Gil Freund's blog

Facebook: Too early, too late

Facebook has announced it's new privacy settings today. It is too early to say what (if any) impact this will have. It is also too late for Facebook to be trusted. From what I hear, I don't yet see a basic change in Facebooks understanding of peoples view of privacy. I also think that the assumption that people are willing to relinquish their privacy just to get a free or convenient service is incorrect. Look at the Buzz fiasco: in a nutshell, Google connected a service which contained private information (gmail) with a public service (buzz).

For many, Facebook was a service for private information. Sharing was for group of select people. One of the issues was that people with 4,000 so-called friends are not the same as people with 40 friends. For the former Facebook was the same as Buzz or Twitter - a megaphone; for the latter, facebook was the same as gmail or hotmail - a telephone. Expectations and usage were highly different.

זה לא העלות, זה המחיר

כוונתם של חץ בן חמו ודורון אופק טובה, אך אני חושב שהם אינם מבינים את הלך המחשבה של פקידי הממשלה, או למען הדיוק, את העדרו. את המחשבה עושים הספקים, גופים כמו מט"ח מול מערכת החינוך, החברה לאוטומציה מול הרשויות המקומיות וכן הלאה. לספקים מספר אינטרס לקדם תוכנות קנייניות:

  • עיקר עלויות הגיור נופלות על מפתח התכנה
  • הספק "גוזר קופון" על עלות הרישוי (יש לזכור כי עלות הרישוי אינה כוללת בהכרח עלות תמיכה ופיתוח, אלא רק את זכות השימוש)
  • המפתח תורם חלק ניכר מעלות הפירסום והשתדלנות

העלות של התכנה הקניינית אינה רק בעלות הרישוי, אלא גם בנעילה מול הספק. עלות זאת אינה רק ברכישה, ברישוי ובתמיכה הנלווית, אלא גם בקושי של ההתנתקות ממערכת קיניינית. אם אני מנחש נכונה את הגוף אליו מתיחס דורון אופק במאמרו, הרי שהתהליך רחוק מלהיות חלק ופשוט. לכאורה אין קושי גדול בהחלפת MS-Office על Windows ב-OpenOffice על Linux עבור אותם משתמשים שכתיבת מסמכים היא עיקר עבודתם, שכן לאחר הפרץ והצווחה הראשונים של המשתמשים, מסתבר כי מעבד תמלילים הוא מעבד תמלילים. אך בלא מעט מקרים מעבד התמלילים או הגיליון האלקטרוני מבצע שאילתות או מעדכן מסד נתונים מרכזי, כאן כבר נדרש ניתוח מערכת וכתיבת קוד. זהו קן צרעות חדש, היות וקוד זה הוא בלא מעט מקרים קוד קנייני של הספק, ולא של יצרן התכנה. הספק לא רק שאינו מעוניין למסור את הקוד ללקוח (דהיינו הממשלה, ולמעשה אנחנו), אלא שבלא מעט מקרים אינו מעוניין בהשקעה של עידכונו.

Closed facebook account

I have closed my Facebook account and the Sysnet Application and pages. Two years are enough.

Facebook confusion

Now I am really confused:

The sad thing is that I think all of those point to Facebook becoming a spam infested wilderness. It is also sad that the downfall of Facebook will end up being a clash with another corporation, and not due to user response and actions. This is not what was hoped for.

A geeks dilemma

Facebook is taking more and more liberties with it's users data. Robert Scoble believes it has reached a point of no return, while Jeff Jarvis (forever the optimist) believes that there is still hope. I don't think many understand what Facebook is doing. There are excellent articles on how to try and control your own settings, but even those will not save you from friends who have more laxed privacy settings.

The simplest example: if you "like" John Doe's photo or status then anyone who can see your likes will see that photo of status, even if John Doe's settings where to share this with his friends.

This gets worse when Facebook provides more and more tools for external sites to interact with the user profile. Unlike tools like Google Analytics, which will record the IP address which you are using, those tools will interact with your information. If you are currently logged in to Facebook, this has the potential of recording all your activities to you, especially with Facebook tendency to opt you in to any service which makes you actions more public.

Nokia and Google, can you kids just play nice?

If you had the misfortune to upgrade to the latest version of Mail for Exchange for your Nokia smart-phone, and you are using Google Apps, you might have come across this issue.

