Today, you may read a background story about Kai Roer, and how he uses personal branding over at the Personal Branding Blog at the JCI Baltic Conference 2010.

The story is here: http://www.jci.ee/bc2010/personalbrandprofile-kai-roer?c_tpl=1062

I use Facebook. Primarily to promote my blogs and myself (shameless, yes, I am...). And of course I enjoy being a bit of a critic too.

Especially when it comes to the huge amount of Facebook apps, I am worried. Not about the applications themselves, but by the way people uses them without any criticism and understanding of how they give away information about themselves and their network.



Of course it is fun that friends decides to throw virtual snowballs at you, vote you the most hansom in their network, want to add your birthday to their calendar and so forth. And what is even nicer is that the fact that your friends does this to you means that you have a certain popularity. And being popular is always nice, and as result, you will lower your guard. And by lowering your guards, you become an easy target - not a target of those friends trying to hit you with a snowball, but a target of those creating applications only to harvest information about

• you, your networks,
  
• your whereabouts,
  
• interests,
  
• religion,
  
• political views,
  
• who you know,
  
• who you communicate with most,
  
• how you communicate,
  
• what you say
• to whom you say it
• and so forth...
  

Sometimes I tell my contacts that I block most applications on Facebook. Other times I do not. I just click the "Block this application". And yes, I accept that by doing so, I risk to be received as a boring old man. And I am, when it comes to my privacy. As long as I do not know who is getting my information, how they use it, for how long they will keep it and whether or not I can trust them, I keep the information to my self.

And when it comes to the applications on Facebook, they may have been developed by a fanatic hacker who is out to cash in on selling your information to the highest bidder. They may also be developed by the order of a foreign (or allied) state, harvesting intelligence about their own people, or people in a target state.

Most of us have read the 1984 by George Orwell. And most of us have some idea of what was going on during the cold war (and most other wars) - governments collected information about everyone, because everyone could be a terrorist, could be working for the enemy, could have ideas and views opposing the "accepted values".

And this still goes on in the war on terrorists - it is extremely easy to show up on the "radar", but to clear your name may turn out to be very hard - as opposed to the publicly accepted principles of justice, when it comes to war, you no longer need to be proven guilty. It is more than enough to be suspected.

Using the Internet to gather this type of information is so easy that former surveillance officers are wetting their pants. And the ease which they are lullying all of us into the safety of surveillance is alarming. Hiding surveillance as nice-to-have tools - like video surveillance to stop thiefes lifting your pocket on the street (who believes that the camera really stops someone picking you pocket anyway???), GPS devices on phones to help you find your way (giving away your exact position and target to Google and who know how many others...), fraud detection systems in the banks (following your every movement and the shops you visit - in real time).

The list goes on forever. And we accept it. It is so easy to accept. It has become a habit. Something we just do. Just like when Facebook shows us their privacy policy and user agreements. No need to read it through, just click "I accept this" - whatever it says. And that is what most of us do. Just accept it.

We choose to trust this application with our most personal information - including pictures from parties, our current moods, our social life, interests. You name it, and you will find it.



I do not enjoy virtual snowballs. I prefer the real thing. Then you know what hits you. And when. You can wipe your neck, and move on. With the virtual snowballs you have no control, and you have no idea what will hit you and when. All you know is that having fun with your friends comes with a price, and that price is sharing your privacy information. To someone else but your friend. Someone is using your friend to trick you to give away valuable information that may make of break your future.

I have nothing against snowball wars amongst friends. I'll take your challenge any day. As long as we use real snow!

On a side note - enjoy this lovestory!

Kyle Northcutt posted this question on LinkedIn:

Who and what should the web filter block?

Obvious malicious, lewd and illegal content aside.... should mental diversions be limited or blocked from users? Social networking, youtube, gaming, news, etc can be very distracting and hamper production, but when used sparingly can boost morale, enhance creativity and act as an employee perk in the organization.

My question is, which(if any) of these activities should be blocked? Should everyone be affected by this policy or should engineering and executives be excluded? As a bonus, how does your company handle web filtering?

There are many interesting answers to his question - ranging from "Block them all, and only open those you need", to answers like Angelos Karageorgiou, who says:


I like Angelos answer because it points to where the challenge really is - the humans. With the technology, we can do everything we can imagine. But humans. Now, that is a totally different manner. It takes a very non-technical manner to deal with those people.

In all my humbleness (right), I post my own answer below (as it is found on LinkedIn).


My LinkedIn answer:

In my experience, blocking access to internet resources soon turn your employers into a negative, less-productive bunch of unhappy sheep (lots of negativity in there, huh?)

Nothing is obvious when it comes to humans, and just blocking whatever one person finds obvious may very well upset someone else. As long as we are using technology to deal with human behaviors, we need to teach the same humans the reasons we choose to use technology instead of juts enlightening them.

There are only a few occasions I suggest using these kinds of controls:

* in controlled / secure environments where you must ensure 100% control of what is entering and leaving the area (then I always advice to set up a set of computers with access - as Internet now is a vital part of our communications)
* in restricted areas like jail and schools where motivation to follow policies are not that evident. But - this is also a very narrow path, as many kids today outsmarts the local IT-resource.
* in short time frames in departments dealing with sensitive information like annual results. Then we may close down all communication within a particular time - but never forget that there are phones, facsimiles and other techs you cannot control (that easy)

I am not a fan of closing down access. I believe that most employees are going to do their job as expected - as long as they get their perceived value in return. And face it - in today's workspace, most people will expect access to the Internet at their discretion.

Now, I am an advocate for employer controlled work environment - ie. the company set's the rules, and when you sign your contract, you agree to follow those very rules. But. As long as we are dealing with humans, we will reach much better results by understanding how psychology and organizations work and function. By using a mixture of positive incentives and negative incentives, and doing this in a clever manner, you will see much better results over time.

Face it, if you force a block, someone will be unhappy. You will start see people trying to work around those barriers. Your management will scream and expect totally different rules. Your day will become a nightmare. And what do you achieve? Less motivated, less productive employees.

I suggest the following approach that has worked a dream in the past:

* set up a QoS on your network, and on your outbound link. Tune down everything you do not like entering (streams, P2P, Skype etc). Set it so low that it is still possible to use it, but not practical anymore.
* Inform your employees regularly about how computers is a time thief (I mean, even for me now - I spend time writing this on the Internet instead of doing any productive work...), and give them tips on how to deal with it. Consider them humans and grown up, and it is amazing what you can get them to accept.
* Set up a network monitoring device, analyzing and capturing data traffic. These devices are able to tune in on, and capture only relevant data - triggered by rules and patterns you can define. Use this to figure out what is really going on, and to find that one or two rouge employees that you know are out there. Now you have evidence you can use to force this person to either follow the rules, or to kick him/her out of the organization.

In the end, you have a very efficient setup that does not intervene with day to day business, that does not make you vulnerable to updates and new "things to block", and that as a bonus makes you the hero of everyone in the organization (except the rouge ones, though...)

I have very good experience with this type of setup. Just keep in mind that you are dealing with humans - so treat them like humans to get the to do what you want!

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What are your thoughts on webfiltering?

LinkedIn, web filtering, security