Is Big Data secure enough?

Most people have heard the concept of Big Data, but few understand how it impacts our lives on a daily basis. The news outlets will sensationalize the government (particularly the NSA) for using Big Data techniques on public data in order to spy on people. For example, selfies are now used by the NSA for facial recognition, but should any of this surprise people? The data we put on the web is viewable by almost anyone and you must realize that companies like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn are in the business to make money. So let’s face it their data is priceless to the right audience, this includes governments, and don’t think for a second that the US is the only government doing this, however we are the only ones where it makes an interesting news story.To level set, here are some interesting data points from Wikipedia

Government

• In 2012, the Obama administration announced the Big Data Research and Development Initiative, which explored how big data could be used to address important problems faced by the government. The initiative was composed of 84 different big data programs spread across six departments.
• Big data analysis played a large role in Barack Obama's successful 2012 re-election campaign.
• The United States Federal Government owns six of the ten most powerful supercomputers in the world.
• The Utah Data Center is a data center currently being constructed by the United States National Security Agency. When finished, the facility will be able to handle a large amount of information collected by the NSA over the Internet. The exact amount of storage space is unknown, but more recent sources claim it will be on the order of a few Exabytes.

Private sector

• eBay.com uses two data warehouses at 7.5 petabytes and 40PB as well as a 40PB Hadoop cluster for search, consumer recommendations, and merchandising. Inside eBay’s 90PB data warehouse
• Amazon.com handles millions of back-end operations every day, as well as queries from more than half a million third-party sellers. The core technology that keeps Amazon running is Linux-based and as of 2005 they had the world’s three largest Linux databases, with capacities of 7.8 TB, 18.5 TB, and 24.7 TB.
• Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour, which are imported into databases estimated to contain more than 2.5 petabytes (2560 terabytes) of data – the equivalent of 167 times the information contained in all the books in the US Library of Congress.
• Facebook handles 50 billion photos from its user base.[36]
• FICO Falcon Credit Card Fraud Detection System protects 2.1 billion active accounts world-wide.
• The volume of business data worldwide, across all companies, doubles every 1.2 years, according to estimates.
• Windermere Real Estate uses anonymous GPS signals from nearly 100 million drivers to help new home buyers determine their typical drive times to and from work throughout various times of the day.

The amount of data we create daily is mind boggling and the amount of data we put on the web unsecured should be of great concern, but we often do not think twice of posting photos of our children on Facebook to share with friends, or writing on our timeline that we are on vacation (this is invaluable information if you are a thief), then we get upset because the NSA is collecting and using this information to “spy” on American citizens.

The truth of the matter is that the US Government is not spying on anyone; they, like all private sector companies, use the data to form patterns and then target high profile individuals. Is the US Government really doing anything different than Google? Google looks at your browsing history to serve up targeted ads that you are more likely to click on to generate revenue. Amazon serves up potential items for you to impulse purchase based on your previous buying history and items you have looked at, all of this is an invasion of privacy, but some we accept as helpful, even cool, and others we deem as violations of our civil rights. Let’s face it, if you don’t want someone spying on you, don’t put it out on public display!

Big Data security is finally becoming an important topic, many companies are bringing in large amounts of data purchased from Twitter, Facebook and other public sites to develop buying profiles to increase the target rates of their marketing spend, however at what point does a bunch of public data start to become private information. For example, let’s say on Facebook, you always put down that you are at the local Starbucks getting coffee, you go to work and then Tweet about your favorite sports team acquiring a new star player, after work you use Google maps to find a restaurant and you run into an old friend and post a selfie on SnapChat. You go home and then browse a few of your favorite sites. By themselves they mean very little, but combined a company now has a very strong profile of your behavior, what you like, what you may buy, political views, how to increase the chance you will buy from them and so on.
So what happens when these profiles are hacked and the wrong person acquires a bunch of data that seems worthless until it is combined with all the other data they have collected? Is this any better than Target losing 40 Million credit card numbers?

Interestingly both Hortonworks and Cloudera (both Big Data software companies) acquired security companies to enhance their offerings. From my perspective, it is about time. But protecting the data in storage is not the only risk, if you are going to move large subsets of data that do not have strong relevancy on its own, but when combined build very sensitive profiles, then you must secure the transport of the data at all times. Many companies feel that public data does not need to be moved securely since it is already public, but the real risk is the selection of data these companies are collecting and how they eventually assemble the profiles, both components must be secured.

