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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 09, 2005 Harvard Rejects Applicants Who Peeked Hackers Compromise Publisher's Database AOL Enters Phone Market HARVARD REJECTS APPLICANTS WHO PEEKED Officials from the Harvard Business School said they will reject 119 applicants who used a hacker's instructions to try to find out whether they had been accepted by the school. Calling the action "unethical" and saying that it cannot be rationalized, a statement from Harvard said, "Any applicant found to have done so will not be admitted to this school." Administrators at Carnegie Mellon University have also said they will reject candidates who attempted to gain unauthorized access to admissions records. Applicants to several other institutions affected--including Stanford University, Duke University, and Dartmouth College--will have to wait to find out how those schools decide to treat the situation. Using the instructions posted online by a hacker, applicants were able for a short period to use a name and password to access the admissions records. Institutions have been able to identify applicants who accessed admission records based on the name and password. For many who looked, there was no decision in the system, and school officials stressed that even if an applicant located an answer, those decisions were not necessarily final. Some have criticized Harvard officials for responding too harshly to the incident. Wall Street Journal, 8 March 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111029921614173536,00.html HACKERS COMPROMISE PUBLISHER'S DATABASE Hackers compromised a database owned by publisher Reed Elsevier, gaining access to names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and driver's license numbers of about 32,000 individuals. Other information, including credit history and financial data, was reportedly not involved. The breach happened at Seisint, a data-collection company that the publisher bought last year. Seisint is a competitor to ChoicePoint, which recently reported an incident in which hackers accessed records on 145,000 individuals. According to officials at Reed Elsevier, the fraud came to light when a billing complaint from a customer showed unauthorized activity with a user name and password. Reed Elsevier is contacting the individuals affected and working with the FBI and the Secret Service to locate the hackers. CNET, 9 March 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5605736.html AOL ENTERS PHONE MARKET America Online (AOL) has announced it will begin offering voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone service to some of its customers by the end of the month, with wider availability in the future. Pricing for the service was not announced, though other VoIP programs typically offer unlimited calls within the United States for as little as $20 per month. AOL's service is expected to tie into its popular instant messaging application, allowing users to see if others are available to talk on the phone. Jonathan Miller, CEO of AOL, touted the new offering, saying AOL can use its "national footprint" to "help the entire industry become well known." The move puts AOL, which has struggled to remain competitive with other broadband service providers, in a position to compete with providers of traditional phone service as well as a host of companies offering VoIP service, including Vonage and AT&T. New York Times, 8 March 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-AOL-Internet-Phones.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. To access resources including articles, books, conference sessions, contracts, effective practices, plans, policies, position descriptions, and blog content, go to http://www.educause.edu/resources ***************************************************** CONFERENCES For information on all EDUCAUSE learning and networking opportunities, see http://www.educause.edu/31 ***************************************************** COPYRIGHT Edupage copyright (c) 2005, EDUCAUSE
