Karen Hobert's Connecting Dots

Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security

2009-11-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

Interesting University of Cambridge paper on how scams work and the psychological factors behind them. The authors essentially cover common scams and the reasons why they work but also take some time to explain how administrators need to consider these factors when designing system security.

For example, one of the seven principles of a successful scam is called the Dishonesty principle, whereby a scam goes unreported because the mark would have to admit some dishonest act in order to expose the fraud. The paper's authors offer some wise advice on creating corporate policy that will encourage reporting of fraud without fear of retribution.

The security engineer needs to be aware of the Dishonesty principle. A number of attacks on the system will go unreported because the victims don’t want to confess to their “evil” part in the process. When a corporate user falls prey to a Trojan horse program that purported to offer, say, free access to porn, he will have strong incentives not to cooperate with the forensic investigations of his system administrators to avoid the associated stigma, even if the incident affected the security of the whole corporate network. Executives for whom righteousness is not as important as the security of their enterprise might consider reflecting such priorities in the corporate security policy—e.g. guaranteeing discretion and immunity from “internal prosecution” for victims who cooperate with the forensic investigation.

The authors note that well designed security should make it easy for users to "authenticate" the validity of the system they are entering sensitive information into.

Much of systems security boils down to “allowing certain principals to perform certain actions on the system while disallowing anyone else from doing them”; as such, it relies implicitly on some form of authentication—recognizing which principals should be authorized and which ones shouldn’t. The lesson for the security engineer is that the security of the whole system often relies on the users also performing some authentication, and that they may be deceived too, in ways that are qualitatively different from those in which computer systems can be deceived. In online banking, for example, the role of verifier is not just for the web site (which clearly must authenticate its customers): to some extent, the customers themselves should also authenticate the web site before entering their credentials, otherwise they might be phished. However it is not enough just to make it “technically possible”: it must also be humanly doable by non-techies. How many banking customers check (or even understand the meaning of) the https padlock?

The verification must be easy enough for mortals. Likewise, any mechanism used to authenticate users should not be overly draconian since users will circumvent the system. An interesting example of this effect concerns e-mailbox quotas. When administrators limit attachment sizes to accommodate small mailbox quotas they run the risk of data leakage because users turn to consumer messaging systems, systems administrators have no control over such as Gmail, to send large file attachments to co-workers and customers.

Search engines are source of learning

2009-11-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

Search can make you smarter...

The researchers sought to discover the cognitive processes underlying searching. They examined the search habits of 72 participants while conducting a total of 426 searching tasks. They found that search engines are primarily used for fact checking users' own internal knowledge, meaning that they are part of the learning process rather than simply a source for information. They also found that people's learning styles can affect how they use search engines.

Search engines are source of learning

Cisco Raises Its Bid for Tandberg of Norway - NYTimes.com

2009-11-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Cisco going big on video for the UC as collaboration market. That was evident from John Chambers keynote last week (see my post).

The network equipment maker Cisco on Monday raised its bid for Norwegian videoconferencing equipment maker Tandberg. The increase was backed by holders of more than 40 percent of Tandberg’s shares, few of whom had warmed to Cisco’s previous bid.

I am reminded of Mike Gotta's work a couple years ago on different approaches IBM and Microsoft are taking to the UC market*; IBM being more partner-friendly, focusing on the software side of UC and working well on other's equipment, versus Microsoft's more all-or-nothing approach to building UC solutions including soft-PBXs and equipment (e.g., Roundtable). Cisco's approach takes a network- and video-centric approach to UC, preferring to rely on its strong network roots as the the backbone to delivering high quality communications and collaboration. It's all a matter of perspective.

Cisco Raises Its Bid for Tandberg of Norway - NYTimes.com

*Logically each vendor's approach has evolved over the last couple years, with Microsoft taking on partnerships of convenience and IBM's subtle movements toward its own PBX server (Sametime Unified Telephony) as a less aggressive market play (or market safety net) while telephony vendors begin to struggle to stay alive.

