Posts tagged Really
The CISPA Amendments We Really Need
Apr 26th
The goal of CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act – the latest cybersecurity legislation pending in the House of Representatives – seemed so simple in the beginning: From time to time, security companies need to provide information about possible threats to government authorities so they can take action. When you write that idea down on a napkin, it makes sense. When you base legislation on what you wrote on the napkin, it becomes the next target of the Internet rights lobby.
The problem is that we live in an era when almost any system that can be exploited will be. The Internet is one example. The law is another.
You can’t disagree with what the napkin version of CISPA implies: Government alone cannot provide information security. When it’s put that way, everyone could get behind it. There are plenty of political ideas that, when presented as cleansed, bleached and distilled bullet points, immediately garner broad public support. The challenge lies with implementing these bullet points in a system that can’t be exploited. If SOPA taught us anything, it’s that anyone can exploit a system.
First, Shut Down Everything
The problem with CISPA’s original draft is that it would establish policies in a way that invites exploits. Any network admin will tell you that the best network access policies are implemented as restrictions with exceptions. You turn off all access, and then you create a whitelist of specific identities or functions that may bypass that roadblock. And then you establish a comprehensive audit trail around that bypass.
Yesterday evening in The Atlantic, Alexander Furnas made the point that CISPA is bad policy, at least insofar as it was originally crafted. He’s right in ways he didn’t get around to enumerating. While the basic principles of its author, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., may be laudable, CISPA wasn’t built for the Information Age. Specifically, it sets up a channel for security agencies and security companies to talk about stuff that may (a very interesting word in this context) apply to cybersecurity.
This sharing of cybersecurity-related information between private and public agencies may entail the disclosure of personally identifiable data, or information that can be combined with such data to reveal other hidden characteristics (using what software vendors refer to as analytics).
Yes, there needs to be a way to accept that this sort of issue will crop up when information is being shared, and to excuse it so that every security issue doesn’t end up being resolved (or not) in a courtroom.
No, No, No “Notwithstanding”
But it is no longer good policy to simply legislate that certain information that may fall within a certain context may be shared; that anything that violates privacy may be excused; and that, worst of all, any law that says such violations may not happen may be overlooked.
That’s the danger of the clause that, even after Rogers’ first set of amendments last week (PDF here), remains in play – the one that begins, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law.” But many of the advocacy groups that seized on this clause did so in such melodramatic and apocalyptic terms as to invite reasonable people to defend it.
Yet there really is a problem with a policy that says, “Ignore everything else and treat this as paramount.” That’s not the type of exception that good information systems policy requires – the kind that creates a limited way around a blanket restriction. Instead, it is a weakening of links in the legal chain, and any weak link is likely to be exploited.
One fear is that such an exploit will come from rights holders who argue that compromising the security of a network in order to commit copyright violation is a threat to the nation’s economy and thus, by extension, to national security.
When you distill an idea to its basic bullet points, it’s harder to disagree with it. That’s why TV political ads are 30 seconds long instead of 30 minutes.
In reality, though, the theft of intellectual property is a legal matter, and should not be treated as a “cyber threat.” So the second set of Rogers bill amendments is quite welcome. They help define terms and refine the context of the discussion.
For example, the revised Definitions Amendment (PDF here) redefines “cyber threat information” using phrases such as: “information directly pertaining to… a threat to the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of a system or network of a government or private entity, or any information stored on, processed on, or transiting such a system or network.” Granularity is good.
A CISPA Whitelist
Now for the next step: a new set of recommended CISPA amendments. Rephrase the new policy the way a good admin would: as a prohibition against the distribution, without court order or lawful mandate, between private entities and government security services, of any information that may be used to identify or characterize a U.S. citizen. Start with a blank slate.
From there, use the classifications in the latest Definitions Amendment as exceptions. Stipulate that these are the circumstances in which exceptions must be made to protect vital national security interests.
Then, establish an audit trail. State that all transactions must be registered, and the log of those registries may be obtained by public request, pending the approval of a judge.
The danger is that this ideal may be boiled down to its bullet points to garner opposition:
- Government must not be open.
- The free flow of information is dead.
- People don’t have the right to know what’s being shared about them without a judge’s approval.
With the master’s touch of a political activist, almost any beneficial idea may be spun to sound fascist.
