Date: 2008-04-15 13:09 Subject: Both a Threat and a Benefit Security: Public Tags: security, social media

Looking through the details of the upcoming Infosec show in London, my eye was drawn to this one: Technical Theatre - Web 2.0 - Social network - business tool or security nightmare?. There is a tendency to try to turn complex issues into black & white for the sake of debate, but isn't it possible that social media tools might be both a threat and a benefit, both at the same time?

Of course blogs and tools like Jaiku/Twitter have the possibility of accidental information leakage, but then so does email, and we're still using that. On the flipside, telling people what you're doing can also result in fortuitous meetings, and connections with people that you didn't know, but have shared goals. As with email, controlled use of the technology is much better than an outright ban.

I know that some organisations have made strenuous efforts to ban tools like Skype and also tools like Facebook. For me this seems inconceivably stupid. Facebook is a great business tool for me, and allows me to keep track of countless people I have met on my travels. At the same time, I have been able to link up with people that previously I had no access to, and contacts via "a friend of a friend" are some of the most effective contacts that you can find. Those companies that choose to ban Facebook have a double whammy: not only do they shut off the possibility of any benefit, but they also alienate their own employees by doing so.

Which is not to say that we should allow all employees to spend all day, every day working on their social media networks; after all there is still work to be done. I think, though, that very few are doing this to such an extent that it effects their work efficiency. If there are employees with problems, then surely the best way to deal with it is in a one-on-one, manager to employee way. After all, your manager should be measuring your effectiveness against stated goals, and if performance is poor relative to these goals, then this is a management issue. Poor performance can be caused by many problems including drink, drugs, gambling, family problems etc., so addiction to online sites and services is just another type of problem that has to be dealt with using the same tools. Banning all employees from Facebook because the minority abuse it is a bit like banning everyone from the pub because you've identified one alcoholic on the staff.

Social media tools are a business tool, and a social tool, but shouldn't be a security nightmare. Could security experts perhaps define policies that allow us to us the tools safely and benefit from the opportunities?

Date: 2008-03-24 17:24 Subject: Alec Saunders Interview Security: Public Tags: alec saunders, bending the needle, facebook, iotum, saunderslog, squawkbox, voip user, von

One of the highlights of the recent VON conference was getting to Interview Alex Saunders, blogger and CEO of VoIP company Iotum.  The interview podcast is now available at the Voip User site, where we have the "Bending the Needle" podcast series:

http://www.voipuser.org/btn/

Alec now has his own Squawkbox podcast, which he records daily via the "Free Conference Calls" application that Iotum created for the Facebook platform.  If you use Facebook, go over and take a look: http://apps.facebook.com/freeconference/landing

It's quite an endeavour recording a daily podcast, and this is quite an interesting social media experiment.  Anyone can join in Squawkbox, so if you want to take part in a topical tech news discussion, why not sign up for one of Alec's podcasts?

Date: 2008-03-23 09:23 Subject: Video on the Net Security: Public Tags: maxroam, qik, seesmic, ustream.tv, video, von, vonx08

At VON last week it seemed that everywhere I went there were people videoing and taking snaps, and a lot of this material has been tagged and blogged, and facebooked and flickr'ed and is available online.  Jeff Pulver suggested the tag VONX08, so use this if you're searching on Technorati or some such, this is what to look for.

One particular phenomenon this year is QIK.  This is a service that allows you to live stream (via 3G, GPRS or WiFi) up to the server, where QIK users can view live online, and then the video is stored so that you can tag it and leave it for posterity.  Jeff used this to good effect a number of times, for example at his social media breakfast, but several people also caught Ken Camp proposing to Sheryl Brooker, which Maxroam's  Pat Phelan has posted on his blog.  QIK is also enjoying attention from Robert Scoble at the moment, who appeared on stage with Jeff and some other video service companies like Ustream.tv and Seesmic.  Scoble was videoing the session from his place on the podium, and althoug I haven't found it yet, I imagine that this is also online.

I dabbled with QIK myself (this works nicely on Nokia smartphones), and uploaded a couple of short videos from the VoIP User dinner.