E-mail Phishing Attempts Get Trickier: Fake bounced mail and Fake mail-from-scanner

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Peter Murray

Two phishing¹ attempts made it through the work spam filter earlier this month, and they show the creativity of bad guys as they try to get access to your machine. The attempts at social engineering were interesting enough I thought I’d describe them here. We’re getting pretty close the line where we can’t tell a legitimate e-mail from ones with nasty side effects.

The Fake Bounced Message

This message has the appearance of being a bounced e-mail from a server called ‘cyber.net.pk’.

Screenshot of a fake bounced e-mail message.

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W3C Incubator Group Report on Library Linked Data Published

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Peter Murray

This morning the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced the publication of the final report of the Library Linked Data Incubator Group. The abstract is reproduced below.

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Thursday Threads: Infinite Virtual Bookshelf, Free Learning Management System, List of Cyber Threats

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Peter Murray

Part experimental, part disruption, and part heads-up in this week’s edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads. The first story is a proof-of-concept demonstration of a way to browse an “infinite” bookshelf of virtual items. Next is the announcement of how a content producer (Pearson) is trying to disrupt a deeply embedded technology company (Blackboard) by giving away a learning management system in the cloud. Last, a list of what researchers think will be the most prevalent computer security problems next year.

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A Walk Through the Vancouver Public Library

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Peter Murray

I’m in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the Access 2011 meeting which starts tomorrow. Coming across from the eastern timezone I had to come a day early, so — being a self-confessed library nerd — I checked out the Vancouver Public Library. I’m impressed with not only the physical structure but also the obvious degree of community engagement. The Central Library was very busy on a Tuesday afternoon, and first impressions are that it is beloved by its patrons. Included below are some pictures and some notes; some of the pictures have annotations — you can mouse over the boxes to see them. You can also click on the pictures to go to larger versions on Flickr.

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AIME v UCal Decision Says Streaming Equivalent to Public Performance

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Peter Murray

The title of this post was updated (replacing “Display” with “Performance”) a day after it was originally published. See the update at the bottom of the post for more details.

Last week a federal district court in California decided in favor of the University of California defendants in a lawsuit brought by Ambrose Video Publishing (AVP) and the Association for Information Media and Equipment (AIME). A majority of the decision hinged around whether the plaintiffs had “standing” to bring the suit, and commentary by Kevin Smith and ARL go into more detail about that. The bit that I found interesting was reasoning by the judge that equated “public performance” rights with “streaming.” Far down in the judge’s decision was this line of reasoning:

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Thursday Threads: Disruptive Innovation and the Amazon Kindle Fire

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Peter Murray

Today’s DLTJ Thursday Threads looks at the potential for the Amazon Kindle Fire to disrupt the tablet market as we know it now. First is a link to an eight minute video by Clayton Christensen in which he describes his theory of disruptive innovation. Then there is pointer to an article from the Harvard Business Review blog describing the Kindle Fire’s place in the disruptive innovation graph. Finally, some guesses as to why Amazon is selling the Fire for $200 when it costs about $210 to build one.

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IETF May Form Working Group on “Reputation Services”

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Peter Murray

Last week I saw a post on the IETF Announcement List seeking feedback on the possible formation of a “Reputation Services” working group. That posting has more information, but the basic abstract is posted below. Now I will admit up front that I tend to see the world through librarian-colored glasses, but creating a mechanism that helps uses make a “meaningful choice about the handling of content requires an assessment of its safety or ‘trustworthiness’” sounds like something librarians should be involved with.

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Thursday Threads: Kindle Ebook Lending, Google Ngram Viewer, Collaborative Open Source Development

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Peter Murray

This week brought news of the Kindle-based e-book lending program through Overdrive, and Peter Brantley has an opinion piece on what this means for Amazon, publishers, and even libraries. From the other e-book powerhouse — Google — is a TED talk presentation about the Google Books ngram Viewer. Finally, there is a view of one of the benefits of the open source software model with an announcement that six libraries are funding development to meet their needs.

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Governance in Open Source Software Projects

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Peter Murray

Below is the text of an article I wrote for a LYRASIS member newsletter in which I talk about the nature of governance in open source software projects. I’m reposting it here for the DLTJ readership.

One of the more fascinating aspects of open source software is the role that its creators and users play in its evolution. (For more on the community nature of open source software, see a previous article, The Challenges and Rewards of Open Source) With proprietary systems, the creators and users are separate groups, and the control over the relationship is bound up in proprietary rights and contracts. (This doesn’t diminish the role of robust user groups for proprietary software; rather it is a reflection of where the ultimate control lies – with the creators of the software.) With open source software, the creators and users are commonly the same or closely overlapping. How do creators and users work with each other? This is a question of governance.

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Thursday Threads: Authors Guild Sues Hathi Trust, Libraries Learn from Blockbuster, Publisher’s View of Self-Publishing

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Peter Murray

Legal action against the digitization and limited distribution of orphan works unexpectedly hit the news again this week. This week’s DLTJ Thursday Threads starts with an overview of the lawsuit filed by authors organizations and authors against Hathi Trust over plans to make digital versions of orphan works available to university users. And while we’re wondering of libraries’ role in providing access to digitized works, we should also take note of an article in American Libraries Magazine on what we could learn from Blockbuster’s fall. And lastly, I point to a story of one author’s experience when her own self publishing with Amazon ran afoul of a publisher’s desires.

This is a preview of Thursday Threads: Authors Guild Sues Hathi Trust, Libraries Learn from Blockbuster, Publisher’s View of Self-Publishing. Read the full post (1105 words, 4:25 minutes estimated reading time)

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We're Disrupted, We're Librarians, and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore

Yearly Archives: 2011