Operations Research Management Science - Cyberspace

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" link="cc0000" vlink="cc0000" text="#000000"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br>   <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=480><tr valign=top> <td width=10><img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 hspace=4 border=0></td> <td width=470> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B><I><A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today</A> - October 2003</I></B></font><BR> <hr size="1"> <img src="cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <font face="times new roman, times"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>Cyberspace</B></FONT><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+2"><B>What the Internet Has Not Done</B></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>By ManMohan S. Sodhi</B></FONT><br> <hr size="1"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br>    "Frontiers will disappear, nations will be brothers, civilization will progress ..." Thus the physicist in Prus' 1890 novel, "The Doll," explains the benefits of steerable hot-air balloons. We have heard similar sentiment about the Internet. On one hand, the Internet provides lots of opportunities for OR professionals [1, 2]. There are opportunities in data mining, content delivery, supply chain planning, auctioning, revenue management and online markets. On the other hand ... well, read on!<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Data mining: I have worries about personal privacy that I stated earlier in this column [3]. Even now I find colleagues who have never deleted cookies. The particularly egregious cookies are from DoubleClick and similar companies that collect data about you across sites. Also, what can happen to all the personal information worries me.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Content delivery and content:</I></B> Searching for useful information can be as hard as searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Like Bruce Springsteen's song about 57 channels with nothing on, you can always find 57 million useless Web pages. Would you want that content delivered faster? Television should have brought better content than the radio, but those who have heard Garrison Keiller on the radio will likely disagree. One expects more truth on TV than on the radio, but propaganda is also more effective on TV with politicians moving their head from side-to-side convincingly like Squealer in "Animal Farm." Should we expect more from the Internet? Finally, the Internet also delivers viruses, worms and Spam to our computers.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Diversity of information:</I></B> Listening to the politicians, the occupation of Iraq is going well despite some challenges. Peace in the Middle East, cheaper oil and democracy are just around the corner. The world is already better and safer and will be even more so after the next elections. None of this has anything to do with the Internet. We still get our news from the TV stations, newspapers or their Web sites, and these in turn get their news from the same source in the government: a correlation of one.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Global understanding:</I></B> In our global village, the Internet has not helped increase understanding between Europeans and Americans. Despite shared history, there continues to be much contention regarding the war on Iraq and the continuing occupation. Like a bad marriage, each side hears things different from what the other is saying. American leaders said that they just wanted to bring democracy to Iraq while Europeans heard control of the second-largest reserves of oil. Europeans said they wanted a diplomatic solution in Iraq while Americans heard appeasement. Like letters and opinion articles in newspapers, newsgroups and chat sessions on the Internet have only amplified the distortion.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Supply chain management:</I></B> When large companies implement ERP, different global units get their own installations. Product codes and business processes can remain different. The Internet is then used to connect these systems, resulting in fat fees for system integrators. OR algorithms do not even begin to get into the picture.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Government and democracy:</I></B> The British government is discovering that you can spin to some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. The Internet is useful for making up "intelligence" reports but you can be found out easily as well. As for e-government, I have not seen much of it here in London although some Indian villages are reportedly trying it.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>E-Commerce:</I></B> I have been searching for a digital camera to purchase. One specialist e-tailer, Pixmania.co.uk, requires you to fax a copy of your passport and/or utility bills to prove your identity and provide a verifiable phone number. Prices at Web sites like JohnLewis.com can be as much as 50 percent higher than those at others like Amazon UK (amazon.co.uk), which in turn can be higher than PixMania's. U.K.-based e-tailers can have much higher prices than those of U.S.-based ones but not uniformly higher for value-added-tax (VAT) to explain the difference. So the Internet has not brought much relief to consumers here. The reality is that there are backend processes and people that support commerce. Recently, the large U.K. bank, Natwest, lost all my documents submitted for opening a bank account. These included certified passport copies, other bank accounts details and various proofs of residence. Should I open an Internet account with them?<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=3><B>Conclusion</B></FONT><BR> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> Like replicants in "Blade Runner," the Internet is like any other technology ... it can be a benefit or a hazard. As OR professionals, we can contribute to society using the Internet, but we must not get so sentimental as to ignore negative or inconsequential aspects of the Internet. We have steerable flying machines now, but the prediction of Prus' physicist is unfulfilled. You can take a plane and meet exotic people. Or, you can drop 500 thousand-pound bombs on them as in the roadmap-driven Middle East. If the physicist were to come to life, he will find new frontiers (Yugoslavia and perhaps Iraq), less brotherly love (Middle East), and judging by our e-mail in-box, a civilization obsessed with sex and lower mortgage payments.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=3><B>References</B></FONT><BR> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <OL> <font size=1> <LI> <I>Interfaces,</I> 2001, special issue on e-business. <LI> <I>Management Science,</I> 2003 (October and November), special issues on e-business. <LI> Sodhi, M., 1998, "Personal Privacy on the Internet," <I>ORMS Today,</I> <A HREF="../orms-12-98/cyberspace.html">www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-12-98/cyberspace.html</A>. </font> </OL> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><I><B>Dr. ManMohan Sodhi</B> (<A HREF="mailto:M.Sodhi@city.ac.uk">M.Sodhi@city.ac.uk</A>) is a member of the operations management faculty at Cass Business School in London.</i></font><BR>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=5 border=0><br>  <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="1"> <CENTER><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></CENTER><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="tocfr.html" Target="_top"><I>Table of Contents</A><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today</I> Home Page</A><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <b><i>OR/MS Today</i></b> copyright © 2003 by <A HREF="http://www.informs.org/" target="_new">the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences</a>. 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