EFFector Online 4.2 12/17/1992

 

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EFFector Online 4.2           12/17/1992               editors@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation     ISSN 1062-9424

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                    MEGATRENDS OR MEGAMISTAKES?

        What Ever Happened to the Information Society?

  (Part 2 of 2 Parts.) Part 1 was published in EFFector Online 4.1)

              by Tom Forester, Senior Lecturer,

         School of Computing & Information Technology,

             Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

                [Continued from EFFector Online 4.1]

                      UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES 

NEW SOCIAL VULNERABILITIES 

The IT revolution has created a whole new range of problems for

society - problems which were largely unexpected.  Some arise from

the propensity of computers to malfunction, others arise from their

misuse by humans.   

As complex industrial societies become more dependent on computers,

they become more vulnerable to technological failure because

computers have often proved to be unreliable, insecure and

unmanageable. Malfunctioning hardware and software is much more

common than many (especially those in the computer industry!) would

have us believe. There is little doubt that we put too much faith in

these supposedly-infallible machines. Computers are permeating almost

every aspect of our lives, but unlike other pervasive technologies

such as electricity, television and the motor car, computers are on

the whole less reliable and less predictable in their behaviour. This

is because they are discrete state digital electronic devices which

are prone to total and catastrophic failure. Computer systems, when

they are "down," are completely down, unlike analog or mechanical

devices which may only be partially down and are thus still partially

usable.    

Popular areas for computer malfunctions include telephone billing and

telephone switching software, bank statements and bank teller

machines, electronic funds transfer systems and motor vehicle licence

databases. Industrial robots have been known to go berserk, while

heart pacemakers and automatic garage door openers have been rendered

useless by electro-magnetic radiation or "electronic smog" emitted

from point-of-sale terminals, personal computers and video games. 

Although computers have often taken the "blame" on these occasions,

the ultimate cause of failure in most cases is, in fact, human error.

The cost of all this downtime is huge: for example, it has been

reported that British businesses suffer around 30 major mishaps a

year, involving losses of millions of pounds. The cost of software

failures alone in the UK is conservatively estimated at $900 million

per year (Woolnough 1988). In 1989, a British Computer Society

committee reported that much software was now so complex that current

skills in safety assessment were inadequate and therefore the safety

of people could not be guaranteed (Mellor 1989). 

Computers enable enormous quantities of information to be stored,

retrieved and transmitted at great speed on a scale not possible

before. This is all very well, but it has serious implications for

data security and personal privacy because computer networks are

inherently insecure. The recent activities of hackers and data

thieves in the US, Germany and Britain have shown how all-too-easy it

still is to break into even the most sophisticated financial and

military systems.  Malicious virus creators have wreaked havoc on

important academic and government communication networks. The list of

scams perpetrated by the new breed of high-tech criminals, ranging

from airline ticket reservation fraud to the reprogramming of the

chips inside mobile phones, is growing daily.  Some people have had

their careers and lives ruined by unauthorized users gaining access

to supposedly-confidential databases containing medical, financial

and criminal records.   

Computer systems are often incredibly complex - so complex, in fact,

that they are not always understood even by their creators (although

few are willing to admit it!). This often makes them completely

unmanageable. Unmanageable complexity can result in massive foul-ups

or spectacular budget "runaways."  For example, Bank of America in

1988 had to abandon a $20 million computer system after spending five

years and a further $60 million trying to make it work!  Allstate

Insurance saw the cost of its new system rise from $8 million to a

staggering $100 million and estimated completion delayed from 1987 to

1993!  Moreover, the problem seems to be getting worse: in 1988 the

American Arbitration Association took on 190 computer disputes, most

of which involved defective systems. The claims totalled $200 million

- up from only $31 million in 1984. 

