Author Archives: Debra Littlejohn Shinder
Is IT too Important to Be Trusted to IT Pros?
You didn’t always have to go to medical school and get a license from the state to practice medicine. The first licensing laws in the U.S. were passed in the 1800s but then repealed in most states, and many states …
The Endpoint Is a Moving Target
Once upon a time, when we talked about securing our networks from edge to endpoint, both ends of that route were pretty easy to define. Now not only has the perimeter blurred and blended so that it’s hard to determine …
Take Control from the Cloud
Way back in 2007, Microsoft invited me, along with several other writers from the IT community, to attend an “IT pro townhall meeting” in Redmond. I remember sitting in a room on campus, listening to Mark Minasi and George Ou …
Email Archiving Doesn’t Have to be a DIY Project
The “do it yourself” craze is big, and there’s a good reason for that. You can learn a lot, save money, and ensure that things get done your way. But there’s a down side, as well. The success (or not) …
Networks without Borders: The New Security Paradigm
In ancient times, cities were often walled fortresses, with heavily guarded perimeters, and strangers were closely scrutinized before being allowed to pass through the gates. Likewise, in the “old days” of computer networking, there were strict lines of demarcation between …
TMI/NEK: Too Much Information, Not Enough Knowledge
“Knowledge is power” – scientia potential est in Latin – is an aphorism commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. It’s true, but what we sometimes forget is that information (much less raw data) does not equal knowledge. Data consists of …
Fax 3.0: This is Not Your Father’s Facsimile Machine
Some of my younger friends may not have ever encountered an old-fashioned fax machine, but I remember them well. There was a time when it seemed nothing short of a miracle to feed a document into it and have someone …
Taming a Web Gone Wild
When Tim Berners-Lee first conceived of a system of interlinked documents that could be accessed over a world-wide network, nobody could have foreseen what a tangled Web we would weave. Today’s web is an amazing source of information and entertainment. …
Removable Storage: A Convenient Truth
Removable storage devices offer a big convenience for easy transfer of data from one computer to another – but they also bring with them a big security risk. The ability to copy gigabytes of company information to a tiny card …
Is Your Email a Ticking Legal Timebomb?
A couple of months ago, I postulated here that, far from being dead, email is alive and kicking in business organizations around the world. We talked about how to secure those messages from attackers, but that’s only part of the …









