From
BBC Technology News:
Search engine Ask has launched a feature that it hopes will prove a selling point for consumers concerned about their online privacy.
AskEraser allows users to immediately delete search queries stored on Ask's servers, in contrast to rivals such as Google which stores data for 18 months.
How personal data is used is becoming more of an issue as people live more of their lives via search engines.
Some are concerned about possible deals between search engines and ad firms.
In America consumer advocacy groups have expressed doubts about a proposed merger between Google and ad-serving company DoubleClick, which is currently being reviewed by US regulators.
Read more here...
Some interesting news from the Patterns and Practices Team at Microsoft:
From Blaine Wastell - patterns & practices client architecture guidance
The patterns & practices client team just shipped the Model View Presenter (MVP) Bundle. This bundle helps you understand how to test your ASP.NET Web Forms UI. Additionally it shows how to separate the View from the UI logic and its associated model.
This bundle also discusses when to use the Passive View and Supervising Controller to implement MVP. Similar to the other bundles, we provide code examples to demonstrate the MVP pattern. The Model-View-Presenter QuickStart and the Model-View-Presenter with Composite Web Application Block QuickStart.
The Model-View-Presenter QuickStart demonstrates how to implement MVP with standard ASP.NET using the ObjectControlDataSource control for simple testable data binding. The assembly for this control is included with the bundle.
The Model-View-Presenter with Composite Web Application Block QuickStart demonstrates how to implement MVP using the Composite Web Client Library.
This bundle is applicable to those that use the Composite Web Client Library and those that do not. So check it out and give us your feedback on the new bundle.
My friend Glenn Block states,
Implementing MVP allows you to design an application that is built for testability, is more maintainable, and that has less brittle UIs. We've invested a lot of effort to give you a clear understanding of what MVP is, what the forces are for using it, and how you can implement it. We've also given you a set of guidelines to think about in how you implement MVP. Finally there's the code (quickstarts) which illustrates several different variations on it's implementation along with documentation to explain how it works.
The bundle landing page is here where you can download the bits. You can also now view the documentation online without downloading, by going here.
And in the words of Glen
This is not about frameworks, this is not about libraries, this is about the patterns.
Today someone hacked my twitter account. It just so happened that the friends I follow were in the middle of a flurry of tweets and I was watching their babbling when I noticed the following tweet - supposedly from me:
I immediately changed my password and reported this security breach to twitter.com. There is no customer service contact for security issues - but a contact us form with a category of bug (urm... i would say so).
Send a tweets to those following me...
which was promptly followed up by the following from my new alter-tweeter
Which is extra-specially concerning ... remember - I had just changed the account password.
So it looks like Twitter has a serious security problem guys - so be careful with your details and watch for any posts that you yourself did not write. I still await a response from Twitter.com with an explanation. My guess, either a back-door vulnerability or an unscrupulous developer of a twitter app/mashup.
OK Ok, a bit late with the news but the excellent and very popular UK Developer community driven event Developer! Developer! Developer! is heading to Scotland on Saturday 10th May, 2008 for Developer Day Scotland, at the Glasgow Caledonian University.
The call for speakers is open and in response I have submitted a proposal to the organisers for me to host a session on implementing OpenID into your .NET Web Applications. More over I will be demonstrating the OpenID 2.0 specifications attempts to reduce risk of phishing - something that my company NetIDme have worked hard at and addressed in our NetIDme.com product suite.
What:
Developer Day Scotland
Developer Day Scotland is a community event, run by community for community, which is based upon the highly successful Developer! Developer! Developer! community conference events.
When:
Saturday, May 10, 2008 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Where:
Glasgow Caledonian University
Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow, G4 0BA Scotland
As reported by BBC news
Microsoft is to withdraw an anti-piracy tool from Windows Vista, which disables the operating system when invoked, following customer complaints.
The so-called "kill switch" is designed to prevent users with illegal copies of Vista from using certain features.
But the tool has suffered from glitches since it was introduced with many Windows users claiming that legal copies of Vista had been disabled.
Microsoft says its efforts have seen a drop in piracy of its software.
In a statement released by the company, Microsoft corporate vice president Mike Sievert, said: "Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine copies."
Full story available here >>
This list of claims is taken from the Identity Selector Interoperability Profile, and specifies a set of claim (attribute) types and the corresponding URIs defined for some commonly used personal information.
The base XML namespace URI that is used by the claim types defined here is as follows: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims
For convenience, an XML Schema for the claim types defined here can be found here.
