Last week’s IDC figures in the NBR suggested that “smartphone ownership by households has jumped significantly from 13% in 2011 to around 44% in 2012.” That’s some massive growth over 12 months.

And just at the time when the debate about Australia being the place to head for fame and fortune rears it head again (confession: I have yet to watch The GC), those cheeky cobbers over the ditch publish another factoid (using Google data) that would suggest they do indeed have more money than their NZ cousins:

• In New Zealand, iPhone owners made up 32% of the survey pool
  In Australia, the iPhone holds a 49% market share of respondents
• In NZ, Android powers 41% of mobiles used by those taking the Google survey
  In Australia, Android lags behind with just 25% share

See full data tables at http://www.ourmobileplanet.com/en/downloads/

What does this suggest?

Well it could just be the luck of the draw when it came to selecting the 1000 talkative survey takers. I have a feeling though it could be either a). Aussies are happier about and have more money to shell out $1000 on an iPhone or b) the market size impacting on pricing where telcos can negotiate discounts on Apple products for a potential customer base some 6 times the NZ size.

Why does NetSafe care?

Well for one, mobile malware has been trumpeted for some time as the next big computer security threat. And whilst I wouldn’t propose to support the security standards of one hardware vendor over another (witness the recent revelations over Flashback and Java vulnerabilities on OS X) it’s hard to ignore the tweets from #AusCert2012 speaker Mikko Hypponen:

If 75% of mobile malware currently targets Android, that theoretically puts more people in NZ at risk than Oz.

You can buy an Android smartphone now for a little over $150 which puts it in reach of many people who aren’t earning mining wages and may not yet equate the device with being a pocket computer that needs to be protected and operated with as much care as your desktop or laptop machine.

The message therefore needs to be: invest some time setting up a password or swipe pattern, install an app or software that let’s you scan for malware and lock, wipe or find the device should it get lost or stolen. And apply those anti-spam and anti-phishing techniques you use on a bigger machine to the smaller sibling – don’t click on shortened links or send login details via unencrypted (non-https) connections.

In short, treat your smartphone, especially if it’s on contract, as a direct connection to your bank balance and a whole heap of personal data and stay alert to what’s yet to come in 2012.

The work to which the Minister is referring is the Law Commission review “The News Media meets new media“, or more specifically – Part Two of that review. In it, the Law Commission makes  a series of recommendations on law changes and clarifications which would make it easier to prosecute cyber bullies and harassers.

But the absence of clear law is not the only gap in the current equation. There are laws in place now that are regularly broken by cyber bullies. The problem is that the cost of enforcement and prosecution is so high, and the actions take so long – that is often isn’t practical to use the existing processes. Even when they are used, the harm (which can be significant) is already done.

Recognising this, the Law Commission also made some suggestions around creating more agile, more accessible remedies under the law – structured around a commissioner or tribunal. For me, this is the critical component of the review.

If you want to reduce the harm caused by cyber bullying and harrassement, then you need to operate at a speed much faster than the current enforcement and prosecution processes. Whilst legal clarity enables effective prosecution, it doesn’t reduce the harm that the offence caused the victim. Speedy resolutions reduce harm in cyberspace. A complaint received today needs to be acted upon today. Content that isn’t left online or reposted is content that isn’t harming people. A tribunal or commissioner doesn’t automatically create fast resolutions – but it could be a critical part of the process.

The tribunal works best as part of a two stage process. At the front end is a triaging process. As complaints are received, they need to be acted upon immediately – much as NetSafe does with complaints it currently receives. With a tribunal system in place, the possibility of prosecution for harassment and bullying is more likely.  This empowers the organisation responding to the complaint in the first instance. If the triaging process can not resolve the complaint satisfactorily - then the second stage of a formal tribunal process kicks in.

A commissioner would bring additional powers directly into the triaging process. At the moment, NetSafe can only help people through advice, the application of knowledge, and the use of its network of contacts. A commissioner would have some additional powers to enforce or coerce resolutions.

Both processes make meaningful assistance more accessible for victims of harassment and abuse. The devil is always in the detail, and the Law Commission now has a big job on its hands to clarify the powers of any new entity or entities in a shortened time frame. However, a semi-formal assistance and resolution network  that includes local and international enforcement partners, ICT industry partners, and NGO’s is already operating - so it might not be as big a step as people think.