My 30-second rebuttal: We do need something like CISPA, but the privacy of American citizens and the national security of the United States are too important to be left to intentionally vague regulations and legislation. That’s the wrong kind of openness. With each set of CISPA amendments, however, a viable solution is coming closer.
Scott M. Fulton, III is the author of this document and is solely responsible for his content. He will appear live on NTN24 (DIRECTV 418) Friday, April 27, at 12:30 EST/9:30 PST to talk CISPA with Monica Fonseca.
Stock images by Shutterstock.
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iPads in the Office: What Are They Really Good For?
Apr 26th
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad, he acknowledged that for a tablet to have a “reason for being,” it had to be “far better at some key things” than either a smartphone or laptop. In the consumer market, tablets have some advantages in each of the seven categories Jobs mentioned: browsing, email, photos, video, music, games and e-books.
But what about business? Sure, there are lots of business apps available for the iPad. And tablets are finding roles as point-of-sale terminals in retail stores and restaurants. But have tablets really earned their place in office cubicles and other work environments? And if so, what exactly are workers doing with them?
Let’s face it. Unless you’re Björk (who created an album on and for the iPad), browsing and email are the only categories Jobs mentioned that mean much to business people. And for all their advantages, tablets have some pretty big downsides in the office.
Yet people keep insisting on bringing the things to work and trying to hook them up to office networks, often driving IT managers nuts with support questions and security concerns.
Companies are Buying Tablets
Still, companies are buying them – or plan to. The Clark County, Nevada school system spent more than $1 million over six months on more than 1,800 iPads for facualty, administrators and students. The Financial Times spent more than $1 million over six months buying nearly 2,000 subsidized iPads for its entire staff.
Events such as these will become more common in coming years. According to a Forrester Research survey of IT decision makers, 93% expected their administrative professionals and knowledge workers to consume or create content on tablets by 2013. No matter whether those devices are purchased by IT or the workers themselves, that’s a lot of tablets showing up in the workforce.
But why are they buying, and what are they hoping to get for their money? In the case of the Financial Times, it looks like they were fishing for style. Their CEO acknowledged that the subsidy was essentially a bonus – a “recognition of your contribution to our strong performance this year.” For most businesses, the primary benefit appears to be portability, which explains the tablet’s appeal to education, sales and other mobile-minded groups. An Accenture report claims that mobility is indeed, king. “Arguably, [the tablet’s killer app in the enterprise] is the tablet itself enabling instant access to thousands of Web-enabled apps. ”
It’s an excellent point. Mobile access to enterprise data is what made the smartphone market, and tablets have several key advantages in those areas. And there are dedicated tablet apps from folks as well-heeled as SAP. But business apps that couldn’t exist on anything but a tablet? Those are harder to find.
To its credit, Clark County is using some of the iPads in unique ways. The Gage Rufus Foundation is trying to put an iPad in the hands of every autistic student in the school district. The program aims to engage students of varying abilities through the tablets’ unique combination of portability, interactivity and visual interest. Advertising shows us that vendors understand the direction this type of development needs to go – a remote doctor diagnosing a patient in an ambulance, or oil rig repairmen swiping through visual data like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. But widespread adoption of a true paradigm shift seems far off.
Or is it?
An Unscientific Facebook Survey
I decided to find out with a completely unscientific test – asking my Facebook friends the following question: “Does anyone out there use an iPad or Android tablet to get actual work done?”
Within minutes, I had 26 replies, breaking into two camps.
Camp 1, with 10 respondents, saw no business value in tablets, even though most of them were avid home users. Some answers were clever (“I use my employer-issued iPad to occupy the kids so I can get work done. Does that count?”), but the real story was that, to many tech-savvy workers, tablets are still no more than media-consumption devices.
The 16 people in Camp 2 were early adopters who were doing substantial work on their tablets. Overwhelmingly, these users needed to access messaging and work-related apps, and do light word processing on the go.
The closest of the bunch to a tablet power user was Amy Jones, an undergrad from Berkeley, Calif. (Her story is relevant, since school work can mimic the demands of typical office work.)
In addition to using her iPad for the usual consumer apps and light note-taking, Jones added a Logitech Fold-Up Keyboard for longer writing projects. She acknowledged some “limitations with Flash-based content, non-mobile websites, coding and a lack of specific application support,” but describes her experience as positive overall. Portability is the device’s most important benefit, she said.
