3 Exposure Lessons Learned Via Anthony Weiner
Just for a minute, put yourself in the shoes of Anthony Weiner. You’ve done something exceptionally stupid, whether it’s sending sexually explicit photos of yourself to strangers you don’t even know, or another unrelated mistake. To compound the stupidity, you involve social networking – you Facebook or tweet or YouTube the act – or even simply email details of what you’ve done.
Everyone of us makes impulsively bad decisions (probably not as bad as Weiner, but bad nonetheless). Prior to the internet, you at least had a chance to recover from your past transgressions, as there wasn’t a readily accessible public record of the act unless you happened to be caught on tape (think Nixon, Rodney King, etc.). But now that pretty much every human carries either a camera or video recorder with them at all times (mobile phones), can communicate instantly with a massive audience (Facebook, Twitter, SMS, blogs), and have access to more information than exists in the Library of Congress just by pulling up Google, the equation of how you control sensitive information about yourself has changed radically. Every stranger (and even friend) is like a full service news station with video, distribution and commentary, just waiting to report on your missteps.
Here are three lessons the rest of us can take from the Anthony Weiner affair:
Are You Begging to Get Fired?
We’ve all done it before – left the table to get a coffee refill or go to the bathroom and left our laptop, iPad, smartphone or purse sitting on the table. We justify it by telling ourselves that we are in a friendly place and will only be gone a second. Our tendency is to blame technology for information theft, but the heart of the problem is almost always a human error, like leaving our devices unattended. Realizing that carelessness is the source of most laptop theft makes it a fairly easy problem to solve.
My office is directly above a Starbucks, so I spend way too much time there. And EVERY time I’m there, I watch someone head off to the restroom (see video) or refill their coffee and leave their laptop, iPad, iPhone, briefcase, purse, client files and just about everything else lying around on their table like a self-service gadget buffet for criminals and opportunists alike.
I trust deeply in the honesty and integrity of the people I know well, but if you are trusting your Starbucks crowd with this amazingly valuable data, you are going to get a steaming hot lap full of trouble. Data thieves target places like this because it is an upscale, trusting clientele. Just ask Ben Bernake, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose wife got taken at a Starbucks.
Egypt Going for Total Information Control
The Egyptian government has reportedly cut all access to the internet, extending their earlier restrictions on Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry service and other forms of mass communication. The ban is likely to be in response to the use of social networking sites to organize pro-democracy, anit-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt and other countries.
Internet access issues in Egypt have coincided with mounting demonstrations in the country, many of which were organized via social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Thousands poured into the streets of Cairo starting Tuesday to protest failing economic policies, government corruption, and to call for an end of the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. -PC Magazine
Pro-gun lobbyists worry about enforced gun registration because it could possibly give the government a way to confiscate all firearms. That’s child’s play compared to their ability to shut down access to the critical tools we use every day: the internet, email, Facebook, Google, text, cell phones – the information arsenal that we all tend to take for granted. Egypt understand the importance.
And so does the Obama administration, according to this WSJ Post:
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley expressed “deep concern” after Mr. Mubarak shut down the Internet and mobile phone service in Cairo. On his Twitter account, Mr. Crowley wrote: “Events unfolding in #Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed.”
WikiLeaks – The Ultimate INSIDE Job
If you need a world class example of the adage that INFORMATION IS POWER, look at the recent kerfuffle WikiLeaks has caused. Since threatening to release more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, WikeLeaks has experience a rash of cyber problems (none attributable to the U.S. Government, but it does make you wonder…):
“The site’s efforts to publish 250,000 diplomatic cables has been hampered by denial-of-service attacks, ejection from its server host and cancellation of its name by its American domain name provider. Each time WikiLeaks has worked out other arrangements to bring the site back online.” – By Charley Keyes and Laurie Ure, CNN
Who wouldn’t leak information via WikiLeaks? You are pretty much guaranteed anonymity with few repercussions. You don’t like the way something is being handled at your corporation or in your Government Department, but have a Non-Disclosure Agreement that keeps you from speaking up publicly? Send it to WikiLeaks and let them do your dirty work. Non-traceable, non-accountable, high profile information dissemination at your service. I’m not sure if it’s fair or ethical, but who cares when it’s so damned convenient and effective? Transparency in a box.
Information Survival: Your Life Depends on It
I became a professional identity theft speaker because my business partner used my identity (and my business’s impeccable 40-year reputation) to embezzle more than a quarter million dollars from our best, most trusting customers. Thanks to drawn-out criminal trials and a seriously impaired lack of attention to my business, I suddenly found myself without a profession.
So I wrote a book about my mistakes, and with a little luck, it lead to a speaking career based in first-hand experiences with data theft. The formula works – sharing my failure to protect sensitive information and losing just about everything as a result – my wealth, my business, my job and nearly my family – is a powerful motivator for audiences, both as individuals and professionals. People only understand and act upon the corrosive nature of this crime when they can taste it’s bitterness for themselves. My goal has always been to provide a safe and effective appetizer of data theft that convinces audiences to feed on prevention rather than recovery.
But I’ve realized through my contact with exceptionally smart people, from the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to Fortune 500 executives and privacy experts, that identity theft (and it’s close business relative, data breach), are just symptoms of a larger movement undermining personal lives and profit margins on a daily basis – a movement that demands we be trained in the art of information survival.
Sileo In the Media
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