What makes the show so interesting is that people are never quite as secure as they think they are. However, once they learn where their weaknesses are, they usually do a pretty good job and fixing their security problems.

There’s a similar practice in IT world, though it’s usually performed without all the cameras or 15 minutes commercial breaks. It’s called penetration testing, and the idea is that a person or a program tries to break into to your network in order to find its weak points. The underlying philosphy is much the same, the notion being that you can’t fix security holes until you see them with your own eyes.

Though most security experts recommend penetration testing in some form, it’s widely acknowledged that it needs to be done right in order to be useful. And what’s right really depends on your organization. This isn’t the sort of situation where hiring knowledge and expertise is guaranteed to result in a successful project. Going with a uber-certified, team of crack experts can be just as bad as hiring your next door neighbor. The key question is “How much can you afford to spend on networking problems?” If the answer is very little, then a full blown penetration test that reveals all your vulnerabilities might not be the best idea. As Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist and author, said in a May 2007 post on his blog, “You really don’t want a thick report documenting all the ways your network is insecure. You don’t have the budget to fix them all, so the document will sit around waiting to make someone look bad.”

Instead, the best strategy is to go in with some clear goals and base your testing on those. An article from Computerworld suggests that you restrict testing to a few systems and make your goal to shore up those systems.

This article actually goes onto to detail a number of other important steps to getting the most out of a penetration test, so its worth a read on its own. Computerworld also recently featured a list of 5 free penetration testing tools for those organizations running on a tight budget. These tools are definitely a good place to start. They’ll show you if your network suffers from a number of common vulnerabilities, which is probably be enough for most organizations. But the most important thing to realize about penetration can be summed in the final lines of Schneier’s post. “You’re [network is] vulnerable. Now, go do something useful about it.”

P.S.
Computerworld has also got a great interview with a penetration tester. Read his stories about hacking the FBI and large companies. It’s exciting stuff, plus he has some good advice too.

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It’s not that anyone expects Engage to receive its first $8 check (the smallest increment before Amazon will cut a check to the content provider) for its subscriptions anytime soon (though that would be nice). It’s also not because despite all logic to the contrary I still find myself wanting a Kindle (I really do, there’s something less ‘work-like’ about having a Kindle under my arm instead of my trusted tabletPC). It’s certainly not because there are so many Kindle readers out there today that it’s a critical market for Engage to gain a ‘first mover’ advantage.

All things considered, it’s an experiment really - much like how we get into a lot of technology over time, there’s something attractive to it - there’s some satisfaction to knowing that our content is now ‘there’ - that just maybe someone will pay the ninety-nine cents a month to get our feeds and that even in lieu of that, that we can at least learn a little more about something that may be the start of a growing number of devices that have the potential to change publishing and distribution in fundamental ways over time - both personally and professionally.

Case in point. I’ve been traveling to and from Washington, DC a lot lately. A few weeks ago I had the fortune of sitting next to a gentleman who had spent his entire life in and around publishing. In fact, his father had been in publishing before him. Through our conversation I was able to find a bit of a kindred spirit, albeit one from a former generation with a TON of domain specific knowledge I didn’t have, and relive a bit of what journalism was like in my youth; when news was news, not entertainment.

As I listened to him retell a few chapters from his multi-generational story; of how his father switched regrettably to an automatic typewriter from a manual; how the newspapers raced to modernize in many caases too late, many only to ultimately be handed over to third and fourth generation family members who were no longer interested in news nor publishing. As we shared thoughts and experiences, perspectives and postulates, I couldn’t help but wonder how much our society may be giving up in its process of modernization.

We talked about how today a story can shoot around the world from a single blog post by an unknown individual in less than a few seconds, yet with this type of convenience in information access what is missing often is the journalistic process - what has historically been the overhead that comes from the process of detailed fact checking, networks of sources and long term field work yielding status quo shattering storylines such as those of Woodward and Bernstein, Whitewater, McCarthyism or Chappaquiddick. How will stories of the magnitude of these be not only broken but backed by the extensive resources historically available to journalists?

I’m certianly not saying that journalists have in all cases been devoid of error, fraud and the justified scrutiny of their integrity, but as we spoke I became increasingly reminded of how critical a role journalism has played throughout our nation’s history. Journalism has, in many ways, been responsible in part for the formation and shaping of our nation. From Benjamin Franklin’s printing press to the Hearst / Pulitzer era of yellow journalism to the integrity of Walter Cronkite and eventually to the reality based soundbites of the various ‘news/entertainment’ outlets focusing on paparazzi today - one has to admit, journalists have made an impact throughout.

