Welcome


This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.

The site uses Google's cookies to provide services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user agent are shared with Google, along with performance and security statistics to ensure service quality, generate usage statistics, detect abuse and take action.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

PDF security weakness noted

Given that many e-textbooks are still distributed in a .pdf format, or given that according to a recent BISG study as many as 40% of students pirate their textbooks (or have friends that do), the following recent news piece should give some pause to students acquiring textbooks in .pdf formats, and the publishers who produce them.

A MSNBC story reports that PDFs are now the number one vehicle for for web-based attacks. The story notes that currently e-readers are safe but that could change as more content moves to those devices and the devices take on more processing and multi-function capability (like the iPad and other tablets). Students should watch to make sure that textbooks they acquire in pdf format come from trusted sources, as the article notes that "spear-phishing" (targeted and personal attacks to a user from a known source) are a common method used in some of the .pdf-related malicious attacks.