Users Deceive Social Networks To Protect Selves

This isn’t a comprehensive, end-all conclusion – a press release states, “Over 100 individuals replied” to the survey, and that’s not anything to brag about.  Still, emedia believes “almost one third of users (31%) have already entered false information about themselves to protect their identity.”

We’re probably not talking about listing Tool as your favorite band when you’re more of a Metallica fan; perhaps phone numbers, addresses, and birth dates have been faked.  But since so many parts of a profile can be left blank, are there really that many logical ways to deceive social networks?

In any event, emedia also uncovered some statistics about the popularity of different networks.  “The top five websites respondents have heard off are MySpace (89%), YouTube (88%), Friends Reunited (81%), Facebook (73%) and Bebo (51%).  But the most popular sites amongst users are Friends Reunited (47%), YouTube (42%), MySpace (39%), Facebook (26%) and LinkedIn (19%).”

To explain those results, I should probably mention that emedia is based in the UK.  And I should also give a hat tip to Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal, who first discovered the survey.

SES: Ways SEMs Can Protect Intellectual Property

(Our on-scene WebProNews staff has passed along this latest news from SES San Jose 2007. If you can’t be there, you need to be here with WebProNews this week, for videos and reports.)

Deborah Wilcox, a partner with the Baker Hostetler law firm – which represents names like ABC, Boeing, EDS, Ford, Major League Baseball, and Sprint Nextel – presented "What SEMs Should Know" about copyright and trademark issues.

Here’s a bulleted list what Ms. Wilcox had to say, gleaned from her PowerPoint presentation:

Grab an intellectual property lawyer when:

1.    A trademark or copyright problem first emerges
2.    The problem persists
3.    The problem becomes severe

When gathering evidence:

1.    Identify offending parties, which can include competitors and their officers, other distributors, et cetera(she includes search engines, but that debate is still ongoing)
2.    Be sure you actually own your marks and copyrights, and be sure they are registered
3.    Take screen shots of infringing material (on the Internet, things can be deleted)
4.    Specify damage infringement has caused

Your options for legal action include:

1.    Cease and desist letters
2.    Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
3.    Lawsuit
4.    Request for emergency relief via temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction

Ms. Wilcox, as you might guess, also recommends you contact Baker Hostetler for more information. 

“Censorship!  Conspiracy!  Google’s gone evil!” is the cry that’s been taken up by some.  Others have suggested that Google is just trying to keep 21 world leaders from getting blown up.  And according to Rob Shilkin, a spokesman for Google Australia, they’re all wrong; the poor image quality is the result of a business arrangement gone bad.

“This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with APEC,” Shilkin told The Sydney Morning Herald.  “We’re re-sourcing our imagery for parts of Sydney as a result of a commercial issue with one of our suppliers, so some of the highest-res images have been temporarily replaced.”

And as fun as a conspiracy theory would be, Shilkin’s explanation seems quite possible.  After all, Google did about the best it could with a map of Washington, D.C. when restrictions were put in place there.

Also, we have yet to see how long the “fuzziness” over Google Maps’s representation of Sydney will last – this could all be resolved well before the APEC summit.

Apparently, the company’s noble efforts included the removal of many fantasy communities where users share sexually-explicit fictional stories.

The mass reinstatement means that the deleted science fiction and fantasy “fandom” groups–many of which boast sexually explicit fiction written by fans about characters such as those from the Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer universes–began reappearing Thursday.

The community retaliated and LiveJournal apologized and is in the process of reinstating the accounts that don’t violate its policy. It’s a tough decision for LiveJournal. The sites are not breaking any laws, but do violate LiveJournal’s terms of service which ban “objectionable” content.

I think we’re going to see more of this in the coming months. With state attorneys general ramping up their efforts to protect minors from internet predators, I think we’ll see a lot more social network users complaining that they’ve been the victim of overreaction or mislabeling.

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Others involved a famous boy wizard.  “One now-deleted group called ‘pornish_pixies’ focused on fan-written fiction, frequently sexually explicit, about characters in the Harry Potter novels,” writes CNET’s Declan McCullagh.

So it seems that LiveJournal went a little overboard; even the folks at Perverted Justice state, “[T]hey decided to just wipe out whole fields of communities whether they were related to those who advocate child rape or not.”

Also, as it was originally thought that LiveJournal had deleted the accounts in question (it now appears that they were just suspended), a number of users – hundreds of them – deleted their own accounts in protest.  Others voiced their objections within LiveJournal.

And now the chairman and CEO of Six Apart (which owns LiveJournal) has made a post on the site.  Barak Berkowitz lists his mood as “mortified,” and his post’s title, “Well we really screwed this one up…” gives you an idea of the admissions he makes.

“We have always been strong supporters of free speech and at the same time we believe deeply that children deserve special protections as well as the victims of violence and hate,” Berkowitz states.  “We tried to implement a policy that walk that line and we did it poorly, we are all sorry.  One could say that no matter what we did we would either be accused of opposing free speech or endangering children but I am sure we should and could have done this much better.  I hope you can forgive us and we can regain your trust.”