Will blogs and digital media take the place of more traditional outloets as the most influential medium? From all appearances, it’s already happened, but how many of the more traditional outlets will find their way successfully into the electronic publishing universe to stand the test of time? As so many newspapers across the country go silent and we spend an increasing amount of both our professional and personal time online, I have the sense that initiatives like ‘Government 2.0′ and ‘Social Media’ are going to absorb more of what has been the foundation for these more traditional outlets; however only time will tell how much technology is leveraged as a true enabler for democracy rather than being an additional channel through which, unopposed by ‘lighthousers’, ‘whistleblowers’ and ’sources’, it may instead become only another medium for targeted agendas.

Profoundly insightful, not so much. Deep, perhaps. I may have led you to what was in part my intent, that as a blogger I have the ability to reach some number of readers (you’re here, right?); that through audience participation I have the opportunity to influence and even create dialogue on some micro scale; that through distribution I have the ability to broaden and/or deepen the audience I reach in ways not even available five years ago; that through connecting with the reader at some basic level, even I might engender loyalty to create a following, a readership. ALL in this case, technically, without the printed word.

As such, it’s clearly no longer about the medium, but is it now any more about the message? Time and history have demonstrated that those living in the reactionary past (as comfortable as it may be) most often get eclipsed by those who dare step out into that brave new world. I can’t afford to get run over, so give me my Kindle. I know I’ll be using it or in the event it fails to gain market share, something like it with increasing frequency, not decreasing frequency, regardless of how much I like the ‘feel’ of reading.

Although I collect rare books and love the experience of having a good cup of Tea on Saturday mornings on my front porch with a newspaper between my hands; although I recall from my childhood hearing ‘and that’s the way it was’ booming from Walter Cronkite’s voice at the end of the nightly news, knowing he was full of nothing but integrity; although I am an empirically driven, environmentally conscious individual that has not yet put too much thought into how electronic versions of periodicals and publications might spare us from that ‘nth’ carbon emmission or from deforrestation of another acre of rainforest in search of paper pulp; I find myself drawn to the future. I have to explore. I have to learn. I have to grow. I know that now, since there’s at least one blog I read available on it, have to get a Kindle.

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The problem isn’t with the technology.  Sophisticated as well as simple web analytics software is out there and application developers are doing a good job at figuring out how to turn tracking data into something that’s easy to interpret and act on.  Instead the problem appears to lie in the application of the technology.  Specifically, retailers and advertisers still need make certain users generate meaningful implicit content and they are, for now, sensitive to individual’s privacy concerns as they gather this data.

These thoughts were sparked by two articles we’ve come across in the last few weeks while researching the issue for a customer engagement that will soon integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM with an enterprise social networking platform, EngageESP Community Portal™.  The first article was a blog post by Andrew McAffe, Associate Professor of Havard business school.  The post focused on a debate in the Web 2.0 world about the importance of explicit user-generated content–that is customer reviews, comments on blogs, edits made to wiki pages, etc.-versus implicit content.  McAffe puts forth the idea that this debate is somewhat meaningless because explicit content is a great way of generating implicit content.  When users submit product ratings, comments, tags for products or services, it leaves behind a nice trail of browsing behavoir that may be just as useful as what browsers actually submit.

What struck us about this comment is that most online retailers and advertisers don’t even think about the possibility that gathering implicit content might be an active, rather than passive job.  It seems that many online operators think it’s a matter of installing the technology and watching what happens, like footage in some kind of videocamera.  

One exception to this is search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Live Search.  Their business strategy in many ways is entirely based on soliciting explicit content from users and then analyzing both this and the impilcit content their users leave behind.   Even here however, they are taking a sledgehammer approach to the problem.  They are gathering every kind of data one can imagine - email, word docs, search habits, reading habits - then sorting through the whole volume to serve up ads.

The problem is there’s so much noise in the data and so little signal that sometimes this doesn’t work.  Right now Gmail is serving up ads related to college education and school loans based on a conversation one of our team members is having with an editor at his alma mater’s newspaper.   As a graduate, he has no need for online degree programs, student loans and the like, but those nuances get drowned out in Google’s blunt approach.  There’s still alot of room here for retailers to work out how to get users to generate targeted implicit content that answers specific questions about those users, instead of trying to collect everything and then sort through for what’s important afterwards.

The issue of privacy and implicit content is just as thorny, if not more so. A new survey done by TNS Global shows that consumers have mixed feelings about the online behavior tracking necessary for gathering implcit content. Ars Technica had a great article  several months ago giving a run-down on the survey results.

The basic conclusion is that web surfers don’t like ads that aren’t targetted at them, but they don’t really like being tracked either.  The survey paints a rather bleak picture of the marketers task, putting them in a position of resolving a total paradox, but somehow it must be missing something because given the right circumstances there are places where users have ‘opted-in’ to tracking.

