A New Era, A New Future, A New Domino

Some of you may have already seen the tweets out of HCL and the announcement from IBM on the new strategic partnership for ICS products that IBM have just entered into with HCL.  To explain things as simply as possible this means that HCL will take over the development of most of the ICS products whilst IBM continues to manage the product strategy, marketing and licensing.  The products involved include

Domino
Notes (on premises and SmartCloud)
Traveler
Verse
Sametime
IBM Client Access
IMSMO (mail support for Microsoft Outlook)

So what does this actually mean for us as Business Partners and, more importantly, for customers?  In my opinion this is very good news.  The products will benefit from significantly more development investment and resources,  with the existing IBM development teams on those products moving under HCL  In addition IBM will continue to manage the product themselves (using the existing offerings management teams) as well as the licensing, and the strategic direction.

There is no longer any End of Life date for Domino, not even “at least until” dates.

As far as customers are concerned, nothing will change other than an acceleration in the investment and development of products including the announcement of Domino 10 for 2018 and the #Domino2025 project.  Even submitting PMRs will continue in the same way.  There will be no customer - HCL direct relationship.

What is Domino2025? Otherwise known as Project Sapphire this is a strategic and ongoing product development initiative IBM will be starting in November where they will be taking feedback on what people want to help drive the future of Domino.   You can tweet your feedback using #Domino2025 and look forward to workshops taking place worldwide as a continual process to design future (post v10) Domino.

I have a lot more thoughts which I’ll share over the coming days but when I first heard about this and considered it I realised that this is a huge opportunity and a step forward for all the products involved.  I hope you agree.

The birth of a new Domino!

How Apple’s UI Helped Scammers Steal

This week someone I care about very much was scammed out of thousands of pounds.  I am just getting past my anger over it and have spent the past few days trying to work out what I could have done to prevent it happening. I work in security, I believe I have told everyone I care about how to protect from the most basic things but Apple introduced a layer of obfuscation that I hadn’t told anyone to look for, because I hadn’t fully noticed it myself.

So what happened?  This person received an email from someone they knew (let’s say “Gabriella Davis’) with a simple “Good morning” type one liner.  They read the email on their iPad and replied to “Gabriella”.  Several back and forths later this conversation turned into a request to move some money.  In this business situation it wasn’t that unusual a request.  Obviously the “Gabriella” turned out to be a fake email address and the transferred money sent to “Aviva Insurance Ltd” (a valid company) was actually sent to an account owned by someone else and quickly extracted and closed down.

Why didn’t the person who was contacted check that the email they received was from the right Gabriella Davis?   They did.  It is one of the most basic things I teach people, always verify and dig into the email address.  However on iOS the email address was shown incorrectly.  Say the email was from “Gabriella Davis <fakeaddress@gmail.com>” and my real address is “Gabriella  Davis <gabriella.davis@turtleblog.info”> well Apple kindly matched the “Gabriella Davis” phrase part with a contact (me) in his contacts and showed not only my photo on the email as the sender but also - when clicking on it - filled in the gabriella@turtleblog.info address.

Even though the reply actually went to fakeaddress@gmail.com,  there was no way to see that from iOS.  

The person concerned took Apple’s representation of my contact information and my photo on the email as validation that it came from me and he was talking to me.  He wasn’t.  The same email opened in both Notes and Outlook immediately showed the fake address and the fake address was obvious when choosing reply from those clients.  it simply would not have happened if he hadn’t been using iOS.

My instructions to always check the sender address hadn’t been spoofed and always check you are sending to the right person turned out to be the worst possible advice in this case because the contact information Apple prefilled in gave a layer of confidence to the email that otherwise wouldn’t have been there.  “Of course it’s Gab, Apple are even showing me her picture and her email”.

I will probably not open comments on this entry as it isn’t entirely my story to tell and there is lots more information I am not prepared to share publicly.  If you know me and have a specific question you can reach out and I may be able to answer.  Otherwise please warn people you know.

  1. Never reply to important emails on an iOS device
  2. If in doubt , even a tiny bit of doubt, always forward and re-address
  3. Any sense of urgency in an email should be a red flag regardless of anything else
  4. There is no replacement, and always time,  for verbal verification

 

A Plea For 3 Mins Of Your Time To Read This

Recently a friend’s wife was diagnosed with kidney failure. Although she is on dialysis,  she is also on a registry hoping for a donor kidney.  After a few discussions and some internet research, I realised how little I know or understand about donating a kidney. How doing so could add years to a loved ones or a strangers life with little risk to myself.  When someone is on dialysis and waiting for a donor kidney, they need strength and they need hope.

Here’s a few things I didn’t know and I want to share because maybe you didn’t know them either.  I apologise in advance for my ignorance which may be exclusively mine. 

1. It’s not true that the most best match will be from a family member.  Genetic compatability is one aspect but with improved anti rejection medicines it’s very possible and often common for a friend or even a stranger to a donate. 

2. Anonymity is maintained throughout the process if you wish and the recipient may never find out that you tested or if you were a match.  You can start the testing process anonymously and choose not to proceed at any point.

3. The first step in finding out if you’re a match is simply to see if your blood type is a match. If it is you can move onto the next step which is a DNA match test.

4. You can choose to be tested to match for a specific person or to be added to a paired/pooled registry where your kidney will be given to someone you match with and the person you wanted to donate to will get prioritised higher on the match registry or even add your details to a general registry which commits you to nothing.

5. The path for potential donors involves not just ensuring you are physically able to donate a kidney but also emotionally prepared to do so. After you are a match you will often be assigned a counsellor to work with you on the decision to donate and the process itself.  Again if you decide to stop at any point, that is entirely confidential and anonymous

If you want to know more about kidney donation and what’s involved then please take a quick look at these sites http://www.giveakidney.org/ and https://www.kidneyresearchuk.org/health-information/living-donor-transplantation

To register as an organ donor or a living kidney donor in the UK please read this NHS site https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk