How Will Governments Keep Up With Technology? 150
Andy Updegrove writes "Governments are beginning to realize that perhaps the Internet really has changed everything, at least for them, and that they are going to have to deal with new responsibilities in this area. How will they deal with financial and medical data breaches? What can they do to ensure that first responders will be able to communicate the next time that terrorists strike in the Homeland, and how will the refugees of the next Katrina be able to access their electronic medical records? And what must governments do to ensure that public records will be available in fifty years, if they no longer maintain paper archives? Whether government should incline towards leading, following or simply getting out of the way is a matter upon which there are likely to be strongly held differences of opinion. It's also likely, though, that government will not have the luxury of opting for the third choice in some of the areas just mentioned. How well government chooses among those roles, and how well it executes when it chooses to lead, will likely have a profound impact on our lives in the years ahead."
Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Very Easy (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Very Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
Hell, why not worry how the CURRENT victims of Katrina will access their medical records. I pretty much have none. Not a problem in my case, but, those that needed meds and all still have a hell of a time...
I think it will be interesting in the next catastrophy, to see what the US's reaction will be...especially if it is in another part of the US. If the next big hurricane hits NYC (which IS overdue for a major storm), or San Fran. gets creamed by an earthquake...will the gov response be any better? Will any of the money pledged actually get to the state? Very little of it has actually made it to LA even yet. And what little has, is held up by the state having to deal with the severe red tape attached to the funds by the Feds.
A recent report on the radio here said that out of about $840M donated by foreign countries to help the victims of Katrina...only about $40M of it was sent to the gulf south region. The rest...was funneled to other govt. programs or lost I guess.
I think it will be interesting to see if the next city that gets f*cked by mother nature, gets the same sub-par treatment from the govt as NOLA did. 2 years past and the neighborhoods that were decimated, not by a hurricane, but, by the US govt.'s levee system's failure due to poor worksmanship, poor engineering and it appears now, downright criminal negligance.....they still look like a bomb went off, and we hear daily the the Corps of Engineers is still cutting corners and fscking up the rebuild of the pumps and levees.
Ok...*sigh* [/soapbox mode]
Re:Very Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the Louisiana Corp of Engineers? What about the New Orleans Corp of Engineers? Doesn't a city get to a point where they realize after decades of inattention to those levees from the Feds, they have to step up to bat and deal with local problems on a local scale? Every big city has unique problems, and sitting and waiting for the cavalry to arrive after the fact isn't the most efficient way of actually getting things accomplished.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting idea. I honestly have no idea if they exist. If they do...well, the area is hurting so badly for resources right now...we can't afford to pay for it by local means.
We have gotten some wins in congress, which will finally get us some long term money by finally getting more $$ for oil leases offshore, but, that won't start coming in for a few years (I hope to God it goes to coastal restoration, the first
Re: (Score:2)
Bzzt. Sorry, thanks for playing.
A couple posts up you talked about the levies, which are still being screwed up by the Corps of Engineers, and which you want rebuilt.
Sorry, but you can either pick rebuilt levies, or coastal restorati
Re: (Score:2)
Pretending that gives me some right to comment here, I'
Re:Very Easy (Score:4, Funny)
So does that mean the US is now offically a third world country where foreign aid is channeled from aid to poor people/refugees to those with government connections to their overpriced pet projects?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes because the local governments are prepared to handle what they are suppose to.
During all the time that the New Orleans and state government were complaining how things went wrong and they did not know what to do, other states disaster organizers were tring to get as much air time to show off thier places and procedures as is thier responsibility.
Re:Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever you may find yourself asking "Maybe the government should be doing this?" the answer is almost ALWAYS "no."
It would be like giving a nine year old a company to run. He has no understanding of it, and is most likely totally incapable of learning about it, so instead will apply stupid rules when things go wrong.
The government is evil. Always.
-Red
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So your argument is that federal government is "always" bad and local government is good?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Governments are still evil, of course - governments are made of people, and people are corrupted by power (not to mention that pretty much all systems seem to favour the most ruthless sociopaths,
Re: (Score:2)
when did that imaginary scenario happen?
Re: (Score:2)
Q: "How Will Governments Keep Up WIth Technology?"
A: Poorly, Very Poorly
Two Words: Very Poorly. (Score:3, Insightful)
Right answer (Score:2)
The one exception is that sometimes, governments will try a new technological approach before anyone else has tried it. In those cases, the approach being tried is always a bad idea.