Big Data is a part of our lives now and will not go away, it will evolve and become even more invasive, it is time that companies collecting data secure all transmissions, even public information!

Are You Maximizing Facebook for Your Business?

Many businesses understand that they must have a social media strategy, but many companies do not fully understand how to accomplish this. In order to be successful, let’s first understand the demographics of Facebook. According to a recent report on Pingdom the average age for a Facebook user is 40.5 years old. Here are some additional stats that may alter your way of thinking about Facebook, 65% of Facebook users are 35 or older and Facebook and Twitter have the same gender distribution: 40% male, 60% female.

Here is what is truly interesting about the age trend for Facebook and Twitter. Compared to a previous survey Pingdom did 2.5 years ago, the age of the average Facebook user has gone up two years, while the age of the average Twitter user has gone down two years. In other words, Twitter’s user base is getting younger, while Facebook’s is getting older.

So now that you understand who is using Facebook, let’s start to figure out how you maximize your exposure. The first thing you need to consider is how to build a strong fan base. Your Facebook page can drive traffic to your website, increase sales and build customer loyalty, but like anything else you have to carefully create your presence. Make sure your page is using your company name and any specialized keywords that your business is typically found under.

You want your page to stand out from competitors, to do this, you need to engage your fan base, for example, you can customize the tabs of your page to highlight your business, including photos, videos, hot items and genera discussions. You also need to keep the content fresh, there is nothing like going back to a website several times to see no updates, so while it may take you some time each day, make sure you stay current with your content, otherwise your fan base will go elsewhere. If you want to grow your fan base quickly, Host contests or giveaways, according to Facebook, research by Forrester shows that contests, giveaways and promotions are the fastest ways to build fans to your page.

Another great way to increase your exposure is to collaborate and connect with Facebook Applications, they are a great way to network and do business through your Page. Facebook has over 50,000 applications on its platform. There are Facebook apps available for everything, including Twitter, Wordpress, Google Reader, and many others. To get your business moving start with the following, and build from there, Add the RSS Feed application to incorporate your blog , add the LinkedIn Profile application to promote your LinkedIn account by posting a badge on your Page, add the Twitter application to incorporate your Tweets.

Once you have built your page you need to gain exposure by getting everyone involved, don’t just put up a Business Page and forget about it. Monitor the feeds, make updates and discuss industry trends, product reviews and relevant events. Encourage employees to be active and participate on your Page. The more people involved on Facebook, the more exposure your company will receive With fresh content and lots of activity, your Page will build in strength and become successful — no one will follow a stagnate page. You should also join other Facebook groups and become fans of other Business Pages to build a network of conversations

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

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Now it is Microsoft versus Google in German patent lawsuit

Yesterday Microsoft informed the judge that it will amend their patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility to include Google as a defendant. Microsoft is suing over European patent EP0845124, which covers a “computer system for identifying local resources and method therefore. The same technology is addressed in U.S. Patent no 6,240,360.

The German lawsuit, filed in April, goes after Android’s Google Map app, which Motorola spent a good amount of time yesterday denying Microsoft’s infringement accusations without ever getting into actual server process discussions. Microsoft has aggressively going after Android handset makers to agree to license agreements, including LG, Samsung and HTC. All have signed on to avoid the legal battle, which can put up to $15 per handset they sell.

Motorola has held out and had hoped that it’s acquisition by parent company Google would prevent Microsoft from taking them on – a strategy that has ultimately failed. Motorola has been forced to pull virtually all of their smartphones from retailers in Germany due to previous patent litigation with Apple and Microsoft. The move today is believed to show that the Android OS is not free and that the Windows Phone system would be a worthy alternative.

Once again Patents will force manufacturer behavior, which will end up providing the consumer with little choice in which phone they can purchase. It would be interesting if these companies would put more of the legal costs into R&D and develop the next generation phone rather than continually fight each other for positioning. The concept of the strong will survive, now appears to mean that the one with the best lawyers will survive – not the best product!

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Tweeting Tips

Twitter remains one of the top social media tools on the market today, according to Twitter they process 340,000,000 Tweets per day and have over 140,000,000 active users. With this kind of access one can imagine why Twitter remains a key tool for successful marketing strategies. While each organization will find a different level of success, there are a few tips to help maximize your success on Twitter.

