Security involves so much more than physical protection and means of recovery for data; or content.

It also comprises educated use of data.  Best use of data.  Appropriate use of data – as well as prudent dissemination.  Be very wary of that which you consider propagating:  Some actions are irreversible.

Consider the case of UCLA student Alexandra Wallace.  She made what she considered a funny video regarding Asian students and, again in her mind, their rudeness in talking on mobile phones in the school library.  In the video, she spoke into a phone with what appears to be her assessment of how many Asians sound, using a sort of Asian-mimicking dialect – if I may.  An exaggerated imitation.  Yikes! – even I have to be careful here, lest I say something that can be taken the wrong way.

Alexandra’s video went viral, of course, resulting in what she says is harassment to her family, death threats, and “publishing of my personal information” – whatever that may be.  For these reasons, she has chosen to withdraw from UCLA.

She withdrew the video from YouTube two days after it was posted; of course it was too late.  It was all over the web by then.

It’s important to note, and we’ve spoken of this before, that our lives are now “Personal-Technology Weaves” – it’s sad to note that in 2011, even young people have not been apprised of the great risk (in addition to the great benefits) to be had on the ‘net. 

Any tool, any enablement, any means or mechanism for the blast of information, must come with an accompanying set of warnings and instructions for best use.  Educators, starting in 1^st grade in my mind, should be making exposure of perils, as delivered through the enormous leverage content has and its efficient propagation.

Make sure you, and those around you, understand the risks as well as the benefits.  Make sure  your staffs at work understand.  Your kids.  Your co-workers:  Consider; someone may well blast something of yours to the wrong place.  It may be legitimate work-content, but if they violate an Obligation of Confidentiality, for example, or just disseminate the wrong interpretation of content, to clients, for example… everyone’s in trouble.

Be careful out there.

NP:  Jesse Colin Young, Songbird, on LP.

It’s an unsecured world.  That is, until you establish security…  somewhere… in some small measure.  And maintain it.  And grow it in response to ever expanding and stronger threats.  Nothing starts out secured.

You have limits:  budget, personnel, time… these are finite things.  Finite things against the Infinite:  Threats are continual – never ending – ever more imaginative, and limitless.  In our response, we must even grant that there are limits to our awareness of threats.  That’s why we continually educate ourselves regarding new perils.  That’s why we participate in knowledge shares, such as the IT Knowledge Exchange. 

As security threats grow in scope and severity, everyone in IT and Business must actualize a fresh awareness and view every activity through security’s prism. 

But what does the IT leader deliver in these regards?  How to keep security front and center without seeming pushy?  Paranoid?  And… how not to hobble business with crippling security measures?  Where are the thresholds of best returns vs. diminishing return?

In the coming days, let’s explore how to battle the Infinite (that which is  “out there”) with the Finite (the resources at your disposal).

August 22^nd:  On this day in 1906, the first Victor Victrola was manufactured.