Most of us have had the experience
of half-remembering a news story from some
days or weeks ago, which suddenly seems
very relevant to something which has
come up for discussion. This might be
described as the "I’m sure I saw that
somewhere… " syndrome. The trouble
usually is that you have no idea when or
where you came across the item in question.
Somebody, somewhere, reported on flaws in
SNMP or a Valentine’s Day virus. But where?
There are now dozens of Internet
sites that offer news on IT topics. Many of
these have sections or threads which deal specifically
with security and control. However, they vary considerably
in their objectives. Some aim to provide "hot" news,
with tabloid-style headlines and an emphasis on dramatic stories.
Others provide more considered coverage, and in some cases
have archives going back several years.
Searching the wrong kind of site
can be a frustrating experience. In
general, the sites with eye-catching headlines and up-to-the-minute
reports are often the most difficult to search, and
can be disappointing when it comes to details and crossreferences.
Perspectives can vary, too. Some sites are very
technical and product-centred, while others
concentrate more on the management and
business issues.
This column reviews some of the
sites that offer services that are free of
charge. There are some excellent web sites and electronic
newsletters for which subscriptions are payable, but this
column is staying with its usual miserly instincts.
The majority of free news sites
are American, which is no particular
problem, given the many issues that revolve around US
products and companies. Some sites are "clusters", so that
it pays to go to the central site if you want the
widest possible range of material. For
example, IDG.net is
a hub site for a dozen or more different
publications, including Computerworld,
PCWorld and ITWorld.
At first sight, this seems a good way of hunting
through several publications, but unfortunately the advanced
features of the search engine did not seem to be working
properly at the time of visiting. TechWeb
is another cluster
site that embraces InformationWeek,
InternetWeek and
Network Computing.
These sites tend to be
"techie" in their emphasis, as is eWeek,
which is written very much for IT industry "insiders". (For
example, it runs online opinion surveys on questions such as:
"Is an embedded SQL engine important to the future of Windows?")
A search on "audit" is likely to come up with articles
on software piracy, rather than more mainstream questions
of computer audit. Possibly even more technical is the Engineering
News-Record, which provides short,
readable articles on IT, but is quite
likely to drop in a detailed circuit diagram
just to throw you. Relatively few of its articles deal with security.
More general coverage is provided
on the cluster of sites operated by NewsFactor,
particularly in the Ecommerce Times.
However, the sites do not have a particular
"security" thread, and you are
presented with a fair amount of advertising and sponsorship
messages. The feel of these sites is similar to that of
the UK’s own Silicon.com. This site has undergone some reorganisation
over the past few months, and security is no longer
one of its main categories. However, if you look in the "Systems
and Development" zone, there are a couple of threads concerned
with security. Silicon.com also
provides much better coverage of stories
arising in the UK and Europe.
Many sites have been set up by
publishers who are already well established
in the old-fashioned print media. The Washington
Post, for example, runs the Newsbytes site,
which contains a good collection of topical
articles, with some useful references and
hyperlinks. However, only a small minority of the stories
deal with security issues, and these can be difficult to hunt
down. In this country, Computer Weekly is
always a good source of reference,
particularly if you want to go further back in
time. It has an Advanced Search option which is convenient to
use, and which works well. Articles from the weekly journal Computing
can be found via the VNUNet
site. This includes other
articles sourced by VNU, and there are some clearly indexed
security headings to choose from.
In the United States, Infoworld
has a web site with a security thread.
The articles are peppered with hyperlinks, some of which are
of only marginal relevance or interest. Another established print
magazine is Computerworld,
(mentioned previously as part of the IDG
cluster). This carries an archive of the recent printed
editions by date, which can be helpful if you are already reasonably
sure of the timing of the story you are looking for.
Finally, there are some companies
involved in IT security who offer indexing
of current articles, with hyperlinks to other online sources.
An example is @Stake in
the US, which tracks relevant stories in a
variety of American and Canadian publications.
Progress is sometimes slow, as the cross-links can take
several seconds to activate, but it does provide a much broader
view of events than elsewhere.
URL’s for the sites mentioned
above are:
Andrew Hawker can be contacted at the University of
Birmingham on 0121 414 6675 or by email A.Hawker#bham.ac.uk |
