Educational CyberPlayGround NetHappenings Headlines and Resources


Happy Reading

<Karen>



1)
Detecting ISP changes to web pages
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/security/web-tripwire.html
The toolkit allows publishers to deploy "web tripwires" on their own 
web pages.  Web tripwires are JavaScript code that can detect when a 
web page is modified in flight, so that the publisher is aware of the 
event and can notify the end user if appropriate.


2)
Google wants white space spectrum
Fierce Wireless
While most of the wireless industry is gearing up for the January 700 
MHz spectrum auction, Google, which intends to bid in that auction, is 
also investigating the "white spaces," or unlicensed spectrum that 
sits between spectrum currently licensed to television broadcasters. 
Google and others would like to use this spectrum to carry mobile 
Internet devices. While past efforts by Google, Microsoft, Philips and 
others for prototypes that run on the white spaces were largely 
rejected by the FCC, Google has since decided to go it alone with its 
own tests. The company presented results of an "initial phase of 
ongoing trials" around white space technology that it says 
demonstrates that digital televisions and wireless microphones can 
exist side-by-side without interference.
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/google-goes-it-alone-white-space-spectrum/2007-12-07

3)
Shopping Online Protection Home Computer Users
Major banks that offer credit card customers the ability to
generate "virtual CC numbers" on the fly from their websites.  Only you & your bank
know the actual CC account number to which they are related.
CitiBank and Bank of America do it.
They are one time use numbers. If some bad guy gets hold of one of them, so what?
After you use one of these virtual numbers once, even if the bad guys get it and try
to use it, it won't work.

4)
Open source software developers sue Verizon; Claim FiOS violates GPL
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=204800422
In what could become a major test case for the most widely used open 
source software license, a group that represents open source 
developers has sued Verizon Communications -- claiming that the 
telecom giant's FiOS broadband service violates the terms of the GNU 
General Public License.
In court papers filed Friday, The Software Freedom Law Center 
maintains Verizon's use of an open source program called BusyBox in 
FiOS violates version 2 the GPL because Verizon has not made the 
product's source code available to its customers--as the license 
requires.
Since November 2006, "Verizon has distributed to the public copies of 
the firmware in the infringing product, and none of these 
distributions included source code to BusyBox or offers to provide 
such code," SFLC alleges in its complaint, which was filed in federal 
court in New York.


5)
The Texas Court of Appeals for the Sixth Appellate District at 
Texarkana took an important step today toward protecting the rights of 
Internet bloggers in Texas to write anonymously.
The opinion can be found on the web site of the Texas Court of Appeals 
at http://www.6thcoa.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/HTMLOpinion.asp?OpinionID=9055


6)
SAVE THE DATE
PRESERVING AMERICAS DIVERSE HERITAGE
JANUARY 31 AND FEBRUARY 1, 2008
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
You are invited to attend Preserving America's Diverse Heritage, a special national forum sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in cooperation with Heritage Preservation and the High Museum of Art. This forum is part of Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action, a multi-year, multi-faceted national initiative to raise public awareness and inspire action to care for America-s collections, particularly those held by small and medium-sized museums, libraries, and archives. 
You will receive a printed invitation in the mail the week of December 10. Information about the forum, including the program, logistics, and on-line registration, is available now at http://www.imls.gov/collections/tour
( http://heritage.pmailus.com/pmailweb/ct?d=EC57uQAOAAEAAAaSAAGK-Q ) . 
The forum is open to interested staff and board members of museums, libraries, and archives, as well as to conservation professionals and representatives of government, funders, and the media. Advance registration on-line is required.  Please feel free to share this information with colleagues. We look forward to having you join us.


7)
Icelandic Teen Dupes White House BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7137873.stm
Vifill Atlason, 16, called the general switchboard number claiming to be the Icelandic leader and asked to speak to President George W Bush.
He was passed around but says he got through to Mr Bush's private secretary and set up a phone meeting with him.
Along the way he says he was asked a series of questions about Mr Grimsson, which he answered using Wikipedia.
"It was like passing through checkpoints, but I had Wikipedia and a few other sites open, so it was not so difficult really," he told ABC News.
Vifill says that among the questions he was asked were Mr Grimsson's date of birth, parent's names, where he grew up and when he took office.
Is there anything Wikipedia can't do?
Visill Atlason, a precocious Icelandic teenager, says he convinced the White House he was Iceland's president and managed to schedule a call with George W. Bush.
Atlason, 16, called the White House claiming to be President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, and asked to speak to President George W. Bush. He was passed around but says he got through to Mr Bush's private secretary and set up a phone meeting with him. Along the way he says he was asked a series of questions about Mr Grimsson, which he answered using Wikipedia.
<snip>
Atlason was found out before he got to talk to the president, and got a visit from local police in his hometown of Akranes instead of an interview with Mr. Bush. Rebellious to the end, he said it was "totally worth all the fuss."
Controversy ensued when White House officials insisted the number Atlason called (202-456-1414 if you're curious) was a general switchboard number, not a "secret number of the highest security level" as the teen and his mother claim.
His prank has made him a minor celebrity in Iceland.


Iceland High School Student Dials Bush's Phone Number
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316294,00.html
When Vfill Atlason, a 16-year-old high school student from Iceland, decided to call the White House, he could not imagine the kind of publicity it would bring.
<snip>
"I just wanted to talk to him, have a chat, invite him to Iceland and see what he'd say," Vfill told ABC News.
A White House official, who asked not to be identified, denied the young man had accessed a private number but instead dialled 202-456-1414, the main switchboard for the West Wing.
Vfill's mother, Harpa Hreinsdottir, a teacher at the local high school, said her son did, in fact, get through to a private phone.
"This was not a switchboard number of any kind," she told ABC News, "it was a secret number at the highest security level."
<snip>
When he finally got through to President Bush's secretary, Vfill alleges he was told to expect a call back from Bush.
"She told me the president was not available at the time, but that she would mark it in his schedule to call me back on Monday evening," he said.
Instead, the police showed up at his home in Akranes, a fishing town about 48 kilometers from Reykjavik, and took him to the local police station, where they questioned the 16-year-old for several hours.
<snip>
"If the number were not top secret, why would the police have told me that I will be put on a no-fly list to America?" Vfill asked.
"I don't see how calling the White House is a crime," he added. "But obviously, they took it very seriously."


Icelandic teenage caller tricks White House
http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINL1237489520071212
Jon Bjartmarz, Chief Superintendent at Iceland's national police headquarters, said Icelandic police had not spoken to their U.S. counterparts about the matter. He declined to say how police were tipped off about Atlason's call.
"As far as we're concerned, there will not be any further investigation, and I don't know if the American government is taking any action because of this," he said.