A common aspect of Facebook and many of the other social media services is that the minimum age for sign ups is thirteen years old and the consensus among online safety experts is children younger than that shouldn’t be encouraged to break the rules.

Given the issues involved with younger children using Facebook it’s not surprising that teachers and school principals try to discourage younger children from signing up.

One Queensland school principal has now ordered that any of her students breaching Facebook’s terms by signing up when under 13 will be expelled.

That’s pretty draconian although one can sympathise with the teachers, particularly given many parents allow children to sign up despite knowing they are breaking Facebook’s terms.

How the parents have reacted is interesting too, with online safety expert Susan McLean saying “”You could not print the response to the principal that some of the mothers wrote on Facebook”. None of this is surprising as some see their rights, and those of their children, as being paramount.

Facebook and other social media services are tough for parents as younger kids see their old siblings online and want to be there too. Given many teenagers build their social lives around the service, you can understand the pressure children put on mum and dad to sign them up.

As kids are going to eventually sign up to Facebook, and are probably already on services like Habbo Hotel or Club Penguin, they are going to have to deal with the issues all of us encounter online. So at least if parents are supervising usage, harm can be limited.

One area that seems to be misunderstood is why Facebook has a “no under 13s” policy. It isn’t, as child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg believes, because Facebook care about emotionally immature children, it is due to the US COPPA law.

COPPA – the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – was passed in the late 1990s to prevent inappropriate data being collected on minors. For US based social media services it’s easier to exclude children rather than set up systems that comply with the law.

There’s many good reasons why children should be allowed to use online services, but respecting the terms of conditions of these sites is important too.

While expelling children from school may be taking things too far, it’s not good to be encouraging twelve year old kids to lie about their ages – they’ll be doing that soon enough in their late teens.

Among the topics discussed was the security of cloud computing with Stilgherrian giving an excellent overview of the state of information security.

Stil’s message is clear; online security is everyone’s problem – if the bad guys want to target you for whatever reason they will.

As a business owner, it’s essential to take basic precautions. This is something I’ve covered before and something Stil raises in his presentation by pointing out that Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate lists 35 mitigation strategies based on the security breaches they examined in 2010.

Of those thirty-five, the top five would prevent 85% of security breaches. The top one – keeping your applications up to date – would avoid almost every PC malware attack along with Apple Mac’s Flashback worm.

In answering my question about how Saasu and other cloud computing users can protect their system, Stil also raised a good point about using virtual machines for web browsing and even purchasing a computer just for business accounting and banking use so the services can’t be compromised.

Related to this topic is an ongoing discussion on the Reddit forums between posters claiming to be malware writers and botnet operators.

While it’s risky to trust everything you read on Reddit, the tips are worthwhile, particularly the advice to “disable addons in your browser and only activate the ones you need.”

By reducing the number of programs running on your computer or the add ons in your web browser, you lessen the risk of being infected. Again this would have protected the victims of the Flashback worm.

The security of our systems is our own responsibility, just like our home and office security.

Cloud computing is no different to other computing – the basics of information security, or #infosec, are the same regardless of whether you’re using software on your computer or the cloud.

Used responsibly, cloud computing is no less or more secure than any other computer or smartphone use. We shouldn’t underestimate the risks, or get hysterical about the threats.

That innocuous comment illustrates the fundamental challenge facing the developed world’s politicians – that we expect our governments to fix every problem we encounter.

In the case of the local traffic jam, the cars creating gridlock are parents driving their children to two nearby large private schools.

Despite the problem being caused by the choices of individuals – those decisions to send their kids to those schools and to drive them there – our modern mindset is “the government aught to do something” rather than suggesting people should be making other choices.

Socialising the costs of our private decisions is one of the core beliefs of the 1980s mindset.

Eventually though the money had to run out as we started to expect governments to solve every problem.

We’re seeing the effects of this in the United States where local governments are now having pull up black top roads, close schools and renege on retirement funds as those costs become too great.

