Snake-Oil Security Claims the Systematic Misrepresentation of Product Security in the E-Commerce Arena

The modern commercial systems and software industry in the United States have grown up in a snake-oil salesman\u27s paradise. The largest sector of this industry by far is composed of standard commercial systems that are marketed to provide specified functionality (e.g. Internet web server, firewall, router, etc.) Such products are generally provided with a blanket disclaimer stating that the purchaser must evaluate the suitability of the product for use, and that the user assumes all liability for product behavior. In general, users cannot evaluate and cannot be expected to evaluate the security claims of a product. The ability to analyze security claims is important because a consumer may place unwarranted trust in the security abilities of a web server (or other computer device) to perform its stated purpose, thereby putting his own organization at risk, as well as third parties (consumers, business partners, etc.) All but the largest and most capable organizations lack the resources or expertise to evaluate the security claims of a product. More importantly, no reasonable and knowledgeable person would expect them to be able to do so. The normal legal presumptions of approximate equality of bargaining power and comparable sophistication in evaluating benefits and risks are grievously unjust in the context of software security. In these transactions, it is far wiser to view the general purchaser, even if that purchaser is a sizable corporation, as an ignorant consumer. Hence, often purchasers accept what appear to be either implied merchantability claims of the vendor or claims of salespersons\u27 made outside of the context of a written document. These claims frequently have little, if any, basis in fact. These standard commercial systems form the bulk of the critical infrastructure of existing Internet functionality and e-commerce systems. Often, these systems are not trustworthy, yet the use of these systems by misinformed purchasers created massive vulnerability for both purchasers and third parties (including a substantial fraction of both U.S. and international citizens). The frequent disclosure of individual credit card information from supposedly secure commercial systems illustrates an aspect of this vulnerability and raises serious questions concerning the merchantability of these systems. While it is impossible to avoid all risks, they can be reduced to a very small fraction of their current level. Vendors have willfully taken approaches and used processes that do not allow assurance of appropriate security properties, while simultaneously and recklessly misrepresenting the security properties of their products to their customers

APPLICATIONOFSPECTROSCOPIC ELLIPSOMETRY TO IN-STU. REAL-TIME FABRICATION OF MULTIPLE LAYER ALTERNATING HIGH/LOW REFRACTIVE INDEX FILTERS

Disclosed is application of oblique angle of incidence, reflection and/or transmission mode spectroscopic ellipsometry PSI and/or DELTA, (including combinations thereof and/or mathematical equivalents), vs. wavelength data to monitor and/or control fabrication of multiple layer high/low refractive index band-pass, band-reject and varied attenuation vs. wavelength filters, either alone or in combination with transmissive non-ellipsometric electromagnetic beam turning point vs. layer data obtained at an essentially normal angle of incidence

APPLICATION OF INTERMEDIATE WAVELENGTH BAND SPECTROSCOPIC ELLIPSOMETRY TO IN-STU. REAL TIME FABRICATION OF MULTIPLE LAYER ALTERNATING HGHALOW REFRACTIVE INDEX FILTERS

Disclosed is application of oblique angle of incidence, reflection and/or transmission mode spectroscopic ellipsometry PSI and/or DELTA, (including combinations thereof and/or mathematical equivalents), vs. wavelength data over an intermediate wavelength band range around a pass or reject band, to monitor and/or control fabrication of multiple layer high/low refractive index band-pass, band-reject and varied attenuation vs. wavelength thin film interference filters, either alone or in combination with transmissive non-ellipsometric electromagnetic beam turning point vs. layer data obtained at an essentially normal angle of incidence

TripAdvisor Reviews of London Museums: A New Approach to Understanding Visitors

The digital revolution has affected museums in many ways, both directly and indirectly. A major external change is the rise of user-written reviews; that is, reviews written by museum visitors and posted on the Internet. User-generated reviews pose challenges to museums, as they are publicly available and largely outside the control of museums. This article discusses research on reviews of accredited museums in London. The authors’ data set consists of all reviews written about 88 museums that were posted on TripAdvisor during 2014, a total of 22,940 reviews. Using a technique called topic modelling, they describe 19 themes in reviewers’ stories of their visits. The authors find that museum visitors pay attention to the ancillary aspects of their visit: queues, cost, food service, toilets, and activities for children. They make fewer comments on the cultural side of the museum experience. However, these cultural aspects do matter and are associated with positive reviews. The authors argue that reviewers consider museums as part of a wider leisure sector. They close with a discussion of the implications of their study for museum management and assess the usefulness of user-generated content as a source of data on museum visitors

Book Reviews

Professor Hicks has done for a few great lawyers and \u27a few great books what it is hoped he may do for many more lawyers and many more books. Out of his full and intimate knowledge of the literature of our profession he has gathered and presented to us in most entertaining fashion the human as well as the intellectual and professional characteristics of a full half dozen men, each of whom holds a somewhat unique place in the development of Anglo-Saxon law

The Art and Science of Immunosuppression: The Fifth Annual American Society of Transplant Surgeon's State-of-the-Art Winter Symposium

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72057/1/j.1600-6143.2005.01187.x.pd

Multi-omic analysis elucidates the genetic basis of hydrocephalus.

We conducted PrediXcan analysis of hydrocephalus risk in ten neurological tissues and whole blood. Decreased expression of MAEL in the brain was significantly associated (Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.05) with hydrocephalus. PrediXcan analysis of brain imaging and genomics data in the independent UK Biobank (N = 8,428) revealed that MAEL expression in the frontal cortex is associated with white matter and total brain volumes. Among the top differentially expressed genes in brain, we observed a significant enrichment for gene-level associations with these structural phenotypes, suggesting an effect on disease risk through regulation of brain structure and integrity. We found additional support for these genes through analysis of the choroid plexus transcriptome of a murine model of hydrocephalus. Finally, differential protein expression analysis in patient cerebrospinal fluid recapitulated disease-associated expression changes in neurological tissues, but not in whole blood. Our findings provide convergent evidence highlighting the importance of tissue-specific pathways and mechanisms in the pathophysiology of hydrocephalus

Multi-omic analysis elucidates the genetic basis of hydrocephalus

We conducted PrediXcan analysis of hydrocephalus risk in ten neurological tissues and whole blood. Decreased expression of MAEL in the brain was significantly associated (Bonferroni-adjusted p \u3c 0.05) with hydrocephalus. PrediXcan analysis of brain imaging and genomics data in the independent UK Biobank (N = 8,428) revealed that MAEL expression in the frontal cortex is associated with white matter and total brain volumes. Among the top differentially expressed genes in brain, we observed a significant enrichment for gene-level associations with these structural phenotypes, suggesting an effect on disease risk through regulation of brain structure and integrity. We found additional support for these genes through analysis of the choroid plexus transcriptome of a murine model of hydrocephalus. Finally, differential protein expression analysis in patient cerebrospinal fluid recapitulated disease-associated expression changes in neurological tissues, but not in whole blood. Our findings provide convergent evidence highlighting the importance of tissue-specific pathways and mechanisms in the pathophysiology of hydrocephalus