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January 08, 2003
Government XML
The feds have a web site that documents their efforts in XML. There's also one for federal efforts on the web services front. The site has an agenda for the meeting that I'll be speaking at.
As long as we're on the subject, Wisconsin's Office of eGovernment has created a standard for their XML and SOAP initiative. I wonder what's going to happen to that with the incoming Governor saying he plans to abolish the office. Its been under attack for some time. Rebecca Heidepriem, the CIO, resigned effective yesterday. I may soon need to link to the Google cache since I'd bet abolishing the office also means taking down the server, dispersing the employees, and sowing the fields with salt.
08:41 PM | Recommend This | Print This
UETA and Digital Signatures
Many people have never heard of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, or UETA. Even so, if you engage in any kind of transaction on the Internet, even non-commercial ones like downloading open source software, it has affected you.
UETA itself is not a law, but rather a model law that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed for states to use. As of December 2002, 41 states have adopted UETA, some with changes.
So, what is UETA? A uniform statute relating to the use of electronic communications and records in contractual transactions. Here are some important definitions from the statute:
- Electronic Signature: "Means an electronic sound, symbol. or process attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record."
- Effect of Electronic Signature: A "signature may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form."
"If a law requires a signature, an electronic signature satisfies the law." - Electronic Record: "Means a record created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means."
- Effect of Electronic Record: A record "may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form."
"If a law requires a record to be in writing, an electronic record satisfies the law."
"A contract may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because an electronic record was used in its formation."
The result is that everytime you click on an "agree" button on a web site, that act is deemed to have the same effect and be as enforcable as you signing your name at the bottom of a contract.
Most of us take our signature quite seriously. At some point in your life you probably practiced writing it so that it looked the way you wanted it to. We hold digital signatures produced by digital certificates in a similar light. Validated certificates are difficult to get and so we feel some kind of weightiness in their use. We probably don't feel the same about clicking a button on a web form or checking a box. It just doesn't seem weighty enough and yet it has the same effect. In essence UETA has moved the signature from a unique artifact to any event (in the GUI sense) in a specific context.
I think this has significant ramifications in the world of digital identity. I think most geeks have always assumed (or at least hoped) that digital signatures would be somehow tied to some safe, secure repository of properties forming a digital identity. This law says that such is not the case.
This is a perfect example, I think, of state legislatures not waiting around for us to get the technology right or for some grand solution. They're going to go ahead and make laws affecting identity and we will be forced to follow along. If we want something different to happen, we need to do a better job of lobbying the 4800 or so people who make these decisions. Its not an easy task, but the alternative is not pleasant.
07:19 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Product Management Council
Dave has laid out his goals for Utah's product management council, the organization that is responsible for the business side of eGovernment. I'm excited to see that Dave isn't sitting around waiting for something to happen. Rather he's driving the change. I know there are some that are waiting to see what the new CIO will do; I think Val is more likely to be impressed by someone doing something than someone waiting for instructions. I like, in particular, that many of Dave's goals are quantifiable (e.g. create 75 new eGovernment services). Alas, he doesn't have the authority to tie rewards to people's performance.
02:38 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Public Service Tip No. 3: Remember that You're Expendable
This is part three in an ongoing series of tips for those entering public service.
Sometime after my resignation I was talking to someone who had
considerable experience working with government at various levels.
Before I'd said much at all about the circumstances that led to my
resignation, he looked at me and said "Usually its the Chief of
Staff." I asked what he was talking about and he replied that
usually when the Governor needs to take an unpopular stand that he
can't afford to take the heat on, the chief of staff takes the fall.
The chief of staff is expendable, but the Governor is not.
I think this is good advice for anyone from the private sector contemplating public service. If you're on the Governor's staff there may be times when you're called on to take the heat for something and you need to understand that doing so is part of the job. A Governor's office is usually juggling hundreds of competing issues and priorities at any given time. The Governor usually doesn't have the luxury of ignoring any of them. Managing these issues, making good and proper decisions, and then finding a strategy to bring them about almost always involves tradeoffs and compromises. At times, you may have to fall on your sword to make these tradeoffs happen and that's part of the job as well.
One of the most important lessons to be learned by anyone contemplating a stint in public service is that everything is political. Coming from an academic background, I was not unfamiliar with petty politics; someone once said, politics is worst where it matters least and that certainly applies to university politics. Public service, however, is a whole new ballgame.
