching web 2.0, the journalist seemed to have called David Osimo and put the same directed questions on citizen surveillance, to which David O. replied. Obviously neither of us should have replied, and some editor in Information obviously thought that the article needed to be beefed up by a conspiracy-like headline which was way out from the work of David O. as well as our article.

And as TV2 News is a 24x7 news station they need to produce some exciting stuff all the time, and this probably means they use the scissors more than their head and cut out the morning newspapers headlines and take it from there.

In fact, TV2 News called me that Friday morning, and I told them, as I had told Information, that I would be very careful about mutual citizen surveillance, it would lead to riscs and would be in conflict with our thoughts of democracy, but of course mobile phones/cameras where already used to prove things – and again, the social network preventive effects like services for the homeless in Canada, support to ‘father groups’ in ghettos would be far more interesting.

Well, I was later called by my elder son, who was equally puzzled that his dad suddenly turned out to be support of STASI-methods. So I managed to write a Danish blog on the subject same evening without having been able to see neither the article nor the TV broadcast.

When I came home I found out that this spin of a spin obviously had been circulating around and called ‘little brother’ and a lot of persons were really angry with the idea. No wonder.

Well, readers of my blog know my viewpoints on the importance of protecting privacy and while constantly keeping personal integrity while discussing new security tools.

Poor Davis Osimo later wrote me that he had spent a few terrible hours trying to explain why this was simply a hoax.

In his comment at Information’s home page, he said:

I was asked for examples of this, and I mentioned them. When asked what I think about them, I said that personally I don't agree with similar projects, and that they go against the tradition of liberal democracy.
I said that citizens input is more effective for monitoring government, not other citizens. I never said that web2.0 does not produce harassment, indeed if you look at my research reports it clearly spells out the risks for privacy and excessive social control. See the report on www.jrc.es
Finally, I don't speak in the name of the European Commission.
Can the author clarify this. Urgently. “

I left the case as it was when I found that my blog began to be cited further down in Information’s on line article and that David Osimo of course denied any idea of a conspiracy.

And IBM of course is not recommending anything like mutual citizen surveillance as the IBM company has a long standing tradition and firm attitude to protect privacy and integrity.

Then again last week a similar 180 degree’s off spin was fired off by TV2 News. It seemed that the MetroExpress newspaper had a story claiming that EU was now discussing how to allow Sharia-law to be used in specific legal cases within the member states, for instance when it concerning divorce cases involving other ethnical citizens! This was – as Berlingske found out – completely wrong, on the contrary the stated source in EU was actually working to stress that this should never happen, but again TV2 News peddled the story leading 3 political spokesmen from different political parties to protest. It is understandable that the politicians do not have time to do a proper research on topics like this, but it is highly doubtful if the TV station is really doing ‘public service’ by not checking up on their sources.

Well, that was what happened when I was on my way to Italy and to Assisi.

A couple of journalists really should start en route to Canossa.

If they have the time to research where that is and what is meant by that.

I doubt it.

(Clues: The picture shows Hugo of Cluny and Henry IV Barbarossa)

Farvel til Teknologirådet ?

Af: Peter Duetoft og Søren Duus Østergaard.
Afgående medlemmer af Teknologirådets bestyrelse, hvor de har siddet siden 2002. Peter Duetoft (S), er udpeget af Forskningsministeren og Søren Duus Østergaard (IBM) er indstillet af DI og DA. Peter Duetoft er tidligere formand for Folketingets Finansudvalg. Han arbejder i dag bl.a. som International Demokrati Specialist. Søren Duus Østergaard er senior eGovernment rådgiver for IBM i Europa, Mellemøsten og Afrika.
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Hvis man bruger sit dankort for meget, kan man få en pille mod det! Overrasket? Ja, det var vi. Men medicin mod ludomani kan også bruges til at styre adfærd på andre områder. Det gravede Teknologirådet mere i, og resultatet blev projektet ’Medicin til raske – en syg ide!’. Man kan rejse spørgsmålet: “Hvordan ville verden se ud, hvis Hitler havde haft en sådan adfærdsregulerende medicin?” Det, der er godt i sygdomsbekæmpelsen, kan være slet, hvis det misbruges.

