environment

The Wisdom of Networks – and the Lessons of Wikipedia

Curated on March 23, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Philip Reitinger at the Analogies Project: “Douglas Merrill said “All of us are smarter than any of us.” This motto of crowdsourcing – looking to the information that can arise from the combined observation by and intelligence of many – is also the prescription for a more secure cyber future. Crowdsourcing security among machines – rather than people – is our best path forward.

Attackers have the advantage online for many reasons, including the ability to leverage a simple error into a significant compromise, to scale attacks more readily than defenses can scale, and to attack at a distance. While the maxim that defenders have to be right all the time, while attackers only have to be right once, is not literally true, it conveys the dilemma of defenders. The connectivity of our devices and agents is inexorably increasing, creating more targets for attack. The complexity of the software we use and the network we must defend is also increasing, making an attack on the individual target or the network easier. And the criticality of our connected systems to our lives is also growing and will continue to grow. Together, this means that we live in a world of steadily increasing risk.

In this environment, the good guys and gals have one significant but counter-intuitive advantage: the size of the network being defended. The soaring prevalence of smart devices is a risk only until it is not, until we combine the abilities of these devices to observe, to induce, and to act to defend the network itself. The cyber ecosystem is the greatest sensor network imaginable, and the data generated by its sensors can drive collective intelligence and collective action to stem threats and isolate infections. The ability of the network components to defend the network may make the future of cybersecurity on the Internet look very much like Wikipedia – one of the best known examples of crowdsourcing – with some obvious failures, but if of importance, generally quickly corrected….

What is necessary to enable the crowdsourcing of defense among network components? A few years ago, while I was at the Department of Homeland Security, it published a paper entitled “Enabling Distributed Security in Cyberspace: Building a Healthy and Resilient Cyber Ecosystem with Automated Collective Action.” This paper posits three requirements:

Automation so the network can act at Internet speed;
Interoperability so the barriers to effective collective (network or “crowd”) action are those we impose by policy, as opposed to those imposed on us by technology or process; and
Authentication to enhance the decision-making and action of the network against attacks.

It has been five years since the paper was published, and I still think these are the key elements of a more secure Internet future. Until we enable the network to defend itself, using its own wisdom of crowds (of agents), offense wins. People should do what people do best, adjust how the network defends itself, and take action when necessary based on intuition, rather than responding to alerts. So when you think about future Internet security problems, think about Stephen Colbert and Wikipedia….(More)”

Smart Cities Readiness Guide

Curated on March 14, 2016August 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

SmartCitiesCouncil: “Welcome to the Readiness Guide. This document was assembled with input from many of the world’s leading smart city practitioners – the members and advisors of the Smart Cities Council. It will help you create a vision for the future of your own city. Equally important, it will help you build an action plan to get to that better future.

The first goal of the Readiness Guide is to give you a “vision” of a smart city, to help you understand how technology will transform the cities of tomorrow.

The second goal is to help you construct your own roadmap to that future. It suggests the goals to which you should aspire, the features and functions you should specify, the best practices that will gain you the maximum benefits for the minimum cost, at reduced risk.

The Readiness Guide is intended for mayors, city managers, city planners and their staffs. It helps cities help themselves by providing objective, vendor-neutral information to make confident, educated choices about the technologies that can transform a city.

Cities around the world are already making tremendous progress in achieving economic, environmental and social sustainability, in export-based initiatives and in the creation of 21st century jobs. All of these are excellent ways to improve city living standards and economies. The concept of smart cities doesn’t compete with these efforts. Instead, smart city technologies can support and enhance work already underway….Contents:

Guidance for Developing a Local Digital Response Network

Curated on March 9, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Guide by Jenny Phillips and Andrej Verity: “…Beyond the obvious desire to create the guidance document, we had three objectives when drafting:

Cover the core aspect. Six pages of concrete questions, answers and suggestions are designed to help ensure that start-up activities are well informed.
Keep it as simple and light as possible. We wanted something that an individual could quickly consume, yet find a valuable resource.
Feed into larger projects. By creating something concrete, we hope that it would feed into larger initiatives like Heather Leason and Willow Brugh’s effort to build out a Digital Responders Handbook.

