Where is the line between preserving privacy and promoting publicacy? Most would agree there is a line in the sand somewhere where most everyone would agree that publicacy models (i.e. businesses that monetize making information that was previously private -- public) should not cross.

However, in reality there is a big wide grey area around that "line" that few have really thought about, or even tried to define, until recently. The causes of that vast privacy-publicacy grey area are at least fourfold. 

There are two primary problems with eBay-Skype's attempt to get the Government to force competitive wireless providers to carry Skype's free communications app under the guise of wireless net neutrality and Internet openness; first, it is wildly uneconomic, and second, it is anti-competitive.  

• The issue has surfaced in the news (USAToday, WSJ) as Apple enabled a Skype app on the iphone for use on free public WiFi networks, but not on the iphone's commercial network provided by AT&T; and again when Google's Android banned a tethering app because it violated T-Mobile's terms of service as reported by CNET.  

I.  Skype's .2% Uneconomics

What is uneconomics? Just what the term implies, not economic, unsustainable... arbitrage.

The proposed seminal book settlement of the publishers/authors class action suit against Google, if ratified by Federal Court this June, has the potential to de facto legislate for the U.S. and much of the world, both the monetization mechanism and competitive trajectory of much of the digital books market -- a highly strategic segment of the world's digital knowledge base.

• The competitive stakes are high because books represent some of the highest quality searchable content available in the world.
• Moreover, the seven million books digitized by Google and covered by the settlement dwarf any other digital library in the world.
• Furthermore, the settlement would de facto grant Google exclusive control over the "orphan works" covered by the settlement, which comprise the vast majority of the seven million digitized books.

As an expert analyst on the future of Internet competition, the central question I ponder is whether the mechanism and trajectory that the Google book settlement would entrench -- is competitive or anti-competitive?

My point here is not at all anti-innovation, but simply that all innovation is not good, because innovation is a means not an end. People can innovate for both good, and bad, purposes. 

• Cyber-criminals, hackers, predators, terrorists and other malfactors, constantly innovate on the open Internet with malware, viruses, spam, botnets, p2p piracy and phishing, denial of service attacks, etc.
• Cyber-security experts marvel at the innovation and ingenuity of these multiplying malfactors.    

My big point here is that the push for the Government to maximize innovation by mandating an "open Internet" is a knife that can cut both ways. Just like an open Internet enables well-intentioned innovators, it also can enable innovative cyber-crooks and bad actors. 

Anything good can become bad or a problem, if it is taken to excess.

House Internet Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher had the following to say about the net neutrality issue in an informative interview with Broadcasting & Cable:

• 
  

  "Do you believe there still needs to be a network neutrality law?

• There has to be a firm principle of Internet openness that is abided by all. We do not have a legislative emergency at this moment that requires that as a priority today—in the top rank of priorities for action in the next several months—that we pass legislation such as was considered a couple years ago. I think because we elevated the issue, we showed the depth of concern for that business model. The plans to do that were effectively chilled, and so that hasn’t happened and the Internet has remained open.

• And in those instances where there have been some eruptions of bad behavior, the FCC has acted very effectively to prevent that activity and keep the Internet open. The status quo is working."  

•  

Tom Wheeler, of Core Capital partners, has a must read piece today: "The Wireless Way Out" on TMCNet. It highlights:

• How U.S. wireless broadband competitors are heavily investing in infrastructure despite the recession; 
• That U.S. private wireless infrastructure investments dwarf the public investment in broadband in the stimulus pakage; and
• That wireless broadband produces huge productivity benefits for the economy.

The big takeaway from this piece is that the fastest growing part of the U.S. broadband market, wireless, is strong, competitive and investing heavily -- which is very different than the state of non-communications industries in this economy. 

For those who don't know Tom's impressive background... he most recently was one of the most senior advisors for Technology on President Obama's Transition Team, and he also is a past head of both the CTIA and the NCTA.

Evidence continues to mount that the real problem on the Internet is that it is not as safe and secure as it needs to be -- not that it is not open enough. (Parts: I, II, III, IV) 

"Cyber Security: The Achilles Heel of U.S. Might?" Washington Post

• "...the fact that the nation's cyber vulnerabilities continue to grow, and fast."
• "Both the high-profile attacks and more routine infiltrations have shed light on the vulnerability of critical information infrastructures. For example, the Defense Science Board noted that the U.S. military's information infrastructure is the "Achilles' heel of our otherwise overwhelming military might."

"Smart Grid May be Vulnerable to Hackers" CNN

• "A hacker also might be able to dramatically increase or decrease the demand for power, disrupting the load balance on the local power grid and causing a blackout. These experts said such a localized power outage would cascade to other parts of the grid, expanding the blackout."

'Website-infecting SQL injection hitting 450,000 a day" USA Today

Free Press in its latest report: "Deep Packet Inspection: The end of the Internet as we know it?" continues to mischaracterize "reasonable network management" practices (that ensure quality of service and filter out harmful traffic like spam, viruses, and other malware) as bad practices and misuse of technology that threatens users' privacy and freedom of speech.   

It is inaccurate and unfair to mischaracterize reasonable network management this way.

The Free Press report uses a common analogy about "deep packet inspection" (DPI) technology. It analogizes that use of DPI technology by an ISP would be like the post office going beyond reading the address of a letter and looking inside the letter to read the private contents.

• This partial analogy is designed to lead people to believe that DPI is only a privacy-invading technology without any merit or useful function. 

Let's explore the letter and post office analogy more fairly and accurately.

The cybrastructure is everything that can be digitally connected to the Internet, and the cybrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to cyber attack from hackers, criminals, terrorists and other bad actors. The exploding growth in people, devices, information, and systems connected to the Internet, naturally creates an exponential increase in vulnerabilities that bad actors can exploit.  This makes cybersecurity an increasingly urgent priority. 

• Many think of cybersecurity as protecting users, organizations, computers, devices, and private/sensitive information, but it is much more. More and more, cybersecurity is about protecting critical systems too; our banking, capital markets, and e-payment systems; our electrical grid and utilities; our health care infrastructure; our public safety and military systems; etc. -- that all can be accessed or hacked by a wide variety users, organizations, computers, and devices. 
• The cybrastructure now is the vulnerable soft underbelly of our economy and society.   

Fortunately, the security and safety of the cybrastructure is finally getting the priority attention it deserves.