will suggest a bit later that removing any ambiguity in this assessment, as a point of law, is a necessary ingredient for the evolution of computer systems in general and personal electronic devices specifically if they’re to have any chance at all of enabling a strong trust infrastructure on behalf of the computer owner and bearer.

At the seminal point of trust establishment for extended social systems in general and for widespread computer networks specifically, a variety of players have now entered the game. Not least among these are the various governmental entities that have been charged with establishing identity systems of varying extent and purpose; state driver license bureaus and the U.S. Department of Commerce are specifically driving standardization efforts aimed at establishing trusted identity mechanisms. The impetus for such activities is the increase in attacks on the benefits derived from social ecosystems; attacks that are enabled by deficiencies in our computer systems through which the fabric of our society is extended into cyberspace. Identity theft is proving an ever increasing threat to our species across the full range of the needs hierarchy. Financial facilities such as checking accounts or credit card accounts are being improperly impacted because establishing the true identity of the account holders requires mechanisms found readily in our personal cognitive capabilities but lacking in our computer systems. Attempts are being made to address these deficiencies on a piecemeal basis. An example is the formation of Internet-oriented industrial groups, perhaps best exemplified by the Liberty Alliance Project, that are seeking to establish operational standards for personal identification within the Web.

Concerns about the trust ascribed to software vendors and operators have recently become significant issues in other areas as well. The Web search engine portal Google.com provides general broker connectivity between consumers and providers of content based on search engine value. However, Clive Thompson of the New York Times reported on April 23, 2006 that Google had entered into agreements with the Chinese government to limit certain service offerings and to restrict the return of certain search results that were deemed sensitive within the People’s Republic of China. The end result is that answers to search queries from Google.com would now appear to be location dependent; one could see certain information from some parts of the world but perhaps not from others. This certainly represents a perturbation in the level of trust that one can derive from this particular service. Similar restrictions are under consideration within the United States and other countries, with an impetus driven by financial considerations. The issue is termed net neutrality.

At the present time, the most general business model of Internet access evokes payment for speed and volume of access to the network proper but not for the specifics of traffic generated or used. The end users that constitute the bulk of consumers of Web services will typically connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) through dialup telephone lines, Digital Subscriber Loop (DSL) lines or cable television connections. The transmission speeds provided by these various channel mechanisms range from thousands of bits per second up to millions of bits per second, and volumes reach billions of bits. Web portals and services might use connections which provide yet higher channel speeds and volumes. However, the price of these connection channels is not currently geared to the content generated or consumed. Whether the connected system is continuously blasting bits into the Internet, or whether it is sending vast quantities of bits in spurts and idling the rest of the time, is immaterial to the cost structure of the channel. It becomes then something of a balancing act on the part of the channel providers to support a market priced purely on connectivity and yet provide adequate total capacity when the traffic (total number of bits circulating the network) might vary by orders of magnitude. So, ostensibly in an effort to provide a more equitable cost structure among different users, the providers of network infrastructure have sought a change, effected through legal means, in the pricing model for

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