March 2008

Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant

by on March 16, 2008 · 2 comments

H.R. 2341, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, would prohibit securities and commodities trading based on nonpublic information relating to Congress, and it would require additional reporting by Members and employees of Congress on their securities transaction.

The motivations behind it are utterly pure. It’s would be unfair for Members of Congress and staff to use inside knowledge of Congress for pecuniary gain.

But how a law like this would be effectively enforced is beyond me. A bar on congressional-insider trading would most likely cause one of the following results:

  1. It would be honored in the breach;
  2. It would lead to endless (perhaps politically motivated) investigations of our representatives and their staffs; or
  3. It would force many or most congressional employees to withdraw from investing as a prophylactic against 2.

None of these would be easy and fair, and compliance would deprive congressional staff of normal sources of income and of participation in investment that keeps their experience and thinking in line with other Americans. The law would not provide investors comfort.

The better solution is to lower the amount and value of congressional-insider information. How? Sunlight. Stuff like I do with WashingtonWatch.com, like Jerry does with OpenRegulations.org, and plenty of others do with similar projects.

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Quote of the Day

by on March 14, 2008 · 2 comments

Regarding yesterday’s secret session of Congress:

Democrats said very little was discussed that could not have been revealed in open session. Pelosi didn’t show up, and Democrats, underwhelmed by the GOP’s evidence, used just 10 minutes of their allotted 30 minutes of secret time.

“We probably could have gone and eaten together at McDonald’s, and it would have had just as much effectiveness,” said Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), one of the conservative Democrats the GOP was targeting.

It’s incredibly refreshing to see the House take seriously its responsibility to resist White House efforts to undermine the rule of law. Six weeks ago, I thought it was only a matter of time before Congress capitulated and once again reduced judicial oversight over domestic surveillance activities. But now people are seriously talking about the stalemate lasting for the remainder of the Bush administration.

The White House has cried wolf so many times that the tactic is becoming less effective with every repetition. As the House continues to ignore the president’s scare tactics, those tactics are beginning to look faintly ridiculous. At this point, there is very little political reason for the House to capitulate, and good policy reasons for them not to.

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IDC’s “Diverse & Exploding Digital Universe” report

by on March 14, 2008 · 0 comments

There are some wonderful stats in this new IDC white paper “The Diverse & Exploding Digital Universe: An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2011.” For example:

The IDC research shows that the digital universe—information that is either created, captured, or replicated in digital form — was 281 exabytes in 2007. In 2011, the amount of digital information produced in the year should equal nearly 1,800 exabytes, or 10 times that produced in 2006. The compound annual growth rate between now and 2011 is expected to be almost 60%. The size of the digital universe in 2007 (and 2006) is bigger by 10% than we calculated last year, and the growth is slightly higher. This is a factor of faster-than-expected growth in higher resolution digital cameras, surveillance cameras — especially in places like China and major urban centers — and digital TVs and of improved methodology for estimating replication.

IDC information overload chart

Continue reading →

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Think you’ve seen everything the Web 2.0 world has to offer?

by on March 13, 2008 · 0 comments

Think again. Go2Web2.0 bills itself as “The Complete Web 2.0 Directory,” and I believe it after spending a couple of hours there tonight. [Make sure to use the “Select Tag” bar at the top of the page to narrow your searches.] Insanely cool, but I’m already cursing it because I have just found about 2 dozen new ways to burn time I don’t have. Too many damn choices!

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One Man’s TSA Experience

by on March 13, 2008 · 2 comments

Who says airport security checks have to be a bad time?

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Same Old Song & Dance for Telecom & VoIP Regulation

by on March 13, 2008 · 2 comments

Earlier this week I testified in Pennsylvania in support of SB 1000, legislation designed to prohibit price and terms of service regulation of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other IP-enabled products and services.

At the hearing it was clear that most favored the bill. And why not? By not regulating IP-enabled services and VoIP, I testified that it would actively promote consumer welfare and business innovation in Pennsylvania. One study from Micra finds that Pennsylvania residents would save up to $4.8 billion over the next five years.

Yes, yes, all fine and good. But what about access charges, asked Embarq? What about union jobs, cried the CWA? What about consumer protection? What about the children? (OK, nobody said this last one).

The bill will probably pass into law, but the hearing was a microcosm for the greater debate needed for real telecom reform, so we don’t import old-world telecom regs meant for the AT&T monopoly onto today’s more competitive landscape. But in the meantime, we need to deal with entrenched parties that benefit from regulation and old school natural monopoly thinking about the communications marketplace. Creating a regulatory firewall based on technology – which VoIP non-reg bills do – is perhaps the best we can get right now…until we have communications without commissions.

