YouTube's "butterfly effect"

I am sure you have heard of the "butterfly effect". This is the theory that states that the fluttering of a butterfly's wings in Africa could cause a tsunami in China (my geography may be off, but you get the point).

We have witnessed another butterfly effect this past weekend on the Internet, which has been just one more reminder that the Internet is global, and one person can truly affect the worldwide audience. It seems that a YouTube video from a Dutch film maker was thought to be so controversial in Pakistan that it might cause riots, so the Pakistan government decided to block access to YouTube in their country until the video was removed. Unfortunately, they did not configure their routers to appropriately handle this block message, and instead all Internet traffic intended for YouTube globally was re-routed to Pakistan, and promptly dropped. This caused a worlwide YouTube outage for several hours on Sunday.

Now, I am not of the opinion that an outage of YouTube is disastrous. Personally, I am not a big fan. I am also not in any way advocating censorship on the Internet. However, this incident certainly gives one pause, on multiple fronts.

Most importantly, it highlights the very real danger of one "loose cannon" individual posting something that could indeed cause riots elsewhere in the world. While I do not support what the Pakistani government was doing, I do believe that their concern was probably well-founded - one video or blog post could indeed cause riots. I hearken back to some e-mails that I have sent, which I later wished I hadn't...I thought it was funny, others didn't see the humor. Luckily, the message only went to a few thousand employees. It didn't cause a riot, but it also certainly didn't help build relationships in a newly-merged company that was trying to gel its employees into one happy family.

The other problem that this brings to light is the fragile Internet infrastructure upon which we are becoming more dependent. One person's mis-configuration can affect a much larger audience - and while the particular router problem that occurred in Pakistan this weekend was very rare, it proves that technology is not infallible.

The Internet community is growing, due to the popularity of blogs, social networking sites and other user-generated content websites. This brings with it an implied responsibility to be mindful of possible worldwide reaction - we need to be aware of the Internet Butterfly Effect.

Or, I suppose we could just keep the idiots off of the web...but if we did that, I would have to close down my blog.

Microsoft comes full circle

It is interesting how things have come full circle for Microsoft. I love the story of the early days of Apple and Microsoft, and how each company evolved based on a core set of almost diametrically opposed beliefs: Apple believed in maintaining tight control over its system by keeping a closed, proprietary system - thereby maintaining the integrity of their design and vision for the user experience. The PC, and Microsoft by association, instead embraced an open environment, where people were encouraged to mix and match components and software to build on the "group thought" and innovation of the masses.

Apple's course led to a tight-knit group with a very stable and consistent operating system, while the PC (and Microsoft) had a much wider audience, but too many cooks in the kitchen led to a group of unhappy people running unstable systems.

Of course, Microsoft only bought into the open environment as far as it was beneficial to them to do so, and kept their OS secrets close to the vest; which has been the source of many anti-trust allegations and lawsuits over the years.

Now, we have come full circle. The open system has now evolved to the open OS, led by Apple (well, technically, led by the open-source community via Linux, but we don't need to delve that deeply into the details here...). The Apple OS has been based on BSD for several years now, which (along with the advent of the iPod) has breathed new life into the company. Yesterday, Microsoft finally announced that they are releasing over 30,000 pages of technical documentation for their operating system. Documents, by the way, which Microsoft used to charge a fee to access.

The real question, though, is this: when can those developers who PAID for this documentation expect their refund? Don't hold your breath for that one.

Management and IT

I recall a recent dialog on one of the e-mail lists upon which I lurk, where people were hotly contesting the allegation that the manager needs to be able to do the job of the people who report to him/her in order to be a good manager. To substantiate this claim, the author cited a very well-known company, and stated that it was this practice that caused their high-quality output. This caused quite a bit of discussion, and obviously some tension on the list. The statement also turned out to be false...but I digress.

