[ossig] 419-Scammers in Education ?

[Uwe Dippel <udippel@uniten.edu.my>]

Just for completeness, though mixed with sadness, it should be mentioned
that in educational circles - more more than in OpenSource and
FreeSoftware circles - the last article of a Howard Strauss is making
rounds and creates a lot of dust. 
If he wasn't Manager of Technology Strategy at Princeton University; a
reputed expert on leading edge information technologies and higher
education, we might just think he was smoking bad stuff.
He works with MIT, and University of California uses to welcome him with
open arms. He is 'the technical anchor for the CREN (Corporation for
Research and Educational Networking) Tech Talk series of Webcasts and a
member of Pearson's Online Learning Advisory Board.'

And he compares Open Source developers to Nigeria-419 spammers; "a
smattering of teenagers too young to work at Redmond, hackers, virus
creators, and a menagerie of others with whom you will feel great pride
in entrusting your IT infrastructure"

This is how he writes. 
If one really feels like reading, here is the full article (but don't
bash me if you get sick):
http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8460

If it wasn't for his reputation and influence, he'd simply disqualify
himself for the years to come.
But this article is producing a huge cloud of dust (intentionally ?)
with educators and educational institutions. Some start to think twice;
since for them he's the one and only (authority).

If you go to his (many) presentations that he offers on his site at
Princeton ("Apache/1.3.4 Server at www.princeton.edu Port 80"), (here)
this is what you get:
"This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to
show properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions
of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
If you would like to proceed anyway, click here."
[Which is true, since firebird  0.7-1 isn't a 'more recent version' of
IE; luckily]

For those who believe in conspiracy theories:
http://www.cren.net/techtalk-index.html
Read; and click on 'Alliances' on the left navigator panel.
Scroll down until you reach 'M'.

"Microsoft is committed to helping colleges and universities build 21st
Century Campuses in the Connected Learning Community by continuing to
provide them with rich technology tools. CREN is also working closely
with them to support other higher ed. groups such as the TLT Group.
Microsoft will be providing software to help support future CREN
initiatives."

As I said, only for those who believe in conspiracy theories.
Personally, I still bet on bad dope.

Uwe


------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
with "unsubscribe ossig" in the body of the message