DEMOCRATIZING TECHNOLOGY

NO HOLDS BARRED (042) November 23, 2009
By Ike Señeres

DEMOCRATIZING TECHNOLOGY

From God comes our intelligence, and from our intelligence comes the technologies that are meant to benefit mankind in general, up until the concept of private property came along. At that point, the concept of intellectual property rights (IPR) was also born, and so the technologies that came out of human intelligence entered the private domain, made available only to those who could afford to buy the products derived from them.

I first entered the realm of science policy when I became a Foreign Service Officer (FSO), at the time when Development Diplomacy was considered an important thrust of the foreign relations process. I started with Science & Technology (S&T) policy, but I eventually got involved with Information & Communications Technology (ICT) policy, because at that time, ICT policy was still considered to be a subset of S&T policy.

In the practice of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), officers assigned to do substantive work are not assigned administrative work, and vice versa. Due to another practice that only officers could handle sensitive positions, duty prevailed upon me to head the communications and computer services unit of the DFA, an administrative assignment that was on top of my substantive work in S&T policy and ICT policy.

Given the nature of Development Diplomacy, my superiors at the DFA trained me to always look for technologies from abroad that would serve the interests of our country. Every officer of the DFA will tell you that the purpose of the Department is to pursue and protect the national interest, and indeed, it was in the best interest of the nation to acquire the technologies that would solve our national interests.

My experience at the DFA prepared me for my later assignment as the Director General of the National Computer Center (NCC). The work of the NCC is both substantive and administrative in nature, a balanced blend of ICT policy work and ICT service provider work. It was at NCC where I saw the need to democratize technology, so that more people could take advantage of technologies, both the rich and poor people alike.

Many years after my stint at the NCC, I am still challenged by the cause of democratizing technology. This is the challenge that inspired me to write about soliciting and reformatting old computers for distribution to the barangay level, an idea that gave birth to the organization of Our Barangay, Inc. OBI is now a very active advocacy group led by my friend Ms. Elsa Bayani, aiming to connect all the 42,008 barangay units to the internet.

Thanks to another friend Dr. Benji Teodosio, I had the opportunity to meet several leaders from the indigenous tribes and from the rural settlements of former armed rebels. To my pleasant surprise, all of them had a longing to gain access to technologies that could possibly improve the quality of life of their communities, by way of improving their livelihood on one hand, and their productivity on the other hand.

While most of us are fascinated by the new high tech gadgets that come our way through a steady stream of advertising and promotions, these leaders only needed a means of being able to communicate with each other using any affordable means, and to be able to reach out to the rest of the world to sell their products, using these same means.

As agreed with these leaders, I am now going to introduce them to OBI, so that they could get their share of the reformatted computers for their trading offices and cooperative stores. On top of that, I am going to build a system for them that would enable them to submit production data to a central server, using ordinary cell phones as data input devices.

As they told me about their need for farm-to-market roads, I suggested to them the idea of using asphalt that is produced as a by-product of the process of recycling used engine oils. Using their own local community labor, they would now be able to build their own roads without relying on anyone else. As an added advantage, they could also make asphalt shingles for roofing.

We discussed many other technologies that they could use, but I have no more space to write about it. The point is, we were able to prove to each other that there is always a technological solution to each economic problem, and the use of these solutions would make life better for them.

Watch my business show 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

MONEY GROWS ON TREES

NO HOLDS BARRED (041) November 17, 2009
By Ike Señeres

MONEY GROWS ON TREES

Joyce Kilmer probably never imagined it, but if she is alive today, she might say that trees are even lovelier now, because money can now grow on trees, literally that is. And the wonderful thing is, money grows on trees nowadays not just once, but thrice and I do not mean that in a figurative sense.

Congressman Rodolfo “Ompong” Plaza of Agusan Del Sur is not only a lawmaker, he is also a money maker even as he sleeps, and that is because he has planted thousands of trees in his orchards, trees that are growing in value every day even as he sleeps.

Mr. Joseph Reynolds is not only a trader of goods, he is also a planter of trees and that is precisely where he gets his goods to trade, from the forests that he has revived out of denuded mountains. Just like Congressman Plaza, he too makes money even as he sleeps, from the trees that he has planted.

Both Plaza and Reynolds have probably made their own computations as to how much money they would make from their trees, but perhaps it was only later on when they realized that they could make money from these trees not just once, but thrice.

