Business grad students most likely to cheat: study
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Graduate business students in the United   States and Canada are more likely to cheat on their work than   their counterparts in other academic fields, the author of a   research paper said on Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Users of online banking sites tend to bypass critical clues that the integrity of those sites may have been compromised, according to the working draft of a study released on Sunday by researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study, which will be formally released in May at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland, California, underscores how new technologies and warnings can't completely protect Internet users fromÂ scams such as phishing. It also throws doubt on the effectiveness of site-authentication images, which have been implemented by financial institutions such as Bank of America, Vanguard Group, and ING Bank. The images, selected by the customers, are shown when a bank customer logs in from a different computer than is normally used. The study involved 67 users, with more than 90 percent under 30 years old. Because of varying parameters in the study, not all qualified to be included in the results for each of the three tests. Users were ask to conduct common online banking tasks, although precautions were taken to ensure users weren't put at risk. For the first test, HTTPS indicators -- which show that an encrypted connection is enabled -- were removed from the address bar along with the lock that appears in the bottom right corner of Internet Explorer 6. Although the absence of HTTPS indicators should be a warning, all 67 participants continued with their transactions, the study found. The researchers then conducted a test where the site-authentication image was removed along with the HTTPS indicators. The researchers wrote it is the first empirical investigation into site-authentication images. Only two of 60 people chose not to log in when the image was removed, a key sign that a site may have been tampered with or is a phishing site, the study said. Of users who were actually using their own bank account for the study, 23 of 25 continued to enter their passwords. "We find them [site-authentication images] to be ineffective," the study concludes. In the last test, researchers made it more obvious, this time replacing a password-entry page with a warning page from Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3. The page advises of a problem with the security certificate of the chosen Web site. Despite the warning, 30 of 57 users entered their passwords. The study comes as U.S. banks are beefing up their authentication technologies amid new requirements from federal regulators. In October 2005, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) mandated that U.S. banks implement stronger authentication protections by the end of last year, particularly for high-risk transactions such as sending money to a different person's account. Bank of America uses site-authentication image technology called SiteKey. Users pick an image and assign a phrase to it while also setting three "challenge" questions. If a user logs in from a computer that doesn't already have a cookie, they're asked one of the challenge questions and then to verify the image and phrase. If the image doesn't appear or the phrase is wrong, consumers shouldn't proceed. Bank of America said the image system benefits users since it's free and doesn't involve extra hardware or software.
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(InfoWorld) - Hard drives full of confidential data are still turning up on the second-hand market, researchers have reported. Investigations carried out on behalf of BT by the University of Glamorgan in the U.K., Edith Cowan University in Australia, and Longwood University in the U.S., found that 37 percent of drives surveyed had traces of personal data on them. Damningly, this figure is much the same as it was for the same surveys undertaken by the universities in each of the last two years, suggesting that either companies are ignoring the issue or simply lack the tools to adequately wipe data before resale. Sensitive information retrieved included salary details, financial data of specific companies, credit card numbers, medical data, visa applications, details of online purchases, and inevitably, online pornography. The sample totalled 350 hard drives acquired in online auctions. "Given the level of exposure that the subjects of security and identity theft has received in recent times, and the availability of suitable tools to ensure the safe disposal of information, it is difficult to understand why disks are still not being effectively cleaned before they are disposed off," said BT's security research head, Dr Andy Jones. "When organizations dispose off surplus and obsolete computers and hard disks, they must ensure that adequate procedures are in place to destroy any data and also to check that the procedures that are in place are effective -- whether they are handled by internal resources or through a third party contractor," he said. The full report -- which has yet to be made publically available -- reveals that buying second-hand disks is an unreliable way to get hold of storage. Of the 133 disks bought in the U.K., 44 percent of them didn't even work. But of those that did, 19 percent had enough information on them to identify the organization from which they had come, 65 percent had enough data to identify named people, and 17 percent contained "illicit" data. Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Women who cheat on their partners now have the perfect excuse - my genes made me do it. New research reveals that female infidelity and the number of sexual partners
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A confidential survey of more than 1,600 pairs of female twins has revealed that genetic factors have a substantial impact on how likely women are to cheat on their partner and how many sexual partners they will have.
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Genetic factors influence female infidelity and the number of sexual partners women have, British scientists said on Wednesday. They studied the responses of 1,600 pairs of identical
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Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
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Your habits might reflect your odds of becoming wealthy.
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Children with at least one parent born   outside the United States are more likely to study math and   physical sciences in college, driven by the aim of securing a   well-paid job, according to a study released on Thursday.
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A new study, to be published in the journal &#39;Twin Research&#39; has indicated that showing an inclination towards being unfaithful, not having faith in god and getting divorced might something that is far beyond your control as it could be a part of your
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Teachers, students and administrators tampered with a private college's computer system to change grades and create fake degrees for money, prosecutors charged Monday. Among the fake degrees given were those for physicians' assistants, they said.
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Authors Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman explain in the "Professors' Guide to Getting Good Grades in College" why it is not bad to be a grade-grubber:
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RICHARDSON, Texas - Hackers might have obtained the personal information of 6,000 people who worked for, applied to or attended the University of Texas at Dallas, school officials said Wednesday.  The information includes names and Social Security numbers, the school said.
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Well, in a manner of speaking, yes. Researchers use a brain scan that lets them identify your intentions before you actually do anything. By the Associated Press.
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Computer hackers captured the names, Social Security numbers and other information of more than 30,000 students and staff at George Mason University earlier this month, school officials said Monday.
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A security flaw that could have caused big trouble for Google and its new Desktop Search tool has been fixed, thanks to a Rice University professor and two of his graduate students.
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A team of researchers is using the Facebook habits of students to study how personal tastes, habits and values affect the formation of social relationships.