In toiling away on the content for mesh ’10 over the past several months, the focus has been on coming up on great keynotes, panels and workshops, as well as attracting people to turn our ideas into reality.
It wasn’t until mesh started that I really became aware of a major theme: the realization that we have so much of our personal and professional data on the Web, and how we spend little or no time thinking about whether this information is secure and protected. I would argue that most of us have optimistic faith that all will be digitally good, which explains why protecting our personal identities and our data is an after-thought – if we think about it at all.
After sitting in on several mesh panels and workshops, I now realize how lazy and cognizant I’ve been about my digital assets, and whether they are protected properly.
During his keynote yesterday, Joseph Menn, for example, talked about how a growing number of cyber-terrorists are focused on hacking into financial and banking systems. We’re not talking about small-time digital hoods but organized crime armed with sophisticated technology.
Adele McAlear did a workshop about what happens to our digital assets (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr accounts) when we pass away. She talked about a 32-year-old who died in this sleep but left no information about how friends or family could get into his social media accounts to keep them alive.
As well, Paypal CEO Scott Thompson provided more insight about the importance of digital security, and how Paypal has sophisticated anti-fraud and security systems to protect its 89 million members. It made me consider whether Paypal is a better way to make online transactions than using a credit card. Of course, this is based on the belief Paypal’s ant-fraud and security systems are rock-solid.
The reality is our personal and professional usage of the Web is going to grow so security is going to become even more important. For me, mesh serves as a serious wake-up call.
