Group items tagged

Most agencies manage sensitive citizen data: addresses, Social Security numbers, financial records and medical information. You name it, some state or local office has it, and probably electronically. The problem? Many theorize that the Millennials' penchant for online openness could unintentionally expose private information, leaving it ripe for the picking. Millennials bring innovative ideas about technology's use, but for that same reason, do they also pose new security risks?

Anti-virus vendor Symantec released a study in March 2008 assessing this issue. Symantec commissioned Applied Research-West to execute the study, and 600 participants were surveyed from different verticals, including government. Survey participants included 200 IT decision-makers, 200 Millennial workers and 200 non-Millennial workers born before 1980. The data revealed that Millennials are more likely than workers of other ages to use Web 2.0 applications on company time and equipment. Some interesting figures include: 69 percent of surveyed Millennials will use whatever application, device or technology they want at work, regardless of office IT policies; and only 45 percent of Millennials stick to company-issued devices or software, compared to 70 percent of non-Millennials.

How might young people be workplace assets? Could all that time typing or texting make them speedy typists, able to whip up memos at the drop of a hat? Does familiarity with new and emerging technologies have its benefit? You bet, according to Dustin Lanier, director of the Texas Council on Competitive Government. The council brings state leaders together to shape policy for government departments, including IT. "I think they've built an approach to work that involves a lot of multitasking," Lanier said of the Millennials. "Something will be loading on one screen, you alt-tab to another application and pull up an e-mail, the first process loads, you flip back, start a new process, flip to a forum and pull up a topic. It's frenetic but normal to that group." Lanier doesn't think Millennials present more of an IT threat than their older co-workers. After all, young people don't have a monopoly on being distracted in the office. "I can't tell you how many times I've walked by people's desks of all ages and seen Minesweeper up," he said. He thinks employers should embrace some Web 2.0 applications. Otherwise, Millennials might be discouraged from sticking around. According to Lanier, this younger work force comprises many people who think of themselves as free agents. Government should accommodate some of their habits in order to prevent them from quitting.

John Gay, a police officer for the Cheyenne Police Department in Wyoming, volunteered at the request of Windsor High School principal Rick Porter to speak to students at two assemblies about the dangers of predators surfing social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.Gay shared how he could pull pictures off of Windsor High School students who had their own MySpace and Facebook pages. Nordic’s daughter, Shaylah, was one of the students Gay singled out to the point where Shaylah left the auditorium in tears.

Shaylah said Gay showed the other students her phone number, read her blogs and comments out loud.

He kept on picking at her and picking at her and picking at her and everyone said, ‘That’s harassment,’ ” Weakland said.

Hiring managers like Johnson say an increasing number of job hunters are just too casual when it comes to communicating about career opportunities in cyberspace and on mobile devices. Thank-yous on paper aren't necessary, but some applicants are writing e-mails that contain shorthand language and decorative symbols, while others are sending hasty and poorly thought-out messages to and from mobile devices. Job hunters are also using social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to try to befriend less-than-willing interviewers.

ead teachers are being advised to draw up new rules on mobile phone use amid a growing number of cases of what is now known as “cyber-bullying”. In many secondary schools, over 90% of bullying cases are through text messages or internet chatrooms. It is hoped that the rules about mobile phone use will protect children from abusive texts, stop phones going off in class and prevent mobiles being taken into exam halls.

Although the majority of kids who are harassed online aren’t physically bothered in person, the cyber-bully still takes a heavy emotional toll on his or her victims. Kids who are targeted online are more likely to get a detention or be suspended, skip school and experience emotional distress, the medical journal reports. Teenagers who receive rude or nasty comments via text messages are six times more likely to say they feel unsafe at school.

The problem is that bullying is still perceived by many educators and parents as a problem that involves physical contact. Most enforcement efforts focus on bullying in school classrooms, corridors and toilets. But given that 80% of adolescents use mobile phones or computers, “social interactions have increasingly moved from personal contact at school to virtual contact in the chatroom,'’ write Kirk R. Williams and Nancy G. Guerra, co-authors of one of the journal reports. “Internet bullying has emerged as a new and growing form of social cruelty.'’

Sometimes gritty and often silly, MyYearbook.com is a popular social networking forum for teens who want to flirt, post poetry and compete in photo and video "battles." They vie to be voted "best looking" and to display the "best tattoo or piercing." This uninhibited site--subjects cover everything from fashion to incest--attracts eyeballs.

MyYearbook had 4.5 million unique visitors in June, a 36% increase in a year, says ComScore (nasdaq: SCOR - news - people ). The number of MyYearbook pages viewed that month climbed fivefold from the year before, to 1.3 billion. Piczo, a similar teen site, had 1.4 million unique visitors and 81 million page views.