Windows Mobe Marketplace sets its stall out • The Register

2009-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

When It Comes To In-App Purchases On The iPhone, Games, Social Networking, And Books Rule

2009-11-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

An interesting view of the mobile apps market. The upsell market looks like entertainment and socializing are the big winners...

Games, social networking, and book apps are doing the best job upselling consumers from free apps to paid enhancements. Music, news, and finance apps, not so much.

Makes some sense, we want to keep renewing that type of content. Except the punchline....

People just don’t want to pay for songs, news, or stock quotes.

Songs? We want our songs for free or do we consider that we've already bought the songs before and are not willing to pay again.

This is an interesting snapshot of the times, especially when vendors like IBM, Microsoft and others are considering the dowloaded apps model as a new venture for selling/distributing mobile as well as web-based applications that support their business collaboration and social software platforms.

When It Comes To In-App Purchases On The iPhone, Games, Social Networking, And Books Rule:

Cisco throws a collaboration party

2009-11-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Cisco detailed it's Collaboration Strategy and emerging product line for collaboration at it's Collaboration Summit on Monday afternoon. Chairman and CEO John Chambers outlined Cisco's vision and plan which includes technologies from its collaboration and unified communications portfolio.

Cisco today announced significant product introductions across all categories of its collaboration portfolio. The company also announced its entrance into two new markets, enterprise social software and hosted email, with the goal of bringing the collaborative power of online social communities to businesses.

Some of the strategy is based on years of acquiring front-end technologies such as PostPath for e-mail and WebEx for online meetings and combining them with back-end platform services that support secure federation of directory information and media exchange. The Cisco collaboration platform combines real-time and asynchronous communications and collaboration with some twists. For example, Cisco's dedicated to Video (communications and content) as a core technology for collaboration.

Many of the ideas that Mr. Chambers presented on how collaboration is key to innovation are not ground breaking if you've been around the collaboration space for any time. He mostly reiterated the value proposition that electronic communications and collaboration have offered for years. However it's been a long awaited conversation from Cisco and all the talking points are on mark. Like most vendors the semantics and strategy is slightly different; collaboration, for example, in the Cisco vision leans more to the socialization of content and group interactions and real-time communications supported by TelePresence (i.e., presence awareness) and video technologies. This is a contemporary perspective that includes social feeds and threading of information based on tags and/or meta-data that many older collaboration solutions are currently retrofitting into their products.

The product announcements are broken into three lines: Cisco TelePresence, Cisco Unified Communications, and Cisco WebEx solutions. A strong connection to real-time communications over different modes, devices, and networks using open-source technologies are common threads in the strategy. In addition to providing services and presentation layer interfaces Cisco reiterated its dedication to extranets and federation of key service information, like federated presence awareness or directory information.

It's finally good to know what has happened to PostPath. Over a year after acquiring the open-source Exchange alternative, Cisco has subsumed PostPath into it's WebEx product line and released a SaaS-based e-mail package called WebEx Mail. They are still riding on the value proposition that WebEx Mail is 100% Outlook compatible and built on open-source technology that makes it easier to extend and manage. While the Outlook point might be valid, management and extensibility is likely only a benefit to Cisco now that it's a hosted solution. The offering seems to be along industry standards with 25GB of mailbox space. Details on data centers and risk management are limited and Cisco relies on it's hosted IronPort solution for in-the-cloud content filtering.

The social software and collaboration efforts are even more nascent with only choice customers getting beta access to the service for the next three to six months. Again the offering will be delivered as a SaaS model. There are some demos on the Cisco site that illustrate it's social, Cisco Pulse, and ad-hoc teaming solution, Show and Share. We'll have to wait to see more on how customers will respond to the tools.

