Which Crisis ????

Remember July when the oil price reached 150 $ pr. Barrel – approximately as the same time as Senator McCain stated publicly that the US economy was as strong as ever? Since then the sub-prime buble exploded and stocks plummeted. Banks went broke, and the confidence between banks simply disappeared. It didn’t help much as US Senate couldn’t get their act together and as you remember, US legislators voted No for the first round of the salvation package.

This undoubtedly worsened the global aspect of the crisis to the extent that each and every country had to find ways to secure their own financial institutions. Ireland leading by a not-so-elegant rescue package where only local Irish banks where in a position to guarantee their clients deposits.

Denmark probably was among the most constructive to put together a package involving the financial sectors themselves, but beyond that point a carte blanc for deposits not only by private investors but also by companies. The Danish interest rate was raised to a level 1% above the EURO interest rate, and slowly the funds started to flow again.

This is a bit opposed to the melt down in Iceland, which to some extent had been expected sooner or later. As the total debt of the Iceland Banks extended to 8 times the Icelandic GDP, they sort of asked for it. The neighboring Nordic countries have extended some of their funds to help Iceland, but it will never again be the same. In spite of this risky business it did come as a surprise though, that Gordon Brown (which has scored a lot of ‘Browny’ points during this crisis) acted to protect British interests as he used the UK anti-terrorist law to nationalize the deposits of the Icelandic Kaupthing Bank in UK and with the 2 Bio £ captured, actually kicked the Icelandic state over the edge.

Following acceptance of final 700 Bn $ plan, by the US Senate at their second try, stock markets rose – temporarily. World market reacted positively for a while also after the G8 summit in Washington, but when EU leaders meet to combine efforts on bank crisis, it became rather obvious that it was more a less a question of implementing different national plans at the same time, so it helped for a while. But the markets in Asia still reacted negatively. Worldwide crisis plans face acid test in Asia (Oct. 13.)

Now after a number of terrible weeks, the stock market is down on average by 25-30%, still extremely nervous, Dollar has – amazingly – risen to an all-time high this year, and believe it or not, the oil price is down to 79-80 $ pr. Barrel. And raw material index fell at an alarming rate not seen for more than 50 years. All of this are sure signs of a recession, and not only a short term financial hiccups because of some greedy bankers in US.

Now the real question is how well the World’s leaders are avle to manage and steer their way with the long term energy crisis that is not going away, even if the oil price temporarily has fallen back, between the riscs of rising unemployment and the long term wish and plans for a better Planet by reducing dependencies on oil.

Next year we will have the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen 2009. This week the EU leaders met to discuss a common position and their formerly accepted plan to reduce carbon dioxide by 20% in just 2 years from now. Initially both Poland, other former Eastern European Countries, Germany and Italy raised the opinion that EU should back off from this rather heroic plan – pressed by the upcoming elections in some countries and the fear of recession in most of them. But if one reads the results: EU Leaders meet to discuss position on climate before the UN conference in Copenhagen in 2009, everything looked fine on the surface. The problem is that the statement agreed upon requires that the EU leaders meet again and agree ‘unanimously’ on a position before the Climate Summit. So somebody kicked the ball over the side line to gain time. But no guarantees what so ever! (In spite of this statement: ‘Climate conference in Poland undeterred by current crisis’ )

It is interesting to note that both US presidential candidates seem to be in support of doing something, in spite of the US energy boards expectations this summer:

“However, unless the global economy is weaker than anticipated, EIA expects that the call on Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) crude oil will exceed OPEC crude oil production over the next 6 months. This market balance and the relatively low level of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) commercial oil inventories suggest some upward pressure on prices. However, if non-OPEC oil production increases as expected during 2009, oil price pressures would then moderate”

And it was likewise very positive to note that in the middle of the financial crisis in US,

US Senate approved package to extend loan to 18 Billion $ for promoting green energy. This is a follow up to a lot of warnings like this one: “ US faces long term energy crisis “

The next few months will see if we can get more countries on the move towards an agreement in Copenhagen while at the same time handling the financial crisis.

(If you want to read more abou the energy forecasts, this is the The International Energy Agency Outlook report (Sept. 10, 2008)

Digital Signature - A Danish Perspective

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Friday I had the pleasure to participate in one the first public presentations on the new Danish Digital Signature that will replace the current ‘soft’ certificate, that began it’s existence in 2003 and currently has been issued 10 1.2 mio Danes. The conference was organized by Dansk IT, the Danish IT user association, and was managed and coordinated by Palle Sorensen from the IT and Tele authority, Ministry of Science and Technology.

