FW: [IP] Risks Digest 24.10] Risks of applying to law school

law school maw schpool.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Nov 24, 2005 3:49 pm
Subject: [IP] Risks Digest 24.10] Risks of applying to law school

No, not the risks you're thinking of.

A friend is applying to law school. He's young but knows something about computers. Law schools collaborate with the Law School Admissions Council
(http://www.lsac.org) to use a single application form. This form is created using OmniForm (published by Nuance, formerly known as ScanSoft). OmniForm requires that you install an ActiveX control on your computer. This control apparently only works on Windows computers. Macs are not welcome. (So much for "Legally Blonde.") Linux and other flavors of UNIX are beyond the pale.

My friend was mumbling obscenities about installing this control. The computer he was working on apparently died during the process so I took a deep breath and said he could work with my notebook computer. He dug into the application, got to the ActiveX installation screen and the control refused to install. At that point I took over (not wanting him messing with my security settings). I finally got the control to install after doing the following:

- Disabling my anti-spyware software (ewido security suite). I then tried to install the control with no luck.

- Setting the privacy permission for lsac.org to "allow." Again no luck installing the control.

- Eliminating all security by making the security settings (Tools/Internet Options/Security/Custom Level) completely open. I enabled each and every ActiveX and other control including unsigned controls and controls marked as not safe. The control then installed successfully.

Now perhaps I didn't have to go quite that far but a deadline was
approaching and I really didn't want to take the time to perform the trial and error that would apparently be required to determine exactly how much security to give up.

It occurs to me that this is truly THE law school admission test. If you're dumb enough to let this control install you're probably good law school material. OTOH if you don't let the control through then you're too smart to be a lawyer. (That's about all the humor I can manage after 1.5 hours fighting with this stuff. I've disconnected from the net and am running my usual four scanning programs right now.)

Tony Lima, Prof. of Economics, California State University, East Bay tony.lima@csueastbay.edu (510) 885-3889

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[IP] Risks Digest 24.10] Risks of applying to law schoolDavid Farber <dave@farber.net>To: ip@v2.listbox.com Reply-To: dave@farber.net