Philadelphia, U.S.A. — The Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, has announced partnership with Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) to host the SciELO database on Web of Knowledge(SM), the world’s most powerful search and discovery platform.

This partnership will help bring greater visibility and improved access to research from emerging economies, particularly Latin America, the Caribbean, South Africa, and developed Latin-language areas including Spain and Portugal. The SciELO database will be integrated into Web of Knowledge, enabling researchers to review and analyze relevant regional content alongside top-tier international literature.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with SciELO. This will not only enhance the reach of the important research taking place in Spanish-speaking developing countries, but it will also bring new depth to our own data,” said Keith MacGregor, executive vice president at Thomson Reuters. “Researchers around the world will gain new insights into the impact of the works emanating from these regions.”

Currently, SciELO publishes about 40,000 new articles every year from over 900 open access journals from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, Spain andVenezuela. The addition of SciELO to Web of Knowledge will follow a similar model to that of the Chinese Science Citation Database, which has been hosted on Web of Knowledge since 2008. Both databases are part of the ongoing content expansion at Thomson Reuters, to spotlight regionally relevant scholarly literature and identify influential authors and research within rapidly developing research centers.

“Supported by the Brazilian fund agency Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) since its inception in 1998, SciELO is one of the earliest initiatives to provide open access to scientific literature. The agreement with Web of Knowledge opens new horizons in SciELO’s mission to enhance the visibility of the science done in Latin America, Spain and Portugal,” said Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of FAPESP.

“It’s our mission to overcome the distribution and dissemination barriers that scientific journals from developing countries face by increasing the accessibility of locally generated scientific information,” saidAbel Packer, SciELO coordinator. “Giving research in Latin America and other developing areas increased prominence within Web of Knowledge means that the contributions of our researchers will be a more visible part of the global scientific discourse.”

Image Courtesy of  HolgerRings

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San Diego, U.S.A – The subject of pornography is not a common topic of conversation in the K-12 industry, but Gaggle is changing that at ISTE (National Educational Computing Conference) 2012 with talk of their Anti-Pornography Scanner (APS). The APS is a sophisticated tool used to detect pornography in electronic communications and on websites. The scanner looks at embedded and attached images and URL’s to determine whether an image is pornographic. In 2010, Gaggle set out on a major effort to improve the accuracy of the APS and reduce the incidents of false positive results.

Gaggle offers the highest degree of CIPA compliance of any collaboration tools provider and is the only system that meets the CIPA requirement to block “visual depictions that are obscene; child pornography; or are harmful to minors.”  With the sophistication of the APS, Gaggle is able to weed out the majority of the offensive material that is shared peer-to-peer. This enables students to focus more on their class work using the tools within the Gaggle system.

Just over half of the current Gaggle student users are between the ages of eleven to fifteen, and unfortunately there is sharing of inappropriate content between these users. Gaggle Senior Software Engineer, Jeremy Loss says, “At Gaggle, we have our finger on the pulse of the K12 market and what they are sharing. We are constantly filtering millions of images and with that we are able to define inappropriate content in this domain.”

Gaggle developers are now working to refine the filtering of mirror shots, personal photographs taken by cell phone camera in a mirror. These pictures, referred to as “sexting” are often taken in an inappropriate context and shared between young adults. This type of behavior may be inevitable, but the Gaggle APS is constantly evolving to improve cyber safety, protect students from bad decisions, and help them learn to be a good digital citizen.

“Computers only do exactly what you tell them to, and creating software that does something as intuitive as detecting inappropriate content is a great challenge,” explains Jeremy. “The combination of sophisticated technology and Gaggle’s decades of experience with K-12 has allowed us to create something that can contribute enormously to providing a safe environment for learning.”

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A huge victory for Facebook after Sanford Wallace, 43, surrendered himself to the FBI after facing lawsuits with Facebook announced Attorney Melina Huaag  on August 4.

Wallace will be looking at 40 years in prison and $2 million in fines if found guilty, on six accounts of electronic mail fraud, three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt on the indictment handed down on July 6.

Prosecutors said that the indictment was followed by a two year investigation on the Wallace, also known as “The Spam King”. According to the indictment, Wallace would send phishing messages, which are messages used to deceive people into revealing private information, to trick users into disclosing their password information from their Facebook account.

He would retrieve the information, then log onto their accounts and post spam messages on friends’ walls. After the spam was posted on their respective walls, they would then click on the link and be directed to the websites that paid Wallace for internet trafficking.

This took place between November 2008 and March 2009. The attack compromised 500,000 Facebook accounts and sent 27 million spam messages.

This was not Sanford’s first appearance in the Spamming business; back in 1990 Sanford became Spam’s biggest vocal defender. Cyber Promotions was a company led by Sanford, which sent out about 30 million junk emails a day in the 90’s.

The Federal Trade Commission accused Wallace and his spybot.net company of running an operation that administered spyware and was ordered by the New Hampshire Court Judgment to pay $4 million in fines in 2006 In addition to that court case, Myspace won $230 million in 2008, over junk messages sent to their members, applying the same tactic he utilized on Facebook members.

In 2009, Wallace was restricted from accessing any social networking site, after being sued by Facebook for crimes under the CAN-SPAM Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the California Anti-Phishing Act and was facing a hefty fine of $711 million along with an agreement forbidding him from the Spam business.

He violated that restriction and disappeared after his trial to flee from the punishment appointed to him. The charges brought before him today originated from this case two years ago.

Chris Sonderby, a lawyer for Facebook said “We will continue to seek and support the civil and criminal consequences for those who generate spam and others who try to harm Facebook or people who use our service.”

This has generated good feedback from Facebook users, knowing that their accounts will be safe from spammers and that Facebook is doing everything they can for justice.

After posting a $100,000 unsecured bond, Sanford was released. His next appearance in court is scheduled for August 22 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. Wallace was banned from usage of any social networking sites yet again.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanthatcher/

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