The desire to be cool and embrace new technologies definitely overtook the desire to be safe with the very buzzy mobile, location-based apps on view at South by Southwest this year . You've got to love a smartphone app that broadcasts all sorts of information about you -- your likes, your age, your job -- to everyone within sight who has the same app. Because it reduces friction, right? It makes it easier to meet that good-looking guy or girl right over there who shares your love of kiteboarding and Gorillaz. You can cut down lame conversations about things you have no interest in at all.
Much outrage has been expressed about Google's new privacy policy. People are acting as if they are shocked that Google would consolidate the personal information it gathers from its customers through all of its varied services. What is shocking to me is that none of these people, including members of Congress, seemed to see it coming.
Whenever I see another "cyberchallenge" getting play in the press, I think our priorities are screwed up.
I suppose it sounds logical.
When Facebook changed its interface earlier this fall, the social networks lit up with comments from users saying how much they hated the new way information was being presented to them on the site. People were upset that Facebook was doing things without considering its hundreds of millions of users. That outrage made sense to me. What didn't make sense was the large number of people who responded with variations of, "Shut up! It's free." That is fundamentally wrong.
I had to laugh when I read about Facebook's latest effort to woo businesses. While Facebook wants to look like its well ahead of Google + in the commercial uses of social networking, its track record of dealing with users suggests that businesses should not rely on it.
When I saw the Computerworld article about Square touting how it is going to replace cash registers with iPads, I was dismayed that there was no discussion of security. And Square's app isn't the only payment app that makes me anxious. While I admit that I would find applications such as Square Register and Google Wallet useful, turning mobile devices into credit cards or credit processing systems is foolish at this time.
Dear Facebook, I appreciate your service. I really do.
The recent Twitter hack, where a French hacker compromised internal Twitter documents by accessing the account of administrative assistant, among others, was essentially an attack on Google Docs. The reason is that Twitter outsourced their infrastructure by contracting with Google, and the accounts in question were on Google's infrastructure.
When I heard that Internet Security Systems was bought by IBM, I thought, "Finally." I was, ironically, talking to an analyst friend (yes a do have a few of them) a few days before that about what I thought would happen to ISS. It was no secret that ISS had lost its way, for lack of a better term. It was a true pioneer in the industry and was responsible for making some of the staples of security programs available to the masses. But things had changed.
The response to last week's column about introverts had me thinking about some of the experiences I've had with technical professionals. Last year, I wrote an article titled "Dumb and Dumber" that discussed security problems that resulted from "stupid users." My book, Spies Among Us, also presents case studies of some of my penetration tests, where the behavior of users resulted in billions of dollars of potential loss.
I recently read about the "Ethical Hacking and Countermeasures" degree being offered by a Scottish university. At first, I thought this was for a master's degree, and then I was really dismayed to see that this was a bachelor's-equivalent program. There are so many things wrong with that prospect, it's hard to know where to begin, but the story does raise some good questions about where degree programs fit into computer-related professions.
I noticed an ad recently for a diet book by Peter Greenberg. Greenberg is a travel journalist, and he is dieting. Apparently that qualifies him to be a travel diet expert -- or at least enough of an expert for his book publisher's purposes.
