ENTERPRISE 2.0 JOURNAL

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Interesting Tweets from Enterprise 2.0 Conference

Speeches from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in SF are available on [E2 TV]. I posted some interesting tweets from the conference attendees earlier, here are some more:

When people talk about “breaking down” silos they add fuel to the fire that E20 is a crock. Silos collaborate they don't break down. (@mikojava)
Change agents have always existed, 2.0 tech brings agents together (@nitinbadjatia)
Knowledge Management used to be a dusty destination, ent 2.0 allows it to be dynamic and responsive to individual requests (@paulmirvine)
@CarolineDangson: E2.0 should perhaps be considered more like digital dna, the knowledge backbone of an organization (@paulmirvine)
Start behind the firewall, open to all employees, educate rather than prohibit, trust is returned (@dcoleman100)
Clara Shih: people are using FB and Twitter so their friends can serve as social filters for content. (@cjnash)
@nenshad: “Marketing creates the brand, Support keeps the brand alive.” (@JuliaMak)
Luxury hotel implemented Six Sigma and eliminated it because it didn’t allow them to overdeliver on Customer Service (@uwehook)
E2.0 culture change: “Imagine if a store with low sales accused their customers of “resistance”!” (@timoelliott)
Adoption is not a matter of resistance. If your store that wasn’t being trafficked, would you blame resistance?(@marciamarcia)
“When you grow up on the internet, client-server looks like green screen today.” (@nenshad)
Nike talks about “lessons shared”, rather than “lessons learned”. (@lehaweslive)
@rotkapchen: Why do so many people use the term “enterprise-wide” then? Why not “enterprise-deep”? (@richardveryard)
@rotkapchen: The first sign that someone has absolutely no clue about E2.0…when they keep referring to “users”. (@ekolsky)
@marciamarcia: If culture eats strategy for breakfast, how do you feed culture? (@ajeanne)
Innovation occurs at the intersection of contextually disparate concepts brought together creatively and with an open mind(@paulguyandersen)

(source)

E2.0 Conference

Enterprise 2.0 conference is in progress this week in SF. Most of the speeches are available on [E2 TV]. Here are some tweets from the Conference attendees:

trust, collaboration, network, engagement, task-driven, productivity-enhancement, defined-roles & responsibilities = 2.0 world (@ekolsky)
Content is no longer enough, context of persona is key to E20.
You can subscribe not only to a person feed, but also on tags.
people want to work in an org where what they do matters, aligns with their principles and beliefs, be part of something (@ekolsky)
The ethos has shifted from "need to know" to "responsibility to share" - Andrew McAfee
Forrester reports that 1 in 2 businesses will use E2.0 software.
Transparency does not eliminate the need for identity, security, etc
More features are not what people are looking for in #E20. Focus 80% of your efforts on the 20% that really make people socially productive
Use e2.0 for what you can't do with email, like journaling your work.
3 challenges to successful E2.0 deployment are Risk, Control, and Trust. deal with up front. - Dion Hinchcliffe
Collaboration works best when it's in the flow of work- encourage interactions and multitiered adoption.
you're never going to get people to that happy sharing place unless its in their flow of work.
Key challenge with dedicated (standalone) enterprise microblogging platform is that it's not part of the workflow.
collaboration needs to move from a doc-centric solution to a conversation-centric solution
manage knowledge mostly by connecting people. Brains are just so much better than databases.
The point is not to teach people how to use computer, but facilitating Human-to-Human interaction through a computer.
"Business is conducted by people, not users" - @eugenelee

Source: Tweets from the Enterprise 2.0 2009 Conference (#E2Conf)

Its not enough having the right enterprise 2.0 app

source

Dr. Chenxi Wang's comments on Amazon EC2 side-channel-attack

Researchers from MIT and UC San Diego recently demonstrated an attack against Amazon’s EC2 where an attack virtual machine can launch attacks against a victim virtual machine that is located on the same physical server.

Does this mean that there is a security vulnerability within EC2? Yes.

Should you be concerned? Not really.

Read m ore .. ..

Recovery.gov Augmented Reality Mashup

… is Now available

This layer, developed by Sunlight Labs, allows people to visualize stimulus package contributions through an augmented reality application on any iPhone and Android.

"legal obligation to delete" in the Cloud

David Navetta, Esq. CIPP, has published an interesting blog post on the topic of Legal Implications of Cloud Computing.