The debt-for-nature (DFN) swap is a scheme that is not new. It has been around many years. What is new is the new found realization that it is a scheme that we should have adopted many years ago as a means to pay for our national debt, instead of allocating more than a third of our budget for our national debt service.

The clean development mechanism (CDM) is relatively new, but what is even newer now is our realization that it is a real means of making money, by simply growing tress that could be used as a basis for claiming carbon credits that would convert into real money, aside from the money made from the income from the trees and from the DFN scheme.

Making money is already very good, but saving money on top of that is even better. What is even better than that is to save human lives that could not be valued in money terms. During the last floods, we realized that people would not only die in the floods, more would even die because of the diseases that came about because of the floods. This is just an example, because there are many other environmental problems that are killing people everyday.

It is already a known scientific fact that trees improve the water holding properties of soil in the mountains and in the lowlands. On the other hand, it does not require much science to plant trees, and it does not cost that much money either. Money should not even be a problem, because the carbon credits scheme would actually enable local governments and private companies to earn back whatever money they would invest in planting trees, plus more profits to earn.

If planting trees could enable our country to make money and create new value added, why are we not doing it aggressively? Since obviously the government is not in a position to lead the nation in this undertaking, could it at least provide the policy frameworks and the incentive packages? Obviously as well, it is going to be the private sector that could lead in the tree planting business, but it would certainly need the incentives that only the government could give.

To be precise, it is not only trees that could qualify for both DFN and CDM rewards. Looking at the overall picture however, planting trees should be part of an overall strategy to deploy a mix of solutions all of which could enable our country to engage in climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR).

Aside from the value of money, agro-forestry has the potential of addressing not only our food security but also our human security as well, in terms of reducing the natural hazards in and around our communities. Are we going to wait for mass hunger and more disasters to happen before we act?

On a related issue, I think that tree planting presents a good opportunity for our indigenous peoples to earn from the function of guarding our natural forest preserves, whatever is still remaining. On top of that, they could of course earn from the rewards of both DFN and CDM. By and large, they could possibly earn more from agro-forestry compared to mining activities.

Watch my business show 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

BARANGAY COMPUTERIZATION

NO HOLDS BARRED (040) November 12, 2009
By Ike Señeres

BARANGAY COMPUTERIZATION

I had the opportunity to submit a proposal to the Rotary Clubs, in connection with a plan to computerize the barangay units using computers that will be solicited by Our Barangay, Inc. (OBI). As this happened, there were many questions posted on the Yahoo groups of OBI. Please allow me to share some of my thoughts about barangay computerization, in the hope that I could answer some of the questions in the postings.

On the question of previous failures, I think the probable cause is the lack of convergence of the three elements of computerization, namely the infrastructure, the manpower and the content. These three should really converge and compliment each other; otherwise the computer systems will die. I have seen this happen many times in many systems.

As I understand it, Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS) has taken on the task of providing internet connections to the public schools. That is a specific task by itself, but it is different from the task of OBI. When and where the two could work together and help each other, we should make it happen. This could be true in the case of local manpower, to maintain the systems on the ground. We could be very strong in this regard, whereas GILAS could be strong in connectivity and we might need their help in that regard.

As I recall, the idea for this came about after we discovered the assets of used computers that could be reformatted and upgraded for barangay use. This our starting point, and I think that we should start from this point. In my proposal, I mentioned the use of used container vans, and we should look at this as another asset that we could tap, to complement our first asset.

Database management is a boring and rigorous task. As other organizations focus on social and political work, they may not be able to sustain their interest in doing technical work. As of now, I have already organized a resource base of technical people who could support OBI at the national and local levels, but these people are not inclined towards social and political concerns.

As mentioned in the postings, GILAS is GLOBE and that is true. It would be good if GLOBE could provide discounted if not free bandwidth to OBI, but if that is not possible, the best approach is to allow the local people to look for the best available local source of bandwidth that could give them the best price at the fastest speed.

As it is generally understood, computerization is practically synonymous with modernization. As we computerize the barangay units, we are giving them the means to modernize the delivery of public services to their own residents. That is a task that they have to do on their own, we will just be giving them the tools to make it happen.

