This is the third installment of a three-part series on the pros and cons of anonymous proxy services. Read the first installment here and listen to the second installment here.
If there is truly a gray zone in the struggle between online good and evil, anonymous proxy servers live there.
Ten years ago, Michael Riva was network administrator for a top-five American consultancy. Employees were downloading graphic pictures and videos onto the network. Riva told his boss a proxy server with content filtering might be in order; his boss laughed and suggested they put in a bigger file server instead.
At first, this was going to be a column about the PR machine's hyperbolic efforts to connect the state of IT and security with the current financial crisis. Indeed, some have shamelessly sent me story pitches that try to get some bang out of the Wall Street meltdown.
Computer networks in the academic world are a lot like the Wild West: It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and the sheriff's ability to maintain order is severely limited.
Thanks to all the fear over data security breaches, a computer recycling operation has morphed into something much bigger - and potentially more lucrative - for the Saraiva brothers.
Zack Anderson was one of three MIT students who caused a stir over the summer when they decided to disclose flaws they discovered in the Massachusetts transit authority's "Charlie Card" fare system.
It was a mistake so bad the person who made it asked that his name and company not be mentioned here. Let's call him Frank.