A way to process encrypted data

IBM announced an interesting resolution to a problem created by encryption. The solution, which IBM dubbed "privacy homomorphism", allows deep inspection of encrypted content while maintaining the confidentiality of that content.

From a messaging perspective, this would be an important breakthrough, particularly in the context of archiving and security. For example, if encrypted messages are sent from desktop to desktop, archiving is a problem because the information in the message and any attachments cannot generally be indexed. While gateway-to-gateway encryption gets around this problem, there are some cases in which encryption should be maintained end-to-end. Similarly, deep inspection of encrypted content could take place for purposes of spam or malware scanning.

More information is available here.

Hybrid archiving

Hybrid security is growing in popularity as companies large and small recognize the benefit of using cloud-based malware and spam management as a great way to protect their investment in on-premise systems and manage the bad stuff more effectively. But LiveOffice and Mimosa Systems just announced a hybrid archiving capability (still in beta) that uses both on-premise and cloud-based archiving in a coordinated way.

As noted by both companies, two of the use cases for hybrid archiving are a) the ability to migrate older content from an on-premise archive to the cloud, thereby helping organizations to more effectively and less expensively manage their on-premise archival storage; and b) moving blocks of data to a cloud-based archive for review, such as by external legal counsel during e-discovery or pre-litigation review.

I can also see the benefit of using a hybrid archiving approach for large organizations that maintain a number of satellite offices, where the headquarters location might want to have on-premise archiving, but use cloud-based archiving for their smaller offices that do not have dedicated IT staff. Other scenarios might include the ability to migrate more easily to on-premise archiving as a company grows, migrating to the cloud if there are cutbacks in an IT department, or simply taking advantage of the lowest possible costs for storage.

The King of Twitter

The UK government has appointed Andrew Stott as Director of Digital Engagement, a role that will be focused on making better use of social media, Web 2.0 technologies and other online tools as a means of migrating various services online. More information is available here. The Director's Twitter handle is DirDigEng.

This is actually a pretty good idea given that it can allow government to communicate more effectively with those who pay its bills, and can potentially reduce the cost of managing information within government. Flattening the hierarchy that exists within government can have some clear advantages.

Sendio's partnering with TKCIS

Sendio offers an anti-spam solution that our research has found to be quite well-received by its customers.  In April, the company partnered with TKC Integration Services, a tribally-owned Native American corporation that is focused on federal government contracting.

This type of partnering represents a smart move for Sendio and perhaps a model for other vendors to follow in the messaging space.  TKC -- which for purposes of government contracts, is considered a small, disadvantaged business and an Alaskan Native Corporation -- can gain an entrance to federal government contracts that others in its space may not be able to realize.  This may allow Sendio to participate in contracts that it otherwise might not have been to get were it not for the advantages that TKC enjoys.

The scourge of the 'Reply All' button

I somehow was put onto a mailing list from a company I don't know and, as of this writing, I have been copied on at least 20 'please unsubscribe me' messages from people all over the country.  While this doesn't happen too often, it got me to thinking of a feature I'd like to see in email clients.  In keeping with good email practice of not hitting Reply All without a really good reason to do so, perhaps there could be a rule built in to email clients that would provide a pop-up whenever senders click Reply All.  The popup would remind people of the danger of clicking Reply All, particularly to a large list of recipients.  The popup could be customized by administrators and could be turned off only temporarily (maybe after every 10 Reply Alls the popup would reappear).

In the grand scheme of things, this would solve a relatively minor problem, but would be useful nonetheless.

New survey on social networking

We launched a short survey on social networking this morning to see how commonly it's used for marketing purposes, where social networking fits in the hierarchy of communication tools and information sources, the utility of social networking for gathering insights, etc. We will be publishing our results shortly.

Microsoft TechEd

Currently at TechEd where, not surprisingly given the slower economy, attendance is a bit down from past years. That said, while it's still morning and I've yet to talk to many exhibitors, one vendor with whom I spoke was very happy with the show floor traffic thus far. Despite the gloom that some feel from the variety of negative press reports about the economy in general, there are a number of bright spots here at the show and from those I've been talking to over the past few weeks.