As I have been reflecting on that conversation, and thinking about some of the challenges facing me at my job today, I came to this rather startling realization: I don't consider myself the smartest person in the room - regardless of who I am in the room with. I am sure that if any of the developers or architects that I used to work with were to hear me say this, they would double over in laughter, as I used to be one of worst of the quintessential prima-dona developers that I have known in my career.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I can learn something from just about everyone I meet. This was an epiphany to me. As I learn more about my job, it is becoming clear to me that my role is less about technology, and more about relationships. For an old developer like myself, this is a strange realization.

So, I have finally crossed the line. I used to think of myself as a technical guru who also had some management skills. Somewhere along the line I became a good manager who also happens to have some technical skills.

While some may see this as my "Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader" story, this is really not such a bad thing. I actually enjoy managing people more than developing code - something which I never thought would happen to me. As I have been talking with several different people recently about some of my management philosophies, it has become clear to me that I am not your typical developer-turned-manager. Determining whether that is a good thing or not will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Microsoft, Yahoo and Google

There is a very thought-provoking article on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal today, written by Michael Malone (those who have WSJ.com access can read the commentary here). Essentially, he compares the MS bid for Yahoo to the HP/Compaq deal, and paints MS as an "als0-been" who has not been successful in any other endeavor apart from the OS and Office product lines. As he states in the article, "most everything else is a flash".

He then goes on to discuss the troubles that Microsoft and Google both face today, as they both head for (or are already in the midst of) their mid-life crisis. He brings out some very interesting thoughts, and attributes the mostly unexpected success of the HP/Compaq deal more to Dell falling on its face than any inherent positive momentum created by the new HP - which should be a warning to Google if this merger goes through.

Overall, I tend to agree with his points. Google needs to view this as a wake-up call, and get back to its innovative roots. They need to stop trying to branch out into so many wacky frontiers (like their energy initiative - what is that about?) and re-focus on being the high-tech innovative company they are. As Michael puts it "Google...stop fooling around and get back to business".

It is a very good read.

Utah House Bill 139

Utah House Bill 139 is causing quite a bit of discussion in Utah this legislative session. Specifically, the area of concern surrounds the idea that an ISP would be held accountable if a minor who accesses the Internet via their service encounters material intended for adults. While I agree with the intent of this bill, I find it sad that it is so difficult to author legislation to protect our children on the Internet that will pass the first amendment bar. The main problem that this bill faces is the same problem that all other legislative efforts in this realm face: how to let those adults who want to access smut do it while not allowing our children to gain the same access. Most of the attempts to do this in the past have failed to be upheld in the court system.

First, let me state that personally I am of the opinion that it is more important to protect our children from unintentionally accessing this material than it is to keep it easy to access for adults. The first amendment doesn’t imply that adult material has to be “easy” to access. As adults, those who really want to view this material can jump through a hoop or two if it means preventing innocent children from accidental exposure. But, the courts don’t seem to see it that way.

In the physical world, this is not as difficult a problem, as we can put adult material in the back room and restrict access to it, or we can place covers on magazine racks so kids (or anyone else who doesn't want this forced on them) can be protected from inadvertent exposure to this material.

There is no real equivalent of magazine covers on the Internet. The closest thing was the attempt a few years ago to require a warning page with a link that said something like “only adults are allowed to see this. If you are an adult, click here to gain access”. While this does help prevent accidental exposure, it does nothing for the quizzical youth who is happy to lie about being an adult just to see what is behind the curtain. It also doesn't completely solve the inadvertent exposure problem, as the pages behind that "curtain" are still indexed and searched via the popular search engines. There is really no way to ensure that people have to click that link to get to the page - they can access the content directly from many other sources.

The current legal interpretation of the first amendment has left us in a situation where we now have to try and create legislation that protects children while allowing adults to get anything they want on the Internet without having to slow down for any virtual speed bumps we may want to put in the road. This seems backwards to me: protect the adults at the expense of the children, instead of the other way around.

