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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, MAY 09, 2005 Moving Beyond Lists for Searching the Web U.K. Schools Look to Open Source to Cut Costs Antispam Blacklist Targets 900,000 Student Shuts Down Blog After Threat from Singapore MOVING BEYOND LISTS FOR SEARCHING THE WEB Supporters of non-text-based representations of Web search results got a boost this week as Groxis, the makers of Grokker, released a version of the software that runs as a Java plug-in for browsers. Previously, the software, which returns search results in a circular "map," was only available as a separate, $49 application. The company will now depend on revenue from advertisements placed next to search results by search engine Yahoo. For the past nine months, 2,000 students and faculty of Stanford University have been testing the Grokker software, which has earned a strong following there. Michael A. Keller, Stanford's head librarian and an adviser to Groxis, said the application allows users to find appropriate information more quickly. Another company, Vivisimo, is developing a search engine that, while still text-based, displays groups of folders next to ranked lists of results. The folders give users another method of sifting through search results for useful resources. New York Times, 9 May 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/technology/09yahoo.html U.K. SCHOOLS LOOK TO OPEN SOURCE TO CUT COSTS An upcoming report from the British Information and Communication Technology agency is expected to endorse open source technologies for the country's schools as a way to significantly cut costs. The British Educational Communications and Technology Association--the organization that carried out the research on which the agency's report is based--reportedly found that primary schools in the United Kingdom could trim their computer budgets by almost half by switching from proprietary to open source software. Microsoft, which provides much of the software used in British schools, currently has a deal with the U.K. Department of Education and Skills allowing it to sponsor individual schools for up to $28,250. Some have suggested that this arrangement has left administrators at those schools reluctant to enter into open source projects for fear of losing sponsorship. CNET, 9 May 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5700321.html ANTISPAM BLACKLIST TARGETS 900,000 Officials at the Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) have placed e-mail addresses of 900,000 Telewest customers on its blacklist, saying that computers using those addresses may have been hijacked and used for sending spam. Many organizations use the SPEWS blacklists as e-mail filters--anything coming from an address on the list is blocked. Telewest acknowledged that some subscribers of its Blueyonder broadband service have had their computers compromised by computer viruses and turned into e-mail zombies. Company officials said they are working to contact those users with suspiciously high volumes of e-mail traffic to help them clean their machines. "As you can imagine," said a statement from the company, "[it] is a time-consuming task." Matt Peachey of antispam software firm Ironport said he doubts all of the blocked computers have in fact been turned into spam zombies by hackers. Peachey accused SPEWS of casting too wide a net in its blacklisting. BBC, 9 May 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4528927.stm STUDENT SHUTS DOWN BLOG AFTER THREAT FROM SINGAPORE Chen Jiahao, a graduate student in chemical physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shut down his personal blog and issued two apologies after an agency of the government in Singapore threatened to sue Chen for defamation. A*Star, the agency in Singapore dealing with science and research, accused Chen, who is from Singapore, of libelous statements that "went way beyond fair comment." The agency demanded a public apology but said Chen's first apology was insincere and insisted on another. A*Star said it welcomes various opinions and perspectives, but many in the journalism community rejected that claim. Singapore has long had a reputation for using tactics including lawsuits to silence critics. Organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders have decried Singapore's threats to Chen and journalists. "Chen criticized some of A*Star's policies," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters without Borders' Internet freedom desk, "but there was nothing defamatory in what he wrote." Reuters, 9 May 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8422422 ***************************************************** 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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