Google at Grace Hopper

I was at Grace Hopper two weeks back as a part of teh CSTA leadership Advocacy meeting. As always lots of great information.

I spotted this video posted in LinkedIn earlier today - it is a great view of the types of jobs available in tech, and how girls fit in to the picture.

Google Loves Grace Hopper

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Marissa Meyer Nine Lessons Learned about Creativity at Google

This is a talk given at the Stanfords Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast by Marissa Meyer, new CEO at Yahoo back in 2006.

The talk is 48 minutes total, and they have it broken down into ten video clips. These would make great prompts for student discussion boards.

Of course as a high school computer science teacher this news is very exciting. She is a very visible and successful computer science major. All the news buzz about her balancing work and family have been a bit overdone in the media, buy for the girls in our classes it is great to see this conversation play out on such a large stage.

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ASUS Unveils Lamborghini VX3 Laptop in Hollywood at Lamborghini Dealer

ASUS introduces the ASUS-Lamborghini VX3 third generation laptop with a Hollywood-style celebration co-sponsored by Intel at the Lamborghini Orange County dealership. Celebrities and industry partners will walk the yellow-carpet as they enter the ASUS-Lamborghini VX3 celebration. Photo opportunities are available via various press walls which feature the ASUS-Lamborghini VX3 and Lamborghini automobiles. The ASUS-Lamborhini VX3 will retail for $3,299.

The latest addition to the ASUS-Lamborghini VX series family is a design combination of luxury, portability and superior performance. The 12.1 inch, 3.6lb ASUS-Lamborghini VX3 features a sapphire crystal camera lens, hand-made genuine leather palm rest, titanium alloy hinge, authentic Lamborghini painted cover with the world-renowned Lamborghini logo, a 320G hard drive and the latest Intel Centrino processor technology that provides optimal performance and authenticity on-the-go.

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Adobe Flash potentially puts most computers and users at risk

According to researchers there is a flaw within Flash that allows hackers to launch silent attacks on websites and users. Adobe hasnt tried to hide the fact that it is true and has suggested that its up to site designers to make sure they design their sites in such a way to prevent the attacks.

"The magnitude of this is huge," said Mike Murray, the chief information security officer at Orlando, Fla.-based Foreground Security. "Any site that allows user-uploadable content is vulnerable, and most are not configured to prevent this."

The problem lies in the Flash ActionScript same-origin policy which is designed to limit a Flash objects access to other content only from the domain it originated from, added Mike Bailey, a senior security researcher at Foreground. Unfortunately, said Bailey, if an attacker can deposit a malicious Flash object on a Web site -- through its user-generated content capabilities, which typically allow people to upload files to the site or service -- they can execute malicious scripts in the context of that domain.

"This is a frighteningly bad thing," Bailey said. "How many Web sites allow users to upload files of some sort? How many of those sites serve files back to users from the same domain as the rest of the application? Nearly every one of them is vulnerable."

The problem is that Adobe and security companies are trying to get the word out, but web application designers and programmers arent listening. A few of the major sites that have actually locked down their servers to protect their users include Microsofts Windows Live Hotmail and Googles YouTube, but sites like Googles Gmail and even some Adobe sites, still remain vulnerable. The researchers say the likelihood of an attack on Gmail is still very small, its also a very real possibility.

The only current defense users can employ against such attacks is to stop using Flash, or failing that, restrict its use to sites known to be safe with tools such as the NoScript add-on for Mozillas Firefox, or ToggleFlash for Microsofts Internet Explorer.

"The best mitigation is to not use Flash," argued Murray, "but we know that thats impossible for most users, since Flash is so widely used on the Web."

"Almost everyone using the Internet is vulnerable to a Web site that allows content to be updated inappropriately," said Murray. "Thats not hyperbole, its just fact. This has the potential to affect any social media site, any career site, any dating site, many retail sites and many cloud applications. Thats why this attack is so serious. End users would never know they got exploited."

The best suggestion would be to get the news out about the vulnerability and hope that Adobe gets a patch to fix the problem before the slight flaw turns into a major headache for everyone.

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