IT inferno: The nine circles of IT hell

http://ow.ly/6LAEc

An article by Dan Tynan published by Info World on infoworld.com

This article is a comic description of the nine layers of I.T. hell, and describes each area, along with the types of people residing there, and the possible path out.

The article provides the following descriptions, along with some detailed narrative around each item:



1st circle of IT hell: Limbo
Description: A pitiful morass where nothing ever gets done and change is impossible.
People you meet there:Users stranded by vendors, departments shackled by software lock-in, organizations held hostage by wayward developers.

How to escape: "When you're digging a hole in hell, the first thing to do is stop digging and climb your way out," says Roth. That means making sure you have the tech expertise in house to solve your own problems, going with open source to avoid vendor lock-in, and taking the time to refactor your code so you can be more efficient the next time around.


2nd circle of IT hell: Tech lust
Description: A deep cavern filled with mountains of discarded gadgets, with Golem-like creatures scrambling to reach the shiny new ones at the top.
People you meet there: Just about everybody at some point.

How to escape: It is difficult to break free from the circle of tech lust, admits Lowe. "We all love shiny new things," he says. "But you have to know what's good enough to get the job done, and learn how to be happy with what you have."

3rd circle of IT hell: Stakeholder gluttony
Description: A fetid quagmire filled with insatiable business users who demand more and more features, no matter the cost.
People you meet there: Demons from sales and marketing, finance, and administration.

How to escape: There is only one way out, and it entails confronting the demons with some hard realities, says Williams. "Escape from this circle is best effected by wielding the magic mirror of painful truth," he says. "This powerful weapon makes the demons look into their own dark hearts and realize that ultimately it is they who have most to lose from feature creep."

4th circle of IT hell: Corporate greed
Description: An acrid forge where piteous creatures drown in a river of molten gold
People you meet there: Corporate executives and shareholders. Also: Donald Trump.

How to escape: Political savvy, dedication to the customer, and supportive management are the only ways out, says Howard. "Ultimately it's always about the money," he says. "You have to figure out how to deliver the results they want in some other way. But a lot of people just give into the pressure."

5th circle of IT hell: App dev anger
Description: A fiery pit of smoke and brimstone, where geeks and suits alike grow hot under the collar
People you meet there: Programmers, developers, C-level executives.

How to escape: Eventually many hotheads will find themselves forced out of a job. Still, you can avoid most blow-ups by doing a better job of keeping everyone informed at every step of the way, says Roshfeld. "In our example, if the development team had licensing information at the early stages of development, they could have made more informed decisions and averted a crisis," he says. "Learning of critical flaws late in the development process inevitably leads you down the path to the fifth circle."

6th circle of IT hell: Tech-cult heresy
Description: An inscrutable labyrinth where all paths lead to the same destination, lit by the fires of nonbelievers burned at the stake
People you meet there: Apple/Microsoft/Google fanboys, Wikipedians, open sourcers, and any other member of an IT cult.

How to escape: Heresy depends on zealotry and belief in the power of "evangelism," says O'Berry. You can avoid it by keeping your mind open and your eyes on the big picture. "The minute you begin to treat something like a zealot, you reinforce the notion that it's a religion," he says. "It's not religion; it's business. The world survives on compromise. Go too far in one direction or the other and you'll never solve any problems."

7th circle of IT hell: Vendor-on-vendor violence
Description: A dismal miasma full of ogres with $200 haircuts, wielding Louis Vuitton briefcases
People you meet there: Lawyers.

How to escape: Exiting the circle of company-on-company violence may only be possible via collective action, says O'Berry. "When you squeeze the ecosystem only to your advantage, not caring about the companies you've killed along the way, eventually people will say enough is enough," says O'Berry. "We need to balance our capitalistic nature with some form of societal responsibility."

8th circle of IT hell: Fraudulent practices and malevolent hackers
Description: A slippery pit of deception where daemons lurk in the shadows and nothing is as it seems
People you meet there: Scammers, spammers, black-hat hackers, and rogue system administrators.

How to escape: You can avoid falling into the circle of fraud by doing a better job of monitoring access privileges, says Bosnian. "The people with the most power -- systems and network admins -- are often not controlled in any way," he says. "You need to be able to see what they're doing and control it at a granular level. When people know they are being monitored, they tend to keep their noses clean."

9th circle of IT hell: Tech-pro treachery
Description: An icy wasteland, filled with lost souls desperately clawing at the knives in their backs
People you meet there: Disgruntled employees, work rivals, any geek with a grudge.

Jealousy, backbiting, subterfuge, and sabotage -- they're all just unfortunate, if rare, parts of the IT life, says Anthony R. Howard.