You may fall on your sword for something that has nothing to do with your program or priorities; this is call "collateral damage." Collateral damage often occurs when two politicians or groups of politicians start to battle for public opinion in the press. In this situation, you can easily find yourself caught in the political crossfire and used by one side or the other as a pawn or hostage in the battle.
In Utah, for example, the Legislature and the Governor have been having a year long battle over the budget, water, education, and just about everything else. Governor Leavitt, wisely, has refused to tell anyone whether or not he'll run for a fourth term in 2004. There are more than a few legislators who would like to be Governor and don't feel like waiting until 2008. Since they're all Repulicans, if the Governor runs again they're going to have to challenge a very popular incumbent (71% approval rating) in the primary. They figure they've got two years to soften him up and weaken his approval rating. Consequently, they challenge him at every turn and on almost any issue. Leavitt is smart and skillfully weilds the advantage of the Governor's office, however, and thus usually ends up riding in on a white horse, leaving the Legislature to a hobsons choice that frequently involves cutting a popular program or raising taxes.
As a result of this game of one upmanship, the Utah Legislature has started to poke the Governor in the eye anywhere else they can---regardless of the consequences. One of Leavitt's judicial nominee's was recently mauled by the Senate over nothing more than the fact that they were feeling frisky and wanted to show the Governor they were boss. In ten years, they've never done anything but pro forma approve judicial nominees. I've heard what happened this time described as "obscene" by some pretty seasoned politicos. This man, who has wanted to be a judge all his life, now will never be. Collateral damage.
I have no doubt that the currect "uproar" in the legislature over hiring in IT and the audits that resulted from it were part of this game. The legislature has no IT agenda and they really didn't care to understand what was going on (I tried to talk to them on dozens of occasions). Understanding the facts would have only made the job of taking jabs at the Governor more difficult. They had an agenda that had nothing to do with IT or hiring and they carried out. I was a convenient target. Collateral damage.
As CIO, I understood fully that I was expendable. This isn't a lesson I had to learn. I always considered myself part of the Governor's staff and was happy to serve him in whatever way I could. I believe that Mike Leavitt is perhaps the most capable public executive in the US today, at any level. I was and still am very loyal to the man and if my actions helped advance his program, in or out of IT, then I'm satisfied I did what was required of me and I happy to have done it.
11:06 AM | Recommend This | Print This
I Want Tabs
I downloaded Safari, Apple's new borwser last night. Its fast and well integrated. I think its kind of gutsy for Apple to launch a browser, but MS has one and I think there's a good case to be made that tight integration with the OS is a nice feature for a browser (even though I'm a Mozilla user). I used it for a while and it seemed to work fine, even though its beta. I have just one complaint that, for now, is a show stopper.
I want tabs. If you're a an IE user, you don't know what I'm talking about. Mozilla (and Netscape, I presume) allows you to open new URLs as tabs inside a single frame. This is a great way to manage desktop clutter. I frequently get 10-15 windows of various sorts open and tabs help me keep my workspace tidy.
I like tabs so much, that I started using a teminal application called iTerm because it supports tabs. When I'm writing code, I usually want three or four terminal windows open to different directories and iTerm lets me tab them inside a single frame. Nice.
10:25 AM | Recommend This | Print This
A Must Have for OS X
The first thing anyone who is a heavy Emacs user does when they get a new computer is figure out how to map CapsLock to Control. The alternative is severe pain in the hand from constantly having your pinky bent under your palm trying to reach the Control key. Just thinking about C-q makes my hand hurt. I'd hadn't been able to find an acceptable mapper for OS X until today.
I found out about a little tool called uControl this morning and loaded it up. The installation is easy and the integration with the OS X preference system is seamless. It just shows up in the System Preferences and works. Make sure you remember to "Add" your mapping after clicking the check boxes to create it. I couldn't get it to work for a minute and that was the problem. The little CapsLock light still toggles, but I fired up Emacs and the mapping worked like a charm. I tried it with an external USB keyboard as well as the bult-in keyboard and it worked just fine.
This is another example of OS X being a Unix that just about anyone could use. If you've done keymapping in X, you know what a joy it can be--I have to dig into the manual page every time and relearn it. This morning's exercise couldn't have been simpler.