Jared Cummings, site community manager at the game developer Funzio, uses ZenDesk on his iPad in transit, “on the train or when I’m out and about.” He’s satisfied with the mobile experience, but it won’t displace his desktop any time soon. “My workstation is still superior to the tablet. Most of [what’s lacking] is multi-window functions. The desktop or laptop is always going to win there.”
He’s right. A tablet can’t out-desktop a desktop. Or even a laptop.
More Than Replacements?
Perhaps the biggest problem with tablets in business settings is that we’re still treating them as replacements for something else. That scenario works fine if the device the tablet replaces was a poor fit for the job. Smartphone screens are too small for heavy productivity duty, but until recently, they were the only truly mobile option. A larger screen for input and viewing makes tablets a logical smartphone upgrade for mobile workers who do more than bring their laptop home to do some work after dinner.
The Forrester report summed up the current state of the enterprise tablet:
Users want to accomplish work primarily through their PCs – where they can consume, collaborate, and create. But they also recognize that during certain times, in certain locations, or when mobile they prefer to use nonstandard form factors, including tablets – where they can consume and collaborate, but not create.
The real opportunity, though, is to create business applications that work better on a tablet than on other platforms.
Know what works better on a tablet? Angry Birds. Draw Something. Google Earth. If tablets want to move beyond “good enough for a commute,” the business world needs apps that leverage tablets’ unique strengths of portability and ease of use, long battery life and relatively big screens.
To date, that’s been harder for general business uses than special industries such as health care, security and retail, but with a market as promising as this, someone will crack the code.
Do you use an iPad or Android tablet for business in ways that PCs or other devices couldn’t allow? Let us know in the comments.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Who REALLY Needs a Mobile-Friendly Website?
Apr 19th
Mobile-friendly websites are quickly becoming a necessity to a complete marketing effort. Although online product purchases have a nature of their own, smart marketers should pursue how mobile search applies to their own set of customer conversions.
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Yahoo CEO: We’re “Only Doing a Few Things Really Well”
Apr 17th
Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson plans to bring the Web portal to its former glory by doing away with everything that does not contribute to its core business of profit-driving ads and e-commerce. On Tuesday, Thompson, who left eBay’s division of PayPal to become CEO and president in January, held his first earnings call with Wall Street analysts after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company reported fairly positive first quarter results. More important than how the company did was what Thompson planned to do to raise profits, reverse a sales slump and bring back users who have left for Google and Facebook.
The problem, as Thompson sees it, was in Yahoo’s size.
Asked what he planned to do different in the restructuring, Thompson gave a vague answer of making better use of data, traffic, advertisers and “the next-generation experiences that we can build.”
“Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long and was only doing a few things really well,” he said. As a result, Yahoo is going to get smaller by consolidating its various platforms and jettisoning 50 properties that do not contribute to its core business of selling advertising and products on any device, including the PC, tablet or mobile phone.
To lure visitors to ads, Yahoo would focus on a smaller number of media categories: news, finance, sports, entertainment, email and a handful of others. The company would move engineers into its commerce businesses and dedicate some of its “best and brightest” workers to innovate in those areas.
On the backend, Thompson said the company would make the platform more “scalable, nimble and flexible” and therefore less expensive to run. For advertisers, the company was going to make better use of its user data to improve advertiser return on investment. “Really understanding our advertisers’ needs will position Yahoo to better monetize all our traffic globally,” he said.
One area Yahoo planned to find revenue was in licensing its intellectual property. The company recently showed how aggressive it would be by suing Facebook for alleged patent violations. “Other leading companies license our patented technology and Facebook must do the same or change the way it operates,” he said.
Thompson said he understood that Yahoo had to move fast and the changes he made during the first quarter, including cutting 2,000 jobs, or 14 percent of the company’s global workforce, was to reduce costs and streamline the operation. “Yahoo must be nimble, responsive and act with a real sense of urgency,” he said. “We have to think and to move like a growth company.”
Thompson introduced this month a restructuring plan that carved Yahoo into three areas, one focused on consumers, another on regional advertising and the third on the company’s technology assets. Online retail would be a big part of the consumer division and the company planned to continue focusing on such areas as travel and shopping. Asked what he planned to do different in the restructuring, Thompson gave a vague answer of making better use of data, traffic, advertisers and “the next-generation experiences that we can build.” Beyond, that Thompson said details would be announced during the current quarter.
