| Index | Last Week | Contact DQ News | Latest Issue |
| Featured Articles | Data & Information | Science & Technology | Education |
| Economics | Business | Law | Medicine |
Cyber Attackers Threaten Pentagon DQ/IQ
According to a front page report in the May 24th issue of The Washington Post, in February computer hackers exploiting software commonly used at the Pentagon and other U.S. defense installations led defense and law enforcement officials on a month-long chase around the Internet. The hackers turned out to be two 16-year old high school students in Northern California, assisted by another teenager in Israel.
As far as U.S. authorities have determined, the penetrations did not compromise national security, but the episide left the Pentagon badly shaken. Despite many studies warning of the growing risk of cyber attack, authorities acknowledge that the teenage hackers caught them unprepared.
A Pentagon exercise last year named "Eligible Receiver" pitted a group of 35 National Secutity Administration computer security experts against the federal information infrastructure - in Washington and elsewhere. By gaining "supervisory-level access" the NSA experts basically had the run of the Pentagon's network. "Eligible Receiver" showed that hackers could penetrate the Pentagon's computer security for "unclassified" systems, as the teenage hackers did six months later. The Post report was written by staff writer Bradley Graham.
Do Student Evaluations Cause Grade Inflation?
A report in the May 24th issue of The New York Times examines the relationship between the "grades" students award college professors at semester's end via student evaluations and the grades the professors award students.
According to Times staff reporter Randal Archibald, it appears that 30 years after student evaluations became widely used by American colleges, student evaluations are partly responsible for grade inflation. Although the Times reports no well-designed surveys that would establish the correlation, it provides anecdotal evidence that a positive correlation exists between positive evaluations and higher grades. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence also points to the student assessments being flawed and often misused. Math and science instructors appear to suffer the worst under the current evaluation system - they teach tough courses, demand a lot of hard work, and consequently give lower grades to some students. The report appears on page 5 of the "Week In Review" Section.
'Identity Theft' Threatens Financial, Personal Databases
According to a front page report in the May 26th issue of The Washington Post, "identity theft" is one of the fastest growing crimes in America. "Identity theft" occurs when criminals sweep up personal information, take on the persona of their victims, and rack up bills in the victims' names.
Identity theft is fueled by on-line information brokers and credit services, who make it easier than ever to obtain personal information that was once private. And it now takes minutes, not days, to open a new credit card account, leaving little time for credit card issuers to confirm the accuracy of information on a credit card application. [Editor's Note: The article does not discuss other forms of identity theft, e.g., personal information retreived from trash bins.]
According to the article, businesses, not individuals are legally considered victims of identity theft. But consumers are often stuck with terrible credit records that can destroy their prospects for getting loans, insurance, and work. At least one bill has been introduced in the U.S. Congress to make identity theft a federal crime and give individuals the right to seek prosecutions and manadate resitituion, including the cost of clearing up credit records. The report was written by Post staff writers Robert O'Harrow, Jr. and John Schwartz.