Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

Tony Delroy’s Nightlife: Our digital reputation
December’s Tony Delroy’s Nightlife looked at the risks of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Along with being a great way to communicate with family, friends and colleagues using online services can have some unexpected effects.

Program podcast

A recording of the program is available from the ABC’s Tony Delroy’s Nightlife webpage. You can listen to it through the site or download it and listen to it as a podcast.

Topics covered

Tony and Paul covered a range of topics including the following questions;
- Are we living in the social media age?
- What is social media is?
- Why people use social media?
- How some folk have come unstuck using social websites?
- Can doing the wrong thing hurt your reputation or career?
- What the risks are during the christmas party season?
- Are there too many social media services?
- How businesses can really use them?
- Where will these services go next?
Listeners’ questions

We had a great range of questions and comments from listeners and those we promised to get back to included how to shut down your Facebook account and the link to report abuse on the service.

Reporting Facebook abuse

If you’re being harassed on Facebook, you can report misuse at Facebook’s Help Centre. Their page includes instructions on dobbing in underage users, blocking irritating people and how to use their privacy settings.

Deleting a Facebook profile

Leaving Facebook is not easy, so on the Netsmarts website we have the detailed instructions on deleting your Facebook account.

Note with these instructions that you need to disable any applications you may have installed on Facebook before deleting the account. When you go to the Applications page you may be shocked at how many things are connecting to your page.

Do we have too many social media services?

Tony asked if we have too many social media platforms.

This is a topic we’ve covered previously on the website and while there’s no doubt many of the services around today won’t survive, some will become increasingly become important.

Next Nightlife tech program

Our next program will be on February 9 next year. We will probably have some spots over the summer break and we’ll let newsletter subscribers know about them as soon as we do.

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November 30, 2011
The world of smaller margins
“We never get expensive trips anymore,” lamented the IT journalist, “every year we used to get a trip to Las Vegas, London or Singapore.”

The decline of journalist freebies is one symptom of the world of declining margins. In the case of the IT industry, most vendors have seen their profits shaved and the days of flying the press around the world to product launches and parties is an unaffordable luxury.

A recent Time story, When Whenzhou Sneezes, illustrates the problem on a broader scale.

In Wenzhou, a provincial Chinese city, factory owners found their margins were being squeezed and they could make better money in property speculation, which of course rarely ends well.

For the IT industry, we saw the rise of “crapware”, where computer manufacturers started added trial programs that slowed their systems and detracted from the customer’s experience.

That’s madness but Micheal Dell, the founder of Dell Computer, pointed out adding this rubbish allows them to sell computers $50 cheaper.

Assuming margins will always be fat, and then fighting market trends when those profits start to erode, are two serious management mistakes that are being repeated across industries and by entire nations.

Right now the world is changing and there are few sectors that have been profitable for the last twenty years that won’t be affected in the post-consumer society.

It might be worthwhile considering where your margins are and how they are changing, then resisting the temptation to do silly things. Although cutting back on journo junkets might not be a bad idea.

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November 26, 2011
Santa’s online business checklist
Regardless of what sector your business is in, the web has become the way customers find us. Giving the key information shoppers are looking for is good start to getting their business.

An analysis by search engine giant Google of Australian consumers’ online Christmas shopping habits shows how the web is evolving as it becomes the main way customers discover businesses in the crowded marketplace.

Even if your business isn’t in retail, it’s worthwhile paying attention to the survey as a guide to what customers – both in the business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) spaces – expect online.

Do you list opening hours?

Number one failure of many sites is they don’t list opening hours or hide them. Warehouses, distributors and suppliers are particularly bad for this and if you’re in retail it is the unforgivable sin.

Your operating hours have to be clearly shown on the front page and come up early on a mobile site, people don’t want to navigate ten menus, subscribe to your newsletter or, worst of all, have to call you to find out if you’re open Sundays or in the evening.

List shut down and public holiday hours

If you’re in an industry that shuts down during the Christmas break, make it clear when you won’t be available.

Sending out a terse email message at 10am on the day of the close down and putting a sticky taped note on the front door that your accounts, receiving or sales department will be shut for two weeks doesn’t help your business or your customers.

Where are your contact details?

Probably the most bizarre aspect of hospitality industry websites is how many bars and restaurants hide their location.

This is fine if you’re one of these Melbourne laneway hipster haunts where only the ‘in-crowd’ are welcome, but most businesses actually want customers to find them.

Have your address and a map on your site showing exactly where you are. If you are in hospitality or retails have a mobile version that shows this first so lost shoppers and taxi drivers can find you.

Are local listings up to date?

A lot of mobile phone applications get their data from services like Google Places and True Local so get your listing up to date with these services, making sure you have accurate Christmas trading hours and that their maps accurately show your location.

The good news for hard pressed retailers is the overseas online threat fades in December as foreign websites can’t guarantee delivery after the first week of the month and local web outlets drop out around the 16^th.