As a society we have to accept there are limits to what governments can do for us.

Increasingly as the world economy deleverages, tax revenues fall and the truth that a benign government can’t fulfill our every need starts to dawn on the populace, we’ll realise that expecting politicians and public servants to save us is a vain hope as they simply don’t have the resources.

Bruce Springsteen puts this well in his song “We Take Care Of Our Own.”

The truth today is the cargo cult mentality of waiting for governments or cashed up foreigners to come and save us is over.

We’re going to have to rely more on our own businesses, families and communities to support us in times of need.

The existing institutions of the corporate welfare state are beginning to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions.

Joe Hockey knows this, but as a paid-up agent of the establishment he doesn’t dare nominate the massive cuts to middle class welfare and big business subsidies that are necessary to reform those institutions.

Waiting for the council to fix the local roundabout is nice but it doesn’t address the bigger problems.

It’s up to us to build the new institutions around our local communities and families. This is not a bad thing.

The problem is the boomers aren’t going to get out the way; they are fit, healthy and able to work for at least another decade.

For most boomers, the promised golden age of retirement simply isn’t affordable as property prices stagnate and investment underperform.

The smart ones also know governments can’t deliver the promises of ever increasing aged care services and middle class welfare.

Waiting the boomers to get out of the way also assumes their younger replacements will be any better; the sad reality is many have the same views and 1960s or 80s ideologies of their mentors. Old heads on young shoulders.

For those waiting for older generations to get out of the way so they can start changing institutions or business, it might be time to start building ones to replace stale and increasingly irrelevant incumbents.

There’s been few times in history when circumstances have favored challenging incumbents as technology, economic conditions and social change give us the tools and opportunities to build new businesses and political parties.

It’s hard work, but it’s a lot less frustrating than waiting for the boomers to die off.

While using new media tools can get a video like Stop Kony in front of 70 million people is a great achievement, it also brings attention and responsibility on the creators.

That responsibility also brings stress and none of us are really prepared for what attention on a global scale can bring.

Regardless of one’s views of the Kony 2012 campaign, what’s happened to Jason Russell is a terrible thing.

One hopes Jason will overcome his demons and family come together in what must be a terrible time.

One of the rebuttals titled Hey Gruber, You Might Want to Reconsider Crying Wolf is typical, stating;

Fact is that the day will come when Macs, iPhones, iPads become equal opportunity targets for malware and all those other nasties out there and no amount of quote stuff into a quasi post by John Gruber will change that.

Origins of an epidemic

The theory that the Mac, along with smartphones, tablets computers and Linux systems, were spared the virus epidemic that plagued Windows users last decade is a based on a misunderstanding of the problem.

What caused the Microsoft malware epidemic was laughable security in Windows 98, ME and the early versions of XP.

Users running Internet Explorer with no firewall in Administrator mode – which is how these versions came out of the box – could be infected in minutes. I once saw a Windows XP system infected within six seconds of going on the net, although that was partly because of the ISPs lousy security practices.

Despite the fantasies of some security “experts”, other software companies like Apple didn’t follow Microsoft’s lax security attitude of the late 1990s.

Microsoft itself has moved on. After Bill Gates’ Trustworthy Computing memo, the company tightened its security practices and the later versions of XP along with subsequent versions of Windows like Vista were far better protected.

Big target fallacies

We are the weakest link

Computer security company McAfee has a report on Operation Shady Rat that goes into the details of how the attacks worked and their victims, it makes interesting reading and emphasises how widespread industrial espionage is.

In many ways, this is a sophisticated version of the News Of The World “hacks” where journalists and their private detectives took advantage of users’ slack security measures to access phone message banks.

To carry out these “Shady Rat” hacks which ­– unlike the News Of The World’s actions – deserve the title of “hacking”, the perpetrators sent emails with attachments that took advantage of known security flaws to get inside the victims’ networks where they could access confidential documents.