Keep your Tweet to 125 characters or less:

You only get 140 characters and the goal is not just to tweet your message but to get other people to re-tweet the message so you can maximize your coverage. If you max out, the retweet may cut off the last part of your message, and should that be the URL – you will impact the effect of the tweet. So try to keep your message short!

Follow the right people:

The common misconception is that the more followers you have the better coverage you will get. The reality is that a more targeted approach generates greater results. You do not want to follow everybody that follows you – you need to do your homework and make sure the company or person you follow meets your standards.

You are far better off having 25 super followers that are willing to retweet your message and or post about your products on their blog than trying to gain 6,000 random followers. A good place to start is trying to follow industry experts who do a lot of retweeting – the goal is to get your tweet retweeted. So you may wonder how you gain these super users, the first thing to do is to start following them, some will follow you back if your tweets have value to them. You should also follow their blog and comment as frequently as possible, this will most likely get you recognized and increase your odds of having your message picked up.

Utilize Twitter’s search feature:

One of the most underutilized feature available from Twitter is their search function,, located at http://search.twitter.com. This search feature allows you to see what people are talking about in real time, which can change how you tweet. It is also recommended that you get an RSS feed for the keywords that are most important to you. You can do this on Twitter by clicking “RSS feed for this query” near the bottom of the page after entering a search term.

In addition, you should be aware of which hashtags are critical for your industry and business. To identify the right hashtags for you, you can go to hashtags.org and enter any hashtag and see how it’s trending.

The time of your Tweet is critical:

Most users of Twitter do not read tweets that are more than a few hours old, so you want to send your tweets during the optimal time of the day. The best time to do this is during business hours for the Eastern Time Zone. Retweeting tends to drop off by the end of the day. Of course each business is different so while this is a good general rule to follow, understand your industry may have a more optimal time, especially if you are focused globally.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Marketing & Blogs

One of the challenges I have had to face with E-Marketing is how to build a message that people want to read. We know that the length of the message should be limited and the images should be catchy but is the reader really getting anything out of the message itself?

One of the methods I have found to be successful is using a blog in conjunction with E-Marketing. Based on personal experience I saw a substantial increase in the number of page views on the blog after launching an E-Marketing campaign that pointed the reader to the blog. In my research, I found that most people view a blog as informational, whereas the corporate web site is viewed to sell you something. People tend to let their guard down a little bit as they see the blog as informational; and less of a sales pitch.

This allows you to accomplish your first objective, get the reader to execute the call to action. If the call to action is to have them view the blog and read the article and learn more about the company then this becomes a great tandem to be successful.

Of course the real objective is not accomplished unless you can convert the reader into a sales prospect. So the Blog needs to have carefully placed touch points to promote your products. The E-Marketing to the Blog will increase brand awareness but it does not guarantee that the reader will take the next call to action.

So how you do go about this? First do not try to write blog articles that are entirely about your product, company or any other hard sales approach. The articles should be relevant to your industry so that the right audience can take away valuable information if they read the blog. You should have a soft pitch at the end of the article and you should have carefully orchestrated ads on the Blog (just like they would see if you had Google ads on the site).

The key here is to remember that people buy because they have a need; the need is different for each company in both requirements and timing. If you can build a readership base of your blog with valuable information that keeps readers coming back on their own, the end result will be that the prospect will contact you when his need becomes strong enough to make your product a top priority. Acquire enough readers and you will have a steady stream of hot prospects!

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Can The Internet Be Silenced?

Worldwide, suppression of free speech is growing and nowhere is that trend more evident than on the World Wide Web. The man who created the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, felt compelled to mention this trend while unveiling the newest report on how governments manage the online lives of their constituents. The bottom line, Berners-Lee said, is that there is no kill switch for Internet freedom.

There is no off switch for the Internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who's widely acknowledged as the father of the Web, said in London when launching the World Wide Web Index report for 2012.

Growing suppression of free speech, both online and offline, is the major challenge to the Web's future, Berners-Lee stated. Countries in the Middle East as well as China, have continually attempted to suppress free speech, but information seems to find ways to get in and out of these countries.

Even the United States has attempted to insert an Internet kill switch, but this was dropped after strong opposition from a wide spectrum of society here, including consumer advocates and privacy groups. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who pushed for the kill switch provision to be included in the Protecting Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, said in a TV interview that the US government should follow the lead of China in this area.

