PCIN.net Update

From InformationWeek:

A phenomenon as monumental as the Internet should have an ailment of its own. Indeed, the Web appears to be breeding its very own disease, a medical syndrome recognizable by a quickening of the heart, profuse sweating, and furious clicking and bashing of the mouse. In extreme cases, the ailment can be identified by loud screaming at video screens.

It’s Mouse Rage Syndrome, and it infects all Internet users sooner or later, according to a study of 2,500 Web users that was released Tuesday. Conducted by the Social Issues Research Centre in the United Kingdom, the study identified key factors that can negatively affect cardio functions, as well as the immune and nervous systems.

What’s the root cause of Mouse Rage Syndrome? It’s primarily caused by badly designed and hosted Web sites, according to the research center.

From the Globe and Mail:

Hold onto your sleigh-reins: Santa has gone interactive.

In either a blatant manipulation of a beloved Christmas legend or a genius attempt to bring children and parents together this festive season, one of the world’s largest instant-messaging operators has taken last year’s ‘e-mail Santa’ campaign to another level.

MSN has established a live website where people can read Santa’s blog, download games and recipes, and even chat live with the big man himself.

From the New York Times:

On Thursday, Kevin Poulsen, senior editor for Wired News, noted in his blog, a milestone in the number of records that have been compromised in data breaches since the ChoicePoint breach nearly two years ago:

“Rapid-fire announcements this week by U.C.L.A. (800,000 records) and Aetna (130,000) moved the total to the threshold, when Boeing revealed yesterday that a laptop recently stolen from an employee’s car contained names, Social Security numbers and other data on 382,000 current and former employees of the aerospace giant — bringing the total to a grim 100,152,801 records (as of this post).”

From CNN:

The University of California, Los Angeles alerted about 800,000 current and former students, faculty and staff on Tuesday that their names and certain personal information were exposed after a hacker broke into a campus computer system.

Only a small percentage — “far less than 5 percent” — of the records in the database were actually accessed, UCLA spokesman Jim Davis told The Associated Press.

Still, it was one of the largest such breaches involving a U.S. higher education institution.

The attacks in October 2005 and ended November 21 of this year, when computer security technicians noticed suspicious database queries, according to a statement posted on a school Web site set up to answer questions about the theft.