A federal judge yesterday said that a new law to protect businesses from animal rights extremists "may be legally vulnerable," during a hearing for the first four defendants charged with breaking the law, reports The Mercury News.
Read more »Animal Extremist Terrorism Law "Legally Vulnerable," Judge Says
Former Oyster exec appointed MTA chief
A former executive with Transport for London, which developed the city’s Oyster transit card, has been nominated by New York Gov. David Paterson to run the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The appointment of 48-year-old Jay Walder as MTA’s chairman and CEO, must be approved by the state New York State Senate. Currently a partner with consultants McKinsey & Co., Walder was Transport for London’s planning and finance director from 2000 to 2006, where he helped draft the city’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics. He also was heavily involved with the introduction of London’s Oyster card.
Read more »Milwaukee college has new banking partner, campus cards
Starting Aug. 3, all returning Milwaukee Area Technical College students will need to get new student ID cards because the school has brought in a new banking partner, U.S. Bank. The new cards will also be used to pay for parking at the Downtown Milwaukee Campus.
There will be no additional cost to students for the new cards, but the school is requesting the return of all current IDs.
Read more here.
Read more »Visa policy means fewer off-campus Cougar Cash merchants for Washington students
The number of off-campus merchants that can accept Washington State University’s CougarCard loaded with Cougar Cash has dropped from 32 to 10. But the school is offering a new CougarCard Maxx that includes Visa debit functionality, making the card usable worldwide. Students, however, would have to have a U.S. Bank account to take advantage of that feature.
Cougar Cash, the Pullman, Wash. school’s name for its e-purse, will still be accepted at 10 merchants in near the university. That’s the new definition of “on-campus” that was negotiated with Visa, said a university spokesperson. The university had to drop the other merchants due to a Visa policy.
Read more here.
Read more »Iraq Improves Security for Its Christian Minority and Its Churches
Iraqi authorities have ramped up security outside of Christian churches across Baghdad and in two Christian towns in the northern province of Nineveh as Iraq's Christians come under increased terrorist attack.
According to the Associated Press:
Read more »Free campus card webinars today and Thursday
Blackboard is offering two free webinars for campus card administrators this week. Today at 1:00 pm Eastern the one-hour session explores ways to elevate the profile of your campus card system in the eyes of your campus executive management team. Be viewed as an crucial enterprise solution and you will be treated, and maybe even funded, as such. On Thursday at 1:00 pm Eastern, the one-hour session investigates keys to make your card system a valuable tool for every department on campus thus maximizing return-on-investment and elevating your program’s profile. Take an hour out of your day today and Thursday to find some key new ideas to help build your program. Click here to register for one or both of these free events.
Read more »Connecticut restricts credit card marketing on campuses
Connecticut has joined several other states that are seeking to restrict or forbid credit card marketing activities on campus. Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed legislation that sets strict parameters for credit card companies as to when, where and how they can market to students.
The law also orders the Board of Governors of Higher Education to create a new policy by Jan. 1, 2010, to force credit companies to register with state colleges and universities.
It prevents companies from signing up students for credit cards during orientation and class registration and forces companies to give educational materials on how to retain good credit ratings. The law also bans companies from giveaways at sports events and prevents educational institutions from giving the names and addresses of students to credit card companies.
Read more here.
Read more »Bringing campus banking to community colleges
Community colleges haven’t always been considered ideal candidates for campus banking services. That’s changing. Partnerships between banks and the two-year schools through their student ID cards, are out there and brick and mortar facilities are showing up on campus as well.
CR80News’ 2008 campus card banking partners survey identified at least 10 partnerships between banks and ID programs at community colleges or community college districts.
Still, community colleges and their bank partners face challenges.
Since many community colleges don’t require a student to obtain an ID card, banks and colleges have to come up with ways to make the card attractive to students. Linking it to a bank is one of those ways because it means additional services, such as ATM and debit card capability.
Another challenge is that since community college students are typically older than those attending four-year schools, many students are already tethered to a bank and are reluctant to change.
Read more »Digital plan for Catawba College moves forward
Online and paperless is how most students think these days. That’s the driver behind Catawba College’s plan to convert to a more unified digital campus.
The Salisbury, N.C.-based private college is changing its campus enterprise computing systems to the SunGard Higher Education Banner System. It will cost $4 million and take two years to complete but will, according to a college official, enable data-driven decision making.
With one integrated computing system, data can be entered once and then shared by various departments. Students will also be able to register for classes online, while alumni can update their data and track their institutional gifts.
Read more here.
Read more »Pittsburg Port Authority testing smart cards
Pittsburgh’s Port Authority is testing smart cards on one bus line this summer hoping to work out any glitches before deploying the new fare boxes system wide, according to a report in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review.