The main problem is that Google recommends using the latest version (which is 3.0), while noting that the best supported version is 2.9. On the Nokia site (or rather, the OVI store), the only version available is 3.0. If you upgraded to version 3.0 and were lucky enough to have version 2.9 images around, you need to uninstall version 3.0 (loosing the configuration) and reinstall version 2.9.

The second issue is that there is no direct way to report this issue and get a response from either company. In Google you are led to a forum, with a lot of nice people, none are official Google employees. Google might be listing, and might not. In the OVI store you can comment on an application, but only if you install it directly to you phone from their site. As I downloaded it to my Mac, and I did not feel like re-installing it and un-installing it again, I could not comment.

I am attache the version 2.9 of the SISX files with this post (Nokia, if you have an issue with this, let me know....).

Another option is using the SyncML protocol for contact and calenders, and IMAP for mail.

American, do you speak it?

I think Jeff Jarvis has answered his own question. It is the users who should be in control of their identity, and by being in control of their identity they not only control what they want to make public, but also what degree of publicity they allow on their private data.

In order to control identity, some sort of authentication is required. Identity and Security are the bases of privacy. In order to control my privacy, I, and only I, should have access to my data and with whom I want to share it. Security and Identity management, however, are complex. I have more then 60 accounts, from mail, social network tools and sites, banks and services. About half of those account relate to my public identity. Not everyone has the means to establish their own OpenID and Oauth servers and services. It is obvious that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and twitter are all more then happy to take this role for us. While we can make a case that entrepreneurs might need a IT expertise, can we make the same case for the consumer? If we see the future as one in which the entrepreneurs and the consumer can switch roles, or even be the same, then yes, I think we should.

The Internet is in the eyes of the beholder

In a recent article in Market Watch, John C, Devorak comments on the ruling against the FCC in it's actions against comcast. His premise is interesting: allowing the FCC into internet connection is dangerous, and it's a slippery road leading to government regulating the traffic of the internet.

What would Jeff Jarvis do

Google AdGoogle Ad

A while ago I go a letter in my mailbox. An actual junk mail. An advertising company wanted me to join their advertising system. I even had plastic card with a code attached, which I could use on their web site to register. There were a few troubling things in this letter:

  • The address used was not the SysNet public address, it was an address registered with the Israeli VAT offices only.
  • There was no corporate contact information. No e-mail, phone or fax. The only return address was the one used with the post office for the return of undelivered mail.
  • My attempt the contact the company and request information on how they acquired the said mail address was left an answered.
  • Less then a fortnight later, the same company sent me an unsolicited e-mail to promote their premium services.

That company is Google.

I wonder if this is yes another move on Google's side away from what towards new business models. Maybe the advertising and freemium models are not as sustainable as previously assumed. Another possible explanation is the realization that with all the hype, Web 2.0 and social media is not as commonplace and powerful to be the only basis for maintaining the data behemoth. Even Jeff Jarvis chose the only school path for publishing his book....

What, if any, difference to the end user? I would suggest that this a small but significant warning for those who make assumptions based of freemium services, cloud based services and social networking. It does not mean that you should run away from those, but consider:

IT's back, with vengeance

As an IT manager, whenever I am faced with a new cool technology I am faced with a dilemma.
On personal level am always tempted to deploy it and see how it fans out. I am, after all, something of a geek. I am also outspoken and something of an exhibitionist.
On a managerial level I almost automatically call on the help desk to put on their flak jackets and helmets, arm the sysadmins with smoke and tear gas canisters, turn to the boffins and proclaim:
Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!
IT is primarily the art of provisioning. Finding the technology that provides additional value to your business, and implementing it in the least disruptive way. Data and processes are assets we need to both protect and utilize. Social networking, Instant messaging, blogging and other means of communication may enhance a business, but may also put it in risk. This is the business perspective of IT.
There is also a human element. The technology divide has not decreased due to Internet. People can do much more with our computers, but they do not necessarily understand the implication more then they did before. If any thing, shining new interfaces hide mode complex issues then those that existed before. Web 2.0 adds even more complexities.
Web 2.0 tools can enable people to be more entrepreneurial, even in a corporate environment. As those tools are abandonment, and most are freely (or cheaply available), it seems almost inexcusable not to use them. But not all business or business users are entrepreneurial in the Web 2.0 way of thinking, for some, the overhead of learning and managing new technologies can actually reduce their productivity.

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