There's no solution, although strict regulations on government use of technology might be a good idea. I'd suggest taxes, but that doesn't
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, that'll be fixed soon enough.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone already noted the irony of this statement, so I'll move on to the idea behind why this view misses the point. Simply, all tech you have in your hands RIGHT NOW is of government origin (at some point. Even cutlery was a product of Richelieu.) Google for "military Keynesianism" to get just a taste of why that is--and
Re: (Score:2)
Your definition of government is far broader than the one I was using, so what you're saying and what I'm saying aren't entirely at odds. I'm simply referring to what government departments themselves tend to do with technology, internally. Take a look at software projects at, to pick three nice juicy examples, the FBI, the IRS, and the FAA. If you don't already know, the software systems that have been developed in tho
Re: (Score:1)
Ham's (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, Amateur radio nets can function as a kid of "chat room" for emergency responders and volunteers. Issues that might get ignored through normal channels can be addressed by volunte
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Google for "ARRL" and "Field Day" - we do this at least once a year, every year.
Google for "NDMS" (National Disaster Medical System) - we are intimately involved in ea
Re: (Score:2)
My main point was that there's no need for "emergency cell towers" when the existing infrastructure is already configured to work as such; the emergency towers would be just as likely as the existing network to go down, and would have far less coverage or redundancy anyway.
I do however
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it:
Design an emergency cell tower that will survive a hurricane/tornado/tsunami/etc and will get approved by the zoning board, city beautification commission, and the historical society.
Stuff break
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Building emergency towers on the ground is hugely foolish. You would never be able to guarantee power, never be able to guarantee that you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Look at Hughesnet; that works everywhere in North America. Stick a few satellite dishes on vans/boats and a mobile setup in a few emergency response planes, and you can drop in communication anywhere you want in the U.S.
Re: (Score:2)
Then we'd be forced to rely on amateur smoke signals. Talk about low bandwidth...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A cell tower is not an isolated telephone switch. It cannot route calls between cell phones by itself. It certainly does not communicate with nearby towers in any fashion other than its ATM connection. Yes, that is a big, rather fragile fiberoptic cable.
The telephone network works because there is so damn much of it. Evidently whole parts of it that you aren't familiar with. Quite a l
Re: (Score:2)
Learn to love... (Score:1)
Existence of government (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: technical standards (Score:3, Insightful)
In the '90 governements were heavily involved in IT standardization though national comitees like ISO and so on. A big chunk of this disapeared although some standard comitees made significant contributions (ATM Forum, GSM by ETSI,
I agree with the author : we do need technical standards. But my own experience tend to make that standard making should be left to these tech commitees and I believe that a good government cannot lead but should keep looking into these matter with a certain
Keep up? (Score:2, Interesting)
A funny addendum; our military is - from a technology standpoint - the best in the world...and that technology mostly ranges from the early 70s until about 2002. The recently retired F-15, which was developed in the 70s and 80s, hardly had a match in the world and I believe was never shot down (at least by enemy aircraft)...and would still punch everything else out of the sky except other American aircraft and maybe a modern MIG with a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The Israelis (and the Arab MiG pilots they've shot down) would disagree with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For technologies that are closer to commodities the US military doesn't do so well. Currently they seem to be compensating by relaxing the rules on non-issue gear. When I was an active duty Marine (discharged in 1996) you could maybe get away with wearing non-issue cloth
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Many F-15s have had their radar updated as well as their engines. Not all mind you.
The F-15 lost an exercise vs Indian Su-32s or some such version of the SU-27. Some would say that the it was stacked in the SUs favor but the F-15 still lost.
Here is a news flash. The real reason the F-15 is still a good fighter is that the AIM-120 is a great missile.
The AIM-120 isn't old tech...
Re: (Score:2)
Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no longer acceptable or possible to hide inconvenient facts and delete damning emails. And the same Big Brother surveillance machine that governments are so enthusiastically creating is going to be watching them too. We will know when they meet in smokey backroom dealings, when they visit their prostitutes, who *exactly* issued an order that resulted in the deaths of innocents.
Hopefully the burden of responsibility it puts on the shoulders of elected representatives will be so high that it weeds out those who are mere power hungry psychopaths.
Re: (Score:2)
Altruists will realize that their energy is better spent elsewhere for greater utility.
By banning it (Score:1, Troll)
Expect huge bans on 'dangerous' technologies such as reading and writing or drawing pictures; these can all be used for 'hate' (or other emotive) speech or depictions of 'child abuse'.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Get with the times; it gives me an etch.