What is truly amazing is how many of these large organisations, presumably with good sized IT budgets, were running systems that hadn’t been updated to the latest security patches.

This is a problem that goes back to the late 1990s and is something that every computer user, whether a home, small business or large organisation needs to keep up to date with.

Ignoring security releases is just plain dumb, although some organisations defer installing them because of the risk some of these updates may break critical business applications, a dangerous situation which usually indicates underinvestment in IT systems.

An interesting aspect with Operation Shady Rat is how email was used to deliver the spyware, increasingly social media platforms are becoming the way for scammers and crooks to attack systems.

Most Facebook and Twitter users would have received messages along the lines of “hey, you’ve lost weight in this picture” (sadly I haven’t) or “you should read this”. The links in those messages are almost always malware designed to take control of the user’s computer or social media account.

Many people, particularly small business owners and home computer users, say “hey I don’t have anything confidential on my system to worry about”.

Even in the unlikely event your system has nothing of value to a crook, this misses the point that the bad guys can use a compromised account or computer to launch attacks on more lucrative targets. Most infected emails and social media messages come from other victims’ services, making it harder for authorities to find the source of attacks.

Simple security precautions are to use the latest web browsers, which is essential if you’re using cloud computing services, and accepting all trusted security updates for your system.

You also need to be using your judgement as some of the more clever scammers are posing as being updates from trusted companies like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe so if you think something is suspicious, ask or check it out online.

Strong passwords are important along with restricting access to sensitive documents, the latter probably being the most surprising weakness of all in the Shady Rat data thefts.

In an era where our IT systems are essential to work and business, we have to start taking computer security as seriously as we do physical and personal safety. Locking the obvious entry points and strengthening weak areas are obvious and comparatively easy first steps.

New York Times’ technology writer David Pogue last week wrote about his battles with technology at speaking events, often finding he can’t control his own presentation or the hapless venue doesn’t have the right dongle for his computer.

At one event he describes how he had a technician driving two computers, one showing the current slide and the other showing the next slide so David would know what was coming up next. The article is worth a read just to understand what hoops people will go through to get technology working for them.

Like all technologists, David has a touching belief in the reliability of technology and forgets Murphy’s Law ­– what can go wrong will go wrong. To a degree we’re all doing this as technology becomes pervasive, cheap and easy to use.

Because it’s so easy to use, we assume it’s always going to be there so we come to rely complex solutions to simple problems. The GPS takes the place of the street directory and, because the computer says ‘yes’, we suspend belief in our own eyes until we find ourselves stranded in the wilderness.

The business risks are even greater when the computer says ‘no’ and all work comes to a stop, as we’ve seen with recent bank and airline outages.

The chain of disasters that led to the Fukushima Dai ichi nuclear plant meltdown is probably the worst case example. Each potential problem had a complex solution involving standby power and emergency pumps, all of which were washed away by the tsunami leaving the operators helpless.

Fortunately most of us will never be responsible for a nuclear meltdown – except maybe in our own offices after a disastrous presentation – but the lesson is that the more simple we can keep our systems, the more robust our businesses.

David Pogue’s adventures are a good example of this, avoiding disaster when he was told his computer, and therefore his presenter view, would be off stage, David panicked and it was only when he realised he could have a, gasp, print out of his event was the day saved.

A simple hard copy print out beats the technology bugs every time which is what anybody who regular gives presentations knows.

With presentations, people have come to expect to see a slide show illustrating the speakers points which does add complexity to everybody’s lives. Just how complex it can be is shown in how I make sure we have there’s a working presentation at the venue;

• Mail the presentation to the organisers a few days before
• Upload a copy to Dropbox or Box.net
• Save the presentation to a USB stick
• Copy the presentation to a netbook computer
• Take the netbook with me. The netbook is dumb and cheap but it has a VGA output which will work with most projectors
• Have a print out the presentation with speaker’s notes
• Arrive early
• Finally, I practice. Winging it the way David Pogue does is a recipe for embarrassment

Practice is an important thing both in presentation and businesses. If staff are trained, prepared and confident then they can work around tech or other hiccups.