All questions were moderated before being posted to the live system although we could see the questions that were not passing moderation. You’d be surprised how many people think they are hilarious asking inappropriate questions and giving their name as Don Brash. I’d have thought they’d have moved on to using somebody more topical like John Banks or Kim Dotcom, but apparently not.

In the midst of the session, one person posted this comment “It may have to do with a growing lack of respect for each other that seems to pervade all aspects of society.” In the session I simply commented that cyber bullying was a natural progression from bullying which had been around a long time. After all, “young people have no respect these days” isn’t a cyber safety issue … or is it?

I think you can make a case that the  internet is actually contributing to a growing lack of respect in society. The internet faithful argue that the Internet is simply a mirror on society, and hasn’t changed anything. But as Michael Jackson noted, taking a look at the Man in the Mirror can be quite a profound experience. The internet is a sort of magic mirror. It has reflected society as it really is, not as it is constructed.    The internet put the fourth estate on steroids as it bypassed the traditional information gatekeepers (although a new group of information gatekeepers are emerging, but that is a topic for another post).

Everywhere you look, the information age has exposed formally respected institutions as not being worthy of that respect. We see videos of law enforcement abusing their powers, evidence of corruption in politics, and evidence of incompetence or criminal activity from formally respected captains of industry.

The internet faithful will argue that the exposure of this crime, corruption, and abuse of power will lead to their reduction. They will argue that we simply need to pass through this exposure period and we will emerge out the other end with a more honest and less corrupt society. I hope they are right. I just wish they’d stop arguing that the internet doesn’t change society, and that the internet will make society a better place at the same time.

As to whether the internet contributes to a growing lack of respect is a cybersafety issue – that’s an interesting question. I’d say it is if that lack of respect has developed from a false understanding due to a lack of digital literacy.That’s perhaps a bit of a stretch , but thankfully we have a raft of other reasons to promote digital literacy and digital citizenship. If a by-product of that activity is that people realise society hasn’t really gone to hell in a handbasket, and that they can go back to being a bit more respectful of each other – then great.

The reason I’ve been thinking about my early technology experiences is that there is a Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into 21st Century Learning Environments and Digital Literacy taking public submissions until the end of this week. If you follow that last link, you will see that the “purpose of this inquiry is to investigate and provide recommendations on the best structures, tools, and communities, in both rural and urban New Zealand, that could better enable students and educators to attain the knowledge and skills, such as digital literacy, that the 21st century demands of us all”. There are 8 sub categories, but for this entry I just want to pick up on this one…

” – consider whether current generations of learners more readily adopt new technology, and whether increasing base levels of technological proficiency may promote independent learning.”

When technology was first being adopted in schools, there were specific technology classes. They “taught” students how to use the mouse, locate and save files, and use popular applications. These classes were phased out over time because the things they were teaching in those classes were either: being learnt in the course of other teaching, were being learnt outside the classroom, or were being superseded by technology.  Basically the idea is that digital natives spend all their time interacting with digital technology so you don’t need to teach them how to use it.

However, I would suggest that we need to think about two categories of technological proficiency. Digital Natives automatically develop a “shallow” technological proficiency. They have no trouble adopting and using new digital tools. This is the level of technological proficiency that most people will need to get a good education and be productive workers. But what about the students who will create the new technologies? If digital exports are going to make a sizeable contribution to New Zealand’s future earnings, surely we are going to need people with a “deep” technological proficiency.  These are people who understand the technology behind the digital tools. Are New Zealand schools catering to the needs of the students who will go on to build and create new technology?

You don’t need to understand what a relational database is or what object oriented programming means to create a successful social media campaign – but you do if you want to build a new social media platform. Today, the big money is in creating technology that others use, not using other’s technology. I wonder if today’s students have the option to learn about relational database design and object oriented programming? Do they get an opportunity to design circuits, or muse over the options around instruction set architecture? Perhaps some of that has crept into the science curriculum over time.

I’d be interested to know whether students are getting the opportunities to develop deep technical proficiency, and whether people agree they should be.

