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A 'Spooks And Suits' Red Team Game Social media apps meet national security Jul 20, 2011 | 12:40 PM | 0 Comments By Kelly Jackson Higgins Dark Reading What if a former Navy SEAL petty officer were a member of Anonymous? Senior members of the U.S. intelligence agency, including Michael Chertoff, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, and a former SEAL officer, will participate in a red-team exercise in September where they'll play the role of Anonymous/LulzSec and APT attackers, as well as the defenders trying to fend off these adversaries. Sure, simulated cyberattack games are nothing new these days. But this one is part and parcel of the upcoming Spooks and Suits summit in Silicon Valley on Sept. 23 and 24, and it throws together intell officials and attendees. It's the brainchild of cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr, who wanted to bring together three-letter agencies, like the CIA, NSA, and DoD, with social media and Web 2.0 developers and start-ups to actually communicate one-on-one with each another and with general attendees. It works like this: Attendees will be randomly assigned to one of four teams of 25 to 30 people: Anarchist hackers (a la Anonymous and LulzSec), APT attackers, or one of two defending organizations. The teams then must observe all of the panel discussions -- which will cover threats against the intell community, as well as demonstrations of new and existing social media applications -- from the perspective of either adversary or defender, depending on which team they are assigned. "If one of the apps presented has to do with a game, the objective for the attendee is to say, 'How can I use that game as an adversary? Or how can I use it to uncover or defend against an adversary?'" says Carr, who is the founder and CEO of Taia Global, an executive cybersecurity firm, and author of "Inside Cyber Warfare." "During breaks, they can play with the apps with an eye to their mission." The teams will have a working lunch period for buildi

Even though some text is strangely obscured, still a cool timeline infographic about the history of social media.

"Although Facebook is by far the largest social network out there, the social network sphere is large and has a ton of players. We were curious about which of them are the most active. To find these sites, we decided to focus on the number of daily visitors to each site."

A new social network launched today around the sharing and engagement of news. XYDO takes the social graph and turns it into a network of news that is automatically curated through users Twitter and Facebook streams. Think Digg and Reddit, add social news feeds automatically and you have XYDO.

Nice model showing the progression of information in a social learning environment.

While some organizations are still considering a basic social media facelift for their intranet, perhaps incorporating some blogs for corporate communication or a wiki area for some shared content authoring, it's almost certain that this is too little and too late for many companies. Over the last three years, the world has undergone a social media revolution that has changed the behaviors of most of the developed world that have gone on to be validated as beneficial for the workplace.

A review of two recent studies (Gallup and Aberdeen Group) summarizes some of the key findings of the value of internal social networks.   18% boost in employee engagement streamlined operations better, faster innovation failing to engage employees costs $300B in wasted productivity

Latest Pew research shows users of social networking sites are, in general, more connected in real life than are non-users.

GSA's guide to its employees on how to use social media in an official capacity.  

Spammers don't fit the life patterns of regular users.  "[Microsoft researchers]  are using studies of legitimate and malicious social networks to spot bogus email accounts that are used to push spam, malware, and otherwise malicious links."

Holds potential for culling through your social streams for good content

"In our "Social Knows" series, we sniff out and compile statistics and research regarding workplace / workforce management, human resources and employee engagement. The goal is to provide you with the background knowledge necessary to support your own recommendations, findings and strategies. Submissions always welcomed."

In this case, there are four key players. Two of them are a couple: a journalist who lives in New York and a social media specialist who lives in London. The other two have roots in Pakistan: a journalist and documentary filmmaker who recently moved to the U.S. and a political commentator in Islamabad. Each of them contributed to a chain of information that turned one man's offhand comments about a helicopter in the middle of the night into an internationally known work of citizen journalism.

Google might actually get social networking right this time with a completely integrated suite of new tools called Google+