The official presentation of the new certificate was made by the head of department in the Ministry, Marie Munk. (Marie Munk’s presentation in Danish). The main benefits of the new certificate is that it is organized dy an organization Dan_ID that is an affiliate of the Payment Services organization owned by the Danish Banks. Dan-ID took over the CA from TDC, the Telecompany that won the first round of tender back in 2003. This means that we will now have a certificate that is recognized not only by the Public authorities in Denmark, but also by the banks. And as we already today have more than 3 mio net-bank users, the coverage of the new digital signature is bound to increase.

The financial sector was represented by the CIO of Danske Bank, who took a day off from the financial crisis and made an excellent presentation on the banks’ expectations. (Danske Bank presentation )

The detailed presentation on the benefits and the roll out plan was made by Johnny Bennedsen, manager of Dan-ID (presentation not yet available) and a very experienced person in the field of managing payments cards and identities from his long career in PBS, the Payment Service organization.

Dansk IT had invited also a speaker from the Frauenhofer institution, Frauenhofer: Alexander Nouak on biometrics – Security versus convenience, to speak about biometrics and pitfalls. A very interesting presentation and a clear demonstration that you can not ‘just’ rely on neither fingerprints, iris scans nor 3D facial recognition – because all of these can be faked.

Following this first we had an interesting presentation by Christian Lang, IT- and Tele authority on the topic of establishing secure trading using the digital signature, also mentioning the EU PEPPOL project, and then a presentation by Jens Baunbæk on real estate trade and financing networks.

Finally I was asked to give a presentation on status in Europe and future trends in e-Identity - From Digital Signature to e-Identity - and it may have been a bit provoking for the organizers and the speakers that the reality does not really put Denmark in any leading position when we are talking about digital identities. In fact, as you can learn from a number of articles and current status papers on e-ID in Europe, we have taken a bit of a different course than the rest of Europe as we haven’t even begun discussing how the digital certificate can be married with a trusted digital identity card with Biometrics. In fact, a part from Denmark, only Greece and Lichtenstein does not seem to have any plans at all for ID-cards in spite of the fact that we all have to have new passports with biometrics in just a year from now if we want to go to US. See for instance European eIdentifty Conference Haag June 2008 and a recent overview by Porvoo Group: January 2008 – Status and overview of eID.

My presentation showed some of the most interesting countries like the Austrian, Estonian and Belgian smart card schemes and discussed the new German plans for ID card (German plans for e-ID revealed June 2008 ). Even UK (As long as Gordon Brown is in charge) will have a national ID card.

Other aspects of the future is of course related to business use of e-Identities, which is still lagging behind in most countries and particularly the European Interoperability Framework and the stated need for a common identity scheme to promote cross-national transactions (See Launch of the STORK project June 2008 ), particularly when dealing with public authorities in other EU countries. (See IDABC e-IDM in Europe – February 2008 ).

It is a journey, we are on the route. But it seems that Denmark is trying to stay on the bicycle path and not on the main road. This may create problems for us if we are not starting to plan for upgrading our new digital signature..

Swedish Surveillance Law again, again - Towards a happy Ending

The Swedish act on surveillance, as described in my earlier blogs, will be changed on 15 major points according to Computerworld.
This is good news, in spite the fact that the EU commissioner Jacques Barrot responded to a question by the Danish Liberal member of the EU Parliament, Karin Riis-Joergensen, that national security surveillance only has to obey national jurisdiction. It seems that the internal Swedish pressure on the Parliament did the trick – including threats from a Swedish Human Rights Watch group to sue the Swedish Parliament.
The law is going to be amended on not less than 15 points, the most important of which is that any surveillance has to be accepted by a Swedish court decision, that it is also the Swedish Court that decides which channels/electronic cables could be tapped, that no traffic can be surveilled if there is a Swedish citizen in one end of the communication, and that data captured must not be kept for more than a year.
Even if it is encouraging and as it seems that the law has been brought into compliance with the Data Directive and Human Rights declaration, it is a pity that the answer by commissioner Jacques Barrot was not challenged, as it seems he hadn’t really understood the international consequences of accepting the original law.
But it seems that the Danish Parliament, a customer of Telia and as such one of the potential ‘customers’ for the Swedish defense, may sleep safely at night. Unless, of course, a state of war between DK and Sweden should happen.
Everybody does not seem to agree on this, and DI - The Association of Danish Industry - is still of the opinion that there will be no restrictions to check out communication between Denmark and other countries even under the new amendments. Therefore the DI organisation will give out information on encryption to prevent Swedish tapping into Danish communication.
According to Computerworld there are still issues. So in spite of what seems to be a happy ending, we may not have seen the last of this legislation.

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.