Kevin Mitnick & Social Networking Tools

A hacker by the name of Kevin Mitnick was arrested in February of 1995 by the FBI.  He spent the next eight months in solitary confinement because law enforcement officials were able to convince a judge that he had the ability to start a nuclear war by simply whistling into the phone.

They eventually let Mr. Mitnick out of solitary, and a few years later he was let out of jail. A few years after that he gave a very interesting and insightful speech at Carnegie Mellon, which I was fortunate enough to attend.  During his talk he focused on how humans are always the weakest link in any system's security.  His speciality wasn't being a master whistler, but rather being a master con artist.  He was an expert at what is known as social engineering--tricking people into giving him their passwords and user names.  In other words, computer hacking at the end of the day is as much about people as it is about technology.

This brings me to my point.  Many people seem to have forgotten that social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn are tools for connecting with real people for forming real relationships.  Too many executives, activitists, and organizers have become enamored with social networks as technologies. They focus on their virtual presence and neglect the importance of building real relationships with their target audiences.  Just as too many CTOs and CIOs focus on improving the security of their systems through technological means and neglect to teach their employees how to resist con artists.