It is truly inspiring to see a country such as Bangladesh go green for its ICT industry. Bangladesh contributes only a very small amount of GHG emissions and in fact is one of the first victims of climate change (it will be the first country to go under water if the sea level rises), and yet it sets the example for the rest of the world.
I had occasion when filming for Green Planet with TELECOMTV, to speak with key leaders at Grameen Bank, Grameen Phone and Grameen Shakti. Executives at Grameen Phone stressed how they are now using solar to run backup for their base stations instead of solely relying on diesel generator backups. Besides doing their part to help save the environment, they have also found it makes good business sense. Rising energy costs and offgrid sites for new users, make renewable energy a viable option for them.
Meanwhile, Grameen Shakti, a rural electrification project of the Grameen family, found that demand for solar is also driven by demand for mobile in offgrid areas. Even for the smallest solar panels installed, rural users want mobile phone charger connections. What is more remarkable, is Grameen Shakti has designed an innovative mobile charger that can easily be assembled and made by the rural women, often in their own homes. Technical centres are set up to train the local women and they assemble and install solar controllers, mobile chargers, etc. It is truly quite remarkable. These projects are run on very business fundamentals, and are not charity programs. Woman earn up to about $100 a month, and some are even innovative to become mobile phone charge businesses too.
So bottom line, Bangladesh has shown that it makes good business to be environmentally responsible. There are no excuses for the rest of the world. We owe it to Bangladesh, as they are the first victims of our actions and yet they chose to be responsible citizens of the world!
Every other month we get someone in the US Military ranting about how “we need to go on the offensive,” “we need to build our own BOTNETs,” we need to be better than our enemies.” This expression of anxiety is understandable. It is an express of frustration, where the people who are obligated to protect the US Constitution from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” If cyber-criminals, patriotic Chinese, and terrorist can build BOTNETs, then the US Military should do the same. We can see this expressed in Col Charlie Williamson’s recent interview on BBC Radio 4 ( The Report – Ben Hammersley assesses the seriousness of cyber-attacks on international networks) and his past articles on the topic of going on the offensive (see Carpet bombing in cyberspace Why America needs a military botnet).
What is puzzling is how several key points are ignored by Col Williamson and others proponents of the US Military’s Cyber-Warfare exploration of a strategy. First, it is un-constitutional for the US Military to “quarter” a resource inside of a residence. The Third Amendment of the US Constitution states “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” A computer inside of someone’s home is “in” that home. Putting a US Military resource – the BOTNET – on that computer resource “without the consent of the Owner” would have a hard chance standing up in a US Court. The 3rd Amendment is one of the most least cited Amendment’s, but in this case has a strong weight against a “Cyber-Warfigthing” strategy which assumes that they can just violate the computer inside someone’s home. So if the US Military would like to violate the resources who they are obligate to protect, they need to get a law passed which would allow them to “quarter” their BOTs.
What is more disturbing is the shallow thinking some the analysis. For example, if a citizens computer is violated by hijacking malware, configured in a BOT, and used in a attack, that computer becomes a legitimate target. In the BBC Radio 4 interview, Col Williamson says “It may, in the right circumstance, be worthwhile and even fair for the US to hit a computer that is hitting us and stop it from harming us for an hour or days when that computer owner failed to take basic steps to protect us.” Col Williamson ignores the fact that most “protective” tools today do not stop modern virus, worms, and other hijacking malware when they first appear on the Net. These violated computers do not have a viable defense – so one cannot assume that “it is all the citizen’s fault.” Even if it was, what give the US Military the right to counter-attack the computer – knocking off all voice, video, and data to that home? What if that home needed to make a 911 call? What if that home had a tele-medicine application connected to a hospital? Is this a legitimate use of US Military power against the citizens they are sworn to protect?Granted, the US Military could use computers in other countries. But, that is all part of cyber-warfare.
Bottom line, the Internet and Global Telecommunications are now ONE network. It is totally different from anything we’ve had in the past. While some military models might fit in a “cyber-war” strategy, most will be “square peg in round hole” techniques that do not fit, will not work, and result in colateral damage that causes more hard to the warfighter than inflect pain on the enemy.
