TT-Snippet's — Vol. 2 :: No. 1

 TT-Snippet's: Vol. 2 :: No. 1 — What?

1. American Express & Twitter: Dumb, dee, dumb, dumb...

This morning I heard on NPR that American Express (AE) was going to team with Twitter to allow their users to buy things via Twitter.  I said, "What!" The news announcer went on to describe how this would work. You can go to a fast video about this offer on: https://sync.americanexpress.com/Twitter/(S(yfs2gzmog3k5miiulsk0l3lr))/Index

In a nutshell you can now buy specific things via offers from AE on Twitter. This might sound a little strange, because as far as I am concerned — it is.  But it gets even stranger when you find out that your purchase will not be private, which could be done via a Direct Message.

On Twitter, Direct Messages between two users can be made private.  AE has decided that all of these transactions are to be made public.  Now, I don't know abut anyone else, but what I buy I'd like to keep to myself. And thinking about how my privacy has already been substantially diminished by sundry marketing ploys that all of these loyalty cards have been amassing about me doesn't make me want to actually publish purchases for everyone to see.

My immediate thought about this — if I were to use it — would be to create a Twitter account and then not follow anyone and not let anyone follow me: something like "BobGriffin_AE." Now, if I thought about that, I'm sure that thousands of other Twitter users would do the same thing. I think that would cause problems for Twitter and not give AE the results that they are seeking.

2. Facebook (FB): Do you know where you are? They do.

FB has developed an app (releasing mid-March) that will track where you are located. It's basically designed to find friends who are nearby, BUT more than likely it will be pushing advertisements to you from nearby. FB is already using GPS coordinates from users' locations when they post status and or check-in to venues. Here's the frightening part, this new feature will work even when the phone isn't in use.

3. Hillary's Parting Gift to Silicon Valley?

Before leaving as Secretary of State, the brilliant Hillary Clinton created The Alliance for an Affordable Internet, a public-private partnership among the State Department, the World Wide Web Foundation, and technology companies, including: Google, Yahoo!, Intel and Cisco Systems.

The focus is to give more people, world-wide, greater access to information. Or, as Hillary said, "We're going to help the next 3 billion people come online." Only a quarter of the people in developing countries are online; compared to three-quarters of people in developed countries who are online.

4. Got hacked? Who ya gonna call?

Mandiant. That's who.

Mandiant is cyber-security for hundreds of major corporate clients world-wide. And a recent Chinese government document says, "To accuse the Chinese military of launching cyber-attacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless." Jennifer Ayers, Mandiant manager, responded, "I guess we're not supposed to editorialize."

"Last week, a succession of news stories divulged that the computer systems of major news organizations including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post were hacked by Chinese hackers associated with the government."

"In a wave of cyber-attacks beginning in 2009, dubbed Operation Aurora by security firm McAfee, hackers in China breached the corporate networks of Google, Yahoo!, Juniper Networks, Adobe Systems and dozens of other prominent technology companies..."

The White House was targeted (and failed) last year and the Council on Foreign Relations was hacked with malware.

The scenario is well-established and everyone knows what the elephant in the room is here. I think President Obama needs to figure out a way to announce to the world in a way that gets the Chinese to stop this process.

Anyone have any ideas?

The above is summarized from the February 11, 2013 Bloomberg news feed.