With the usual tools: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a series of tubes, it's not a truck! (Score:2, Interesting)
How governments keep up (Score:2)
2. Tax
3. Sell licenses to our corporate masters.
Everything not prohibited... (Score:2)
The same way they always have - They'll ban it.
What a silly question!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What a humorless shill.
And FYI, the FP says "GovernmentS", not "The US Government". Why don't you familiarize yourself which which "N" NIST stands for.
Re: (Score:2)
It can't. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Other countries seem to have very good postal services, education systems, medical care and retirement systems, as well as functional public transportation and high speed rail.
Maybe it's just that Americans suck at governing.
Re: (Score:2)
What is the population of Iceland? Less than population of the Portland,OR metro area, where I live.
How diverse is the population of Iceland? For example, 82.1% of the population are members of the National Church of Iceland.
Maybe you're thinking of another country. Please do tell.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm amazed a slashdotter missed a Brave New World reference...
Other countries, let's see... Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain, and Japan. Or basically the rest of the developed world.
The Death of Belief in Public Institutions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm as down as the next guy about the state of health care coverage in the U.S., the problems both public and private pension systems are facing, and I probably have a better understanding than most about the problems of education having actually been in the classroom as a teacher. Every one of these institutions could use significant improvement.
But first off -- c'mon, USPS? How often *does* the gubmint lose or mangle your mail? I've had more negative encounters on that front with the private shippers (UPS and FedEx, I'm looking at you), and the number of things I've sent or received by US Mail is orders of magnitude larger.
And second of all, I think the standard "Government Can't Do Nothin' Right" rant is actually one of the most dangerous ideas floating around our society today. It is, plain and simple, completely corrosive to the ability to build effective public institutions. Somehow, we the people have gotten to the point where we *accept* the argument that it's OK for the Feds to turn in a D- performance when it comes to disaster relief -- because hey, government's never effective, so it's never their job. And we readily elect people who loudly vocalize the idea that there's no such thing as an effective public solution.
Why are we surprised that we don't have them? We're hiring vegetarian butchers to package and deliver the meat, folks.
You don't have to accept the idea that public institutions are the answer to everything. Markets are great tools, if you understand them rather than treating them as a panacea. Private non-profits can do a significant amount of good. Churches do too. And in general, healthy social communities just make everything better.
But everything in its place. Sometimes the right tool for the job is, in fact, a public institution. Sometimes, if you actually want to stablish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, what you're looking for is a government.
We need to stop assuming government can't do anything. We need to start asking how it can do better -- what can make public institutions run effectively.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Social Security is a ridiculous failure in that it's a giant Ponzi scheme... the money that is collected from the current people working goes to pay the people who have retired (or orphaned/injured) and are collecting the money. This worked fine when the system first started off... with (from memory) about 7 workers per person collecting... it will not work so fine when the Baby Boomers start retiring... when the ratio goes to (again from memory) about 2 workers per person collecting.
I know that at my ag
please don't say 'Homeland' . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
'Domestic' is a perfectly adequate adjective for describing things within the national boundaries of the United States. We're a young republic comprised of successive waves of immigrants - jingoistic vocab attached to the dirt, of all things, has no place here . . .
-Nate
Re: (Score:2)
Re:please don't say 'Homeland' . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Business as usual (Score:2)
This is funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Research and Development is akin to flushing money down the toilet; because it's not like an assembly line where you can accurately project shipped product at the end of the day. With Research and Development, you can go for decades and still have NOTHING. Keep this in mind, because the reality is, even Microsoft can't even afford a sustained and honest Research and Development lab. The ONLY people that have the TECHNOLOGY, AUTHORITY and WEALTH to handle such research is the GOVERNMENT. IF a company, university or individual presents something from research, 99.9% of the time that person was heavily funded by a GOVERNMENT entity; via contract or most commonly a federal grant.
Governments DO have all the technology. Without fueling the conspiracy theorist, yes, governments tend to have applied technology or even awareness of algorithms, methods, theories even before acadamia has such benefit; tons of cryptography, physics and organic chemistry for example.
MOST if not ALL technology is developed with ONE interest in mind. Military, and if it can give us an advantage. Ironically, this always boils down to a more efficient way of killing another man. We don't like this part of life, but military often does have fun with technology long before anyone else.
I'm sorry if I'm getting a little over-zealous. It just kills me knowing that there are many people who think the government is the bane of technology while corporations are were it all comes from. Minus federal funding or incentive, corporations ever since the East Indian Trading Company probably can soley account to ONE invention... and we can probably think real hard for that and probably debate this invention... stocks. That's IT! A socio-path CEO to some Company didn't voluntarily give his entire fortune for the sake of good-will and to fund research in making adhesives, anethetics, plastic, space travel, computers, guns, aspirin, paper, jet engines... or even a damn fiber glass fishing pole!
