Lane Mills, assistant superintendent for accountability and technology for Wilson County Schools, in North Carolina, describes the process of reviewing and updating technology policies in her home school district. While technology policies and procedures should be tailored to each district's needs and level of technology use, some basic policies…

Seeing an institution's name in the headlines for a security breach may be among a CIO's-- and a president's--worst nightmares. Whether the breached data involves social security numbers, credit card accounts, clinical records, or research, this is bad news. Federal agencies that provide research funding may lose confidence in data integrity,…

Asmall library's essential technical problem is that it has to chart a course through the technology shoals without a navigator on board. Small libraries in small towns often have a very low level of technical skill on staff. Furthermore, obtaining skilled technical support can frequently be pretty expensive. Even when one is available, a clever…

An effective systems librarian must understand security vulnerabilities and be proactive in preventing problems. Specifics of future attacks or security challenges cannot possibly be anticipated, but this paper suggests some simple measures that can be taken to make attacks less likely to occur: program the operating system to get automatic…

Electronic examination systems, which include Internet-based system, require extremely complicated installation, configuration and maintenance of software as well as hardware. In this paper, we present the design and development of a flexible, easy-to-use and secure examination system (e-Test), in which any commonly used computer can be used as a…

Discusses the development a national information policy in the United Kingdom (UK): policies for national information infrastructures, electronic information services, privacy and data protection, copyright, public and national libraries; reviews problems inhibiting Internet use; compares the UK's and the European Commission's approaches to…

Discusses how the potential effectiveness of Palladium, Microsoft's new approach to computer security, is worrying academics, who say it could allow publishers to dam the free flow of online information. (EV)

Considers ethics issues involved with using online resources like the Internet in elementary and secondary education and suggests that educators initiate and model a standardized role of ethical behavior for Internet users. Topics include hackers; privacy, piracy, and security; screening electronic sites; ethics education; and an ethics model.…

Presents an overview of two projects that concern local area networks and the common point between networks as they relate to network security. Discusses security architectures based on firewall components, packet filters, application gateways, security-management components, an intranet solution, user registration by Web form, and requests for…

Internet advertising and commercial activity are increasing. This article examines challenges facing the retail industry on the Internet: location; comparison shopping; security, especially financial transactions; customer base and profile; nature of the shopping experience; and legal and marketplace controls. (PEN)

Describes a variety of Internet threats to computers and networks used in schools. Discusses electronic trashing; clearing hard drives; cyber spying on Web sites visited; protection against cyber spying, including disposable email accounts; password sniffers; privacy policies; email snooping; email attachments that carry viruses; and hoaxes. (LRW)

Many introductory courses to cryptology and computer security start with or include a discussion of classical ciphers that usually contemplates some cryptanalysis techniques used to break them. Ganzua (picklock in Spanish) is an application designed to assist the cryptanalysis of ciphertext obtained with monoalphabetic or polyalphabetic ciphers.…

School district networks are particularly difficult to protect given the diverse types of users, software, equipment and connections that most school districts provide. Vulnerabilities to the security of school district's technology infrastructure can relate to users, data, software, hardware and transmission. This article discusses different…

What's the worst thing that can happen to your computer? Worse than a hard disk crash, virus infection, spam assault, denial-of-service attack, hacker take-over, fire, flood, or other human, mechanical or natural disaster is a faulty backup when you really need it. If the computer blows up, as long as your data is backed up securely, you can…

Emerging technologies are quickly becoming part of daily learning and teaching endeavors in academia. Due to the access to certain high-tech tools educators must learn how to integrate these tools in educational settings. However, many also encounter problems and weaknesses in the same high-tech environment that uses and delivers information…