Rick’s Short Circuit: Be very afraid of cyber warfare, don’t be afraid of innovation

In the Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz expresses concern that the Obama administration doesn’t want the military monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic. He writes, “If cyber war is a new form of war, wouldn’t most Americans adjust their expectations of reasonable privacy to permit the Pentagon to intrude to some degree on their communications, if this is necessary to prevent great harm and if rules protecting anonymity can be established?”

The Journal also notes that the Justice Department has extended its investigation into Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Reports the Journal, “Daniel Wall, an attorney who represents Oracle, said in the statement that ‘one narrow issue’ about how the rights to Sun’s widely used Java technology are licensed remains.”

We now turn to Siliconvalley.com to get the scoop on innovation in Boston. Writes Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien, “Only by total coincidence did I happen to find myself in the Boston area last week during what had been officially/unofficially dubbed ‘Innovation Month,” adding, “…a few weeks ago, Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner declared that June would be ‘Innovation Month in New England.’ And what could have been a gimmick instead seems to have galvanized folks to celebrate what the region has going for it and engage in some straight talk about what could be better.”

What are the region’s assets? According to O’Brien, Harvard Business School, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and a life sciences scene that outshines the valley’s. What could be better? He says Boston lacks the valley’s startup culture, noting that Greylock Partners in May said it is moving its headquarters to the valley.

The New York Times writes about an upside for Boston: “The almost moribund market for technology initial public offerings might make a comeback if Woburn, Mass.-based software maker LogMeIn has a successful debut on the public market. The company is looking to raise $107.2 million, and the deal will be priced this coming Tuesday,” June 30.

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In “Rick’s Short Circuit,” I tour general-interest Web sites looking for technology news to summarize for you so you can spend more time visiting www.edn.com and www.tmworld.com or following me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Rick_editor.

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From Friday’s EDN newsletters:

EDN Electronic News Today: The emergence of machine intelligence; Apple, Intel up stakes in Imagination Technologies; more…

EDN Innovators: Application engineers: serving the customer; improving on PCB design; more…

EDN Design Ideas: Create a swept-sine function in LabView with just one virtual instrument; Charlieplexing at high duty cycle; more…