So will this be disruptive to the collaboration market? Cisco definitely has strong technology and the high-definition video interfaces will be attractive to many customers who rely on teleconferencing. Cisco's strategy is a network centric vision - which is to be expected. Large global companies that want to create their own secure networks will likely be very interested in the Cisco solution. Although Cisco points out that it's platform is extensible, like most collaboration providers, the idea of a single platform for the most fidelity is strong here. Of course for e-mail and collaboration customers will need to weigh the cloud risks, which is still a tough subject when considering the regulatory and legal complexities that global firms face. What I think these offerings do is add yet another better defined platform solution to the choice matrix for customers, which for Cisco did not exist in a coherent form until now.

For more details on the Collaboration Summit with lots of resources go to Cisco's Community Central.

Cisco Breaks Down Barriers to Business-to-Business Collaboration -> Cisco News

Microsoft Announces Exchange Server 2010 Availability and Wave of Innovations at Tech•Ed Europe 2009: Exchange 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 help customers realize better productivity, efficiency and potential cost savings up to 70 percent.

2009-11-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

Exchange 2010 goes into General Availability today. If you want to follow announcements and the technology check out the TechEd Europe 2009 press room for sessions and keynotes.

Microsoft Announces Exchange Server 2010 Availability and Wave of Innovations at Tech•Ed Europe 2009: Exchange 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 help customers realize better productivity, efficiency and potential cost savings up to 70 percent.

Judge jettisons lawsuit challenging Gartner's Magic Quadrant | NetworkWorld.com Community

2009-11-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

It's all a matter of opinion, even when the opinion is very influential.

In essence, this case boiled down to a question of whether the Magic Quadrant is an objective presentation of quantifiable facts, or -- as Gartner argued and should be obvious to all -- simply Gartner's opinion based on its research.

Judge jettisons lawsuit challenging Gartner's Magic Quadrant | NetworkWorld.com Community

Design Criteria Defaults: SaaS

2009-11-04T11:53:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about vendors making mobility a primary design criteria when developing collaboration platform interfaces, today I want to focus on the SaaS.

Still in it's 20o9 rage, the Cloud continues to pose issues for customers and vendors alike. Since late 2006 we've seen traditional software vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco, throw their hat and products into the Cloud and offering SaaS-based delivery of many of their popular solutions. Spurred on by Google's ambitions in the the enterprise market, each vendor has come up with their own approach to SaaS and the Cloud. Some have made it out of beta to deliver ready for prime time offerings (Microsoft Online, LotusLive), some have pulled back to only providing private offerings (Oracle), others are emerging through building on top of consumer-based acquisitions (IBM Lotus and Cisco), and others are working on configuring the right architecture (Cicso).

Bottom line, updating existing products and systems and building a hosting operation is not simple. It's not easy to transform an installed, on-premise system - like e-mail or collaboration - into a multi-tenant, scalable, and secure SaaS offering. The migration of back-end servers to support larger loads and parsing out multiple domains can take time. Once that's in place modifying other supporting services like Directory or Search to support the complex security and permissions also takes time. Finally, designing the presentation layer to provide secure functionality also requires a change in attitude and development assumptions.

As with mobility, vendors need to consider hosting capabilities as an primary design criteria for all new system software. Microsoft has done well in coming closer to this goal in its SharePoint and Office 2010 designs, but still some of their forthcoming BI servers are still treating the hosting part as a follow-on job. IBM Lotus on the other hand appears to be approaching things differently, developing on-premise solutions separately from it's LotusLive offerings, many of which consist of acquired hosted products like Outblaze's e-mail or the Unyte hosted meetings.

It's not a foregone conclusion that all on-premise platforms need to be retro-fitted or upgraded for SaaS delivery. Designing for hosting will likely help in the integration department and make hybrid on-premise/Cloud delivery easier for both the vendor and the customer.