Sådanne modsætninger fører let til grøftegravning i teknologidebatten. Enten elsker man nærmest ukritisk ny teknologi – eller også er man så ræd, at man er ked af at hjulet blev opfundet rundt. Imidlertid er det her som på så mange andre områder mellemvejen, der er den rigtige. Teknologirådet har i en årrække spillet en væsentlig rolle for teknologiforståelsen i Danmark. Rådet har skabt baggrundsviden, rejst debatter og foretaget udredninger, der har medvirket til, at teknologidebatten hverken er endt i den ene eller den anden grøft.

Vi har begge haft fornøjelsen at deltage i rådets arbejde siden 2002, men da man ifølge reglerne kun kan deltage i 2 perioder, er det nu blevet tid til at sige farvel til Teknologirådet. Siden 2000 er der sket en politisk nedprioritering af Teknologirådets budgetter. Vi frygter, at dette meget nemt kan give som resultat, at det ikke bare er os, der skal tage afsked med Teknologirådet.

Teknologirådet skal fremme en bred teknologidebat i Danmark for at skabe indsigt og forståelse for væsentlige teknologiske muligheder og konsekvenser. Rådets opgave er som uafhængigt organ at rådgive regering og Folketing indenfor det teknologiske område.

Teknologirådet fik sin nuværende mission i 1995, hvor rådet afløste Teknologinævnet. For at sikre uafhængighed og en bred forankring i samfundet, har rådets bestyrelse 7 repræsentanter for erhvervsliv, faglige organisationer og kultur/samfundsliv, samt formanden og 3 bestyrelsesmedlemmer der udpeges direkte af videnskabsministeren – i alt 11 medlemmer. Bestyrelsen suppleres af et repræsentantskab på 50 medlemmer, der ligeledes udpeges blandt danske organisationer. Den store bredde i sammensætningen sikrer, at der hvert år kommer en mangfoldighed af ideer til mulige indsatsområder, både fra det direkte bagland, men også fra andre dele af samfundet. Typisk mere end 100 forslag, som bestyrelsen så prioriterer mellem, støttet af sekretariatet.

Rådet som sådan besidder ikke sagkundskab på alle de områder, vi beskæftiger os med. Men sekretariatet er derimod specialister i metoder og processer ligesom det er dygtigt til at finde de relevante eksperter og debatdeltagere. Dermed sikrer rådet resultater, der kan afdække interessekonflikter, finde mulige løsningsområder og skabe en god forståelse for forskellige udviklingsmønstre.

I den periode, vi har haft fornøjelsen at sidde i rådets bestyrelse, har vi været vidne til en strøm af spændende og højaktuelle rapporter, der har formået at sætte dagsordenen indenfor et bredt spektrum af discipliner: Energi: (Når den billige olie slipper op, Energiteknologi som vækstområde, Fremtidens danske energisystem); Miljø (Vandstandsstigning, Nye typer genmodificerede planter, Pris på miljøet, Global borgerinddragelse op til klimakonferencen 2009); Sundhed (Pervasive Healthcare, Prioritering i Sundhedssystemet, Ny teknologi i ældreplejen); IT (Open Source muligheder, Brugernes IT sikkerhed, Sårbarheden i den danske IT-infrastruktur, Sikkerhedsteknologi og privatliv); Trafik (Gratis Offentlig transport?, Morgendagens transportbrændstoffer); Teknologi og globalisering; Teknologi og marginalisering på arbejdsmarkedet; Katastrofeberedskabet; Behovsdrevet innovation; og meget mere … Kig selv videre på http://www.tekno.dk/

Dertil kommer et stort antal høringer, hvor Teknologirådet har assisteret folketingsudvalg og myndigheder med at få overblik over komplekse problemstillinger og eksperternes, borgernes og interesseparternes positioner i debatten.

Brugerne sætter stor pris på Teknologirådets produkter. Det afspejles direkte i en million besøg årligt på rådets hjemmeside og gennemsnitligt omkring 30.000 downloads pr. publikation.

