What if electronic mail were as ubiquitous as telephones, TVs and VCRs, so that literally everyone was on-line, accessible by E-mail and able to send messages to bulletin boards, news groups, friends, family and colleagues? Is this technically feasible? If so, at what cost? What would be the personal and societal benefits? In particular, could universal access help to create a more aware and participatory democracy by aiding the formation of interest groups ("virtual communities"), access to current information, and person-to-person contacts?
This report surveys the burgeoning new world of electronic connectedness to answer these and other questions concerning the benefits, risks, costs and feasibility of universal access to E-mail. The authors are optimistic that the benefits of near universal access would far outweigh the drawbacks and that by lowering the price of home computers (via government subsidies or market forces, or both), the goal could be accomplished at affordable cost. Warning that information "haves" (those with access to and knowledge of computers) are leaving the "have-nots" far behind, the report recommends an activist government role in finding creative ways to make home computers cheaper as well as in providing low-cost access to E-mail ("like having a pay phone on every corner") in libraries, community centers and other public venues.
Standards and the National Information Infrastructure: Implications for Open Systems Standards in Manufacturing, Caroline S. Wagner, C.F. Cargill, Anna Slomovic, RAND/P-7882, 1994, 22 pp., ISBN: 0-8330-2257-1, $5.00.
Government planners anticipate large efficiency gains for manufacturers from a national information infrastructure predicated upon standards of interoperability and the open exchange of product data. Unfortunately, the framework that might support such a system is nearly nonexistent, in large part because current voluntary standards are set by vendors who have little interest in creating open-system standards. After many years of watching in frustration from the sidelines, users themselves have begun a quiet revolution in standards-setting by establishing cooperative groups to define open computing standards independent of the constraints of available technology. This cooperative, user-based activity may serve as a model for supporting the development of national standards.
Future Technology-Driven Revolutions in Military Operations: Results of a Workshop, Richard O. Hundley, Eugene C. Gritton, RAND/DB-110-ARPA, 1994, 105 pp., ISBN: 0-8330-2229-6, $6.00.
Future breakthroughs in military technology will bestow an advantage on the first nation to apply them. But which technologies show enough promise to warrant greater U.S. defense research-and-development investment at this time? RAND hosted two workshops to address this question. Five promising program areas were identified: (1) development of insect-size flying and crawling systems capable of a wide variety of battlefield sensor missions; (2) use of techniques from molecular biology and biotechnology to develop new molecular electronic materials, components and computational architectures; (3) use of modern microelectronic and information technologies as the basis for a new advanced-technology logistic system; (4) development of techniques and strategies to protect U.S. interests in "cyberspace"; and (5) use of a variety of technologies to enhance the survivability, mobility and mission performance of individual soldiers.
Information Technologies and the Future of Land
Warfare, Brian Nichiporuk, Carl H. Builder, RAND/MR-560-A,
forthcoming, 97 pp., ISBN 0-8330-2316-0, $15.00.
How may fast-growing communications and computational capabilities affect the nature of conflicts, the Army's missions, the way it organizes, and especially its concepts of operation? This report, based on a RAND workshop sponsored by TRADOC, the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, seeks to count the ways. Workshop participants were asked to look beyond the technological wizardry of information warfare and speculate about some of the broader implications of the information revolution.
They sketched six concepts for Army organization and operations that might become feasible in the not-too-distant future:
The report concludes with the workshop observation that information technologies may be shifting many of America's national security problems out of the current defense planning paradigm--one that has long emphasized the ability to fight and win large conventional wars that take place over clear issues of sovereignty and in which the enemy is an established nation-state.
Telecommunications Infrastructure Competition: The Costs of Delay, Walter S. Baer, RAND/DRU-896-EAC/CIRA, 1994, 25 pp., free.
Many countries have already opened to competition their markets for telecommunications services and telecommunications infrastructure facilities. This report examines the experience of the United States, the United Kingdom, and other industrialized countries that introduced infrastructure competition, principally for long-distance telephone service, during the 1980s. The results show that competition generally has brought lower prices, a greater variety of service, faster innovation, higher usage, and productivity gains. Until recently, it was not evident that these economic benefits from competition outweighed the highly visible costs and disruptions to established organizations and relationships. Today, however, the evidence is more convincing, and countries can learn from the pioneers' experience how to reduce the uncertainties and costs resulting from the transition. Further delays in introducing competition reduce the benefits to telecommunications users and make them, as well as the monopoly suppliers, less competitive internationally. Perhaps the greatest cost of delay is growing isolation, for both monopoly carriers and their customers, from the dynamic innovations occurring in other competitive telecommunications markets.
Seizing the Moment: Harnessing the Information Technologies, Steve Bankes, Carl Builder, RAND/N-3336-RC, 1992, 83 pp., $7.50.
The information revolution has already altered the world in myriad ways, but its consequences for good and ill will spread as technology matures. Understanding these possible effects will be key to surviving and even prospering in the new era. This report attempts to define the information revolution and explores its impact on the hierarchies that govern our daily lives, conjecturing that while some institutions may wither and die others may adapt and flourish by exploiting new opportunities for improved coordination and responsiveness. The authors imagine several ways in which the information revolution could transform our economic, political, military, and cultural institutions and suggest research strategies to help in the complex choices that lie ahead.
Cyberocracy, Cyberspace, and Cyberology: Political Effects of the Information Revolution, David F. Ronfeldt, RAND/P-7745, 1991, 78 pp., $7.50.
The author considers how the revolution in information and communications technologies may affect the future of politics and government. He also speculates that the modern bureaucratic state may give way to the "cybercratic state"--one where information is a key organizing principle--sometime early in the 21st century and recommends the creation of a new field of study around that concept.