Facebook legal notice could get you cash, so don't trash it

Facebook recently sent a legal notice to users that may appear daunting at first glance, but before you relegate it to the trash bin you ought to take a look at it -- it could mean cash in your pocket.

The notice is meant to notify some of its U.S. members that their names, profile pictures, photographs, likenesses, and identities were unlawfully used to advertise or sell products and services through Sponsored Stories without obtaining those members' consent.

"Sponsored Stories" is targeted advertising that uses information about your friends to sell stuff to you.

To settle a class action lawsuit (Angel Fraley v. Facebook) resulting from those allegations of unlawful use of its members' content, the social network is proposing to pay $20 million into a fund to be used to pay members who appeared in the sponsored stories.

If you received the legal notice from Facebook, you may be paid up to $10 as part of the settlement.

There's no guarantee you will get the money, however.

As the notice points out: "The amount, if any, paid to each claimant depends upon the number of claims made and other factors detailed in the settlement. No one knows in advance how much each claimant will receive, or whether any money will be paid directly to claimants."

Since as many as 100 million Facebook members may be affected by the settlement, and the fund would be exhausted after paying $10 to 2 million members, there's a good possibility that the alternative distribution scheme outlined in the settlement will be implemented.

That alternative would divvy up the money among a number of non-profit organizations involved in educational outreach that teaches adults and children how to use social media technologies safely, or are involved in research of social media.

According to the long form of the legal notice [PDF], those organizations include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard Law School), Information Law Institute (NYU Law School), Berkeley Center for Law and Technology (Berkeley Law School), Center for Internet and Society (Stanford Law School), High Tech Law Institute, (Santa Clara University School of Law), Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, Consumers Federation of America, Consumer Privacy Rights Fund, ConnectSafely.org, and WiredSafety.org.

You can fill out a claim form and see what happens.

The Fraley case began winding its way through the courts in March 2011, when five Facebook members, including two minors, maintained they claimed to represent a class of people injured by the Sponsored Stories.

In June 2012, Facebook and its opponents in the litigation announced a $10 million settlement in the case in which all the money would go to social service organizations and advocacy groups involved in the protection of children in the context of social media.

About a month later, the federal judge presiding over the case -- Judge Lucy Koh, who also presided over Apple's successful intellectual property case against Samsung in the U.S. -- recused herself from the case without an explanation.

Judge Richard Seeborg, who took over the case from Koh, subsequently rejected the $10 million settlement . In denying the proposed settlement, the judge maintained that Facebook did not adequately justify the size of the final deal.

A deal with a new settlement amount was hammered out in October and received preliminary approval from Seeborg in December.

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Twitter's Vine ripe with users of video sharing service

Twitter launched Vine recently and it appears the video sharing service that lets you post clips up to six seconds long is already a hit with users.

Vine is a completely public and compelling medium that gives you a brief window into what people all over the world are seeing, or the kinds of things they're thinking about. You can share the brief videos on Twitter and Facebook.

Just like Facebook's Instagram turns regular people into creative photographers, Vine encourages anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch to make video montages. And unlike other platforms where it might take minutes or more to get your video fix, Vine makes it simple and fast to create and consume it -- perfect in a world where our digital attention span continues to shrink.

It takes a bit of ingenuity to create a good vine, and that's what Twitter intended, saying last week that "constraint inspires creativity."

Take Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, for example.

He recently posted a clip of a movie in which Owen Wilson is asked "You box?" to which he replies "No. I mean, not really. No." It's food for thought about what message, if any, the billionaire intended.

Search for the term "vine" at Twitter and you'll see them pop up in your feed or go to the websiteVinepeek , which offers a real-time stream of vines from all over the world, and you'll see everything from random scenes at work, a display of what books are on someone's nightstand, a street protest, and other random stuff.

People are filming cats and dogs, not to mention seeming magic tricks and disappearing food thanks to vine's start/stop recording feature that lets you create montages. And here's one getting some traction: Godzilla battles Mr. Hand.

Brands are also getting in on the action and using the platform to engage with their audiences.

For instance, 30 Rock fans can get a whirlwind run through NBC's studio, Gap propped a handful of itsvintage ads and Moose Tracks ice cream shows a close-up of one of its creamy concoctions.