Yahoo’s first-quarter results marked the company’s first sales increase in more than three years. Total revenue after traffic acquisition costs rose 1.2 percent to $1.22 billion. Revenue from search ads rose 7.6 percent, while the company’s core display-ad business fell 3.6 percent. By comparison, Google’s ad revenue rose 24 percent, while the online ad market as a whole increased 23 percent.
The job cuts and other cost-reducing measures helped Yahoo earnings. Net income rose 28 percent to $286.3 million from $223 million the same period a year ago.
For the current quarter, Yahoo said revenue would be from $1.03 billion to $1.14 billion.
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[Infographic] How the App Stores “Really” Stack Up
Apr 9th
If you liken app stores to race horses, Apple is the biggest, baddest thoroughbred in town. Google Play is a fine specimen with some distinct qualities but has a lot of work to do in the practice yard before catching up. Everything else is an also-ran. Windows Phone has been growing rapidly, increasing from 40,000 apps in Nov. 2011 to 70,000 at the most recent count. Then there is BlackBerry App World. For all of Research In Motion’s troubles, its app repository is tied with Windows Phone at 70,000, which includes 15,000 specifically designed for the BlackBerry PlayBook. There are no tablet apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace, mostly because there is no Windows tablet (well, one worth anything).
German BlackBerry blog BlogBerry.de sent us over an infographic (through its content promotion specialist BlueGrass Interactive) breaking down the “reality” of the native app stores. It quotes RIM VP of developer relations Alec Saunders as saying 13% of BlackBerry developers have made $100,000 or more off their apps. We have heard this song and dance before. Take a look at the infographic below and let us know in the comments what you think of the BlackBerry App World, its quality of apps and whether or not it is a wise business decision to build any apps for the BlackBerry platform these days.
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[Infographic] How Much is That Tweet Really Worth?
Apr 6th
The good folks at Backupify.com have put together this interesting infographic this week that attempts to calculate what an individual Tweet, Facebook user and other social media elements are actually worth in dollars and cents. And perhaps to no one’s surprise, the most expensive item is an individual review on Yelp. This was done by dividing total company revenue by the amount of pieces of content. Given that many of us are paid per blog post, there is some method to this metric.
Also not surprisingly, given its anticipated valuation, each Facebook user is worth more than $100, the most of the nine services examined.
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While you can certainly take issue with the specific calculations, it is an interesting way to look at these nine social media sites and what they are worth.
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Affiliates or Google: Who Really Drove That Ecommerce Sale?
Mar 19th
As more shoppers search for deals, coupons, and special promotions, make sure you have your own coupon page set up to minimize the margins lost on each sale to affiliates. A bad picture of your sources of revenue can put a drag on future growth.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Is SEO Really SEO Anymore? Index Search Down 50%, Apps and Social Search Exploding – Search Engine Journal
Mar 1st
 BusinessNewsDaily |
Is SEO Really SEO Anymore? Index Search Down 50%, Apps and Social Search Exploding
Search Engine Journal For SEO content developers, this means we've got to get our content onto social networking platforms. And in order to do this, it's got to get used, and it's got to keep the user in mind. But there's another less visible game-changer on the horizon as … SEO.co.uk Named Best Ecommerce SEO Company by topseos.co.uk for March 2012 5 Reasons Why Small Business Owners Distrust SEO SEO.co.uk Named Best Link Building Company in the United Kingdom by topseos.co … |
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Is SEO Really SEO Anymore? Index Search Down 50%, Apps and Social Search Exploding
Mar 1st
Recently, the game-changer to rule them all occurred; as we know, search engines have moved social. For SEO content developers, this means we’ve got to get our content onto social networking platforms. And in order to do this, it’s got to get used, and it’s got to keep the user in mind. But there’s another [...]
Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal
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Is the Digital Music Revolution Really Ruining Sound Quality?
Feb 6th
It seems like every advance in digital music brings with it a debate about whether the latest format degrades quality in exchange for convenience. This was true when CDs first came onto the scene, and it’s probably even more true today with MP3s and their digital audio brethren. Heck, even the advent of the gramophone in 1889 sparked debates over whether its sound quality was worse than Thomas Edison’s phonograph.