On the question of sustainability, I think that the key to this is to have non-government organizations (NGO) at the barangay level that could partner with OBI in sustaining the computerization project on the ground level. I am using NGO in a general sense, because this could also mean civic groups. This is the reason why I sent a proposal to the Rotary Clubs, in the hope that local clubs could adopt local barangay units by going into MOAs with OBI.

On the question of manpower, I think that it would be best to place the technical volunteers under the guidance and support of our local NGO partners. Although they are volunteers, they will have expenses and it would not be fair if they have to spend using their own funds.

On the question of content, I think that we could give them software templates as they need it, but we should really leave it up to the local people to determine and decide the content that they need at their own level. Hopefully, they could contribute to the gathering of data needed to properly measure our national compliance with the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Anyone who is a user of Linux and other free software is welcome to join this project. Why are we giving away computers to the barangay units? As the mountaineers would tell you, they climb mountains “because it’s there”. This is the same the same reason we have in giving used computers. Besides, it’s such a big waste to not use these at all.

Watch my business show 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

BARANGAY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

PROJECT BRIEF FOR THE ROTARY CLUBS
BARANGAY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM
(BARCOMS)

OBJECTIVE

To provide the people at the barangay level with a database and communications system that will improve the delivery of public services to them, thereby improving the quality of life at their level

BACKGROUND

Among the 42,000 barangay units in the Philippines, very few have their own database and communications systems. This is largely due to the fact that they do not have the means to bring together the components that would make this happen, namely the infrastructure, the manpower and the content

Generally speaking, it is the cost of the infrastructure that prohibits the barangay units from putting up their systems. Based on experience, it is relatively easier to bring in the manpower and the content components once the infrastructure component is in place

Due to the fast evolution of computer technology, many hardware and software products quickly become obsolete in commercial terms, even if these are still functionally useful in technical terms. More often than not, these products are just stored or discarded for good

The Pentium series of personal computers (PCs) is a good example of this quick obsolescence. Many of these computers are no longer in use, but these could still be put to good use at the barangay level by simply upgrading their operating software and installing new applications software. This is the same story in the case of other computer brands or make

HARDWARE STRATEGY

Used computers of any brand or make will be reformatted and equipped with new Linux operating software. Machines with existing Windows or Mac operating software that are still functional will just be reformatted and repaired, retaining the existing systems

SOFTWARE STRATEGY

The project will install new applications software in the reformatted and repaired computers. Existing software applications in these computers such as Microsoft Office will be retained if their licenses are still current. Otherwise, new software that is freely available such as Open Office and Ubuntu will be installed

Aside from Office software, the project will also install database software in the machines, enhanced by communications software. For example, the project will install a Geographic Information System (GIS) database, enhanced by a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a Short Messaging System (SMS)

The GIS-GPS-SMS combination will be partly useful in enabling the people at the barangay level to have a basic tool for environmental monitoring, for purposes of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). However, they will also be given the option to avail of advanced tools such as the Instant Warning Alert System (IWAS), an SMS based compact weather station (CWS) that costs only 30,000 pesos

POWER STRATEGY

The project will proceed on the assumption that most of the barangay areas already have available electricity. In the other areas that could not be reached by existing power grids, the people at the barangay level will be taught how to use solar energy and how to fabricate power generators using old automobile engines

It should be noted that in many areas where coconut oil is readily available, it would be affordable to use the homegrown oil as 100% fuel, or as a partial additive to a bio-diesel mix. Hopefully, the project will create a new opportunity for coconut farmers to not only sell a new higher value product, it will also create a new market for them both locally and globally

Aside from the solar and the generator options, the people at the barangay level could also utilize other energy sources such as biogas from methane sources. This will have the added advantage of cleaning the environment and availing of the global carbon credits scheme

VIDEO STRATEGY

By using web browsers, the people at the barangay level will have access to video archives such as You Tube. Aside from that, they will also gain access to other sites that fall under the category of Internet Protocol television (IPTV)

In areas where free to air television (FATV) and cable access television (CATV) are not available, the people at the barangay level could be given television access via satellite, using affordable service providers such as G-SAT, a company offering an initial set-up fee of only 7,500 pesos. The G-SAT service is available nationwide

For as long as solar and other alternative sources of energy are available, it would also be possible to play informative video content in Digital Video Disk (DVD) and Video Compact Disk (VCD) players. A company affiliated with the Foto-Me Group of Companies is now offering a service called Solar Powered Onsite Television (SPOT)