Design Criteria Defaults: Mobility

2009-11-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I wrote and article for SearchDomino on IBM Lotus' continued expansion into mobility. One of my predictions was that we'd "see increased dedication from IBM Lotus and other vendors to make designing for mobility a primary consideration when building future versions of software tools." As my article points out, the current state of the mobile device OS market means that are lots of moving parts for vendors to keep track of and strategic partnerships appear to be the preferred approach for vendors when tackling mobility. Recent smartphone developments are swaying the market to the downloaded, device-specific application model (which vendors have to address on a platform-by-platform basis) rather than web-based software interfaces optimized mobile browser support (which vendors have more control over).

While IBM Lotus is doubling down on mobility it appears that Microsoft is not, at least not in the collaboration arena. Having just returned from Microsoft's SharePoint Conference, little focus was spent on mobility. The one session I attended on mobility consisted of an advert for the latest Windows Mobile version and a look at .NET APIs for making mobile applications. Using SharePoint on a mobile device is still, even in the 2010 release, relegated to adding a "/m" to the end of a SharePoint URL. Considering the promise of SharePoint 2010 as a content management and reach collaborative solution, it is likely that many users will find typing long URLs into mobile browsers sub-optimal.

Dedication to designing for mobility is one thing, execution is another. Mobility should be part of the design process in the earliest stages these days. IBM Lotus has revealed their mobility intentions and now it remains to be seen how they will execute. Microsoft has yet to take a stand on mobility for it's next generation of productivity and collaboration tools.

Mobility in Domino article

2009-10-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Just published: Lotus makes mobile partnership and Notes Traveler top priorities

Another SearchDomino article by your narrator.

Hierarchy of digital distraction

2009-09-08T17:21:00.001-07:00

Information is Beautiful is amazing site on visualizing information. Today's post is s a fantastic taxonomy on how we communicate based on the quality of the conversation. The author admits he did't include instant messaging in the mix - it's too distracting - although texting, twitter, and Skype messages suffice.

Article: IBM Lotus to end Notes/Domino 7.x support

2009-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a recent article I wrote for SearchDomino:

http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid4_gci1366069,00.html

Collaborative Strategy Guild on NPR!

2009-08-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Collaborative Strategy Guild member, Pete Lindstrom, is interviewed by Bill Radke on the APR Marketplace Morning Report for August 18, 2009:

Pete Lindstrom, research director at Spire Security, talks with Bill Radke about what consumers can do to keep their credit cards secure

Audio: Will electronic money transactions ever be secure?

Gauging the Real Value of SaaS E-mail

2009-07-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the publication of "Gauging the Real Value of Software as a Service (SaaS) E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses," a Collaborative Strategy Guild white paper on SaaS E-mail and productivity. You can download the paper via the CSG site. Here's the abstract:

The e-mail market is rapidly evolving as new business-grade software as a service (SaaS) e-mail options become a viable alternative to the traditional on-site e-mail by competing on price and value. Information Technology (IT) decision makers are pressured to reduce costs, so they’re considering a move to SaaS e-mail solutions, which is driving businesses to scrutinize current e-mail strategies. Making a SaaS e-mail decision depends upon the unique needs of the business and how available options not only offer cost savings, but also productivity value.
In this paper, Collaborative Strategy Guild founding member, Karen Hobert, focuses on the SaaS e-mail market, its impact on small and medium businesses (SMBs), and how to find the real value in different product offerings.

Spam Works

2009-07-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Wondering why you get so much spam? Because it works. A recent Register article reports the following from a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) survey on email usage and spam:

Almost a third of consumers admit responding to messages that might be spam emails. Some acted out of curiosity or by mistake but a puzzling 96 from a sample of 800 (12 per cent) said they clicked because they interested in the product or service advertised in junk mail messages.

Filtering helps, a lot, but accordingly people would rather slog through the spam than prevent it:

While half of those surveyed said they never click on suspected spam, around one in five (21 per cent) fail to use email filtering software or services.

For more interesting facts on email usage and spam see the MAAWG study, "A Look at Consumers' Awareness of Email Security and Practices, " Part I and Part II.

