Classroom Companion: Business

party! TTPs owned by governments are not trusted because the users of the TTP 
services may suspect that the government will use the information collected by the 
TTP for clandestine purposes and social control. Privately owned TTPs are not 
trusted because the owners of the TTP may misuse the TTP for commercial rea-
sons, for example, interfering with the business of the user or selling information 
gathered by the TTP to competitors. The TTP may also represent a serious security 
threat because hackers may gain access to the TTP tampering with or compromis-
ing the businesses of the users of the TTP. The Dutch company DigiNotar issued 
certificates for public/private keys for the Dutch government’s public key infra-
structure program. In 2011, hackers broke into the system and issued fake certifi-
cates used for criminal purposes, for example, attacking Iranian dissidents. The 
company went bankrupt in 2011 as a result of the break-in (See the Wikipedia 
article about DigiNotar).
 
Chapter 15 · Standards

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15
15.6 
 Conclusions
Interoperability is one of the key features of ICT. Interoperability means that all 
networks (mobile or fixed) are interconnected and are able to pass messages 
between people and machines irrespective of in which country or region of the 
world they are located. Interoperability also implies that equipment produced by 
different manufacturers can work together using standardized interfaces and pro-
tocols.
International standards for ICT are developed by several specialized standards 
organizations. Almost all ICT standards are de facto standards; that is, they are 
not mandatory but are convenient since they ensure global interconnectivity and 
support innovations of applications and services that otherwise would have been 
impossible. Just a few international ICT standards are de jure standards. Examples 
are the use of the frequency spectrum by different radio communication services; 
the formats of international identification and numbering plans for land mobile, 
aeronautical, and maritime services; and standards for certain services such as 
ground-to-air traffic control.
The standards also commoditize the technologies and services they specify, for 
example, wireless communication, Internet access, and World Wide Web protocols. 
On the other hand, these commoditized technologies support a vast number of 
non-standard applications opening up for a digital market consisting of a mix of 
millions of big and small businesses. The three basic technologies—wireless com-
munication, Internet, and the World Wide Web—have created an enormous, inno-
vative arena for business development.