According to the New York Times, President Obama has selected Howard A. Schmidt to serve as the Chief of Cybersecurity for his administration. Mr. Schmidt previously served as an advisor to President Bush, and has longstanding ties to the technology industries as well as military and law enforcement. The goal of the Cybersecurity Chief is to identify and work against threats to the cyber infrastructure of the United States as it relates to both military and civilian issues. Mr. Schmidt will report to the National Security Council (NSC) and will regularly meet directly with President Obama on security issues.

Here is a brief background on Mr. Schmidt courtesy of the Times.

Mr. Schmidt is the chief executive officer of the Information Security Forum, a nonprofit computer security trade association based in London. He has served as chief information security officer at eBay and chief security officer at Microsoft. In the Bush administration, he was the vice chairman of the president’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and a special adviser for cyberspace security.

He also served in the Air Force and the Army in computer security roles and led a computer forensics team for the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the National Drug Intelligence Center.

[AP Photo]

In a case that has rocked the midwestern city of New Berlin, Wisconsin, 19-year-old Anthony Stancl has pled no contest to two felony sexual assault charges stemming from an elaborate Facebook sex scam. According to the Associated Press, while in high school, “Stancl was accused of posing as a girl online and persuading more than 30 classmates into sending him naked pictures of themselves, then using the images to blackmail them for sex.” Stancl had faced 12 criminal counts with a maximum penalty of up to 300 years of incarceration. Currently, Stancl stands to face a maximum of 50 years in jail.

The first time I heard about this case was this past July via a chilling feature article by Michael Joseph Gross for GQ Magazine. I recall thinking at the time, “Why? Why would 30 teens send nude pictures of themselves to what is essentially a stranger?” Then, the answer occurred to me. They sent them because they’re teenagers. They are still developing emotionally. They are are still figuring out who they are and where they fit in in the world. In essence, they didn’t think it was a problem.

Obviously, they had no idea they were being lured into a trap by a sexual predator. They assumed that they were talking to a female student. Not just someone who liked them, but someone like them. There was a perception of safety. Sadly, it was all an illusion, and now the victims of these crimes may never fully regain the trust and intimacy needed to sustain healthy adult relationships.

The only takeaway from this sad and sordid case is that parents must take an interest in their child’s digital lives. If you do not recognize a threat, it is impossible to prepare for it. Social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace are not in and of themselves evil entities. They are neutral. The problems occur in how these websites are used and abused. Talk to your children about the web. Explain the issues and the things that they should be looking for. Don’t let their resistance keep you from identifying potential problems before they get too big for you to control. Remember, it is not about controlling your child’s life on the web, it’s about protecting them so that they can lead healthy and productive lives.

For more information on how to help your teens stay safe online, check out the Internet Keep Safe Coalition. Also, check back to the Reputation.com Blog, or follow us on Twitter.

How valuable is your privacy? How valuable is it compared to the overall health of society? These are questions that Tom Mitchell, the Head of Carnegie Mellon University’s Machine Learning Department, is trying to work out.

In a recent column for the scholarly journal, Science, Mr. Mitchell explored the issue of data privacy versus the potential for data mining. According to an article in PC World, Mitchell believes that by collecting and analyzing search data, scientists could improve society in a number of ways. When you factor in the considerable privacy risk associated with accessing this information, however, the risk to reward ratio changes.

As a solution to this problem, Mitchell proposes developing new technological tools to anonymously parse the information.

From the article:

For example, one way to protect data privacy is to mine data across organizations without aggregating it in one repository (separate organizations would analyze data, then encrypt the results before pooling it with others’ results).

Mitchell also talks about the need to open up a dialogue about privacy issues so that the public and private sectors can agree on what is best.

“Perhaps even more important than technical approaches will be a public discussion about how to rewrite the rules of data collection, ownership, and privacy to deal with this sea change in how much of our lives can be observed, and by whom,” Mitchell writes, according to CMU. “Until these issues are resolved, they are likely to be the limiting factor in realizing the potential of these new data to advance our scientific understanding of society and human behavior, and to improve our daily lives.”

As we have reported here on the Reputation.com Blog numerous times, the government is becoming increasingly wary of companies that utilize behavioral advertising and data mining techniques. By the by, this is a good thing, as it forces companies to consider how the interact with their customers.

However, Mr. Mitchell is right in saying that there is legitimate scientific value to search information. Finding the right balance between protecting personal privacy and using data mining to improve society (not just a company’s bottom line) is a difficult proposition. Hopefully, by working together, we can achieve this balance sometime soon.

“You better watch out, you better not cry.

You better not pout, I’m telling you why.

Santa Claus is coming to town.”

Before I get started with this post, I just want to say that I love Christmas. I love being able to spend time with family, I love giving and receiving presents, and I love all of the cultural aspects of Christmas too (Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, etc.) Still, when you look back on some Christmas traditions, it really makes you scratch your head.

Think about it. When we were kids, we were told that an old man named Santa Claus, who lived with elves and reindeer thousands of miles away in the North Pole, was silently passing judgment on our behavior, deciding whether or not we deserved to open toys on Christmas morning. What’s more, there was no hiding from Ol’ Saint Nick, because he could see us while we were sleeping and he knew when we were awake. Talk about an invasion of privacy. It’s a good thing most kids aren’t naturally neurotic, or we’d never have been able to sleep.

Anyway, while I was wondering about Santa Claus and his omniscient gaze, I started thinking about Google. Is there a closer proximation of Santa Claus in the real world than Google? For the first time in the history of civilization, practically all of the world’s collected knowledge is at the touch of our fingertips. From Google, you can find out not just whether someone’s been naughty or nice, but where they live, where they work, what they like, what they hate, how old they are, how much money they make, and much more. If Santa did exist, he wouldn’t carry a long list of paper, he’d just bring a laptop with a wireless internet card (wi-fi gets a little spotty north of Greenland).

The truth is that, thanks to the web, everyone can wield the power of Santa Claus, and not just at Christmas time either. Whether it’s a recruiting manager dismissing a job candidate over a nasty blog comment, or a college admissions officer rejecting an applicant because of an unprofessional Facebook page, we’ve seen the story a thousand times over. It’s about time we realized that how we act online is as important as how we act in real life, if not more so. In the digital age, proactive online reputation management is the surest way to personal and professional success. And for those who ignore it? Well, they’ll be having a Blue Christmas indeed.

Last week, we reported that 10 privacy groups, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), had filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Facebook’s ill-received new privacy settings. Today, thanks to Ars Technica, we can take a look at the 27 page complaint in detail. To download a PDF of the complaint, click on the link below.

EPIC Facebook Complaint

Essentially, EPIC argues that Facebook knowingly misled users into making their profiles more public under the guise of helping them gain greater control over their privacy settings. This argument is echoed in the numerous complaints from Facebook users who suddenly found themselves accidentally sharing their updates and images with the whole world instead of just their friends.

It is unclear at this time what role the complaint will play in forcing Facebook to modify its practices. According to Facebook, the company consulted with the FTC, among other groups, prior to implementing the privacy transition. If this is the case, there is a chance that EPIC’s complaints will fall on deaf ears. Nevertheless, the fact that groups are rallying together in criticism of Facebook shows that people aren’t quite ready to lay down their right to privacy online just yet.

If you’re still struggling to figure out Facebook’s privacy controls, please check out our comprehensive guide to understanding Facebook’s new settings.