Mr. Navetta emphasize the need to understand the increasingly complex and interlocking relationships in the Cloud:

The party with whom a company is dealing will often not be the party actually processing data or providing computing services. This poses compliance challenges (e.g. how to perform/show due diligence) and contracting challenges (e.g. how to obtain/enforce contractual rights / remedies when one or two layers removed from the company actually doing the processing).

The blog post also highlights the need for proper data retention and destruction policies.

What if the SaaS provider is working on a Cloud Platform that creates residual copies of data that the Cloud User has a legal obligation to delete? What if the SaaS provider works with a Cloud Platform that does not have the technology or capability to properly wipe data? Even if the Cloud Platform has these capabilities, what if the SaaS provider has not negotiated for the right to obtain these services?

My thoughts on Legal Obligation to Delete:

Internet has created a world where "absolute destruction" of data is not easy to achieve. Even when the services are hosted in-house, this type of data destruction is not possible. There could be replicas, backups, off-site backups, DR backups, user created offline replicas, user archives and even printed copies.

I think what is a more achievable is delete in context. Data that loses its context, loses its meaning and is not of much use. So going back to Cloud Services, when I delete an email from my SaaS powered Inbox, the SaaS provider may still have some residual "Sharded" copies of the data. But these residual copies have completely lost their context. And as you traverse down the layers of Cloud Service aggregators (Saas –> PaaS –> IaaS), this residual data becomes more and more meaningless. Re-animating an email from this sharded residual data would be like trying to re-construct a needle by searching for its pieces in a haystack! :-)

Habeas Data and Foreign Entities

Background:

A constitutional right granted in many Latin American countries is "Habeas Data" i.e. the right to own your data. Habeas Data can be brought up by any citizen against any manual or automated data register to find out what information is held about his or her person. That person can request the rectification, actualization or even the "destruction" of the personal data held.

Question:

Can a writ of Habeas Data be issued to a Foreign Entity?

My thoughts:

Any volitional disclosure of PII to a entity that is not under the jurisdiction of the said Country would not be covered by this (IMO). Besides, how would you obtain a writ of Habeas Data for an entity that is outside of the jurisdiction of issuing authority?

Your thoughts:

Please share your thoughts on this as comments below:

EU Data Protection Directive and Cloud Computing

Tanya L. Forsheit, Esq., CIPP writes about the EU Data Protection Directive and Cloud Computing:

The most notable thing about the EU Directive and member state laws for purposes of cloud computing is this -- in the absence of specific compliance mechanisms, the EU prohibits (yes, you read correctly, prohibits) the transfer of personal information of EU residents out of the EU to the US and the vast majority of countries around the world.

What does this mean for cloud computing? If you want to put data in the cloud that includes personal information of EU residents (and that might be something as simple as an email address or employment information), and the data will flow from the EU to almost anywhere in the world, you cannot simple throw the data in the cloud and hope for the best. You need to have, at a minimum, one or more of the following:

International Safe Harbor^† Certification (which allows data transfer from the EU to the US, but not from the EU to other countries);

model contracts (which allow data transfer from the EU to non-US countries, but do not always work well with multi-tiered vendor relationships); or

Binding Corporate Rules (which are designed for a multinational company and therefore may not function well for cloud provider relationships).

Paralegals Take a Walk on the Cloud

You must love your [SaaS] vendor. You must trust your [SaaS] vendor. You must have your [SaaS] vendor's cell, home and wife's cell phone number. Your [SaaS] vendor is your lifeline. Do your research, make sure your cloud computing vendor has been in business for a long time, and with reasonable certainty, will continue to be in business for a long time. If a bank can go under, so can a cloud computing company. Maybe the answer is to use several different clouds. Don't put all of your documents into one cloud. Diversify. It's a tough economy out there, and at any given time, any company could be trudging up the bankruptcy court steps. The best you can do is to protect yourself as best you can.

The French get serious about Cloud Computing.....

… well at least about the proper translation of the term "Cloud Computing" to French:

A group of French experts had spent 18 months coming up with "informatique en nuage," which literally means "computing in cloud."

"What? This means nothing to me. I put a 'cloud' of milk in my tea!" exclaimed Jean Saint-Geours, a French writer and member of the Terminology Commission.

"Send it back and start again," ordered Etienne Guyon, a physics professor on the commission.

The problem was the word "cloud." In French, to be "dans les nuages" – or in the clouds – is a common expression meaning to be distracted.

