The Mobile Phone Security Challenge

Today sees the launch of a national search for designers to develop new ways of securing mobile phones against thieves and fraudsters, as research shows that 80% of phones contain data which can be used by criminals to access bank accounts, steal identity, or sell on personal data.

The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is offering a total of £400,000 to designers and technology experts to come up with new ways of securing handsets, the data they contain, and their future use as electronic ‘wallets’ when m-commerce technology is introduced in the UK.

The Challenge is part of Design out Crime, an initiative from the Home Office Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime and the Design Council.  The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is supported by the Technology Strategy Board.

Applicants will submit a tender outlining how they will approach the challenge and identifying any relevant experience they may have. Once selected by a panel of experts, the teams will be allocated money for research and development from the £400,000 fund, and spend six months developing designs and working prototypes in one or more of three key areas:

· Making mobile phone handsets harder or less desirable to steal

· Making the data stored on mobile phones harder or less desirable to steal

· Making future m-commerce transactions secure and fraud proof

They will produce market-ready applications which may include hardware and software for handsets, new services and other innovations, which will be showcased and promoted by early 2010, with a view to their widespread and rapid take-up by the market.

A recent survey found that 80% of people carry information on their mobile phone handsets that could be used by criminals to commit fraud - and 16% keep their bank details saved on their phone, yet only 4 in 10 people currently lock their mobiles using a PIN. Such data includes website passwords, bookmarks, emails, personal security data and locations/addresses on map applications.

The deadline for applications is Friday 22^nd May. Short-listed applicants will present to the expert panel on Friday 27^th June, and the four finalists will be announced on Monday 29^th June. The teams will develop prototypes over six months involving a process of review and advice from the expert panel. Four prototypes will be showcased in early 2010. More details of the Challenge can be found at www.designcouncil.org.uk/crime.

Sebastian Conran, chair of the Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime said: “This challenge is the result of work undertaken last year when we engaged young victims of crime, police, mobile industry experts and designers to understand current and future issues regarding mobile phone crime.  The Alliance has prioritised five areas and is working hard to deliver insights that the UK’s design and technology sector can use to deliver innovative solutions to reduce the instances of crime and antisocial behaviour.  This is one of the early results of our work – there’s more to come.”

Previous advances in technology have led to unexpected new forms of crime; email heralded the phenomenon of ‘phishing’, ATMs precipitated the new crime of ‘card catching’ and online banking gave rise to ‘key logging’, used by fraudsters to track the input of secret passwords and account numbers. However, there are also many examples of technology being applied successfully to reduce crime – for example, British Crime Survey figures show theft of vehicles has reduced by 51% since 1997 as a result of improved security being designed into the vehicle, and an evaluation of houses built to the ACPO Secured By Design (SBD) standards showed that these experience 26% less crime than non SBD houses, and residents fear of crime is lower.

The Mobile Phone Security Challenge will be steered by a group of leading specialists:

· CHAIR: Simon Waterfall, Co-founder, POKE

· Steve Babbage, Security Technologies Manager & Group Chief Cryptographer, Vodafone Group R&D

· Mark Delaney, Director, Connect Design, Nokia

· Josh Dhaliwal, Co-founder, Mobile Youth

· Richard Martin, Business Security Consultant, APACS

· Joe McGeehan, Managing Director, Toshiba Research Lab and Professor of Communications and Engineering at the University of Bristol

· Dr Walter Tuttlebee, Executive Director, Mobile VCE

So that’s not bad then, a prize fund of £400k and will be supported to get to prototype and production stage. If this is your area of expertise, then I’d say it could be worth a shot.

I would like to see a woman in the steering group though. My hunch is that women have a very different response to security concerns than men do. I also believe that women and men respond differently to technology and that should be accounted for in the design process, but that’s one for another day.

Technorati Tags: competition,mobile security,design,mobile,mobile phone security challenge,UK

And today’s spammers are

Trifle Solutions I’ve tried to get off Shahida Afzal’s list for at least a year to no avail. And of course there’s no-one to speak to to sort it out. Let’s see if the message I left gets actioned.

Vitesse Media – these guys have bought a dud email address as it’s one I don’t actively use. Shame on the email sales house who sold it to them.

Fleet Vehicle Tracking – ditto

The National Business Awards which is run by  CMP Information also used not one but *three* dud email addresses using one of my domains. They’re an information house. They sell this data on. It’s ridiculous. They’re selling out of date, made-up data and there’s no way to tell the difference between good data and bad.

