Article:Facebook password isn't your boss' business

Robert Ricci

Article Name: Facebook password isn't your boss' business

Written By: Doug Gross

Updated On: Thu March 22, 2012

Link to Article: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/304850

The article I chose to read on is regarding Facebook and how it should affect your work life. The article was written by Doug Goss, a writer for CNN. The article explains of how many companies are now asking employees if they have a Facebook, and if yes for the password to their homepage. The company’s main objective is to checkup on workers, to make sure they are ideally representing the company well, even if they aren’t working, mainly to see if you are a quality employee.  Although some people think that they have fooled the system, not all have. Certain companies go as far as having coworkers add a selected person on Facebook as a friend to be able to see all of their information.  As you read on in the article, you can see that the writer (Gross) is strongly against the idea of this happing in modern business. The writer almost in a way frowns upon certain companies that are doing this. In my own personal opinion I think that the argument could go either way. My argument for the Facebook password pass is that if I were an owner of a high end company, I would want to know what my employees look like outside of work. I truly believe that some people act differently around people of authority. I can even admit that I can at times be one of those people. If I were to argue for why any company should not be demanding to ask for a password, my initial argument would be that what people do behind closed doors strictly has to do with them. Truthfully, not many people are doing anything all that terrifying, to potentially hurt a company’s name. Most people just take pictures with friends and family. I understand not everybody does this, but the people that do sum up the masses in my opinion. Another issue I would bring up is pictures of people drinking. If you are of the legal age, it is not a big deal. Period. The drinking age is 21 for the reason that you make the decision on what you want to do. Overall, I believe that if people want these types of things to stop happening, do not post stupid things to Facebook.

Don't Lose Your Phone Survey finds most people will try to access your personal data

            My parents have always told me over and over to not lose my phone.  I'm not sure if its because they're extremely expensive to replace or because when people find them they try to access personal data.  I'm responding to the Article: Most finders of lost phones try to access personal data, survey finds by Amy Gahran, a special to CNN.  The article is about an experiment where they deliberately lost 50 android phones in Los Angles, San Francisco, Washington, New York and Ottawa.  The phones were loaded with identical apps, files and data and none of the phones were secured with a pass code.  Symantec found that in the vast majority of cases more than 95% of the people who found the missing phones tried to access personal or sensitive information, or services such as online banking or e-mail.  Half of the finders made some sort of attempt to return the lost phones by a email or phone number for the owner was listed in the contacts app on each of the decoy's phone.  Some of the stats break down like this:  72% of the lost phone finders looked through stored photos, attempts were made on 60% of the pones to access social media, more than 40% of finders tried to access corporate e-mail and online banking.  53% of finders accessed a fake list of employee salaries and 57% of finders accessed files contained a list of passwords for services on the phone. 

            I was shocked as I read this article as I too have found a phone at Wendy's recently with very low battery, I began to call people on the contacts list and left them messages saying "I found this phone at Wendy's in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and I'm giving it to the manager here."  It wasn't a droid, it was just a basic phone but I never looked through the pictures or anything.   I couldn't believe the percentage of how many people were nosy as looked at many of the things on the phone.  My last phone I had for four years so hopefully my new smartphone will last just as long.  I guess the moral of this story is to have a password on your smartphone and to NOT LOSE THEM like this guy below.        

If you have lost/broke or your phone as been stolen, I recommend checking this link out:

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-replace-lost-broken-stolen-3606367.html

blog 4

I chose to write about the article that discusses the uses of Twitter. It's called 10 Smart Enterprise Uses For Twitter, written by Kevin Casy, and was published on October 13, 2011. The article mentions the fact that Twitter has many different uses, and also it is its own language, where you have to be involved by listening as well as talking. You should be a part of a conversation, especially if it is discussing your business or products. Generating referrals is also a prominent aspect of Twitter. According to the blog, one of the first places companies should look is among their current and former employees. It also recommends that you develop strong media relationships within Twitter. Like the technology and entertainment industries, the media business is also quite active on Twitter. Quoting Amy Ziari from the blog, she advises that people "Follow the most important reporters to your company and when you have something of value to add, respond in an authentic way to their tweets". Also more and more reporters are searching for stories through Twitter. Twitter also helps modernize customer service, by potentially cutting down on the call and email volume. It may at least give an otherwise faceless enterprise a chance to show its customers that it actually cares about keeping them. It's also used as a way to recruit people for hire. It is increasingly used as a part of enterprise HR departments and how they attract and hire qualified job candidates. This can determine if people are technology oriented which may be useful in some positions. It's also cheaper to posts things on Twitter than taking out ads in the paper, because the only expense is an employees time and effort. Also you can promote a business as well as yourself. This is poosible because instead of only posting about products and endless sales, an individual may mix a couple posts about sales into other tweets, that way it doesn't become 'white noise', which may result in people's loss of interest. It is also an extremely useful way to communicate with employees. Large enterprises need fast channels for communicating with their people. Twitter's brevity and accessibility offer this opportunity, particularly in situations when other communications channels might be down or otherwise unrealistic. Twitter can also help you 'improve your social media I.Q' because it is a good venue for keeping up with broader social and community developments. Twitter on its own offers a platform for engaging with executives and other influential people in your industry. A social media network such as this can be overpowering and extremely influential. Last but not least, Twitter can provide valuable information on what your competitors are doing, and what others are saying about them, providing valuable information for a company. I'm not really one to follow Twitter but it is really amazing that it has so many uses that can be beneficial to businesses. I have not really thought about it in this way, because for the most part I believed it to be a waste of time and just another way to post your 'every minute action'. Twitter can get you sucked in like any social media network, but according to this article it is useful for some things, you just need to know how to utilize them.

