What happens when King Abdullah II of Jordan invites 30 Nobel Laureates to gather in the ancient jewel of Petra, and “imagine practical approaches to sustainable growth, development, and prosperity, the real foundations of peace”?

Led by Peace Prize winners Elie Wiesel and The Dalai Lama, and joined by 200 business, government, and NGO leaders, and 50 youth from the Mid-East and the U.S., the Fourth Petra Conference of Nobel Laureates considered the impact of globalization on income distribution in poor countries, the exploding hunger crisis, energy scenarios, security, and human conflict — and the hope of science, the responsibility of the media, and the role of the arts in addressing them.

The results of the relationship building, shared awareness, idea generation, and deepened mutual understanding among this eclectic assemblage are unknowable in general. For us, however, three are salient:

• Strengthened commitment to bringing heart to the professional world. In the words of The Dalai Lama, warm-heartedness can be a great contributor to peace. As Elie Wiesel counseled in closing the gathering, “Think higher and feel deeper.”

• Profound appreciation of the cycles of history. Deep in the desert we saw three adjacent inscriptions in the stone, from pre-history, 700 BC, and 700 AD, carved by the predecessors of our Bedouin driver. 

• Deepened understanding of the need for peace in this cradle of civilization. Jordan is holding a space for peace, coping with a flood of Iraqi refugees and on the edge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a sad undercurrent in too many conversations. Despite America’s recent missteps in the region, we are still looked to for leadership towards peace. We can fulfill this role only if we are willing talk (and listen) to everyone.

We’ll reflect these themes in future work. Meanwhile, please watch our video (3 minutes) for a more textured treatment of this amazing experience.

Fifteen years ago, cartoonist Peter Steiner drew two dogs sitting in front of a computer, one saying to the other, "On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog." This iconic adage, cute in its day, is now a warning.

Criminal, terrorist and nation-state cyber attacks against banks, technology companies, online merchants, individuals and government agencies cost the U.S. economy $400 billion annually, focused most often on stealing business and military secrets, and personal data.

While historical analogies are dangerous, I am often reminded of the evolution of the automobile industry. From their earliest days, cars were used in crimes. And yet today, law enforcement can track a suspected vehicle’s ownership, consistent with the Fourth Amendment.

In cyberspace, not knowing for sure what person or device is on the other end of the line has serious downsides. It erodes overall trust, limits users’ ability to secure their own systems, hinders effective governmental response, and causes organizations to collect more personal data than they really need.

Yet there is important value in anonymity in cyberspace. People need to be able to visit, say, a government health information site without sharing detailed personal information.Whenever the government requires more personal identification, there is a potential threat to freedom of speech. As Supreme Court Justice Stevens wrote in a majority opinion in 1995, "Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse." There is a danger that creating greater certainty about who is online could increase the already excessive, unwanted and unauthorized surveillance and profiling of individuals that is conducted today by governments, businesses and criminals.

A zero-sum game between security and privacy is both undesirable and unnecessary.

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Last week at the RSA Security Conference, several interesting workshops explored aspects of criminal hacking. One of them, conducted by Charlie Miller, examined the incentives for finding and disclosing vulnerabilities in enterprise software.

Imagine you are a Romanian software engineer with time on your hands, and you are able to find an unpatched vulnerability in an enterprise software program. The good news is that you can sell the information about the vulnerability for several times your monthly salary.

The bad news, for almost everyone else, is that you can get much more for it on the black market than from the two other legitimate buyers. Neither the manufacturer nor legitimate firms such as iDefense and Tipping Point, who package vulnerabilities for testing use by corporate computer security departments, will pay as much.

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According to senior officials inside and outside the national security establishment, the Nation is at war in cyberspace.

This war, like many things in cyberspace, confounds traditional boundaries. It is occurring in part on U.S. soil, where many of the attacked public and private sector computers are located. While some attacks are coming from foreign powers, others are from terrorist groups, and still others come from organized crime. Often the identity and intent of the attackers is unclear.

