SaaS

IT has been shoved to the side in many businesses in which business unit managers can get the technology they want with an Internet connection and a credit card, not a project-management team and a bunch of whiney geeks from IT.

Empowering users, threatening IT, making technology purchases a no-brainer? Why couldn't it have gotten here sooner? (Or why did it have to come at all, if you're among the naysayers in IT.)

Despite years of experience showing cloud and mobile computing not only increase productivity, but make end users happier and reap otherwise-lost hours of work while employees are at home, many IT shops still won't support work using personal devices.

Studies show a third to half of storage drives hold residual data from other users, much of it confidential, some of it enough to allow identity theft. Cloud services widen the hole by making it possible to leave lots of critical data behind with no chance to check whether you did or not.

The news byte from an IDC report paid for and touted by Microsoft as predicting cloud computing would create 14 million new jobs doesn't tell the same story as the data in the report, which shows IT will get less relevant and the U.S. will get few new cloud-fueled jobs.

Real-world example of how the Internet works under the sway of pro-SOPA factions: Online service business JotForm is shut down by the Secret Service Wednesday with no explanation, by an agent "too busy" to tell JotForm's founder why he was out of business. Thursday JotForm was back, with no idea what it did wrong, how to avoid doing it again or any explanation at all.

Ramnit malware evolved from Windows attack-app to a social-network surfer that steals Facebook logins and free access to corporate nets using comparatively insecure user accounts in the cloud to get passwords or authentication without directly attacking corporate accounts.

Security vendor Veracode tightened up its criteria to judge which web applications are secure, but still found an appalling number of new web apps built and posted without elementary precautions to plug security holes that allowed hackers to make headlines all this year.

Security firm BitDefender is defending Anonymous, at least to the extent of agreeing the porn-bombing of Facebook isn't Anonymous' style. They do want answers about an Anonymous worm found on FaceBook, though.

The volume of malware on the 'net is growing faster than anyone thought. But the number of viruses isn't the story. The real danger is the new focus on selling stolen access to sensitive sites, not just data.

An expose of Microsoft's circular attempt at progress in the tablet market shows Steve Ballmer didn't make the bad call to kill Microsoft's tablet innovations; he asked Bill Gates and demonstrated himself to be short on both insight and independence.

Carelessness in concealing home IP addresses, servers and Twitter accounts puts the FBI on more hacker doorsteps than any mistake but the most obvious: don't tell people you did it.