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Comment Securing a running laptop (Score -1) 2

by zgregoryg (#22848750) Attached to: Cubicle security for laptops and misc electronics
While I was in a cube I actually locked my running laptop within a large metal filing cabinet and used it for RDC with no problems. The volume of air within the cabinet was sufficient enough that the air could circulate and be cooled by the metal exterior. Of course I was not running my CPU and disks at 100% for long periods of time. :-) If you boss is willing, why not purchase a small 3 U locking rack and put that in your cube. You could then use 1 U for your laptop and the rest of misc. storage. Sweet!
Security

Submission + - Cubicle security for laptops and misc electronics 2

Submitted by
kamikasee
kamikasee writes: "I recently found out that I'm going to be moved from an office to a cubicle. The cubicle area is not very secure, and I'm worried about things wandering off. My boss has offered to buy some equipment to help me secure things, but so far I haven't been able to find something that fits my requirements. I feel sure that such products must exist, but Google and Amazon searches are overwhelmed by lockable key cabinets and larger pieces of furniture. Here's some more details:

The main issue with traditional solutions (e.g. locking things in a drawer) is convenience. I use a laptop with a second LCD monitor as a two monitor setup. I also have an external keyboard and mouse and a USB hard drive. I leave my laptop on at night so I can remote-desktop into it, so I'm not really happy about putting it in a drawer (no ventilation), plus I don't like the idea of having to "unharness" everything every time I want to put it away. I don't trust cable locks. Besides, cable locks won't help me secure my the USB drive and other electronics that might wander off, unless I cable lock each one.

The item I imagine is a lockable, ventilated, metal box that would sit under the monitor and house most of the electronics. If it was big enough, I could stick my laptop into it at night (while leaving it running) and feel good that it would still be there in the morning! I'd be open to other types of solutions if people know of them. Surely someone else must have dealt with this problem."
Security

Submission + - 3.2 Billion Lost To Phishing in 2007 (fastsilicon.com)

Submitted by
mrneutron2003
mrneutron2003 writes: "Gartner's latest survey into the realm of phishing attacks paints a rather bleak picture for 2007, with a record estimated loss of $3.2 Billion (that's Billion, with a B) U.S. Dollars. Overall loss per incident fell (to $886 from $1,244 lost on average in 2006) but the numbers of individuals who fell victim rose quite sharply from 2.3 Million in 2006 to a staggering 3.6 Million. Though online portals Paypal and eBay remained the most spoofed brands, it appears phishers are getting more creative utilizing fake electronic greetings cards, foreign businesses, and charitable organizations in their attacks on consumers. Furthermore these criminals are increasingly targeting debit card and banking credentials rather than credit cards, because the fraud protection mechanisms there are far weaker, according to a study done at The University of California at Berkeley.

http://www.fastsilicon.com/latest-news/3.2-billion-lost-to-phishing-in-2007.html"
Music

Is Shawn Fanning's Snocap melting? 93

Posted by Zonk from the let's-all-remember-back-in-the-day dept.
newtley writes "Rumors are swirling about the pending demise of Napster creator Shawn Fanning's Snocap, says former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson. 'Articles mention a sale, but more likely it will be a shuttering and quiet bankruptcy,' he believes. 'Snocap represents a commonplace occurrence in the music business — an unprofitable retailer which withers and eventually dies.'"
Security

Submission + - Ohio caves to encryption after massive data breach (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "After a backup tape containing 106,821 pieces of sensitive information on Ohio residents and businesses was stolen from the car of a government intern in June, the state government just announced it has purchased 60,000 licenses of encryption software for state offices to use to protect data. Ohio's missing backup tape featured the names and Social Security numbers of 47,245 individuals; the names and Social Security numbers of 19,388 former state employees; and banking information on less than 100 businesses. It's estimate that the data loss will cost the state $3 million. In September, the state docked a state government official about a week of future vacation time for not ensuring that the data would be protected."
Privacy

Submission + - Rogers Inserts Content Into Users' Webpages (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by geekmansworld
geekmansworld writes: It seems that Canadian ISP Rogers is inserting data into the HTTP streams returned by the websites requested by it's customers. Probably intended as a "feature", the unsolicited intrusion is nonetheless unsettling.
Education

Carnegie Mellon's Digital Library Exceeds 1.5 Million Books 119

Posted by Zonk from the might-just-be-enough-to-read dept.
cashman73 writes "Most Slashdot readers are probably familiar with Google's book scanning project, a collaboration with several major universities to digitize works of literature, art, and science. But Google may have been beat to the punch this time -- about a decade ago, Carnegie Mellon University embarked on a project to scan books into digital format, to be made available online. Today, according to new reports, they now have a collection of 1.5 million books, the equivalent of a typical university library, available online."
The Courts

Court Orders White House to Disclose Telecom Ties 147

Posted by Zonk from the fess-up-to-it-boys dept.
rgiskard01 writes "Glenn Greenwald is reporting at Salon.com on a win for the EFF, in the battle for clarity regarding the telecom surveillance scandal. A federal judge ordered the Bush administration yesterday to accede to the EFF's Freedom of Information Act request. Assuming the White House follows the court order, they would have to make public their lobbying ties to the telecoms industry. 'These disclosures will reveal ... which members of Congress McConnell and other Bush officials privately lobbied. As an argument of last resort, the administration even proposed disclosing these documents on December 31 so that -- as EFF pointed out -- the information would be available only after Congress passed the new FISA bill. The court rejected every administration claim as to why it should not have to disclose these records.'" Greenwald goes on to argue that the order should be leveled against Senators as well, to get a sense of who else is in Ma Bell's pocket.
Education

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids 614

Posted by samzenpus from the the-most-smartest dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has an interesting article on the secret to raising smart kids that says that more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings. In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. One theory of what separates the two general classes of learners, helpless versus mastery-oriented, is that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different "theories" of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount. Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Mastery-oriented children think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating offering opportunities to learn."
Graphics

Student Maps Brain to Image Search 72

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fastest-computer-i-own dept.
StonyandCher writes to mention that a University of Ottawa grad student is creating a search engine for visual images that will be powered by a system mapped from the human brain. "Woodbeck said he has already created a prototype of the search engine based on his patent, which apes the way the brain processes visual information and tries to take advantage of currently-available graphics processing capabilities in PCs. 'The brain is very parallel. There's lots of things going on at once,' he said. 'Graphics processors are also very parallel, so it's a case of almost mapping the brain onto graphics processors, getting them to process visual information more effectively.'"
Security

Submission + - 130 stolen laptops show lax security (blorge.com)

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: ""The khaki bandit" posed as an office worker at several corporations and successfully stole over 130 laptops which he later sold on eBay. The ease of theft from the corporate offices (including FedEx and Burger King) shows just how bad corporate security can be. (In some cases, the career thief just walked into the office behind an employee with a security badge.) Two million laptops were stolen just in 2004, and of those 97 percent were never recovered. Ultimately it was the corporate headquarters of Outback Steakhouse who caught the thief with a bugged laptop that notified them when he re-connected it to the internet."
Biotech

Submission + - Velociraptor had feathers (physorg.com)

Submitted by
Spy der Mann
Spy der Mann writes: "A new look at some old bones have shown that velociraptor, the dinosaur made famous in the movie Jurassic Park, had feathers. A paper describing the discovery, made by paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Natural History, appears in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Science."

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