As Samuel Adams said in 1768, “Even when there is a necessity of military power, within the land . . . a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful & jealous eye over it.”  Indeed, it is longstanding policy in this country that the military not be used to enforce the law on U.S. soil, except in major emergencies, leaving that role to civilian law enforcement authorities. This division between national security and civilian law enforcement activities is maintained in electronic surveillance as well. It colors the current FISA extension debate.

Few observers believe these divisions work in cyberspace. Yet there is no clear vision of how to proceed while guarding the underlying principles. For that reason, this matter deserves a considered public conversation. While a national cyber security initiative is necessary and timely, the secrecy surrounding the Administration’s program does not serve the Nation’s long term interest.

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said, speaking of Vietnam, "We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action." We still have the opportunity to avoid that mistake in cyberspace. 

I had the privilege of testifying about computer security at a hearing today before two subcommittees of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. 

My principal focus was the Bush Administration’s new cyber security initiative. 

On January 8th, President Bush issued a new National Security/Homeland Security Directive. This order establishes a comprehensive, national cybersecurity initiative. Little is known publicly about the details of this national security order, because it is still classified. But it shows that information security is receiving serious attention at the highest levels of the Executive Branch. I believe this is good news.

The order creates an expanded role for the National Security Agency (NSA) in protecting federal systems. This raises some significant policy questions.

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We’ve just released the first results of our "Keeping It Real" research on the Presidential campaigns. We’re asking the question: "Could the candidates promises solve the Nation’s problems?

The premise is that we face major challenges in five complex areas: immigration, energy/environment, veterans care, health care, and government reform.

We analyzed the realism and innovation in the proposals of eight front-runners. The bottom line is that there are lots of good ideas, but a shortage of realism in terms of how to get them implemented in the time frame Americans want.

We delivered the report today at the Consumer Electronics Show Government Conference. You can read a summary here, and also the news release.

Let us know what you think by commenting below, or by participating in our discussion forum.  

Peering into the future, right before the Iowa caucuses, we look forward to a year of transformation. Next week at the Consumer Electronics Show, we’ll be releasing our research on the various candidates’ impact on issues relevant to our community: immigration, health care, veterans care, energy/environment, and government reform.

While the details are still emerging, it is clear that there are choices both within and between the two parties. Both parties have serious candidates who are advocating a transformational approach (Huckabee, Obama), leavening the mix of more traditional approaches. Whether either of these win the nomination, they will clearly affect the center of gravity in their parties and in the election as a whole.

Beyond politics, there’s a much larger change in the winds. I recently attended a meeting addressing the question, "what world what love have us create?" Often the most simply stated questions are the hardest to answer. And yet there’s a growing sense that, as the globe continues to shrink, we as humans will be finding new ways to live together and to get along with each other. It will be interesting to watch institutions at all levels adapt to these new ways. We can all help make that happen.

At the Industry Advisory Council’s October conference in Colonial Williamsburg, focus was on the many challenges and opportunities the Nation faces in the years ahead. One organizing force was the list of 8 challenges prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  As part of one of the conference tracks, I prepared a short video envisioning one way we might respond as a country. Let me know what you think.

We’ve started a new feature, Videos with Vision, where we’ll bring you exciting views from the future that have relevance to government and governance. They are over on the right side of the page. The first one is about how the US will respond to some of the great challenges of our time. The second ("The Wombat") is brought to you by Global Mind Shift. It’s just one minute long.

[Excerpted from my FCW article]

We stand on the verge of a new era of collaboration and partnership in developing information and perspective on matters we care about. While this new method of researching and interpreting the world is still unfamiliar to many in our community, the young people coming into our workforce expect to use tools such as Wikipedia and information linking. This shift is promising, as new eyes looking at a problem are often more likely to see new solutions, and many eyes are needed to fully comprehend the complex systems that we live in and with. Yet some believe this wave of participation will put the experts out of business. This fear is unfounded.

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