Daily Archives: April 18, 2004

FTC to evaluate “spyware”

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Or – why Windows PC’s can be unsafe at any speed. Yuki Noguchi writes

The Federal Trade Commission today is hosting a daylong workshop in Washington to discuss the effects of hidden software that may be used to control or spy on a computer without its user’s knowledge.
So far most “spyware” and “adware” programs, often placed on Windows PCs by such downloaded programs as file-sharing programs, appear to have been used for the relatively benign purpose of tracking consumer preferences, said Howard Beales, director of the FTC’s consumer protection division. The FTC is watching to see if criminals start making widespread use of this technology to steal credit-card and Social Security numbers of unwitting computer users, he said.
“So far [we] haven’t thought that it warranted regulation,” he said.

Some organizations, including the Madison schools, only support a computing monoculture – fertile ground for spyware…..

Good teaching matters….

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Alan Borsuk continues his recent series of education articles with a profile of five Milwaukee area teachers. One of them, Louise Guinn remarks:

“We push a lot for the kids to be successful.” And she is convinced all her students – all black, almost all from low-income homes – can learn “if given the right opportunities and the right environment.
She says she urges parents to limit television and to read more at home. Children are influenced by this.
But she also knows that many of her students lead challenging lives. During a class discussion of what fourth-graders can do that infants can’t, making your bed is mentioned by one student. Another says he doesn’t have to do that because he sleeps on the floor. Guinn understands that this means he doesn’t have a bed of his own.