How can you strip some of the complexity out of your operations? You could save some money along with making your business more flexible and robust.

While it’s not possible to look at every app available, here’s a few useful ones that can make things easier for you at home.

Better Christmas List
For the super organised, it’s never too early to start shopping for Christmas list, the Better Christmas List app allows you to track gifts. The Christmas app uses your contact list for you to budget and organise gift and ideas for your Christmas shopping

GiftPlan
Staying on the gift theme, GiftPlan lets you create occasions as well as import contacts and birthdays, anniversaries and profile photos from Facebook. For each person’s profile you can add likes, dislikes, what you’ve previously given, clothing sizes and other types of gift ideas.

Expenditure
Tracking your expenses is not just an issue at Christmas, the expenditure app not only allows you to keep note of your own expenses but also keep tabs on items like kids’ pocket money.

Classes
Keeping track of school timetables can be a challenge for kids, the Classes iPhone app keeps track of school and university schedules along with the progress and due dates for assignments and projects.

Weekcal
The built in iPhone calendar is good, but the Weekcal app extend its capabilities. Weekcal allows you to flag, prioritise and track your events and appointments as well as drag and drop with other iPhone applications.

Evernote
A great productivity tool for the iPhone and iPad is Evernote which saves your notes, diagrams and pictures on to the cloud. It’s great for saving ideas and notes as well as being an invaluable tool for anyone asked to take minutes of meetings.

Dropbox
Anyone who tries to co-ordinate groups, be they project teams, volunteer groups or organising the local football club know that sharing documents can be a pain. the Dropbox app plugs into their file sharing service and helps you manage documents while on the go.

Park Patrol
A nifty tool for city dwellers is Park Patrol, an application that tells you if there are parking rangers nearby and when to move your car. Great for avoiding fines.

Labor Mate
For expectant mothers, Labor Mate an application that times labour contractions, tracks progress and alerts you for when you need to start heading for the hospital.

Shazam
Can’t identify the song that’s stuck in you head? Shazam is an application that identifies a song playing and tells you the title and artist.

Maybe Baby
The Maybe Baby iPhone app tracks fertility, ovulation and the pregnancy progress.

Tripview
Regular users of Sydney’s public transport system know it’s a sprawling, complex beast. The Tripview Sydney public transport planner is essential if you use buses, trains or ferries to get around the city.

This is only a tiny sample of the over 350,000 applications available in the iTunes store, many of which are free and most of the paid ones are under $5.

It’s worth exploring to see what tools are available to help you at home and in business.

This is true in marketing as Michelle showed in her discussion about the overall branding of the business and Lara in covering the social media tools essential to an organisation seeking to get their message to the world. Tools and techniques that were once only available to the biggest corporations are now available to the small business.

Intellectual property is one of those areas where not too long ago few small businesses bothered to register a trade mark today it’s one of the first things a new start up does. Which was one of the things I discussed in my part of the presentation where I also covered on Smart Company a couple of years ago in The Rules of the Name Game.

The big change though is in capital expenditure — not so long ago the biggest line items on a start ups costs spreadsheet were the servers, desktops and network infrastructure.

Today, those costs have almost disappeared as the founders and early staff use their own computers or the company picks up some cheap notebook or tablets and runs all of these services off the cloud. As long as the devices can handle a modern web browser, everything else is unnecessary cost.

Web hosting and Internet plans too have become far cheaper. With most businesses being able to get a connection and an excellent hosting service for under $200 a month, many can do it for far less than that.

It’s a great time of opportunity for businesses, with an organisation’s web site becoming the cornerstone of their operations and marketing, the barriers to smart people are falling rapidly. It’s time to get your ideas out there.