The proof of the popularity is in the numbers. The Apple App Store has named it an Editor's Choicedownload.

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The iPad mini: 2013's next big business tool?

Not long after the iPad mini launched last fall, Cameron Yuill, the founder of AdGent Digital, started using the device to make business presentations.

Convenience was one reason: The iPad mini has all the capabilities of its bigger predecessor, including wireless AirPlay mirroring that allows him to project the tablet's screen onto a nearby TV. But salesmanship was a factor, too: There's nothing like arriving at a meeting, seemingly empty-handed, only to pull the latest and greatest Apple technology from a jacket pocket.

"I pull it out and people are quite astounded," says Yuill, whose company provides advertising on mobile platforms. "We're in the business, so we're promoting the usage as much as we can."

Months after the iPad mini launched to the public, the device appears to be a hit in the consumer sector, combining with the fourth-generation iPad to sell more than 3 million units in the opening days of the product's life. But analysts have yet to determine whether the new, miniature tablet will follow its larger iOS predecessors from the living room to the boardroom--and if so, what route it will take to get there.

Schools and hospitals

Two institutions likely to be big iPad mini adopters are schools and hospitals. The first is understandable. Schools already use the iPad, but want to cut down on technology costs. At $329, the iPad mini's starting price is $170 less than that of the iPad with Retina display. Lynn University in Florida will distribute the tablet to freshmen next fall, and the East Jordan, Michigan, school district is buying 770 units of the iPad mini. In the meantime, KinderTown--a developer of educational apps aimed at the 3- to 8-year-old set--saw a dramatic rise in iPad mini usage after the holidays. Inside Higher Ed has endorsed the iPad mini's suitability for classroom use.

But why hospitals? For an unexpected reason: The 7.87-inch-long iPad mini is just the right size to fit in the 8.5-inch-deep pocket of a standard medical lab coat.

"It really fits that lab coat pocket," says Marianne Braunstein, vice president of product management atEpocrates, which makes medical apps for iOS devices. A survey that her company conducted ahead of the iPad mini launch found that one in three doctors planned to buy the new, smaller tablet.

"They're moving constantly between exam rooms, around the hospital...they're very, very mobile people in their careers," Braunstein says. "They need to have devices that allow them to be very portable."

The iPad mini might seem to be at a disadvantage in a hospital, since it doesn't offer the high-resolution Retina display of its bigger counterparts. But Dr. Stephen Ferzoco, chief medical officer atMobiquity Inc., agrees that doctors will be seeking out the mini: The bigger iPad, he says, is just too cumbersome.

"From a form factor standpoint, doctors can now carry the mini device around in their coat pockets," he says. "This effectively means that their electronic medical records, order entry, reference materials, and imaging capabilities are within arm's reach at all times."

Even in hospitals, though, Braunstein expects that doctors will have to bring in the iPad mini themselves, rather than using hospital-issued models.

"For the most part, it's going to be the individuals," she says. "These devices make their lives easier, so that's what they're going to be bringing into the workplaces."

The winding path to adoption

Previous iOS devices entered the workplace quickly, but by wildly different routes.

The iPhone, for example, was initially disdained by IT departments that had built their security infrastructure to support the then-dominant Blackberry line of phones from Research in Motion. But the iPhone elbowed its way into the office anyway, initially brought in by top executives and then, increasingly, their underlings--forcing IT departments to adapt. The "bring your own" approach worked for Apple: More than five years later the iPhone is one of the dominant smartphones in the enterprise market.

The iPad, in contrast, was more immediately embraced by institutions--and ended up being distributed in businesses and other workplaces on more of a top-down basis. Within months of its 2010 launch, the tablet was at work in car dealerships, cockpits, and medical schools, as institutions recognized that it could help reduce paperwork and provide more mobility to users than traditional laptop computers.

Analysts say that they expect the iPad mini to follow the iPhone's trail into the workplace, arriving initially as a BYO device before institutions grasp how to use the small tablet to their advantage.

"I think it's hard to say it's going to definitively follow one [route] or the other," says Frank Gillett, a vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research in Massachusetts. "The mini, because it's so small, will follow an individual approach initially--though some businesses will find a smaller, less expensive screen appealing."

