Edupage, May 23 & 25, 2005
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- Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 11:33:08 -0400
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Educational CyberPlAYGround
Admins, Parents & Teachers Learn How to Keep Your Child
Safe on the Interent -- Trouble Areas for Kids
Find out what your kids have put up online, their names,
address, pictures, what they think. This needs to be
supervised and you won't be able to keep up with
what is going on here. Chat Rooms, Blogs, Instant
Messaging, IRC, Newsgroups - they don't understand
that they they have gone public and have lost their privacy.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/morestuff4.html
RSS NEWS FEEDS Updated Daily Area
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Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association
whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting
the intelligent use of information technology.
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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, MAY 23, 2005
Google Under Fire for Library Project
Databases Go Portable
Valdosta Investigates Security Breach
Latest Loss of Personal Information: MCI
GOOGLE UNDER FIRE FOR LIBRARY PROJECT
The Association of American University Presses has become the latest
group to voice objections to Google Print for Libraries, a project in
which the search engine is scanning some or all of the books in five
university and public libraries in the United States and Britain. In a
letter to Google, the organization questions the notion that copyright
law allows Google to scan copyrighted works into its database, even if
only small portions of those texts are available online. Peter Givler,
the group's executive director, said that copyright law fundamentally
applies to making copies, regardless of what is done with them. The
Publishers Association, which represents publishers in England, has
also objected to the project, raising many of the same objections as
the Association of American University Presses. For its part, Google
said it is working with publishers to address their concerns and to
make the project beneficial to them as well. Hugh P. Jones, copyright
counsel of the Publishers Association, said he has been in contact with
Google but that so far the two groups have failed to agree.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 May 2005
http://chronicle.com/free/2005/05/2005052301t.htm
DATABASES GO PORTABLE
As handheld computing devices become increasingly common, organizations
that maintain a variety of databases are modifying their content to
allow for easy access by handheld devices. Chemical Abstracts Service,
which is a division of the American Chemical Society, is finalizing a
"mobile" version of a database that contains data on roughly 25 million
molecules, allowing users of handheld devices to access molecular
weights, boiling points, and other information in a format designed for
portable devices. The final database will be available to the public
later this year. Medical sciences already have a broad range of
databases designed for handhelds, and many librarians see the trend
continuing for other fields. As for the upcoming chemistry database,
reactions are mixed, even at single institutions. At Yale University,
David Austin, associate professor of chemistry, said the database will
be extremely valuable, whereas Glenn Micalizio, assistant professor of
organic chemistry, said he sees little value in it, given widespread
access to laptops and desktops.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 May 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i38/38a03401.htm
VALDOSTA INVESTIGATES SECURITY BREACH
Officials at Valdosta State University (VSU) are investigating a
security breach in which a computer hacker may have accessed personal
information for as many as 40,000 students and employees. Last week, a
hacker gained access to a campus server that contained information for
the university's VSU 1Cards, which serve both as ID and debit cards
for students and staff. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking
into the matter and has advised those affected to notify credit
reporting agencies about the possible theft. The database that was
accessed contained information on all VSU students since 1997, current
employees of the institution, and employees who left between 1997 and
1999. A similar breach occurred last month at Georgia Southern
University.
Associated Press, 21 May 2005
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/4515697/detail.html
LATEST LOSS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION: MCI
Officials from long-distance carrier MCI are investigating the loss of
employee data after a laptop was stolen from the car of an MCI
financial analyst. The laptop contained names and Social Security
numbers for about 16,500 employees, whom the company has notified. A
spokesperson for MCI said the machine was password-protected but did
not say whether the employee data were encrypted. MCI is reviewing the
incident to see whether the analyst violated any company policies, such
as those concerning what types of information may be put on laptops and
what information must be encrypted. MCI is also taking this opportunity
to make sure employees who have access to sensitive information are
clear on company policies. The company said that so far there have been
no reports that any of the information on the laptop has been sold or
misused.
Wall Street Journal, 23 May 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111680003245940129,00.html
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JOB SEARCH DATABASES IDENTITY THEFT
Your Career - Online Resume and Search Engines
Warning some job postings may be fakes intended
to collect personal information for identity theft.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Internet/SEARCHENGINES/JobList.html
http://tinyurl.com/d4sq9
Your Career - Online Resume and Search Engines
Once you transmit your resume' into the
digital realm, you quickly lose control over
which and how many people see that information.