De større projekter koster i gennemsnit 250 – 400.000 kroner. Budgettet går udelukkende til forbrug, eventuelle konferencer, indkøb af information og materialer. Det er ingen overdrivelse at påstå, at skulle tilsvarende udredninger laves i privat regi, ville omkostningerne hertil være 4 – 6 gange så høje.

Når bevillingen er faldende og nu på 64 % af 2000-niveauet, betyder det færre og færre projekter. Mod tidligere 8-10 store projekter pr. år, er vi i handlingsplanen for 2008 nede på 4! Det er lykkedes Teknologirådet opgavemæssigt at kompensere for det faldende reale finanslovsbidrag ved at udføre betalte opgaver for andre, når det med bestyrelsens billigelse har været acceptabelt og uden forvridning af neutraliteten og upartiskheden. Dertil kommer stadig flere EU-finansierede projekter. Så i realiteten er aktivitetsniveauet fastholdt og endda udvidet i vores bestyrelsestid. Problemet er blot, at det demokratiske velafbalancerede prioriteringssystem, som vi har etableret i det danske Teknologiråd, det bliver sat mere og mere ud af kraft, når initiativet flyttes fra bestyrelsen til de eksterne ’købere’.

Konsekvensen er manglende mulighed for at dække alle de områder, som Danmark kunne være foregangsland for og hvor nye virksomheder skulle kunne opstå. Samtidigt mindskes Teknologirådets mulighed for at lave originale projekter med politiske beslutningstagere i fokus, og for at rådgive omkring de samfundsmæssige udfordringer ved teknologien.

I international sammenhæng har det danske Teknologiråd en fornem placering. Det tværeuropæiske samarbejde med parallelle organisationer i Europa, har klart demonstreret Rådets førerstilling indenfor metodeudvikling og som styringsmodel. Det norske Teknologiråd er direkte kopieret efter det danske, det flamske og schweiziske meget stærkt inspirerede af os, og i en række EU-finansierede projekter er det danske Teknologiråd i en koordinerende eller meget indflydelsesrig rolle. Vores projekter har dannet udgangspunkt for EU-lovgivning og flere europæiske projekter – blandt andet i regi af EU-Parlamentet.

Teknologirådet har en anerkendt ekspertise i borgerinddragelse, høringsteknikker osv. Metoder, der skaber åbenhed og dynamik i vort demokrati, hvilket har en vigtig international betydning. Ét af de store problemer i de nye demokratier rundt om i verden er inddragelsen af borgerne i beslutningsprocesserne. Fra den diktatoriske tid er man jo vænnede til at overhøre borgerne – nu skal de pludselig høres. De metoder, Teknologirådet har udviklet, kan spille en væsentlig rolle i det arbejde og har gjort det i flere lande. Dermed bidrager Teknologirådet til styrkelse af en udvikling, EU, FN og Danmark prioriterer højt. En sådan sideeffekt er ganske væsentlig.

Om 5 år er det farvel til Teknologirådet for altid, hvis man ikke prioriterer Rådets budgetter højere. Bestyrelsen vil til den tid ikke kunne leve op til rådets målsætninger, hvis bevillingens størrelse hindrer gennemførelse af projekter i et vist antal og en vis størrelse. Om 5 år vil bevillingen nemlig være halveret i købekraft i forhold til 2000 og bestyrelsen vil så kun kunne igangsætte et par opgaver årligt.

Der er intet der tyder på, at der vil være et faldende behov for Teknologirådet, absolut tværtimod. Skal Danmark være et teknologisk foregangsland, må man sikre den kvalificerede debat og forståelsen i brede kredse for de muligheder, teknologien i videste forstand kan tilbyde. Det kan rent forskningsprægede aktiviteter og ekspertudvalg ikke sikre. Ej heller kan de statslige institutioner og kampagner. Fremtiden for Danmark er vidensbaseret. Men den fremtid skabes kun med indsigt og folkelig opbakning. Derfor: Kvæl ikke Teknologirådet.

