Overview

Reviewing the health protection legislative framework also requires us to answer a number of fundamental policy questions, such as how health authorities should respond to scientific uncertainty regarding risks to human health. Governments, health professionals, industry, communities and individual Canadians all play an important role in health protection and injury prevention. This is why our first step in renewing the legislative framework was to consult Canadians from across the country.

Click to participate

Click to read the proposal

SUMMARY

__posted by Carolyn L Burke @ 9:32 a.m.
subscribe to Integrity

(0) comments

CRN

The potential benefits of molecular manufacturing are immense, but so are the dangers. In order to avert the dangers, we must thoroughly understand them, and then develop comprehensive plans to prevent them. As explained in our Timeline and Products pages, molecular nanotechnology (MNT) will allow the rapid prototyping and inexpensive manufacture of a wide variety of powerful products. This capability will arrive rather suddenly, since the final steps of developing the technology are likely to be much easier than the initial steps, and many of them can be pre-planned. The sudden arrival of molecular manufacturing may not allow time to adjust to its implications. Adequate preparation is essential.

CRN has identified several separate and severe risks.

The first step in understanding the dangers is to identify them. CRN has begun that process here, listing and describing several separate and severe risks. Although probably incomplete, the list is already worrisome:

Economic disruption from an abundance of cheap products

Economic oppression from artificially inflated prices

Personal risk from criminal or terrorist use

Personal or social risk from abusive restrictions

Social disruption from new products/lifestyles

Unstable arms race

Collective environmental damage from unregulated products

Free-range self-replicators (gray goo)

Black market in nanotech (increases other risks)

Competing nanotech programs (increases other risks)

Attempted relinquishment (increases other risks)

Some of the dangers described here are existential risks, that is, they may threaten the continued existence of humankind. Others could produce significant disruption but not cause our extinction. A combination of several risks could exacerbate the seriousness of each; any solution must take into account its effect on other risks.

Some of these risks arise from too little regulation, and others from too much regulation. Several different kinds of regulation will be necessary in several different fields. An extreme or knee-jerk response to any of these risks will create fertile ground for other risks. The temptation to impose apparently obvious and simple solutions to problems in isolation must be avoided. Other pages address the possibilities for regulation; this one is concerned with discussing and analyzing the dangers.

__posted by Carolyn L Burke @ 9:09 a.m.
subscribe to Integrity

(0) comments

Forrester Research, Inc.

Integrity Policy

Forrester is an independent research firm that produces objective, high-quality analysis of technology markets. Research integrity is one of the core values of our company and our brand. Forrester employees may not engage in activities that will compromise -- or appear to compromise -- the integrity of our research.

Forrester's integrity policy, research methodologies, and corporate culture guide our employees in the course of developing and disseminating our research products and services.

Forrester's business success depends on the independence and objectivity of our research. We embody this by:

• Taking a stand. Our independence allows us to produce research and offer advice that express clear opinions. Forrester's research agendas, judgments, and conclusions are solely under our control. Client companies cannot purchase research coverage or favorable opinions.
  
• Employing structured methodologies. Our WholeView™ Research employs structured methodologies that enable us to identify and analyze technology trends, markets, and audiences and ensure consistent research quality and recommendations across markets, technologies, and geographies.
  
• Keeping our independence. Forrester's internal policies create an environment where clients and vendors cannot wield undue influence on our research topics and judgments. For example, our policies prohibit our employees from accepting reimbursements from vendors, joining company boards, or endorsing any vendor's strategy or products. In addition, consulting work that is done for our vendor clients that compares companies or products is client-confidential and can never be used as part of any marketing collateral or marketing campaign.
  

Forrester is accountable for publishing fair and accurate research. If we make a factual mistake, we will provide a fair hearing and will correct material errors quickly. Forrester's Citation Policy provides guidelines for authorized use of Forrester's research. [See bleow]

---

Citation Policy

Integrity and objectivity are core values at Forrester Research, Inc. ("Forrester"). Forrester's research ("Research") is created to be used by clients in its original context and format. From time to time, requests are made by clients and third parties to cite the Research outside of its original context. The following guidelines set forth the rules for this type of use for all of Forrester's Research in all media.

General

The Research is proprietary to Forrester and subject to copyright and other intellectual property protections.

Commercial use of the Research is prohibited without our express written permission.

All citations must be limited in scope. Full reproduction of the Research is prohibited.

