Bruce Sterling has written an open letter to the next cyberchumpczar. Given that this will be the fourth one in three years, there's plenty of room for fresh ideas. Sterling gives some straightforward advice about how to succeed:

• Use Secret Service Electronic Crimes Branch as your police force.
• Hammer out rational policies.
• Create systems to give accurate Internet "weather reports" will track anomalous slowdowns, stoppages, and traffic jams.
• Create a foreign policy.
• Develop the ability to see around corners by recruiting every graying pundit, unemployed CEO, and retired computer scientist you can find.

The problem, as Bruce points out, is that the Cyberczar gets the blame for problems but doesn't have the authority to do much about them. Of course, to get a cyberczar, we'll probably have to get a Secretary of Homeland Security first. I haven't heard much about that lately.