It has been interesting reading the blogs, analysts and industrial pundits who have decided that Web 2.0 is the best thing since ….. well, maybe Web 1.x? and that every being on the planet should endorse its concepts – sharing information, whether personal or corporate in places whether public or private.

Team playing, that’s the thing.  As long as we all work together the results will be bigger, better, quicker, cheaper, more FUN.
 
To try and avoid the risk of being a party pooper I put out a few inquiries (name the usual search engines) about Web 2.0 security.  After all, before I go revealing whatever it is that I decide I’m going to reveal, I’d rather like a few ideas about who might get their sticky little hands on whatever I am posting.  Well, Google muscled in with (around?) 160,000,000 entries, Yahoo hoisted 316,000,000 and MSN claimed 72,800,000.  I admit it.  I didn’t read them all, I just didn’t have the time.

But the summaries on the first few pages, regardless of who I consulted, was just the same.  No security, and no plan for security.

Now this is kind of worrying.

We are all supposed to bring in whatever we want and then share it (knowingly or otherwise) with a group of people we may (or may actually not) know, and that’s good.

Somehow I figure there’s going to be a ton of material that my CEO (wife, partner, children, friends and acquaintances – the list goes on) does not want me to give to other people.  Yes, I know a couple of those photos after the hot tub might be a bit insensitive, but, hell, it happened didn’t it?  And maybe I shouldn’t have published that extract about how we always get the best procurement price – but it is what we do, isn’t it?

You see, that’s the problem.  We all coexist with and in many groups, all at the same time.  But those groups are not connected by common views, objectives, rules or members.  And it’s not clear if the members of each group even share common ideals.  All Americans support America, of course.  Except those who crash jets, or oppose foreign wars, or ….  

So even when you think you know who the players are you don’t know what they will do with the information you give them, or what information you may have given them access to without your even knowing.

The problem is that Web 2.0 does not have DRM controls that help you decide the limits that can be put on the use of your information.  It’s certainly the information super highway – but it’s all about sharing and none of it’s about control.  Caveat orator – let the speaker beware – should be our watchword.

But no doubt, like the IT fashions and fancies that have gone before, it will require a lot of fingers to be burned before any security, let alone DRM gets added.  So in the meantime, if you don’t want your information being shared about, get some DRM protecting what you have got, whilst you still have it.