McLane Intelligent Solutions

Note: this is written from the perspective a consultant at a US-based IT company. Your mileage may vary in your state or country. I am not a lawyer.

I work with a lot of small businesses that have grown pretty organically and often do not have well-documented policies in place to guide employee activity. Most of the time this is not an issue, since most companies by necessity trust their employees and allow them some measure of freedom. Unfortunately it seems inevitable that an employee bruises the trust relationship and causes their employer to want to monitor them more closely.

For most employers, it is logical that they should be able to see whatever they want on company computers, phones and email accounts. After all, the employee doesn’t own it and is likely not using it outside of company time. We certainly have the technology to see everything that is going on, so why shouldn’t we use it?

For better or worse, in the US there is a principle known as the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy, which goes all the way back to the 4th amendment. Basically, if the employee can prove that they were allowed to believe that their activities were “private” and that their definition of private is “reasonable,” regardless of the company resources used, the employer cannot violate that privacy. The term is deliberately vague and employees have used some pretty weak arguments to prove that they could reasonably expect privacy in the workplace, including the positioning of monitors on the desk or having a door on their office. The case law to support this principle ranges from the prohibition era to about the Nixon era and considers telephones to be pretty cutting edge technology. Since our technological options have expanded so greatly and the defining regulations have basically not changed at all, the potential liability for an employer based on a judge or jury’s interpretation of the existing case law is considerable.

The best counter to this is usually a very explicit Acceptable Use Policy, signed by each employee. Make it as broad as you like, since it is a legal document. It should also be reviewed by a lawyer, in case you are asking them to promise not to engage in protected speech. For example, if you tell them not to communicate to other users about union activities, you are going to be in big trouble.

A great explanation of the 4th amendment can be found here

In October, Gartner released its Top 10 IT Trends. It’s an interesting list but some of the points just don’t hit close enough to home. Which ones REALLY matter to me as a business owner? Is there a message about my business I need to consider? Below are 5 of the 10 and some things you need to consider:

Computerworld Article: http://bit.ly/atM1NV

One of our engineers visited a client yesterday and was performing some maintenance. He took a picture with his iPhone of what must arguably be the worst interpretation of instructions I have ever encountered. It so effectively spoke to the problem of communications that I wanted to share it with you. Do YOU ever feel this way when talking to a computer or support engineer? We believe that CLEAR COMMUNICATION (using terms and descriptions that don’t require a Master’s degree in information systems!) is at the very heart of the way McLane Intel works with our clients.

The world of technology as we know it is changing.  With the iPhone, Android, and now the iPad, computing is becoming more and more mobile.  You can do more when away from the office or on the go.

Along with these advancements have come the applications, or apps that go with them.  There are apps written specifically for the iPhone/iPad, Android devices, Blackberries, and Palm phones, among others.  There are even entire app stores dedicated to distributing these apps.

There is one major difference I’ve seen about these apps, however, and that is the pricing.  For the iPhone, you are hard pressed to find an app that sells for over $1.99.  In fact, over 75% of apps in the app store are under the $2.00 mark.  Compare this to the average desktop software, which probably starts at around $20 and can range up to the thousands of dollars for specialized applications. Think about it.  Many of my iPhone apps which were free or cost $.99 have more functionality than desktop apps on my computer.

I see a major change coming in the market.  I think that with the advancement of software development tools and the increase of mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad and Android devices, consumer application costs will fall.  Gone will be the days of paying $300 or more for word processing capabilities, or over $500 for the capability to create forms.  All of these applications will be available for pennies on the dollar.  Either these large software companies will find a way to provide them very inexpensively, or they will go out of business as consumers move to mobile devices on the strength and price of their apps.

Take, for instance, the video game market, which is largely consumer-based.  Sim City for the desktop will run you $19.99, while you can get the iPhone version for $4.99 (down from $9.99 previously). Or document editing, where Microsoft Office will run you around $350, but the iPhone version will only set you back $16.99. Or iMovie for the iPhone, which is $4.99 versus the desktop version which runs $49 (although this does come with a suite of products).

The exceptions I see to this trend are:

• Applications that are for specialized business use such as accounting packages and design and graphics programs
• Online services which often charge a premium in order to be able to use their iPhone app

My point here is, you can see the trend of consumers being willing to pay less and less out of pocket in order to meet their needs.  After all, it is much easier to spend $.99 on a whim than it is to spend $300, $100, or even $20. Forward-looking providers will see this and adapt their business models accordingly… or cease to be.

I recently came across an article from Microsoft that discussed wireless networking security. I thought the concepts discussed were relevant to many small and medium sized businesses that use wireless technology. Many of these companies may not know some of the risks associated with it.

The article discussed six wireless threats to your business. While I didn’t find all six to be extremely worrisome I did take note of three of them:

• Evil Twin
• War Driving
• Complacency

Evil Twin

Evil Twin attacks occur when someone sets up a wireless router or access point with the same SSID of one that you would normally connect to in hopes that you will connect to their wireless device and have easy access to your data.

War Driving

War Driving occurs when a person drives or parks outside of your building and attempts to access your existing wireless network. Both the Evil Twin and War Driving attacks require someone to be looking for a way into your network.

Complacency

Complacency simply involves not taking any effort to secure your network, and can cause just as much damage as the previous two.

To avoid being an easy target with minimal effort, follow these tips:

• Always change the default configuration of wireless devices
• Make sure you use a strong wireless passphrase to secure the wireless network
• Never join a network with weak or no security measures turned on

I’d encourage you to read the rest of the article as well. It’s a good read for anyone concerned with the security of the data on their network.

In any business sector inside these borders, who is not worried about the economy, the business climate, and the speed of recovery? We have challenges in front of us. We must be smart and proactive in order to grow and prosper when so many others are not. Since I have an interest in technology – particularly information technology, I thought I’d offer some practical help to most effectively use the resources you have available.

Update on "cloud" computing

Almost everyone who has ever used a web browser has heard of cloud computing. But what is it? Thankfully, in order to legislate something, you have to define it so into this mess steps the National Institute of Standards and Technology to guide us out of the fog and into…. the clouds, so to speak. Here is version 15 (yes, 15) of their definition that was posted 10/7/2009:

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

Thank goodness our taxpayer dollars are doing something useful.

There is more to their definition but I wanted to point out the three service models by which cloud computing is delivered that may be helpful to you in understanding this new world.