All citations must be accurate, quoted verbatim, and/or duplicated without being manipulated, adapted, paraphrased, or summarized.

All citations must be sourced "Copyright © 2003, Forrester Research, Inc."

Uses That Do Not Require Forrester's Approval
Clients may include a copy or slide of each scorecard, ranking, product comparison, spreadsheet, graphic, table, or portion of text less than a paragraph in presentations, provided that all such citations adhere to the general rules set forth herein.

Uses That Do Require Forrester's Approval

All full reproductions and/or distributions of the Research. Forrester generally prohibits such use unless reprints are purchased from Forrester.

All uses of the Research in advertisements, press releases, and sales collateral in all types of media.

All uses of the Research in SEC filings or other legal documents.

All links to any Web sites maintained by Forrester and/or its subsidiaries.

In general, if you are uncertain about a particular use, please seek our approval.

How To Seek Forrester's Approval

Contact Forrester Vendor Relations at 1 866/FORRESTER (1 866/367-7378) and vendorrelations@forrester.com.

Provide Vendor Relations with the full details of the requested citation.

We will reply by email within one to two business days.

Changes

Forrester reserves the right to change these guidelines at any time, without notice.

These guidelines are for general informational purposes only, and Forrester reserves any and all rights to the Research including but not limited to the right to deny any and all uses of the Research.

__posted by Carolyn L Burke @ 5:16 p.m.
subscribe to Integrity

(0) comments

Around the Internet in 15 minutes

The link leads to current and ongoing research at UC Berkeley about optimizing the speed that worms take to span the Internet as fast as theoretically possible. What are the known theoretical limits? Read on.

It is well known that active worms such as Code Red and the Morris internet worm have the potential to spread very quickly, on the order of hours to days. But it is possible to construct hyper-virulent active worms, capable of infecting all vulnerable hosts in approximately 15 minutes to an hour. Such 'Warhol Worms', by using optimized scanning routines, hitlist scanning for initial propagation, and permutation scanning for complete, self coordinated coverage, could cause maximum damage before people could respond. The potential mayhem is staggering.

CLB: We're approaching the Warhol limit in 2004. Pleas set up automatic patching on your computers and networks.

(0) comments

Close observers of Amazon.com noticed something peculiar this week: the company's Canadian site had suddenly revealed the identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted book reviews on the United States site under signatures like 'a reader from New York.'

The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan a book -- when they think no one is watching.

...

Under Amazon's system, any user may submit a review without publicly providing any personal information (or evidence of having read the book). The posting of real names on the Canadian site was for many a reminder that anonymity on the Internet is seldom a sure thing.

...

CLB: There are two issues here: an anonymity violation; and the problem of pseudononymous self-reviewing - a war of reviewers if you will.

(0) comments

The Washington Dispatch - Opinion

Whatever one thinks of the Department of Homeland Security and the agencies under its umbrella, one thing that it does have is a Chief Privacy Officer in a statutorily created position.

Naturally, such a post can only be as strong as it is allowed to be by the department or agency it is supposed to monitor. In that sense, while the reviews by privacy advocates of the work done by Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the DHS's Chief Privacy Officer, have been generally positive, they will be forever watchful of her work and that of DHS.

The point is that John Ashcroft had an opportunity to take the lead in providing for stronger oversight the Justice Department's operations both in the wake of 9/11 and then after it had been handed substantial new powers through the USA-PATRIOT Act.

Perhaps had he called for the creation by statute of a Chief Privacy Officer position, privacy advocates might be less edgy in expressing concern about DOJ. They would certainly be vigilant and watchful, but it is also possible there would be more positive and constructive interaction between the two camps.

(0) comments

BlogTalk 2.0 : Call for Proposals

(0) comments

TCS: Tech Central Station

This collection of essays covers a variety of topics involving science and technology, and includes some diversity of viewpoints. But the emphasis is on risks and problems, on reasons for caution and regulation. Editors Alan Lightman, Daniel Sarewitz and Christina Desser write in the introduction of a 'widening gap' between the physical world and 'the experience of being human.' 'Left in the wake of the headlong advance of science and technology,' they contend, 'is an indivisible, elemental core of humanness.'

Such dichotomies, however, should be treated with suspicion. Surely, any 'elemental core of humanness' includes such inclinations as to learn, understand, create, build, tinker, and try to improve oneself and the world. Sitting in front of a campfire may have many merits, but it is not necessarily more 'human' than sitting in front of a computer.

(0) comments