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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2005 France Calls Google's Ante Agence France Presse Takes Google to Court Dartmouth Decides to Penalize, but not Eliminate, Hackers Students Sued for Selling Guidebooks Online Bender Advises Brazil to Go Open Source China Blocks Access to Campus Web Pages Applying Old Scams to New Technologies FRANCE CALLS GOOGLE'S ANTE High-level officials in France have put their support behind an initiative to digitize European works of literature and make them available free online. President Jacques Chirac, as well as Jean-Noel Jeanneney, president of the National Library of France, and Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, minister of culture and communication, met recently to discuss efforts to digitize the "cultural patrimony" of France and Europe, a discussion evidently prompted by recently announced plans by Google to digitize vast amounts of English-language literature. Following the meeting, Donnedieu de Vabres published an essay called "Google Is Not the End of History," in which he commented that "we probably have a lot to learn from Google" and said the Google announcement "comes in an intellectual and cultural climate in which the digitization of documents and works seems to be the key to all problems." French officials rejected the notion that their actions are merely a reaction to Google or that their project should be seen as antithetical to or in competition with Google. Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 March 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/03/2005032101t.htm AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE TAKES GOOGLE TO COURT Agence France Presse (AFP) has filed a lawsuit against Google in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the search engine gives access to AFP headlines, stories, and photographs without proper permission. AFP does not make its content available free online, instead charging users subscription fees to access it. Officials from AFP said they have notified Google about the alleged copyright violations but that Google "continues in an unabated manner to violate AFP's copyrights." AFP is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million as well as an injunction forbidding Google from displaying further AFP content. CNET, 18 March 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5626341.html DARTMOUTH DECIDES TO PENALIZE, BUT NOT ELIMINATE, HACKERS Applicants to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College who used a hacker's tips to try to access admissions records were not automatically disqualified, though their actions were considered by school officials in their admissions decisions. The decision to consider applications of those involved in the hacking was made after consultations with faculty and staff and with the appliants themselves. Unlike officials at Harvard University, Duke University, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon University, administrators at Dartmouth decided that the hacking, while serious, "did not reach the level that would necessarily bar a person from being a valued member of the Tuck community," according to Paul Danos, dean of the school. Attempting to access restricted records was viewed by the school as "a very important negative factor" in considering the applications, but ultimately the school's decision did not rest on that single factor. Of the 17 applicants involved, some were admitted, and those who enroll will be monitored and counseled. The incident will also become a part of their files. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 18 March 2005 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05077/473361.stm STUDENTS SUED FOR SELLING GUIDEBOOKS ONLINE Publisher John Wiley and Sons has filed lawsuits against a number of individuals for selling guidebooks online that include answers to tests and assignments in certain of the company's textbooks. The publisher also said it has reached settlements with about 150 individuals, most of them students, after investigating sales of the guidebooks--which the company does not sell but provides only to professors--on eBay. No faculty have been implicated so far. Those named in the suits did not respond to the publisher when it contacted them about the illicit sales. According to Roy S. Kaufman, legal director of Wiley, illegal copies of the text are still widely available online, despite the company's efforts. "This is a new form of cheating and copyright violation," said Kaufman, "with a Malthusian growth cycle." Inside Higher Ed, 18 March 2005 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/cheating BENDER ADVISES BRAZIL TO GO OPEN SOURCE In a letter to the Brazilian government, Walter Bender, director of MIT's Media Lab, argued that open source software is a better option for low-cost computers than scaled-back versions of proprietary systems. Brazil is sponsoring a program designed to sell inexpensive computers, with subsidies from the government, to as many as one million people in the country. Brazil has been a leader in the open source movement, and some in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration have lobbied for excluding Microsoft from the program. Deciding what software will be offered has been a contentious issue, with some recommending that buyers be given a choice between open source or, for slightly more money, a simplified version of Windows. Indeed, Bender, who noted that the opinions in his letter were his own and not those of MIT, also supports giving consumers a choice. However, in his letter Bender stated, "Free software is far better on the dimensions of cost, power, and quality." Bender also noted that an open source application would let users learn how the code functions and work with it--an educational opportunity not possible with proprietary software. Reuters, 17 March 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7939591 CHINA BLOCKS ACCESS TO CAMPUS WEB PAGES Chinese officials have blocked outside access to a number of online bulletin boards operated by universities. Such bulletin boards have become popular vehicles for discussion about topics including politics, pop culture, and pornography, subjects which Chinese authorities have not been shy about censoring. Tsinghua University's Shuimu Tsinghua bulletin board was one of those restricted recently, joining bulletin boards at Wuhan University and Nankai University, as well as one at Peking University that was shut down entirely. According to a student from Tsinghua University who asked not to be named, the Ministry of Education's reasoning for blocking outside access was "because the bulletin board was only supposed to be a platform for internal exchange within the university." He added, "Students are calm about it, but it seems that non-student users are angry because they can no longer get access." Reuters, 21 March 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7958355 APPLYING OLD SCAMS TO NEW TECHNOLOGIES The emergence of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone service has opened a new door for hackers and others to fool users. Using the Internet to transmit phone calls allows callers to spoof Caller ID systems, something that isn't possible with traditional phone service. Although telemarketers are required by the Federal Communications Commission to properly identify themselves, Caller ID spoofing is otherwise not prohibited. As a result, someone can, for example, call Western Union, which requires customers to call from their home phones to initiate money transfers, using a faked source number, and make a fraudulent transfer. In other instances, debt collectors and private investigators use Caller ID spoofing to trick people into answering their phones and possibly divulging information they otherwise would not. Scams similar to e-mail phishing rackets also take advantage of Caller ID spoofing, deceiving people into believing that a caller is at a bank or a financial institution and helping persuade them to reveal personal information to the caller. Wired News, 20 March 2005 http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66954,00.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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