Nej til STASI-metoder - ja til social ansvarlighed

Eller hvordan TV2 News og Information formår at forvride gode hensigter

Fredag morgen den 5.9 var jeg på vej til ferie med min kone og et par gode venner. Vi havde gjort holdt for natten i en tysk kro syd for Regensburg, da jeg fik en SMS fra en af mine kolleger, der til sin store overraskelse havde hørt en nyhedsudsendelse fra TV2 News kl. 7, hvoraf det fremgik at jeg gik ind for at privat personer foretog overvågning via mobiltelefon samtidig med at TV2 news indikerede, at det var noget IBM samarbejdede med EU om!
Efter nogle minutters forbløffelse fik jeg en opringning fra TV2 news, der refererede til en artikel i Information, angiveligt forfattet af en journalist, der 3 dage inden havde ringet til mig for at høre mine synspunkter på hvordan ny teknologi kunne bruges til ’law enforcement’.

Jeg har af gode grunde hverken været i stand til at læse Information (og jeg har heller ikke fået nogen artikel til godkendelse) endsige været i stand til på de smalle Teleforbindelser i Italien at se, hvad TV2 news egentligt har fået ud af denne kryptiske artikel. Men jeg fik en opringning fra min ældste søn, deer undrede sig såre over at høre at hans far gik ind for Stasi-metoder!

Lad det være sagt med det samme, det er en 180 graders fordrejning af mine udtalelser til Information, som åbenbart er kommet værre ud i TV2 news. Og IBM arbejder selvfølgelig ikke på at indføre STASI-metoder i samarbejde med EU.

Den rigtige baggrund er en artikel, som jeg har skrevet sammen med min gode assistent og medarbejder Michael Hvass, og som har dannet grundlag for flere indlæg på internationale konferencer. Den handler om web 2.0 og mulighederne for positivt at anvende moderne teknologi - herunder ikke mindst sociale netværker, blogs og andre web 2.0 teknologier som supplement og støtte for offentlige services. Det vil specielt kunne hjælpe til forebyggende social assistance og støtte til ældre borgere, hvoraf mange har kroniske sygdomme. Det kan bruges som en glimrende kombination af kommunikation med sundhedspleje, hjemmehjælp, familie, venner og naboer.

Et enkelt af de eksempler, som Michael og jeg har medtaget, vedrører en blog fra New York, som er lavet af cykelentusiaster, som gerne vil gøre byens tekniske forvaltning og politiet opmærksomme på de problemer de har med at få cykelstier og veje i New York, ser hverken er hullede eller fyldt med ulovligt parkerede biler.

Dette eksempel har, så vidt jeg forstår, Information fået til at IBM går ind for at borgerne skal overvåge hinanden. I den samtale, jeg havde med journalisten, gjorde jeg opmærksom på at den slags ville blive ret problematiske i en dansk kontekst, og at jeg for eksempel ikke ville anbefale kedelige eksempler, hvor borgerne i USA i visse områder kan abonnere på nyheder om, hvornår dømte forbrydere havde afsluttet deres straf med angivelse af bopæl etc. Tilsvarende vil ey system med iscenesat modtagelse af anmeldelser også skulle sikre mod almindeligt nabofnidder og angiveri.

Jeg anbefalede Informations journalist – hvilket jeg gentog overfor TV2 – at jeg langt hellere ser støtte til forebyggende arbejde, såsom de allerede etablerede Fædregrupper i visse kvarterer, Natteravne og lignende positive, private netværker.

Selvfølgelig kan politiet have glæde af underbyggede anmeldelser med fotos o.l. – men det skal styres af politiet, ikke af borgerne selv. Social ansvarlighed og hjælp til dem, der forsøger at udøve det er vigtigt. Stasi-metoder kan ikke tolereres.

Det ER besværligt, når journalister forsøger at tage andre til indtægter for helt særlige vinklinger og opfattelse af Verdenssituationen. De, der har fulgt min blog og kender mine holdninger til mulighederne for at udnytte teknologien til at beskytte borgernes data integritet, privacy og integritet vil sikkert have undret sig.

