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Date: Wed Jan 22, 1997 12:21 am CST
From: educom
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TO: EDUCOM Edupage Mailing List
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: edupage@elanor.oit.unc.edu
BCC: * Nicholas Johnson / MCI ID: 103-5393
Subject: Edupage, 21 January 1997
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Edupage, 21 January 1997. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom,
a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities
seeking to transform education through the use of information technology.
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TOP STORIES
Netscape Communicator Is Peat Marwick Pick
CompuServe Targets Europe
Software For Teaching Over The Net
Poking Holes In Net Security
What To Be Next?
ALSO
FGCU Targets Distance Learners
The Most Well-Connected Country In The World? Finland!
Olivetti Sells Its PC Unit
Competing With Phone Companies
U S West Expands Services
Pornography On The Net
NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR IS PEAT MARWICK PICK
The accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick LLP has selected Netscape's
Communicator software package -- which is based on Internet "open standards"
and which combines a Web browser with workgroup collaboration and e-mail --
for use by its 17,000 workers in 120 offices throughout the U.S. The
accounting firm will also act as a reseller of the software to KPMG clients.
(New York Times 21 Jan 97 C2)
COMPUSERVE TARGETS EUROPE
CompuServe, which already offers online access in the U.K., Germany, France
and the Netherlands, is expanding into four new European countries:
Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Belgium. The company currently has about
880,000 subscribers in Europe, compared with America Online's 400,000 and
Microsoft Network's 100,000. "I think it's their only chance," says a
technology analyst at Banque Paribas. "They've been trounced by America
Online, so they have to go to those countries where AOL isn't." (Investor's
Business Daily 20 Jan 97 A20)
SOFTWARE FOR TEACHING OVER THE NET
A computer scientist at British Columbia has designed a set of software
tools called WebCT (for Web Course Tools) that allows instructors to design
online courses, create their own Web sites, hold interactive and
bulletin-board-type discussions, and administer exams, all on the Internet.
Professors simply enter their own material into pre-prepared forms, and the
virtual classroom takes shape. WebCT is already being used in more than 70
courses at the University of British Columbia, and the program is available
for testing to faculty members outside the university. Once testing is
completed, the program's authors plan to charge a fee for its use.
(Chronicle of Higher Education 24 Jan 97 A23)
< http://homebrew.cs.ubc.ca/webct/ >
POKING HOLES IN NET SECURITY
Dan Farmer, author of SATAN software, which is designed to find holes in Web
site security systems, has conducted a nonscientific survey of about 2,200
Web sites, and found about 70% to 80% had "serious security flaws." The
survey consisted of 1,700 "high profile" sites, and another 500 that were
selected at random. The high profile sites were found to have security
problems at about twice the rate of the random sample. "Many of the really
interesting sites are juggling," explains Farmer. "They offer a bunch of
services -- electronic mail, Internet news, user accounts and the like. Any
one of these isn't that difficult to keep up in the air. But put enough
"balls" up there and you start losing track... It's simply difficult to
manage all this stuff over a long time. And often employees are being
screamed at just to keep things running -- not necessarily secure. System
administrators almost never get the proper budget or training to do security
properly." Of the 660 banks surveyed, about 68% had sites that Farmer
considered highly vulnerable. (Investor's Business Daily 20 Jan 97 A6)
WHAT TO BE NEXT?
Be Inc. CEO Jean-Louis Gassee says now that he's no longer a potential Apple
partner, he's gearing up to market his BeOS system software for multimedia
developers, pointing to a recent licensing agreement with Power Computing, a
maker of Macintosh clones. Be will also continue to make its PowerPC-based
Be Box computers, and will port the BeOS to Intel microprocessors "if we see
an opportunity," says Gassee. Gassee also suggests that Apple selected Next
over Be for its new operating system in part because of Next's ties to
corporate computing. "My perspective is that Apple sees in NextStep an
opportunity to go into a marketplace that has been a perennial problem, the
enterprise market." (InfoWorld Electric 21 Jan 97)
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FGCU TARGETS DISTANCE LEARNERS
The new Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), which is scheduled to open its
doors next August, has as part of its charter a mandate to incorporate
distance learning practices into each of its 17 undergraduate and nine
graduate degree programs. The new school will use videotaped classes and
interactive, two-way video as well as the Internet to reach out to working
adults, homemakers and shut-ins who otherwise would not avail themselves of
the opportunity for higher education. FGCU consulted models such as
Britain's Open University and the University of Maryland in designing its
own program. (CIO 15 Jan 97 p21)
THE MOST WELL-CONNECTED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD? FINLAND!
In Finland there are 62 Internet host computers for each 1,000 people, twice
the proportion in the U.S. Nearly 30% of Finnish homes have portable
computers and about 60% have access to the Internet. (New York Times 20 Jan
97 A1)
OLIVETTI SELLS ITS PC UNIT
Italian conglomerate Olivetti S.p.A is selling its personal computer company
to an investor's group called Piedmont International, which will license the
Olivetti brand name for 20 years (renewable for 20 years more) and lease
Olivetti's personal computer plant for four years. (Financial Times 21 Jan 97)
COMPETING WITH PHONE COMPANIES
The Deloitte & Touche consulting company says the cable industry risks
losing a lot of money trying to compete in the phone business, and urges
cable companies not to use the superior fiber optic networks to deliver a
relatively low-tech service such as local phone calls; instead, the cable
companies should focus on video-on-demand and other two-way broadband
services. (Toronto Financial Post 21 Jan 97 p4)
U S WEST EXPANDS SERVICES
U S West Communications, the Denver, Colorado-based local phone service
provider, plans to begin offering long-distance phone service by the end of
the year, as well as wireless personal communication services allowing
customers to connect wireless phones with computers, fax machines and
pagers. The company will offer new high-speed digital Internet access to
customers in 10 cities in the next six months: Minneapolis, Seattle,
Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Boise, Cedar Rapids, and
Rochester, MN. (AP 20 Jan 97)
PORNOGRAPHY ON THE NET
A feature article on pornography on the Internet said the abundance of sex
on the Internet is the result of a century of obscenity battles won in the
courts. It mentions that Industry Canada has recently released a background
paper on illegal and offensive material on Internet, which points out that
many Web images are taken from magazines that are freely available in
Canada. (Ottawa Citizen 21 Jan 97 A4)
<http://info.ic.gc.ca/ic-data/info-highway/general/offensive/offens_e.html>
Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl@educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas
<douglas@educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057.
Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Today's Honorary Subscribers are Mississippi novelist and story writer
Eudora Welty, and programmer Steve Dorner, who invented the Eudora e-mail
software that is used by 18 million people. Dorner selected Ms. Welty's
name for his program after reading her short story called "Why I Live At The
P.O." He transposed the words of the story's title to: "Bringing the P.O.
Where You Live."
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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