Companies wait for the government to de-classify technology, and shift through it looking for something that they feel they can market to the general public. Who do you think was behind developing the optical mouse... or, more specifically, who do you think has been behind 100% of all LASER research and application?
Re:This isn't funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Boy are you ever wrong. Military systems are often decades behind commercial products. The complexity of getting anything from government labs to fielded systems is so poor that its a wonder you ever see any output. The reason you see new concepts moving from government labs to commercial exploitation is because that's easier than military exploitation.
The funding of short term research by commercial interests is many times that of the military domain. What used to be better was long term research, but that has essentially been killed off to fund the wars we've been having. Don't hold your breath for much of the long term nature coming out of government funding in future.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Both of you, really. Or, at least, you are talking about different things, and your comments about each other's topics are incorrect because you are not talking about the same things.
Military systems are often decades behind commercial products.
There is a reason for this. Logistics. Supply. Lifecycle support. The military buys systems and uses them for 20, 30, or more years. The US Air Force is flying B-52 bombers built in the 1950s, and plans to keep flying them into the 2030s. Well,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because it is. Apple. HP. Yahoo. Google. I could go on all day here, but the idea that the government is the source of most new products is an insultingly stupid idea.
Even if it were anywhere close to the end-all be-all that you describe, it's an absolutely abysmal return on [forced] investment. Imagine what kind of cool stuff we'd have today if I could [voluntarily] help fund more research by
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But the reality is you're wrong. Firstly, MS do keep a highly regarded research lab, and they'd not be highly regarded if they weren't sustained and honest. Secondly, there are much bigger companies than MS who also have excellent research labs. Sure it's true that such labs are often involved in research projects funded by governments (everyone always loves external funding, where
the national archives (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah.. disappointing.. (Score:2, Funny)
Why is government the answer? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Governments are beginning to realize that perhaps the Internet really has changed everything, at least for them, and that they are going to have to deal with new responsibilities in this area. How will they deal with financial and medical data breaches? What can they do to ensure that first responders will be able to communicate the next time that terrorists strike in the Homeland, and how will the refugees of the next Katrina be able to access their electronic medical records? And what must governments do to ensure that public records will be available in fifty years, if they no longer maintain paper archives? Whether government should incline towards leading, following or simply getting out of the way is a matter upon which there are likely to be strongly held differences of opinion. It's also likely, though, that government will not have the luxury of opting for the third choice in some of the areas just mentioned. How well government chooses among those roles, and how well it executes when it chooses to lead, will likely have a profound impact on our lives in the years ahead."
Why is government always the answer to any problem anymore? The internet is much like the printing press.. are we to controll what people are able to read too?
I say internet regulation is not governments job.
"Trial" (Score:2)
Vila: You've decided to be led like the rest of us.
Avon: I shall continue to follow. It's not quite the same thing.
Vila: I don't see the difference.
Avon: I didn't really think that you would.
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully, they won't (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments have always had their caches of data, dossiers on various people, classified documents. They've had systems (whether they be electronic or not) to manage that data. The citizenry, historically, has not had the ability to collect, distribute, or parse data on the scale that governments have.
Yes, governments can control populations with brute force, but it's much more effective to control populations with information - through misrepresentation, repetition, omission, incorrect weighting, and selective release. Populations have not been able to organize well against these kinds of propaganda strategies. Until now.
The world-girdling information network is maturing to the point where regular people have access to information that they would otherwise not have. Sources are becoming known as being more or less trustworthy. Some individuals are finding a space on the national and world stage, even if that space is in their niche area.
I pray that governments continue to stay behind the technology curve. Take away my Second Amendment rights all you want; you'll have to pry the internet from my cold dead hands.
In your dreams! (Score:2)
> The world-girdling information network is maturing to the point where regular people have access to information that they would otherwise not have. Sources are becoming known as being more or less trustworthy.
In your dreams! There's more information than ever on the internet. Anything can be looked up in a few seconds. And in this time we have:
- Fox News channel
- truckloads of myths circulating
- Americans supporting a war completely because of false information despite virtually the whole world
Easy. (Score:2)
Stating the obvious (Score:2)
2nd Amendment (Score:2)
[puts on flame retardent suit]
Just as well as a gigantic corporation (Score:2)