Sarfarissoq – 'Where the current gets strong'

Last week I had the pleasure to participate in a major conference in Nuuk, Greenland focusing on the future use of IT. Until now the external communication lines into and out of Greenland has been via a satellite with low bandwidth and high costs as a consequence. Later this year TeleGreeland will open 2 brand new high speed sea cables from Nuuk to Halifax and from Qaqortoq to Reykjavik and from there to Scotland. This corresponds to a 60.000 times increase in capacity.

Along the coast of Greenland the radio chain capacity is being increased, so that within a few months every tiny village in Greenland will have similar capacity as Europe and US.

To celebrate this and to open up the eyes for the many possibilities that are now within reach, I participated in the planning and execution of a 3 day conference in Nuuk’s beautiful conference Centre, Katuaq, attracted more than 350 participants from all areas of the Greenland society: The home rule departments which. Municipalities, Health Care and hospital centre, education and university, trade organizations, Media industry. And as the conference also had an exhibition arranged by the InnovationLab from Aarhus, also a lot of schoolchildren visited this to play with the IT Dinosaurs, looking at and trying the new ways of learning, the 3D printers and IBM’s medical ‘hub’ – a Google like interface integrating Medical records, X-ray pictures etc . by pointing on a 3 D model of the human body.

The list of speakers included Flemming Jensen, well known entertainer and former teacher in Greenland. Preben Mejer – A journey into the Future, John Patrick, former IBM Executive and Internet director, Lars Toft from Ericsson on wireless broadband – and then on the second day a split into 5 streams:

e-Trade with Per Rasmussen and from IBM Anders Sabra, demonstrating websphere portal and commerce, e-Home with Birger Hauge from Digimark and Flemming Jensen, e-Government with the CIO from Reykjavik, Hjortur Gretarsson and myself, e-Ducation with Christina Brodersen from Aarhus and e-Health with Peter Lundkvist from IBM Acure.

The break-out sessions attracted even more participants than the first day, also because part of the sessions took place at the University, at the Hospital and at the Greenland Radio TV, KNR.

At the summing up session, the recommendations from the speakers were:

- eTrade: Need for public-private partnership to set up portal to make Greenland visible.

- e-Home: Completely new possibilities with IP TV

- e-Ducation: Low hanging fruits are language teaching, distance learning to teachers and then to pupils to expand and secure quality in education regardless of distance

- e-Citizen and e-Government: Citizen centric portal, speed up digital identity program and use of social networking

- e-Health: Accelerate program for telemedicine, increase network between professionals, patients and relatives, focus on prevention and treatment on chronic diseases for people living in their own homes.

On the 3^rd day we had a special session for the public sector and top industry leaders. Hjortur from Reykjavik addressed the need for Governance in IT in the public sector, stressing the need for a Change Management committee to control operations, a SW Application committee consisting of the top line managers to decide which new projects should start, Identity Management and focus on security standards (ISO 27001/DS484) as well as a light-weight Prince2 Project Management model.

I presented the IBM Government 2020 model as a tool for prioritizing strategies in Greenland and as practical framework for top managers in Public Sector to identify barriers, opportunities and then select IT strategies.

Finally John Strand, the Tele Analyst, commented on the risc of introducing open competition in a market with only 56.000 inhabitants. The result of opening up for competition could very soon lead to a situation where broadband usage in Nuuk became cheaper but where the cost for the small villages would rise. Also the discussion on pricing structure – flat rate versus a controlled volume-based pricing was discussed. The conclusion from John was that as long as TeleGreenland was owned by the public, it would be up to Government to subsidize specific sectors, such as education, and not a decision that Tele should make.

Finally we visited the impressive videoconferencing centre that TeleGreenland has built up based on the Norwegian Company Tandberg. Even at a price of 1.5 Mio DKR pr. Room, this solution could accommodate easily 6 -10 persons having a video conference and saving travel costs and time. In a country that covers an area from Nordcap to mid Sahara and with harsh weather conditions, this seem like a gift – especially if you combine it with all the goodies in a collaboration suite like the Lotus solution.

