Government Technology - November 2007 - (Page 10)

WAYBACK Government Technology’s MACHINE Revisiting 20 years of Government Technology magazine. Americans. Passage of the Telecommunications Act represented the first significant upgrade of the nation’s telecom infrastructure in more than 60 years. The act was explained to the public largely through the much-hyped V-chip technology. Part of the act established a voluntary ratings system for broadcast programming. The V-chip enables program blocking based on this system. But most people didn’t realize the act set fairly rigid standards for telecom expansion. For example, the thousands of cell towers dotting the landscape today — and the associated growth of cell phone usage — stem from this act. Many also blame the act for the shoddy state of broadband access in the U.S. today. Due to restrictions placed on “telecommunications service” providers and the comparative lack of regulation on “information service” providers, these murky definitions spawned heated debates, on issues such as network neutrality and Internet service provider monopolies. 1 By 1996, government’s embrace of the Internet and the Web, in particular, shifted into high gear. By February, we were running stories examining which agencies provided what services online — and the inequality of Internet accessibility for the general public. In that same issue, we also featured an in-depth look at growing concerns regarding Internet security. Our cover story focused on security breaches in Netscape and the now-too-familiar problems with Internet-enabled Windows. 1996 Whether they know it or not, 1996 was pivotal for all From 1995 through 1997, Government Technology experimented with readers by attempting to inject some levity — humor, even — into the magazine with a back page section we called the De-Engineering Department. Though quietly killed off by 1998, a subsequent effort to get you to crack a smile would get under way in 2007 with The Last Mile, a column written by yours truly. So far, results are mixed. 2 WAY BACK FACT In the later half of the 1990s, people grew increasingly concerned that the year 2000 would spell doom for the world’s computers. This was, of course, due to the problems that would supposedly result from the infamous Y2K bug. Because most computer systems recorded dates as two digits instead of four, it was thought that in 2000, many systems would understand that year to be 1900. The end result of Y2K was negligible. People are still unsure whether the multiyear effort to correct the problem saved the day or if the problem never really existed in the ﬁrst place. BY CHAD VANDER VEEN | TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS EDITOR 3 In the June 1996 issue, we ran three stories that featured up-and-coming technologies we treat as commonplace just 11 years later — data warehousing, electronic beneﬁts transfer and electronic commerce. Can you imagine a world where Amazon, PayPal, eBay and online banking don’t exist? Yet just over a decade ago, people were desperately trying to imagine a world in which they did. 10

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - November 2007

Government Technology - November 2007 Contents Point of View Way Back Machine The Last Mile GT Spectrum Big Picture Building Better Government Up Close Inspector Gadget By the Numbers Money Talking No Greenwashing Pinching Pennies Bay Bridge Bustle Two Cents Products Signal: Noise

Government Technology - November 2007

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