Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen -- The new digital age
===================================================

Is it enlightenment about the future of computing, information, and
electronics?  Or, is it a long infomercial for Google?  Of course,
it's a lot of both.

Certainly, if you want information about leading-edge technology
from those on the inside, this is a good place for those of us who
are *outsiders* to find it.

A pervasive assumption made by Schmidt and Cohen in "The new digital
age" is that whatever the problem, if there is a need for a
solution, some technology based company will be created to solve
that problem, for a fee, of course.  Security? Lots of companies
will be solving it for us.  Permanent storage of huge amounts of
data?  If enough of us want it, then there will be companies there
to provide it.  Need to find something useful in all that data?  Of
course, that kind of search is one of Google's reason for being.

"The new digital age" contains an interesting commentary about the
effects of computing and information technology in democratic
states, autocratic states, and even in failed states (states where
there is no legitimate, effective political and police power).  

And, by the way, if you are interested in "futurism", read the
comments in "Rolling Stone" magazine (issue 1202, 2/13/2014, p. 17)
about the movie "Her" by Ray Kurzweil, Jaron Lanier, and Douglas
Rushkoff.  Their opinions go from optimistic (we'll have lots of
artificially intelligent computers soon) to suspicious (maybe we'll
have that AI, but it will be unsafe and a horrible security breach
to use it) to cynical (of course we'll want it, since we're sick;
but we won't have it, because we're too picky about those we
associate with).  And, Schmidt and Cohen also dream of a world in
which we virtual friends and helpers to keep us company and to do
many of our routine (and not so routine?) tasks for us.

Schmidt and Cohen acknowledge that there will be plenty of serious
problems as more and more new technology is introduced.  What they
seem to be predicting for the future, whether they want to
acknowledge it or not, is *not* a static condition or state with our
problems solved, but rather a continuing, fluid situation in which
every problem will produce solutions and every solution will produce
problems.  Actually, that is the "new normal" that Schmidt and Cohen
seem to be predicting: as new companies arise to solve our problems
(the problems created by our new technologies), more new companies
will arise to solve the problems created by the problem solutions.
And, in the end (the middle actually, since there is no end), we'll
be able to say: "See, the system works as we said it would."  That's
certainly the kind of fun that the techies inside companies like
Google will enjoy (and profit from, by the way), but some of the
rest of us may be less than pleased.  And, they also admit that
those problems will create a huge and increasing need for lawyers
who will both sue and defend against suits over the problems created
by new technologies.

Actually, it's a bit more complex than that -- There will be plenty
of bad guys (and less that good guys) out there who will adapt to
each of the fixes and changes that companies like Schmidt and
Cohen's will be producing, so we need new fixes to counter that,
also.

Schmidt and Cohen have some interesting things to say about the
future responses of state governments to our use of the Internet.
The filtering is something that we've heard of before.  Schmidt and
Cohen call China's filtering "blatant" and Turkey's "sheepish" and
more subtle.  But, I believe that Schmidt and Cohen are most afraid
of the possibility of the creation of alternative DNS systems that
isolate Internet users within a country *completely* from users and
Web sites that are outside that country.  And Schmidt and Cohen
really go into sleep-losing mode over cyber warfare, which, from
what I can tell, they believe will become more and more frightening
as that technology advances and as various governments invest more
resources into it.  Their phrasing is something like: "a new arms
race has already begun", and they seem to believe that some
countries are building virtual armies and stockpiles of cyber weapons
even as we speak.  I don't mean to make fun of this.  Nations have
committed despicable and destructive military actions in the past, so
they are likely to do so in the future.  Since there is not a lot
that we, as citizens, can do to block or prevent such things, my
believe is that the real value of this chapter is that it's a start
on helping us become better informed in this area so that, at the
least, we can respond intelligently.

So, an important question is: Can the companies whose software runs
the Internet and the Web fix and optimize out problems created by
previous versions of their software and problems that are
encountered as pirates and Internet crackers adapt to those fixes?
Even Schmidt and Cohen are not overly optimistic about this.  Or,
perhaps they just want to make us worried enough so that we will ask
their companies to help us with their latest fixes.

For companies like Google and other companies that run and implement
the Internet, these will be times filled with opportunities.  We are
going to want the new (and newest) features, and we are going to
need the fixes to the software that became broken in the previous
version.

For techies, it will be an exciting and stimulating world.  For the
rest of you (or I should say the rest of us, since I'm just barely
tech savy myself), and for those of you who just want to get your
jobs done, best advice is to wait for version 2.0, or maybe even 2.1
of whatever it is you use, and hope that *that* version fixes some
of the problems that the previous version introduced.

02/03/2014

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