Duke profs blog (and their PR folks yammer on about it)

Duke discovers blogging! Stop the presses! Duke PoliSci prof poses as pro-wrestler (an inside joke that isn't quite explained in the article: senior PoliSci Prof. Allan Kornberg was a once professional wrestler known as "Kosher Krusher Kornberg").

A blog, which is short for “weblog,” is an online public journal where the creator and his or her readers can post comments and responses. Michael Munger, chair of the Department of Political Science, posts daily offerings of personal insight as “Killer Grease Mungowitz” on his online blog “Mungowitz End.”

“My blog has nothing to do with my teaching,” Munger said. “It is politically incorrect. And I am pretending to be a professional wrestler.”

Read about Dukie blogs.

South African HIV alerts via SMS

Hey was doing random research and thought this article (about texting being used in healthcare services) was interesting since we've talked about SMS so much in class:

Texting to help SA HIV patients

Podcasting

I'm not sure if anyone still reads this but...

remember podcasting?

Viacom Launches Podcast-Only Radio Station

Schneier on Security: RFID Passport Security

Bruce Schneier is blogging about RFID's and how the state department is toying with the idea of embedding them into passports for better security/privacy/speed.

The state department has considered this idea for a while now but was reluctant to pursue it because of privacy and security issues (anyone with an RFID reader can find out all of your personal information stored on your RFID passport and clone it).

The new solution is to put make the RFID passports ask for a special password or security key before they broadcast their information...of course for the system to work this "key" would be known by readers in just about every international airport. That sounds about as secure as UNC's wireless network WEP key.

Schneier on Security: RFID Passport Security

TCP (Transmission by Carrier Pigeons) and by Snails

Just as we were talking about pigeons as TCP carriers, I end up sitting beside one here at the Grind as I read Dan Gillmor's article refering to an Israeli study of pigeons, "PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL" and of snails, "Snails are faster than ADSL (and Pigeons).

Laptop Rage

I found this to be a very interesting story about a professors attempt to get his laptop back. His laptop was stolen by someone and to try to get it back he tried scaring the individual. This is what he said in his class.........

"Thanks Gary. I have a message for one person in this audience - I'm sorry the rest of you have to sit through this. As you know, my computer was stolen in my last lecture. The thief apparently wanted to betray everybody's trust, and was after the exam.

The thief was smart not to plug the computer into the campus network, but the thief was not smart enough to do three things: he was not smart enough to immediately remove Windows. I installed the same version of Windows on another computer - within fifteen minutes the people in Redmond Washington were very interested to know why it was that the same version of Windows was being signalled to them from two different computers.

The thief also did not inactivate either the wireless card or the transponder that's in that computer. Within about an hour, there was a signal from various places on campus that's allowed us to track exactly where that computer went every time that it was turned on.

I'm not particularly concerned about the computer. But the thief, who thought he was only stealing an exam, is presently - we think - is probably still in possession of three kinds of data, any one of which can send this man, this young boy, actually, to federal prison. Not a good place for a young boy to be.

You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I'm a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet, the NIH investigates these things through the FBI, they have been notified about this problem.

You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company, the largest one in the country, which I consult for. The Federal Trade Communication is very interested in this. Federal Marshals are the people who handle that.

You are in possession of proprietary data from a pre-public company planning an IPO. The Securities and Exchange Commission is very interested in this and I don't even know what branch of law enforcement they use.

Your academic career is about to come to an end. You are facing very serious charges, with a probability of very serious time. At this point, there's very little that anybody can do for you. One thing that you can do for yourself is to somehow prove that the integrity of the data which you possess has not been corrupted or copied.

Ironically, I am the only person on the planet that can come to your aid, because I am the only person that can tell whether the data that was on that computer are still on that computer. You will have to find a way of hoping that if you've copied anything that you can prove you only have one copy of whatever was made.

I am tied up all this afternoon; I am out of town all of next week. You have until 11:55 to return the computer, and whatever copies you've made, to my office, because I'm the only hope you've got of staying out of deeper trouble than you or any student I've ever known has ever been in.

I apologise to the rest of you for having to bring up this distasteful matter, but I will point out that we have a partial image of this person, we have two eyewitnesses, with the transponder data we're going to get this person."

*The professor admitted to making it up in order to scare the thief - who has not, incidentally, returned the laptop*

2 Dollar Man

I came across this article and thought it was real interesting that someone would get jailed for paying with two dollar bills. I honestly forgot they existed until I read this article.

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/2054/Two_Dollar_Man_jailed_in_Baltimore_County

Face Recognition/Security for your phone & SAT

I thought these were some interesting if not strange articles on cell phones.

The first link talks about devices/phones that recognize you by your face and the second tells how you can get SAT questions to your phone.

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=9494

http://www.vocel.com/

RIAA vs UNC and NCSU

"A federal judge in North Carolina handed the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a legal defeat in its effort to learn the identities of two students accused of illegal file sharing. The RIAA had sought the identities from the students' universities, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, under an expedited subpoena process the group has since abandoned. In a December 2003 decision, another federal judge had rejected the expedited subpoenas, which did not require a judge's signature, ruling that Verizon could not be forced to disclose identities of its customers. In their capacity as Internet service providers (ISPs) for students, universities were given similar protection from the expedited subpoenas. In this case, Judge Russell A. Eliason ruled that an ISP that does not store information but merely transmits it cannot be compelled under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to reveal identities of its users. After the 2003 decision, the RIAA began filing individual "John Doe" lawsuits for illegal file sharing. Under that process, which costs the RIAA more time and money than the other, ISPs can be forced to turn over identities of users."

Chronicle of Higher Education, 22 April 2005 (sub. req'd)

China: Protesters and Police SMS each other

After SMS and email messages were used to organize crowds that resulted in anit-Japan marches and riots in Shanghai and other cities, the Chinese police are fighting back by sending warning SMS to everyone.
But will that have any effect on the marchers who have been communicating for weeks under the governments's radar?
Is this an example of a Smart Mob or just a mob and an attempt at mob control?
See the full article in today's NYTimes.

House to probe phone firms over text rumors of quake

Manila phone company is accused of starting a hoax SMS message flow saying a “disaster will happen in Manila and Quezon City a few days after April 15,” just to raise text messaging revenue. The article suggests some changes to be made in present laws to include people sending out false information by text messaging.