Not even a Baer can rebottle a genie
Jinfo Blog

10th March 2008

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Organisations face five major challenges from social software, says information technology consultant Gartner. If corporations don’t confront them they risk their data flowing out to consumer-grade, public platforms. Launching Gartner’s four-page $175 report http://digbig.com/4wnta (Can it really be worth $35 per challenge?) research director Anthony Bradley warned that workers were turning to the consumer internet if their corporate technology provider wasn’t offering them a social networking solution. Commenting on the report, the Out-Law newsletter also quoted him as saying http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=8914 that some misuse of technologies was inevitable, but that it must be expected and controlled. In truth, though, you have to wonder whether Gartner’s five challenges so much as begin to scratch the surface. Because, even as its report was being launched, another story was developing of social networking activity that not even the mightiest of corporations could control. Wikileaks – http://www.wikileaks.org plus many mirror sites – is an initiative to develop ‘an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis’ – see http://web.vivavip.com/forum/LiveWire/read.php?i=3&start=70 for more details. Around Valentine’s Day, the Swiss Bank Julius Baer went to a San Francisco court to block the further distribution of documents on Wikileaks alleged to show irregular transactions in one of the bank’s subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands. According to the Register newsletter http://digbig.com/4wntg after failing to get Wikileaks to remove the documents, Baer successfully went after ‘a weaker link’ – Wikileaks’ US host Dynadot. Dynadot pulled the plug and locked the domain name. However, at least one blog http://digbig.com/4wntj subsequently listed a whole range of public cover name URLs for Wikileaks, many of which continued to work. As the judge in the case subsequently pointed out, ‘When the genie gets out of the bottle, it's out for all purposes.’ A few days later, following a successful appeal by a number of free speech groups – see for example CNet News http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9883240-38.html for the details – the same judge removed the injunction against Dynadot, adding that he was sceptical that the action against Wikileaks would survive scrutiny under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech. Although a timetable was set for the subsequent stages of the litigation, Baer evidently took the judge’s words to heart. Last week, it indicated http://digbig.com/4wntk that it was dropping the case. As information professionals, you may well be championing social networking within your own organisation, and possibly echoing Gartner in warning of the corporate consequences of not embracing it. If so, it might be worth including the notion that, if your organisation doesn’t have a culture of safe internal whistle-blowing, there’s a risk that it might encounter a public whistle blast powerful enough to fell a Baer.

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