It will be interesting to how LiveJournal users react to this apology in the long-term – there was a lot of anger over the whole fiasco.  But come on, people – there’s a bit of humor in this, too.

Over at MarketingProfs.com my Business Blog Consulting co-blogger Stephan Spencer has written “Stop, Thief! How to Protect Your Site from Copyright Infringement.”

In the article he takes you step-by-step on how to combat people stealing your intellectual property, specifically the design and copy from your site.

Now, if I could just stop writing blog posts and take some action on these thieves some good might come of it!

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Rich Brooks is president of flyte new media, a Web site design and Internet marketing company in Portland, Maine. Flyte works with small businesses to build professional Web sites that often include e-commerce, Flash and content management systems. They promote their clients’ sites through search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, business blogs and podcasts, and viral marketing.

MySpace is trying to make users experience more secure. They have announced plans to partner with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp, an online identity and background verification company. They are jointly working on Sentinel Safe, software that will block the access of convicted sex offenders to MySpace.

“We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace,” said MySpace’s Chief Security Officer, Hemanshu Nigam. With over half a million registered sex offenders in the U.S. Sentinel will create national real time searchable database. The database will be updated on a regular basis and contain a large amount of information on individual sex offenders.

Details of the offenders will include name, age, height, weight, eye and hair color. Also any identifying marks such as scars or tattoos.

The hope is to prevent sex offenders from ever being able to having access to the site.
John Cardillo, CEO of Sentinel Tech said, “By incorporating cutting edge technology, this real-time, searchable database gives MySpace and other such companies the ability to quickly identify registered sex offenders and immediately delete them from the community”.

MySpace will have a 24-hour a day staff to monitor for convicted sex offenders and remove them from the site if they find matches in their database. They are also working on a system to catch false positives.

While this new system may prevent some sex offenders from joining MySpace there are still problems with the system. If they give false information then a sex offender could conceivably avoid detection. It does not seem that the system would deter someone who was determined to try and obtain access to the site.

Deleting all the sex offenders profiles may help improve security for MySpace users but if they are able to falsify information how much safer will the site really be?

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Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

This is something that affects the millions of travelers that cross US borders on a monthly basis. While I do not advocate using cryptology as a way to shield illegal activities, businesses work hard for their data, and confidential company data on clients, resources, sales, sales figures, usually travels along with the companies sales force. The data on that laptop is company confidential if not critical to the success of that company’s growth. Governmental information security policies differ from company policies, and companies face a slew of legal regulations from SOX to HIPAA to GLB to protect data.

Sales and executive teams that cross the border, and for what ever reason, border guards seize it, the company is not only out the data on the laptop, but given governments record of accomplishment it may not be in an environment that complies with company security policy.

IHT states:

“Last week, an informal survey by the association, which has about 2,500 members worldwide, indicated that almost 90 percent of its members were not aware that customs officials have the authority to scrutinize the contents of travelers’ laptops and even confiscate laptops for a period of time, without giving a reason.

“One member who responded to our survey said she has been waiting for a year to get her laptop and its contents back,” said Susan Gurley, the group’s executive director. “She said it was randomly seized. And since she hasn’t been arrested, I assume she was just a regular business traveler, not a criminal.”

Appeals are under way in some cases, but the law is clear. “They don’t need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law,” said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is researching the matter for corporate clients. “They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations.” (IHT)

Most companies would find this intolerable, especially when multi-million dollar deals are on the line, and that laptop is the last place that the data is stored (many sales folks do not synchronize their laptops with the company office when on the road). Some simple solutions should help company security folks at least minimize the damage from a laptop loss (theft or confiscation).

1. Have the laptop synch with the head office every time it is connected to the office. That way, at least the documents are synched and new documents are stored on corporate computers. Simple software or scripting can enforce this either at the beginning of the session or the end of the session and should not take too long in the heavily wired world we live in.

2. Use drive level cryptology, windows and Linux both provide drive level cryptology through their operating systems. If the laptop is stolen, it is most likely not going to be of any use to anyone. If the laptop is confiscated, then the sales person needs to have contact with the company lawyers at the time of confiscation, and a solid procedure on not turning over company logins to anyone, backed up by the company lawyer or legal team. This should be a high-level policy, implemented by the security department with keys stored in LDAP or Active Directory in case of key loss. The time to engage company lawyers is at the time of confiscation, not later on down the road when the sales person or executive team comes back to the office to report what happened.

3. Before returning, zip or otherwise compress, password, and e-mail the entire document set or other proprietary data. A script or small program with a Click here and Send button can be created that would zip the contents of the documents directory, or search for and zip all documents, power points, and other files then e-mail them back to the head office. Policy can be used to define what will be zipped and sent.