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Intern at the New York Times

by on March 13, 2008 · 0 comments

I don’t think I’m currently in a position to apply for it, but this sounds really interesting:

Our platform team is responsible for the core software technologies that cut across all of our products and power the site. Internships are available for talented software engineers who are proficient in PHP, C++ or Java, and have experience and interest in working in LAMP environments.

What change or new feature that could be completed as a 3 month project with a small team of fellow interns would you undertake to improve NYTimes.com?

Please submit your resume and a brief response (200 words or less) to the question above to nytimes2008internship@gmail.com.

I’ve been known to beat up on “old media” outlets and their tendency to resist technological change, but I’ve actually been pretty impressed of late by the nimbleness of the largest newspapers. The Post has long been a leader in the use of the web, and lately the New York Times and (to a lesser extent) the Wall Street Journal have also shown increasing web savvy.

One example is Open, a blog that discusses the use of open source technologies at the Times. It’s a sporadically-updated blog that gives a glimpse at the technology underlying one of the world’s most prominent media platforms.

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New Hampshire to Telcos: Just Say “No” to Competition

by on March 13, 2008 · 0 comments

Prohibit competition? It seems hard to believe, but according to a report today in Communications Daily, that’s exactly what a New Hampshire Senate committee has voted to do. A bill — SB-386 — approved by the Energy, Environment and Economic Development Committee would largely ban incumbent telephone companies with more than 25,000 lines from competing in the territory of telephone companies with less than 25,000 lines.

The bill is almost commendable for its anti-competitive candor. For the past generation, there has been a consensus in the telecom policy world in favor of competition. It has uniformly, and justifiably, been considered a positive good. Debates have largely been over how to further competition, not whether it should be furthered. Even those trying to stifle competition have struggled to frame their positions in pro-competitive terms.

Not so the New Hampshire Senate. In the blunt Granite State tradition, there’s little fiddle-faddling in this bill. The message is clear: Competing with small phone companies is bad. Don’t do it.

Never mind whether competition might be good for those companies’ customers. Or whether Fairpoint Communications — which will be the biggest phone company in New Hampshire once its purchase of Verizon’s assets is completed — is itself a “little guy”. Or whether things like this led Verizon to sell to Fairpoint to start with.

New Hampshire’s straightforward talk is refreshing. But Granite State consumers may find the actual policy rather stale and stifling.

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Internet Expert Andrew Odlyzko at George Mason Law

by on March 13, 2008 · 2 comments

Is increasing use of video likely to cause Internet delays? The New York Times today floats the theory that it might be.

But at least the article generously quotes a leading skeptic: Andrew Odlyzko, a Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Digital Technology Center and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota.

[Odlyzko] estimates that digital traffic on the global network is growing about 50 percent a year, in line with a recent analysis by Cisco Systems, the big network equipment maker.

That sounds like a daunting rate of growth. Yet the technology for handling Internet traffic is advancing at an impressive pace as well. The router computers for relaying data get faster, fiber optic transmission gets better and software for juggling data packets gets smarter.

“The 50 percent growth is high. It’s huge, but it basically corresponds to the improvements that technology is giving us,” said Professor Odlyzko, a former AT&T Labs researcher. Demand is not likely to overwhelm the Internet, he said.

Odlyzko will be in Arlington, Va., next Tuesday, March 18, giving a “Big Ideas About Information” lecture at the Information Economy Project at the George Mason University School of Law.

Back in 1999, when everyone was saying that the Internet was doubling every three months, or 1500 percent annual growth, Odlyzko was the voice of reason: the Internet was only growing at 100 percent per year.

In his “Big Ideas about Information” lecture next Tuesday, Professor Odlyzko will compare the Internet bubble of the turn of the century with the British Railway Mania of the 1840s, the greatest technology mania in history – up until the Dot.com bubble. In both cases, clear evidence indicated that financial instruments would crash.

The event, at 4 p.m., is the latest in a series sponsored by IEP, which is directed by Professor Tom Hazlett. (I serve as Assistant Director of the project.) Can’t make it to Arlington, Va., for the “Big Ideas” lecture? Join us remotely, by Webcast, or over the phone, at TalkShoe.

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Google: The End is Near!

by on March 12, 2008 · 0 comments

Google’s dominant status in search and online advertising is not long for this world. Depending on your definition of “long.”

A comment on Valleywag from a disgruntled ex-employee is probably typical of what happens when an organization gets big. Now, of course, Google isn’t all the way dysfunctional – far from it – but big organizations get slow, and this is some evidence that the process is underway.

For my own part, I’m a fan of Google and a user of AdSense on WashingtonWatch.com, but I haven’t run any AdWords ads in months. It’s too complicated for a person like me, who has a lot of competing demands on his time, to run a campaign that I’m confident can be cost-effective. There’s room for a fresh, clean alternative to AdWords, and it’ll be interesting to see who comes up with it.

For those transfixed by the Google juggernaut, remember: This too shall pass.

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