2016: Year of the Red Fire Monkey

2016 has some interesting features with a leap year, the summer olympics in Rio and the space craft Juno hopefully arriving on Jupiter.

In Chinese culture the New Year in February moves from the year of the sheep to the year of the red fire monkey. Much more exciting.

In the digital space I am going to make a few general predictions for review this time next year (hopefully broadly worded so that a degree of success can be claimed in any event).

1. Security of digital IP will move further up the agenda with large scale hacks continuing. Awareness will grow that increased resource needs to be applied to this sector and business models altered. Technology only solutions will be seen to be only one part of the puzzle.
2. The internet of things will accelerate even faster which feeds into point 1 above.
3. Automation via intelligent software will advance even more quickly biting into certain job sectors and again feeding into point 1. Analog only & and human heavy administrative models will be severely squeezed.
4. Governments will seek & secure much greater control over the internet via legislation and the sins of the past will weigh heavily on them in the freedom & privacy versus security debate.
5. A major consumer brand in the digital space will run out of cash due to an inability to monetize its user base
6. The fastest revenue growth will be in automated software based models with worldwide application requiring minimal human input. Some stars will emerge in this area in 2016.
7. The digital single market will play a role in the debate over whether the UK should stay in the EU and David Cameron will secure enough concessions for the UK to vote to remain in. With France sniffing around the politics of Le Pen, Germany would be insane to let the UK leave.

To end on a high note have a few laughs courtesy of Modern Family via YouTube..............

The dark side of digital needs regulation

The utopian idea that the internet would lead to the world uniting for the greater good (Tim Berners-Lee) is starting to look optimistic.

Tremendous benefits have come from improved communications and access to information but the internet economy has started to be a mirror to the human condition with a balance between good and bad.

The core difference is that the internet is unregulated in any effective sense and that behaviours that would not be tolerated elsewhere (such as totally disrespect for property / IP) are considered the norm.

Understandably freedom and privacy are jealously guarded but if the robber barons of history had been unregulated 12 year olds would still be working in factories for minimal wages in the name of progress. Some of the current tech giants, despite lots of cuddly advertising, are looking like wolves in sheeps clothing.

Andrew Keen has identified that the internet has driven income inequality, a crisis in jobs and a surveillance state but there are always 2 sides to any argument and libertarians like Peter Thiel argue effectively the other way. Even so the core argument that is starting to look shaky is that the internet should not be regulated.

The startling rise in cyber crime and hacking generally probably tips the balance towards sensible, democratically mandated regulation. The coming wave of cyber warfare will require that the intermediaries and pipes of the internet introduce more effective controls.

The jurisdictional hurdles need to be crossed or dramatically simplified as a matter of urgency as an unregulated internet that is very powerful can do significant damage. The majority of hacking tools used now are HaaS (or hacking as a service) requiring minimal skill from the operator.

This is a situation similar to having free automatic weapons with unlimited ammunition available on every street corner with minimal regulation. Certainly the Government should stress the need for companies and individuals to take reasonable steps to protect themselves but at the same time a clear regulatory framework needs to be in place to deter criminals and apply proportionate sanction when needed.

Any sane person would recognise that a free cyber weapon to launch DDOS attacks should not be easily available online and that there should be a simple process in place for instant removal. Currently no effective regulation exists in this regard which is great news for the bad guys (and girls).