Message Takers – particularly insidious as it’s disguised as a personal email from someone who sounds like he’s quite high up in business. This could fool some of the more naive SMEs out there.

There’s more email spam and email spammers. Unfortunately.

Email marketing is so very very broken.

Technorati Tags: spam,email spam,email marketing,spammers,junk email

Don’t spam me please otherwise I’ll get nasty

and write about you here. You have been warned.

I’ve had enough of DailyPicture. I get rubbish from them every day in my inbox. I’ve no idea how or when or if I ever signed up to their email list. I routinely unsubscribe every day and it’s never worked as they keep sending me spam email. This has been going on for weeks, if not months. And I’ve had enough already. I don’t like email spam or email spammers. Wasting my time and wasting my bandwidth.

There are no contact details on their website. The only clue as to who they’re owned by is in their Terms and Conditions which says they’re owned by Mikkelsen Media.

So I call Mikkelsen Media to find out how to unsubscribe. Someone answers the phone. I say ‘Please can you tell me how to unsubscribe from Daily Picture as I press the unsubscribe button every day but you still keep sending me sh1t’ [Excuse the French, but I’m really cross about this]. Her answer, in a fairly disinterested, I get this all the time, kind of manner, ‘oh, I think it’s broken, I’ll look into it’. And as far as she was concerned that was the end of the conversation. I just managed to get a word in before she hung up to ask her why she hadn’t taken down my details and that if something didn’t happen, I’d be reporting them to the Information Commissioner for breaking the rules. So reluctantly, she took down my email address. What she will do with it, who knows.

Let’s see if I still get spam email tomorrow then…

Technorati Tags: spam,email,junk email,spam email,spammers,data privacy

Meffys Awards entry deadline extended to 24th April due to popular demand

And yours truly, Helen Keegan, will be on the judging panel for the Mobile Advertising Award. Something I’m actually rather excited about.

Anyway, the key point is that the entry deadline for the awards has been extended to the 24th April so you still have another week to get your entry in. The official blurb and details are below for you all. It is pay to enter the awards, but don’t let that put you off entering, it’s still worthwhile and I do know that previous MoMoLo members who have entered the awards in previous years have benefitted, so please do consider it. There are a wide range of categories to choose from and think carefully about which ones to enter. I’ve judged other things before and am frustrated when something is submitted into the wrong category and fails when had it been submitted to a more appropriate category, it would have stood a chance of winning. So think on!

+++++++++++++++

Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), the global association for the mobile media industry, today announces that due to popular demand, the call for entries for the sixth international Meffys Mobile Entertainment Awards has been extended to Friday 24^th April 2009. Companies wishing to enter should visit: www.m-e-f.org. 

MEF is also pleased to announce that Hardeep Singh Kohli, a leading social commentator, BBC presenter and comedian, will host the Meffys ceremony on 23 June in London. As a columnist for The Scotsman and The Guardian, and a great fan of mobile games, Hardeep is passionate about the increasingly important role that mobile entertainment is playing in our everyday lives and says, “I am delighted to be hosting this year’s Meffys awards to help celebrate the leading companies in an industry where creativity and cutting-edge technology collide”.

Entering the Meffys 2009

MEF is accepting entries for the 2009 Meffys awards until 24 April. Entry costs have been frozen from last year and are as follows: £100 per entry for MEF members, £200 for members of supporting organisations and £300 for non-members.

For more details and information on entry categories go to: http://www.m-e-f.org/index.php?id=44

Meffys 2009 Categories:

• Games
• Music Service
• TV & Video Service
• Technology Innovation
• Content
• Social Networking
• Search & Discovery
• Ad Campaign
• Application
• Quality of Experience
• D2C Service
• ‘Mobile First’ Innovation
• Business Intelligence
• Innovative Business Model
• Handset

If you do decide to enter, good luck!

Technorati Tags: awards,meffy's,mobile entertainment forum,momolo,mobile monday london,mobile entertainment,judging

Carnival of The Mobilists #168 is up

The Carnival of the Mobilists is still going strong and we're at number 168. Mjelly is this week's host for a round up of the best mobile writing this week in the blogosphere and it's well worth a look.

Want to know more about the Carnival? Then head over to the Mobilists website. You don't need to be Einstein to enter a post for the weekly Carnival either so please do try your hand if you have a mobile blog and fancy taking part. And once you've been included two or three times, then you qualify to be a host too.

