Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

Welcome, new techno.la readers from Montana! I'm glad you're here.

Last week, I had a great time at Montana Legal Services Association's Annual Training. I caught up with former colleagues, met several new staff members and volunteers, listened to great presentations, and talked about technology tools and practices for legal aid advocates. To top it all off, I saw mountains. Who could ask for more?

Incorporating technology topics into their Annual Training isn't new for Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA). Since at least 2003, when I joined the program, MLSA has had a few technology sessions on the agenda, but this year, they went all out. Of 15 sessions, 12 focused on technology or included a technology component. What a terrific way for program administrators to let everyone know how important technology is for their program!

The results of the LSNTAP 2008 National Legal Aid Technology Survey suggest that MLSA is probably an outlier when it comes to technology training for non-technical staff. Nevertheless, quite a few programs reported offering at least some technology training opportunities. If your program is one of those programs, I'd love to know more about the technology training your program provides. How often? What types?

And if you don't feel like your program offers enough technology training, don't worry. I'm documenting what I covered for MLSA here on techno.la, so that you can benefit from it, too. The downside is that you will still be missing the awesome presentations that Ed Marks, the Deputy Director of Advocacy at Legal Aid of Western Ohio, gave about technology, supervision, and litigation. (When you schedule your own technology-focused training, invite him to speak. You won't regret it.)

You'll be seeing my articles over the next several days. You've subscribed with Google Reader or email, so you won't miss any, right? - K

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On Saturday, The New York Times was brave enough to say what we all know: Passwords are inherently insecure. And this insecurity can't be blamed on the users who write passwords down and post them on their computer monitors, use one of the common passwords, or don't change their passwords often enough. Even if users followed these basic rules, passwords still wouldn't work because the log-on procedure itself is risky due to phishing, keystroke logging, and other security threats.

While the article suggests using an alternative that depends on cryptography instead of mnemonics, currently it looks like there isn't a good solution for this problem. (For those of you who are suggesting biometrics, fingerprints aren't as secure as you would think: Burn Notice taught me that a copy of the fingerprint is left on the scanner and can be pulled off with Play-Doh to be used again.)

So since it looks like it will be a while until there is an accepted replacement for passwords, I've pulled together some resources to help you educate your users about password security.

• SafePasswd will generate strong, but easy-to-remember passwords.
• Montana Legal Services Association's Password Creation Guidelines provides guidelines for users on how to and how not to create strong passwords.
• Strong Passwords and Password Security from Microsoft provides some information about strong passwords, how to create them, and even some security tips on passwords and Windows XP. - K

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Montana Legal Services Association was highlighted in a recent Idealware article. Written by Michelle Murain (who you can follow on Twitter) and Laura Quinn, the article discusses three project management software packages (Basecamp, Central Desktop, and Trac) and how they have been implemented by three different non-profits. The article is a quick read that gives concrete ideas for how to use the software as well as what the organizations have found to be useful and not so useful. - K

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