The Weekly Round-Up: 23.07.04

If the sight of a semi-inebriated father dancing at his teenage daughter's birthday party is the height of embarrassment then the sight of a former underground online music service gone corporate but insisting on passing itself off as being 'street' runs a close second.

Napster has evolved into such a company. The former illegal P2P music stalwart has long been part of the respectable business world since it's acquisition in 2002 by Roxio (see here).

Once the sworn enemy of the record industry and the darling of college campuses around the world, the service has recently strived to reinvent itself as an ambassador for legal music among US students.

The service this week announced that six universities have signed up to offer its song services to students (see here), which it has launched in an attempt to shepherd the innocent, wee tykes away from the perilous evils of Kazaa et al.

Some of the schemes are funded by IT fees, which led some students to complain they didn't want their mandatory fees to be used for digital tunes and sent to the music companies without their consent.

Especially as they probably already downloaded the new Black Eyed Peas album on Kazaa anyway.

Sticking with universities and digital music, students these days don't know they're born.

A US university has decided that digital music is the way to attract the student body to its labs and lecture rooms and is offering all its freshmen a free 40GB iPod (see here).

The devices aren't really free, of course, as the parents of some of the students will have to fork out tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees over the course of each year.

All 1,650 first-year students at Duke University, North Carolina, will be offered one of the MP3 players in an attempt to encourage "creative uses of technology", which almost certainly doesn't include selling the devices to pay for kegs of beer. Heck, no.

Actually the university has had the rather nifty idea of offering an iTunes-themed website where, in addition to music, students can download course information - including an academic calendar and pre-recorded lectures - which beggars the question whether arts students need to get out of bed at all.

Despite a discount from Apple the scheme is landing Duke University with a hefty $500,000 bill which includes paying for an "academic computing specialist" to oversee the project - an iProfessor of iPods, if you will.

This rather innovative use of mobile computing devices is unlikely to take off on the rainier side of the pond thanks to good old English common sense.

A Cambridge University spokesman said the institution had no plans to emulate the scheme as he punted serenely down the Cam.

Meanwhile, an Oxford University spokeswoman virtually frothed at the mouth when we asked her whether the scheme could find favour among the dreaming spires.

"Almost certainly not. Whilst Oxford is strong on innovation and very much encourages it... we would rather spend money on teaching and on bursaries than on iPods," she harrumphed. But in a nice way.

Possibly incensed by the staff's blatant 'No iPods for the kids on campus' stance - or in fact driven to prove what they thought was a rather important point - two students from Oxford University landed themselves in a spot of bother this week after they hacked the systems of the venerable academic institution, just to show how easily it could be done (see here).

Using freely downloadable software, the two have-a-go hackers managed to quickly gain access to confidential information, including student passwords and user details, snooped over the CCTV network and then eavesdropped on a few MSN Messenger conversations - just for the sheer unadulterated hell of it.

Gaining access to the system took only minutes, they claimed.

The two 20-year-old students undertook the hacking to expose security flaws in the internal network for the university newspaper, The Oxford Student, which duly printed their testimonies and experiences.

Needless to say the faculty wasn't overly impressed with their extra-curricular computing high-jinks and referred the matter to the Thames Valley Police for investigation

The Oxford Two will discover their fates in September - they face a possible suspension and a £500 fine.

That's partially for breaking the law but mostly, the Round-Up imagines, because the staff hate it when the student body makes it look stupid.

In the meantime, the university hasn't said it will be updating its security procedures. A comforting thought.

Despite the technical illegality of the students actions a number of silicon.com readers have come out in defence of the Oxford Two arguing they had performed in essence an act of 'ethical hacking'.

No harm was done, was the verdict. They outlined campus-wide security risks and gained no reward - other than a little more renown among the university's geek fraternity and impressing the pretty girl with the braces.

Pugilistic programmer Tyler Durden (which the Round-Up is assuming is a pseudonym) writes: "It's hardly fair to punish these guys who made it clear to the school that the network was insecure.

"They told of their exploits in true hacker fashion in hopes that the network admins would beef it up a bit."

Meanwhile, James Button and Paul Higgins are united in their condemnation of the university's apparent failure to protect students' personal information.

The final word on the matter this week goes to software developer (and possible Megadeth fan - all will be revealed later) Mike Hingley.