At the end of the conference, John Patrick’s wise advise was remembered: ‘Make great plans but take baby steps’

The conference was a great success – and the prime organizers, the CEO of TeleGreenland, Brian Buus Pedersen. The CEO for Kompetencekompagniet, Jesper Kreiner and TeleGreenland’s market development manager Anders Læsøe , had good reasons to be very satisfied with the outcome.

Government 2020

Following the trail of Future Research it is worth noticing the report that came out of IBM’s Institute for Business Value in Washington a couple of months ago; The institute’s origin was back in the Price-Waterhouse Consulting Company, and since the acquisition IBM has continued to back the long tradition to publish in-depth studies and projections. Last year, the Institute published the Health 2015 report, which contains a number of interesting and challenging predictions on the pressure of the Health sector, but also by stipulating actions and suggestions to meet these challenges.
This year the report on the status of Government in 2020 has a somewhat surprising result, namely that the World essentially is facing 6 global challenges, which may have different manifestations in individual countries, but nevertheless belong to the same ‘class’ of challenge.
The study, which is based on interviews and studies by a large number of Government specialists in and outside IBM, concludes, that the following 6 challenges are overshadowing anything else in the next decade or more:
Changed demographics (See also UN forecasting) – In industrialized, mature countries an rapidly aging population facing the challenge that the number of persons in the productive phase of their lives are becoming few; at the same time that some/many of the developing countries are facing the opposite problem with still more and more young people. This imbalance will lead to pressure on migrations, social unrest and combined with challenge 2, this trend will be huge.
Globalization (Se also UN Report) – free movement of capital, work, migrations of highly skilled workers from developing countries to developed countries, creating even more challenges for the 3rd World, but also much greater dependencies among nations forcing the Nations to try to get on with each other.
Environmental changes – Global Warming will lead to dramatic changes, combined with lack of fossil fuels, changed climates and rising sea level will lead to growing of the deserts but also to changing agricultural possibilities. Migration because of climate changes can be expected. Floods, thunderstorms, heavy rain and forest fires are likely to occur in higher frequencies than to day.
Social relations and networking across boundaries helped by migrations, by breaking down on all isolationism tendencies and regimes partly because of increased communication facilities will create new opportunities as well as challenges;
Increased pressure on social stability (See earlier Blog on Future Research!) – because of a combination of the first 4 challenges, more social unrest is expected – particularly in underdeveloped countries, countries that suffer from the climate change and countries that can expect a high level of immigration.
Technology and the accelerated speed of innovation will provide both challenges and opportunities; while more inventions in personalized medicine, nanotechnology and biomedical research will help us to cure more diseases, this is going to put an enormous pressure on the budgets, particularly in countries with aging populations – but technology might also hold the promise of changing the dependencies on fossil fuel, lead to new energy and transportation systems .

The idea behind the study is that these challenges, the manifestations and particularly the implications of the challenges are of paramount importance for the degrees of freedom and the need for adequate political strategies, that each county will have to face.

The conclusion, if ever a global conclusion can be drawn from observations like these, seem to be that a large proportion of the experts point to the need for collaboration and new ways to exploit the know how of organizations and individuals. Collaboration across departments, sectors, borders, cultural and linguistic barriers (which already today are being helped by the development of automatic translation tools) need to be broken down, and organizational frameworks as well as technologies that help in this direction. Distance Learning, Telemedicine, Social Networking, public safety and security, automatic traffic regulation are just the beginning of what we need to develop much further.

The State of the Future

Inspired by Ray Strong, the IBM futurist researcher I met at the WMSCII-conference I scanned the internet for some other authorized and public future studies. One of the most impressive is the UN-project called The Millenium Project.
More than this, UN has now taken it to the World of web 2.0 and anybody can now contribute and add comments and viewpoints on YouTube or directly to their website. See the YouTube introductory videos on these 15 global challenges.
United Nations started this formidable project some 18 years ago and concentrated on the 15 global challenges, that you see in this illustration.
The project has attracted a lot of experts and specialists and are trying to make predictions using an enormous arsenal of forecasting and prediction techniques:
Environmental Scanning, Delphi studies, Futures wheel, Trend Impact Analysis, Cross Impact Analysis, Systems Perspectives, Decision Modeling, Technology Sequence Analysis, Relevance Trees and Morphological Analysis, Interactive Scenarios, Simulation and Games, Genius Forecasting, and a few more.