Take for example, Amazon. Shoppers could easily shop without creating an account, but most don’t. And of course part of this is the fact that an account stores shipping and billing information, speeding up the order process, but there’s no doubt that another big part is Amazon’s famous reccomendations.  There’s something about the way in which Amazon presents the tracking that makes customers less worried about losing their privacy.  Perhaps it’s transparency and the clear link between the tracking and the results. When customers see an interesting looking book or CD just next to an item pulled from their browsing history, it’s pretty clear how letting Amazon track their behavior directly benefits them.  Also, Amazon gives users control over their browsing history, so customers can delete things that they don’t want factored in to future reccomendations.

The Amazon model might not be the best for everyone. It definitely works better for retailers than marketers, but there’s definitely something there worth looking at.  Unless someone can figure out how to balance these concerns, the real promise of implicit content may never be realized.

Update: Just after drafting this article, one of our team members stumbled across an article on CRM entitled “AOL CPO Jules Polonetsky on Hitting the Privacy Sweet Spot.”  In it Polonetsky offers an interesting perspective on the privacy issues talked about above.

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Large retailers were expected to comply with PCI DSS last year, though many did not meet the required deadlines. Now during 2009 it’s the SMBs turn. There is no exact deadline for compliance, since each card company has set it’s own dates, and even those dates depend on how many transactions you have. But in the coming future, all business will be expected to be PCI DSS compliant.

Those that aren’t are exposing themselves to a serious risk. If they do experience a data breach, they’re likely to recieve a large fine or possibly even loose the right to process cards.

What does it take to comply with PCI DSS? The specification itself is available here for review. Basically it’s a combination of security audits and new software. Enterprise Innovation offers a good overview of the standard in general, with some thoughts on how businesses should be preparing.  Various service providers deliver remote scanning and compliance audits for a reasonable price, including detailed remediation pointers, enabling small business to comply even when technical skills may not be readily available and in house.  The penalties for non-compliance range wildly, but include the potential for a business losing its ability to process payment cards.

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Unfortunately Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 does not have a supported method for including the inactive records. The customization window does not allow for modifying the filter criteria of the view.

There is; however, an easy unsupported way of including inactive records.

1. Click on Settings, Customization, Export Customizations.

2. Select Account (or whichever entity you want to modify) and click on Export Selected Customizations.

3. Click OK to the warning window.

4. Click Save on the File Download window. Save the file somewhere on your desktop.

5. Extract the Customizations.zip file and then open the Customizations.xml file in NotePad.

6. Search for “Quick Find Active.”

7. Remove the filter condition as shown in the screen shot below.

8. Save the XML file. Back in CRM, click on Settings, Customization, Import Customizations. Browse to the modified XML file and click on Upload. This will read the XML file to determine what customizations are contained in it. Make sure Account is selected and choose Import Selected Customizations.

9. Lastly, publish the changes. Click on Settings, Customization, Customize Entities. Select Account and click on Publish.

Note: This is an unsupported method; however, it will work on any of the entities including custom entities.

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We’ve had our team exhibiting or attending major industry shows over the past few months, from Convergence and VoiceCon last month to HIMSS this week.  A common theme among all of them has been interest in healthcare.  While certainly driven in part by the current economy and healthcare’s perceived tolerance to a downturn, it’s also driven more importantly by the fact that there remain few (if any) large industries touching so many lives in so critical a manner that is in more dire need of a communications revolution than is the healthcare industry.

Whether it is deploying secure wireless technolgies to transmit life saving information where it’s needed most or automated administrative workflows in billing systems cutting down on errors preventing patients from receiving the care they need in an efficient manner or unified communications pulling together triage teams in real time - the theme is clear - healthcare NEEDS better communication systems.  By streamlining the communication challenges the industry faces, the focus can be placed back on quality of care (as tired as that may sound) instead of on point of service processing. 

While our team has walked the floor and shared a booth at HIMSS this week with our partner Siemens Communciations,  we have seen time and again customers understanding the value proposition of a single vendor delivering both a complete communications portfolio deployed with an open architecture AND if desired the ability to single source or choose best of breed between vendors who can interoperate.  Engage has many important technology partners, but preciously few that can deliver solutions across the areas of patient management, smart cards, secure wireless management, high definition video and unified communications integrated with line of business operations.  Siemens Communications is one of those few.

The team will be leaving HIMSS at the end of the day tomorrow, feet swollen, but brains bulging too - with new ideas, validation of some old ones and partnerships both new and old around which to continue to help solve some of the Healthcare dilemmas, particularly those where the application of appropriate technology may play a beneficial role.