The larger iPad should remain the device of choice for many businesses, Gillett says, since cash register applications such as Square Register and business applications such as SalesForceprobably make more sense on the bigger tablet. But in other instances--particularly where device cost is a major factor--the iPad mini has an advantage. It could also prove advantageous in situations where space is at a premium, particularly for users who spend lots of time on planes and in other cramped locations.

"It's like a lot of other things," Gillett says. "You pick the right tool for the job."

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Acquisition math: Belkin CTO predicts outcome of Linksys deal will be "1+1=3"

News that Cisco intended to divest its Linksys home-networking business unit broke last December, but Belkin's decision--announced last Thursday--to acquire that division came as a surprise. Belkin's intentions are even more interesting: The company isn't just buying a prestige brand to slap on its existing home-networking product line; it plans to market networking products under both brands.

When I asked Belkin's Chief Technology Officer Brian Van Harlingen how that might benefit consumers, he replied that Belkin's employees "strive to understand user needs, and deliver a good user experience. The philosophy at Linksys isn't fundamentally different, but each company has different strengths. Linksys did [the cloud-based router administration software] Smart Wi-Fi, and we've done great work in terms of quality of service [QoS describes the ability to assign priorities to different data flows, so that gaming and video traffic are given priority over downloads]. Where do those things come together? We think the ultimate outcome of putting the two companies together will be 'one plus one equals three.'"

According to Van Harlingen, Belkin "sees Linksys as a premier brand. They brought wireless networking into the home. But our intention is to maintain both brands in networking; each has a unique appeal to consumers, and we think we can create differentiation for the two product lines."

Van Harlingen says Belkin also sees an opportunity to grab some market share in the small to medium-size business market, a market that Linksys had largely drifted away from while under Cisco's control. "We're still working on long-terms plans and product roadmaps, but Linksys goes back a ways and [the brand] had some real credibility in the SMB space. We see some opportunity there."

Van Harlingen said the Linksys acquisition would also help Belkin grown its budding line of home-automation products, marketed under the WeMo brand. "Those are some of the products we're proudest of, and we are expanding in that area. We announced a new light switch at CES, as well as Android support, and we're integrating video cameras."

"The beauty of the WeMo line using a Wi-Fi network, as opposed to Z-Wave or ZigBee" Van Harlingen continued, "is that you can buy a product that will perform a function without depending on another product. You don't need a gateway [as a master controller that integrates lighting and other home controls, as the Z-Wave and ZigBee protocols generally require]. It's much less confusing for the consumer."

I couldn't resist the opportunity to ask Van Harlingen if Belkin had learned anything from Cisco's poorly conceived decision to proactively install new firmware on some of its high-end Linksys routers that were already in the field without informing the people who had purchased them. The new firmware not only forced users to switch to Cisco's cloud-based admin tool, but it also came with terms of service that many viewed as an egregious invasion of privacy. Cisco eventually reversed its decision.

"I can't criticize them [Linksys] for that," said Van Harlingen. "We've made our own missteps over the years. They were really excited about delivering the benefits of Smart Wi-Fi to as many of their customers as quickly as possible. Our approach will be 'let's listen to our customers very carefully before we take any dramatic actions.'"

Since mergers and acquisitions rarely occur without some job losses, I also asked Van Harlingen if Belkin planned to retain Linksys employees across the board, or if the company wanted only the Linksys engineering teams. "Across the board," he replied. "We intend to merge the two companies. Linksys has incredibly talented people in key roles. But we will be looking for places, where there are opportunities, where it makes sense to leverage--I guess redundancy is the word."

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Winzip 17 adds integration with Box cloud storage

Winzip has been a household name in file compression for two decades. WinZip 17 takes file compression and management to the cloud with Google Drive, SkyDrive, and Dropbox integration--and now a new update is available that adds Box to the mix.

WinZip was a pioneer of the freemium software business model--basically providing the software for free, and relying on the moral compass of customers to pay for the product if it proved to be useful to them. I used to download a wide variety of shareware applications following a similar strategy, but WinZip was the first one I ever felt compelled to actually pay for.