Several Western democracies that scored high on the Web Index either monitor citizens' access to the Internet or restrict it in some way. They include the UK and Australia, which scored 93.83 and 88.44 on the index, respectively. The US scored 97. The Index assesses the use, utility and impact of the Web around the world. It looked at 61 countries With Sweden ranking number one followed by the US and the UK. respectively.

Ultimately, the web provides access to content and information that just cannot be stopped, as long as there are social sites, information will continue to permeate throughout the world. In the end we as the people control the flow of content, there has been a substantial shift in the power of information as the web has been adopted by more countries and despite certain governments best efforts, there is just no way to silence our voices.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

#help! Japan is Considering Using Twitter and Social Networks for Emergency Notifications

On Wednesday the Japanese government hosted a panel discussion in Tokyo to discuss placing emergency calls through social networks during natural disasters, as reported by PCWorld. This was the first event of a three part program that will run through March of next year to discuss how to use social media during large disasters. The panel included the head of Twitter Japan as well as Yahoo Japan officials.

The thought is that when traditional voice-based infrastructure is impacted the social network might be a better alternative to process emergency requests. During Japan’s Earthquake that impacted several nuclear power plants, many of the Japanese citizens were only able to get updated information via the social network. The culture is quite fanatic about using cell phones and social media, so the government see this as a natural evolution for their emergency communication strategy.

On the surface this sounds like a practical and plausible solution to a difficult situation, however having managed a notifications platform, there is a lot of concern from a product perspective. Posting content and accessing the social media is only viable if the people have access to the service, cell phone service is not designed for the level of usage that occurs during a disaster. Alert notifications are a great tool, but you must have reserved capacity and if you are only using the service on rare occasion, your cost for reserving the bandwidth could become quite expensive over time.

But let’s assume the government can solve the bandwidth issue, now the question comes around geo-presence, how do you know where the person is if they are using it to tweet in an emergency? Yes the phone probably has a GPS chip and the location can be triangulated to near proximity of the cell tower, but how do you control this, how do you use it only in an emergency? You could probably build an app for this, but that would mean that now everyone has to install the application to tweet in an emergency and how do you train the masses on how to use the social network?

Finally, and this is my biggest concern, how do you prevent hacking, both on the notification and 911 inbound tweets. None of the social media sites that I have used provide any moderator level controls, which means if the government Twitter account gets hacked and someone send out an emergency alert, there would be wide spread panic.

Don’t get me wrong, these are the right discussion to be having, we need to find new ways to communicate to large groups of people, especially in a disaster, but if we are going to enlist the use of social media then these service providers have to find a way to manage security beyond their current methods.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Progressive Settles Claim Amid Social Media Pressure

While the story you are about to read is very tragic and my heart goes out to the family for what they have had to endure, it is another example of how Social Media has evolved in our society. Matt Fisher recently wrote a blog article titled “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court”. On June 19, 2010, Katie Fisher was driving in Baltimore when her car was struck by another car and she was killed. The other driver had run a red light and hit her car as she crossed the intersection on the green light.

The driver was under-insured, but Nationwide Insurance settled for the maximum amount of their client’s policy. Ms. Fisher was insured by Progressive and had additional coverage to protect her against uninsured/under insured motorists. Due to the outstanding bills such as student loans, the additional monies were needed to settle Ms. Fisher’s obligation. In Mr. Fisher’s article he goes on to outline that Progressive refused to honor their insurance policy and that due to legal restrictions in Maryland, his parent’s only recourse was to sue the driver for negligence. From there they could try to leverage that verdict to have Progressive honor their policy.

Needless to say, Progressive finally settled the lawsuit, but not after a tremendous amount of frustration and pain for the Fisher family and the driver of the other car, who has to live with the outcome of the accident every day. The problem here is that Progressive only settled when their reputation was being challenged via Social Media outlets. The blog article went viral and Progressive was flooded with complaints on their Facebook page. Had this recourse not been available to Mr. Fisher, one would wonder if Progressive would have ever settled.

This is the third article that has touched on the power of Social Media as it relates to companies (Amazon and Apple Make Changes Amid Recent Hacking and Where Will We Draw the Line With Social Media? ). Companies can pretend that their on-line reputation has little to do with their business (especially in the case of progressive who floods the air waves with commercials), but ultimately, stories that touch the heart or enrage our morality will make or break a company. Companies need to be aware of what is being said about them on line, they need to have a better understanding of what issues could become volatile and manage these issues accordingly. When you think about it, all Progressive had to do was the right thing and this would have been a positive story rather than a negative campaign.

