Social Networks and Understanding Students

Eighty percent of the time teens spend online is to socialize. Danah Boyd, social media scientist, explains why students are online and the way they use the online environment in order to learn how to teach them.

Mailed My Absentee Ballot Friday: Waiting Game

What now? It's just a waiting game.

We've been barraged with election coverage; albeit petty and sensationalist rather than of substance and issues. On Friday, after my absentee ballot was carefully taken by Todd the postal worker, I felt a sense of accomplishment only comparable to checking another item off my list of todo's. OK, so I walked over to the County Courthouse where local early voting was in progress, claimed my "I voted today" sticker, and promptly applied as directed.

Result: temporary sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

It's out of my hands now.

• How can I be assured my vote will make it to the great State of Florida?
• If it does make it to the Broward County Board of Elections, will it get counted?
• If counted, will the election be stolen again?

I've stopped my daily check on the coverage on MSNBC, even skipping my beloved Rachel Maddow. I'll distract myself until the results are in, or any legal processes are complete and a winner is declared.

I've got a great idea for distraction. Looking forward to a local live music event, I visited the site of the group "Blame Sally". They have been recognized for a great music video. Here is the songwriter's recollection of writing the video's featured song:

“If You Tell a Lie”
Produced and Directed by Jonathan Halperin. Photographed and filmed by Tom Erikson, Jonathan Halperin and David Winton. Edited by Stephanie Mechura Challberg

On January 20th, 2001, George W. Bush, appointed President of the United States formally took office. I had been asked to sing a song that night at the Bazaar Café in San Francisco where Les, the proprietor was producing a counter-event called “The Night of the Burning Bush”. That afternoon, depressed and restless, I couldn’t make myself practice the song I intended to sing, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”. Instead, I sat down and turned on the TV. I had honestly forgotten that I would be subjected to live coverage of the inaugural parade. It was a bleak day in Washington, and I remember experiencing an overwhelming feeling of sadness and fear as I watched the Presidential limousine drive down Pennsylvania Avenue. I turned off the TV, sat down at the piano and wrote this song in about 25 minutes. I performed it for the first time that night. Last spring, I wrote an additional verse that addresses the war in Iraq and we recorded the new version of the song for this video.
— Monica Pasqual, Blame Sally

Anyone Up To This Challenge?

Great cause and call to action from John F. Borowski :

Big green groups: Pool together resources to help teachers in their quest to make students' ecologically fluent. Journalists: Expose the agenda of this corrosive curriculum. Enlighten and motivate citizens to action. Parents: Demand that corporate America be tarred and feathered and chased out of the education business, or should I say corporations in the miseducation business. That your children be given exciting, lifelong science learning. Education organizations: Demand that corporate sponsored curriculum be put through a detailed screening process. Expose the sham and shame of education by Weyerhaeuser, ExxonMobil and API. Filmmakers: Make documentaries and "student friendly" visuals that document mountain top removal, extinction of species, peak oil, the insanity of an economic system that is based on devouring our own life support system (we cannot depend on Viacom, General Electric and Disney to provide this on their corporate TV channels). Teachers: know this, our students are hungry for real science that they can feel, see and stirs a gut reaction. They are hungry for becoming "doers", they are hungry for curriculum that stimulates thought and debate, that breeds passion and desire to ensure our planet's resources exist well into the future.

Teachers: Say no Concoco-Philips' self-contrived educational myths of clean coal or American Petroleum Institute's oil-soaked diatribes that "we have enough to power 60 million cars and heat 160 million households for 60 years" or PLT's mantra of we can have it all: by cutting our natural forests and replacing them with sterile monocultures. The "science of death" has no place in our schools, our workplace or in our society. Teach that.

Corporate Security Risks: Twitter?

I've been keeping up on the soap opera buzz about Twitter via TechCrunch, though I have not dedicated the time to try it. My impression has been that it's another "look at me" worthless app however, before I judge, I will try it.

This article was brought to my attention today:

Is Twitter the newest data security threat?

One of the most dangerous threats to data security is also one of the least talked about: employees. Are Twitter and other microblogging sites yet another avenue through which sensitive data can leak out of the corporate database and into the hands of ... anyone? Perhaps more worrisome, what information are you giving away simply by being a part of the community?

Of course Twitter is a potential threat. Like personal e-mail accounts and instant messaging, Twitter and sites of its ilk are primarily messaging mechanisms, which translates into personal channels for exporting sensitive data outside the enterprise. If you aren't familiar with Twitter, its messaging mechanisms allow several "modes" of communication: a blast to the general twitterverse, a public reply to a specific twitter user, and a direct (private) message to another twitter user. The direct messages aren't displayed in your public timeline, only the intended recipient can see them, so they're perfect for sneaking out tidbits like customer information or competitive information like upcoming product features/launches.

And there is a thorough and long article about IT security from CIO magazine: Why_Technology_Isn't_The_Answer_To_Better_Security
It's long. But important.

Both hearken me to re-read "The Art of Deception" by Mitnick. I read it in 2001-2002 when Mitnik was first released from that hair-brained parole of not touching a computer (I'll spare you the personal rant). Social Engineering is a study of human science that requires serious attention. Yet most folks don't know what it is.

I enjoyed the book and learned more than expected. I've even used social engineering tactics to get needed information, or get out of a tight spot on many occasions. Getting around a gatekeeper and corporate policies that cause red tape is surprisingly easy sometimes. I've kept this to myself until now: Sales Reps can benefit from reading this book or studying social engineering to get to the person, project or information you need to accomplish your job.

• It was entertaining to hear how the hackers got to information.
• It was scary to realize how easy it is.
• I agree that more technology dollars thrown at technology to protect data is NOT the answer.
• Education can be a part of a solution.

Employees not only need to be educated and sworn to abide by company policies and procedures regarding confidentiality, use of email, etc.; but they need to be shown how to use common sense with examples of how security is breached by seemingly harmless activities or the desire to be helpful by disclosing small pieces of information that alone would not cause harm, but when carefully sewn together and used by masters of social engineering, make way to huge security breaches mentioned in the CIO magazine article.

Just my opinions, no clear answers. Let me know if you have ideas.