Identity and e-Government

Fulup Ar Foll, a Sun colleagues and one of my good friends with whom I recently had dinner in Palo Alto, is not only a true and rare genius but an engineer with a great reservoir of practical wisdom about computing, Internet and telecommunications protocols. It is out of pure good fortune that I came to know him better while representing Sun at the Open Mobile Alliance some years ago. Every time I have the chance to meet Fulup, I learn a great deal from him. No young engineer interested in systems, open source technologies, Internet and telecommunications can have a better mentor than him. If you want to catch him speak and learn something from him, try the Oasis Symposium 2007 (April, San Diego). He will be speaking on the "New Generation of Identity-Aware E-Government Applications." (I should add that Fulup also maintains fridu.org and builds and supports SIP systems for the school in his local community in Brittany.)

Growth Signs

Financial Times on video and film downloads: (a) Growth from now until 2012: 10 folds. (b) Worth in 2012: $6.3 billion. Chad Hurley at Davos: YouTube will share advertising revenue with video uploaders.

Privacy and Data

Ellen Nakashima has been reporting on data and privacy for The Washington Post. See her reports on legal issues, delays and the EU scene.

As more data is collected by various web services, search engines, e-commerce web sites and portals, data and privacy questions continue to be debated.

If you are looking for a fresh perspective on data protection and privacy, you should also take a look at the weblog by Sun Microsystem's Chief Privacy Officer, Michelle Dennedy.