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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006 Program Teaches High Schoolers About Computer Security Carnegie Mellon to Use Sims for Alice Software Maryland Researchers Unveil DRM Technology New Google Service Sells Books Online Online Library Tries to Avoid Problems of E-Publishing PROGRAM TEACHES HIGH SCHOOLERS ABOUT COMPUTER SECURITY High school students at a Catholic school in Rome, New York, are the first to participate in a computer-security course developed by the school, the U.S. Air Force's Research Lab in Rome, and Syracuse University. The 20-week course, which covers topics including data protection, network protocols and vulnerabilities, firewalls, data hiding, and wireless security, is based on a 10-week course developed at the Research Lab. Kamal Jabbour, principal computer engineer at the lab, said the new course was designed in part to encourage students to pursue college degrees and careers in computer security. Eric Spina, dean of Syracuse's engineering and computer science programs, said the program is considerably different from the kind of computer course available in many high schools today. This course, he said, exposes high school students to material not seen by many college students until their junior year. "A high school student with this kind of background," said Spina, "would be an asset anywhere they went." Starting next year, the course will be available statewide and could be offered nationally by 2008. Wired News, 11 March 2006 http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,70396-0.html CARNEGIE MELLON TO USE SIMS FOR ALICE SOFTWARE Carnegie Mellon University will incorporate technology from the Sims computer game into its Alice programming language, which the university developed as a teaching aid for new programmers. Alice is currently used at more than 60 colleges and universities and approximately 100 high schools, according to Randy Pausch, computer science professor and director of the Alice Project. Alice works to teach students the basics of programming by allowing them to work with three-dimensional animations. Pausch said that although the tool has proven successful, the animations remain crude. Steve Seabolt, vice president of Electronic Arts, maker of the popular Sims computer game, said that by adding the company's animation technology to Alice, "we are helping make computer science fun for a new generation of creative leaders." USA Today, 10 March 2006 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-03-12-sims-mellon_x.htm MARYLAND RESEARCHERS UNVEIL DRM TECHNOLOGY Researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering have developed digital rights management (DRM) technology that they say is highly resistant to the dilution that afflicts other DRM tools when many users collude on piracy. With most DRM technology, if 100 users work together to create a pirated copy of a movie, for example, the digital "fingerprint" is diluted 100 times, making it very difficult to identify those responsible. According to Assistant Professor Min Wu at the Clark School, with the new technology, if a group of users collude to copy a protected file, the researchers can identify all of those who participated. The new DRM technology can be used to protect movies, songs, images, and other documents. Sony BMG, which was recently involved in a brouhaha over attempts to add its own DRM protection, has expressed interest in the technology, as has the U.S. Department of Defense. PCWorld, 13 March 2006 http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;92233453;fp;2;fpid;1 NEW GOOGLE SERVICE SELLS BOOKS ONLINE Google has announced a new service by which it hopes to sell online access to copyrighted books on behalf of publishers, similar to a program announced last fall between Amazon.com and Random House. With Google's new service, users would be able to buy electronic access to the full text of a book, based on terms determined by the publisher, but not allowed to make or save copies of the book. Currently, users of Google's Book Search service can see small bits of books but cannot access the full texts. According to Google, the new program is intended to help publishers increase revenues. The announcement comes as Google's legal troubles continue over its Library Project, a program to scan millions of books, including copyrighted books and those in the public domain. Public domain materials would be available online in their entirety, while only selected portions of copyrighted books would be online. Publishers and other copyright holders have challenged Google in court, saying the company has no right to make digital copies of their books, regardless of how it limits access to those copies. ZDNet, 13 March 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6049002.html ONLINE LIBRARY TRIES TO AVOID PROBLEMS OF E-PUBLISHING Houston-based Questia Media is a digital-library company whose executives believe they have seen past the errors of e-publishing. CEO Troy Williams and Chairman Rod Canion, who founded Compaq, survived the fallout from failed electronic publishing efforts and now count about 150,000 subscribers to their company's academic offerings, which target high schools and their students. Questia continues, in part, because although users did not warm to the idea of reading a novel on a screen, they are much more willing to conduct academic research online, said Williams. Much of Questia's current library of 65,000 books consists of hard-to-find materials. Much of the library content is copyrighted, so Questia has worked out agreements with publishers and other copyright holders, most of whom are happy to have high school students exposed to their materials. CNET, 13 March 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6048801.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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