03.14a. Harvard Wireless Oversecurity; Harvard's Lack of Used Books. I'm still in Cambridge, and didn't get round to blogging yesterday. This is the fault of the Harvard tech people, who will not release temporary UserIds so visitors can us the wireless network. That also meant I couldn't find all the citations I wanted to give people I was hearing give talks on various subjects in law and economics. As usual, the tech people are far, far more concerned with security than with users. If there is a security problem, some tech person loses a raise; if ten thousand users have a problem--but it is minor-- nobody tracks down the culprit.

Speaking of that, I must remember to look into the case of the Indiana U. student who is being disciplined (probation for a year, I think) for impertinently pointing out a flagrant security hole at IU. As I recall, the emergency announcement website was set up so anybody with an IU ID could post an announcement, and he put a prank one up on it. I should think whoever left the security hole should get at least as big a penalty as the student who exposed it. And I am on the campus faculty technology committee, though we are a very mild bunch of people (I've been mild on that committee, at least) .

I commented yesterday that Harvard Square now has no used book stores (should that be "used bookstores"? a hard question). A reader told me about the excellent Booking the Red Line website. It says,

Davis Square is home to McIntyre and Moore Booksellers (617) 629-4840, who moved out of their Harvard Square digs last year to new, more spacious quarters at 255 Elm Street, a block from the T station.
I'm not sure if this is accurate-- I seem to recall McIntyre being in a big store up in Somerville, within jogging distance of my Cambridge house, three years ago. Probably McIntyre had two stores, and closed down their Harvard Square one.

Also, Harvard Square does still have more than one rare book store. I don't count that as "used book store" unless the store is just pretending to be a rare book store (just as many antique stores are really the more interesting junk stores).

I'll be going to church shortly at Christ the King Presbyterian, the half-Brazilian half-Puritan church near Central Square. (I bet it's the only church where you get simultaneous translation of the sermon into Portugese in the morning service and English in the evening). There's a relatively new (5 years old?) used book store right there too, but that's not near Harvard any more.

[in full at 04.03.14a.htm .      Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

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