As an additional option, informative video content could also be played using Compact Flash (CF) cards and Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash cards. This technology is already being used to deliver video content in malls and commercial buildings

DATABASE CONTENT

As the smallest unit of governance in the Philippines, the barangay units should be the primary source of original and actual data that should eventually be compiled with, and integrated into the national databases. Examples of these are barangay data for national use in reporting compliance with our Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Human Development Index (HDI) commitments

MDG and HDI data are just examples, because there are other data sets that should be developed and gathered, such as the data needed for reporting compliance with Agenda 21, the sustainable development agenda of the Philippines and the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP). Depending on the needs of the local barangay units, they could actually design and implement their own databases

ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT

Our Barangay, Inc. (OBI) is a newly formed non-stock, non-profit non-government organization (NGO) under the leadership of Ms. Elsa Bayani, for the purpose of supporting the barangay computerization project. It was born out of an online discussion group hosted by Ms. Bayani

OBI has already started soliciting used computers from the United States and other countries for the purpose of supporting the project. Ms. Bayani has also perfected a prototype bio-powered generator, built from a used automobile engine

Teleforce Communications is a private business owned by Mr. Ike Seneres. It is engaged in the business of information and communications. As its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, Teleforce will partner with OBI in supporting the barangay computerization project

Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) is government owned and funded training institution. For many years now, DAP has led the advocacy for using freeware in governance applications. The University of the Philippines Linux Users Group (UNPLUG) is an organization of Linux users, also associated with the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG). DAP, UNPLUG and PLUG will provide the training support for the project

ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM

As agreed with OBI, the project will lease hardware and software to non-government organizations (NGOs) that are in direct partnership with specific barangay councils as covered by Memoranda of Agreements (MOAs). In other words, OBI and its support partners will not be dealing directly with the barangay councils. This is a necessary arrangement, because OBI does not want to get involved in the local politics. Conversely, OBI will also avoid getting financial support from local politicians

The hardware and software will be leased to the NGOs for one peso a year. This is the legal strategy agreed upon with OBI, so that the project could retain legal ownership of these assets. This is a necessary requirement, so that OBI could continue to have leverage with the NGO beneficiaries. Based on actual experience, beneficiaries do not take good care of the assets, and it is difficult to prevail upon them without a means of leverage

BUILDING STRUCTURES

As an additional option, OBI could lease used container vans to the NGO beneficiaries, so that these could be used as temporary barangay halls where there are none. These vans will be remodeled and furnished before delivery, already retrofitted to have internet and satellite access. Since these vans are legally considered as motor vehicles, these could be financed under chattel mortgage terms, if not donated by private foundations and civic groups such as the Rotary Clubs

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

As an incentive to barangay based youth who will volunteer to build the local databases and who will maintain and manage the leased computers, they will be awarded scholarships for vocational and collegiate courses. They could enroll for free in partner schools that have already agreed to support the project, provided that they agree to join a direct selling program that will supply goods and services to the local barangay residents, in coordination with the University Consortium for Resource Networking (UNICORN)

As of now, the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA), Informatics and Datamex are the schools that have already signed up for this scholarship program, spearheaded by UNICORN.

PAYMENT SYSTEM

Electronic hand-held devices are now available in the market, appearing to be the new evolution of credit card magnetic card readers. These new devices are however wireless, and are using the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology instead of the old dial-up systems. Because of its unique design, these devices could also function as Point-of-Sale (POS) machines. Teleforce is distributing a variant of this device, branded as MINIPOS

On a case to case basis, the project could lease MINIPOS to barangay based small and medium enterprises (SMEs), so that these could accept credit card and debit card payments, sell electronic loads and basically function as a general payment service similar to “Bayad Center”

DEBIT CARDS

Various debit card products are now available in the market, providing an alternative to credit cards. Although these products have entered the market with low profiles, this trend actually represents a revolution of sorts in giving access to more people so that they could buy products and services online, even if they do not have credit cards

In cooperation with EZY Bonds of Australia, Teleforce is now poised to give away free debit cards to members of large NGOs in the Philippines, for distribution to their members. As an added advantage, these NGOs will earn incomes from transaction fees each time these cards are used by their members

