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From Wired The revolt that started a year ago today in Egypt was spread by Twitter and YouTube, or so the popular conception goes. But a group of Navy-backed researchers has a more controversial thesis:Egyptians were infected by the idea of overthrowing their dictator. Using epidemiological modeling to chart the discussions and their trajectory online is an interesting idea, I don’t …

From a recent article in Healthcare Global. Studies suggest that 30-50 percent of patients are likely to give up treatments early.  Microsoft Research has developed an innovative, hand-held medical device called Anatonme to help patients understand their issue and complete their treatment plan more often. We’ve been doing research and development into private, controlled social …

Is marketing age segmentation dead? My sister-in-law Ella and husband Moshe came over last night for coffee. Moshe and I sat outside on our porch, so he could smoke his cigars and we rambled over a bunch of topics, private networking,  online banking and the Israeli stock market.  Moshe grumbled about his stock broker not …

I have commented in the past on the generally low security level of Microsoft ASP.Net web applications which stems from the closed Microsoft monoculture and a product strategy that prioritizes ease of use over security and privacy by hiding features and functionality from the user. In the course of a security audit/penetration test of a …

In a way, every software security assessment is an exercise in software development. The first step in the software security assessment project is requirements analysis. Requirements analysis is concerned with what the system (whether it be a “traditional” application or a rich Web 2.0 application for social networking) needs to do. This involves examining the …

Yes – there is apparently a White House directive to keep Wikileaks documents off Federal networks – according to a directive from the White House Office of Management & Budget on the treatment of classified documents. WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday that it deeply regretted the release of any classified …

So what is security anyhow? Security is not about awareness. A lot of folks talk about the people factor and how investing in security awareness training is key for data protection. I think that investing in formal security awareness training, internal advertising campaigns and all kinds of fancy booklets and cards for employees is a …

I think we’re rapidly approaching a  point in time where people will pay for privacy.  I know that after a super-hot month of August with the house full of kids chain-watching Ratatouille, I would pay someone for some privacy. The privacy controls that governments are attempting to impose on social media and the technical safeguards that …

I saw a post recently on Controlled social networking for student collaboration. One of the comments lamented not having the head count to install technology to control Facebook access by students. Frankly – as a data security and compliance consultant who does a lot of work with corporates in social networking (both on the application side …

One of the biggest challenges in global multi-center clinical trials (after enrollment of patients) is collaboration between multi-center clinical trial teams: CRAs, investigators, regulatory, marketing, manufacturing, market research, data managers, statisticians and site administrators. In a complex global environment, pharma do not have control of computer platforms that local sites use – yet there is …