Tim

Mobile Computing raises a new set of security issues

Digital Life, General, Security No Responses »

Apr 032012

Mobile Computing raises a new set of security issues.

Contains some interesting stats on where enterprises are in readiness for mobile and BYOD. I have no idea if the study is scientifically valid, but any numbers in this area are better than none.

An even more interesting study would be an examination of employee BYOD devices in organizations that believe they’ve blocked BYOD devices to see just how much data is actually on BYOD devices. I suspect between email, EverNote and DropBox and similar services, there’s a lot more supposedly DLPd data out there than such organizations suspect.

What happens when social surveillance goes mainstream? — Tech News and Analysis

Digital Life, Identity, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Apr 022012

What happens when social surveillance goes mainstream? — Tech News and Analysis.

If you share everything on your social networks on “public” settings, you are just asking for trouble. Cut everything back to “friends only” and prune those you don’t actually know and trust from your friends list. Turn off “friends of friends’ capability as well. If you don’t know how to use Groups on FB or Circles on G+, learn.

Blackberry plans new focus on enterprise users

Digital Life, General, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 302012

BBC News – Blackberry-maker RIM plans new focus amid $125m loss.

While focusing on your core customer baser, large scale enterprises sounds like a completely reasonable proposition on the surface, the problem is that those organizations are comprised of end-users. What employee wants to be saddled with a phone that can’t do half of what his kid’s phone does? There’s already a BYOD revolution going on. If “consumer” users don’t want ‘em, then they ain’t bringin’ ‘em!

RIM’s main strength is their presence in the data centers with their BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server). Their OS was only interesting back in the stone ages where email was really the only thing the device did. Their browser has always been awful and they were way too late to try and get into the apps game for their own OS and this isn’t getting better with the ongoing delay of Blackberry 10. Blackberry should throw in the towel on the OS and go with Android. Take Android, twist some of the back-end security stuff to tightly integrate with BES so enterprises can sleep well. Rebrand a couple hot phone styles from HTC, Samssung and Motorola with Android-BB on them. If RIM wants to stay in the hardware business, there are some strongly devoted folks to the BB style keyboard. Build a couple hot styles of these including a “retro” version for those with large hands and thumbs (seriously, I loved typing on those monsters). However, the OS underneath should be Android taking full advantage of that app community.

Heck, go ahead and build out a managed marketplace like Amazon’s so that enterprise IT shops can again sleep at night knowing that Android-BB apps are being examined and passed as secure by BB. Tie this into the BES infrastructure so this can be managed by the enterprise per their policies.

Will this happen? Probably not. There’s likely both an ego challenge to dumping their own OS work and an investment challenge as they are probably so far along with BB 10 that they feel they need to see the investment through to the bloody, bitter end. Too bad for RIM and even worse for their investors that rode this thing down.

The Cloud Makes it: “The 4 A’s of Authentication”… | SecureAuth Blog

Cloud, Identity, Security No Responses »

Mar 302012

The Cloud Makes it: “The 4 A’s of Authentication”… | SecureAuth Blog.

Good stuff from Craig, Garrett and the entire gang over at SecureAuth.

Google+, developers hope to revolutionize video chat with new ‘Hangouts’ apps

Digital Life, Identity, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 292012

Google+, developers hope to revolutionize video chat with new ‘Hangouts’ apps – SiliconValley.com.

Well the numbers don’t lie about Facebook’s headstart over Google Pluss:

845 million vs. 100 million users

7 hours / month vs. 3 minutes / month

I guess me and my family are the outlyers as we almost exclusively use Google Plus having mostly abandoned Facebook. I do several Hangouts a week with family members. We post to our Family circle multiple times per day which is significantly more than we ever did on Facebook. Now, none of us really ever gamed on Facebook and I’m not aware of anyone gaming on Google Plus, though my brother in law and I have begun playing Zombie Lane.

I know for me, I switched to Google Plus as I prefer the simplicity and cleanliness of the UI as well as for the simplicity and control of Circles. I now am able to have a single Google Plus account and keep my various “selves” separate. With Facebook, I had 3 different accounts (so much for the real name requirement) to keep my personal life, my professional / public life and my online gaming life seprate. I know FB added Groups, but it was late with this hideously obvious feature. Also Groups feels very tacked on. For instance, when I go to share something on FB, I don’t have a choice as to what Group(s) should see it.

Perhaps my family being all Android users has something to do with it. G+ ties in nicely to everything else we’re doing on our phones. I take pictures and they automatically upload to Photos where I can simply share them or not. Bouncing back and forth between posts on G+ and more private email replies is a no-brainer. Contacts, Latitude check-ins, etc. all correlate nicely and just works without having to think about “what app am I in?”, “I should switch to the FB app and share this”, etc.

