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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 05, 2006 Probing Why Phishing Remains Successful Online Photo Site Targets College Students Apple Runs Windows File Sharing Costs British Music Industry Nearly $2 Billion Negroponte Sticks to His Guns PROBING WHY PHISHING REMAINS SUCCESSFUL A new paper published by three academics tries to explain why, after all the press about phishing scams, so many computer users continue to fall for them. "Why Phishing Works," written by Rachna Dhamija of Harvard University and Marti Hearst and J. D. Tygar of the University of California at Berkeley, points out that despite a general awareness of phishing rackets, most users are unable to discern the difference between a legitimate Web site and one spoofed to look like the site of a bank or other financial institution. In one exercise, the researchers created a fake bank site that fooled 91 percent of subjects participating in the experiment. Similarly, 77 percent misidentified a legitimate E*Trade e-mail as fraudulent. Experts attribute some of the problem to ignorance and some to users' not taking simple precautions, such as looking closely at the address bar of Web pages. Bernhard Otupal, a crime intelligence officer for high-tech crime at Interpol, noted that in one recent phishing scam, a number of users went to a site pretending to be that of a prominent bank and entered personal information even though they were not even customers of that bank. ZDNet, 3 April 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6057000.html ONLINE PHOTO SITE TARGETS COLLEGE STUDENTS Photo-sharing site Webshots, which is owned by CNET Networks, said it will begin offering spaces on its site to colleges and universities. The spaces, which will be available to institutions in the United States, Canada, and Britain, will allow students to post announcements about parties and other events and to share photos of those events afterwards. Only users with .edu extensions on their e-mail accounts will be allowed to use the new service, and the college sites will include ads that target specific institutions. Webshots, which said 3 million of its 20 million monthly users are students, screens photos for nudity and other objectionable material, and the site includes advice not to include pictures that are likely to cause embarrassment to others. CNET, 3 April 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-6057189.html APPLE RUNS WINDOWS Apple Computer has introduced a software download that will allow users of its computers with Intel chips to run Microsoft's Windows operating system. Last year, Apple switched the processors in its line of computers from those made by IBM to chips made by Intel. The new download, called Boot Camp, lets Apple computers run either the Macintosh or the Windows operating system. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said the new offering will make Apple hardware more appealing to Windows users considering a change. The Boot Camp software will be included in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5, also known as Leopard. Apple said it will not offer support for installing Boot Camp, and it will not sell or support Windows software. Reuters, 5 April 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060405/tc_nm/apple_dc FILE SHARING COSTS BRITISH MUSIC INDUSTRY NEARLY $2 BILLION The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) estimates that illegal file sharing has cost nearly $2 billion (U.S.) over the past three years, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has filed lawsuits against another 2,000 individuals suspected of file trading in 10 countries. The targets of the new lawsuits are said to be uploaders, those who make copyrighted music available to others for download. The lawsuits are extending to countries such as Portugal, which had not previously been included in such suits. In previous lawsuits, those found guilty of infringement or who settled with the IFPI paid several thousand dollars in fines. The IFPI also pointed out that parents are responsible for the actions of their children and can be made to pay damages on their behalf. Despite the legal action against file sharers and the emergence of legal online music services, data from research firm XTN indicate that in the United Kingdom, illegal downloading has risen 3 percent since September, now representing 28 percent of all music downloads. BBC, 4 April 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4875142.stm NEGROPONTE STICKS TO HIS GUNS Nicholas Negroponte, professor at MIT and former director of the university's Media Lab, has responded to critics by reasserting his determination to develop a $100 laptop for developing nations. Negroponte said he has raised $29 million for his initiative, called One Laptop per Child, which has the backing of companies including Google, Advanced Micro Devices, Red Hat, and Quanta. Chief among Negroponte's critics are Microsoft and Intel, both of which have said the idea is fundamentally flawed. Negroponte dismissed those comments, insisting that providing such technology to children in developing nations will have a real impact on education and other kinds of development. Negroponte said his organization still plans to begin shipping computers--between 5 and 10 million of them--in early 2007 to countries including China, India, Egypt, Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria, and Argentina. Wired News, 4 April 2006 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70584-0.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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