MyYearbook, created in 2005, had very little advertising until last year. Now, with marketers interested in tapping into the unguarded gabfest, MyYearbook's founders--siblings Geoffrey, David and Catherine Cook--want to exploit the conversations without turning users off.

16% posted personal interests 15% posted information about their physical activities 20% gave out their real name 5% posted information about their school 6% posted their home address 6% posted their phone number 9% posted a photograph of themselves

The research indicates that the movement toward Web 2.0 use to engage students and address individual learning needs is largely being driven in districts from the bottom up – starting with teachers and students

Overall, the research confirms school districts are using or planning to use several types of Web 2.0 technologies, but reveals there is still resistance to using online social networking for instructional purposes.

ther key results of the survey include: The three most frequently cited reasons for adopting Web 2.0 technologies are: addressing students’ individual learning needs, engaging student interest, and increasing students’ options for access to teaching and learning. Online communications with parents and students (e.g., teacher blogs) and digital multimedia resources are the Internet technologies most widely used by teachers, and a majority of districts have plans for adopting these technologies or promoting their use. Teacher-generated online content (e.g., multimedia lessons, wiki-based resources) is likely to be the next area of growth in the use of Web 2.0 technologies. Almost half of districts have plans for adopting or promoting the creation and sharing of this content through Web 2.0 tools.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) today published its Annual Report 2008 revealing a fall of nearly 10% in the number of international websites with child sexual abuse content. The report warns against complacency, pointing to the serious nature of the images which are often carried on commercial websites.   The report also highlights the fact that 74% of child sexual abuse domains traced by IWF are commercial operations selling indecent images of children, and 75% of the these (some 850 unique domains) are registered with just 10 domain name registries. This underlines the importance of recent international efforts with domain name registries to get the site names delisted, and will remain a focus of IWF attention going forward.

Financial identity theft: This most commonly occurs when the Social Security Number (SSN) and name is used to establish new lines of credit.

Criminal identity theft: This typically occurs when a person “borrows” the information of the minor to get a driver’s license or uses the child’s identity when caught in a criminal act. This person may be an illegal immigrant who bought the information or a relative who has had a license suspended or revoked.

Identity Cloning: Cloning is when a identity thief uses an identity for financial, criminal, and governmental purposes. Most frequently, profilers have people in positions where they are able to collect information about minors and then sell it on the black market. The most frequent purchasers of this information, in our experience, are illegal immigrants or people who are trying to “restart” their lives and avoid arrest

When Oregon resident Cecilia Barnes broke up with her boyfriend, he responded by posting a fake profile of her on Yahoo -- and a particularly nasty one at that. He included nude photos of Barnes as well as her name, address and phone number.

Former top dog MySpace watched its usage drop nearly one-third to around 4.9 billion minutes, from 7.2 billion in April 2008. MySpace still scored the number one spot for online video among the top 10, thanks to its users streaming more than 120 million videos from the site for April of this year.

We have seen some major growth in Facebook during the past year, and a subsequent decline in MySpace," Jon Gibs, Nielsen's vice president for online media and agency insights, said in a statement. "Twitter has come on the scene in an explosive way perhaps changing the outlook for the entire space."

Cybersmart Detectives is an innovative online game that teaches children key internet safety messages in a safe environment. Children work online in real time liaising with community professionals to solve an internet-themed problem. The activity is based in the school environment, and brings together a number of agencies with an interest in promoting online safety for young people, including State and Federal Police, internet industry representatives and child welfare advocates. In the scenario, children play the role of a school Deputy Principal concerned about the welfare of a new student, who may be being bullied by someone they have met in an internet chat room. Guided by a series of clues, children work collaboratively in teams to solve the mystery of what is worrying the student, and why. 'Cybersmart Guides' respond to the questions and theories posed by the students, and guide the teams through each of the 'clues'. As the scenario unfolds, the children discuss the risks of certain online and offline behaviours, and ways of managing those risks. Although the scenario presented in the activity is simulated, the sense of urgency that excites a class of children taking part is very real. By the end of the activity children will have learned some valuable lessons about some of the risks associated with internet use, especially useful tips for chatting safely online. More importantly, the issues that lie behind the story will have been discussed with professionals who deal with similar issues on a daily basis. Cybersmart Detectives was initially developed by UK-based child advocacy agency Childnet International, and until 2005, operated under the name of Net Detectives. The activity is now independently operated by E-ngagelive. The Australian Communications and Media Authority ( ACMA ), by agreement with E-ngagelive , has adapted the activity for use in Australian schools under the name Cybersmart Detectives.