Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Attention hackers!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071029115501252

Privacy, Personal Information At Risk On Campuses

Monday, October 29 2007 @ 11:55 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A survey by CDW Government of 151 higher education IT directors and managers shows that there has been little progress in improving data security.

... It reveals that, despite increased attention to better IT security in higher education, there has been little progress. The report concludes that less than half of campus networks are safe from attack, with 58% reporting at least one security breach in the last year. Data loss or theft has increased 10% in the last year, up to 43%, according to the CDW-G. That includes loss or theft of staff and student personal information.

Source - InformationWeek



Because they're better at it than I am...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071029001349871

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, October 29 2007 @ 07:42 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.

Source - Chronicles of Dissent



Oh, the horror!

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071029/182024.shtml

Researching British Family History No Longer Possible With Paper Records

from the looking-through-the-past dept

Though geneaology is one of the most popular activities on the Internet, family historians in the UK are used to going to the Family Records Centre in London and doing research the old fashioned way, by looking through the written records of births, deaths and marriages. So, their decision to cease all access to paper records this weekend has caused quite an uproar amongst researchers. The records are still available via microfiche, but researchers claim that the microfiche is illegible for many of the records on file. The project to provide online access to all of the records is slated to complete sometime in mid-2009, but that timeline, as with most IT projects, could slip further. The question remains though, while searching through the records may be aided with its digitization -- the project will create an online index of 250 million births -- how accurate will the digitized data be? The paper records are being stored permanently in Christchurch, so the project, outsourced to India are using the same illegible microfiche currently available in place of the paper versions. Or, perhaps the researchers will find that the ease of use afforded by online technologies will actually lead to them finding data more easily, which not only make their jobs easier, but also expose many more people to the joys of researching their pasts.



Always un-amusing

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016373.html

October 29, 2007

FTC Releases Consumer Fraud Survey

Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today released a statistical survey of fraud in the United States that shows that 30.2 million adults – 13.5 percent of the adult population – were victims of fraud during the year studied. More people – an estimated 4.8 million U.S. consumers – were victims of fraudulent weight-loss products than any of the other frauds covered by the survey. Fraudulent foreign lottery offers and buyers club memberships tied for second place in the survey. Lottery scams occur when consumers are told they have won a foreign lottery that they had not entered. Victims supplied either personal information such as their bank account numbers or paid money to receive their “winnings.” In the case of buyers clubs, victims are billed for a “membership” they had not agreed to buy. An estimated 3.2 million people were victims of these frauds during the period studied."



As we predicted...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071029/104136.shtml

Daylight Savings Day Massacre... Part II

from the not-so-bad... dept

Back in the spring time, we noted how there was as lot of hype coming in the press about how the change in when Daylight Saving Time started would be just like another Y2K. In the end, it turned out to be pretty much exactly like Y2K: a lot of hype, a few minor issues that were easily taken care of and no major problems. Given that, it appears the press didn't bother to whip everyone up into a frenzy for this past weekend, which is when the latest time shift would have happened if Congress hadn't changed the schedule. In fact, we hadn't heard anything at all, but it didn't seem to change the results. Joseph Beck writes in to let us know of assorted minor time change problems including screwed up parking meters. In other words, basically the same totally minor problems that happened in the spring... or in years past when people simply forgot to change their clocks. My cell phone was among those that got the time shift wrong, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out the problem and fix it Sunday morning when I noticed it had the wrong time. So, basically, hype or no hype, every time there's a time change, there are going to be a few minor problems, but it's no "aclockalypse now".

[There is a video... Bob]



For my Business Continuity students

http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/10/29/pandemic-planning-at-the-community-level-online-database/

Pandemic Planning at the Community Level: Online Database

29th October 2007

There’s a new Web site devoted to bringing together community-level practices for dealing with public health emergencies. At the moment that site has over 130 practices from four countries, 22 states, and 33 counties. It’s available at PandemicPractices.org .

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