Sony's PlayStation Network hacked, users' private data at risk

And the hits keep on coming!

Security experts: PlayStation Network breach one of largest ever - Game Hunters - USATODAY.com:

The external hack of Sony's PlayStation Network represents one of the largest data breaches ever, security experts suggest."The most troubling thing about this breach is the breadth of data that was leaked: name, address, passwords, purchase history and possibly credit card numbers," says Judge. "This provides potential ammunition for almost any type of attack."

Other security experts concur. "The Playstation Network hack is one of the largest in history, with over 70M records compromised. Sony's initial delay and vagueness about the nature of their security breach gives hackers the opportunity to exploit that data and potentially mine more of their customers' information," says Mandeep Khera of application security firm Cenzic.

Apple Promises Fix for Location-Gathering ‘Bug’ on iPhone | Gadget Lab

Wired.com:

"Apple said the bug fixes would arrive with the next major iOS software update," but when will that be?

Plenty of interesting links in this article.

Gizmodo: iSpy Conspiracy: Your iPhone Is Secretly Tracking Everywhere You've Been, All The Time

This is spooky!

iSpy Conspiracy: Your iPhone Is Secretly Tracking Everywhere You've Been, All The Time | Gizmodo:

This is a map of everywhere I've been for nearly the last year. Everywhere. I didn't carry around a special tracking device. The FBI isn't sending goons in unmarked vans to track me. All I did was use an iPhone. And if you have an iPhone, you're being tracked right now, too, whether you like it or not.

Author Disconnects From Communication Devices to Reconnect With Life

PBS NewsHour | Aug. 16, 2010

William Powers, author of "Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age," makes reference to this quote by Thoreau in the PBS piece (link) above:

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.

Likewise, as Powers explains in the interview, the book's title is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5:

Ghost:
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

Hamlet:
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
I have sworn 't.

Marcellus:
Within My lord, my lord,--

(Excerpt courtesy of Shakespeare Searched.)

The wax tablet and stylus were not Elizabethan inventions but had in fact been used as a temporary writing technology since Homer's time.

New Additions to the Sandor Teszler Library's Collections

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                                      

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Films on forgiveness

As We Forgive--the documentary film about Rwanda that was screened on campus last week by Club World and Togetherness--is available at Wofford's library for you to check out.

As the producer Mpower Pictures describes the film:

Two Rwandan women come face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. Struggling to live again as neighbors, these survivors and murderers discover the power and pain of radical reconciliation. But can survivors truly forgive the killers of their families? And can the church, which failed at moral leadership during the genocide, fit into the process of reconciliation today? The documentary explores the lives of four neighbors once caught on opposite sides in the genocidal bloodbath, and their extraordinary journey from death to life through forgiveness.

Two more documentaries on forgiveness to check out: The Power of Forgiveness and Facing the Truth.

5 Myths About the 'Information Age'

In a recent article, Robert Darnton, a professor and university librarian at Harvard University, discusses five common misconceptions about the 'Information Age,' including "the book is dead," "we have entered the information age," "all information is available online," "libraries are obsolete," and "the future is digital."  According to Darnton, "confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged."  He later explains, "I mention these misconceptions because I think they stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment. They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts—before and after, either/or, black and white."

Read 5 Myths About the 'Information Age'

Google's Digital Library Failed--Can Academics Succeed?

Fast Company:

Not long ago a federal judge in Manhattan scuttled Google's plans to create a digital universal library (a dream kicked off when Larry Page scanned 'The Google Book' years ago--his company has since scanned 15 million more). While some lamented the decision, others have cheered, and among the latter is a group of academic librarians who think that a digital universal library should be a public, rather than a private, good.

Check out some articles on this topic by Robert Darnton, Harvard's University Librarian and leader in the public digital library effort.

Targeted phishing scams could rise after Epsilon data breach: IU News Room: Indiana University

Targeted phishing scams could rise after Epsilon data breach: IU News Room: Indiana University:

A wave of alert emails has been distributed over the last few days as Epsilon, one of the nation's largest marketing services, deals with what could end up being one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.

"The concern here is that attackers, armed with knowledge of customer e-mail lists, could craft very convincing phishing emails to trick customers into revealing further personal information such as passwords or SSNs," said [Indiana University's Center for Apllied Cybersecurity Research] Deputy Director Von Welch. "It's also plausible that attackers use other public information such as phone books to look up customers' phone numbers and make fraudulent phone calls."

Have you been affected by this recent data breach? Keep an eye out for emails from companies that you do business with. [I've already received notices. :-( ]

Books at JSTOR Adds Four New Academic Presses

Four more academic publishers in the United States are planning to bring their scholarly book content online at JSTOR, bringing the total number of presses in a partnership with JSTOR to 8, including Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Minnesota, North Carolina, Princeton, Yale, University of California, Columbia and Cornell.


JSTOR has provided online access to a huge variety of high quality scholarship in many disciplines since 1995. Books will be available in spring 2012 and will be preserved in Portico, a leading digital preservation service for the scholarly community.



Read the full press release: JSTOR Books



reposted from No Shelf Required

19th Century British Library Newspapers

The Library recently added a new electronic resource to the collection, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, which includes the full text of newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth-century Britain. This new collection includes national and regional newspapers, as well as newspapers from: established country or university towns; the new industrial powerhouses of the manufacturing Midlands; and Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Special attention was paid to include newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. Penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also included.

Check out 19th Century British Library Newspapers