Dear All, Please find below the Political Science Department's Postgraduate Bulletin for 29 November 2004, listing news of interest to postgrads in the Department, and upcoming seminars. Regards, Ben. 1. Call for papers: International Conference of Technology, Knowledge and Society 2. Inaugural Melbourne Politics Lecture on the web 3. Security threats in emails Issues of this bulletin are archived on the web at: http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/bulletin.html Department news and upcoming seminar info is posted at: http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/new/ *********************************************** 1. Call for papers: International Conference of Technology, Knowledge and Society University of California, Berkeley, Friday 18 - Sunday 20 February 2005 http://www.Technology-Conference.com This conference takes a broad and cross-disciplinary approach to technology in society. With a particular focus on digital information and communications technologies, the interests addressed by the conference include: human usability, technologies for citizenship and community participation, and learning technologies. Participants will include researchers, teachers and practitioners whose interests are either technical or humanistic, or whose work crosses over between the applied technological and social sciences. As well as an impressive line up of international main speakers, the conference will also include numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations. We would particularly like to invite you to respond to the conference call for papers. Papers submitted for the conference proceedings will be fully peer-refereed and published in print and electronic formats in the new International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic journal, as well as access to the electronic version of the conference proceedings. The deadline for the first round call for papers is 30 November 2004. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online call for papers form, are to be found at the conference website. (Late notice, I know, but it just came in.) *********************************************** 2. Inaugural Melbourne Politics Lecture on the web Vice-Chancellor designate Professor Glyn Davis gave the inaugural Melbourne Politics Lecture at the University of Melbourne on Monday 22 November. The text of the lecture, 'Tiers or Tears? The regulation of Australian higher education', is now on the web at: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/speeches/ *********************************************** 3. Security threats in emails Thieves and others with mischievous intent are favouring email as a method to reach their victims. The main reason for this is the lack of security in the international standard for email, and the ease of getting email to millions of people. IT experts in the Information Division advise all staff not to click on links or open attachments in suspicious or unsolicited emails. Checking with IT staff can save much effort in disinfection and lost computing time that can result from such "social engineering" and "identity theft" attacks. Common exploits that are attempted using email are: ** Links: Email entices you to click on a given link to access material at a website. The website hosts malicious content which will attempt to compromise your computer system. ** Phishing scams: Email entices you to visit a webpage which looks very similar to a bank's webpage and supply your account details. The attacker will then capture your logon information and access your account. ** Malicious attachments: Email entices you to open attachments that appear to be pictures, documents or a zip file, but are actually virus files that will damage your computer system. Information on safe computing is available at: http://www.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/it-security/simplesteps.html Ben.Harper Research and Graduate Studies Administrator School of Political Science, Criminology & Sociology The University of Melbourne VIC 3010 AUSTRALIA 61 3 8344 6571 http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/