I felt the idea of personal branding was a logical extension of the “manage your digital footprint” advice cybersafety organisations now give in reference to social networking. This was the first in a number of logical leaps in my presentation. Some of those leaps were considered too big by some members of the audience, but this is my review – so any weaknesses in my argument will be glossed over.

The idea of personal brand has been around since Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937. But it wasn’t until the advent of Social Networking that everybody had access to the tools required to market themselves.

Now everybody can use these new tools to build a personal brand, but how much influence do they actually have over how their brand is presented, and what sort of skillset is required to more successfully use those tools?

As I produced the presentation, it became apparent that there were three main takeaways.

Firstly, everything you create can be cross referenced and compared. Therefore, your ability to create a brand vastly different from who you really are will be limited. In the words of the cluetrain manifesto – “There are no secrets”. The web of things and the semantic web will only lead to more data being collected and comparable – which will make it even harder. Any content you produce that says you are X will be considered outliers if there is a flood of data that says you are Y.

Secondly, your digital footprints remain forever which further limits your ability to create a brand building backstory. Whilst it might be a great brand building story that I was raised by wolves, all the content my school friends (and the wolves) have posted would clearly expose my lie.

Content you post online, and information posted about you, is not treated equally. Processes with names like pagerank and edgerank shape how data is delivered. These algorithms can be manipulated if you know how. This reminds me that I need to write a separate blog post on why we should be teaching out kids actual technical skills. In the meantime, my third takeaway was that technical knowledge and skills were now a critical part of the communications and marketing skill set.

When it comes to personal brand in the information age, the best you can hope for is to accentuate the positives and reduce the negatives. The people who will be most successful at doing that will be people who understand how to manipulate the technology that delivers that information.

So you can pretend you’re a labradoodle for a while, but if you’re really a shih tzu – then that will eventually be exposed. That’s because everywhere you go, information about you is collected, collated, and compared – and it will only become more so as the web of things and the semantic web develop.

Some people say that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. But what if you don’t know today what you might fear in the future? And why should your private lives be accessible to others anyway? Isn’t it your right to decide how much people and agencies know about you?

Data about you is collected everywhere. Sometimes in obvious ways. An update on your facebook account, another humorous observation on twitter, or a check in on foursquare. Sometimes its not so obvious. As you swipe your loyalty card, as you visit websites, or pretty much any time your mobile phone is turned on.

Data, data, data. Some of it is used to to help you. Some of it is used to refine marketing to you.  Some of it is used against you.  What is clear is that most of us are not in control of either the way data is collected, or the way it is used. We’re just living our lives, and using the services that meet our needs.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking – “somebody needs to do something about this”. Well, somebody did do something. Victoria University, the Department of Internal Affairs, and the Office of the  Privacy Commissioner organised the “Managing Digital Identity in a Networked World” conference as part of this years Privacy Awareness Week programme.

The conference had a strong line up of local and international speakers but they probably should just have invited my 8 year old son to give a keynote. Thanks to Pokemon, he knows life is all about “versus”. In his case its Pikachu versus Raichu, and water types versus air types.

In the case of managing identity online its all about versus too.  Its about convenience versus privacy, its about security versus privacy, and its about liberty versus control.  The first question to answer is where to set the balance on each option, and then the second is how to acheive that balance. What was clear from the conference is that we have some ideas on how to answer the second question, if only we had a clear answer to the first question.

At the moment, New Zealanders seem pretty happy to roll with the “collect as much data as you can” experiment, but we know they also value privacy. I assume most people simply haven’t put the two things together. Hopefully Privacy Awareness Week will help to do that.

I don’t have many. One for vanity and digital footprint management “Sean Lyons”, one for organisational stuff netsafe – “net safe”,  some other organisations that I have an interest in and one that used to be a real favourite, that’s becoming the most troublesome. Digital Citizenship. Its turning into a flood of spam like proportions and I did it to myself.

Don’t get me wrong, its not that I have a problem with Digital Citizenship. Quite the contrary. I’m a big fan of it as a concept. It forms a huge part of what I do here at NetSafe, and every day in my personal, social, commercial and family life. Its just that my once poignant daily digest of interesting stories about social networked activism and ideas for teaching online ethics is becoming lets say, a little diluted.

