A cure for our oil addiction
/The New York Times has a good piece about a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, with which I completely agree.
UNI Computer system hacked
/I got my notification on Saturday that my personal info may have been exposed in this breach of security, though from what I've heard, it wasn't a "virus" per se, but rather a bot that was on the laptop in question:
UNI warns of ID theft after computer security breach
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) -- The University of Northern Iowa has warned students and faculty to monitor their bank accounts after someone accessed a computer system holding confidential information.
The university detected last week that a laptop computer holding W-2 forms was illegally accessed, though officials said the person likely did not realize he could obtain tax information for about 6,000 student employees and faculty.
"A virus was detected during routine monitoring," said Tom Schellhardt, vice president for administration and finance. "We immediately took steps to fix the problem and increase security."
The university sent letters to everyone whose data was on that computer, warning them to protect against identity theft by monitoring their accounts and contacting credit reporting agencies.
Steve Moon, the school's director of network services, said the person who used the laptop computer did so to review the print jobs for the W2 forms.
"There had been problems with printing, and the person wanted to review what the print stream was trying to do," he said.
A. Frank Thompson, a UNI professor of finance, said he didn't think W2 forms should be on the computer because the information must be made into a hard copy anyway for tax purposes. Also, "it simply opens up the possibility of that information being inappropriately accessed," he said.
Deep Freeze
/It's bitterly cold here in Iowa today, and our van just got towed away as a result of it. It doesn't want to stay running once it's started, unless you keep your foot on the gas. If this was my old Chevelle, I'd just turn up the idle, but life isn't that easy with fuel injection...
Catching up
/I may actually have some time to do a bit of blogging now, I'm getting pretty caught up in my work, for the first time in over a month. I've been hip-deep in wireless gear, trying to decide which system we'll start migrating towards here at work, before a renovated building comes online this spring. I need to write a little bit about my Xbox 360 (yes, I have one) and my Intel-based iMac (yep, one of those too) as they're both exciting new pieces of technology. But I'll get to that after I clean my office...
