The title, is if course, a variation taken from the song "Just another brick in the wall" by Pink Floyd in 1979 which was about education, and particularly, rigid education in the United Kingdom. But his post is about the perceived brick wall that we have as protection for our online activities both with fixed and mobile devices.
There has been a lot of chatter lately about two-factor identification and the need to supplement the time honored password and "secret question" approach. The primary method being discussed is the use of individual authentication by text message via SMS (Short Message Service). When you sign on to a site, say Facebook, you receive an authentication code by SMS and you then enter that code and you are signed in. The problem is that in order to use this system, you have to supply your mobile phone number. And this is when the brick comes out of the wall. Two things happen as you accept the premise of this two-factor approach. The site has your number for data mining use, and hackers have more detail than ever to retrieve. Once they have access to your Facebook account, Google Docs, or whatever the site may be, they can learn a lot about you very quickly.
Well, you may  say, "the cell phone is encrypted and I am protected from hackers". Another brick falls out. Why? Let me tell you a story that illustrates why I am concerned about cell phone and WIFI systems.
Several years ago I began following the underground hackers and particularly, the war-driving sites. These are the people who drive around searching for unencrypted and accessible WIFI and cell phone activity. They can then "jump on" and use the bandwidth connection, or read the data on the computer or phone. At that time, the hardware and software were fairly difficult to use but were effective. And the software was free, and as free as the password crackers are now. But that has all changed and both the hardware and software are easy to use and can be downloaded by any potential hacker. And, I am certain that they would really like to do their holiday shopping on your dime. The trend? It will become easier to steal information and hack into your information. As I have posted before, when you enter the internet, you are doing so at your own risk. Even a biometric approach like a fingerprint can be hacked.
There are some preventive measures that can reduce vulnerability, but can not guarantee anything. First, use a complex pass word and not one that is easy to remember. Simple passwords just makes it easier to hack. Second, keep your mobile phone number to yourself and other "real people" that you trust. And third, cross your fingers!

As I had mentioned in the first post on education I am not an educator, but, it seems that this fact really does not seem to be relevant. I have been reading about education, talking to educators and students, and considering the possible options. The result is that there are very few answers and many more questions. This subject has been one of the most difficult that I have been involved with but we need to force the issue to be a front burner priority.
I do have some thoughts that may suggest some direction for the discussion so feel free to comment on my thoughts and concerns.
I see three areas that may be part of the answers for future education:
The curriculum has to match the needs of a technologically based and service oriented 21st century. Although manufacturing will probably never go away, there have to be some basic skills that encompass the need for all possible directions. We have to stop teaching to standardized tests and teach the basics needed to succeed in a competitive world. Please don't assume that I think that testing is bad because I recognize that it is an absolutely needed metric. But when the tests are used to teach specific concepts and then the result used to measure the school, we have lost the concept of testing.
The second area is the students themselves. There are two separate issues to consider. The first is that sometime in the 1980's, we started to change the culture of education and the concept of competition. We began to call everyone a winner and there were no losers. Everyone got a blue ribbon for just showing up. But, that is not the real world; there are levels of proficiency and degrees of motivation that encourage competition. And, it is not necessarily urgent to compete with just others but as important to compete with oneself. The second part of this area is in the learning style of the students. Some children are tactile while others learn best with the written word. There are also students that have to have a "hands on" approach to understanding. We make no attempt to determine learning style and we put all children in a class and follow the same tired methods of teaching.
And then, there are the teachers themselves. Some are adequate, some are good, and a very few are excellent. But some are ineffective and need to be in another profession. Think back to high school and ask yourself how many of the teachers that you had really had a significant impact on your learning. In my own situation there were three, and that seems to be an average from my research so far. I realize that teachers are the sacred cows of education and to speak honestly about their performance is not politically correct. Or, to speak ill of the teacher's union the NEA that protects their members to the point that it is difficult to fire an incompetent teacher. The measure of teaching excellence would seem to be qualitative and quantitative testing, administrative oversight, merit  and peer review, and feedback from the students themselves.
In a period of economic difficulty and the desire for austerity, this is not the time to cut teaching positions, shorten the learning day, or to continue to feed the teaching mill that is failing. We are now 25th in math and science compared to the rest of the developed world and if we continue on this track, we will be competing with those countries that are not yet fully developed.
There is a link to BloombergBusinessWeek that has a good discussion about some of the answers and particularly, the comments that are fully inflamed. Here. Important reading...