Pressing issues of 2002

It's the end of the year, at least for us columnists here at InfoWorld (I'll be back the first full week of January), and at year's end columnists often take a look back at the big issues of the preceding year. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that this often is merely a ploy to avoid writing a full column while also getting into the holiday mood.

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But it can also be seen as one part of the old "tell 'em and then tell 'em what you told 'em" scenario. So while you're busy roasting chestnuts on an open fire, I'll pull out a couple of old chestnuts that I think are worthy of ruminating on during the holiday season -- especially for New Year's resolution purposes.

But in the spirit of gift-giving, I'll also bring up a new concern. Well, maybe it's not that new for some, but it certainly hasn't been discussed with the vigor it deserves, given the effect it will have on all of us.

FIRST: I think the top issue of the year has been privacy, especially the aggressive continuing threat to it. Those who are regular readers will agree, not necessarily that privacy is the dominant issue, but at least that I think it is.

I've written quite a few columns on it:

" National ID cards still a bad idea "

" All is not lost for privacy "

" Caution isn't always paranoia "

" Privacy: An important but complex right "

" Let's have a constitutional amendment for privacy "

" Privacy, police states, and the balance of power "

Many people have written in to point out, as if I didn't know, that we are engaged in a "war." Some of these responses are passionately argued and others have, quite frankly, bordered on the hysterical. There is an argument to be made that harsh times call for harsh measures, but I'm still not satisfied that the benefit to be achieved will outweigh the threat to our basic notions of privacy (not to mention other civil liberties).

"How would you feel," several people have written, "if one of your loved ones were killed in the next terrorist attack?" Well, I'd be devastated, but I'd be just as devastated if one of my loved ones was snatched from his home by a SWAT team in the middle of the night and held incommunicado in a "secure undisclosed location" for a year or maybe forever. I'd also be devastated to find out that some government bureaucrat had a file drawer full of my personal information and used it against me for political reasons. Both of these are now possibilities.

What is making all of this even more threatening is that because of computerized data collection and storage, as well as data mining techniques, government functionaries can amass data on us -- even when they're not sure what they're looking for. This is a major leap from the last time we were faced with massive government spying on citizens, which had to be done with much more low-tech methods.

If we don't start paying attention to this soon, we may find ourselves so far down the road that turning back may be extremely difficult, if not impossible. There are just some genies that won't go back into the bottle.

SECOND: This was the year of the corporate scandal. Or so we thought until the administration trotted out its "new product line" after Labor Day, as White House Chief of Staff Andy Card referred to the administration's talk on Iraq. Since the first week of September, the drums of war have drowned out the cries for corporate reform.

During the spring and summer we heard a lot of ethical huffing and puffing about corporate ethics. But in the end, a rather flaccid bill made its way through Congress, and then was quickly emasculated. Corporations are ostensibly cleaning up their act, but we've seen nothing substantive in the way of reform. Unless we do, this monster will come back to life when we least expect it.

This has a direct effect on all of us. The faltering economy and the dismal performance of the stock market -- which affect corporate budgets and personal retirement accounts at the same time -- can be traced in large part to a lack of trust engendered by the scandals. In past recessions, our salvation has come from overseas investors who felt confident. They no longer do.

We need to address the question of corporate ethics head-on, but we've allowed that to be sidetracked. Foreign investors aren't as mesmerized by the war drums as we are. They know things haven't been fixed -- and the market languishes.

THIRD: And now for the new concern. Who did you vote for in the last election? You don't have to tell me, but how sure are you that your choice was the one that was actually recorded?

After the debacle in the 2000 election, the air was buzzing with talk of electronic voting in one form or another, and some communities -- mine included -- jumped on the bandwagon. I enjoy the apparent ease of using the new touch-screen machines, but some people have raised questions about their integrity and reliability.

Without any paper trail, it's almost impossible to verify the machine's accuracy. We simply have to live with the numbers that pop up at the end of the day.

What disturbs a lot of people is that these machines are privately owned. In fact, according to reports, almost two-thirds of all the votes in the country are counted by two companies. These companies consider their tabulation code proprietary and won't allow it to be inspected.

Now, a simple vote-counting code shouldn't be that difficult to write, but then neither would a small piece of code that could skew the results to one side or the other. In fact, a first-year programming student -- or a high school kid -- could crank that out in a few minutes.

What would stop someone from inserting a piece of code that would take every ballot for Party A and assign it to Party B? The code could even self-destruct when the totals were taken, so that an inspection after the election would reveal nothing amiss. This doesn't have to be inserted in every machine -- maybe only a few, or maybe only in selected locations.

What's more disturbing is that we have scant information on who all the owners of these companies are and what their conflicts of interest might be. I'm not alleging that voting fraud took place in the last election, and I don't think anyone else is either. The biggest problem is that we have no way of knowing. Without a paper trail and without the opportunity to inspect the code, there's no way to tell. We merely have to accept the totals as the truth. Even if massive fraud were to take place, there would be no smoking gun. There wouldn't be even enough evidence to arouse suspicion.

This worries me a lot. We have employed technology in an extremely sensitive and important area and have no idea how to control it. Worse still, what control there is remains in the hands of private individuals, who may have something to gain by producing a certain result.

Google search on "Who owns voting machines" and see what you come up with.

Just something to think about. Have a happy New Year and see you in 2003.