The Hawthorne Effect

Interesting take and aligns on something I’ve thought for a while. Google uses it search monopoly to invade other businesses and then whines when they can’t merely get their way. If you buy Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra, you’re fooling yourself.

“And while you’re at it, tell us which patents are not bogus? Any? Do you believe in intellectual property? Property ownership? Or is it all there for Google’s taking?

While Apple and Microsoft and Nokia and Nortel and Blackberry and IBM and many others were actually *innovating* in smartphones and mobile technologies for over a decade you were busy making monopoly profits in a different market. Now you want into the big global smartphone market. And essentially want *all* the intellectual property of these companies to be effectively voided.

So you can continue to use your monopoly profits in a different business to kill off all the companies — all the innovators — and reap monopoly profits in this new business.”

Link

Link: From Dave Winer

There’s a very simple business reason why Google cares if they have your real name. It means it’s possible to cross-relate your account with your buying behavior with their partners, who might be banks, retailers, supermarkets, hospitals, airlines. To connect with your use of cell phones that might be running their mobile operating system. To provide identity in a commerce-ready way. And to give them information about what you do on the Internet, without obfuscation of pseudonyms.

Simply put, a real name is worth more than a fake one.

After Tuesday’s cyber attack on the Pfizer Facebook page, I was curious to see if I could gain more insight into the motivations of the group responsible. I wasn’t sure if such an undertaking would be possible, since they may not respond, but after seeing a comment posted by the group on my posting about the incident, I thought it worth shot.

I contacted The Script Kiddies through Twitter and asked if they would consent to an interview, which they responded that they would, provided it was carried out through Twitter. I posed 8 questions to the group. The unabridged and unedited Q&A is posted below.

1. What is the mission of The Script Kiddies?
Our current mission is to aid in #antisec with exposing government and corporate corruption all over the world.

2. How did the things you accuse Pfizer of come to your attention?
You know what they say; the medium is the message…through media.

3. Can you tell us how you hacked the page?
Paul Dyer. The ignorance of an individual can lead to a security breach of alot more then one may think.

4. Do you see social media as more vulnerable to attack than other forms of digital media?
Social media gets more attention, and tends to be less secure since companies trust individuals to protect and control them.

5. Did you feel you got the results you were looking for?
The results we were hoping for is the public awareness of what Pfizer has done, and the punish the company itself. so yes.

6. Were you concerned at all that you may not have had all the facts before beginning your efforts against Pfizer?
We know just as much now about their corruption as we did before.

7. Given that most drug development risks human life, and not developing certain drugs also carries risks to human life, how can pharma companies better manage in order to avoid coming under future scrutiny from groups like yours?
The ingredients that make up these drugs are nothing knew. The risk could easily be calculated before testing on humans.

8. What would you say to those who feel your methods may be as harmful as those you look to expose?
It isn’t up to me if the media or the people approve of what we do. the result is something we can all approve of (cont.) were not trying to be hero’s. We are well aware hacking is criminal and can be unjustified in most cases (cont.) with groups such as ourselves, lulzsec, and Anonymous; everyday we get closer to a society without corruption and with fair rule.

It should be noted that in my previous post, I assumed that the group hacked into the page through some vulnerability within Facebook. That assumption was incorrect. Instead, it seems access was attained by clues and publicly available data found on the internet left by one of the page administrators.