They define the events with a line “This isn’t an industry or professional event, it’s just a bunch of people who like this whole ‘internet’ thing and want to hang out with like-minded folks” which is exactly what social media/new media is about. It is about bringing people together around a common idea or goal.

At last night’s 3rd Wednesday event a question was posed to the group, is there a wrong way to use social media? While the question is a valid one to ask it also implies there is a correct way to use social media. Which leads me to think about why you are using social media?

This is where the answer lays in my mind. Social Media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Myspace, etc are about engaging and connecting people in a new way. Twitter is limited to 140 characters per message to get your ideas across. Facebook allows the sharing of video, pictures, and a variety of other information. Blogs are a beast onto their selves. But their fundamental purpose is all the same. The spreading of ideas in an interactive way.

The real power of social media is not in what tools you use – although they can add clarity to your message – but in how you use them. There were many brand experts in attendance last night who made very valuable contributions to the discussion about building a brand using these online tools. Though I think the fundamental principal of engagement was the key to the whole discussion.

Like the discussion that was happening in the room the discussions that happen online are most effective when people engage each other. Discussions where people talk and don’t listen. Well, we all paid our tuition for those! And like the course I took on the romantic poets where I was lectured to for 4 months those conversations did not have an impact like the discussions we had over Feminist Philosophy.

Others made valid points on honesty, authority, and even clarity. All valid points, all worth considering. But how are online discussions different from in person ones in that respect. You can say what you want but if you are being dishonest you will be caught and loose any authority you had. You effectively destroy your message or goal.

So is there a wrong way to use social media? Yes, that is to be disengaged from your potential audience. Is there a right way? Not really, because the varied goals of each user will dictate how they use it. But use, without engagement, is rarely effective. If you are building a brand, personal, corporate, or otherwise, not engaging the people who will give your idea power will prove to be a fruitless endeavor.

What do you think? Is there a right or wrong way to use social media tools?

A hot topic that will have many punches thrown over this session will most likely be the highly debated and controversial copyright reform bill. A bill that would mimic the highly disliked DMCA bill in the USA. The bill that was suppose to be tabled in the fall session but was delayed when sudden and vocal opposition was demonstrated by the very people who would be effected by this proposed law change, the voters!

A lot of the organization behind this opposition comes in the form of a Facebook group. Started by Dr. Michael Geist, law professor and Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, the Facebook group “Fair Copyright for Canada” has attracted the attention of 37000 users and resulted in national news coverage by CBC’s The Hour and The National.

While all that might be old news to some readers, a new development was the creation of local chapters that started quietly over the Christmas break. Just this past week The Fair Copyright for Canada group went public with its announcement of local chapters spanning 13 cities. I was delighted to be asked to start the Halifax Chapter and welcome anyone in the Halifax area to join. You are also encouraged to start your own campus or city chapter if one is not already in existence. Just contact Dr. Geist through the national Facebook group.

The momentum of this group continues to grow with coverage on Computer World Magazine’s site and on local newscasts across the country. This is an important step in bringing the concerns of the public to the MP’s who will eventually vote on this issue. Any stakeholders, who have a desire to see a balanced copyright reform bill put before the House of Commons, or an unbalanced bill defeated, are asked to get involved and ensure that your concerns are heard. Through these Facebook groups we will be making available the necessary information about who to contact, how to get involved, any rallies, and most importantly how this will effect you.

This development is also notable for demonstrating the impact that social networking sites can have on an organization. Although that is another topic. So please get involved, learn how this can affect you, and most importantly stand up for your rights.

Since then a new security risk has been discovered that exposes all you photographs to potential viewer though simple website address manipulation. Thanks to the work of Computer Engineering Graduate student Dave Churchill this simple exploit can allow anyone to view the full album of someone who is not on his or her friends list.

The conditions for doing this are quite simple. First, you need the address of a photograph in an album that belongs to someone who is not in your friends list. The easiest way to obtain this address is by viewing a photograph that has been tagged by someone you know. Make sure that photograph belongs in an album of someone you do not know and in an album you cannot view through standard navigation. This is necessary as it provides all the information necessary to make the hack easy and demonstrates that it indeed works.

At this point, the simple removal of a parameter in the address bar will expose all the photographs in that album. In this case the “&subj=123456789” portion of the address. If you remove that piece of data and hit enter and you now can view all the photographs in that album.

If this was an album of someone you did not know and as such would not be able to view otherwise, you have just bypassed Facebook’s lacking security with the preverbal Mac truck. I have tested this and found I was easily able to view full albums I otherwise would not have access to view.

This simple oversight in the development of the Facebook code is alarming. If this very trivial hack can be applied to albums what other hacks can be applied to expose further data. Since Facebook relies on cookies to track if you are logged in or not, this URL and many others are essentially open to the pubic.

How much longer will Facebook’s lack of security and questionable content policy be accepted? From the blanket user agreement that anything users post on Facebook is free for Facebook to reuse and even sell to others, to their substandard security. Facebook is facing mounting pressure to answer questions to how they use users information and how they protect that.

It is starting to look increasingly like Facebook is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

See Dave’s original document here