"I think we can survive without the term 'cloud computing,'" said physics expert Mr. Guyon, slamming his hand on the table.

The following is NOT a Liar’s Paradox

stmt1: Following statement is false;
stmt2: Preceding statement is false;

Explanation:

It has the following possible solutions:

stmt1	stmt2
T	F
F	T

Take row 1: Stmt 2 is true, Stmt 1 is false. What Paradox?
Take row 2: Stmt 2 is false, Stmt 1 is true. What Paradox?

The following IS a Liar’s Paradox

stmt3: Following statement is true;
stmt4: Preceding statement is false;

Explanation:

Take row 1: stmt3 is true, therefore stmt4 is true, therefore stmt3 is false.
Now row 2: stmt3 is false, therefore stmt4 is false, therefore stmt3 is true.

Completely un-decidable.

Renaming a GAPE user account using cURL

This is a four step process:

First obtain a Authentication Token:

# curl https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin -d Email=user@domain.tld –d Passwd=password –d accountType=HOSTED_OR_GOOGLE -d source=cURL-Example -d service=wise

This will return something that looks as follows:


SID=DQAAAHYBADCv2pSv7nflacDNwz3zEDUGtrSvNVDcpkSfddi77b3U5sEaHmP8YLWhmA36F9rk85mL8J5dqo4apn0T1vKz0fPGI9Xtnuet6cuE2ZzYvrNIwbSC_HjTqF4zudNQnnlDuD2wqZT-g1qXI8KhGAQZV4NexHZoQPlabTsGuRZeIBxj1A 
LSID=EUBBBIaBADCl-kNxvRVmcQghpt3cqSMfEooKR9flLOUZqwgP9OrZS83gse-KSdTNeXhxsET7FYenDhceP9lIPOmesH-t9qh-AWUHjjMdZEbUNeF9mWyzln6Z-FajaiG-cVFkqW0ZJ8ZbnCP30xXj6xFK6QxaAcqy_9Pej8jhEnxS9E61ftQGPg 
Auth=EUBBIacAAADK-kNxvRVmcQghpt3cqSMfEooLNMflLNIQqwgP9OrZS83gs-KSdTNeXhxsET7FYePWmaD8Vsy1V4LSUGMUP48Je2TO8OcjBj6HgAtPhiZeX-gKDfagZDK44j4n-Tkb44nhOnp2_QPSnBj3Z2vYwOEDjjG3Q53aQVC2132JKOuGh

Now use the AuthToken to retrieve the user account:

# curl --silent --header "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=AUTHKEY” "https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/domain.tld/user/2.0/oldUserName" | tidy -xml -indent -quiet -wrap 300 > rename.xml

This will generate a file called rename.xml containing the user account definition. The content of the rename.xml should look as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<atom:entry xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
 xmlns:apps="http://schemas.google.com/apps/2006"
 xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005">
 <atom:id>https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/example.com/user/2.0/OldUserName</atom:id>
 <atom:updated>1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z</atom:updated>
 <atom:category scheme="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#kind"
 term="http://schemas.google.com/apps/2006#user"/>
 <atom:title type="text">OldUserName</atom:title>
 <atom:link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" 
 href="https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/example.com/user/2.0/OldUserName"/>
 <atom:link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" 
 href="https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/example.com/user/2.0/OldUserName"/>
 <apps:login userName="NewUserName" suspended="false" admin="false" changePasswordAtNextLogin="false" agreedToTerms="true"/>
 <apps:name familyName="Jones" givenName="Susan"/>
 <gd:feedLink rel="http://schemas.google.com/apps/2006#user.nicknames" 
 href="https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/example.com/nickname/2.0?username=Susy-1321"/>
 <gd:feedLink rel="http://schemas.google.com/apps/2006#user.groups" 
 href="https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds//group/2.0/?recipient=us-sales@example.com"/>
</atom:entry>

Edit rename.xml and replace NewUserName with the new username for the user. You can also change the familyName, givenName or any other attribute in the <apps:login/> element.

Use the following command to update the UserName on the GAPE server:

# curl --silent --request PUT --data "@rename.xml" --header "Content-Type: application/atom+xml" --header "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=AUTHKEY" "https://apps-apis.google.com/a/feeds/domain.tld/user/2.0/oldUserName"

e2dot0 culture

“Culture is an indirect variable, culture can’t be generated!”

