Monthly Archives: May 2013

It took several high profile hacks, but Twitter has finally decided it’s time to roll out two-step authentication to ensure a higher degree of user security.

Twitter & Cricket an unlikely pairing

The social media platform played down account compromises as ‘occasional occurrences’ in its announcement earlier this week, saying that (and trying to downplay the security threats): ‘often account owners actually alert it to email phishing schemes or password breaches taking place elsewhere on the web’.

After the Associated Press saw a false tweet rock the US stock market, not to mention a number of high profile hits on the likes of Burger King and Jeep, Twitter is finally succumbing to the popular pressure it so often exacts on others, and is ready to employ a two-step security process.

Undoubtedly hackers are a threat to every area of online life, from Twitter accounts, right through to the corridors of power and breaches of classified information. But is there a far more destructive element to social media just waiting to pounce?

I would argue that the biggest threat to social media channels and especially Twitter is not so much the faceless hacker sat in a UV lit, windowless basement, but rather the actual person who owns the account.

Let’s take a step back from the world of technology for a moment and look to the world of cricket. There’s nothing finer than a day of cricket on a village green in rural England; it’s a test of skill, patience, application, strategy and will power. It also (and maybe somewhat surprisingly) provides us with a ‘how not to guide’ when it comes to Twitter.

Do you remember the Kevin Pietersen Twitter debacle in 2010 following him being dropped from the England T20 team? And then again in 2012 when he derided Sky Sports commentator Nick Knight leading to an undisclosed fine from the ECB?

Twittergate has struck again this week in the world of cricket, but this time to Australian ‘Baggy Green’ opening batsman David Warner. Warner’s Twitter outburst was directed against journalists, who suggested he was involved in match fixing at the IPL for which he was fined £3,600 by the Australian Cricket board but avoided the selectors axe – unlike KP did back in 2010.

The point I am trying to make is that Twitter can be a dangerous medium – if you put it in the hands of the wrong person it can result in severe damage to the reputations of brands and individuals alike. The biggest treat to Twitter accounts for individuals and brands alike is not the Lulzsecs of this world but rather the authenticated users themselves if not moderated.

The old saying ‘think before you speak’ has never been more relevant, it’s just had a 21^st century revamp – now however it’s a case of think before you tweet.

An average person has at least two objects connected to the Internet, and this is expected to grow to seven by 2015, representing 25 billion wirelessly connected devices globally; and by 2020 this number is expected to triple, to a staggering 75 billion.

Intelligence embedded in everyday life

The Internet of today offers access to content and information through connection to web pages from multiple terminals like tablets, smart phones or TVs. The next step in its evolution will make it possible to access information related to the physical environment through connected objects, capable of sensing the environment and communicating through smart chips using Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), crucially with or without human intervention – this is the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT).

There are two main areas of discussion to bear in mind when talking about the IoT: first, what technological framework will be needed to unleash the potential economic and societal benefits of the IoT; and secondly, how can individuals and companies alike ensure that their rights are respected with the exponential growth of so much data.

From the perspective of society, the potential represented by the idea of the IoT is enormous. Imagine this: if a university lecturer cancels a morning lecture because they are sick, students’ alarm clocks and coffee machines could automatically be reset, giving them an extra hour in bed; if an elderly person forgets to take an essential pill, a warning text could be sent to a close family member, or even to a local emergency centre, to check that everything was ok; or a car may even reroute you around a potential traffic jam automatically.

Your fridge could sense that you were running low on milk, or a bag of salad is coming to the end of its use-by date and automatically talk to your online shopping account via your iPad, ordering a delivery for when you arrive home, informing you via text – the possibilities are quite literally as infinite as an individual’s imagination.

There are already devices that incorporate intelligent elements of the IoT, such as smart meters for energy grids that allow you to view the real time effects of using various electronic devices on your electric bill, and smart televisions that sync directly to your mobile phones or other mobile devices and with the technological restraints of IPv4 now loosed thanks to IPv6 the IoT is rapidly gaining pace. Indeed, the capabilities of the IoT are now only limited only by the ingenuity of manufacturers, software designers and platform providers in how they can make their products intelligent.

We shouldn’t expect that the IoT to happen overnight, and manufacturers need to ensure that the world’s underlying IT infrastructure is ready for the data deluge that the next generation of Internet-connected cars, kettles and washing machines will bring.

Man’s vision has always exceeded his grasp and, it is good that our ambitions continue to exceed our current abilities as it will spur us on to deliver on our imaginations. The IoT promises many possibilities, but one surety is that it will change our everyday lives just as radically, if not more so, than the birth of the commercial web itself did back in the 1980s.

Working in the communications industry should make us more aware of clear expression and language than the average  Joe Blogs on the street.

Our clients pay us to, in part at least, develop content which not only gets across their key messages but also conveys them in a manner which is both clear to the desired audience and concise for those reading it.

Nothing highlights the need for these attributes more than some of the more comical emails and blogs that often get circulated between groups of friends and colleagues as a distraction during the working day and one that landed in my inbox last week is a particularly apt example of that.

Entitled ‘How do court recorders keep straight faces’ this particular email provided a sample of some of the humorous conversations between a lawyer and witness in the courtroom. While it may not be an example of corporate communications in the traditional sense it is definitely a clear example of the importance of thinking before you speak and considering your audience….

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He’s 20, much like your IQ.

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I’m going with male.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.