I do not think it is hard for a company to manage their on line reputation if you are doing the right thing for your customers, and if you are not doing the right thing, you will probably get stung by the Social Media Buzz.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Amazon and Apple Make Changes Amid Recent Hacking

The other day I blogged about Mat Honan’s recent hack and the destruction of his personal data, of interest is that the story on my blog received less attention than Steve Wozniak's claim that the Cloud is Horrendous. I guess that we are either indifferent to hacks – that we have just come to expect them – or we just do not believe they can happen to us.

The reality is that what happened to Mat can happen to anyone, all it took was some good computer skills and some creative social engineering. Well fortunately, the publicity of Mat’s plight has forced both Apple and Amazon to make changes in regards to what their customer service representatives can change. According to a recent article, Apple on Wednesday confirmed that it is temporarily disabling its customers' ability to reset an AppleID password over the phone. Customers will have to use Apple's online "iForgot" system.

According to Wired, Amazon's customer service reps will no longer change account settings like credit cards or email addresses by phone. I have been pushing for enterprises to make sure that their cloud providers are doing everything they can to ensure data protection. But I believe it is equally important to evaluate a company after an incident. How a company responds in light of a bad situation speaks to their DNA as much as the preparation they put into protecting your data.

It would have been easy for both Apple and Amazon to simply say that this issue was isolated and that their process is well founded, instead they took action and are trying to determine the best long-term course to benefit their customers. When we get in our car each day, no one plans for an accident, but we know they are part of life, equally we know that our personal data could be compromised at some point in time.

Have you ever had your credit card numbers stolen from a website (I have had my discover card number stolen about 4 times in the last 3 years)? Ultimately the credit card company makes it painless to dispute charges and quickly replaces the card and you soon forget the pain. I applaud both Apple and Amazon – while the probably should have implemented this by default – they were smart enough to respond in a way to protect their clients and not shy away from a potential fire storm.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Where Will We Draw the Line With Social Media?

In May the NY times reported that a Judge in Virginia ruled that the “Like” button on Facebook is not considered protected speech and several people lost their job by liking an opposing official. Facebook has taken offense to this ruling and has countered in court that their like function is in fact protected under the first amendment.

Facebook filed a friend-of-the-court brief, on August 6th that urges an appeals court to vacate a recent ruling by the judge in Virginia that Facebook "likes" are not protected speech. While this may seem minor in the grand scheme of life, I believe it has a far reaching impact. Many prospective employers ask for your Facebook and Linked In pages to evaluate you as a candidate for a job position, if in fact your public comments are protected first amendment rights, can an organization reject you based on your personal beliefs? Can you be fired for your personal beliefs if they are posted publically?

For organizations, it can become a nightmare, most organizations face minimal scrutiny when one of their employees say or do something egregious, but being the NY area, we get to see this very issue in full color, our professional athletes are under constant scrutiny. Just imagine if you were the focus of removing your shirt after a rain storm, like Tim Tebow of the NY Jets. Is this a far reaching example? Of course, apparently a back up quarterback in NY with a massive following is head line news, but it does go to show how media, both news focused and socially goes viral on topics that would never have been discussed a decade ago.

For organizations, managing this phenomena becomes even more challenging. I have highlighted security and corporate reputation in my previous article, but just imagine if the wrong person with a massive following feels compelled to tell their side of a bad experience using a social channel. A great example of this was recently posted on Facebook regarding Alaska Airlines treatment of an elderly patron with advanced Parkinson's disease. Not only did the article go viral, but the local news picked up the story. I am not condemning either party as I do not feel all of the facts have surfaced, but social media typically only provides the sensationalism and delivers one side of a story.

As an organization, how do you monitor and manage these risks to your stakeholders. There are many businesses that will lose substantial revenues if their reputation is harmed, managing this communication outlet requires advanced strategy, SWOT teams and a full plan for responding to an ever changing public. I truly wonder how our constitution would have been drafted if our founding fathers were sitting down today to write these very documents that have formed our society, would they still provide the same freedoms we have come to expect as human beings? On a lighter side, I personally am waiting for a creative lawyer to use an entrapment defense for a burglar who breaks into a home to find occupants present even though their Facebook page says they are away at Disneyland.

I wish I could provide a clear vision of how this will all turn out, but the reality of the situation is that no one knows, all I can predict is a constantly changing environment around how we communicate with each other.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.