May 2014

Should You Need A License To Practice Cybersecurity?

The government should sponsor a national body to license cyber professionals and authorize cyber certifications, and then spin it off into an independent consortium, a military faculty member at the Pentagon's National Defense University said.

A body akin to an American Medical Association is needed to authorize individuals to practice as cyber professionals and to revoke that license when necessary, said Lt Col Sean CG Kern, an NDU information security professor. In order for that body to possess authority, it would have to be federally funded, at least initially. This model also would include sub-associations for specialty areas, such as digital forensics, that would pick which certifications currently offered by various firms should be required.

The Homeland Security Department and National Institute of Standards and Technology have carved out 31 cyber specialties. It might not be hard to imagine an American Cybersecurity Association, but upending the cyber certification industry would ruffle some feathers. International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium -- or (ISC)2 -- officials argued that overhauling the certification system would undo hard-won progress in educating the cyber workforce and exacerbate cyber staff shortages.

"Our organization has worked closely with government and anytime that they believe they need a more technical, specific credential, we sit down and build it," (ISC)2 Executive Director Hord Tipton said at the time.

YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling on how the Internet can shape the music industry

A Q&A with violinist Lindsey Stirling. She talks about her career, her fans and how using YouTube gave her a way to break into a tough industry.

Stirling, who first came onto the national stage in 2010 by reaching the quarter-finals of "America's Got Talent," now has 4.8 million subscribers on YouTube and just released a new album, "Shatter Me," which debuted as #2 on the Billboard charts. Stirling noted how YouTube has provided her with a side-door into the music industry.

“There is a connotation to being a YouTuber: that you’re a cover artist, or you're not legit. I'm very proud that I came through YouTube. It's exciting to be a part of this wave and to say, ‘Hey, this is a legitimate platform,’” she said.

Rep Latta Introduces Legislation to Keep Internet Open and Accessible

Rep Bob Latta (R-OH) introduced legislation (HR 4752) to ensure the Internet remains open and free from government interference by limiting the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband under Title II of the Communications Act.

The legislation comes after the FCC released a proposal to reclassify broadband Internet access under Title II as a telecommunications service rather than an information service.

“In light of the FCC initiating yet another attempt to regulate the Internet, upending long-standing precedent and imposing monopoly-era telephone rules and obligations on the 21st Century broadband marketplace, Congress must take action to put an end to this misguided regulatory proposal,” said Rep Latta. “The Internet has remained open and continues to be a powerful engine fueling private enterprise, economic growth and innovation absent government interference and obstruction. My legislation will provide all participants in the Internet ecosystem the certainty they need to continue investing in broadband networks and services that have been fundamental for job creation, productivity and consumer choice.”

DirecTV and Don Draper in a ‘Life After Television’ world

[Commentary] Nearly 25 years ago, George Gilder wrote a book called “Life After Television.” Moore’s law of microchips and similarly powerful forces in fiber optics, digital storage, and wireless radio transmission, Gilder said, would enable the construction of new networks of computers that would end the stultifying era of mass media.

George famously got rid of the rarely used televisions in his home to support the thesis of his book -- that the coming “worldwide web of glass and light” would blow up the lowest-common-denominator world of dumb terminals, dumb content, and even dumber mass advertising and replace it with a network of choice, quality, interactivity, and intelligence.

So, is ours a life after television world? Whatever we call it, broadband computer networks have dramatically boosted choice and quality (better quality at the top end and overall, although there’s more worthless stuff, too). Instead of a mainframe, we’ve got 1.4 billion PCs, 5 billion mobile phones, 2 billion smartphones, and the immense resources of the cloud. We’ve got more networks -- broadcast, cable, broadband, mobile, satellite, Wi-Fi.

More distribution channels -- cable, telecommunications, mobile, satellite, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube. More content aggregators. More content producers. And it’s often difficult to tell which is which. The upshot for policymakers is that choice and competition are proliferating, often at a dizzying pace. Every effort to regulate this space runs into the most basic definitional problems because no one knows what’s what, or what will happen next week. Better to let everyone keep enjoying this golden age of life after television.

[Swanson is president of Entropy Economics]

Tech industry pushes lawmakers to fund Internet oversight shift

Two groups representing tech industry giants are asking lawmakers to give the administration funding to carry out its controversial plan to relinquish oversight of key technical Internet functions.

That administration move is a “critical transition” that needs full funding to be carried out successfully, the Internet Association and the Information Technology Industry Council said. The Internet Association includes Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Amazon. The Information Technology Industry Council includes Google, Apple, Microsoft and IBM.

The groups ask House members to oppose a provision in the Commerce Department’s authorization bill that would reduce funding for the agency. That bill is being considered on the House floor soon.

Statement of Commissioner Ajit Pai on Broadband's Impact on Schools and Libraries in South Dakota

America needs to fully enter the digital age -- and that starts with our nation’s schools and libraries. I saw that for myself in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Sioux Falls is no anomaly. It’s amazing what schools and libraries across South Dakota have done with so little. Even though promoting broadband across 77,123 square miles is the definition of a high-cost endeavor, South Dakota schools have received about 30% less per student than New Jersey schools. And while the Siouxland Libraries stretch their resources so thinly that some rural libraries only operate three hours a day, library officials told me that they’ve given up applying for E-Rate funding because the process is so burdensome and the rewards for rural libraries so few.

