February 2010

EMarketer estimates online advertisers in the United States will spend about $2.6 billion by 2014 on behaviorally targeted (BT) advertising, up from more than $1.1 billion this year. Estimates put the industry on a growth rate of about 20% from 2009 through 2014. But even with all that projected growth, do advertising and marketing executives understand the benefits and the challenges?

David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, tells me the report, scheduled for release on Feb. 11, will cover topics from the potential for combining data and social media, to how the government will address privacy concerns. When it comes to actually implementing BT platforms, Hallerman tells me advertisers' biggest concerns are focused on brand reputation and campaign effectiveness. Can the technology actually hit the mark and drive higher conversions? There's also a growing recognition that BT can become a useful tool -- but, like all useful tools, it can't always work alone. BT belongs in the narrow part of the marketing funnel, where advertisers have a better sense of the target, Hallerman says. In the upper part of the funnel, where advertisers try to build awareness for the brand, other targeting methods and tools work better, more cost-effectively.

A scheme that gives US law enforcement authorities with a warrant access to networking equipment could also be exploited by illegal snoopers.

Tom Cross, manager of X-Force research, a security unit at IBM, discovered this after reviewing details of a lawful intercept scheme used to access equipment made by the networking giant Cisco. Cross says he identified weaknesses in the communication protocol that could let hackers perform illegal wiretaps. Cross focused on Cisco because it's the only company to have made the details of its system public, but he believes similar vulnerabilities exist with other intercept schemes.

On Feb 4, the House of Representatives passed the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act (HR 4061), by a vote of 422 to 5.

This bill will improve cybersecurity within the federal government as well as the public and private sectors by: helping to develop a skilled cybersecurity workforce; coordinating and prioritizing the federal research and development (R&D) portfolio; improving the transfer of cybersecurity technologies to the marketplace; and promoting cybersecurity education and awareness for the general public. This bipartisan legislation addresses recommendations from the Administration's Cyberspace Policy Review, released May 29, 2009, and input from the four hearings on cybersecurity the House Science and Technology Committee held in 2009. HR 4061 is a combination of two Committee discussion drafts: the Cybersecurity Research and Development Act of 2009, which passed the R&SE Subcommittee on September 23, 2009, and the Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act of 2009, which passed the Technology and Innovation Subcommittee on November 4, 2009.

The federal government's cybersecurity activities are divided among several agencies and programs, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program:

• NSF is the main agency supporting non-classified cybersecurity R&D and education. Specifically, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act reauthorizes NSF's cybersecurity research program, the Trustworthy Computing program, and formally establishes the Scholarship for Service program, which provides funding to colleges and universities to award scholarships to students in the information assurance and computer security fields in exchange for their service in the federal government after they have completed their training.
• NIST has two key cybersecurity responsibilities: developing federal information processing standards; and testing the effectiveness of security requirements. Because the vast majority of cybersecurity breaches are the result of current best practices not being followed, H.R. 4061 requires NIST to develop and implement a public cybersecurity awareness and education program to encourage the more widespread adoption of best practices (i.e. using unique passwords for different logons, not keeping passwords written next to the computer). Also, U.S. federal government representation in the development of international cybersecurity technical standards is incomplete and uncoordinated. Consistent with the recommendations made in the President's Cyberspace Policy Review, this bill requires NIST to develop a plan to ensure representation in all important international cybersecurity technical standards development initiatives and that this representation works from one coordinated U.S. federal government strategy.
• The NITRD program is the primary mechanism by which the federal government coordinates its unclassified networking and IT R&D investments. Thirteen federal agencies, including all of the large science and technology agencies, are formal members of the NITRD Program; other federal organizations also participate in NITRD activities. H.R. 4061 requires the NITRD participating federal agencies to create and implement a strategic plan to guide their cybersecurity R&D efforts.

This bill would also require the Administration to conduct an assessment of cybersecurity workforce needs across the federal government. Lastly, H.R. 4061 requires the Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director to assemble a university-industry task force to discover new models for implementing collaborative R&D

Governments are getting the hang of Web 2.0 a few years after the rest of us, and both the U.S. and U.K. authorities have just launched their own Data.gov Web sites in an effort to increase transparency. But in a studied comparison of the two efforts, the U.K.'s wins.

Over at Flowing Data they've taken a deep look at the two different efforts from the Old World and the New: Data.gov and Data.gov.uk. Both sites perform roughly the same purpose, which is to share several hundred datasets that were formerly not accessible to the public, thus giving an insight into matters like financial spending, and locations and lists of government services. The whole idea is that the mechanics of government are demystified and the population trusts its authorities slightly more. The upshot of Flowing Data's investigation is that while the U.S. effort is a little older, and thus should've had time to evolve more, the British Web site is more polished, honest and user-accessible. It delivers more data, and its design was influenced by the great Sir Tim Berners-Lee and an academic expert in artificial intelligence. And while the U.S. site doesn't do much to show you who's using its data for whatever interesting reasons, the U.K.'s site highlights this, and even encourages active dialog with its users.