~~Change culture~~

Influence culture.

source

Using cURL to download a Google Spreadsheet as .xls (Excel)

First obtain a Authentication Token:
# curl https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin -d Email=user@quantumcrypto.de –d Passwd=mysecretpassword –d accountType=HOSTED_OR_GOOGLE -d source=cURL-Example -d service=wise

This will return something that looks as follows:

SID=DQAAAHYBADCv2pSv7nflacDNwz3zEDUGtrSvNVDcpkSfddi77b3U5sEaHmP8YLWhmA36F9rk85mL8J5dqo4apn0T1vKz0fPGI9Xtnuet6cuE2ZzYvrNIwbSC_HjTqF4zudNQnnlDuD2wqZT-g1qXI8KhGAQZV4NexHZoQPlabTsGuRZeIBxj1A
LSID=EUBBBIaBADCl-kNxvRVmcQghpt3cqSMfEooKR9flLOUZqwgP9OrZS83gse-KSdTNeXhxsET7FYenDhceP9lIPOmesH-t9qh-AWUHjjMdZEbUNeF9mWyzln6Z-FajaiG-cVFkqW0ZJ8ZbnCP30xXj6xFK6QxaAcqy_9Pej8jhEnxS9E61ftQGPg
Auth=EUBBIacAAADK-kNxvRVmcQghpt3cqSMfEooLNMflLNIQqwgP9OrZS83gs-KSdTNeXhxsET7FYePWmaD8Vsy1V4LSUGMUP48Je2TO8OcjBj6HgAtPhiZeX-gKDfagZDK44j4n-Tkb44nhOnp2_QPSnBj3Z2vYwOEDjjG3Q53aQVC2132JKOuGh

To export a Google Spreadsheet as .xls (Excel):
# curl --silent --header "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=AUTHKEY" http://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/download/spreadsheets/Export?key=spreadsheetkey&exportFormat=xls

exportFormat Parameter Value	Format of the returned Spreadsheet
`xls`	XLS (Microsoft Excel)
`csv`	CSV (Comma Separated Value)
`pdf`	PDF (Portable Document Format)
`ods`	ODS (Open Document Spreadsheet)
`tsv`	TSV (Tab Separated Value)
`html`	HTML Format

Václav Havel

The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better…. Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions - Václav Havel, Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician

That He Not Busy Being Born Is Busy Dying

John Gruber writes:

It’s not that Steve Jobs is fearless, but rather that he’s afraid of not changing. Where other CEOs can’t bring themselves to do something different, Jobs can’t bring himself to keep doing the same thing.

The funniest comic ever. Ever! (clean)

Don’t write “pursuant to the statute,” just write “under the statute.” It’s much simpler!!
Response: I need to change my pursuant to wear.

Credits: David Mills
Source: http://courtoons.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/pursuant-to/

Log everything?

Trent Henry of Burton group says that Logging everything may not be such a good idea. I whole heartedly agree with him, as long as periodic data destruction is part of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) at your organization. However, destroying data in the face of a e-discovery request is a BAD idea. e-discovery is serious business. Here are some guidelines:

An unprepared organization can be crippled with an e-discovery request. Advance planning early in the ILM can reduce or minimize e-Discovery pain.
Preserve all data (email, databases etc) that may be relevant, or which may lead to relevant evidence once you get a notice of e-discovery OR legal hold OR are aware of a pending litigation. Asking your lawyer for advice before taking any action is a good idea.
Don't wait to stop all automated relevant document deletion after an e-discovery notice has been received. Your duty to stop routine and systematic document destruction is triggered by the filing of a lawsuit (way in advance of discovery) and might under certain circumstances be triggered even in advance of a lawsuit.
Destroying evidence by mistake is like "killing your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you're an orphan" (Magistrate Facciola)
A digital record is no longer just a digital record, it is a potential evidence in a lawsuit.
Many companies tend to settle out of the court in fear of burdensome costs of litigation, now including e-discovery. However, Settlement is NOT Justice (Magistrate Facciola).

Knowing Disregard (i.e. purposely not learning (ignoring) about an unlawful activity) => is same as knowing and not disclosing.

Mediocrity is always at its best

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs. – Max Beerbohm

The Cult of Done Manifesto

Fred Allen on Conference

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done. – Fred Allen.

Law like Love

Like love we don't know where or why
Like love we can't compel or fly
Like love we often weep
Like love we seldom keep.

