Tag Archives: Cell phones

Phone Hacking

We started off by watching this 60 Minutes piece from April 17 about how easy it is for hackers to gain total access to your phone if all they have is your cell phone number (yikes!)

We looked at this funny series of images taken by a parent’s phone camera as their son tried unsuccessfully to log into the device (thereby triggering this security feature).

Ryan recommended this Lifehacker post about why smartphone security matters and what you can do to make your phone more secure and this chart in Statista showing the results of a survey in the UK about what people do and don’t do to keep their phones safe.

We also talked about the problem Android phones have in the erratic scheduling of updates and patches, which is due to the variety of manufacturers dealing with these upgrade issues in different ways. Ryan shared this related blog post about how the FCC and FTC are looking more closely into the way carriers are pushing out patches.

We also discussed password managers, like LastPass, and VPNs, as ways to keep your devices more secure.

Redesign of the library search bar

I offered a preview of what the new search bar will look like when it gets launched this summer. I summarized the work that’s taken place since last November:

• Usability tests in November/December 2015 on the existing search bar (goal was to identify existing problems and look for design ideas from users)
• Query log analyses and site analytics in January-March 2016 to identify usage trends
• Usability tests in March of two different prototypes of a new search bar
• Usability tests in April of a new course reserves page

Work that remains to be done includes:

• Usability tests in May of new databases page
• Launch of new course reserves page in May
• Development of a fully functional prototype of the new search bar in June and usability testing of it
• Launch in June or July of new search bar and databases page