Cybersecurity Metrics Coming For Federal Agencies
December 12, 2009
Federal agencies may have to report a number of new cybersecurity metrics to the Office of Management and Budget, according to a draft of proposed cybersecurity performance metrics posted this week by the OMB and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The new metrics have a strong emphasis on real-time monitoring. Critics have long faulted the government’s cybersecurity compliance efforts under the Federal Information Security Management Act as focusing too heavily on metrics that have little to with actual operational security, like whether an agency has tested its contingency plan.
“These metrics represent a new approach, which focuses on improving security, not just compliance,” NIST said in a statement on its Web site. “These metrics should encourage agencies to take concrete steps to improve their security posture.”
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New Technology Produces New Words
November 29, 2009
Communication professor Ananda Mitra: New modes of communication, such as Facebook, influence our language and social interaction
Word of the Year: ‘Unfriend’
How new words make sense of an ever-changing world
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Facebook term “unfriend” was recently picked as 2009 Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. Ananda Mitra, professor and chair of the Department of Communication, discusses how technology influences language and social interaction.
Q. How does technology influence language and how words are “created” based on new modes of communication?
A: We have to remember that the most important technology of communication is indeed language, and it is through the manipulation of the symbols that make up the language of a culture that we define the culture. Thus all elements of a cultural system influence the fundamental technology of language.
The tools we use to improve our quality of life, from the rake to clear the fall leaves to the Smartphone to unfriend those we do not want on Facebook, all influence how we make sense of the world around us. As such these tools would necessarily influence language.
Over the history of human civilization as new tools have been introduced we have had to find ways to name them. The printing “press” borrows the name from the wine “press,” just as the word “eyeglasses” mirrors the material used to make the tool, although very few eyeglasses are now made of glass. We need to label the tools and as such technology influences language and words.
Q. What was the equivalent to “unfriend” before Facebook? Not returning a call? Simply ignoring someone?
A: The idea of unfriend is closest to what my colleague and friend Professor Michael Hyde would call the opposite of acknowledging someone’s existence. Drawing on the work of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, Professor Hyde urges us to ponder the fundamental question: “Where art thou?” and the responsible answer of “Here I am.” The unfriend option is equivalent to saying, “Here I am NOT!”
There can not be an offline equivalent to unfriend because the process occurs at a discursive level where it is much easier to say the “NOT” via silence which is much more difficult to do in the offline mode, where the equivalent would have to be an overt act of rejection – someone holding out their hand to shake and you actually not only not shaking it, but pushing it back. Unfriending is a more of a deliberate act than simply ignoring, but it is basically pushing back and “deleting” a relationship via a keystroke.
Again, drawing on Professor Hyde’s work and Levinas, it is “social murder.”
Q. How has “friending” on Facebook changed society and social interactions?
A: The changes have been profound because the process of friending has transcended some of the traditional barriers of interaction. For instance, the notion of geography has been transformed and spatial location is certainly no impediment to maintaining a friendship on Facebook. In fact, that would be considered the strength of Facebook.
The length of time that it takes to make and maintain friendships has also changed. With a click of a button one becomes a friend and becomes privy (usually) to all the details of an individual. Finally, Facebook has offered a voice to many who might not have been able to make friends in the offline setting. These are the ones who were the “uncool” kids in high school. Now with the offline distance in space and time these are the ones who are most in need for the friendship but could also be the ones who are most often unfriended. Our biases can continue on Facebook as they do offline.
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Online Privacy and Reputation Management for Parents
September 14, 2009
This Tuesday at 5:00 PM on liveamerica.com Shellee Hale will be teaching a class to help parents learn the tools to manage their kids online privacy and reputation. You can sign up free for the class here at www.liveamerica.com
Learn about the newest technology available to help Parents manage and monitor their kid’s online reputation.
This class will give you all the latest and greatest tools available for free and those for purchase that can help you in making sure your kids and family are safe from online predators looking to use comments they are posting to cause you and your family harm.
Also, you will understand and receive information that can help you communicate the real dangers of social networking with your kids.
I will show you how colleges and employers receive online digital profiles for applicants and how these reports could affect your child’s future.
You will get all the tools you need to help protect your kids from cyber bullies who may be using your kids name, information or have hacked into their current profiles unsuspectingly to cause them embarrassment and harm.
See the current digital footprint on your kids with the tools you learn in this class and take charge before it is too late.
FTC taking on social marketing deceptive practices
June 11, 2009
The Federal Trade Commision (FTC) is looking at proposed changes to deceptive marketing practices in social marketing. At issue are additions and modifications now under consideration in the FTC’s, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials.” Final ruling on the Guides is expected sometime later this summer or early fall. Behind the proposed changes is the 10 Commandments of commercial marketing as found in Section 5 of the FTC Act which discusses false or deceptive practice. A blogger, citizen journalist, activist, third party social marketor or spokesperson’s failure to disclose a fact or event that could alter the consumer’s decision regarding a product or service terms could be found liable if promoting or despariging a product or service.
Camandago provides internet reputation reports to individuals and companies by specialized search techniques and examinations to uncover such acts and the individuals behind them on the internet forums, blogs, social networking sites etc. You can use our contact form or call us directly toll free at 1-877-450-9009 to receive a quote.