Complexity can also result in disaster: no computer is 100 per cent

guaranteed because it is virtually impossible to anticipate all

sources of failure. Yet computers are regularly being used for all

sorts of critical applications such as saving lives, flying aircraft,

running nuclear power stations, transferring vast sums of money and

controlling missile systems - and this can sometimes have tragic

consequences.  For example, between 1982 and 1987, some 22 US

servicemen died in five separate crashes of the USAF's sophisticated

Blackhawk helicopter before the problem was traced to its computer-

based 'fly-by-wire' system (Forester and Morrison 1990). At least two

people were killed after receiving overdoses of radiation

administered by the computerized Therac 25 X-ray machines, and there

are many other examples of computer foul-ups causing death and injury

(Forester and Morrison 1990). 

Just to rub it in, I should also point out that computer systems are

equally  vulnerable to fires, floods, earthquakes and even quite

short power outages or voltage drops caused by "dirty power", as well

as attacks by outside hackers and sabotage from inside employees. For

example, in Chicago in 1986, a disgruntled employee at Encyclopedia

Britannica , angry at having been laid-off, merely tapped into the

encyclopedia's database and made a few alterations to the text being

prepared for a new edition of the renowned work - like changing

references to Jesus Christ to Allah and inserting the names of

company executives in odd positions. As one executive commented, "In

the computer age, this is exactly what we have nightmares about". 

A year later, another saboteur shut down the entire National

Association of Securities Dealers' automatic quotation service

(NASDAQ) for 82 minutes, keeping 20 million shares from being traded.

The saboteur in question was an adventurous squirrel, who had caused

a short circuit in Trumbull, Connecticut, where NASDAQ's main

computer is situated.  In Australia, foxes have taken to digging up

new optical fibre cables to eat the plastic cover, while sharks have

been doing the same to submarine fibre optic telephone cables on the

floor of the Pacific ocean.  In Denmark, a strike by 600 computer

personnel paralysed the government for four months in 1987, causing

the ruling party to call an early general election (UPI 1987), while

in the same year an Australian saboteur carefully severed 24 cables

in a Sydney tunnel and knocked out 35,000 telephone, fax and point-

of-sale lines, putting hundreds of businesses in 40 suburbs out of

action for up to 48 hours (The Australian, 23 November 1987, page 1). 

As society becomes more dependent on computers, we also become more

vulnerable to the misuse of computers by human beings. The theft of

copyright software is widespread, while recent, well-publicized

incidents of hacking, virus creation, computer-based fraud and

invasion of privacy have been followed by a rising chorus of calls

for improved "ethics" in computing and new laws to protect citizens

from computerized anarchy.  

It can be argued that the "information" or "knowledge" society cannot

possibly flourish unless better protection is offered to individuals

and companies who generate wealth from information.  Yet copying of

software is allegedly costing US producers alone $10-12 billion a

year, according to the Business Software Association (BSA).  In

Europe, where software piracy is costing producers $4.5 billion a

year according to EC figures, the BSA has been forced to mount raids

on major users in Italy and France. Even in Germany, "When you

compare the number of pcs sold with the amount of legitimate software

sold, two-thirds of the computers must be used as expensive

doorstops," says a Microsoft spokesman.  

In Asia, software piracy is rampant. It has been estimated that 7 or

8 copies of well-known packages exist for every legitimate copy sold

in Singapore, where the local economy benefits to the tune of

millions of dollars a year from the counterfeiting of Western

products. In Taiwan, police raids in 1990 netted more than 5,000

counterfeit packages of MS-DOS, 6,000 counterfeit MS-DOS manuals in

English, French and German, and 12,500 disks with bogus Microsoft

labels on them (Jinman 1991).  Hong Kong police busted a software

mail order racket, seizing no less than 109,000 disks, manuals and

other counterfeit kit from a wooden hut on a remote hillside. They

had a street value of $3 million. It is estimated that 97% of all the

software in Thailand has been copied, while copying is also rife in

Pakistan, Malaysia, South Korea and mainland China. So much for the

economic "miracles" of those "little Dragons" of Asia!  

Unless more is done to curb software copying, we are likely to see,

first, a sharp decline in software production. With the erosion of

the potential rewards from software development, programmers are

likely to move into more lucrative areas of the IT industry. And less

software producers will mean less innovative software being produced. 

