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Dear Reader

Business Development is a complex topic. In such case the questions raised are more important than potential answers. Therefore, this blog will focus on presenting questions. There will be answers, full or partial, to be supplamented by links presented when relevant. The answers from my experience will be clearer once the questions are clearer.

While this is not a discussion forum, readers are invited to comment, and the comments will help determine the topics and current issues to be explained in the future.

Enjoy



Thursday, December 23, 2010

Hidden in the Open

With the increased usage of the web and web related tools for business applications the issue of security becomes ever more important.
There are several dangers for users. One is that their strategic assets be stolen or used by accidental thieves those that do not seek them specifically, but are looking for something to steal.
The other, harder to protect against danger, is the thieves that are looking specifically for the user or his information.

There are many software options, and more are being developed to help code, or protect the strategic knowledge. There is of course an evolutionary process here, in which the protectors and the thieves are competing and becoming more sophisticated over time.
These solutions, especially the more sophisticated ones are not free, and the cost could be an important parameter in decision making.

One of ancient strategies to protect assets was to hide them. If you can hide the asset it is harder to steel it. In any case, it will be a useful protection against the accidental thieves, they will not see it, so they will move to another potential victim, without knowing that there may be something to steal.

But how can you hide things effectively in to-days world? And how can you retrieve it back again?

Consider this (at your own risk):

It was Allen Edgar Poe who suggested, and later Sherlock Holmes used it to, to hide things in the open – the important letter left open on the table in full view of anyone, while the seekers ransacked the room but could not find it.
What is the equivalent of that in the electronic world?

At least for short or very short periods, you can hide it in the net. In full view of anyone, trusting the huge amount of data to hide you.

In order to do that, one must avoid the search engines. In fact if you want to do it well all you have to do, is look at one of the guides for doing business on the net, and avoid the marketing tips – do not use tags, do not try and get links into hubs or popular sites, avoid site names that are easy to remember etc. (in fact, after trying to promote my website – it would seem that hiding can be done without effort).

So, sharing confidential info for a while (a meeting, short project etc.) can be done on such dark site, that the search engines would not find, and would not catalogue, leaving you covered, unless someone knows the exact address.

Well Hidden in the Open