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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2005 Marketscore Raises Ire at Several Campuses UNC Hard Drive with Personal Information Disappears Blogs Moving into Academia Tech Companies Form Grid Computing Group MARKETSCORE RAISES IRE AT SEVERAL CAMPUSES Officials at a number of U.S. institutions are warning students about what they consider a security risk posed by Marketscore software, which promises those who install it significantly greater Internet connection speeds. Unlike applications more commonly referred to as spyware, Marketscore requires users to accept its terms and conditions before installing it. Once loaded, the software routes all of a users Web traffic through Marketscore servers, which then sell usage data to various clients. In monitoring traffic, however, the Marketscore servers also monitor encrypted information, such as user names and passwords, credit card numbers, and other confidential information. Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame have decided to completely block Marketscore from campus networks. Steven J. Schuster, director of IT security at Cornell, called the company's handling of encrypted traffic "absolutely criminal." Officials from Columbia University opted to block Marketscore from what they called its "critical servers," and students who use Marketscore to access other servers at the university receive e-mail warnings about the risk to personal data. At Notre Dame, students who try to use Marketscore receive a warning explaining the risk. Executives from Marketscore defended their products and said they make every effort to explain to users what they do with collected information. Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 January 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i21/21a03701.htm UNC HARD DRIVE WITH PERSONAL INFORMATION DISAPPEARS News of a missing hard drive at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) in Greeley went from bad to worse when university officials revealed that the device included personal information not only for employees but also for their beneficiaries. The hard drive contained data including names, Social Security numbers, and bank account numbers for nearly 16,000 current and past employees of the university, as well as for beneficiaries, bringing the total to perhaps more than 30,000. At a meeting of about 200 university employees, UNC President Kay Norton said that although the school does not know whether the drive was stolen or was simply misplaced, the odds of theft increase as the days pass without locating the drive. Norton said, "We have to assume the worst," and UNC has launched a criminal investigation. UNC will not reimburse individuals for the costs of changing accounts to protect themselves, according to Norton, but some banks will change accounts without a charge. The Denver Channel, 23 January 2005 http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4121643/detail.html BLOGS MOVING INTO ACADEMIA On a number of campuses in the United Kingdom, blogs have begun to migrate from the technology fringes to the mainstream of educational tools. At the University of Warwick, more than 2,500 students and staff have signed up for the university's blog service, making it one of the largest academic blogging operations. John Dale, head of IT services at Warwick, said, "We believe that blogging may open new opportunities for students and staff." Robert O'Toole, a Ph.D. student at Warwick, said his blog has allowed him "to speak to academic communities across the U.K. and [to gain] knowledge from strangers. Blog[ging] has allowed me to write in a single place almost daily and develop things in fairly cohesive fashion." Esther Maccallum-Stewart, a history researcher at Sussex University, uses a blog in her research and her teaching. She said her blog has become an invaluable part of her work and argued that academic institutions need to avoid becoming "too insular, constructing their own language and cliques which do nothing to promote the getting of knowledge." On the other hand, David Supple, Web strategy manager at Birmingham University, cautions universities not to rush into new technologies. He advises considering how best to implement tools such as blogs "without creating legal and reputational issues for the institution." BBC, 23 January 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4194669.stm TECH COMPANIES FORM GRID COMPUTING GROUP A group of leading high-tech companies has announced the formation of a consortium that will work to bring grid computing to corporate enterprises. The Globus Consortium, which includes IBM, Intel, HP, Sun Microsystems, and Nortel Networks, will work to develop grid computing tools geared specifically for corporations, as opposed to existing tools, which typically focus on the needs of academic and research organizations. The consortium's work will be based on software from the Globus Project, which was founded in 1996 by a group of researchers at labs and universities. All of the Globus Project's applications are freely shared and open source. The formation of the new consortium echoes the move of Linux, the open source operating system, from its beginnings in research laboratories into the corporate world. As Ken King, vice president of grid computing at IBM, said, "It starts in government labs and universities and then moves into broader commercial use." New York Times, 24 January 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/technology/24grid.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. 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