I suppose it is the inevitable result of the success of an idea or philosophy that over time this happens. A quick look at Google insights this morning showed me that there wasn’t so much as a whisper of Digital Citizenship before 2007.

A Google Insights search for "Digital Citizenship" since 2004

It seems to be accepted the Dr Mike Ribble was the first to use the phrase in his [excellent] book Digital Citizenship in Schools. What worries me now, is not the popularity of the term, but more what the term is becoming a “clearing house” for.

If you have heard me speaking at any point in the last year or so you will have heard about NetSafe’s journey from the group of interested individuals it was in 1998 to the Digital Citizenship advocates that we are now. It’s something I believe in very strongly. Each of the metamorphosis along the way have been part of our journey of understanding best practice in helping New Zealanders become safe, confident and responsible users of cyberspace.

We have been called a lot of things in that time, lobbyist, activist, watchdogs, fun police, working across many different areas; e-safety, cyber safety, digital safety. If these terms help to classify where we sit, and that allows people to have greater access to what we do, then great. I’m an e-safety watchdog.

But what I fear is happening in many cases is the Digital Citizenship banner is being applied in the same way, and that worries me. Digital Citizenship is more than simply a place holder for all the IT security “stuff” like policies and passwords. Digital citizenship is a way of life. To paraphrase  Bill Shankly

it’s not a matter of life and death. Its much more important than that.

NetSafe has a commitment to helping the New Zealand education sector support digital citizens as they learn the skills required to become effective users of online technologies, to support teachers as they learn to identify the challenges facing those digital citizens and help young people to improve the outcomes of those challenges, and to schools and communities generally as they wrestle with the development of  a digital citizenship culture that works for them.

NetSafe published its 7 definitions of a successful digital citizen back in 2009 on our myLGP website, which acts as a collection point for the thoughts and ideas on digital citizenship of our wider community. They are;

• is a confident and capable user of ICT
• uses technologies to participate in educational, cultural, and economic activities
• uses and develops critical thinking skills in cyberspace
• is literate in the language, symbols, and texts of digital technologies
• is aware of ICT challenges and can manage them effectively
• uses ICT to relate to others in positive, meaningful ways
• demonstrates honesty and integrity and ethical behaviour in their use of ICT
• respects the concepts of privacy and freedom of speech in a digital world
• contributes and actively promotes the values of digital citizenship

Over the coming weeks, I am going to look at each one of these, and highlight what they mean in practice for the New Zealand schools.

In the meantime I’m looking for any help I can in coming up with a better search string for my alert, “Digital Citizenship” +wheat -chaff

The reason people use cliches like “Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas” is that they resonate with an audience – in the same way that you can convince people you are right just by saying “its just common sense” – even when it isn’t. Also, metaphors are hard to argue with using rational argument. A turkey might actually vote for Christmas, because it gives them purpose – and leads to more breeding of turkeys. But that’s not the point. This isn’t actually about turkeys.

The other benefit for the protagonist is that the audience transfers the meaning without thinking whether that is a fair transfer. Christmas is bad for Turkeys, so they don’t want it. Safe technology would be bad for people who make a living making technology safe, so obviously they don’t want safe technology.

But putting aside my frustration at people who use clichéd metaphors to make a point. The real reason the comment was painful to hear is that NetSafe never deliberately over hypes a risk. There are two key reasons why that is the case:

Firstly, the NetSafe staff are actually people who feel positive about technology. We use it and we like it. We don’t just accept new technologies are inevitable. We know they are making life more interesting, connecting more people, improving education, and making businesses more productive. We don’t want to scare people away from technologies that are having those impacts.

Secondly, we really don’t need to. Risk is reality online. Technology brings challenges and NetSafe has a very broad role trying to minimise their impact on New Zealanders. There is already so much to do. The impacts, both financial and social, are documented – and huge. If the truth is compelling – why would you lie?

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, but scammers do vote for greater use of the internet. Turkeys wouldn’t vote for Thanksgiving either, but cyber criminals would vote for greater use of the internet.  Turkey’s probably wouldn’t sanction the “Whole Turkey Eat Off” competition, but malware producers would definitely sanction the growth in the use of smart phones.

