pete@kruckenberg.COM (Pete Kruckenberg) writes:

How is this handled in other networked industries? I'm sure that the same issues of proprietary information and public humliation exist there; how do they deal with it?

Other industries, e.g. electric, airline, nuclear, telephone, railroad, banking, etc, tend to have two different reporting regimes. One for 'major events,' and one for 'near misses.' For major events, the issues of proprietary information and public humiliation tend to be less. Mainly because everyone already knows you had a major event (e.g. three-mile island, at&t nationwide failure) and the company's and industry's goals tends to focus on restoring public confidence. This seems to be true no matter what the root cause of the problem. After a major event, company records tend to get opened either voluntarily or involuntarily anyway. So most companies prefer the P.R. of saying they are cooperating fully with investigators. Although as NASA found out, sometimes you get a Richard P. Feynman on the board, who doesn't always follow the company line. I think, for some definition of major events, it should be possible to get cooperation from a large number of service providers. Once the event has happend, it is usually in their self-interest to participate in the process. Of course, there will be a few service providers who won't participate on principle or because of internal disorganization. But that's what the press is for.... For near-misses, the reporting parties tend to be individuals (a.k.a. whistleblowers) and confidentiality is more important due to the retribution even accurate information receives. And in general, 'near misses' don't attract much attention because by definition, the crisis didn't happen. I think any type of near miss reporting and analysis will be very difficult. I could rant about the U.S. Government's plans in this area are, but that is a different mailing list. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation