intodimensions.com

Boston.com:

The federal government is considering the creation of a national database to collect information and track the progress of every college student in the country, triggering criticism from education and civil liberties advocates worried that it would amount to a loss of privacy for millions of Americans. ”An incredible potential exists for confidential information being used inappropriately” under the proposal, said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. ”There is a Big Brother aspect of all of this that concerns us.” The idea, proposed by a research wing of the Department of Education, is designed to improve federal oversight of students’ enrollment rates, graduation rates, and tuition. Currently, that information is provided only in summary form by universities, leaving gaps in national college statistics. When students transfer from one college to another, for example, they show up in the federal rolls as dropouts.

eWeek:

Google’s desktop search software is so good that it exposes vulnerabilities on your computer that you didn’t know about. Last month, Google released a beta version of its desktop search software: Google Desktop Search. Install it on your Windows machine, and it creates a searchable index of your data files, including word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail messages, cached Web pages and chat sessions. It’s a great idea. Windows’ searching capability has always been mediocre, and Google fixes the problem nicely. There are some security issues, though. The problem is that GDS indexes and finds documents that you may prefer not be found. For example, GDS searches your browser’s cache. This allows it to find old Web pages you’ve visited, including online banking summaries, personal messages sent from Web e-mail programs and password-protected personal Web pages.

E-Commerce News:

As expected, online retailers had a solid weekend, with nearly one in three consumers (29.3 percent) choosing to do some of their holiday shopping over the Internet, according to a National Retail Federation survey. Specifically, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that online shopping jumped 11 percent in unique shoppers on Friday as compared to the same day in 2003.

eWeek:

e desktop computers in the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions were paralyzed for four days on Monday, when a failed upgrade took them offline. The outage, covering 75 percent to 80 percent of the DWP’s 80,000 PCs, is one of the largest in the UK government’s not entirely impressive IT history. And possibly one of the most costly. According to staff reports, the outage occurred on Monday afternoon, disconnecting staff e-mail, benefits processing, and Internet and intranet connectivity. According to one, a limited network upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP was taking place, but instead of this taking place on only a small number of the target machines, all the clients connected to the network received a partial, but fatal, “upgrade.”

Pocket Lint:

The battle of file swapping networks seems to be repeating itself today as a host of music companies sue Kazaa’s owners Sharman Networks over copyright infringement. Music labels including EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal have clubbed together to fight what it is saying is “an engine of copyright piracy to a degree of magnitude never before seen”The case is being held in Australia because Sharman Networks is based in Australia, but registered in the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu. Sharman Networks, via Kazaa is reported to be swapping 3 billion files a month between its 100 million users. However Sharman Networks is defending this allegation by denying that it knows of the files its customers are swapping. This is not the first time that Kazaa has been in the courts. In 2003 a court in the Netherlands found it not guilty of breaking copyright infringement when it decided the software had a valid legal use.

CNET News.com:

The popularity of the iPod could be boosting Apple Computer’s financials in unexpected ways.

According to a survey of iPod users by financial analysis firm Piper Jaffray, Macs are basking in the reflected glory of the iPod, with some who own the music player saying they have already or are intending to ditch their PCs for Macs.

The research found that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey.

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst, said the iPod halo effect will make a difference to Apple for a while to come.

“We’re in the very early innings of a multiyear trend,” he said.

Among the factors influencing the PC-dumping crowd are ease of use, a focus on entertainment and the perception of better security.

The switchers, according to Munster, tend to be people who aren’t necessarily techie types.

“A lot of people, with all due respect, don’t understand the technology…They’re people with money, not tech people,” he said.

Computer Business Review:

Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent call for the creation of a $100 PC to help emerging markets has been met with a response by a company called SolarPC with a new Linux-based personal computer… Ballmer laid down the challenge for the computer industry to create a $100 PC in October, arguing that it would encourage emerging nations and help to thwart software piracy by reducing total systems costs.No doubt Ballmer was thinking that any such $100 PC would be running Windows, but Thousand Oaks, California-based SolarPC has managed it with the Linux-based SolarLite. Due for launch in December, SolarLite is a rugged book-sized PC with a Compact Flash drive loaded with software.The SolarLite will be based on VIA Technologies Inc long-life chipset technologies and is designed to run on 12-volt power via solar panels, car batteries, or even human-powered generators. The software for the SolarLite is provided by the DSL (Desktop/Damn Small Linux) project, a bootable Live CD Linux distribution.SolarPC also announced plans to give away a million SolarLite computers to schools in emerging countries around the world via the Global Education Link project.

Now Toronto:

Malevolent geniuses are trying to steal from you through the Internet. They’re devious little Lex Luthors planning theft and fraud on a massive scale, and their primary strategy is to go phishing. Phishing scams are official-looking but fake e-mails and Web sites designed to lure you into revealing personal financial information – or the keys to access that information, like a login name and password. They appear to come from a trusted source (your bank, PayPal, eBay, etc) and tend to use a logical call to action that is hard to resist.

Last June, during the two-week-long hemorrhaging of the Royal Bank’s national IT infrastructure due to some bad code and an even worse code-review process, a “Dear RBC Royal Bank Customer” e-mail started arriving in in-boxes. It looked like an official request asking for card numbers and passwords in order to verify customers’ standing due to “increased fraudulent activity.” If you didn’t follow through, said the e-mail, your “account will not be verified and your access to the account will be blocked.”

Clicking a link in the e-mail led to a slickly designed Web site (complete with RBC corporate branding) where you were asked to enter account information. It all appeared legitimate until a close look revealed the URL wasn’t quite right.

A properly skeptical and jaded 21st-century Internet user would obviously recognize this e-mail’s malodorous stench, but some people didn’t.

BBC:

UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with a record 237 million sold in the 12 months to September.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade body said albums by the likes of Keane and The Streets had helped drive a 3% rise compared with last year.
It also said sales of single tracks were up thanks to the availability of legal download services.

PC Magazine has the list.