The EZY debit cards are valid worldwide, and are accepted in all locations where Visa, Mastercard and American Express are also accepted. These cards also function as ATM machines, and could be used to withdraw from any local machine with a Bancnet, Megalink or Expressnet logo, or any foreign machine with a Plus or Cyrus logo

PREMYO SA RESIBO (PSR)

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has started selling Premyo sa Resibo (PSR) cards to promote their tax collection drive. All NGOs could now distribute these cards to their members, so that they could raise money for their fund raising projects, possibly to fund their barangay assistance projects. Teleforce could assist NGOs in acquiring special PSR cards that are branded with their own logos

BARANGAY SKILLS ASSESMENT

As a means of assisting barangay residents in looking for jobs, the JOB1 Company is now offering job assessment services for job applicants. Once the assessment is completed, the results will be posted in a website that is accessible to prospective employers. The JOB1 Card is now available for NGOs that want to distribute these cards for their members, also for fund raising purposes. This card could also be specially branded for the NGOs with their own logos

INSIDER HACKING

NO HOLDS BARRED (039) November 03, 2009
By Ike Señeres

INSIDER HACKING

It is not in my place to say that electronic cheating in the 2010 elections. What is in my place is to say that the system is vulnerable to cheating, if there are people with evil plans to cheat, in whatever way possible. For the record, COMELEC Chairman Jose Melo has already declared that the system is not hack-able. Technically speaking, he could be wrong, because all systems are potentially hack-able.

When I was head of the computer and communications office of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), I was visited by an American security expert who declared straight to my face that he could hack my systems if he wants to. At first, I felt insulted by what he said, but I eventually realized that he was correct.

The economics of hacking is very simple. All systems are potentially hack-able, but hackers will only challenge a system if it is worth hacking, either for bragging rights, or for financial gain. To the hackers, it is not worth spending time or money to hack a system if the value of the data to be obtained is lesser than what it would cost to crack it. The other factor is time, because it is not worth hacking a system if the data to be obtained is already stale or useless by the time the codes are cracked.

To their credit, many computer experts have told me that the threat in the coming election is really not hacking from the outside. The threat they say is hacking from the inside, which is actually an oxymoron technically speaking. By definition, hacking means any unauthorized manipulation of a system. This is the reason why hacking from the inside is an oxymoron, because if the manipulation is authorized by an insider, it could no longer be considered as hacking.

Referring now to an actual example, we could say that the storage of ballot boxes inside the House of Representatives is highly secure, meaning that it could not be broken into by outside elements. As we have seen it happen, the ballot boxes were stolen, probably because somebody from the outside had the keys to the padlocks. Either that or somebody from the storage room opened the locks from the inside. An inside job that was what happened.

In reality therefore, any locked door is secure, it could be opened by anyone who has the keys. Either that or the doors could be opened from the inside by anyone who could free the locksets, even without the keys. Given this reality, it would still be correct to say that Fort Knox could not be penetrated, not unless the locks are opened by the right keys from the outside, or are opened from the inside.

By definition, source codes are not the same as passwords. Anyone with the passwords could open or access computer systems, even if they do not have a copy of the source codes. Anyone who has a copy of the source codes however could open or access computer systems, because the passwords could be read or extracted from the source codes.

For some reason that is not too smart, the COMELEC has ruled that it is SMARTMATIC who will designate who should control or manage the Certification Authority (CA) of the election canvassing and transmission systems. In technical terms, a CA is the directory of passwords, and the users who are authorized to hold or keep the public and private keys. In effect, we now have a foreign entity that will have full control of a process that is at the heart of our national security.

While it is still being debated whether SMARTMATIC is in a position to give copies of the source codes to the COMELEC, it is already clear that the former has the power and authority from the latter to give the passwords and the keys to anyone, while there are no clear rules as to who should be given these codes and how these could be controlled or accounted for.

In real and practical terms, it is possible for anyone who has the passwords to submit fake election results to the main server that will consolidate and tabulate these results. Since the server is just like a robot, it will accept and record these results, and will have no way of knowing that these are faked. Once the genuine results will come in, the server will simply deny it, sensing the logic that the earlier fake transmission was already processed and was accepted. This is what is called a “denial of service” strategy. With the right passwords, it is also possible to bombard the server, in effect “flooding” it.

Watch my business show 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com