“It is better to look secure than to be secure” Hernando

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/06/1347214&from=rss

AOL's Embarassing Password Woes

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday May 06, @10:26AM from the top-sekrit dept. Security

An anonymous reader writes "AOL.com users may think they have up to sixteen characters to use as a password, but they'd be wrong, thanks to this security artifact detailed by The Washington Post's Security Fix blog: "Well, it turns out that when someone signs up for an AOL.com account, the user appears to be allowed to enter up to a 16-character password. AOL's system, however, doesn't read past the first eight characters." This means that a user who uses "password123" or any other obvious eight-character password with random numbers on the end is in effect using just that lame eight-character password."

Don't confuse me with the facts!

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070504/130335.shtml

GAO To The Rescue Again: Suggests Counterfeiting Not Nearly As Big A Problem As Industry Claims

from the hurray-GAO dept

We were recently pointing out that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) seems to be doing a consistently fantastic job cutting through bogus and misleading claims from politicians and corporations. They've trashed e-voting machine testing, pointed out that grandstanding politicians were wrong in suggesting file sharing resulted in more porn, told the FCC that the way it measures broadband competition is bogus (multiple times) and recently explained how the way the patent system is currently set up, it could be slowing down the development of new drugs, rather than speeding it up. It really is nice that the GAO hasn't become politicized and really does take its job pretty seriously. The latest report from the GAO suggests (not too surprisingly) that all the whining you've been hearing about counterfeit products coming into the US, including the claim that 5 to 7% of world trade is in counterfeit products, is totally overblown. The GAO looked at the actual data and found that the numbers suggest a much, much smaller percentage of the economy is built on counterfeit goods.

Worth a listen?

http://www.privacydigest.com/2007/05/01/lauren+gelman+location+and+online+privacy

Lauren Gelman - Location and online privacy

May 1, 2007 - 1:53am — MacRonin

Lauren Gelman of Stanford University explain aspects of current U.S. law that protect users' location and online privacy, and areas where the law fails and technology must step in.

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail1787.html

Lauren Gelman Stanford University

Privacy

Play now: | Download MP3 | Help with Listening

Insight!

http://digg.com/tech_news/A_New_Way_to_Look_at_Networking

A New Way to Look at Networking

A background on the origins of networking as we know it and where it's headed. This guy has some pretty cool ideas; definitely worth the hour and a half to watch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6972678839686672840&hl=en

Dang lawyers!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/07/018211&from=rss

EFF and Dvorak Blame the Digg Revolt On Lawyers

Posted by kdawson on Sunday May 06, @11:26PM from the jet-fuel-on-a-fire dept. Censorship

enharmonix writes "A bit of an update on the recent Digg revolt over AACS. The NYTimes has taken notice and written quite a decent article that actually acknowledges that the take-down notices amount to censorship and documents instances of the infamous key appearing in purely expressive form. I was pleased to see the similarity to 2600 and deCSS was not lost on the Times either. More interesting is that the EFF's Fred von Lohmann blames the digg revolt on lawyers. And in an opinion piece, John Dvorak expands on that theme."

Always informative...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INTERNET_STUDY?SITE=VALYD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Survey Defines Split in Technology Use

By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer May 6, 9:39 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- A broad survey about the technology people have, how they use it, and what they think about it shatters assumptions and reveals where companies might be able to expand their audiences.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that adult Americans are broadly divided into three groups: 31 percent are elite technology users, 20 percent are moderate users and the remainder have little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.

But Americans are divided within each group, according to a Pew analysis of 2006 data released Sunday.

The high-tech elites, for instance, are almost evenly split into:

- "Omnivores," who fully embrace technology and express themselves creatively through blogs and personal Web pages.

- "Connectors," who see the Internet and cell phones as communications tools.

- "Productivity enhancers," who consider technology as largely ways to better keep up with their jobs and daily lives.

- "Lackluster veterans," those who use technology frequently but aren't thrilled by it.

... The Pew study found 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it currently does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently and find connectivity annoying.

Eight percent - mostly women in the early 50s - occasionally use technology and might use more given more experience. They tend to still be on dial-up access and represent potential high-speed customers "with the right constellation of services offered," Horrigan said.

... Find out which category you fall under: http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz

Attention Teachers and administrators!

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/06/2139207&from=rss

Real Open Source Applications for Education?

Posted by kdawson on Sunday May 06, @09:21PM from the stacking-the-blocks dept. Education Software

openeducation writes "I have been researching open source solutions for K-12 education pretty heavily for the past year and have been disappointed to find no real alternatives to the large administrative applications like student information systems, data warehouse, ERP, etc. But recently, I ran across Open Solutions for Education. This group appears to be making a serious effort at creating a stack of open source applications that are alternatives to the large and costly commercial packages. Centre, an open source student information system that has been around for a while, is part of the solution stack. They have a data warehouse and are proposing an open source SIF alternative and an assessment solution. While the proof is in the pudding, these guys have working demos and they look pretty good for a first run. K-12 education is in dire financial straits and solutions like these could help with lower TCO. Plus, education is a collaborative industry already, which makes it a good fit for open source."

Dilbert shops for ethics...

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert21466330070507.gif

Some things never change...

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/medieval_tech_s.html

Medieval Tech Support

Saul Griffith sent me a pointer to a hilarious video about medieval tech support for the newly introduced book.