In sum, the E-Rate program just isn’t meeting the needs of rural America. E-Rate’s funding formula favors larger, urban school districts that can afford to hire consultants to navigate the administrative process and draw every dollar E-Rate makes available to them. In contrast, E-Rate offers smaller, rural schools and libraries less funding, even when broadband costs more for them and they don’t have the resources to hire outside help.

A sad refrain I’ve heard over and over is that applying for E-Rate funding just isn’t worth the effort. That’s a digital divide we shouldn’t tolerate. The FCC needs to reform E-Rate to make it more user-friendly and target the needs of students and library patrons. A student-centered E-Rate program would cut the red tape. It would end funding inequities and focus E-Rate on connecting citizens young and old to digital opportunities.

Report: One in seven US consumers notified of personal data breaches in 2013

US consumers are increasingly victims of data breaches in which their personal data is stolen -- with one in seven being notified that their personal data was breached in 2013, according to a survey released by Consumer Reports. But most, 62 percent, have done nothing to protect their privacy online, the survey found.

Consumer Reports projected that 11.2 million people fell for e-mail phishing scams and 29 percent of Americans online had their home computers infected with malware since 2013. (The study was conducted in January 2014 by research company GfK for Consumer Reports and included interviews with 3,110 adults with home Internet access.)

New PCAST Report Says “Systems Engineering” Can Improve Health Care

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has released a report to the President, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering.

The report comes at a critical time for the United States and for the health-care system in particular, with millions of Americans recently gaining health-care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). At the same time, the health-care system is challenged by rising costs, which now approach a fifth of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP). A significant portion of those costs, however, does not produce better health or quality of care.

In consultation with a working group including experts from the health and engineering sectors, PCAST, in its new report, identifies a comprehensive set of recommendations to address these cost and quality challenges, including through an interdisciplinary approach known as systems engineering. Among the barriers that limit the spread of systems engineering in health care is the predominant payment system -- the fee-for-service method often discourages efficient care.

To overcome this challenge, PCAST notes that providers should be paid for value -- e.g., patient health-outcomes -- rather than the volume of tests or treatments administered. Systems engineering also depends on the availability of high-quality data that can be used for measuring progress, analyzing current challenges and opportunities, and enabling patients and providers to make more informed decisions. Finally, the report speaks to the need for the United States to build a health-care workforce that has the necessary “know-how,” recommending that systems engineering concepts should be embedded in education and training for a wide variety of people involved in health care, from clinicians to administrators to public-health officials.

Google, Silicon Valley must do more to hire female engineers

[Commentary] The technology industry has been fighting hard not to reveal race and gender diversity data -- especially for its engineering teams -- because it has a lot to be embarrassed about.

Data collected on Github showed that the percentage of female engineers at Qualcomm’s development center in Austin was 5.5 percent. At Dropbox it’s 6.3 percent, at Yelp 8.3 percent, at Airbnb 13.2 percent and 14.4 percent at Pinterest. Google just revealed that 17 percent of its technology staff is female. That is impressive compared with the rest of Silicon Valley, but not once you put it in the context of the available pool of female computer scientists.

In 1987, some 37 percent of the graduating computer-science class was female. But, because of the unfair hurdles they face, women are getting discouraged from studying computer science, and the percentage had dropped to 18 percent by 2012. Nonetheless, about a quarter of the pool of highly-experienced software developers is female. A company such as Google -- which has its choice of new graduates as well as of experienced engineers -- should therefore have far greater diversity.

Technology companies need to rethink the way they recruit. They need to look at how jobs are defined so that they don’t exclude women, who have a tendency, unlike males, to pass up opportunities for which they don’t have the exact skills. They need to look beyond the usual recruitment grounds by interviewing from universities where there are high proportions of women and minorities, as well as at conferences that women engineers attend, such as the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and Women 2.0. They need to insist that, for every job opening, at least one woman and minority member be interviewed, and that the interviewing committee be diverse. And they need to make sure that the hiring is for competency rather than for credentials.

[Wadhwa is a fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University and director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke’s engineering school]

Only 1 in 10 workers had to be licensed in 1970. Today it's closer to 1 in 3

Be honest: the last time you got your nails done or toilet repaired, did you ask your manicurist or plumber what kind of license they had? Those are just two of the many occupations that require a license. The system of getting those official government stamps of approval is hurting the economy, says Morris Kleiner, professor of public policy at the University of Minnesota and a visiting scholar at the Minneapolis Fed.

In a New York Times op-ed (see link below), Kleiner blasts what he calls the "national patchwork of stealth regulation" of state occupational licensing rules. As of 1970, he writes, 10 percent of American workers needed to be licensed to do their jobs. As of 2008, it was around 30 percent.

Strict licensing standards mobility, as a person licensed to practice her trade in, say, Utah might have to get re-licensed if she moves to Oklahoma. In addition, Kleiner argues, these rules restrict people from entering the professions they want to practice. That hurts both would-be workers and consumers; low-income people may not have the means to go through the licensing procedures, which can involve many hours of classroom training. And low-income people, facing this tighter supply of hairdressers and childcare workers, might not be able to afford those services. In other words, occupational licensing might in fact make inequality worse.

Benton

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