As a web programming language, one of PHP’s strengths traditionally has been to make it easy to write scripts that access databases so that you can create dynamic web pages that incorporate database content. This is important when you want to provide visitors with information that is always up-to-date, without hand tweaking a lot of static HTML pages. However, although PHP is easy to use, it includes no general-purpose database access interface. Instead it has a number of specialized ones that take the form of separate sets of functions for each database system. There is one set for MySQL, another for InterBase, and another for PostgreSQL—and others as well.
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We present a practical protection mechanism against SQL injection attacks. Such attacks target databases that are accessible through a web front-end, and take advantage of flaws in the input validation logic of Web components such as CGI scripts. We apply the concept of instruction-set randomization to SQL, creating instances of the language that are unpredictable to the attacker. Queries injected by the attacker will be caught and terminated by the database parser. We show how to use this technique with the MySQL database using an intermediary proxy that translates the random SQL to its standard language. Our mechanism imposes negligible performance overhead to query processing and can be easily retrofitted to existing systems.
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In the past, most Web content was static and predictable. But today’s reality is that Web content—even from so-called “trusted” sites—is constantly changing with end-users encouraged to post, edit, or manipulate content. The most popular and heavily-trafficked sites that make the most use of dynamic Web 2.0 content, are also the most vulnerable to attack. In fact, according to Websense® research covering the first half of 2008, over sixty percent of these top 100 sites either hosted malicious content or contained a masked redirect to an illegitimate site.
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Current search engines such as Google and Yahoo! are prevalent for searching the Web. Search in dynamic pages, however, is either inexistent or far from perfect. AJAX and Rich Internet Application are such applications. They are increasingly frequent on the Web (in YouTube, Amazon, GMail, Yahoo!Mail) or mobile devices and are offering a high degree of interactivity to the user, by seamlessly loading content from the server without the need to refresh the page. Current search engines cannot correctly index AJAX applications. This produces false positives and false negatives, because search engines do not understand the application logic that loads content dynamically. Crawling an AJAX application is a difficult problem. Since the user invokes events on the page, crawling must identify the different application states generated by the client-side logic.
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Web 2.0 is a new approach to Web content, making it more interactive and allowing sites to combine features in new ways. This change in paradigm brings new challenges to people with disabilities. Accessibility advocates must develop solutions rapidly. Semantic Web technologies address some of these requirements, and accessibility innovation may be part of A convergence of the Web 2.0 and Semantic Web.
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Over the last decade, a radical shift has occurred in the way customers interact with the marketplace.The traditional mode of using defined channels of communication has given way to a broad array of connection points.Along with this shift, today’s customers have come to expect a higher degree of transparency from firms providing products upon which they rely. Companies that are unsure how to engage in the new paradigm often meet this expectation of transparency with mixed signals.As traditional channels erode, and a broader community ecosystem emerges, companies must rethink their loyalty equation by understanding how to engage in the new environment.
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During the past five years, many dramatic changes have occurred on the Web. New services have been announced, new interfaces have been developed and the Web is approaching to be the new platform for many applications. Wikis, RSS feeds, Blogs to name just a few, are dubs of new Web applications (also know as Web 2.0) that sighted people are experimenting and enjoying nowadays. However, the question we want to address is: How these new applications and changes are going to affect on how visually impaired people access them? This paper aims to provide information about the tools, services, projects, and research that are taking place nowadays on the Web and the Semantic Web to make the Web more accessible for visually impaired people. Also, the authors will present a pilot experiment to check the accessibility of some Web 2.0 services.
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Why Educators May Be Tempted to Say No to Web 2.0
In the face of the rapid changes on the Internet and the increased risks they bring, many schools, especially in the K-12 grades, have taken polar approaches to managing Web 2.0 within their schools. Some have opened the doors to these new opportunities, believing that their students and faculty should embrace these innovative applications in an effort to expand learning through online collaboration and sharing, while others have been quick to shut the door due to the potential costs and risks they may pose to younger students. In K-12 grades, the consensus seems to be to block these sites in order to protect students and their privacy from child predators and the potentially objectionable content that these real-time, dynamic sites may host.
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