How to escape: It helps to have a good manager on your side, says Howard. But you still need to cover your assets, keeping all your emails and your boss in the loop. If it looks like treachery is afoot, pick up the phone or go to your nemesis's office to professionally confront them -- don't do it on email.

Twitter Psychological Research: Who Tweets, How Much, What They Say and Why

http://ow.ly/6KS62

An article by Dava Castillo posted on allvoices.com website.

This article discusses some research and analysis regarding patters of use on Twitter, and some psychological insight into what is tweeted and why.

The article provides the following interesting statistics regarding the categories of tweets:

• Pointless babble: 41%
• Conversational: 38%
• Pass-along value: 9%
• Self-promotion: 6%
• Spam: 4%
• News: 4%

In addition, the article states that as of February, 2011 there are 200 Million users on Twitter.  The article also states, "A 2009 Pew Research found there are 190 million Twitter users around the world producing 65 million tweets each day. 19% of US internet users Tweet or use a similar service to share updates about themselves—double the figure from the previous year." A link to the Pew Research survey is provided in the article. 

Further information regarding the average ages of social media users is provided as follows, "The average age of Tweeter is 31

The average (median) age for a Twitter user is 31, older than the median MySpace user who is 26, but younger than Facebook which is now 33. LinkedIn has the oldest users with the median being 39. Predictably the strongest growth in Twitter use is amongst those aged 18-24."

Additional surveys and studies are referenced in the article, including links to the sources.  One such study found as follows, "Heil & Piskorski report that 10% percent of Twitter users contribute 90% percent of the tweets. Most of the Twitter users are following celebrities because of the “halo effect.”"

In addition, another study found, "After examining 350 messages collected from Twitter, Naaman (2010) found two different types of user:

• Informers: 20% shared information and replied to other users
• Meformers: 80% mostly sent out information about themselves."

US: Cyber attacks on utilities, industries rise

http://ow.ly/6KQCE

An article by Douglas Birch published by Associated Press.

The article discusses the recent increase in computer hacking incidents, and specifically addresses an increase in security breaches of utilities providers.

The article states, "U.S. utilities and industries face a rising number of cyber break-ins by attackers using more sophisticated methods, a senior Homeland Security Department official said during the government's first media tour of secretive defense labs intended to protect the nation's power grid, water systems and other vulnerable infrastructure."

The article further states, "According to the DHS, Control System Security Program cyber experts based at the Idaho National Laboratory responded to 116 requests for assistance in 2010, and 342 so far this year."

The article goes on to state, "While U.S. officials talk frequently about the threat of cyber attacks to America, they seldom discuss the country's offensive cyber weapons capability. The U.S. is thought to be the world's leader in cyber warfare, both defensive and offensive.

U.S. officials and others long have feared that future wars will include cyber assaults on the industries and economies of adversaries, and the potential targets include power plants, pipelines and air traffic control systems.

Foreign nations could also target military control systems, including those used for communications, radar and advanced weaponry.

Because of its advanced industrial base and large number of computer controlled machines connected to the Internet, the U.S. is thought to be highly vulnerable to a cyber attack on its infrastructure."

My First Meet And Confer

http://ow.ly/6KQda

A post by "Todd" on the discoverybrain.com website.

This article discusses the "Meet and Confer" requirement associated with Federal (and some state) litigation.  This article provides an illustration of the first meeting that the author attended regarding this type of discovery conference.

The article provides a definition of the "Meet and Confer" as follows, "a requirement of courts that before certain types of motions and/or petitions will be heard by the judge, the lawyers (and sometimes their clients) must “meet and confer” to try to resolve the matter or at least determine the points of conflict."

The article states, "One thing I found interesting was that the cost to perform the electronically stored information (ESI)-related work was at the forefront of the conversation. Cost tends to dominate a lot of conversations these days and my impression was that took away from the real items at hand.

Performing a sound collection, planning how to address the amount of data collected, coming up with really good search terms that will not create a lot of irrelevant data, how to then agree to refine such search terms and methodologies. These items were eventually discussed as a small fraction of the overall conversation, and only after a long drawn out battle over cost and who is going to pay."

The article goes on further to state, "The more positive items I noted were that both sides were well versed in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP) rules, specifically Rule 26."

The author provides the following advice in conclusion, "To sum up the experience, I have a few quick items that may help someone (even for the first time or as a consultant) heading to a meet and confer:

1. Be Prepared.
2. Have a budget in mind.
3. Consider size, scope, and timeframe of the collection.
4. Discuss and try to agree on best practices and an overall plan of action.
5. Discuss production specifications, timelines, and expectations.

Most importantly, try to be reasonable."