Google Beachhead

2009-07-14T09:32:00.001-07:00

Google continues to bolster its beachhead on the enterprise email market. Today it announced it is providing free of charge to Google Apps Premier and Education customers a "plug-in" that will migrate Notes mail and personal directory information to Google Apps.

The new tool lets customers migrate mail, calendar and contacts from Notes to Google Apps. The syncing tool, which Google says is a native Notes application, can be installed and configured in less than 30 minutes, for multiple users at once. The tool has already been tested with 40 of Google’s enterprise clients, including JohnsonDiversey (10K users) and Valeo (32K users). The tool is free for Google Apps Premier and Edu customers.

The aggressive ramp up to enterprise-grade solutions hasn't always been as successful as Google has hoped. Changing the mind-set of enterprise IT decision makers who tend to follow established software delivery methods and practices is still a hard practice. In recent weeks Google has capitulated to some of these customer attitudes such as removing the "beta" label from the Google Apps tools. The more clumsy release of the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook connector has been met with criticism for not offering pair-wise functionality with Outlook and disabling Microsoft Desktop Search, the search mechanism for Outlook. A July 10, 2009 PC World (IDG News Service) article puts it this way:

So Google embarked -- probably grudgingly -- down the path that other e-mail vendors have traveled with little success: trying to replicate the Outlook-Exchange experience with their back-end e-mail server and Outlook. Here was Google apparently getting dragged into the Microsoft way of doing things, creating -- gasp! -- a piece of PC software: an Outlook plug-in. The problems and complaints started immediately.

Right away, industry analysts cautioned CIOs and IT managers to examine the Google tool closely, warning them that it couldn't fully replicate in Gmail the functionality of the Outlook-Exchange combination, lacking basic features like the ability to synchronize Outlook notes and tasks, for example.

A tough market indeed. Clearly Google wants it enough to put so much effort into lowering the barriers to enterprise interest. In its campaign to grease the migration skids and polish the consumer-come-enterprise perception Google is waging a fierce battle that will require formidable reinforcements to back up.

What's in a word?

2009-07-07T09:45:00.001-07:00

Google has lifted the "beta" label from Gmail and other Google Apps, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. Google makes it clear in its Official Google Blog announcement that they are making the move because enterprises are having a hard time getting around the "traditional definition" of the "beta" software label.

We're often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in beta. For example, Gmail has worn the beta tag more than five years. We realize this situation puzzles some people, particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of "beta" software as not being yet ready for prime time.

I'm not sure Google ever did a good enough job of telling us what the non-traditional definition of beta is. Apparently it wasn't all that hard to remove but I'm wondering why with so much press-bashing on the label it took Google so long to draw the line and say things are done. Google isn't being as transparent on how it determined that the code is final, for now.

Of course this brings up the argument that I think Google has been trying to convince us of all along. That traditional software development cycles are impossible to keep with such rapid evolution of code and to draw a line in the sand would be ironic if they kept releasing new features on an ongoing basis. If that's the case then "beta" should never have ended up in the logo to begin with. One of the benefits of a leased SaaS software delivery model is that the customer has the power to stay or go with little penalty. The onus is on the provider to continue to innovate to add more value for the customer at the same price. Google has embraced this concept by continually reminding its customers it can, and should, apply patches, changes, and upgrades whenever it feels the need. It's "beta" cause the work is never done. Still convincing a market that is accustomed to "beta" meaning "test code" was harder than expected.

Oh, BTW, if you're not comfortable without the "beta" (depending on how you define "beta") you can put it back on the logo via the Gmail Labs settings:

Media in the 21st Century

2009-07-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

June 2009 TED video of Clay Shirky on the transformation of media in the 21st Century. I like the way he makes these ideas so clear and understandable.

Things don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

Is Your IT Guy Reading Your Email? - Digits - WSJ

2009-06-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ouch!

In a survey of more than 400 senior IT professionals in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Cyber-Ark Software, a Newton, Mass.-based security-software company, found that 35% of IT administrators admitted to accessing corporate information like human-resources records, customer databases and M&A plans, up from 33% a year ago.

