Fortnightly Mailing

One to watch: Yubikey, for an economical method of two-factor authentication

Updated and republished with link to a review of Yubikey security issues, 9/3/2009, with further updates and fixes to broken links on 23/1/2013.

[Added 9/3/2009. Here, with thanks to Positive Internet, is a friendly but quite critical assessment of Yubikey and some of its security flaws by Dr. Fredrik Björck, a security consultant, along with (added 23/1/2013) an update showing the fixes that Yubico was already making back in 2009.]

Yubico is a Swedish start-up that has come up with a clever and economical way of providing three-factor* authentication. The two normal factors are your user name and password, but what if someone or some software system has acquired these? Three-factor authentication involves a device owned by you needing to be part of the process, thereby making it more difficult for someone to access your web-based services. The problem with three-factor systems is their expense, and the YubiKey is cheap enough even in small quantities for it to be realistic to deploy on a mass basis, provided there is cheap enough access to the necessary validation service.  It is also designed to work with OpenID, and would reduce the risks of phishing that are associated with using OpenID for higher-value services.

What if you lose your key? The effect of this would depend on how the service is configured. You could, for example, be allowed "n" two-factor accesses without your key, or, once you've used your credit card to order a new key, or phoned your service provider to be issued with a new key, then be allowed two-factor access until, with your replacement key, you can switch three-factor authentication back on.

Yubico looks to be pitching to be put into use by Google as an add-on for users of Gmail and Google Apps; and you would imagine that Banks must be interested in this kind of service as well (I believe some already provide it).

* Yubico describes its system as a two-factor service, in the sense of something you know (your user name and password), and something you have (e.g. the YubiKey).

With thanks to Ufi's Dick Moore for highlighting this. (23/1/2013 - that was then, this is now.)

Sustainable Energy - without the hot air

Updated 1/1/2010

Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by David MacKay

If Tony Juniper, former Executive Director of Friends of the Earth says "For anyone with influence on energy policy, whether in government, business or a campaign group, this book should be compulsory reading", and Robert Sansom of EDF Energy  says "At last a book that comprehensively reveals the true facts about sustainable energy in a form that is both highly readable and entertaining", then the book is probably hitting the nail on the head. David JC MacKay's is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge [and, from September 2009, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change], and his book is available for purchase or for free download. There is also a podcast from a one-hour talk MacKay gave at the Cambridge Science Festival, on 12 March 2008, for which you can also access a reasonably matching set of slides, in HTML format.

With thanks for the link to Nic Tweddell

Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems, by Pierre Dillenbourg

elearning-reviews continues to provide a first-rate service with this review of Pierre Dillenbourg's Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Here is an excerpt from the Chrysi Rapanta's review:

"The article is divided in four basic sections called respectively: ‘Faded Myths’, ‘Convergences’, ‘Examples of Integrated Learning Environments’ and ‘Orchestration’. Starting from the first one, Dillenbourg addresses four basic myths, referring to overstatements about learning technologies that are currently losing their previously high status.

The first myth is about the overestimated effect of the use of media in education, stressing the fact that media itself do not bring pedagogical innovation, in the same way that teachers do not necessarily provoke good learning outcomes.

The second myth is about the futuristic approach regarding the upcoming ‘success’ of e-learning applications. According to Dillenbourg, teachers’ current technological skills are fairly well developed so that lacking skills do no longer count as an excuse for the poor development of TEL practices.

The third myth consists of the assumption that a technological application yields the best results when it is as similar to traditional practices as possible. Recent research in the educational field has shown that this is not the case. In addition, the author suggests that designing TEL environments in a way that imitates traditional campuses or institutions does not help teachers exploit the whole range of possibilities that new technologies offer.

Dillenbourg finishes with the fourth myth considering the teachers’ role. The teacher today is neither a ‘sage on the stage’ nor a ‘guide on the side’. To provide all the meta-knowledge ‘hidden’ in the learning contents he has to be in the middle of the scene, whatever the means of teaching are."

Note to self. Find out if Pierre Dillenbourg wants to speak in the UK.

WikiMatrix - a tool to compare wikis

From Fred Riley at the University of Nottingham, via the ALT Members' email list, here is a tool for comparing wikis, which Fred speaks highly of.

David Weinberger reports on a talk by Peter Suber about the future of Open Access

Nice live report by David Weinberger from a talk at Harvard University on 26 February by Peter Suber on the future of Open Access. Useful, though it is US flavoured, for people wanting to get to grips with Open Access in its several variants: "Green Open Access (= open access through a repository) and Gold OA (= OA through a journal). There’s also Gratis OA (free of charge but may be licensing restrictions), and Libre OA (free of charge and free of licensing restrictions)".

Naom Cohen in the NY Times on a perverse effect of the Google Books class action settlement

There is an interesting and slightly tongue in cheek piece in the 3 March 2009 New York Times - Google’s Digitized Book Project Hinges on a Retro Kind of Search - about the lengths that Google is going to to reach authors of scanned books to tell them about the rights that flow to them from the recently settled class action.

Thanks to Dick Moore for pointing this out.

Alex Jones reviews Ofsted's "The importance of ICT: information and communication technology in primary and secondary schools"

Ofsted's rather damning report, published today, is "based on evidence from inspections of information and communication technology (ICT) between September 2005 and July 2008 in 177 maintained schools in England, as well as other visits to schools where good practice was identified". Alex's review. Download the report.

Get the lingo. Financial Times article about Twitter

"Twitter users post short messages, either from a personal computer or mobile phone. These are usually made public, though they can be restricted to selected people. Anyone who wants to track a Twitterer’s public “tweets” can choose to become a “follower”: the “stream” of messages is then mixed in with streams from all the other people that are being followed, whether just a small number of friends or a large group made up of celebrities, politicians and others who have rushed to get a voice in this new domain."

I do not use Twitter, other than occasionally coming across other people's use of it when searching the Web.  Just as blogging used to leave me cold, so does Twitter.......

This longish piece by Richard Waters, Chris Nuttall and David Gelles, in the Financial Times, follows the US start-up's recent success in raising £24m in venture capital. The article gives a coherent description of the service and the underlying reasons for its success, and provides non-users with an overview of the Twitter "lingo". [I've included a chart from the article despite its the lack of any scale for the y axis.) The piece also manages to include a sidebar picking up on Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield's views - which are everywhere - about being active online causing brain damage.

Draconian New Zealand copyright law put on hold?

Over the last few days there have been protests in New Zealand against a newly amended Copyright Act (Section 92A) which establishes a guilt upon accusation principle that can, according to this report, "see anyone accused of copyright infringement getting his or her Internet connection severed". There have been extensive protests in New Zealand against these unworkable changes, and Richard Elliot dropped me a note today reporting that the National Party yesterday decided to "delay and review section 92A of the Amended NZ copyright Act".

Director of Digital Engagement in the Cabinet Office

The Government is looking for a Director of Digital Engagement. Here is an excerpt from the advertisement.

"Within six months the Head of Digital Engagement will have developed a strategy and implementation plan and be able to show concrete signs of momentum in executing the plan.

Within a year the Head of Digital engagement should be able to point to two departments whose use of digital engagement are recognised in the digital community as being world class.

Within two years the use of world class digital engagement techniques should be embedded in the normal work of Government."

A challenging role. Closing date 4/3/2009.