The case for identity cards has been branded bogus
after an ex-MI5 chief said they might not help fight terror. Dame Stella Rimington has said most documents could be forged and this would render ID cards useless
. The Conservatives said her comments showed the cards could be counter-productive. The Lib Dems said plans should be abandoned — via Boing Boing
A British cyber conman who used the online nickname weaselboy
was convicted of running a £1.6 million e-mail scam from a bedroom in his father’s house. Computer whizz-kid Peter Francis-Macrae was found guilty by a jury of fraudulent trading and concealing criminal property through his dealings selling internet and e-mail domain names when he had no right. The 23-year-old was also convicted of threatening to destroy or damage property, making threats to kill, and one count of blackmail
A group of investment firms is putting their shareholder weight behind asking high-tech companies that deal with repressive regimes to pay more attention to rights violations
The Brazilian man shot dead by police in the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber was killed with a type of bullet banned in warfare under international convention. The firing of hollow point ammunition into the head of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, is believed to be the first use of the bullets by British police
Spanish police have traced up to 42 suspected CIA operatives believed to have taken part in secret flights carrying detained or kidnapped Islamist terror suspects to interrogation centres and jails in Afghanistan, Egypt and elsewhere
Sony BMG has decided to stop making CDs with technology designed to protect its music against illegal copying treat all its customers like thieves that, in reality, have been compromising the security of PCs
Sony BMG has been hit with a class-action lawsuit by consumers claiming their computers have been harmed by anti-piracy software on music CDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has suffered his first parliamentary defeat during his eight years in power as MPs voted down a core aspect of his anti-terrorist legislation
The Department of Immigration confirmed that it has not monitored the $1 per hour labour market operating in privatised detention centres, while the contract holder Global Solutions Limited expects to make a profit of $6 million this year
Grokster has agreed to shut down its service under a settlement with the RIAA
Tony Abbott, Federal Health Minister and professional loony fundie, has announced $300,000 worth of funding for three lunatic fringe pro-life organisations providing counselling services for women with unintended pregnancies. The Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services, The Caroline Chisolm Society and the Foundation for Human Development will receive $100,000 each. Greens Senator Kerry Nettle says the groups are biased, religious organisations and will not refer a woman for an abortion, even if that is what she has asked for
Carnegie Mellon University is fighting back against a requirement that taps on campus internet access must be quickly obtainable. The technology that would allow the FBI to monitor internet access, after a court order, at the flip of a switch
would cost at least $450 per student
Federal prosecutors have indicted a 20-year-old California man for installing adware on 400,000 Windows machines he compromised with a variant of RxBot. Jeanson Ancheta allegedly pulled in $60,000 in affiliate fees from porn pop-up company Gammacash, and 180solutions subsidiary ZangoCash. The feds hope to seize his BMW.
Sony has issued a patch to purportedly kill the rootkit, in which they lie about the danger it posed. But it seems that the patch does not remove the rootkit, it just gets rid of the $sys$ cloaking. A lot of the chatter about the Sony rootkit has been about other malware authors using files/processes/reg keys starting $sys$, which would then be invisible on machines with the Sony rootkit installed. It might be worth checking to see if you own any of the corrupted CDs — via Boing Boing
The Online Freedom of Speech Act was defeated in the House of Representatives yesterday. The Act would have immunised political bloggers from having to comply with hundreds of pages of FEC rules
Mark Russinovich was doing a routine test this week of computer security software he’d co-written, when he made a surprising discovery: Something new was hiding itself deep inside his PC’s guts. A SonyBMG CD had used a sophisticated cloaking technique that involves a rootkit
— something not dangerous in itself, but a tool often used by virus writers to hide all traces of their work on a computer
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says a key national counter-terrorism body was not informed of the latest terrorism threat. Perhaps because the supposed threat is yet another fantasy from John Howard in his campaign to force his dodgy police state powers through the Senate with an unhealthy dose of fear attached. Mr Stanhope says the ACT was excluded from a telephone hook-up this week in which the matter was discussed by the Prime Minister and state premiers
Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks say they have uncovered evidence supporting claims that the South Australian may have been the subject of organised torture by American troops. Hicks’s father Terry has detailed allegations of physical and sexual abuse of his son by American soldiers
The NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. The fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years
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