I could play this game for a while (although I’m scraping the barrel on things turkeys wouldn’t vote for). My point is. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, but we do. It doesn’t matter what turkeys vote for. Christmas exists.

The Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Australia jointly announced their intention “to strengthen cooperation against the shared and growing challenge of cyber security through a regular Australia New Zealand Cyber Dialogue” early in 2012.  Much of that increased cooperation will actually just be a formalisation of relationships that already exist.

I can’t speak for the government agencies affected by this announcement, but from a NetSafe perspective, trans tasman cooperation was simply to logical to resist. We signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) Cybersmart unit a few years ago, and have developed a close working relationship. They will often be one of our first sources of information as we deal with new challenges, and we have ‘traded’ resources including: Hectors World and the NetBasics from us – and Tagged from them.

More recently we have been working with the Australian Department of Broadband,Communications, and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) on Cyber Security Awareness Week (June 11-15). Many of key personal from the ICT industry partners supporting this week  are also based in Australia. Then there are a range of cybersafety and security professionals, the Federal Police, the Certs… the list goes on. In fact there are many Australian agencies and individuals that we work with because it just makes good sense to do so.

That’s because our common goals far outweigh any differences. We might disagree on what to call jandals, or who invented the pavlova. But in the end, we share the same cyber safety and security challenges. Yes, the PC Doctor ”helps” Australians as well. Both countries have very similar views on the role of government, and the freedoms of their citizens – so our approaches to solving these challenges are also closely aligned.

ANZAC Day is one of the strongest reminders of the commonalities between NZ and Australia. Apparently it is unusual to have two sovereign nations reference each other in, and share a common day of remembrance -so looks like we are friends after all. Maybe we should stop bringing up the underarm bowling incident, or reminding them their greatest race horse was born in New Zealand and be thankful for the relationship we do have with our neighbour.  Whilst we might not be jointly answering the call of mother England in defence of the Empire – we do still have plenty of other shared challenges to work on together.

The main culprits were television and the new phenomenon of music videos, but like most young New Zealanders at the time, I just wanted my MTV. If that was going to be chock full of American cultural memes, then so be it.  I think I realised the absurdity of it all when my cousin started modelling his look and attitude on the streetwise Ren battling against the conservative small western town mindset in Footloose.

We lived on the idyllic Hibiscus Coast. Surely Johnny from Dirty Dancing would have been a better model?

Nobody put baby on Facebook, but then – it was set in the 1960′s. These days, Baby’s progress learning to dance would undoubtedly be tracked on Facebook. That’s because pretty much everybody is on Facebook, and increasingly that includes children younger than the official 13 year old age limit.

Facebook has offices in many countries, but it is an American Company based in California. I note this because the reason you are supposed to be 13 and over to access Facebook is a US law – The Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It sets out provisions for exactly how you must operate if you are website which stores private information for people younger than 13. As a business, Facebook’s value is based on the its ability to deliver targeted advertising. It has to hold and analyse a lot of data about users to be good at that. COPPA makes that more difficult. Combine that with the average value of a 12year old to an advertiser, and the equation just doesn’t make sense. The age limit for using Facebook is therefore set by Facebook at 13.

So young New Zealanders who want to access facebook are prevented (I use the term very loosely) from doing so by the impact of  an American law on a business model of an American Company.

When they do register, they will find an environment that reflects the American balance of free speech vs protecting citizens from harm. You don’t need to watch many American legal drama’s to know the strength of the US free speech protections. They will also find an environment shaped by the strong sense of capitalism that is America.

Some argue that the flattening earth effect of the Internet will eventually create one Earth culture – and that the big cultures will squash the little ones. Certainly I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that mass media and now the Internet have not assimilated New Zealand with American culture somewhat. One of the reasons the Internet didn’t deliver a massive culture shock was the was mass media paved the way. But I don’t think all is lost. Where to from here is up to us. The Internet also offers many opportunities to capture, strengthen and embrace local culture.

In the meantime, I’m writing a new version of Kids in America just in case…

We’re the kids on planet earth

We’re the kids on planet earth

Everybody live for the music go round …