Employer did not violate employee’s privacy by accessing personal laptop

http://ow.ly/6KPNC

An article by Evan Brown on the blog internetcases.com

This article discusses privacy issues related to the case, "Sitton v. Print Direction, Inc., — S.E.2d —, 2011 WL 4469712 (Ga.App. September 28, 2011)"

The case discussed in this article held as followed, "A Georgia court held that an employee using a personal laptop to conduct business for a competitor did not have an invasion of privacy claim when his employer busted him at work using the laptop to send email."

The plaintiff in this matter worked for a printing company, but used his personal computer to broker business to his wife's computer company during the course of his regular employment.  The defendant saw some of the plaintiff's emails about the other business on the plaintiff's personal computers screen and printed them out, without the plaintiff's knowledge.

The article goes on to state, "The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s finding that the boss’s access to plaintiff’s computer did not constitute common law invasion of privacy based upon an intrusion upon plaintiff’s seclusion or solitude, or into his private affairs. The court held that the boss’s activity was “reasonable in light of the situation” because:

• He was acting in order to obtain evidence in connection with an investigation of improper employee behavior,
• The company’s interests were at stake, and
• He had “every reason” to suspect that plaintiff was conducting a competing business on the side, as in fact he was."

The plaintiff ultimately lost his claim that the defendant had violated the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act, and lost a counter-claim to the defendant for breach of loyalty.

P.S. The court also stated, "“[T]here are some shocks, inconveniences and annoyances which members of society in the nature of things must absorb without the right of redress.”"

A Changing Definition of Deletion

http://ow.ly/6KupG

An article by Craig Ball, Esq. on his blog Ball in Your Court.

This article discusses the recent push to try and revise the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  The author states that there are many voices expressing that there are undue burdens placed on corporations regarding information retention.

The article states as follows, "The proposed changes are driven by the second silent goal of sparing litigants (really their technologically challenged counsel) the chore of knowing enough about electronic evidence and information technology to make defensible decisions about preservation. ”Don’t make us learn anything,” they plead, “just make rules specific enough to protect us from not knowing.”"

The article goes on further to point out, "Case in point: One proposed amendment would create a presumption that certain data is excluded from the preservation duty, to wit:

(A) Deleted, slack, fragmented or unallocated data on hard drives;
(B) Random access memory (RAM) or other ephemeral data;
(C) On-line access data such as temporary internet files;
(D) Data in metadata fields that are frequently updated, such as last opened dates;
(E) Information whose retrieval cannot be accomplished without substantial
additional programming, or without transferring it into another form before
search and retrieval can be achieved;
(F) Backup data that substantially duplicate [sic] more accessible data available
elsewhere;
(G) Physically damaged media;
(H) Legacy data remaining from obsolete systems that is unintelligible on successor systems [and otherwise inaccessible to the person]; or
(I) Other forms of electronically stored information that require extraordinary affirmative measures not utilized in the ordinary course of business.

Starting with the word, “deleted,” it’s clear that this list is driven by an outdated understanding of information systems. ”Deleted” in 2011 bears only a passing resemblance to “deleted” circa 2001."

The article goes on to point out a detailed list of flaws in the proposed amendments to the rule changes from a recent advisory committee meeting.  The author states, "This would all be so disheartening were it not for the glimmer of hope inspired by a footnote to the list of ESI excepted from preservation. It reads, “This specific listing is taken from submissions to the Advisory Committee. Besides asking whether it is sensible and complete, one might also ask whether a list this specific is likely to remain current for years.

Years?!? Heck, it’s not current now. As to sensible, it’s barely comprehensible. But, the footnote gives me hope that the Committee is asking the right questions and this misbegotten mess won’t make it into the FRCP."

P.S. The author's wise conclusion, "My take: We don’t need more specific ESI rules. We need to become competent implementing the good ones we’ve got."

How to ensure your electronic information will be ready for litigation

http://ow.ly/6KmmK

An article on the smart business website, which consists of a conversation with Melissa Evans, and the article is published on smart business online website.

This article discusses eDiscovery in general, and defines what it is, and what impact it has upon business.

The article poses the following questions, and offers insight into each topic:

• How is e-discovery different from traditional discovery?
• What can an employer do to prepare for e-discovery?
• How can employers determine what information should be retained?
• What consequences do employers face if potentially important evidence is unavailable for e-discovery?
• How can employers avoid that outcome?

Ms. Evans comments included, "The critical difference between traditional and e-discovery is volume. We retain information electronically in far greater volume than we ever would dream of doing with paper. This includes a substantial amount of information that is of no value to the business or to any litigation involving the business, such as e-mails announcing employee birthdays."

The article further points out, "The obligation to preserve potentially relevant information, both ESI and paper, is triggered when litigation is ‘reasonably foreseeable.’ This creates a subjective assessment of when the duty to preserve arises."