The technical problems to be overcome are not small. For example, there is no way to accurately and definitively determine someone’s age over the Internet. Legislation requiring people to enter credit card information to access adult content was shot down because it made too many people nervous about entering their information. And, it left those without credit cards out of the "adult" community on the Internet. Besides, even with a credit card entry system, there is no guarantee that it was an adult who actually typed it in. My children could easily find my credit card number and enter it – or they could have a credit card themselves these days. Until we have a way to determine that the hands on the keyboard have been on this earth for more than 18 years, there will be no reliable method of age verification over the Internet.

While I support this bill, and others like it, I truly believe that this is not a legislative problem. Just like we need to teach abstinence in school rather than handing out condoms, likewise we need to instill our children with a moral compass that will help guide them as they wander the virtual world of the Internet. Occasionally they will experience something that we would rather they didn’t. Unfortunately, that is a fact of life. We can’t stop them from looking out the window of the car as we pass a bad accident on the freeway, and the bloody image they might see will remain with them for a long time. So it is with the Internet – but, if we teach them to use their moral compass, they will quickly be on their way, and will shun the filth that makes its way into our lives via the Internet.

Protecting our children on the Internet is founded on a societal and educational solution - not a technical or legislative one.

Family Safety and P2P

In recent years the “peer-to-peer”, or P2P, file sharing technology has become quite popular. This has mainly been driven by the soaring popularity of digital music and video players. The concept behind a P2P application is that it allows one to easily share files with others via the Internet, making it very easy to obtain content for your digital player. There are several P2P applications on the market today, and most of them are free of charge.

From a security and safety standpoint, there are several areas of concern with regard to P2P applications. Of course, there are also the legal issues, since copyright laws can be easily ignored and bypassed by using these applications, but I do not want to focus on the legality of data shared via P2P applications in this post.

Apart from the legal issues surrounding P2P applications, there are some significant security concerns. In my opinion, these applications are the single most effective way to bypass the security measures that are put in place to protect both our computer and our family. These applications are architected to provide a direct pathway into your computer from any other computer in the world. The protocols that are used are not normally monitored by any of the security or filter applications, which means that by using a P2P application you are opening your computer, and your home, to complete strangers and allowing them to directly place anything they want on your system.

Installing a P2P application is just like opening a window and installing a conveyor belt that can bring content directly into our home. Worse yet, this virtual conveyor belt is connected to every home in the world. Anyone can simply place a package on that conveyor belt, and it is allowed into our home without inspection by any controlling entity – including our filter. To make thing even more concerning, there are no laws regarding the content of these video files. This means that people can create videos of extremely graphic nature, and place them on this conveyor belt, and the video is promptly delivered directly into your home.

People will put video files out on the P2P network that are intentionally mis-labeled, just to get the extremely graphic video into your home. As a parent, you would never know it unless you actually viewed the video yourself, since the name would be consistent with current, popular artists. You would think that it is just the artists latest video, rather than some inappropriate content that you would never allow your children to view.

Video files are also among the least secure formats, and can contain malicious code that can do just about anything to your computer, ranging anywhere from installing malware which could steal your personal information, to releasing a virus that will destroy your data. While you are entertained watching the video, any number of things could be going on in the background to steal or destroy your data. We should never watch a video on our computer from anyone that we don't know and trust.

Allowing our children to use a P2P application on our computer is, in this bloggers humble opinion, the virtual equivalent of sending them into a bar in the worst part of town to buy a soda while we wait in the car for them to return. We would never do this in the real world - why do we allow it in the virtual one?

I cannot think of a valid reason to have a P2P application installed on our computer. If you can, I would love to hear it.

The DVD Promise

My wife and I sat down the other night to watch a movie. As the DVD loaded, we were presented with a decision: do we want to watch the theatrical version, rated PG13, or do we want to watch the Unrated version?

Very interesting. I remember when DVDs first came out, and how cool it was going to be that we would be able to choose the version we wanted to see. We would be able to rent a movie, and decide whether we wanted to watch the PG, PG13 or R version. Depending on what your family was interested in, the DVD would provide the technology to allow you to choose what content you wanted in your home.

And now they have finally delivered on that promise. But of course, the Hollywood producers missed the point. Leave it to them to get it backwards.