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Thursday, January 15, 2004 |
Nancy Drew dusts off 'musty appeal' for new readers,
by Gary Strauss, USA Today.In four new paperbacks due in March,
Nancy is finished with high school. She tools around River Heights in an
environmentally friendly, gas/electric hybrid car. She uses computers to
solve detective work. And she tells her crime-fighting tales in first person.
An ultra-early icon of girl power, Nancy had the smarts and feistiness that
made her an inspiration to teens and preteens in the 1930s. More than 200
million copies of the books, written under the pen name Carolyn Keene, have
been sold in 17 languages.
Nancy and many story lines in the original 56 hardcover novels previously
have been tweaked. Some early Drew books remain big sellers - about 150,000
hardcover copies of the first mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock, sold in
2002, good enough for a top-50 ranking among kids' books, says Publishers
Weekly children's books editor Diane Roback. Clearly, she still has a
musty
appeal, she says.
1:33:24 PM 
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Hacker Breaks Into UMKC Computer System
UMKC employs a "single-sign-on" system designed to make it
easier to
use several university services with the same username and password.
The computer system allows a person with an e-mail password to access
financial information, human-resources records and student grades.
Officials would not give specifics about when the breach occurred and
the hacker downloaded the passwords. Faculty, staff and students were
told late Monday the breach was "discovered" earlier that day. But an
internal memo obtained by The Kansas City Star said the first sign of
a possible breach occurred Thursday evening, four days earlier.
Officials did not react until another incident was detected in the
computer logs around midnight Sunday.
That's when we immediately decided to shut down the Internet and
change all the passwords, Brenneman said. He said the hackers likely
did not have time to unscramble the encrypted passwords before the
intrusion was discovered.
But independent computer security officials say a four-day span could
give hackers enough time to unscramble them and use the passwords to
access information.
If someone got that file and knew what they were doing, they could
get working passwords, if they had it four days, said Gary Fish, head
of Kansas City-based Fishnet Security Systems.
The security breach occurred on a Windows-based computer that
authenticates the university's Microsoft Exchange e-mail.
12:33:13 PM
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Billionaires for Bush is a grassroots political action committee
that advocates for the rights and interests
of people of phenomenal wealth.
Paid for and maintained by Billionaires, Inc. Contributions to
Billionaires
Inc. or Billionaires for Bush are not tax-deductible for
federal income tax purposes.
8:31:03 AM
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Park Police Bomb Their Terrorism Test, by Richard Leiby, Washington Post.
In broad daylight on Sept. 11, 2003, somebody deposited what
could
have been a "dirty bomb" at the Washington Monument. U.S. Park Police
never noticed.
It wasn't a real bomb, just a suspicious-looking black plastic bag
stuffed with garbage. And the culprits weren't terrorists, but
investigators from the Interior Department's Office of Inspector
General, out to demonstrate the monument's vulnerability on that
infamous anniversary.
As documented in photos and a memo obtained by The Reliable Source,
the feds left the bag at the rear of the obelisk for 20 minutes, then
moved it near a security checkpoint where tourists lined up to enter
the landmark. Again, the unidentified bag sat there, undisrupted and
unnoticed, for roughly 15 minutes, wrote Inspector General Earl E.
Devaney in the memo, citing his grave concerns for the security and
public safety at these facilities.
No Park Police could be seen on patrol, except for one in an unmarked
car who appeared to be sound asleep, Devaney wrote.
4:30:07 AM
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The publisher as protagonist: In an industry dominated by big firms,
Grove/Atlantic chief Morgan Entrekin is a small-house standard bearer for
an earlier age, a writers' hero in pursuit of real literature (and an
artful blockbuster or two along the way).
By Teresa Méndez, Christian Science Monitor.
2:29:48 AM
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