Taken from the French "sauf," safety is the state of protection from undesirable events of all kinds from natural disasters to physical pain or emotional torment. Similar in concept, security is the condition of being protected against those very things that threaten safety.
As we all found out just before the end of last year, the importance of both of these words, and the ramifications of them, took on an entirely new significance when the news of a security breach of a well-used software platform on both the gay and straight sectors of the market came to light in a story that leapt from our industry headlines to those of national publications. That caused everyone to reexamine the pivotal role of Internet security, making us all feel not quite as safe as we thought we were.
This is indeed GAYVN, a publication meant to serve the members of our industry involved in the production and distribution of gay erotic entertainment, but importance of safety and security is not one limited to us, but also to our counterparts on the straight side and indeed, to everyone who has ever entered any personal information online, be it a surfer, a webmaster or a program owner.
The very issue of online security to prevent the end user from everything from phishing scams, spam, data mining, ad-ware and malicious viruses has spawned an entire industry, with some of its leaders, Norton and McAfee most notably, having seen their usage reach a saturation level where their products have become the cyber-equivalent of household names.
The widespread adoption of such online protection programs did not come in a vacuum or in sole response to a well-placed guerilla scare idea that caught on. It was in reaction to the growing problem of security in the electronic age where the firewalls pre-bundled with operating systems are viewed by hackers as toys and even the state-of-the-art protection of the United States Pentagon has been penetrated. That also made the national papers, and while that headline definitely reached the public and likely caused many of them to take action, the entire impact of online safety and security did not hit home, until now.
The firewall or system protection that can never be defeated has never been built and most likely never will be because as soon as that level of security is developed and released, those who seek to break it set out on their task immediately and will not stop until they are successful. The protectionists then develop a new version that will last until the hackers break it, too, and the cycle continues as it always has and, likely, always will.
As program owners, the key to providing the most secure possible environment for our affiliates and consumers is by doing everything we possibly can to lock down our data, and that starts with your sign-up pages.
Taking the extra step to have the information on those pages not on a regular web page, but on an encrypted secure socket layer containing an "https" in the URL as opposed to just "http:" is a great start. The little icon of a lock that appears in the browser's status line and/or the browser prompt will make your effort visible.
That is just one step in the reexamination of our own security you could take. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution or a three-bullet point list that will end the security dilemma, as eliminating all threats - the ones that exist now as well as the ones that will come to pass - is likely an impossible task. What is possible is to do everything in your power to provide the safest possible environment with the absolute minimum potential for any negative consequences. Experts in the field, of which I am not one, are the ones to seek counsel from in terms of what your entire security procedures should include and which ones are best suited to match your needs. As they say, an ounce of prevention sure beats a pound of blur.
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