The Goodson Blogson

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 ...

It has been said (by several people, according to the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations ) that nothing is certain but death and taxes. But someone has to keep track of such inevitabilities, and for death in the United States, that’s the Social Security Administration . Their ominously-named Death Master File may not be perfect (the Scripps Howard News Service investigative report Grave Mistakes estimated that more than 1,000 names per month are erroneously added), but the records are invaluable for the confirmation of birth and death dates as well as the prevention of identity theft and insurance fraud, among other purposes. Unfortunately, the public version of the Death Master File has also been misused in some of the same activities that it was intended to prevent. The Public DMF, more commonly known as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) , was created in 1980 as the result of a federal court order from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. It was made available to the public...

It's only a few weeks into the new semester, but maybe you’re already feeling confused by a tricky legal concept or a hard-to-parse holding. Don’t ignore it until you’re making your final-exam outlines - take a look at some study aids! Before you drop a fortune on flash cards and commercial outlines, visit the Goodson Law Library for some of the most popular study aids around: Examples and Explanations Series : Titles in this series are written by law professors who give a narrative overview of the key concepts and rules for a particular subject, followed by "examples" (hypothetical questions) and “explanations” of the answers. Search the catalog for title keywords "examples and explanations" to retrieve a list of all available titles. Current editions are available on Reserve, with older editions available for longer checkout in the Stacks. (Did a classmate beat you to the title you needed? Note that many of these titles are also available in “Preview” mode o...

A new year always brings new changes, and 2012 is no exception. This year, there’s a Presidential election, and (some say) maybe even the end of the world . But before that Mayan calendar runs out, we can enjoy some small-scale changes closer to home: the New Year will ring in the return of the library's evening and weekend services (on Sunday, January 8), and also an extension to Standard Loan borrowing periods for Duke Law students, other Duke graduate students, and non-Law Duke faculty/staff. The new year also often brings changes to the library's electronic subscriptions, as newly acquired content is added to databases and the full-text of titles from expired licenses are removed. (This generally happens behind the scenes, but if you encounter outdated links to e-resources which no longer work correctly, be sure to report them to library staff for investigation.) One database making some big additions for 2012 is NC Live, or North Carolina Libraries for Virtual Educatio...