I am not advocating in any way that anyone refuse to turn over a laptop to customs agents. However, the information security implications, and how SOX, HIPAA, GLB or any other information security style legal process already in place, will be interpreted is something that the company lawyers and the government need to work out. If the traveler has a database of 100,000 people’s personal information on their laptop, and it is seized, is that a reportable loss of information that could result in company fines? Is the data considered in limbo with no legal status? Who is responsible if the laptop is stolen from customs, and the data ends up on the internet or used by someone else?

Simple encryption and file synchronizing shows that the company at least tried to do due care and due diligence if the problem ever goes to court for a data loss. Simple precautions, backed up by company policy and the company’s legal team can at least address many issues that any laptop loss, either stolen or confiscated can bring to the companies doorstep to roost.

For more information click here. The enclosed google search provides a wealth of information about what is worrying business leaders about current US Customs policy.

ITToolbox

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Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both
civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management.
Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through
his blog, Managing
Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the
ITtoolbox blogging community.

Generally, what we don’t think about are visions of images. Pictures, pictures, pictures. And we should. I checked on a number of big brands to see what Google thinks is a relevant image. I got a lot of logos, which is appropriate. Then I checked a number of medium sized brands and the story didn’t have the same happy ending. But who cares about other companies

Right now, search Google Images for your company name. How many pages before you get a version of your logo? First page? Second? Too many to count? How about the names of your executives? Names of your products or services packages? Are there any unflattering images being associated with your brands or are your competitors’ images coming up ahead of yours?

Of course content is king, but don’t let your images make your organization look like jesters. And you can’t stop at optimizing the images appearing on your website. Review other resources as well:

• Photos journalists use in articles covering your company
• Bylined articles where authors’ photos are featured
• Images, photos and graphics distributed with press releases
• Exhibitor profiles on event sites
• Speaker profiles
• Logos on directories or industry association sites
• Podcast icons [cover art]
• About.com or Wikipedia images
• Blogs
• Newsletters
• Analyst reports on your company

Keep in mind that an out-of-date photo is better than no photo at all. What if you find an image that is irrelevant, off strategy or downright derogatory Proctor & Gamble’s first-page images include one of Pinocchio with a longer-than-normal nose and the title, “Liar, Liar, Proctor & Gamble on Fire.” That image is probably not listed under the marketing team’s successes. It’s from July 15, 2005. A year ago. Hmmm. On their site’s press room there are dozens of images. And some very nice exec portraits-a great one of the global marketing director. More relevant than Pinocchio? I checked 15 pages of Google images to see if any came from www.pg.com and didn’t find any. The good news is that on page four of the search engine image results, the photo of their headquarters appears (as pictured on Wikipedia). It’s from their corporate image library. I think they have some image optimization to do.

But again, who cares about other companies! Get crackin’ on optimizing your images.

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Oneupweb is the only two-time winner of the ClickZ award for “Best Search Engine Engine Marketing Firm”. StraightUpSearchs blog authors include experts from Oneupwebs natural SEO, pay-per-click campaign management, research, marketing, design, and sales departments.

A recent General Accounting Office report estimates that as many as 750,000 Americans are victims of identity theft every year. So, what can you do to protect your employees? Here are some ideas.

Employee files

HR (Human Resources) professionals will generally have a set of standard operating procedures when dealing with employee information. Make sure employee files, both active and terminated, are under lock and key. More importantly, make sure that only the Human Resources office has access to this key. In normal cases, the Human Resources office will be the only department who has any reason to access the employee files.

Information Release

Unless an officer of the court provides you with a subpoena, your company should have a strict policy not to ever release employee information to any individual e
xcept the employee him/herself.

Clean Desk Rule

Does your company have a clean desk rule? If not, you’d better make sure one is instituted. This rule ensures that any employee who deals with any type of sensitive employee data clears their desk and files and that this information is under lock and key whenever they leave their workstation. Many financial and housing institutions already practice this rule.

Social Security Masking

In the past, entire social security numbers were used to identify an employee. With the increase in identity theft, (and the methods by which thieves acquire this information), employers are now using number masks. In other words, instead of identifying John Doe as 123-00-4567, he is now identified as Doe XXX-XX-4567. This is what is used when sending information via mail or email and has dramatically helped employers reduce identity theft.

Use It Then Lose It

After an employee processes data containing sensitive information, and if it is not required to be refilled, information should be destroyed. A common paper shredder can be purchased for about $50.00 at any office supply store and can be another weapon in your arsenal to protect your employees. Documents should be shredded either immediately after use or at the very least, the same day before the end of the work day. This avoids storing hundreds of documents that can cause your employees’ information to be stolen.

Identity theft causes months of grief and potentially thousands of dollars to fix. It’s up to employers to do their part in protecting them at the workplace. For more information, contact your Human Resources office or visit the social security administrations website at http://www.ssa.gov/

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By John Rico, Director of HR http://www.nationalpeo.com/ . National PEO is a Tucson HR consulting firm providing PEO services to hundreds of AZ companies. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.nationalpeo.com/ .