Last week, rock veteran Neil Young chimed in with his assertion that the digital music files we listen to today are of much lower quality than the original recordings. Speaking at the D: Dive Into Media conference, he said that the technology now exists to deliver much higher-quality audio to music fans, and that he had even talked to Steve Jobs about a possible solution.
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It is certainly true that an MP3 file, by definition, is of lower quality than the original recording. The files that sit on the hard drives of recording studio engineers are massive – several gigabytes apiece – compared to the file consumers eventually download or stream. To get those MP3 file sizes down, the audio has to be compressed substantially. It’s inevitable that some of the detail will get lost in the process.
How Serious is the Problem? … And How to Fix It?
Exactly how bad is this problem? By Young’s estimation, what we hear in most files today is “only 5% of the data of the original recording”. That may be a slight exaggeration, depending on how the files are encoded. Certainly, lower bit rate files (such as 128kbps MP3s) have a noticeably degraded quality to them, compared to a CD. But most sources have graduated to higher quality files now that broadband speeds allow for it. A standard track on iTunes is a 256kbps AAC file and premium Spotify subscribers can listen to many songs at 320kbps, which is about 22% of a CD track’s bit rate.
When it comes to streaming audio on mobile devices, the quality buck pretty much stops at whatever the data connection can handle. On 3G networks, streaming CD-quality audio just isn’t feasible. Over a good WiFi connection, things look a little more promising, but there are still limitations if the user experience is to be preserved.
So what does Young propose as a solution? From the sound of it, he’d like to see a sort of mega-iPod with more disk space and internal guts optimized to playback massive files. Such a device wouldn’t be designed to include one’s entire library, but rather only a selection of audiophile-quality albums. Presumably, it would tend to be used with superior quality earphones or speakers, which is another important factor in the quality of what we hear.
Even if a device akin to what Young describes were produced and sold, how big of a market would there be for it? The quality of the audio found on sources like iTunes, Spotify, MOG, Amazon and Google Music is apparently good enough to convince millions of people to pay for access to it. At the end of the day, most of the content on the pay music services is certainly good enough. Musicians and audiophiles can pick up on the degradations in quality, but for the average listener, it’s pretty subtle. The device that Young describes would have to be marketed toward the audiophiles for whom 320kbps simply won’t cut it.
Last week wasn’t the first time Young has criticized the state of digital music. Some may dismiss his stance as nothing more than a grumpy, old-school perspective, as though he’s just an old guy that doesn’t get the new-fangled ways of the Web and digital media. This isn’t the case. Young may be a veteran of the music industry, but he’s well aware of what’s changed about it and why. During the same interview in which he slammed MP3′s, he said that “piracy is the new radio” and encouraged new artists to forgo record labels in favor of doing it themselves.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Analog
As Young pointed out, Steve Jobs may have been a digital music pioneer, but “when he went home, he listened to vinyl.” This is true not only of Young’s generation, but of a growing number of music fans today. Vinyl sales have been surging for the last few years, with 2011 seeing a 39% increase in sales over the previous year. Digital music sales grew last year too, but by considerably less.
For music fans with the deepest concern for audio quality, it seems analog is increasingly the way to go. That’s okay. We can have our digital revolution in music and still fall back on analog formats. Just like with books, the value offered by digital music is primarily about volume, convenience and ease of production and distribution. And just like sitting down with a good, paper-bound book, putting on a vinyl record is more about quality and the overall experience.
Digital and analog don’t need to be at war with one another. What many labels and artists are doing now is sell records on vinyl and include a coupon for a free, high-quality digital download in the record’s sleeve. That allows people to enjoy the album as it was intended and also throw it onto their iPod or smartphone for listening on the go.
It’s also possible to go the high-quality route in a digital-only format. When The Beatles’ catalogue was remastered and reissued in 2009, the material was released on CD and, for the first time, via iTunes. For diehard fans who wanted more than what iTunes could offer, they also sold an apple-shaped (no, not that Apple) thumb drive containing every album in superior quality, lossless FLAC format, as well as as 320kbps MP3s.
However things may evolve, it’s evident that digital music has brought us great value, but it’s done so at a cost, namely quality. This may not be perceived as a problem by every consumer, but for those who take the craft of creating and recording music most seriously, it’s a one worth solving. Whether it’s through a hybrid of analog/digital music consumption or through some new, high-capacity device for playing back lossless digital audio, the challenge isn’t an insurmountable one.
Vinyl sales chart courtesy of Digital Music News.
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