Monday 20th June 2016 Flash – it’s the web security disaster that just keeps on giving. Flash has been particularly popular for use on animated web sites used by K-12 schools. Adobe this week issued a patch for its Flash Player browser plug-in containing 36 – yes, 36 – security updates. One of these was for a critical zero-day vulnerability, which … Read More
Safer Internet Day (& 2Gb Free for Drive!)
Wednesday 10th February 2016 Google is encouraging you to check your account security today, topping up your free Drive account with an extra 2 Gb of space in return for you taking less than 2 minutes to check your account security. Complete the short checking process, and you will have an additional 2 Gb added to your Drive account. (And … Read More
Govt online policies for Australian students
Thursday 19th March 2015 Many schools now use Google Apps for Education, and other online services, on a regular basis for both curriculum and administrative functions. However, the companies providing these services have a minimum age restriction for the use of their services – usually 13 years of age. In the US the use of such services by children is … Read More
2014’s worst passwords revealed
Friday 6th February 2014 Despite all the warnings, people persist in choosing easy-to-break passwords to protect their precious online data. For all the high-tech security threats lurking in the shadows, weak passwords are the easiest to fix, yet apparently the most ignored. It’s not that difficult to come up with complicated yet easy-to-remember passwords, it’s just that some people still aren’t prepared … Read More
School bells (and announcements) on an iPod
Tuesday 26th August 2014 This might be worth checking out for your school – an iOS app that can use your school’s existing PA system to: Schedule bells (hourly, daily, weekly) that are fully customisable (time of day, etc); Select from a library of school bell sounds; Add your own music selection directly from iTunes; Select different themes / music … Read More
Google codifies crawling your email
On Monday, Google updated Gmail’s terms of service to spell out its relationship with users in no uncertain terms: “Our automated systems analyse your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customised search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.” … Read More
Web Security in doubt
So, you thought that entering your username and password in a form on a website with an https address, and a little padlock in the status bar, was a secure process? Think again! “the little lock icon (HTTPS) we all trusted to keep our passwords, personal emails, and credit cards safe, was actually making all that private information accessible to … Read More