So, are you a passionate individual who wants to help harness local digitally-enabled volunteers or groups in response to emergencies? Would you like to become a central figure and coordinate these groups so that any response is more than the sum of all its parts? If this describes your desire and you answered the questions positively, then this guidance is for you! Create a local Digital Response Network. And, welcome to the world of digital humanitarian response…(More)”

Value public information so we can trust it, rely on it and use it

Curated on March 3, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Speech by David Fricker, the director general of the National Archives of Australia: “No-one can deny that we are in an age of information abundance. More and more we rely on information from a variety of sources and channels. Digital information is seductive, because it’s immediate, available and easy to move around. But digital information can be used for nefarious purposes. Social issues can be at odds with processes of government in this digital age. There is a tension between what is the information, where it comes from and how it’s going to be used.

How do we know if the information has reached us without being changed, whether that’s intentional or not?

How do we know that government digital information will be the authoritative source when the pace of information exchange is so rapid? In short, how do we know what to trust?

“It’s everyone’s responsibly to contribute to a transparent government, and that means changes in our thinking and in our actions.”

These are big questions, because there is a complexity about digital information that we don’t have with paper. Information has never been more complicated, but also never more important. There’s no going back — nor would we want to — but it means that time is ticking, because valuable government information is being lost — as I speak. I want you to share my sense of urgency about digital information, and act on what I’m going to say today.

Consider the challenges and risks that come with the digital age: what does it really mean to have transparency and integrity of government in today’s digital environment?…

What does the digital age mean for government? Government should be delivering services online, which means thinking about location, timeliness and information accessibility. It’s about getting public-sector data out there, into the public, making it available to fuel the digital economy. And it’s about a process of change across government to make sure that we’re breaking down all of those silos, and the duplication and fragmentation which exist across government agencies in the application of information, communications, and technology…..

The digital age is about the digital economy, it’s about rethinking the economy of the nation through the lens of information that enables it. It’s understanding that a nation will be enriched, in terms of culture life, prosperity and rights, if we embrace the digital economy. And that’s a weighty responsibility. But the responsibility is not mine alone. It’s a responsibility of everyone in the government who makes records in their daily work. It’s everyone’s responsibly to contribute to a transparent government. And that means changes in our thinking and in our actions….

What has changed about democracy in the digital age? Once upon a time if you wanted to express your anger about something, you might write a letter to the editor of the paper, to the government department, or to your local member and then expect some sort of an argument or discussion as a response. Now, you can bypass all of that. You might post an inflammatory tweet or blog, your comment gathers momentum, you pick the right hashtag, and off we go. It’s all happening: you’re trending on Twitter…..

If I turn to transparency now, at the top of the list is the basic recognition that government information is public information. The information of the government belongs to the people who elected that government. It’s a fundamental of democratic values. It also means that there’s got to be more public participation in the development of public policy, which means if you’re going to have evidence-based, informed, policy development; government information has to be available, anywhere, anytime….

Good information governance is at the heart of managing digital information to provide access to that information into the future — ready access to government information is vital for transparency. Only when information is digital and managed well can government share it effectively with the Australian community, to the benefit of society and the economy.

There are many examples where poor information management, or poor information governance, has led to failures — both in the private and public sectors. Professor Peter Shergold’s recent report, Learning from Failure, why large government policy initiatives have gone so badly wrong in the past and how the chances of success in the future can be improved, highlights examples such as the Home Insulation Program, the NBN and Building the Education Revolution….(Full Speech)

In Peru, trackable vultures are helping authorities find illegal garbage dumps

Curated on March 2, 2016October 10, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “Peru’s black vultures are well known locally for their natural aptitude for garbage location. They don’t have to search too hard, since much of the garbage produced by the city of Lima is dumped illegally and ends up in the Pacific ocean. Now, the Ministry of the Environment has launched the Gallinazo Avisa campaign — meaning Vultures Warn — to clean up the city. It is using the vultures to its advantage, by fitting a flock of them with GoPros, which collect real-time GPS data, and enable the people to find the illegal dumps across the city.