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Taking that notion and placing it firmly into the realm of Healthcare, particularly in honor of this week’s HIMSS show in Chicago and our team’s participate there, I wanted to share with our readers a vision.  

The video below does just about the best job of all the material I’ve reviewed of representing HOPE - hope that now that we’re all in the 21st century, our healthcare providers will get there as well, on the technology side of the equation - not just with diagnostic and care technologies, for which we are all very thankful to have such advanced capabilities, but also with access and information technologies as well. 

Engage’s healthcare solutions are based in part of Microsoft foundation technologies such as Dynamics CRM (xRM), so while we cannot claim a lack of bias in presenting the video above, we can state that it is the vision and hope this video represents which our team finds the most exhilirating perspective of all.  Whether one is ‘for’ or ‘against’ (if things were ever truly that simple) Microsoft’s technology, the fact is that the company makes some darned solid products which have contributed greatly to the advancement of technology in general, both its own as well as through competition, that of others.

I for one look forward to the vision becoming reality in Healthcare and to the role Engage plays in continuing the evolution and adoption of 21st century information technology in the market at large.

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Sadly though, looking at the activity on the network it’s being sorely underused. The top page according to the site statistics is a group with only 180 members and 14 discussions. That’s probably not even half the number of booths that are at the show on the floor.  After that things drop off quickly, with the next top group only have 90 members, then 45, etc. Now today is only day two, so it’s not terribily surprising because a lot of attendees are busy face to face, but this trend may persist.  On the show floor, despite the capabilities of the platform, our team simply hasn’t heard much buzz about HIMSS Connect, which is surprising and a real pity since social networking is really what these conferences are all about.

It’d be great if users took advantadge of the ability to do so both online and off as at many of the other conferences these days.  One caveat - social networking for the enterprise is still a new phenomena, one for which it will likely take some time for adoption to increase, especially in a field as vast and entrenched as healthcare.

What’s even more telling, is that social networking is absent from the solutions that most exhibitors are offering.  The idea that patients would love to be in a community of their peers seems to be absent from the equation.  Now of course we’re just as guilty of this as everyone else, none of the solutions we’re exhibiting focuses specifically on social networking capabilities, however it’s something we’re leveraging with increasing frequency.  In fact, we’ll shortly be releasing a new solution accellerator - the EngageESP Community Portal™.  Looking at HIMSS Connect has give our team a lot of additional ideas about leveraging this type of community in a healthcare enviroment. 

Join Engage HIMSS team member, Andrew Swerlick, on HIMSS Connect Here

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The exhibits on the South Hall were enough to hold anyone’s interest though. Alot of the legacy companies like Mckesson, Epic, etc. had their exhibits, as well as a whole slew of smaller booths. The big themes throughout the day? Revenue Cycle Management seemed to a phrase on everyone’s booths, as well as ours in fact. It was a good chance to see how some of our solutions stack up to the competition’s in terms of claims management and billing.

Of course EHRs and EMRs abounded, but most all seemed to have UI’s about ten years behind the times. It’s clear that the healthcare sphere is ripe for innovation with products like Microsoft Silverlight and other Rich UI tools.

Software as a Service (SaaS) and hosting were other big buzz words.  It’s great to hear the healthcare sphere catching onto the idea of hosted solutions, especially since Engage has been hosting most of its applications for more than five years.   This just gives us another point to talk to where providers come sniffing around our booth.

Hopefully after a tour around the North Hall we can get a better idea about what other big themes are showing up this year. Even though we’re happy to show off our own stuff at a venue like this, there’s nearly as much value in learning what else is out there.

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The show floor opened just about 30 minutes ago, so there’s not much to report, other than that HIMSS this year is huge. Even in a down economy, attendance is up. Just to give you an idea of the scale, they have trolleys to take you around the exhibit floor.

It’s not surprising that there so much of a draw though, since with the economic crunch healthcare is really looking to IT for cost savings and innovation.  Our team is excited about taking a spin around the floor to see what other companies are doing in hopes of forming new partnerships (as well as to keep an eye on emerging trends and of course, ‘the competition’).  There are a couple of us from Engage here, so we’ll man the booth in shifts, and blog and wander during our off time. I expect that all the exhibits are going to spark some interested thoughts for blogging, so expect to see alot of new content over the next few days.

Already, just demoing our stuff to a few partners, it’s clear that having UC integrated with clinical applications has huge potential. Letting healthcare professionals report on patient progress, or services provided, or anything else, using a IVR or web application holds the potential to revolutionize the industry, by enabling care to take place almost anywhere, not just in a doctor’s office.

More thoughts on this later, but for now, it’s time to go exploring. Check back for more HIMSS blogging soon.

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