Neville’s posterous

The story of the story:

[...] Around 3pm on Saturday, December 5th a link was posted on FlyerTalk.com to the FBO.GOV website where there were details of a contract for screening services in Montana that had been out for bid (the FBO link is dead now; there is a cached copy here).  In that bid package there were a number of attachments including two different “redacted” copies of the TSA’s Screening Management SOP.  The copies were actually slightly different but the general content was substantially the same.  That post was out there for almost 24 hours before I stumbled upon it and decided to see what was in the document.  Three clicks later I was reading a “redacted” copy of the SOP, something that the TSA meant to put online.  About 10 minutes and a couple more clicks later, however, I was one of a couple folks who realized just what we were looking at and what the situation was.  It took me another hour to get a blog post together and at 4:16pm EST on Sunday afternoon the post went online.  

My blog doesn’t have all that many readers regularly so I’m honestly not really sure how it went from there.  What I do know is that someone thought it was worthy enough to put a link up on http://news.ycombinator.com/, a self-described “Hacker News” social media site.  From there the story made it to the Wired Threat Level blog as well as BoingBoing.net (two sites that I really enjoy, FWIW) and Jaunted.  On Monday The Register in the UK picked up the story as well, noting how foolish security through obscurity generally is in the process.  Chris Elliott, a syndicated travel writer also picked up on it during a chat on Monday afternoon and posted a blurb about it on his blog.  US News & World Reports had a piece as well.

At that point the story probably could have died.  But it didn’t.  Tuesday saw the story picked up by SlashDot in the morning and Gothamist in the afternoon.  Fortunately the site is hosted by systems that can handle the resulting SlashDot effect and the blog has stayed online. 

And then, it went mainstream.  The Cleveland Plain-Dealer had an article out on the story on Tuesday afternoon.  ABC’s World News Tonight led off their broadcast with the story (and some really bad computer stock images).  The Washington Post followed up on the story as well.  That story was published late Tuesday evening online and is on the front page, below the fold, of today’s print edition.  The Associated Press put together a piece that was been picked up by a number of outlets on Tuesday evening, including USAToday, Yahoo! and MSNBC.

Overnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning the BBC got into the game and USAToday had an original piece in their Today in the Sky blog.  It was on page A22 of the dead tree edition of the NY Times, running the AP wire piece as well.

Yeah, to say that this one has legs is a bit of an understatement.

[...] This is obviously pirated, but a neat idea to sell it on USB :)

Imaginative. Success, Skype.

Background and story at AdAge.com.

[...]The free add-in provides the means to export data from Outlook into various other formats so that they can be imported into other applications or processed directly.

The add-in is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2007 and will install a new toolbar into the application after installation. It will also install various runtimes that are needed to run the Outlook add-in. The options to export the data from Microsoft Outlook is then available from the new toolbar. It is here possible to export Outlook emails, notes, appointments, contacts or tasks into the following formats: MSG, unicode MSG, RTF, TXT, CSV, ICS, vCard, HTML, XML

The user can either select an Outlook folder or single items for the export of the data. Outlook Data Export can be downloaded from the program’s page over at the Codeplex website. It is only compatible with Microsoft Office 2007.

Handy.

[...] Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal:

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.

[...]

Is the picture really as bad as Cory Doctorow makes out?

Toronto-based entrepreneur Razor Suleman needs to hire 17 people over the next month.

He could have chosen traditional methods – from newspaper ads to online job boards or head hunters – to fill the IT, sales and marketing positions at his rewards and recognition business.

Yet in a soft job market, he and a growing number of employers are favouring an option they say is faster, more efficient and a whole lot cheaper: social media sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The shift marks a sea change for the world of recruiting as the use of employee and customer networks to find candidates becomes the new normal.

[...] His approach is simple: distribute job postings to his employees, who then place them on their Facebook status updates, tweet them to friends who re-tweet them, and share them through LinkedIn networks. He sent out word about the jobs last Friday; this week, his company expects 1,000 people will show up at its two open houses.

I reckon this will become common as more people do it and report their successes.

It's not for everyone, just as tweeting or blogging isn't for everyone. Read the Globe & Mail's full report for a great deal more of this story.

Digital marketing company Razorfish has just launched its third annual FEED survey of 1,000 "connected consumers." The survey is focused on online consumer behavior. This year Facebook and Twitter feature prominently. 40% of respondents "friended" brands on Facebook, while 25% reported following brands on Twitter. What's more, Razorfish found that consumers access brands on Twitter and Facebook mainly for deals and promotions.

Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, nearly 44% reported that access to exclusive deals is the main reason. On Facebook or MySpace, 37% said that access to exclusive deals or offers was their main reason for friending brands.

Over 1/4 of respondents reported having followed a brand on Twitter, which is encouraging news for companies wanting to use Twitter to promote themselves.

43.5% reported following a brand to get "exclusive deals or offerings," which again is a statistic that companies should take note of.

An even higher percentage of respondents have "friended" a brand on Facebook - a whopping 40%. Considering that Facebook is a social network that started out as a way for college kids to network, this is a statistic that will make companies and organizations take note. If you want brand recognition on the Web, according to these statistics there's a very good chance that Facebook is a place you want to be.

Jump-out text from RWW's post for me is the para about Facebook. Here is again - note my emphasis in bold text:

"An even higher percentage of respondents have "friended" a brand on Facebook - a whopping 40%. Considering that Facebook is a social network that started out as a way for college kids to network, this is a statistic that will make companies and organizations take note. If you want brand recognition on the Web, according to these statistics there's a very good chance that Facebook is a place you want to be."

I agree with Mitch Joel on this - 24 minutes and well worth watching every single one of them. You'll learn something watching and listening to this conversation.

Beautifully created.

[...] At today's Enterprise 2.0 conference, Yammer announced that 50,000 networks have been established with its service. We asked Yammer's Steve Apfelberg what the size of these networks look like. He said they run from a few people to a few thousand, with an average of about 25 to 50 people per network. He declined to provide details about the number of paying clients but said they are showing revenues. But if you did the math, it could be extrapolated that Yammer has 1.25 to 2.5 million customers. How many of those are paying for the Yammer service?

[...] Here's an interview with Apfelberg and a demo of the Yammer service:

I know of around a dozen companies in the UK where Yammer's in use, set up informally by groups of employees. None are paying for the service yet.