The scheme is being run with the help of the Museum of Natural History and a local university, who had already tagged vultures to understand their seasonal movements. Each of the birds has been given a name and character, and their movements can be followed in real-time through an interactive map. Promotional videos have been created, which place the vultures in a filmic narrative as misunderstood heroes. Not only does the GPS data enable the location of garbage, the footage collected is also having a two-fold effect. First, it is educating the citizens about the repercussions of illegal dumping, and second, it is improving the reputation of the vultures by transforming them into allies of the people….(More)

vulturewarn-1-garbage-animal-bird-data-location

Data Collaboratives: Matching Demand with Supply of (Corporate) Data to solve Public Problems

Curated on February 24, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Stefaan G. Verhulst, IrynaSusha and Alexander Kostura: “Data Collaboratives refer to a new form of collaboration, beyond the public-private partnership model, in which participants from different sectors (private companies, research institutions, and government agencies) share data to help solve public problems. Several of society’s greatest challenges — from climate change to poverty — require greater access to big (but not always open) data sets, more cross-sector collaboration, and increased capacity for data analysis. Participants at the workshop and breakout session explored the various ways in which data collaborative can help meet these needs.

Matching supply and demand of data emerged as one of the most important and overarching issues facing the big and open data communities. Participants agreed that more experimentation is needed so that new, innovative and more successful models of data sharing can be identified.

How to discover and enable such models? When asked how the international community might foster greater experimentation, participants indicated the need to develop the following:

· A responsible data framework that serves to build trust in sharing data would be based upon existing frameworks but also accommodates emerging technologies and practices. It would also need to be sensitive to public opinion and perception.

· Increased insight into different business models that may facilitate the sharing of data. As experimentation continues, the data community should map emerging practices and models of sharing so that successful cases can be replicated.

· Capacity to tap into the potential value of data. On the demand side,capacity refers to the ability to pose good questions, understand current data limitations, and seek new data sets responsibly. On the supply side, this means seeking shared value in collaboration, thinking creatively about public use of private data, and establishing norms of responsibility around security, privacy, and anonymity.

· Transparent stock of available data supply, including an inventory of what corporate data exist that can match multiple demands and that is shared through established networks and new collaborative institutional structures.

· Mapping emerging practices and models of sharing. Corporate data offers value not only for humanitarian action (which was a particular focus at the conference) but also for a variety of other domains, including science,agriculture, health care, urban development, environment, media and arts,and others. Gaining insight in the practices that emerge across sectors could broaden the spectrum of what is feasible and how.

In general, it was felt that understanding the business models underlying data collaboratives is of utmost importance in order to achieve win-win outcomes for both private and public sector players. Moreover, issues of public perception and trust were raised as important concerns of government organizations participating in data collaboratives….(More)”

How Citizen Science Changed the Way Fukushima Radiation is Reported

Curated on February 14, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Ari Beser at National Geographic: “It appears the world-changing event didn’t change anything, and it’s disappointing,”said Pieter Franken, a researcher at Keio University in Japan (Wide Project), the MIT Media Lab (Civic Media Centre), and co-founder of Safecast, a citizen-science network dedicated to the measurement and distribution of accurate levels of radiation around the world, especially in Fukushima. “There was a chance after the disaster for humanity to innovate our thinking about energy, and that doesn’t seem like it’s happened. But what we can change is the way we measure the environment around us.”

Franken and his founding partners found a way to turn their email chain, spurred by the tsunami, into Safecast; an open-source network that allows everyday people to contribute to radiation-monitoring.

“We literally started the day after the earthquake happened,” revealed Pieter. “A friend of mine, Joi Ito, the director of MIT Media Lab, and I were basically talking about what Geiger counter to get. He was in Boston at the time and I was here in Tokyo, and like the rest of the world, we were worried, but we couldn’t get our hands on anything. There’s something happening here, we thought. Very quickly as the disaster developed, we wondered how to get the information out. People were looking for information, so we saw that there was a need. Our plan became: get information, put it together and disseminate it.”

An e-mail thread between Franken, Ito, and Sean Bonner, (co-founder of CRASH Space, a group that bills itself as Los Angeles’ first hackerspace), evolved into a network of minds, including members of Tokyo Hackerspace, Dan Sythe, who produced high-quality Geiger counters, and Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s former Chief Technical Officer. On April 15, the group that was to become Safecast sat down together for the first time. Ozzie conceived the plan to strap a Geiger counter to a car and somehow log measurements in motion. This would became the bGeigie, Safecast’s future model of the do-it-yourself Geiger counter kit.