Second, continued copying will lead to continued rises in software

prices. Already, developers have to recoup the anticipated losses

from copying by charging more than would be necessary if people did

not copy in the first place. Because copying software is so easy and

so widespread, the law - whether it be copyright law, patent law or

contract law - is not a lot of use. Copying is hard to prove in court

and it is nigh impossible to catch copiers in the act. The best hope

for the IT industry is to try to change social attitudes and

individual consciences. 

"Hackers" are another unplanned product of the IT revolution.  Mostly

young males, these computer enthusiasts specialize in gaining

unauthorized access to other peoples' computer systems for fun and

for profit.  Some like the challenge of computer "cracking", some are

little more than electronic vandals who set out to cause damage,

while others have ended up betraying their country - like the members

of the Chaos Computer Club of West Germany who stole US military

secrets which they sold to the KGB in order to fund their expensive

drug habits (the charred body of one of their number, Karl Koch, was

later found in a forest outside Hannover).  In the last couple of

years, enormous time and effort has also been spent making good the

damage caused by malicious computer anarchists who have let loose

"viruses" which have infected thousands of systems and millions of

disks around the world.  

The IT revolution has also made it easier to put people under

electronic surveillance and it has increased the likelihood of

individuals having their privacy invaded.  Burnham (1983) pointed out

that IT enables governments and commercial organisations to store

vast amounts of "transactional data", such as details of phone calls,

financial payments, air travel, and so on.  From these, a composite

picture of an individual's friendships, spending habits and movements

can be built up.  New IT gadgetry makes it much easier to spy on

people with hidden bugs and other eavesdropping devices, to gather

information by, for example, illicit phone taps, and to directly

monitor the performance of employees  with videos and computers.

Electronic databases containing vital medical, financial and criminal

records - which are often inaccurate - have been accessed by

unauthorized users. As Linowes (1989) and Flaherty (1990) argue, this

creates a major problem of how to protect privacy in "information"

societies - a problem which the law has been slow to tackle. 

 

NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL MALADIES 

The IT revolution has brought with it a number of psychological

problems associated with computer-mediated communication. These have

implications for both organisational productivity and human

relationships.  

One major problem is that of "information overload" or so-called

"infoglut". This arises because modern society generates so much new

information that we are overwhelmed by it all and become unable to

distinguish between what is useful and what is not-so-useful. In

essence, it is a problem of not being able to see the wood for the

trees. For example, 14,000 book publishers in the US release onto the

market 50,000 new titles every year. There are now at least 40,000

scientific journals publishing more than 1 million new papers each

year - that's nearly 3,000 per day - and the scientific literature is

doubling every 10-15 years. Clearly, it is impossible for any one

individual to keep up with the literature, except for very small

areas.  The book and research paper explosion has been assisted by

the "publish or perish" ethic in academia, which encourages the

production of mediocre, repetitive and largely useless work. It also

creates a serious headache for cash-strapped libraries.  

Improvements in IT enable us to gather, store and transmit

information in vast quantity, but not to interpret it.  But what are

we going to do with all that information?  We have plenty of

information technology - what is perhaps needed now is more

intelligence technology, to help us make sense of the growing volume

of information stored in the form of statistical data, documents,

messages, and so on.  For example, not many people know that the

infamous hole in the ozone layer remained undetected for seven years

as a result of infoglut. The hole had in fact been identified by a US

weather satellite in 1979, but nobody realised this at the time

because the information was buried - along with 3 million other

unread tapes - in the archives of the National Records Centre in

Washington DC. It was only when British scientists were analysing the

data much later in 1986 that the hole in the ozone was first

"discovered".  

In commerce and in government, it is alleged that infloglut is

affecting decision-making to such an extent that some organisations

now suffer from "analysis paralysis."  Managers and administrators

become overloaded and prevaricate by calling for more studies,

reports, etc, instead of actually making a decision.  But as someone

once said, "waiting for all the facts to come in" can be damn

frustrating if the facts never stop coming!  In the military sphere,

information overload has caused pilots to crash fighter aircraft.  It

has also played a role in civilian and military disasters such as

Bhopal and the downing of an Iranian airbus over the Persian Gulf by

the USS Vincennes. The US military is now having to spend large sums

of money on "human factors" research - that is, studying how humans

can adequately relate to complex, high-tech weapons systems which

operate at lightning-fast speeds.   

