The National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation have teamed up to launch a new summer camp initiative, dubbed GenCyber, aimed at identifying middle and high school students with an interest in cybersecurity and assisting them in developing useful academic and work-related skills. According to the program’s Web site, the goal of the GenCyber…
I had the pleasure of speaking this morning to students at the Simmons College School of Library and Information Services at the invitation of Assistant Professor Laura Saunders, who is teaching a summer course entitled “Intellectual Freedom and Censorship.” In her syllabus, Dr. Saunders describes the class as follows: This course provides students with in-depth…
During Game 6 of the 2015 NHL Eastern Conference finals, a New York Rangers fan sent out a large number of tweets about the game. One the tweets, taken utterly out of context, might tickle the funny-bone of your average 8-year-old: So this is what a PP looks like. — Anthony Weiner (@anthonyweiner) May 26,…
Less than 24 hours after the MBTA Transit Police posted surveillance photos of a man suspected of participating in a sex act on the State Street station platform of the Orange Line, they announced an arrest in the case. On May 21, 2015 we posted images of a person of interest relative to an Open…
As I predicted in my blog post yesterday, the MBTA Transit Police wasted no time canvassing a number of surveillance cameras in and around the area of the State Street station where the well-publicized act of public sex occurred. Thanks in part to the blowee‘s distinctive attire and haircut, they were able to find four…
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has had a tough year. The commuter service was faced with enormous challenges last winter when the region was pummelled by eleven plus feet of snow and by most accounts, the MBTA blew it. By mid-February, the agency’s schedule was in shambles and general manager Beverly Scott was forced to…
On Thursday, Missouri House Speaker John Diehl, 49, abruptly resigned from his leadership post and from the Missouri House of Representatives over a flirtatious series of texts that he exchanged with Katelyn Graham, a 19-year-old Missouri State Southern University student. Graham was one of four MSSU students participating in a Capitol internship program. The intern…
The world’s leading for-profit geneaology company, Ancestry.com, was founded in Provo, Utah in 1983. Thirteen years later, an 18-year-old woman named Angie Dodge was sexually assaulted and murdered in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Nearly two decades after her death, a twisting set of circumstances and rapidly-evolving technology have linked those two events in ways that have…
The Boston Globe published a glowing article about Beacon Press, which is celebrating its 161st anniversary this year. The press, under the leadership of director Helene Atwan, recently moved from its historic offices behind the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill to a former factory at 24 Farnsworth Street near the city’s Fan Pier. I…
Each year, the American Library Association celebrates “Choose Privacy Week” from May 1 to May 7. According to a blog post by Michael Robinson, the Chair of the ALA-IFC Privacy Subcommittee, this year’s theme is “Who’s Reading the Reader”: It feels like online privacy has taken a step closer to center stage in libraryland in…