Moreover, if fired, 47% of the staffers surveyed said that they would take company financial reports and M&A plans with them, a sixfold increase from the previous year’s survey. About 46% said that they would snag CEO passwords and R&D plans, a fourfold increase.

Is Your IT Guy Reading Your Email? - Digits - WSJ

Publish Post

Official Google Blog: The state of cloud computing

2009-06-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

The whole thing with email is that IT is stuck balancing very touchy user needs with operations. Reducing operational overhead and costs are a key value proposition of Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), which Google is now simply calling "Premier." The hurdle to get users to use the Gmail interface after using Outlook for so many years has been a big problem for Google.

Of course, when big companies like Morgans move all their employees from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, there are often a few folks who aren't ready to give up Microsoft Outlook right away. To help them make the transition, today we also introduced Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook to our Premier and Education edition customers. It lets Outlook work easily with Apps and — like offline Gmail and the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server — is another example of how we're making it dead simple to switch to Google Apps.

This is not a new model, PostPath (now owned by Cisco) made it a business and sales model, others like Zimbra (Yahoo) have been doing this for a while, and even Oracle Beehive is coming out of the gate touting this capability. So while radical for Google, it is business model that other SaaS email competitors are also up to.

Of course this tool on syncs GAPE mail, contacts and calendar with Outlook and does not integrate other GAPE tools with the rest of the Office suite. According to Google's data sheet the following benefits come with GASMO (I'm sorry about that):

Email, calendar, and contact sync
Free/busy and Global Address look up
Simple, user-driven data migration

Note: The following features will continue to be available in Outlook, but will not be
synchronized by Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook in Google Apps: user
delegation, public folders, and syncing of notes, tasks, journals, and distribution lists.

The migration feature is a nice bonus.

This demonstrates how the front lines of the Google and Microsoft competition is email. Taking the front-end (i.e., client) argument out of the email decision picture will make it easier for customers to compare the back-end side of hosted messaging. I don't think it will make the decision any easier by itself - especially for enterprises - but it could eliminate one strong objection and put the focus onto operational concerns.

Official Google Blog: The state of cloud computing

AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post; Union Protests | Threat Level | Wired.com

2009-06-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Remember when email flaming was all the ..er..rage? It took a while for people to learn to turn off the caps lock. Surely there is a learning curve with social sites. In the meantime the stakes are pretty high, like losing your job.

The minidrama is an increasingly familiar one as companies and workers navigate the landscape defined by sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Firings and reprimands over postings to social networking sites have become commonplace over the last year.

Surely, as individuals, we'll eventually learn to balance who we "let in" to our social networks, how we reveal our thoughts, and consider who might see what we say or do. I wonder how tolerance levels for "past deeds" will play out in the future. I think we'll become more tolerant when just about everyone has had the experience of putting too much out there. It's like traffic in LA (I get to say this cause I'm from LA); the best excuse when you're late for a meeting is to blame it on traffic, everyone commiserates with you especially if there was an accident on the freeway. For an interesting read on putting stuff out there take a look at this New York Times article from 2007 (funny how this article keeps coming up).

But the answer does not solely lie with the end user. Companies need to frequently communicate with their employees on what they will tolerate and not just rely on draconian measures after the fact. What's the phrase, "an ounce of prevention..."? Most companies have some sort of policy on cyber-flaming; although it's probably obtusely named something like Electronic Communications Agreement that employees my need to sign (but not re-read) once a year. Usually the agreement includes broadly written rules that only do well to serve as blunt instruments when it's needed or is useful. Typically signing the agreement is made part of employment terms but the rules are dictated rather than communicated. When was the last time you read the entire licensing agreement when you installed a piece of software? And do you think of it every time you use the software? Same idea. If a company wants to avoid embarrassment and leaked information then it should take measures to help employees understand what is tolerated and help them to do the right thing.

AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post; Union Protests | Threat Level | Wired.com

Twitter Blog: Not Playing Ball

2009-06-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

More on the Twitter identity front. According to the Twitter blog, Twitter is launching a beta program for verifying account holders. I'm not sure how they'll deal with all the John Smith's of the cyberworld. I guess as long as you don't pretend to be someone or entity that you are not then it's on a "first come" basis. Does that mean my favorite @MarsPhoenix will be shut down? ;-) Likely not.

Impersonation violates Twitter's Terms of Service and we take the issue seriously. We suspend, delete, or transfer control of accounts known to be impersonation. When alerted, we took action in this regard on behalf of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

Bottom line, if you think someone is impersonating you on Twitter, complain to tech support and they will shut down the impostor.

Twitter Blog: Not Playing Ball

Bosses and Workers Disagree on Social Network Privacy - Digits - WSJ

2009-05-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

A very interesting article on the battle between the bosses and the employees. I suspect there would be different results outside the US where privacy laws and attitudes are very different than in US firms - favoring more or less employee privacy and tolerance depending on where you go.

The survey was conducted in April with about 2,000 U.S. adults. Of the 500 respondents with managerial job titles (vice president, CIO, partner, board member, etc.), 299, or 60%, agreed that businesses have a right to know how employees portray themselves or their companies on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

But 53% of employee respondents said their profiles are none of their employers’ business, and 61% said that they wouldn’t change what they were doing online even if their boss was monitoring their activities.

It's a hard reality to consider that the boss thinks they have every right to monitor all data that you produce and perceive the employee as a liability - especially in these days of record breaking layoffs. It's true, the Internet's lowered opportunity costs for individual global self-expression poses a huge risks to companies in forms of safety, lost information, and disclosed secrets. The relationship of employer and employee becomes increasingly adversarial.

Both employer and employee play a part in solving this problem. As the article points out in a quote by Sharon Allen, rather than draconian rules, employers should communicate "guidelines focused on company principles and ethical behavior, and to offer to help workers understand privacy settings on these sites." Yet, according to the Deloitte survey, "roughly a quarter (26%) of employees said they knew of specific guidelines as to what they could and couldn’t post."

Employees aren't off the hook either and need to recognize that usage policies are conditions of employment and should be mindful to follow those guidelines. That may mean more work on the individual to make clear distinctions between what they represent about their jobs in personal social realms. Which is increasingly harder to do; as we create stronger bonds with people through channels that help us to keep in touch over time and distance the line of who's a colleague and who's a friend becomes more blurred.

Since this is all social there's plenty of nuance for conflict and mis-communication. As Ms Allen points out there is the potential conflict of employer versus employee "branding" and is open for broad interpretation. It's a fine line to walk. When so many people identify themselves with what they do for work it's very hard to separate the dos and don'ts.

Despite all the risk, keep in mind that the boss actually likes social software. The last paragraph of the article demonstrates that while employees currently find social software more burdensome, employers see a benefit:

Another difference of opinion expressed in the survey was how social networks affect work-life balance. Less than a third of employees (31%) agreed with the statement “Using social-networking sites helps me achieve better work-life balance,” with 19% strongly disagreeing. More than half (56%) of executives said a little Facebook time improves work-life, however.

Bosses and Workers Disagree on Social Network Privacy - Digits - WSJ

Google Says “Googlefail” Outages Are Over - Digits - WSJ

2009-05-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Phew. Anyone else out there skeptical about this?

“The issue affecting some Google services has been resolved,” a spokesman said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’ll share more details soon.”

Kudos to Google for working hard to solve their problems and continue to improve their services. Still you never know what's around the corner. I can't blame Google for doing the positive PR spin since they've been getting hit hard for outages by the press, blogisphere, and twitterati lately. Announcing the good news of a fix with confidence in the future is a necessary.

Google Says “Googlefail” Outages Are Over - Digits - WSJ