Monday, July 14, 2003

Critical Infrastructure Threat? The OECD just released new economic surveys for France and Italy.  OECD has updated its website, and in the process changed many of the original URLs, ruining thousands of links on other sites. Google's Uncle Sam search lets you restrict your search to federal sites.  Google also provides university-specific site searches for dozens of major universities. DOE understands how our nation's critical infrastructure is vitally interconnected.  Now, a graduate school student is at the heart of a controversy over his dissertation.  Washington Technology reports how Gorman has developed a system that allows the user to visualize, using a GIS interface, critical connectivity for businesses throughout the country.  The Utah Counter-Terrorism Coordination Council meets tomorrow. I just ran across Nutrition.gov, another cross-agency website that gateways the National Nutrient Database. 10:41:18 AM    comment []

NBII and the Southwest Information Node The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) has divided the country into information nodes which will serve as interconnected entry points to the NBII.  Utah is in the Southwest Information Node along with New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.  When fully implemented, the Southwest Information Node of the NBII will "provide access to hundreds of biological databases and will host a suite of tools tailored to address the complex environmental issues of the Southwest."  Currently, most of the project's partners are in New Mexico.  I could only find access to one online database associated with the Southwest node.  If they are going to achieve their lofty ambition, they will need to expand their parner base. By the way, the NBII has an excellent library of electronic journals. 9:43:38 AM    comment []

Latest News on Identity Theft This morning's Salt Lake Tribune reports that identity theft in Utah has grown from 32 cases in 1996 to 527 in 2002 and that the Attorney General expects that number to double in 2003.  The national identity theft clearing house at Consumer.gov reports that the number of cases in 2002 was actually 886 or 39.7 per 100,000 population.  An interesting footnote is that Provo and Orem are not among the top cities with ID theft victims: Salt Lake.............211 West Valley City...52 Sandy...................50 West Jordan.........41 Ogden..................40 ID theft reports for other states are also online.  The clearinghouse has also developed an ID theft affidavit that is now accepted at a large number of businesses and agencies.  But - it's only available in PDF, no online reporting service here.  On the other hand, if you have a cross-border fraud complaint, you can report it here on the econsumer.gov complaint form. 8:50:16 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.