Wear seat belts. Get your vaccinations. And don’t leave your password taped to your computer.
To the ranks of public-safety messages beamed at college students, a consortium including Educause and several cosponsors today added videos on computer-security awareness.
The six winners of the 2007 Computer Security Awareness Video Contest are predictably earnest for the most part, with montages of students warning that data sent over the Internet are not secure, and a flow chart showing the importance of using a fire wall.
One, “Identity Theft for Criminals,” is refreshingly tongue-in-cheek. Done as a guide, it follows the sometimes-bumbling moves of Joe, a wannabe identity thief. as he breaks into a student’s room and swipes the student’s password off a sticky note, along with other data from a social-networking site. The cheery voiceover intones: “Joe has successfully gained access to the victim’s bank account. Congratulations, Joe!”
These winners, from the University of Central Florida, will share a $1,000 prize. Congratulations, Scott Polcyn and Daniel Garcia! —Josh Fischman