If you want to grab those last minute shoppers – which includes most men – then you’re going to have to make sure they can find you when they pick up their smartphone or log into their computer.

As Telstra have found, people are no longer turning to the phone directory and calling you for information, they expect contact details and opening hours to be clearly on your web site.

The web is where our businesses have to be, so make sure you can be found there.

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November 25, 2011
Spotting a security charlatan
Google’s Open Source Programs Manager, Chris DiBona recently pointed out how IT security industry charlatans keep making false claims to push the sales of their software products and consulting services.

“If you read an analyst report about ‘viruses’ infecting ios, android or rim,” says Chris, “you now know that analyst firm is not honest and is staffed with charlatans. There is probably an exception, but extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.”

Sadly, the computer press tends to accept these extraordinary claims at face value and allows the charlatans to repeat their snake oil pitches without subjecting them to critical analysis.

Fortunately for those who care about the security of their home and business IT systems, there are ways to spot the charlatans and their dodgy wares.

The Big Target theory

When you read a claim that the Windows malware epidemic of the early 2000s was due to Microsoft being a big target as opposed to the tiny market shares of Apple and Linux, you can be sure they are the words of someone who is at best clueless selling a dubious product.

This theory is nonsense, as I’ve explained previously, and anyone who genuinely believes this has no experience in dealing with the poorly secured operating systems that were Window98, Me and the early versions of XP.

If you are confronted by somebody making this claim ask them why, now smartphones are outselling desktop computers, where is the widespread malware promised for mobile systems? It doesn’t exist for exactly the reasons Chris gives in his Google+ post.

Real Soon Now

The other key indicator is the “real soon now” claims – that a virus is about to burst onto the scene that will rub the smile off the face of smug Mac and Linux users.

Invariably the hysterical headlines are backed up with claims, almost always taken from a vendor’s press release, that a security company’s researchers have identified a threat that is about exploit wilfully clueless users.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has done an excellent job of dismantling this rubbish in his classic post “Wolf”.

His post was provoked by the ‘news’ that a wave of Apple malware was on its way. That was six months ago and we’re waiting. John tracked similar stories back to 2004, none of which came to fruition.

The modern snake oil men have an advantage in that tech journalists are desperate for page views and in many media organisations they no longer have the resources to critically analyse PR claims.

Sadly there are real security issues that home and business users need to be aware of. Of course, much of the solution for this doesn’t sell dubious antivirus or expensive consulting services.

In some respects, the proliferation of these stories is a reflection of the decline of the mainstream media business model.

As more ‘news’ stories become lightly rewritten PR spin, the less readers take those outlets seriously and once trusted journals of record become little better than online gossip rags.

Important issues, like information security, deserve more than repeating the lies of those who profit from fear, uncertainty and doubt.

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November 24, 2011
Avoiding industrial nightmares
The Iranian nuclear program is crippled by a virus that infects their control systems while a hacker claims a Texas waterworks can be accessed with a three word password.

Any technology can be vulnerable to the bad guys – obscure systems like office CCTV networks and home automation services can be as vulnerable as the big, high profile infrastructure targets.

While there’s good reasons to connect our systems to the web, we need to ensure our networks are secure and there’s a range of things we can do to protect ourselves.

Does this need to be connected?

Not everything needs a Internet or network connection, if there’s no reason for a device or network to be connected then simply don’t plug it in.

Keep in mind though that threats don’t just come through the web, both the Iranian malware attack and the Wikileaks data breach weren’t due to hackers or Internet attacks.

Get a firewall

No server or industrial system should be connected directly to the public Internet, an additional layer of security will protect systems from unwanted visitors.

All Internet traffic should go through a firewall that is configured to only allow certain traffic through, if the router or firewall can be configured to support a Virtual Private Network (VPN), then that’s an added layer of security.

Disable unnecessary features

The less things you have running, the fewer opportunities there are for clever or determined hackers to find weaknesses.

Shut down unnecessary services running on systems – Windows servers are notorious for running superfluous features – and close Internet ports that aren’t required for normal running of your network.

Patch your systems

Computer systems are constantly being updated as new security problems and flaws are found.

Unpatched computers are a gift to malicious hackers and all systems should be current with the latest security and feature updates.

This is a lesson the Iranians learned with the Stuxnet worm that was almost certainly introduced through an unpatched system – probably one running an early version of Windows XP or even 98 – which was vulnerable to known security problems.

Have strong passwords

Passwords are a key part of a security policy, they have to be strong and robust while being different to those you use for social media and cloud computing services.

It’s also important not to share passwords and restrict key log in details and administrator privileges to those who require them for their work.

With online services like social media, cloud computing and other web tools becoming a part of business and home life, we have to take the security of our systems seriously. Hardening them against threats is a good place to start.

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November 23, 2011