There is also serious concern that media infoglut is having a

damaging effect on society - in particular the younger generation. 

As Chesebro and Bonsall (1989) show, the television set is on in the

average American household for 7 hours and 7 minutes a day. In

addition, recorded video tapes are watched for a further 5 hours 8

minutes a week on average (1987 figures).  Young Americans can also

tune in to any of 9,300 radio stations in the US, on one of the 5.3

radios in the average American household.  In these and other ways,

the typical American encounters no less than 1,600 advertisements

each day.  By the age of 17, the average American child would have

seen over one-third of a million ads. It is little wonder that US

academics are talking about America "amusing itself to death", its

collective mind numbed by video-pulp, 10-second sound bites and 30-

second video clips.  A recent report by the Times Mirror group

concluded that the current under-30s generation in the US - despite

the benefits of a higher standard of living, better education,

information technology, etc - "knows less, cares less and reads

newspapers less than any generation in the past five decades" (Zoglin

1990).  

A second set of problems concerns the way some people use the new

computer-based communication technologies and how they relate to

other people as a result.  For instance, some managers have been

diagnosed "communicaholic" because of their obsessive desire to keep

in touch and to constantly communicate using their car phones and fax

machines. Some have allegedly become "spreadsheet junkies", playing

endless what-if? games on their computers, or "e.mail addicts"

spending hours sending and answering trivial e.mail messages. But

does this "hyperconnectedness" mean that they are doing their jobs

any better and are they making wiser decisions?  There is some

evidence that too much "in touch" may actually be destructive of work

relationships - subordinates usually want to be left alone to get on

with the job.  Calling people at home for progress reports can

increase stress by further blurring the boundaries between work and

nonwork. And what of those car phone conversations?  Many have long

suspected the quality of such communication and now research at

Loughborough University in the UK has confirmed that car phones can

seriously impair negotiating and decision-making skills.  Rather like

US president Gerald Ford (about whom it was said that he couldn't

think and chew gum at the same time), it seems that 4 out of 5 UK

executives cannot think and drive at the same time. For car phone

users, both their businesses and their cars were more likely to

crash. 

A further problem is "technobabble". This modern malady has two

aspects. The first is the inability of computer personnel to explain

in plain English just what they or their systems can do - or the

value in business terms of investing more money in IT equipment. In

many organisations, top management and IT departments still speak a

different language and this has serious consequences for

organisational efficiency.  Second, Barry (1991) has described the

way in which computer terminology and techno-jargon is being applied

indiscriminately to areas of life which have nothing at all to do

with technology. Thus, people these days do not merely converse with

each other, they interface.  It is not uncommon to hear people refer

to their leisure hours as downtime.  In California's Silicon Valley,

getting something off ones's chest is even known as core-dumping. 

Just as some people are coming to think of themselves as computers,

so they are also beginning to view computers as "intelligent" or

"thinking" people - and yet the analogy between conventional Von

Neumann computers and the human brain has long been discredited.

PUTTING HUMANS BACK IN THE PICTURE  

We have seen that many of the predictions made about the impact of

computers on society have been wide of the mark, primarily because

they have accorded too great a role to technology and too little a

role to human needs and abilities.  At the same time, there have been

a number of unanticipated problems thrown up by the IT revolution,

most of which involve the human factor.  

Perhaps the time has come for a major reassessment of our

relationship to technology, especially the new information and

communication technologies. After all, haven't manufacturers

belatedly discovered that expensive high-tech solutions are not

always appropriate for production problems, that robots are more

troublesome than people and that the most "flexible manufacturing

system" available to them is something called a human operator? 

Didn't one study of a government department conclude that the only

databases worth accessing were those carried around in the heads of

long-serving employees?  And is it not the case that the most

sophisticated communication technology available to us is still

something called speaking to each other?  One conclusion to be drawn

from this is that technological advances in computing seem to have

outpaced our ability to make use of them.  

