WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: I missed that one when it was published last year. The document lists and compares tens of solutions and provides great overview of their characteristics. A great starting point.

WHY IT MATTERS: security has become central in our age of digital transformation. Yet, it seems, most people are either unaware of basic security principles, or not willing to invest time or money to do it. And I am not even talking of doing it *well*. Just implementing proper security measure. In this case it affect Parler, which in itself I don't much care about (they deserve it for such a stupid mistake). But their lack of security impacts their users privacy as well. And that includes potentially millions of people (in the photo, 68000 video have been geolocated - too bad for keeping your anonymity ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: geek must-read just off the press is the framework to enable the Canadian digital ID. 

WHY IT MATTERS: this technical paper explains how Facebook engineering team has developed a framework to help facilitate the deletion of data in their social graph. This can be used in other contexts.

To me it highlights the primitive state we are in when it comes to permanently deleting the data we produce in our daily activities - so called "data exhaust". But what the framework fails to enable is metadata - for example the inferences that were made from the post such as the political preferences - are not reverted when deletion occurs. Thus the original data still leaves traces - the original event is forgotten but its impact is not. Much more needs to be created to ensure true "deletion" in order to enable that digital systems "forget". 

WHY IT MATTERS: the article explains how this team has successfully retrieved private information from discarded connected devices. It raises concerns about the disposal of connected products which, has everyone knows, will soon included pretty much everything in our homes and offices, from lightbulbs to refrigerators.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

The Economist has made its April 08 cover "why computers will never be safe" to clearly state that we should all come to terms with the fact that improving our digital security and privacy will come from policies, rules and regulations, as it is impossible to ensure computer systems are built to be safe and un-hackable. I tend to agree with the statement and the conclusion, although I remain confident that over time the computer industry will find a way to make its systems safe by design. But we will live with a legacy of un-secure systems for many decades, so we must learn to deal with it.