- W. H. Auden

Fate guides the willing, but drags the unwilling

"Lead me, Zeus, and you too, Destiny,
To wherever your decrees have assigned me.
I follow readily, but if I choose not,
Wretched though I am, I must follow still.
Fate guides the willing, but drags the unwilling." - Cleanthes

"The willing, Destiny guides them; the unwilling, Destiny drags them." - Seneca the Younger (translating Cleanthes)

Duties of an individual in a democracy

You cannot have a democracy unless the man, the individual citizen, becomes more than himself in isolation and is forced through public opinion to active participation beyond that cultivated in any other form of organized society.

Source:
Frankfurter, F. (1965). Of Law and Life & Other Things That Matter. (P. B. Kurland, Ed.) Harvard University Press.

Law as a mean to address chaos in life

Law is as a untidy as the life with which it deals, though it is the business of people to bring some kind of order out of the chaos of the world, if only as a working hypothesis, and thereby to make it less chaotic - Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter

Source:
Frankfurter, F., & Phillips, H. B. (1960). Felix Frankfurter Reminisces. REYNAL & COMPANY.

Law as the barrier between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of the unbridled, undisciplined feeling

"I do take the law very seriously, deeply seriously, because fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the expression of the institutionalized medium of reason, that's all we have standing between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of the unbridled, undisciplined feeling."

Source:
Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter in Frankfurter, F., & Phillips, H. B. (1960). Felix Frankfurter Reminisces. Reynal & Company

Legal process is essential to the democratic process

In our country law is not a body of technicalities in the keeping of specialists or in the service of any special interest. There can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process. (Frankfurter, 1947)

Source:
UNITED STATES v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA. SAME v. LEWIS, JOHN L. President of United Mine Workers of America., 330 U.S. 258 (The Supreme Court March 6, 1947).

Law as ordinance of reason

[Law] is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated. (Aquinas, 1265-1274)

Source:

1. Aquinas, T. (1265-1274). Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 90, Article 4.

Relationship between Laws and Good Morals

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals. (Machiavelli, 1513-1517)

Note(s):
Machiavelli, N. (1513-1517). Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius. (A. Gilbert, Trans.) Duke University Press.

Taxonomy of an apology OR How to say you are sorry and not mean it

The word sorry is used in three ways.

First, sorry can be used with a complement having the form of what The Cambridge Grammar calls a content clause:

(1) I'm sorry that the the political situation in the Holy Land is still mired in violence, because I wanted to go to Bethlehem at Christmas.

If I utter (1), I am not apologizing; I have never caused or defended any of the violence in the Middle East. It's not my fault. I just regret that the situation persists. This use can constitute an apology (as Jonathan Wright reminded me when he read the first version of this post), but only when the content clause subject is first person as well: I'm sorry I hit you is an apology, but I'm sorry you were hit is not, so watch for that subject.

Second, sorry can be used with a preposition phrase headed by for with a complement noun phrase denoting a sentient creature:

(2) I'm sorry for that poor little kitten, which seems to have figured out how to climb up a tree without having any idea how to get down.

If I utter (2), I am not apologizing; I never suggested to the stupid kitten that it should climb fifty feet up into a beech tree. I'm just expressing sympathy, as a fellow mammal, for its present plight.

And third, sorry can be used with a preposition phrase headed by for where the preposition has as its complement a subjectless gerund-participial clause or a noun phrase denoting an act:

(3) a. I'm sorry for doing what I did; I behaved like an utter pig, and you have a right to be angry.
(3) b. I'm sorry for my actions last night; I should never have acted that way and I want you to forgive me.

Only this third kind of use can constitute an apology, as opposed to a statement of regret about the truth of a proposition or a statement of sympathy for a fellow creature.

Source(s):

Liberman, M. (2008, May 24). A non-apology of the first kind. Retrieved from Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=187

Pullum, G. K. (2004, January 13). Pete Rose and sorry statements of the third kind. Retrieved from Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000327.html

Nec quicquam insipiente fortunato intolerabilius fieri potest.

Nec quicquam insipiente fortunato intolerabilius fieri potest.

English:
Nothing is more insufferable then a successful fool.

Please add other translations of this phrase in the comments sections.

Do you speak Cherokee?

Exit Strategy

Vendor lock-in is an issue with any data storage system - in the cloud or hosted in-house. We need to look into and investigate the tools that the vendor provides to extract the data out of the system.