Over the years, hard drive and flash drives have grown exponentially in size, and the cost of storage has gone down, so the need for a file compression utility has declined. However, the rise of photos and videos--which can be massive files--and the desire to upload information to social networks or cloud storage services has brought it back in vogue. It's much easier and faster to upload a 100Mb file instead of a 1GB file.

WinZip has evolved to be a much more comprehensive file management tool than it once was. It still provides file compression, but now it also includes the ability to convert documents to PDF, add custom watermarks to PDF files, and post files directly to popular social networks.

Another advantage of WinZip 17 is that it ties disparate services together. Rather than dealing with your PC, Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Box as separate entities, WinZip 17 gives you a single tool from which to manage all of your data no matter where it's stored.

There are two flavors of WinZip 17, Standard and Pro. The Pro version includes features that strengthen and speed up file encryption, as well as the ability to view photos within a ZIP file without extracting them first, and features that make it easier to transfer and manage photos from supported cameras and mobile devices, among other things.

You can get WinZip 17 directly from the WinZip site starting at $30. WinZip 17 Pro is $50. WinZip offers volume licensing discounts for businesses that purchase the software in bulk. WinZip 17 is only available for Windows (XP or later), but there are versions available for Mac OS X, iOS, and Android as well.

Customers who already have WinZip 17 can download an update to add integration with Box cloud storage.

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Pentagon to add thousands of new cybersecurity jobs

The Pentagon is planning to expand its cyber security force nearly five fold over the next several years in a bid to bolster its defensive and offensive computer capabilities.

The plan is to add about 4,000 more troops and civilians to the existing 900 personnel in the Defense Department's Cyber Command, the Washington Post reported today citing several unnamed sources.

The planned expansion is in response to growing threats against critical U.S. assets in cyberspace, a defense official told Computerworld on Monday.

"As Secretary Panetta stated in his cyber speech last October, we are faced with an increasing threat of a cyber attack that could be as destructive as the terrorist attack on 9/11," the official said. "The department recognizes this growing danger and is working with a sense of urgency to put the right policies and structures in place to enable us to carry out our role."p>

The official said the Department of Defense (DoD) will work closely with U.S. Cyber Command and the Combatant Commands to develop an "optimum force structure" for dealing with emerging cyber threats.

The goal is to create three separate types of cyber forces each tasked with specific roles and responsibilities. The cyber force structure will include Cyber National Mission Forces, Cyber Combat Mission Forces and Cyber Protection Forces, the official noted.

The national force and cyber protect force will focus on addressing threats to critical infrastructure targets and DoD networks respectively. Meanwhile, the combat mission force will be responsible for planning and executing offensive operations and attacks in cyberspace.

"While the basic cyber force structure model is clear, the implementation plan to achieve it is still being developed and is pre-decisional at this time," the official said.

The planned expansion comes amid heightening concerns about U.S. vulnerabilities in cyber space. Many believe that the U.S. is already in the midst of an undeclared and mostly unseen cyberwar directed against it by unfriendly nation states and well-funded highly organized criminal gangs and hactivist groups.

Countries like China and Russia are well ahead of the U.S. in terms of having cyber forces of the kind that the Pentagon is trying to build up, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute. The challenge for the DoD will be to find enough qualified cybersecurity professionals to meet its ambitious expansion plans, he said.

"The key to putting the 4,000 in perspective is that every other critical part of the economy also needs the same people -- banks, power companies, telecom, defense contractors, civilian and state government and hospitals."

But while the hunger for cybersecurity professionals with advanced skills is very real, the supply line is near empty, he said. If the DoD wants to meet its expansion goals it will have to find innovative ways to find talent, Paller said.

He pointed to a recently launched program called Cyber Corps Challenge by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as an example of the kind of approach the DoD needs to take to find talent. Under the program, the state invited veterans of the U.S armed services and others to take part in a competition for spots in a community college-based cyber security program and six month residencies at banks, the FBI and other organizations.

"China has been running competitions and training programs that work well in every ... district since at least 2003," Paller said. "Russia set up its first advanced school in 1994. We are way behind in quantity and quality."

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed. His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

See more by Jaikumar Vijayan on Computerworld.com.

Read more about cybercrime and hacking in Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center.

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