"I believe that the only thing that these students did wrong was to blab the information regarding the security (or perceived security) of the network to the student population, rather than the appropriate authorities (Network Managers etc)

"Therefore, I believe that Oxford's correct approach should be to thank the students for identifying the security holes, plug the hole and set forth some form of policy to ensure that future security issues are handled correctly - because there doesn't seem to be one at the moment."

Indeed. The Round-Up feels a campaign coming on: "Free the Oxford Two!" "Down with this sort of thing!"

Having risen steadily through the ranks of corporate IT via hard toil and dedication to the heady heights of chief information officer you might be right in thinking you've earned a little respect, right?

Wrong.

According to research out this week from Gartner, the CIO ranks next to last among eight senior executive positions - just ahead of the HR director. The shame of it.

The report, entitled 'Improving the CEO's view of the CIO' surveyed 462 non-IT executives about the perceived role of the most senior member of IT when it comes to their significance in setting strategic direction for the business (see here).

The results aren't pretty reading for CIOs with self-esteem problems.

However, it transpires that CIOs are blissfully unaware of the apparent low regard in which many are held by colleagues with more than 80 per cent believing they're trusted and able to influence their peers in the boardroom.

Dave Aron, research director in the Gartner Executive Programme and author of the report, told silicon.com there is a stark contrast in the perception of boardroom influence.

"The CIOs really believe they are there," he roared as a team of paramedics desperately struggled to contain his innards as his sides split.

The main cause of the gap between CEOs and CIOs (or should it be CTO? Find out the difference here) is business priorities.

The report found that while CEOs are looking idealistically to the economic upturn and focusing on revenue, growth and boom, boom, boom, many CIOs' top priorities concern cost, privacy and system security, something which clearly has no place on anyone's agenda - just ask the boffins of Oxford University.

Get silicon.com's take on whether CIOs have got what it takes to hack it in the boardroom here.

Meanwhile, another recent and somewhat less serious survey cast a much-needed spotlight onto the hitherto unknown music preferences of modern IT staff.

For its latest state of the industry report the Training Camp laboriously researched (or just asked 200 people who turned up for its IT courses, you decide) what was on their hi-fis, Walkmans and iPods.

It turns out that CIOs are a refined, cultured bunch who believe you can't beat a bit of Mozart and Handel, if only to drown out the sniggering from the other members of the management board.

Final proof if any were required that database administrators are a bunch of bleeding heart whoopsies was delivered with the discovery that they dug out on dirges from the Smiths and Suede.

Developers are a bunch of Megadeth-obsessed head-bangers, Microsoft-certified professionals expressed a preference for Britney Spears, Beyonce and other mainstream pop, while Linux specialists said they preferred bleep-bleep to bling-bling and ranked electronica such as the Orb and Kraftwerk top of the pops. Meanwhile, the revelation that security experts groove out on dope- and acid-fuelled Sixties rockers The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead might go to explain a few things round Oxford-way...

Speaking of music tastes, silicon.com want to know what tunes are likely to feature on your mini iPod (which was released recently outside the US, see here) or even on your - GASP! - fourth-generation iPod (see here for details).

So far, melancholic crooners Coldplay are leading the field. Quite fitting for a band whose lead singer liked his computer so much he named his baby after it.

The less said about Shirley Bassey and Sting the better...

What comes across in your voting so far is the broad range of preferences, reflecting both the spectrum of people employed in IT and the range of readership and seniority silicon.com enjoys. From the old hands to the young Turks, we welcome all your views.

silicon.com reader John Stanhope was very excited by the poll. It didn't last.

In his own words: "As someone who has owned an iPod for a few months now I have been very interested to read the related articles that you have recently published.

"So today I was, I admit, quite excited by the silicon.com reader poll - a chance to spend a few minutes over lunch letting the world, or at least silicon.com, know what was on my iPod.

"So, I clicked on the link and... and... and... collapsed in a heap on the floor laughing at the choices... did my dad put this list together or was it someone older?"

Thanks for that, John. The editor in question has been plunged prematurely into a middle age crisis and won't come down off the roof.

John added: "I think that you should have included Bruce Springsteen - and where was Englebert?"

Where indeed, John? Where indeed?

Vote in the poll to end all polls (sort of) here.

Until next week, the Round-Up will be listening to Clive Dunn's 1971 smash 'Grandad' over and over and over and over and over again on its iPod.

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