8.5.1. First Name
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname
Type: xs:string
Definition: (givenName in RFC 2256) Preferred name or first name of a subject. According to RFC 2256: “This attribute is used to hold the part of a person’s name which is not their surname nor middle name.”
8.5.2. Last Name
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname
Type: xs:string
Definition: (sn in RFC 2256) Surname or family name of a subject. According to RFC 2256: “This is the X.500 surname attribute which contains the family name of a person.”
8.5.3. Email Address
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress
Type: xs:string
Definition: (mail in inetOrgPerson) Preferred address for the “To:” field of email to be sent to the subject, usually of the form @. According to inetOrgPerson using RFC 1274: “This attribute type specifies an electronic mailbox attribute following the syntax specified in RFC 822.”
8.5.4. Street Address
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/streetaddress
Type: xs:string
Definition: (street in RFC 2256) Street address component of a subject?s address information. According to RFC 2256: “This attribute contains the physical address of the object to which the entry corresponds, such as an address for package delivery.” Its content is arbitrary, but typically given as a PO Box number or apartment/house number followed by a street name, e.g. 303 Mulberry St.
8.5.5. Locality Name or City
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/locality
Type: xs:string
Definition: (l in RFC 2256) Locality component of a subject?s address information. According to RFC 2256: “This attribute contains the name of a locality, such as a city, county or other geographic region.” e.g. Redmond.
8.5.6. State or Province
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/stateorprovince
Type: xs:string
Definition: (st in RFC 2256) Abbreviation for state or province name of a subject?s address information. According to RFC 2256: “This attribute contains the full name of a state or province. The values should be coordinated on a national level and if well-known shortcuts exist - like the two-letter state abbreviations in the US – these abbreviations are preferred over longer full names.” e.g. WA.
8.5.7. Postal Code
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/postalcode
Type: xs:string
Definition: (postalCode in X.500) Postal code or zip code component of a subject?s address information. According to X.500(2001): “The postal code attribute type specifies the postal code of the named object. If this attribute value is present, it will be part of the object’s postal address - zip code in USA, postal code for other countries.”
8.5.8. Country
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/country
Type: xs:string
Definition: (c in RFC 2256) Country of a subject. According to RFC 2256: “This attribute contains a two-letter ISO 3166 country code.”
8.5.9. Primary or Home Telephone Number
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/homephone
Type: xs:string
Definition: (homePhone in inetOrgPerson) Primary or home telephone number of a subject. According to inetOrgPerson using RFC 1274: “This attribute type specifies a home telephone number associated with a person.” Attribute values should follow the agreed format for international telephone numbers, e.g. +44 71 123 4567.
8.5.10. Secondary or Work Telephone Number
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/otherphone
Type: xs:string
Definition: (telephoneNumber in X.500 Person) Secondary or work telephone number of a subject. According to X.500(2001): “This attribute type specifies an office/campus telephone number associated with a person.” Attribute values should follow the agreed format for international telephone numbers, e.g. +44 71 123 4567.
8.5.11. Mobile Telephone Number
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/mobilephone
Type: xs:string
Definition: (mobile in inetOrgPerson) Mobile telephone number of a subject. According to inetOrgPerson using RFC 1274: “This attribute type specifies a mobile telephone number associated with a person.” Attribute values should follow the agreed format for international telephone numbers, e.g. +44 71 123 4567.
8.5.12. Date of Birth
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/dateofbirth
Type: xs:date
Definition: The date of birth of a subject in a form allowed by the xs:date data type.
8.5.13. Gender
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/gender Type: xs:token
Definition: Gender of a subject that can have any of these exact string values –
0 (meaning unspecified),
1 (meaning Male) or
2 (meaning Female). Using these values allows them to be language neutral.
8.5.14. Private Personal Identifier
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/privatepersonalidentifier
Type: xs:base64binary
Definition: A private personal identifier (PPID) that identifies the subject to a relying party. The word “private” is used in the sense that the subject identifier is specific to a given relying party and hence private to that relying party. A subject?s PPID at one relying party cannot be correlated with the subject?s PPID at another relying party…
8.5.15. Web Page
URI: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/webpage
Type: xs:string
Definition: The Web page of a subject expressed as a URL.
The Think U Know website and campaign was created by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and contains information on Internet safety and safe surfing for young people. Multiple topics about online safety are covered -- including mobiles, blogging and gaming sites.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre works across the UK and maximises international links to tackle child sex abuse wherever and whenever it happens. More about what they do.
I found this video this morning, entitled Girls, Think U Know. Personally I think this should be shown on TV and in schools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp5nScG6C5g