Eideard

“I’m eating my damn breakfast. Leave me alone!”
(Actually, I’d be delighted to get that response)

OK, so this isn’t a current story at all. Or is it? I pose this question as a followup to reports from September 2010, which indicated that Spassky had suffered a stroke in Moscow. The last I read, he was receiving physical therapy in France. Details were sketchy at best, and it wasn’t clear where information was coming from.

So.. maybe someone who knows something will run across this and give me an update?

It never hurts to ask. I hope he is well.

President Barack Obama is seeking a major overhaul of the U.S. education system, with a shift from an emphasis on testing to an emphasis on career preparation — a plan that he is backing up with billions in budget incentives.

The administration has already pumped $100 billion into education and is now moving to rewrite legislation that has governed the nation’s schools for nearly a decade.

Obama’s proposed $3.8 trillion budget includes $49.7 billion for education, and much of the 7.5 percent increase is focused on programs under No Child Left Behind, which could come up for reauthorization this year.

At the heart of the change is a major redesign of NCLB’s accountability measures, which have set the standard for school systems across the country for the past eight years…

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said NCLB, one of George W. Bush’s signature domestic accomplishments, demanded accountability but “does little to reward progress.”

“We want accountability reforms that factor in student growth, progress in closing achievement gaps, proficiency towards college and career-ready standards, high school graduation and college enrollment rates,” Duncan said, noting that the new approach is a “cradle-to-career agenda…”

So far, the Obama administration’s $100 billion investment in schools has supported nearly 300,000 education jobs.

In addition, the administration has launched a nationwide $4.35 billion competitive grant program known as Race to the Top that encourages states to create data systems, focus on teacher effectiveness and improve low-performing schools.

Meanwhile, we have one of the largest cities in New Mexico – Rio Rancho, the New Mexico home of Intel – preparing to reduce standards one more time because not enough children pass.

They’re confident lowering standards will pump out more kids with diplomas – as it will. Of course, they will need remedial classes before they qualify to flip burgers or hand out parking tickets.

British police have appealed for information about the whereabouts of an escaped prisoner who has been telling the world via Facebook about his life as a fugitive.

Craig Lynch, 28, escaped Hollesley Bay open prison near Suffolk, eastern England, back in September, but has continued to update his Facebook status regularly — describing everything from his meals to who his next girlfriend will be…

In a…posting from earlier this week Lynch wrote “Is thinkin, which lucky girl will be my first of 2010!!.”

Police are trying to use clues left by Lynch on his Facebook to track down where the convicted burglar may be hiding…

“We have spoken to Facebook and we are trying to trace him from the information we have, but it’s one of those things that we’re also asking for help from members of the public,” Suffolk police spokesperson Anne-Marie Breach told CNN.

“Obviously we’re taking what he’s saying on Facebook with a pinch of salt because he’s now aware that people may be reading what he’s writing.”

Life on the lam apparently gets easier and easier. So much for snoops and database mining.

An update for Blackberry users in the United Arab Emirates could allow unauthorised access to private information and e-mails.

The update was prompted by a text from UAE telecoms firm Etisalat, suggesting it would improve performance. Instead, the update resulted in crashes or drastically reduced battery life…

Etisalat is a major telecommunications firm based in the UAE, with 145,000 Blackberry users on its books.

In the statement, RIM told customers that “Etisalat appears to have distributed a telecommunications surveillance application… independent sources have concluded that it is possible that the installed software could then enable unauthorised access to private or confidential information stored on the user’s smartphone”.

It adds that “independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server“…

The update has now been identified as an application developed by American firm SS8. The California-based company describes itself as a provider of “lawful electronic intercept and surveillance solutions”…

Etisalat issued a brief statement calling the problem a “slight technical fault”, saying that the “upgrades were required for service enhancements”.

RIM has issued a patch allowing users to remove the application. Phew!

A major flaw in the way the internet works could lead to millions of people being targeted by criminals and has prompted the “largest security update” in web history.

The bug – described as “cache poisoning” – has led to some of the technology industry’s largest companies scrambling to come up with a solution before hackers discover how to exploit the flaw.

Dan Kaminsky, an American internet security specialist who uncovered the bug, has been working with major technology companies including Microsoft and Cisco to issue software patches to prevent attacks from working.

“This is the largest synchronised security update in the history of the internet. The severity of this bug is shown by the number of those who are on board with the patches,” Kaminsky said.

The flaw exploits the internet’s address mechanism, known as the Domain Name System (DNS). The glitch allows hackers to inject themselves into the process, intercepting the name entered by the user and mapping it to a different internet address than the one intended.

This would potentially allow criminals to redirect web users to phishing websites even if they had entered the correct address in the first place.

Phew! I hope the good guys get this sorted out before the nutballs and gangsters do.