Next week the Carnival is over at http://www.chetansharma.com/blog/

Technokitten’s upcoming gigs

Despite the credit crunch, there seem to be mobile events and conferences aplenty so I thought I’d let you know about a few where I’ll either be attending or organising or speaking.

Well, it all kicks off with our next Mobile Monday London event in association with DCKTN  ‘Financing your Business in a Credit Crunch on Monday 20 April 09. It’s free to attend and whether you’re a start-up, pre start-up or an established business, there’ll be something there for you. The venue and line-up hasn’t been finalised but rest assured, it’ll be good! More details as they come. Please register on the Mobile Monday London alpha website and RSVP for the event there too.

The following day is Mike Butcher’s Techcrunch Geek ‘n Rolla. It promises to be a great day of inspiration and information for start-up tech businesses. I shall be there showing my support. But this is one event where I won’t be on duty for once. I’ll just be a normal punter.

And as if that isn’t enough in one week, I’m very pleased to be joining the ForumOxford for their Future Technologies conference on Friday 24 April 09. This one-day conference will explore emerging technologies with an emphasis on Mobile / Web 2.0 innovations. The idea of this day is to facilitate better discussion between the audiences and speakers which is sometimes missing from bigger, more formal events. It’ll be my first time there so I’m very much looking forward to it and it will be lovely to come to Oxford for the day. My presentation is “Media and Marketing in a Mobile 2.0 world - tips and trends in mobile marketing and mobile media”. And I’m in good company with a great line-up covering all aspects of Mobile / web 2.0. The conference is great value for money too at an unbelievable £205 including refreshments, three-course lunch and post-conference drinks and networking. Hopefully see some of you there!

Then in May, I’m off to Denmark to Aalborg. A city I’ve never been to before. I’m going to be speaking at the Media on the Move conference giving a keynote on what’s happening in mobile marketing and media with reference to the travel and tourism industries. The line up looks really interesting and I know the organisers so I know for sure it’ll be a good conference. I just hope some of the other sessions will be in English too. I guess I’ll find out when I get there!

The skipping on to flaming June, I’m on a panel at The Mobile Web Summit and will be covering new thinking about the future of mobile marketing in relation to analytics, CRM and location based services. The conference is on in London at the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in Knightsbridge and is on the 3rd and 4th of June. Prices start at Euros 399 for tickets. Osney Media’s format is slightly different from other conferences in that it’s very much discussion based around round tables and then that knowledge is shared with the wider group. Definitely worth a look.

Later on in June, I’m a judge for the Sixth Annual Global Messaging Awards. The awards recognise the important role that mobile messaging plays in the mobile industry today, the technology behind it and the varied applications that it is being put to. Mobile messaging can include entries from text or video-based, email or IM-based organisations. The final deadline for submissions is Wednesday 27th May. The shortlist will be announced on 9th June and the finalists at the 2009 Global Messaging Awards gala dinner that will take place on the evening of the 23rd June in Central London. Full details are here http://awards.160characters.org/ And for enquiries about the awards please contact Mike Grenville, mike@160characters.org

The categories for 2009 are:

• Messaging Infrastructure or Platform
• Messaging Application: Business
• Messaging Application: Consumer
• Messaging Application or Service: Public Sector Award
• Messaging Application or Service: Social Use
• Mobile Financial Services Solution
• Innovation in Messaging
• Best new Marketing Campaign using Messaging

I’m also participating in the Global Messaging Conference on 23 and 24 June. I’m one of the judges for the Messaging Innovation Showcase which is on at the end of the first day. I’ll be with Ken Banks and Rob Mosley and we’ll be looking at pitches from companies to see how they’re making mobile messaging relevant to the modern generation.

Developers of innovative messaging applications will have the opportunity to showcase their products to a panel of judges and the conference delegates. Products will be judged on their innovative qualities, usability and potential to drive up messaging revenues.

If you would like to be considered for participation as a presenter in the showcase please submit your proposal to Caroline.Broderick@informa.com by 22nd May 2009

August, I’ll be busy with my own conference.. more on that another time. Watch this space as they say…

    

And then on the 24 to 26th of August, I’m in Scandinavia again, this time at Spa & Resort Strömstad in Sweden for the Dialog Conference which brings together thought leaders covering all aspects of relationship marketing, loyalty and CRM. I’ll be covering mobile marketing, obviously!

And of course, in between times, there will be other Mobile Monday London events and there might even be another conference or two.

Phew, I’m tired just thinking about it all!

Technorati Tags: mobile,conference,events,speaker,mobile monday london,mobile monday,mobile marketing