The Goodson Blogson

Over the weekend, Hurricane Helene devastated more than 600 miles of the southeastern United States, from the Gulf Coast of Florida through Tennessee ( NYTimes: Mapping the Destruction ). Western North Carolina was hit especially hard with flooding, landslides, and collapsing highways and bridges, leaving the mountain region inaccessible and impassable from all directions. DriveNC.gov maintains a map of current road closures, warning that "All roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed and non-emergency travel is prohibited." Widespread power outages and shortages of food and water have followed in the wake of the storm. While aid has begun to reach the region, recovery and repairs will be a slow and difficult process, and the full impact of the destruction is not yet known. The Asheville Citizen-Times and The Assembly NC have temporarily suspended their paywalls for hurricane-related coverage. If you are able to help, agencies are seeking monetary contr...

How many email addresses do you have? More importantly, how many email addresses have you forgotten about? In June, Lifehacker posted a helpful guide, How to Find and Delete Your Old Email Addresses . Echoing concerns raised recently by Consumer Reports , the posts noted that dormant email accounts present a serious security vulnerability – especially if you used them as password recovery addresses for linked services or other, more valuable email accounts. Both posts detail some steps to locate and delete unwanted, dormant email addresses. A few key tips to identify past addresses to potentially shutter: Conduct a web search for your known usernames and email addresses. View the connected email accounts on your social media services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) by accessing your Settings. Check the secondary "password recovery" accounts listed on your primary email account and other online services. Review any saved logins in your web browsers or passw...

Today is Data Privacy Day , an international event to raise awareness about online privacy and security. As noted on the event's website, "Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Data Protection Day commemorates the Jan. 28, 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection." The Data Privacy Day website includes practical tips to Stay Safe Online . Three easy steps that everyone can take today to increase their online privacy and security include: Strengthen your passwords. Did you know that current members of the Duke community can download the password management service LastPass Premium for free? LastPass and other services like it will help you create long, extra-strength passwords, which are then stored securely in a "vault" – leaving you with only one master password to remember going ...

The Goodson Blogson usually focuses on legal research-related news and resources. But the impending arrival of Hurricane Florence on the Carolina coast later this week has us thinking about the safety of our community. Many new law students may never have experienced a hurricane, and even some longer-term residents haven’t seen a storm of this predicted magnitude hit the Triangle region in more than twenty years. Here are some resources to help you prepare for whatever comes at the end of this week. Follow the forecast . The News & Observer is suspending its usual paywall in order to provide readers with full access to storm coverage. Other sources for updated local forecast information are WRAL and Spectrum News . Keep up to date with the latest forecasts and adjust your planning accordingly. Prepare a supply kit. Bottled water is already disappearing from local store shelves. The federal government's supply kit checklist at Ready.gov recommends stocking up on water, ...

The Goodson Blogson has written before on the topic of weak passwords , which are sadly common in cyberspace. Back then, our post on the topic cited a 2007 study of the most popular—and vulnerable-- online passwords, including 123456 , password , qwerty , and abc123 . In November, the password-management outfit SplashData released a list of the "25 Worst Passwords of 2011" , which revealed that those laughably bad passwords remain at the top of the list more than four years later (and no, "passw0rd" – which also made the 2011 list – isn't really an improvement). To help combat this crummy-password epidemic, gadget blog Gizmodo has declared Wednesday, February 1st to be “Change Your Password Day” . Their site explains the vulnerabilities in common passwords, and offers tips for strengthening them, including strategies for creating a memorable “pass phrase” which incorporates more difficult-to-crack length and a variety of letters, numbers and symbols. Duke’s own ...

An early episode of the Comedy Central mockumentary series Reno 911! depicted its inept law enforcement crew competing in a twisted scavenger hunt, where points were awarded for arresting unusual criminals: e.g., 10 points would be awarded for a perp who measured more than 6’5” in height; another 5 points for an arrestee with an animal tattoo; and 15 points to the officer who nabbed the most attractive prostitute by night’s end. But what seemed like a far-fetched and morbidly funny hypothetical scenario in 2003 became sadly real yesterday, when the L.A. Times published an internal police memo which outlined a "baseball game" for traffic violations . The Bell (CA) Police Department Baseball Game ( annotated memo ) created a progressive scoring system for parking and moving violations, from "singles" (recovering a stolen vehicle, writing 6 parking tickets), to "doubles" (misdemeanor arrests, citations for illegal parking in a handicapped spot), to "t...

Over the holiday weekend, a CNN affiliate investigated growing consumer complaints about At The Beach, Inc., an area tanning salon chain with some pretty stringent member agreements. Customers claim that they were duped into signing virtually-unbreakable two-year contracts, and then burned by the fine print when attempting to cancel their accounts. Although most—including the news station’s undercover reporter—were assured by friendly employees that the contracts could be canceled “at any time,” consumers say they were not informed of the requirement to either “buy out” 50% of the remaining time on their contracts, or to prove that they had moved at least 25 miles away from the closest location in order to stop the automatic monthly billing. Is your inner lawyer feeling a distinct lack of sympathy for those who signed without reading? As the news video (5:49) shows, even seasoned attorneys can get caught in a contract trap: interview subject Kevin Lanoha is corporate counsel at Qwest...

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that more than 10,000 Hotmail email accounts had been compromised, and their passwords posted to underground hacking websites. An analysis of the posted account information revealed that the majority of the affected accounts used weak passwords which could be easily guessed. The most popular password was 123456 (with 123456789 a close second). As we reported in the spring , weak passwords are commonplace in cyberspace. A 2007 list of the most frequently-used online passwords included 123456 as well as perennial favorites password , qwerty , and abc123 . But the Hotmail story underscores the dangers of ignoring online security. As a result, many websites are getting tough on wimpy passwords, and requiring users to create strong passwords (a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols) which are harder for hackers to decipher. One such site is Westlaw , which will begin encouraging the creation of OnePass usernames and passwords in November 20...

Westlaw just announced an upcoming change to its password policy: beginning May 31, Westlaw users will see a prompt to create a OnePass account (username and password) in order to access the research sites, rather than use the 11-digit “Westlaw Password” from your original registration card. A separate username and password has always been an option for accessing Westlaw, but it’s soon to be a requirement: by mid-July, all Westlaw users at Duke will need to create a OnePass account, or update an existing one, in order to conform to password security standards . The only real surprise about this announcement, though, is how long it took to arrive. A separate username and password has been required by LexisNexis for several years, following a high-profile security breach in 2005 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/technology/13theft.html ). Many other websites, such as online newspapers, also require usernames and passwords. Unfortunately, this desire for added security can often have...

Recently, the Duke police have reported the presence of a laptop thief on campus. He is described as a tall male, carrying a FedEx box. If he sees an unattended laptop, he puts it in the FedEx box, then walks away. At least two or three laptop thefts have been reported around campus. Please take precautions to secure your laptop and other valuables while working in the Law Library. While every reasonable effort is made to protect the security of library visitors, library staff are unable to "watch" your unattended belongings. Report any suspicious activity to library staff or the campus police .