Timely warnings about mobile data
Jinfo Blog

13th February 2010

By Tim Buckley Owen

Item

Mobile devices are set to oust the PC as the web tool of choice within a few years, information providers are scrambling to offer their data in mobile-friendly form and people seem to be conducting more and more of their business and social lives on the move. Yet amidst all this frenetic activity some warning notes are struck. First comes evidence that many executives are being shockingly lax over confidential voice calls. Admittedly the survey was done by a call encryption specialist, Cellcrypt, which might be expected to have a special interest in the matter – but the findings are disturbing nevertheless. Even if researchers hadn’t recently cracked the encryption standard for GSM phones, 80% of executives believed in any case that mobile phone conversations were even more vulnerable than emails if leaked. Yet 78% of respondents to Cellcrypt’s survey nevertheless admitted to regularly discussing financial information, 66% employee data and 50% commercial secrets in unprotected phone conversations (http://digbig.com/5bbbyp). Meanwhile ENISA (the European Network & Information Security Agency) is worried about the amount people give away about themselves in their mobile social networking activity. It’s come up in a new report with 17 golden rules on how to combat threats such as identity theft, corporate data leakage and reputational risks on mobile social networks: log out once your session is over; don’t allow the network to remember your password; above all, don’t mix your business contacts with your friends (http://digbig.com/5bbbyq). Smartphones and dongles are bringing about an ‘explosion’ in wireless data traffic – and, with wireless technology not improving as fast as fixed line internet services did during an equivalent capacity challenge in the 1990s, the Economist warns of supplier pressure to restrict some heavy users. With voice calls and text messages still generating 85% of mobile revenue, operators might be reluctant to invest in greater capacity only to have their cash cows usurped by the likes of instant messaging and Skype (http://digbig.com/5bbbyr). In fact, a new free report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, The Mobile Data Challenge, concludes that the rising use of data services is unlikely to sustain mobile operators’ revenue growth. Almost half of respondents said their companies would be developing revenue-generating content and applications to reduce their reliance on traffic revenues – but a majority would have to share that revenue with a third party content provider. Mobile operators are reliant on next generation networks to help them achieve the efficiencies they need – ‘over-reliant’, the EIU believes. In their search for profits, it warns, they may also revisit the issue of pricing (http://digbig.com/5bbbys). None of these alarms are likely to halt the mobile march. But it helps to be able to spot trouble earlier rather than later.

« Blog