From what I seen (and experimented with), Google provides excellent set of APIs to access the data stored in Google's Cloud. And Google is always working on to improve the APIs. Google usually first adds functions to the API, and then introduces them in the UI. Compare this to other software vendors, who usually introduce the new functions in the UI and then at a later time provide API access to those functions - if it all.

I currently use both Google Docs and Windows Live Workspace to store my personal / school related stuff. I use both of these because they both have their benefits. Windows Live Workspace provides complete integration with Office 2007, whereas Google Docs provide editing capabilities in a Web browser. Recently I have been thinking of writing an application that will synchronize the content of both of these repositories. Google provides APIs that make this task easy from Google's side, but there are no Windows Live Workspace APIs, so I have to devise a workaround to get documents into the Windows Live Workspace.

No amount of precautions can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need to find solutions to the problems, not just avoid them. An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure, but that's only if we know what to "prevent". We should be looking into ways to reduce the security and privacy risks associated with Cloud Computing and improve data-portability- efficiently and cheaply.

With problems that we are not aware of yet, the ability to put right - not the sheer good luck of avoiding indefinitely - is our only hope, not just of solving problems, but of making progress. - Physicist David Deutsch

Oh btw, also check out Data Liberation Front

Innovating using Social Computing

This year IDF had a interesting presentation by Eleanor Wynn and Abram Detofsky on how Intel is using Social Computing to promote Innovation @ Intel. The following are some highlights from the presentation. More to come later.

People often mistake Social Media (content) for Social Networks (connections). - Eleanor Wynn (Paraphrased)

A robust social network (connections) is required for innovation emergence - Eleanor Wynn and Abram Detofsky

Measuring Robustness of a network

The following are some measures used to measure the robustness of a network

Density

Percentage of Connections

Cohesion

Average number of Hops

In this network graph, Andre is a 4 hops away from Jane
Source: The Network Thinker

Degree Centrality

Number of ties a person has with others in the network. Read more.

Betweenness Centrality

People who sit on short paths between many sub-groups. Read more.

Roles in a Network

Participants in network may play one or more of following roles:

Hub

Central figure in a subnet or clique.

Maven

Edge figure who is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. Read more.

Broker

Link between two or more cliques

Sources:

https://intel.wingateweb.com/us09/scheduler/catalog/catalog.jsp

http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html

http://www.thenetworkthinker.com/

Stealing credit card numbers from corporate computers is a serious crime, but it is not “identity theft.”

Why does terminology matter? Larry Downes explains:

No one’s “identity” is being stolen, but the use of the term to describe every financial fraud involving a computer amps up the terror level of consumers who largely have nothing to fear. The vast majority of “real” identity theft has nothing to do with computers at all, but rather begins with a stolen or lost wallet, stolen or simply discarded mail, or inside jobs pulled by clerks and others with legitimate access to the data.

The real problems are on the back-end, where credit card systems are left insufficiently secured, or where laptops with sensitive data are left in the back seats of cars where they are stolen not for the data but for the hardware. We keep hearing horror stories of government employees, university officials, and private sector employees who can’t even be bothered to put password protection on their logins, let alone encrypt their data. And the continued use of social security numbers by private enterprises both as a customer ID and an authentication field is probably the most dangerous practice of all.

[A]s long as consumers are being misdirected to think it’s their behavior that needs to be controlled, the financial services industry can avoid solving their largely self-made problems.

Defining Cloud Computing – The Lewis Carroll Way OR Humpty Dumpty Explains

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

`Would you tell me please,' said Alice, `what that means?'

`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'

Don’t forget to delete your adobe flashplayer cache/cookies

Recently I used a friend’s computer to login into kuler.adobe.com. I was hoping that clearing firefox cache/cookies would log me out and clear my credentials for the site. But that was not the case. This is because the the kuler flash object stores the user’s credentials as a flashplayer cookie. You have to explicitly log out of the site OR delete the flashplayer cookies.

The moral of the story is to always delete the flashplayer cache/cookies after accessing a flash enabled site on a public computer.

To get rid flashplayer cache/cookies, you need to delete the contents of the following folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

Alternatively, you can visit Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager to delete the cookies.

Disloyal Computing Is Not Illegal under CFAA

From wired

A federal appeals court says employees are not liable for damages under anti-hacking laws for accessing their employers’ computers for disloyal purposes.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that workers authorized to access company computers do not lose or exceed that access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) even if their intent was to acquire data to open a competing business (.pdf). CFAA is the "root" law that criminalizes an attack on any computer connected to the internet.