Armed with a few Geiger counters donated by Sythe, the newly formed team retrofitted their radiation-measuring devices to the outside of a car. Safecast’s first volunteers drove up to the city of Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, and took their own readings around all of the schools. Franken explained, “If we measured all of the schools, we covered all the communities; because communities surround schools. It was very granular, the readings changed a lot, and the levels were far from academic, but it was our start. This was April 24, 6 weeks after the disaster. Our thinking changed quite a bit through this process.”

With the DIY kit available online, all anyone needs to make their own Geiger counter is a soldering iron and the suggested directions.

Since their first tour of Koriyama, with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Safecast’s team of volunteers have developed the bGeigie handheld radiation monitor, that anyone can buy on Amazon.com and construct with suggested instructions available online. So far over 350 users have contributed 41 million readings, using around a thousand fixed, mobile, and crowd-sourced devices….(More)

New Tools for Collaboration: The Experience of the U.S. Intelligence Community

Curated on February 6, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

IBM Center for Business of Government: “This report is intended for an audience beyond the U.S. Intelligence Community—senior managers in government, their advisors and students of government performance who are interested in the progress of collaboration in a difficult environment. …

The purpose of this report is to learn lessons by looking at the use of internal collaborative tools across the Intelligence Community. The initial rubric was tools, but the real focus is collaboration, for while the tools can enable, what ultimately matters are policies and practices interacting with organizational culture. It looks for good practices to emulate. The ultimate question is how and how much could, and should, collaborative tools foster integration across the Community. The focus is analysis and the analytic process, but collaborative tools can and do serve many other functions in the Intelligence Community—from improving logistics or human resources, to better connecting collection and analysis, to assisting administration and development, to facilitating, as one interlocutor put it, operational “go” decisions. Yet it is in the analytic realm that collaboration is both most visible and most rubs against traditional work processes that are not widely collaborative.

The report defines terms and discusses concepts, first exploring collaboration and coordination, then defining collaborative tools and social media, then surveying the experience of the private sector. The second section of the report uses those distinctions to sort out the blizzard of collaborative tools that have been created in the various intelligence agencies and across them. The third section outlines the state of collaboration, again both within agencies and across them. The report concludes with findings and recommendations for the Community. The recommendations amount to a continuum of possible actions in making more strategic what is and will continue to be more a bottom-up process of creating and adopting collaborative tools and practices….(More)”

Iowa fights snow with data

Curated on January 26, 2016October 24, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Patrick Marshall at GCN: “Most residents of the Mid-Atlantic states, now digging out from the recent record-setting snowstorm, probably don’t know how soon their streets will be clear. If they lived in Iowa, however, they could simply go to the state’s Track a Plow website to see in near real time where snow plows are and in what direction they’re heading.

In fact, the Track a Plow site — the first iteration of which launched three years ago — shows much more than just the location and direction of the state’s more than 900 plows. Because they are equipped with geolocation equipment and a variety of sensors, the plows also provide information on road conditions, road closures and whether trucks are applying liquid or solid materials to counter snow and ice. That data is regularly uploaded to Track a Plow, which also offers near-real-time video and photos of conditions.

Track a Plow screenshot

According to Eric Abrams, geospatial manager at the Iowa Department of Transportation, the service is very popular and is being used for a variety of purposes. “It’s been one of the greatest public interface things that DOT has ever done,” he said. In addition to citizens considering travel, Abrams said the, site’s heavy users include news stations, freight companies routing vehicles and school districts determining whether to delay opening or cancel classes.

How it works

While Track a Plow launched with just location information, it has been frequently enhanced over the past two years, beginning with the installation of video cameras. “The challenge was to find a cost-effective way to put cams in the plows and then get those images not just to supervisors but to the public,” Abrams said. The solution he arrived at was dashboard-mounted iPhones that transmit time and location data in addition to images. These were especially cost-effective because they were free with the department’s Verizon data plan. “Our IT division built a custom iPhone app that is configurable for how often it sends pictures back to headquarters here, where we process them and get them out to the feed,” he explained….(More)”