How Not to Solve a Problem

Clearing out some old newspapers a couple of days ago, I came across a highly annoying piece by one Stephen Heppell.

Professor Heppell, it seems, has become irritated by technologists who “lock down” computer systems (that is, give controlled or limited access to technology, Web sites and so forth in classes and other workplaces).

He describes this as a new “Digital Divide” between “those children for whom the whole power of new technology is locked down (ie offer limited access to web content and functions) so utterly, that they are left helplessly watching their computer screens while others are forging ahead unfettered and unrestricted. It’s a crisis”. Later on he speaks of “this scandal” and the situation being “frightening” and “damaging”.

Now, I can see that he has a point – at least inasmuch as he highlights how difficult it is to set the right balance control and access, or in other terms between security and freedom. It is true that sometimes the desire to manage assets, protect the vulnerable young and to control support costs can result in an over-controlling environment.

This, for some, can be a real problem. How can teachers teach if they can’t access educational resources? How can children learn and analyse if the materials are hidden? And perhaps more subtly, if children grow overly-used to over-protected walled gardens, how do they learn to discriminate and to identify real threats for themselves?

These are real issues. However, there are also many arguments to be put on the part of the technologists and systems managers who set up these systems. Imagine how a technician would feel if, as a result of a slipshod approach to safety, a child was put at risk? And what would her managers, or the pres say about it? Often support teams, the unglamorous backroom people, are under significant cost pressure, with too few people and too little time to set up flexible controls. In such a context it is often easier to define simple control rules than it is to be more sophisticated and granular.

The challenges set by the various hacker communities are nontrivial – even the best security software works by generalised rules. In a complex environment, with limited time, it is rare that these can be adjusted perfectly to the specific needs of a community.

The main day-to-day computer costs in any organisation are not in the purchase price of the kit, but they reside exactly in this specialised support - in the time of hard-pressed technicians, whether internal or outsourced. So when Heppell writes that laptops are as cheap as “three or four tankfulls of petrol” he has strayed somewhat from the point.
However, the real problem with the Professor’s piece is not that it begins to air the problem, but that it is so one-sided, and argued so intemperately.

At no point does he recognise the challenges that technical specialists face, nor does he attempt to understand the pressures created by a relatively ignorant media. Instead he uses similarly inflammatory media techniques himself. Rather than engage constructively, he chooses to shout that they are wrong and he and other teachers must be right.

The piece in question is so one-sided that - if any one reads it - it will end up polarising debate, and prevent a proper balanced dialogue. He is grandstanding to other teachers, while potentially alienating the very people he ought to be trying to work with to find an answer.

That is, if they don’t just ignore him. He is undermined by his own hyperbole. For him, at least as he argues in this piece, all Web access is good – there is no risk or downside. His language is extreme, and his examples weak and unsystematic.

Whatever Heppell says, this isn’t a scandal. It isn’t something that should “obviously” be changed by policy. It’s a real-world challenge which arises when complex, evolving technologies and different communities of practice (in this case teachers and security technologists) come together. It needs a spirit of partnership working rather than a rant.

As a start, he could try to understand the real limitations of today’s computer security technologies, the nature of the perceived risks, and the challenges faced by those who work to counter those risks.

Perhaps then he wouldn’t give so much stick to people who, at the end of the day, are trying to deliver a service to him and his colleagues.

There is a lot more I could write on this, but I’ll end up ranting just as much as the good Professor (who I am sure is a nice enough chap really).

Plus, it isn’t about trees. Or Nunhead. Sorry.