Another minor gripe I have about FB is that it won’t hold the sort I want; Recent. It really wants me to be on Top Stories. I have to change this almost every time I visit.

Just one man’s experience along with his major circle of contacts, his family. I think the rumors of G+’s death are hideously exaggerated. Whatever you prefer though, can’t argue against having choices, eh?

Apple’s War on Android – Businessweek

Digital Life, DRM, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 292012

Apple’s War on Android – Businessweek.

Interesting and reasonably in-depth look at the Apple related patent wars. Definitely reinforces why I’m not an Apple fan-boy. Interesting to see a company so devoted to quality so often also cling to policies that relegate them to minority player. I guess so long as your revenues and profits are sky-high, who cares? I can definitely respect that, but I just won’t be using their products while they remain so committed to locking me into the digital ghetto called iTunes, iOS, iCloud, i-anything as it currently stands. Open up Apple and truly claim your spot as digital ruler of the world.

Chrome Extension Recommendation – Clearly

Digital Life, Recommended, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 292012

Chrome Web Store – Clearly.

From the Evernote folks comes a great tool for making web pages much easier to read, Clearly. Don’t you hate trying to read through an interesting article with tons of distracting ads and other nonsense on one or both sides of the text you’re trying to pay attention to?

See the example of an article where I used Clearly (click to enlarge):

Before Clearly

After Clearly

This not only cleaned up the page, but took an article that had me clicking through 5 web pages to read it all and made it all a single, legible page. This cut my reading time significantly as well as made the experience more enjoyable with significantly less visual and mental dissonance. At least in Chrome this sits as a ready icon that you can turn on an off as you wish. I generally use the browser with it off till I land on something I really want to read, then presto-cleano, Clearly to the rescue.

Here’s a good article highlighting some of the other features: Introducing Evernote Clearly by Andrew Sinkov

Thanks to my dad for recommending this to me!

More energy and economic nonsense.

Economics, Politics, Rant, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 272012

San Mateo-based SolarCity to offer a ‘Home Energy Loan’ – SiliconValley.com.

More energy and economic nonsense. Go do some reading on the affordability of solar panels. Note the consistent mention of “incentives”, “rebates”, etc. These are of course nice terms hiding the fact that the rest of us are paying for it. If its worth doing, then its worth letting people make their own investments instead of finding yet another way to spend tax money for social engineering goals.

The couple in this particular article would be put in jail if they’d gone door to door and “raised” $14k in “rebates” from their neighbors at gunpoint. Why should we rejoice that they let the government hold the gun?

Facebook warns users not to share their password with potential employers, threatens legal action – SiliconValley.com

Digital Life, Identity, Security, Tim's Opinion No Responses »

Mar 262012

Facebook warns users not to share their password with potential employers, threatens legal action – SiliconValley.com.

Another good reason to have multiple FB or other social-network-of-your-choice accounts. Sure have one with your real name so those long lost friends can find you, but for heaven’s sake don’t post anything interesting there. Use your alternate pseudonym account for that.

In this particular case, an employer asking for one may well ask for the other if they’ve done enough homework to know you have multiple accounts. However, many won’t think of such a thing. This gives you the option to comply by giving them access to a completely innocent location that won’t do you any harm. For me, if an employer demanded this as a term of employment, I’d know it was no place I’d want to work and we’d part ways.

Another thing to think about is if you are perusing your social networks on your employer’s network and hardware, are you being careful enough in your security practices to know they don’t have your password? Another good reason to establish and maintain a pseudonym along with using the most stringent authentication such sites make available.

After failing to reach goals, California attempts to jump-start its Hydrogen Highway – SiliconValley.com

Economics, Politics No Responses »

Mar 262012

After failing to reach goals, California attempts to jump-start its Hydrogen Highway – SiliconValley.com.

Guess if telling the private sector what to do is good enough for the obamanation, it’s good for the fruits and nuts of California.

If this is a workable energy, then there would be private start-ups announced daily working to get this deployed. Since the oil companies are evil in the eyes of the socialist republic of CA, they believe they can strong arm the “bad guys” into doing something that makes absolutely no business sense. Maybe CA should do with hydrogen what was done with solar and subsidize new companies, but I guess Solyndra put the lie to that use case.

With ongoing socialist madness like this continuing in CA, no wonder people are leaving in droves as well as companies. I’d suggest that the last one out of CA should turn out the lights, but with moronic policies like this the lights will be out before everyone sorts out they should have fled already. However, socialists in the dark seems quite fitting.

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