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to the organization’s network, going to become more and work applications. Almost
and he used it only to access more common. all information is Web-
messages and documents Let’s suppose that, in based, with organizations’
behind the firewall, which Jon 20 years, Jon’s information proprietary information
would immediately forward behavior becomes the norm. only accessible through
to his personal email account, Eventually organizations authorization software.
or (using a USB drive) quickly will have to face the problem, Email has disappeared,
transfer over to his own and end the guerilla war replaced by a virtual
machine. that is brewing between the presence application
All work was done on IT security people and Gen that includes instant
Jon’s own machine, which was Y in a growing number of messaging, screensharing,
connected to the Internet (and companies and institutions. voice/videoconferencing,
all Jon’s contacts, subscriptions I think it is unlikely that filesharing, calendaring,
and documents) by a wireless most will be able to resolve tasklists.
connection that Jon paid for the perceived security threats Employees maintain a
personally. in such a way that they could “Company Sector” on their
Because all Jon’s outgoing allow the Jons of the world to machines in which they
emails came from his own do what they want inside the put information that can
machine, 90 percent of the firewall. be accessed 24/7 by other
email he was receiving from What is more likely is that, employees.
fellow employees was now just like the calculator and Most people also maintain
being sent to his personal telephone, the laptop (soon a “Public Sector” on their
email address (most people to become even smaller and machines in which they
didn’t notice or care that Jon’s more powerful) will evolve put information that can be
‘reply to’ email address on his to be a ubiquitous personal accessed 24/7 or subscribed
messages wasn’t his company device that people will carry to by anyone in the world
email address). with them everywhere. (this has replaced blogs and
Ten of his co-workers at At that point having
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the company had followed redundant computers (and
his two-computer example, phones) on everyone’s desk
and were using IM rather will become absurd, and IT
than email for their security can start to focus on
communications. The boss protecting confidential data
asked whether it didn’t take a from being accessed, rather
lot of time to transfer between than trying to lock down
the two machines, and Jon employees’ appliances.
replied “Less and less all the At that point, the role
time.” of the rest of IT,
Jon’s boss left the office and KM, will
unsure whether to praise have to change
Jon for his innovative completely.
workaround, or report him Here’s a
to IT to make sure Jon wasn’t scenario of how
exposing the company to I think it might look:
security risks.
OrgInfoFlows2
Major information flows in
This is a composite of a
organizations, c. 2025?
number of real cases of young
people working around In 2025, every
dysfunctional information individual in every
systems I have witnessed in organization uses his or
the last two years. I expect it’s her own personal computer
for both personal and
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