Ten Port Authority buses received fare collection boxes capable of using the smart-card technology and a dozen employees traveling from home in the North Hills were selected to participate in a test of the cards.
Scheidt & Bachmann USA Inc. provided the fare boxes which. The authority wants to finish the pilot program before commenting on how the cards and fare boxes perform.
Read more here.
Read more »Senate to Move Fast on Federal Building Security in Report's Aftermath
Legislation that would modernize the Federal Protective Service (FPS) should be completed soon, after a government report detailed how easy it is to bring bomb-making materials into a federal building and build an explosive device undetected by security, according to The Washington Post's Federal Eye blog.
Read more »Video Analytics 2009 Mid-Year Market Review : Video Analytics Review
The last six months were rough for video analytics. Little good news and lots of public recognition of video analytic troubles. In our own recent analysis and survey on video surveillance tec... More
Black Boxes to Get Back-up Battery
Black box flight recorders, which help investigators determine how a plane crash occurred, are set to get a long-needed upgrade to ensure proper functioning during a crash: back-up batteries.
Read more »U.K.: Hair Tests Could Test Terrorists' Alibis
Researchers in the United Kingdom have devised a laser test that can determine the recent whereabouts of an individual by analyzing hair strands. According to the Guardian, the British government wants to use the new technology to test the alibis of terrorism suspects and asylum seekers.
The science behind the technology comes from researchers at the National Metrology Institute in Teddington, Middlesex:
Read more »Florida loses some student loan promissory notes containing Social Security numbers
Stolen laptops or hacked student databases are one thing, but lost student loan promissory notes? That’s what Florida’s Department of Education is telling 475 student-loan borrowers. According to the Office of Financial Student Assistance, the students’ financial records may have been exposed to identity theft due to the lost notes that students signed when they were going to school, and have now fallen behind on.
“While your file was being processed for reassignment during the week of May 25, 2009, your promissory note(s) was lost,” read the memo from the financial assistance office that went to the borrowers. The office “cannot verify if the record of your promissory note(s) has been tampered with or if the confidentiality of your promissory note(s) was compromised,” the letter added. It urged borrowers to place a fraud alert on their credit files.
Read more here.
Read more »FIPS 201 and PIN: Never replicate or put a PIN in the clear!
By Salvatore D’Agostino, IDmachines
IDmachines recently has run across a number of situations in which people want to leverage the PIN on a FIPS 201 credential. The idea is to use a PIN on system as a second factor in combination with contactless components of the credential. Multi-factor authentication is a great idea for any access control application. Something you have plus something you know is simply more secure than something you have.
But let’s be clear, it’s something YOU have and something YOU know, not something WE (as is anyone with access to a database or application knows). The PIN on a FIPS 201 credential is something you set and then is locked away. You should never tell anyone and certainly you should never store it in a database for use in another application.
In particular under no circumstance use the PIN that is associated with and provides access to you private keys as a PIN on system for a physical access control application. End of story no further discussion please.
Read more »ACS to install and operate Peru's first bus rapid transit line
Affiliated Computer Services, a Dallas-based information technology company, has been chosen to provide the City of Lima, Peru with a contactless ticketing system for the country’s first bus rapid transit line. Under the terms of the $200 million contract, ACS will operate the system for a 14-year period.
ACS will supply and operate a fully integrated fleet management and ticketing solution to cover the needs of the first bus system installed in one of Lima’s busiest areas. The line is intended to carry over 700,000 passengers a day, and the city intends to build 10 other ticketing solutions, along similar lines, in the next few years.
The ticketing solution will be based on smart contactless cards that will be controlled at each station by gates and sold by automatic ticket vending machines and manned POS terminals. The 220 buses will be fully monitored and regulated, which is expected to significantly minimize wait times at each station.
Read more »Are CCD Surveillance Cameras Dying? : IP Cameras Article
Examines techcnial advances and advantages in CMOS that are driving the extinction of CCD use in surveillance cameras More
Russia: Hackers Target Religious Sites
While it's been heavily publicized that running afoul of the Russian government could make you a target for cyberattack, Russian hackers have victimized another population: religious groups.
According to the English-language daily The Moscow Times, relaying a report from the Russian-language daily Novya Izvestiya:
Read more »UNC adds printing upgrades to improve security
With new printing upgrades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students and staff will now only see their own print jobs at campus printing stations. The new security features will require university students and staff to sign in using their “onyen” and password at Information Technology Services printing stations.
Onyen, an acronym for the “only name you’ll ever need,” is what UNC calls its campus-wide identifier that is used to gain access to various electronic resources on campus.
The new features will also protect students from others using their accounts to pay for print jobs. For example, if a student fails to log out at a print station, no one else will be able to use his account to pay for documents, since only his own print jobs are viewable.
Read more here.
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