This popped up on my FB feed yesterday.
What say you? Do we need to create a major effort to improve online security? What challenges do you see to making it work?
Edit: After I published this, I found an article stating that 3.7 million people had their personal health information compromised in a recent attack.
I got my first email address in the very late 80s. I was an intern at a government agency. I learned a lot there: how to sequence DNA, how to handle radioactive material, how to handle human pathogens, and how to send email. I got my first non-work non-school address in the mid-90s. One of the first things I did was join some mailing lists.
One of them was a list for folks who had pet rabbits. I met a lot of people there, both online and in person. As with many people we meet through a shared interest as our interest wanes the relationships change. Some relationships were maintained, but some of us lost touch with one another. Moves, job changes, email address changes, they all affect our ability to maintain relationships online. I kept in touch with some, one was the maid of honor at my wedding and a few years ago I was the maid of honor at hers. I lost track of others.
Word to the Wise has joined the i2Coalition. Today they posted our introduction to their blog.
Why did we do it?
Email, and online spaces, are so important to modern life. We shop, bank, communicate, play and interact online. The internet has facilitated everything from political revolution to coffee dates and international friendships. Steve watched the Berlin Wall fall from his college dorm room over the internet. The internet was a major factor in the organization of the Arab Spring and other political movements. And sometimes we just meet people online. BBSes, usenet, email, and social networks let us connect with each other.
With that being said, too many people see online spaces as nebulous and “not real.” But the reality is that people genuinely connect, organize, and participate in online spaces. Those spaces need to be protected so these things can continue. The internet is, in many ways, a very special and unique place that has facilitated the growth of millions of communities. Unless we protect the infrastructure, these communities will fall apart and be useless.
One of the questions we received during the EEC16 closing keynote panel was why isn’t there a single blocklist that everyone uses and why don’t ISPs share data more. It would be so much easier for senders if every ISP handled mail the same as every other. But the world isn’t that simple, and it’s not always clear which mail stream is spam and which is good mail.
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