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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, DECEMBER 09, 2005 State Supreme Court Okays Technology Fee GAO Warns of Bad Data in WHOIS Study Says Risk of ID Theft Exaggerated Putting the Numbers to Software Piracy STATE SUPREME COURT OKAYS TECHNOLOGY FEE Overruling two lower court decisions, the Texas Supreme Court has found that the Dallas County Community College District did not violate state law in the late 1990s when it raised technology fees. In 1998, students filed a class-action lawsuit against the district, arguing that state law requires the district to tie technology fees with bond payments, which the district did not do. The suit also contended that the fee was imposed under the duress of students. The trial court and an appeals court both found for the plaintiff and ordered the district to pay $12 million to 150,000 students. The state's highest court overturned those rulings, however, saying the district did not act improperly. The court also found that the fee was not applied illegally. Roger L. Mandel, an attorney for the students, said he would seek a rehearing on the question of whether the fee was voluntary. Mandel said that the district, in its argument before the court, did not provide evidence that the fee was voluntary. "The court," he said, "came up with reasons completely on its own." The district has since moved the disputed fees into tuition costs. Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005120901t.htm GAO WARNS OF BAD DATA IN WHOIS A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that as many as 2.3 million Web addresses are owned by individuals or organizations that cannot be identified due to bad data in the WHOIS database for .com, .net, and .org domains. The report said that 5 percent of all addresses have incomplete or inaccurate information about the owner, in effect creating a safe haven for operators of Web-based scams, such as phishing attacks or the distribution of spam and viruses. When authorities try to track down those responsible for such malicious activities, they rely on the WHOIS database to find out who operates suspect domains. When the information in WHOIS is wrong, authorities hit a dead end. The Federal Trade Commission has been urging a clean-up of the database for a long time, but progress has been slow. Data are typically entered into the database through domain registrars, which bear some responsibility for ensuring the integrity of the information, along with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Despite an ICANN policy requiring registrars to remind domain owners to update their information regularly, a system that tracks reports of complaints, however, indicates that only about 60 percent of problems are resolved. Internet News, 8 December 2005 http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3569521 STUDY SAYS RISK OF ID THEFT EXAGGERATED A new study conducted by California-based fraud detection company ID Analytics found that the risk of identity theft may not be as high as many believe it to be. The company analyzed data concerning four incidents in which sensitive information for roughly 500,000 people was compromised. ID Analytics followed the data for six months and found that the risk of having your identity stolen based on compromised information is relatively small. Further, the study showed that the greater the number of people affected in a breach, the lower the chances were that anyone would have their identity stolen. The company went on to say that efforts to notify every individual affected when sensitive information is illegally accessed might be doing more harm than good. Rather than notify everyone, according to ID Analytics, a company should spend its time and money helping consumers who are actually affected by a data breach. CNN, 7 December 2005 http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/07/technology/id_study.reut/ PUTTING THE NUMBERS TO SOFTWARE PIRACY A study conducted by research firm IDC on behalf of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) indicates that as much as 35 percent of software is pirated, down only about 1 percent from last year. The study covered 70 countries, representing 99 percent of the global market for IT spending. Software piracy is significantly lower than it was in the early 1990s, when, for example, the piracy rate in Europe was nearly 80 percent. That number has fallen to 35 percent, but, according to Beth Scott, European vice president of the BSA, the current rate is still 20 times higher than losses to shoplifting. The IDC study estimates that a reduction in the piracy rate to 25 percent would lead to the generation of 2.4 million jobs and $400 billion of economic growth. Piracy remains rampant in some countries, including China (90 percent) and Russia (87 percent). The problem is so bad that China, which is one of the world's largest markets for PCs, is not on the list of top 20 global markets for software because so much software is obtained illegally. CNET, 8 December 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5987127.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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