There is no language in the 1984 anti-hacking statute, the San Francisco-based appeals court said Wednesday, supporting the “argument that authorization to use a computer ceases when an employee resolves to use the computer contrary to the employer’s interests.”

i.e., to wit, e.g., in lieu

A letter to a lawyer as dictated by Groucho Marx:

Now then. In re yours of the 5th inst., yours to hand and in reply, brackets, that we have gone over the ground carefully and we seem to believe, i.e., to wit, e.g., in lieu, that, despite all our precautionary measures which have been involved, we seem to believe that it is hardly necessary for us to proceed unless we receive an ipso facto that is not negligible at this moment, quotes, unquotes and quotes. Hoping this finds you, I beg to remain...as of June 9, cordially yours. Regards.

Note: This is the first known use of quotes, unquotes.......

Another letter to a lawyer as dictated by Groucho Marx:

In re yours of the 5th inst, yours to hand and in reply, I wish to state that the judiciary expenditures of this year, i.e., has not exceeded the fiscal year—brackets—this procedure is problematic and with nullifcation will give us a subsidiary indictment and priority. Quotes unquotes and quotes. Hoping this finds you, I beg to remain as of June 9th, Cordially, Respectfully, Regards.¹

Source(s):

Armstrong, S. V., & Terrell, T. P. (2003). Thinking Like a Writer: A Lawyer's Guide to Writing and Editing (2nd edition.). Practising Law Institute.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Origins of the phrase "Gentlemen: Yours to hand, and, In reply......."

In this context Yours means your letter, i.e., the letter you sent.

to hand means: within reach, accessible, at hand.
at hand means: within easy reach; near; close by

So the meaning would be:

"I have received your letter and in reply to it..." ; or
"I have your letter right here beside me (to hand, at hand), and in reply. . ."; or
"I have your letter in hand, and I'm replying."

Credits:
Thanks to Peter Duncanson, Pat Durkin, and Wayne Schiess for providing the explanation of this formal phrase.

Note:
If you have information about the origins of the phrase, please share them as comments. Thanks.

Wave goodbye to complacency

Dare to be different
Remember the late J.K. Galbraith’s take on the concept of “conventional wisdom”: “The conventional view,” he said, “serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”

Just do it
The co-founder and chairman of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, has defined the right approach: “We have the most unusual plan in the industry: doing things. That’s our plan.”

It’s still the people, stupid
It is high-quality people who make the difference between businesses that succeed and those that do not. So managers should pay attention to them. No one understood this better than Studs Terkel, the Chicago-based writer and broadcaster, who died this year, aged 96. His powerful descriptions of people struggling to do a good day’s work while keeping basic dignity intact won many admirers. “Work is life,” he said. “Without it, there is no life.” The recession should not obscure this fact.

Source:
FT.com / Columnists / Stefan Stern - Wave goodbye to complacency

Wrong words part 2

ambiguous / vague “Ambiguous” means susceptible of two different meanings, but “vague” means abstract and incapable of being pinned down. The two are different. Many lawyers use “ambiguous” when they mean “vague”:

You cannot define what a reasonable person would do. It’s ambiguous.No, it’s vague.

scan / skim
“Scan” means to take in every part of a document: think about what a scanner does. “Skim” means to go over something quickly, getting just the highlights. So better writers don't write this:

I was in a hurry, so I only had time to scan the brief.

That should be “skim.”

BLOG.LEGALWRITING.NET: Wrong words part 2

Do Not Waste This Crisis - Stew Friedman

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

Do Not Waste This Crisis - Stew Friedman

The Great Disruption - Scott Anthony

The Great Disruption creates real challenges for managers who have made a career out of focused execution. Smart management and prudent cost controls might have been enough to survive the Great Depression, but they are wholly insufficient for surviving the Great Disruption. For example, all the operational acumen in the world won't help U.S. newspaper companies handle the seismic shifts in their industry.

For many companies, the Great Disruption requires nothing short of transformation. It requires fending off attacks from below and making the creation of new growth systematic. It demands embracing new forms of innovation, such as business model innovation, and dramatically improving the productivity of innovation efforts. Investing in transformational efforts in a brutal market appears difficult, but the alternative isn't stagnation, it is extinction.

