iPhone & Privacy
Finally. iOS 6 has introduced a whole new “Privacy” section under the Settings app. It has been a while since I started wondering how to control apps data access. Without Jailbreak, that’s impossible. With iOS 6 the solution, for now at least, is to put the burden of privacy management on the user, not developers, but that’s enough for me. Don’t want apps digging into your data? Just head into the privacy section and switch access off.
BYOD from a user perspective
BYOD is the new word in the Enterprise business. Bring Your Own Device, meaning that your company allows you to use your laptop, phone, tablet as work tool. Advantages are obvious: you use a tool of your liking and the company saves a lot of money. In theory.
When you bring an uncontrolled item inside your organization, you pose a real threat, risk being higher because there is no control over your device and any possible malware you could carry in.
To tackle this BIG issue, a lot of experts proposed solutions, most commonly to enforce security through centralized policy, blocking unauthorized functions and software. I’d imagine that the user, so happy to bring his shiny new iPhone 4S at work, won’t be as much excited to see it locked down even when out of office.
Users have the nasty habit of being smarter that IT when it comes to use their favorite stuff, even if that’s not allowed (Murphy’s Law: Nothing is FoolProof).
Personally, I have the same attitude. I find difficult to stop using tools that make my life easier, my work more efficient. Dropbox, for example: it’s an amazing tool, but most companies have it on blacklist, as it’s an unsanctioned cloud storage outside IT boundaries. Nonetheless it’s a wonderful tool for it’s simplicity and easiness of use. Would you give it up for a clunky, slow and complicated windows sync? No, that’s for sure. Then you will try to find a way to use it anyway and according to Murphy’s you will succeed.
At work, many colleagues still use Windows Vista. Slow and buggy, they spend hours dealing with malfunctioning instead of work. I used my own Mac as much as I could, even if I had a fast laptop at my disposal. Why? because for what I do OSX is faster and more efficient. Now I switched back to Windows 7 because my Mac doesn’t have IE9, that is required for several tools I need. My goal is efficiency and I’m sorry if IT doesn’t like it, but I have my job to do.
Don’t get me wrong: I totally sympathize with IT people, I’ve been one of them for years. I understand it very well, especially from security perspective, but we all know it’s a lesson we should learn sooner or later: IT is at user’s service, not the opposite. As IT people, we’re frustrated by certain user behavior, but that’s part of the job.
I think the solution could be a compromise as tapping into consumer resources and using sandboxes, virtual environments, content control (watermarking, hashing, digital certificates) to facilitate users instead of fighting them.
If you want to read more about the so-called “Shadow IT”, try here.
Keilun Photography 