Extra Credit Blog

Wesley Williams

Digital Apps

Extra Credit Blog

TweetDeck bug gives access to other users' accounts

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/30/technology/tweetdeck-bug-twitter/index.htm

:By Laurie Segall

@CNNMoneyTech March 30, 2012: 6:56 PM ET

                Hi my name is Wesley Williams, and this summary that I am about to write is extra credit about the article I just read about security, and in this article it was about security problems. It says that twitter had a bug called Tweetdeck, and it was hacking into a lot of users accounts around the world, and how it took a man to tweet it for twitter to realize that it was happening. They said Tweetdeck was an app, and something to be installed on your desktop, and wasn’t designed for what it was being used for. In the article it also states how there is another bug in twitter that they have notified where you could be following somebody or they are following you, but you wouldn’t know or you would but it wouldn’t show up. That wasn’t really a big bug but that is just something a network wouldn’t want part of the program. I chose this article because I am a user of twitter, and for how long this has been going on I never knew anything about it. There is nothing much more I can say about this just take the time out to read the article because it was interesting.

Blog 4

Blog Post: A 3-D printer created this shoe March 31^st 2012

By William Shea

                The article I viewed was about a new 3D printer. My first thought at this product is it is simply amazing. I am in awe at how crazy this device is. These printers change the way you can do work drastically. The fact that this printer can make almost anything that you can conjure on a cell phone or computer of any kind is absurd. The CNN logo printed in the video is very detailed and comes out very nice and that is just a simple shape. The amount of things that a person could use this printer for are endless. Personally I was fascinated by how quickly and efficiently this 3d printer works.  If I was able to acquire a printer like this any project I would ever had I could make 3D demonstrations and other prop like items with a click of a mouse. Granted this printer definitely costs a lot of money and would be very expensive to maintain. Upon further reading of these printers at Wikipedia I realized that I am a few years from acquiring such a device. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing. Along with being a few years removed from acquiring a 3 dimensional printer, I realized I will need a good amount of money to get it, that I had figured. I found it neat that these printers have been around for a few years and created such things as hearing aids and invisiline braces. Overall I cannot wait to see one of these printers in person because I feel like just watching it work would be interesting. Having the ability to make almost any object on your computer 3d is limitless. In theory you could make objects at your house to aid you in everyday tasks as opposed to purchasing them. Granted this 3d printer creates objects from a computer file but in the event you were to use these objects their durability may be in question. In my opinion you would be better off purchasing an object rather than creating it from your computer.

Blog #4

Wesley Williams

Digital Apps

Blog #4

ACLU: Facebook password isn't your boss' business

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/22/tech/social-media/facebook-password-employers/index.html?npt=NP1

By Doug Gross, CNN

updated 5:54 PM EDT, Thu March 22, 2012

My name is Wesley Williams, and I am here to summarize what the article I read is about. The article that I chose was about Facebook, but can also include basically anything you use on the internet as like a social network. The article states that in some places (well in the article it says the majority of places are starting to do it) the boss asks you for your password to your social network (in this article it happens to be Facebook), or get other employees to add you on that network, and they state that it is for business reasons to check if you’re a worthy employee. The article makes it seem like an awful idea, and they make it seem like it should be looked down upon, and should never do something like that. I’m not saying that it’s right, or anything but I am also not saying it’s the worst thing to do either. There is pro’s, and cons to this so it can go either way.  I say it could be a good thing because that could actually be a really good way to find out what your employee is doing, not in a stalking way but if he/she is doing something that can effect the business then why would you way them to be with your company, or anything like that, but you don’t need their passwords for that you can go the way of getting other employees to add them and people getting tested in this way can easily by pass it by just deleting there account. On the other hand it is bad because that is like an invasion of privacy like some people could have some really private things on their network , and if your boss has your password then he/she would have access to all of that which is not a good thing. But that is my opinion yours may be different who knows.

Extra Credit Blog

The article that I chose is called “A giant undersea cable makes the internet a split second faster.” It was written by David Goldman from CNN Tech on March 30, 2012. The article talks about how a ship goes around the world dropping cables underwater with buoys attached to them (to let others know they are there) that allow people from continent to continent communicate with each other VIA the internet. The most recent internet cable drop has allowed us to communicate a split second faster. In the article it also talks about the world’s largest underwater cable. The cable is an Indian telecom giant Tata. This cable manages 130,500 miles of fiber all while just sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor. The article also talks about how three companies are currently trying to come up with a way to build cable networks through the polar ice cap to make communication between London and Tokyo far easier and faster anything seen before. What the three companies are trying to achieve is a speed of up to 10 gigabit-per-second speeds. If the three companies are successful it would have a drastic effect on the internet’s latency currently. The internet’s latency would be reduced by 60 milliseconds. The reason why underwater cables are being used more is because it doesn’t take away from the look of the area while trying to fasten the internet speed. The second reason is because it is pretty much safe from all destruction, be it a tornado, high winds, hurricane, etc. This makes it much more money efficient, which makes the use of them want to be increased because they aren’t being torn down as easily as they would if they were up in the air being held up. The even more attractiveness to producers is the fact that at the pressure of the water, the cables could be untouched forever. These reasons alone are a great reason to start using underwater cables, but you also have to look at what inhabits the water, the animals, and the sea life. How is it affecting them, that should be a concern of ours as well.