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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2005
IBM to Provide Open Source Resources to Higher Education
FTC Fighting Zombies
Spreading Spyware through an Affiliate Program
House Takes Two Steps Against Spyware
FBI Tries Again to Replace Computer Systems
IBM TO PROVIDE OPEN SOURCE RESOURCES TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Long a backer of open source technologies, IBM has announced several
initiatives to promote open source in higher education. The company
will expand its partnership with Linux reseller Red Hat to help higher
education develop job skills on Linux as well as IBM products.
According to IBM, the program involves institutions ranging from
research universities to vocational schools. Separately, IBM will
provide open source training and curriculum resources worth $7 million
to the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
That program is renewable for up to four years at a value of $1.2
million per year. IBM also said it will offer a course to institutions
in its Academic Initiative program, which focuses on teaching
open-standards technology skills. The course, called Services Sciences,
Management, and Engineering, addresses skills needed for a
service-based economy.
ZDNet, 24 May 2005
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5718616.html
FTC FIGHTING ZOMBIES
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will appeal to 3,000 Internet
service providers (ISPs) worldwide to help identify and cut off service
to hijacked computers. Such "zombies," as they are commonly called, are
used by spammers to send millions of unsolicited e-mails. By some
accounts, zombie machines send 50 to 80 percent of all spam. Though not
requirements, the FTC's recommendations include monitoring subscriber
accounts for large amounts of e-mail coming from a particular machine
and helping those customers with hijacked computers clean their
systems. The FTC said that 25 other countries are participating in the
effort, though China--the country believed to be the source of a large
percentage of the world's spam--is not one of them. Dave McClure,
president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, said that most
U.S. ISPs already do most or all of the things recommended by the FTC.
He noted that ISPs are forbidden by law from reading subscriber
e-mails, saying that it can be difficult to distinguish between "spam
coming across your network and your local charitable organization
sending out its monthly newsletter."
Reuters, 24 May 2005
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8592338
SPREADING SPYWARE THROUGH AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
A business based in Russia is adopting the affiliate-program approach
to spreading spyware around the globe. Called iframeDOLLARS, the
company is offering Web site operators 6.1 cents for every computer on
which the Web site installs code that exploits vulnerabilities in
Windows and Internet Explorer. Microsoft has issued patches for the
weaknesses, but unpatched computers remain at risk. The malicious code
includes backdoors, Trojans, spyware, and adware. Operators of the
iframeDOLLARS site claim to have paid out nearly $12,000 last week
alone, which would translate to nearly 200,000 infected computers.
Although spyware expert Richard Stiennon called the tactic "brazen" and
said iframeDOLLARS might be making quite a bit of money from its
scheme, Dan Hubbard, the head of security at Websense, gave
iframeDOLLARS less credit. He noted that the company has been around
for a while, trying various methods to install malicious code, and he
said a number of others have tried similar affiliate programs to
accomplish the same thing.
TechWeb, 24 May 2005
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/163700705
HOUSE TAKES TWO STEPS AGAINST SPYWARE
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two separate bills
this week designed to address the growing problem of spyware. HR 29,
introduced by Mary Bono (R-Calif.), would impose stiff fines on anyone
found guilty of distributing computer code that results in browser
hijacking, modifying bookmarks, collecting personal information without
permission, and disabling security mechanisms. Violators can be fined
as much as $3 million per incident. One of only four Representatives
who voted against Bono's bill, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) had introduced
another bill, HR 744, that also prohibits installing spyware.
Lofgren's bill, which passed 395 to 1, would impose fines and jail
time to anyone found guilty. Both bills now go to the Senate, which
failed to act on a spyware bill sent by the House last year. Senators
have said they will not allow a similar situation this year.
CNET, 23 May 2005
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5717658.html
FBI TRIES AGAIN TO REPLACE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
After spending several years and $170 million on a failed computer
system, the FBI said it now has a new system in the works, the first
part of which will be operational by the end of 2006. After September
11, 2001, federal officials identified a need for a computer system
that would allow various agencies to share information efficiently to
help prevent similar attacks in the future. The FBI's Virtual Case
File, designed to meet that need, was riddled with problems and
ultimately was not viable. At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee
meeting, FBI Director Robert Mueller conceded that Virtual Case File
would not be implemented and expressed his regret that so much time and
money were wasted on it. The new electronic information management
system will be called Sentinel.
Reuters, 24 May 2005
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8593132
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