The movement of network boundaries ties together all the trends of the present time.

By the network boundary I mean the point where your client, which you control, ends and a network which is beyond your control begins.

Crossing the network boundary requires more than a cost-benefit analysis. It also requires a trust-benefit analysis. You have to trust the network, and the network owner, before you make the jump. (The illustration of the word Trust is from Professor Myoung Lee of the University of Missouri.)

So trust is a vital asset to any company seeking to lure people across the boundary. This is why Google's credibility is so vital, and why CEO Eric Schmidt has to go, because he doesn't understand that and his actions threaten Google's credibility.

The frontier in computing today is the placing of personal data and applications on the other side of the network boundary. GMail represents both data and applications. That's what makes it an important product.

But there are many other appications that could be handled on the other side of the network boundary. All the things we consider desktop applications could be handled on the other side of that boundary. Trust,. or the lack of it, is what keeps those assets on our side of the boundary.

We have known for years there are many benefits in placing our data and applications on the network side of the boundary. Our clients can become simpler, for one thing. Our costs can be reduced, for another thing. Our stuff is more accessible, especially if we build access to it into all our clients.

But there are risks to doing this, trust risks. Government could get into our stuff if it's on the other side of hte boundary. So could private actors -- bosses, competitors, hackers. And then there's the question of how fast and reliable the network connection is, which now separates us from our stuff and our applications.

This is why the U.S. technology lead is threatened by politics today. Our lack of trust in the government keeps us from moving our stuff and our appilications across. And the government's asinine policy on networks -- private unregulated duopolies of cable and phone giants -- means the cost benefits of moving these things across is lower for Americans than for people in other countries, in Asia and Europe.

The speed of networks determines our technical ability to cross the network boundary.

But that's just one of many questions.

Every technology issue we face today is really a network boundary issue:

• When we cross the boundary we can be using Linux without knowing, or caring, and picking up all the benefits of open source.
  
• When our content crosses the boundary, we're renting it and no longer owning it.
  
• All the questions of "piracy" or "hoarding" as I prefer to think of it involve where the content we want to enjoy is living, and the conditions under which it's crossing to us.
  
• How powerful your desktop is, or your laptop, or your phone for that matter, is based on where the data it's using is located. If you don't need to keep data or applications with you, the device you use is simply an interface.
  
• Freedom, and whether we'll have any in the future, is wrapped-up in where our personal data sits, and questions of who or how access is gained to it.
  
• The digital divide is practically eliminated once the network becomes the home for data and applications. The capital cost for crossing from Chad to Madison Avenue becomes the client.
  

Over the long run we are better off, in terms of costs, productivity, and all the other vital metrics of life, having our data and applications inside a network. It can be made redundant there, it can be made safe there.

But do we have the trust to live in such a world? And what is required, from vendors and government, for us to attain that trust?

These are the most important questions of our time. They cut across every discipline. Their answers will determine the shape of the world your children live in.

So answer carefully.