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Woman talking with alphabet letters coming out of her mouth.At least, that is, unless overheard, written, or recorded. Just ask anyone following the presidential campaigns.  Absent concrete evidence, spoken words evaporate and any discussion of them quickly devolves into the type of “he said, she said” game usually seen in low-budget television courtroom dramas and on playgrounds.  A few weeks ago, my colleague Peter Sloan posted All we really need to know about Information Governance we learned in kindergarten.  Let’s ponder an additional learning point from Mr. Fulgham:

When you go out into the world, watch for traffic.

Continue Reading Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me….

KindergartenSometimes we make things way too complicated – especially our relationship with business data. Allow me to “kidnap” Robert Fulghum’s classic poem – wisdom in effectively governing information compliance, cost, risk, and value is not found exclusively at the top of the data science mountain, but there in the sandpile at kindergarten.  Here are the things we learned there:
Continue Reading All we really need to know about Information Governance we learned in kindergarten

Retina ScanOK, “souls” is alliterative, but a bit over the top.  How about instead “selling our bodies for security,” such as our retinas, our fingerprints, or our faces?  Multifactor authentication is indeed a useful security access control, the combination of two or more of (1) something you know, (2) something you have, and (3) something you are.  Thus, requiring both a password or PIN (something you know) and also a token or certificate (something you have) should be more secure than merely requiring a password.

The problem is that as biometric authentication becomes more widespread, our immutable characteristics are in play, in a when not if world of data breaches.  Getting hacked can cause harm and embarrassment, but if biometric authentication becomes widespread, the post-breach “loss of face” will be literal … and also permanent.
Continue Reading Selling our souls for security

Hammer ponding computer keyboardPoor data. Though more essential to business than ever before,  data is simultaneously frustrating for its inaccessibility, intimidating in its volume and complexity, distrusted for its unreliability, maligned for its management costs, and feared for its litigation, privacy, and security risks.

But let’s not cast business data as the culprit. Data is basically inert.  It sits where we store it, goes where we send it, does what we (or some system programmer) tell it to do, and is as secure as the safeguards we provide.  Data is not the “actor” – good, bad, or indifferent.  We are.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we can see that most every problem we experience with business data has its root in what people do, or fail to do, as individuals, work teams, or organizations:Continue Reading People don’t have data problems ….