Security - if its online, its out!

When I was a young telephone engineer in Gloucestershire, one of my colleagues found a few electronic extras in a telephone he had accidentally dropped on a Cotswold stone floor. We were so well trained, no one had thought to de-train us should they require such devices placed in the phones we were about to fit. In light of the incident, we were all told to turn up at a meeting with the area manager in a weeks time - being high summer, it was fairly obvious the man in the dark trench coat, hat and seasonally thick sunglasses wasn't from our "head office." We were told many things during that meeting, but one thing as to why were we were not told before was that we didn't need to know - until then.

In college, when time on any computer was limited to half hour slots in those days, as electronic engineers we tried cracking the entry system on both the Polytechnic's and the Universities computer systems. We weren't as good as the software engineers who supposedly cracked one level below the exam system - the only thing we got through was the Polytechnic's medical security system, the password for which was the senior nurses marriage date!

After leaving college, I joined back with my employer/sponsor, and began working on big bids. I had a very good mentor, who taught me a few things and got me early onto a legal course normally only run for what were termed internally commercial managers, what the rest of us externally would call legally aware managers who hadn't qualified as solicitors. Much as though the law stuff was useful, probably the most useful thing they taught us was information dissemination - in other words, assume that when you tell someone else, that's it - it's out and running, and before long some kid on a beach in Brazil will also know: its just a matter of time. So, all documents from that point were tracked whether they needed to be or not, and you didn't talk about business specific issues in public. One of my guys was caught chatting about football on a train one day in works time, and a senior manager told him off for not discussing work issues - on ringing me, he got the briefing I gave all my people on joining the team, and asked for a copy so he could advise his people. Football was allowed in public, specific customer talk was not.

In my corporate career, I choose not to work again on Government work post the mid-90's - commercial stuff was quicker in decision, and didn't depend on politics. But information dissemination was more immediately important task, as many of the later projects were what was termed "share price affecting" - where by we couldn't buy or sell shares in our employer of the customers company, and information leaking was commercially dangerous for both parties

So, why do I write this?

Yesterday, Adrian asked about indemnity clauses and coverage, and today a group of MySpace spammers were ordered to pay $230million dollars to the company for sending out innocent friend messages, which in actual fact linked the reader directly on opening to porn and gambling sites. Lawyers you soon realise are a depressing bunch, whose job it is to spot all scenario's and resultant problems before they occur. Hence, some legal clauses don't make a lot of sence cold, they just do when information has been disseminated and a scenario unfolded

Thanks to Caroline Flint carelessly walking along with a document in her hand, the economists who now have inside track on the Governments thoughts are rebriefing their clients on both the length of the credit crunch in the UK and the price of real estate. Share price effecting - RBoS are presently down 2%, HSBC down .5% on a presently rising market

In this online world, information dissemination IS the driver - its the way to attract people, to turn them into customers, and make money.

But...... that's not always a good thing for all information. Many social networking platforms have what are termed "private" clubs or messaging systems. The amount of privacy is defined by a combination of the contract T&C's you agree to, and - little else. In reality its in the public domain, just in a defined group at best.

Always think about information dissemination, for either maximising gain or minimising possible pain - what ever you decide to write, and where ever you write it!