The Great Disruption - Scott Anthony

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel

Unexpected social dynamics created by Lotus Connections

Clay Shirky once made the following observation:

"Every time social software improves, it is followed by changes in the way groups work and socialize. One consistently surprising aspect of social software is that it is impossible to predict in advance all of the social dynamics it will create.”

If your organization currently uses Lotus Connections, and you have stumbled upon some new (unexpected) social dynamics with the use of the software, please share them here.

Privacy as Contextual Integrity

Couple of days ago Dr. Helen Nissenbaum of NYU gave an extremely interesting, engaging and stimulating lecture entitled "Privacy in Context" at UC Berkeley.

The audio recording of the lecture is available @
http://groups.sims.berkeley.edu/podcast/audio/Helen_Nissenbaum_UCiSchool_02Apr2008.mp3

Following are some of the notes I took from the lecture. Please feel free to add to these if I missed something.

Socio-technical systems: It is not just the technology that causes privacy issues. It is the technology embedded in the social system. e.g. RFID implanted into humans or RFID enabled passports.

Three classifications of socio-technical system:

Tracking and monitoring systems e.g. Web browser cookies.
Systems that aggregate and analyze - Choicepoint, Amazon's personalized recommendation system.
Systems that broadcast, disperse, distribute, propagate, publicize and disseminate information. - e.g. making court records, which are public, available online. In this case the web is technical system that disseminate the court records.

Controversial vs non-controversial socio-technical systems. Medical devices in use at hospitals are non-controversial and maybe beneficial. However, using information electronic toll collection on freeways to track someone's movement is controversial.

Traditional approaches to privacy:

Private / Public duality (dichotomy). This is an oversimplified approach. It may be argued that what is public maybe disseminated by any medium. e.g. Google's street view, license plate recognition is not a privacy breach as both streets and license plates are public in nature. Private / Public dichotomy maybe good in political philosophy, but it is problematic in privacy realm.
The measure of respect for privacy is the control of information by the subject. i.e. the subject has control over what gets revealed and what does not.
Lobbying for what is constitutes as a privacy breach and what doesn't. Especially problematic if the privacy is considered a preference rather then a moral right.
Privacy vs. other values (e.g. security).

These approaches are limited and do not work.

Dr. Nissenbaum's proposed approach: Contextual Integrity. Based on privacy as a human/moral right.

Contextual Integrity is a measure of how closely the flow of personal information conforms to context relative information norms. Contextual integrity is breached when these norms are violated and is respected when these norms are enforced.

Context relative information flow norms: In a context the flow of information (particular attribute) about a subject from a sender to a recipient is governed by a particular transmission principle. Context (circumstance), attributes (information about the subject), actors (subject (information owner), sender and receiver) and transmission principles are the key parameters. All these parameters must be taken into account when performing a analysis of the information flow. Google street map argument fails because it only takes one principle i.e. attributes (streets are public) into account and ignores the other key principle i.e. the context (distributing it over the web and making it widely available).

Fiduciary transmission principle: You trust someone with private information about yourself under the assumption that your private information will be used to benefit you and not harm you.

Privacy is not secrecy but rather appropriate flow of information.

Appendix

What is privacy?

"Privacy is the right to control information about and access to oneself." – Regan, P. M. (1995). Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy. University of North Carolina Press.
"Privacy is not simply an absence of information about us in the minds of others; rather it is the control we have over information about ourselves." – Fried, C. (1984). Privacy (a moral analysis). In F. D. Schoeman, Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy (pp. 203-222). Cambridge University Press
"Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others. .....privacy is the voluntary and temporary withdrawal of a person from the general society through physical or psychological means, either in a state of solitude or small-group intimacy or, when among larger groups, in a condition of anonymity or reserve." – Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York, NY: Atheneum, 1967).
“A loss of privacy occurs as others obtain information about an individual, pay attention to him, or gain access to him. These three elements of secrecy, anonymity, and solitude are distinct and independent, but interrelated, and the complex concept of privacy is richer than any definition centered around only one of them.” – Gavison, R. (1984). Privacy and the Limits of Law. In F. D. Schoeman, Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy (pp. 346-404). Cambridge University Press.
"Privacy is a limitation of others’ access to an individual through information, attention, or physical proximity." – Ruth Gavison
Common Law Right to Privacy (as defined by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, 1890): An individual’s right of determining, ordinarily, to what extent his thoughts, sentiments, and emotions shall be communicated to others.