Computers have also de-humanized many social activities ranging from

commercial transactions to hospital care. Human interaction has

tended to decline in the computerized workplace. ATMs have de-

personalized banking. Even crime has been de-personalized by the

computer - pressing a few keys to siphon-off funds is not the same as

bashing someone over the head and running-off with the cash!  To

many, the recent military conflict in the Gulf resembled a giant

video game and even became known as the "Nintendo War". There is also

little doubt that many computer scientists and other computer

enthusiasts have low needs for social interaction and seem to relate

better to their machines than they do to other human beings - the so-

called "nerd" syndrome.  Further, computers have speeded-up the pace

of life, leaving little time for calm reflection and contemplation.

This can lead to "technostress", fatigue, anxiety and burnout.  Most

people now know that slow is healthier, but there is little evidence

that people are slowing down.  

Perhaps we should go back to basics and first decide what we really

want out of life - a decent home, a satisfying family life, a

reasonable standard of living, a clean environment, an interesting

job with a healthy workstyle - and then direct technology toward

these simple, human ends. It would be nice to think that our schools

and colleges are helping make future generations more aware of the

choices and the possibilities, rather than fatalistically joining in

the uncritical, headlong rush toward an ill-defined and ill-thought-

out high-tech future.  

                         ===========

Opening Address to International Conference on the Information

Society, Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute / Green Meadow Foundation,

Zurich, Switzerland, 18 November 1991

                         ===========

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         THE SECOND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL EFF PIONEER AWARDS:

                       CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

                     Deadline: December 31,1992

In every field of human endeavor,there are those dedicated to expanding

knowledge,freedom,efficiency and utility. Along the electronic frontier,

this is especially true. To recognize this,the Electronic Frontier

Foundation has established the Pioneer Awards for deserving individuals

and organizations.

The Pioneer Awards are international and nominations are open to all.

In March of 1992, the first EFF Pioneer Awards were given in Washington

D.C. The winners were: Douglas C. Engelbart of Fremont, California;

Robert Kahn of Reston, Virginia; Jim Warren of Woodside, California; Tom

Jennings of San Francisco, California; and Andrzej Smereczynski of

Warsaw, Poland.

The Second Annual Pioneer Awards will be given in San Francisco,

California at the 3rd Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

in March of 1993.

All valid nominations will be reviewed by a panel of impartial judges

chosen for their knowledge of computer-based communications and the

technical, legal, and social issues involved in networking.

There are no specific categories for the Pioneer Awards, but the

following guidelines apply:

   1) The nominees must have made a substantial contribution to the

      health, growth, accessibility, or freedom of computer-based

      communications.

   2) The contribution may be technical, social, economic or cultural.

   3) Nominations may be of individuals, systems, or organizations in

      the private or public sectors.

   4) Nominations are open to all, and you may nominate more than one

      recipient. You may nominate yourself or your organization.

   5) All nominations, to be valid, must contain your reasons, however

      brief, on why you are nominating the individual or organization,

      along with a means of contacting the nominee, and your own contact

      number. No anonymous nominations will be allowed.

   6) Every person or organization, with the single exception of EFF

      staff members, are eligible for Pioneer Awards.

   7) Persons or representatives of organizations receiving a Pioneer

      Award will be invited to attend the ceremony at the Foundation's

      expense.

You may nominate as many as you wish, but please use one form per

nomination. You may return the forms to us via email to

             pioneer@eff.org

You may mail them to us at:

             Pioneer Awards, EFF,

             155 Second Street

             Cambridge MA 02141.

You may FAX them to us at:

             +1 617 864 0866

Just tell us the name of the nominee, the phone number or email address

at which the nominee can be reached, and, most important, why you feel

the nominee deserves the award.  You may attach supporting

documentation.  Please include your own name, address, and phone number.

We're looking for the Pioneers of the Electronic Frontier that have made

and are making a difference. Thanks for helping us find them,

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

                   -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==-

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