I find that I’ve been lacking time to post, here or over at The New School Blog, but that’s not to say I’m not reading and thinking.

The biggest problem I have is that with some of the shifts in my role at work, much of what I want to talk about is now considered to be Classified, and by the time I get finished sanitizing it, there’s nothing left to say. Don’t blame me, blame the lawyers.

Nevertheless, some interesting articles that I’ve left sitting in tabs on my browser until I get around to posting them and/or mailing them off to various folks:

• Why corporate IT should let us browse any way we want.
  I offer this with no stance on this article whatsoever. That is to say, I’m neither endorsing nor rejecting the premise, because there are bits of it that I want to agree with, even though I know that the author is *painfully* naive about both the risks and the poor judgement of the average corporate citizen.
  Much of the problem here is solved only by properly motivated and educated people. Unfortunately, Security Awareness is, as we all know, still a Hard Problem. If that is truly the case, then PC’s are a paradox in his world–locked down machines demotivate, which makes people therefore need those controls. Perhaps the real question becomes how organizations can break the current equilibrium point and find a new, mutually-beneficial equilibrium.
• INTERNET INFOWAR
  How to fight for Hearts And Minds on the modern Internet/Web
• Google is now crowd-sourcing traffic data
  I’m in favor since it’s an explicit, per-use opt-in (you have to start Google maps and enable it) and I get benefit from it.
• Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess
  Wired takes a look at Craigslist and how it should not exist. Back in my online dating days, we had a property that was not much better looking than Craigslist. We never touched it other than to patch the servers. It was ugly, buggy, and had a hardcore user base of ugly people (seriously) who flooded the Customer Care department when it was finally “updated.” Some things don’t want to be slick and up-to-date. Classifieds are one of them.
• 1,000 cameras ’solve one crime’
  Finally, a little something from Oceania Great Britain with a metric for CCTV effectiveness. “A Home Office spokeswoman said CCTVs “help communities feel safer”.” So CCTV’s are tweaking people’s Risk Homeostasis? If they’re increasing risk tolerance, but not actually making a difference, then the net effect would be that they’re actually making things worse.

Happy Friday, everyone!

“If they’re increasing risk tolerance, but not actually making a difference, then the net effect would be that they’re actually making things worse.”

Unless people’s perception of risk is greater than the actual risk, right? Then it is possible that the process successfully increases risk tolerance to a level that is more inline with the actual risk itself.

Per my mother-in-law, who just happens to be visiting us from the UK, “Nobody pays any attention to those things. They don’t make any difference whatsoever.”

So maybe we’re both wrong ;-)