Each year the Millenium Project updates the outlook and evaluation of the so-called State of The Future Index (SOFI) trying to focus on the challenges that have improved and those that have deteriorated. This will result in a ‘wheel’, showing the trend for the challenges. In this wheel, the 6 most important challenges have been mapped since 1990. From this wheel we can observe that UN estimates that both human wealth, intellectual capital (level of education) and health will improve from now on until 2017, where as people’s physical living conditions as well as political and social security status will be extremely challenged; this is due to environmental changes and social and political unrest, that may happen as a consequence of regional climate changes, lack of water, social tensions due to increased migrations.

Other parts of the Millenium Project are focused on Technology, how it will develop and which issues regarding political management and control might result. For this part of the on going study the Scenario method is used, and reading these scenarios will give you the creeps … the Fantasy is beyond the imagination of even Ray Bradbury.

When you have enjoyed these studies, you might wonder what is happening in Europe; I found that the UK ministry of Science most likely is the most advanced in EU, and have now started an ongoing series of so-called Foresight studies. While the UN study is an overall Study looking at the Future in a more holistic way, the Foresight study in UK seem to be much more concentrated on the intermediate term and on technology and technological development as such. But a really interesting collecting of studies, enjoy!

Swedish Surveillance Case - New Comments

According to Computerworld.dk, http://www.computerworld.dk/art/47163?a=newsletter&i=1914, the Swedish MOD Sten Tolgfors has stated in the media that surveillance of all electronic communication is crucial to evaluate and act against external threats and plots directed towards Swedish interests, citizens or authorities. This of course is the reasoning behind the newly accepted and much debated Swedish act, that allows the Swedish Defense Radioservice (FRA) to collect and analyze the content of all electronic communication going in and out of Sweden.

But the Swedish minister added to this general statement, that the way the FRA is operating based on the new law will be in a way where individuals, particularly Swedish inidviduals are not the target for the surveillance, but other states and organisations in other countries with a direct interest in Sweden. Tolgfors further claimed that the only individuals that would have their electronic communication surveilled would be known terrorists or gangsters. He also lifted the curtain or the type of technology used to scan this enourmous amount of data:

'Very advanced search techniques are being deployed,' her said, 'that ensures that only information concerning some of the key variables for which FRA is looking, will be selected and stored. Everything else will pass on.' (Svenska Dagbladet) ( http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1436287.svd ). He also stated that it would be 'practically impossible' to scan all communnication, and further that a parliamentary committee is looking at ways to clarify the legiaslation and to build integrity measures into the rules, that eventually will govern the practical apllication of the law.

For lay people and for some fanatics this is not good enough, but it clearly illustrates the dillemma that all nations are facing these days: Even if natural disasters are muh more likely than terrorism to kill and injure people, there is a strong political interest in strengthening surveillance to increase the perceived security level. And if you look into it, the Swedish Minister may have a point, depending on how the legislation in it's final form actually will be formulated.

Without amendments a simple permission to capture any communication would without doubt be contractory to the wording and the spirit of the European Human Rights as stated in my earlier blog. This goes without any argument like 'it is not practically possible' - because storage constraints are disappearing, and technology progressing; instead an amendment stating that the surveillance will be made following clear criteria and using advanced techniques to encrypt any linkage until a 'hit' with a wanted list or linkage of message to known criminals occur.

Tools like this actually exist - but the exact wording of the Swedish Law plus the accompanying administrative rules should be discussed the Working Party 29 before the law comes into effect - this advice would help clarify for all European nations where the borderline is between privacy and security. The discussions following the Swedish Act clearly illustrates the need to draw this line in a way that can be communicated also to people without technical understanding as well as to Stefan Engberg.

(Illustration above made by Anders Duus Østergaard - another way of identifying an ugly duckling or? )