Sydney police have charged two men over what is alleged to be a multi-million dollar credit card fraud racket involving online auction giant eBay. NSW Police today issued a statement saying the pair had purchased more than $4.5 million in goods using fake credit cards bearing bank details skimmed or stolen from legitimate card-holders
. The goods were then allegedly sold online through eBay and other sites
Civil rights and privacy advocates yesterday expressed concern about a NSW Parliament proposal that would allow the state’s police to remotely access a suspect’s computer for up to 28 days without disclosing the hack for some time
Researchers say a chimpanzee at a Swedish zoo has proven that apes are as capable of forward planning as humans. Zoo minders have uncovered hundreds of stone caches being used by the chimp to hoard ammunition to hurl at visitors. The chimp at the centre of this study, an alpha male in his 30s called Santino, lives at Furuvik Zoo to the north of Stockholm
Australia will lift a 13-year ban on using foreign aid funds to support family planning and safe abortions in poor nations. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith announced his decision to scrap the ban at a meeting of Labor MPs and Senators this morning, after months of internal party consultation about a policy shift. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the meeting he did not personally support the change and had had longstanding conservative views on abortion — but said there had been a clear majority view in the Labor caucus for change
The UK government wants to cut out users rights to access Internet content, applications and services. Some of the information used to justify the change has been cut and pasted from the Wikipedia. Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a principle
that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services. The UK government texts have been heavily criticised by the French campaigning group La Quadrature du Net. It is believed that they could have been drawn up by the UK regulator, Ofcom
In today’s Crikey email I have reported that Freeview Australia, the marketing arm for Australia’s free to air television industry, were indeed behind attempts to suppress a spoof video sending up the new digital multichannels. This is despite Freeview’s denials to me yesterday
The 14 year old daughter of a city counselor in Spain is the source of a small political crisis in the city of Getafe. The girl used her mother’s work 3G modem to download some episodes of the popular TV-show Lost
, resulting in a massive $40,000 bill
Telcos can expect more downward pressure on their fixed-line income as the emerging generation of adolescents start leaving the nest, new research has revealed. The research by the federal communications regulator shows that 18 to 24 year-olds are relying on mobiles phones when they leave home and choosing not to sign up for landlines. The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s research, which was conducted by Roy Morgan between May and June 2008, revealed that 79 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds used mobile more frequently than fixed-line services. By contrast, senior citizens used fixed-line services more frequently and saw little need to use a mobile phone
The shrill bleeps from 80s home computers and the hammering clicks of ancient calculating machines are noises that many people would prefer to forget, but not chip-tune musician Matthew Applegate. He plans on assembling a virtual orchestra of 20 retired relics of computing at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The choice of venue will even allow Applegate to feature the famous Colossus Mark 2 computer in the event, which was used for code-breaking in World War II and was recently reconstructed at Bletchley Park in 2007
Mininova, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, has been suffering from a massive DDoS attack over the past few days. Originating from a botnet spanning three continents, the attacks vary in strength and are causing the site to be completely inaccessible at times. The Mininova team is working on a solution
Exact replicas of a man’s thumb bones have been made for the first time using a 3D printer. The breakthrough paves the way for surgeons to replace damaged or diseased bones with identical copies built from the patients’ own cells. In theory, you could do any bone,
says Christian Weinand of the Insel Hospital in Berne, Switzerland, head of the team that copied his thumb bones. Now I can put spares in my pocket if I want,
he says
Truman, a 7-foot-long, 30-pound octopus at the New England Aquarium squeezed his body into a 14-inch square acrylic box today in pursuit of food, aquarium officials said. The 30-minute performance drew a crowd of staff and guests. The caretakers for the octopi at the aquarium place food inside locked boxes as an enrichment activity. The idea is that the animals, who are very intelligent, must figure out how to unlatch the boxes and get the food, aquarium officials said in a news release
A company that allegedly sold workers’ personal details, including union activities, to building firms is to be prosecuted by the information watchdog. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the Consulting Association, in Droitwich, had committed a serious breach
of the Data Protection Act. The ICO said a secret system had been run for over 15 years to enable firms to unlawfully vet job applicants. Unions have called on the government to outlaw blacklisting
practices
If you ask security experts why more cyber criminals aren’t brought to justice, the answer you will probably hear is that US authorities simply aren’t getting the cooperation they need from law enforcement officials in Russia and other Eastern European nations, where some of the world’s most active cyber criminal gangs are thought to operate with impunity. But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?
Australian governments may soon have the world’s most secure data communication system if trials of a locally-developed quantum cryptography technology are successful. The system is built on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), considered the world’s most secure medium, which uses special lasers capable of detecting the slightest attempt to eavesdrop. It could remove the need for governments to use couriers to deliver one-time keys for sensitive information
New South Wales Police are being given sweeping new powers to search people’s homes and hack into their computers for up to three years without their knowledge. The State Government admits police have already used the measures, even though the Supreme Court ruled the practices unlawful in 2006. The Government says new legislation, to be introduced into Parliament today, will ensure police evidence collected using the practices will hold up in court. Police Minister Tony Kelly says the reforms will allow police to collect enough evidence for a prosecution without tipping off criminals
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched its Surveillance Self-Defence project today — an online how-to guide for protecting your private data against government spying
Li Hua makes a living playing computer games. Working from a cramped office in the heart of Changsha, China, he slays dragons and loots virtual gold in 10-hour shifts. Next to him, rows of other young workers do the same. It is just like working in a factory, the only difference is that this is the virtual world,
says Li. The working conditions are hard. We don’t get weekends off and I only have one day free a month. But compared to other jobs it is good. I have no other skills and I enjoy playing sometimes.
Li is just one of more than 100 workers employed by Wow7gold, an internet-based company that makes more than £1m a year selling in-game advantages to World of Warcraft (WoW) players. Customers may ask for their avatar’s skill level to be increased (power levelling
), or for a virtual magic sword or precious ore to be obtained. As one player put it: Where there’s a demand, China will supply it
A man who lost his sight 30 years ago says he can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye. Ron, 73, had the experimental surgery seven months ago at London’s Moorfield’s eye hospital. He says he can now follow white lines on the road, and even sort socks, using the bionic eye, known as Argus II. It uses a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye
Three quiet and unknown Finnish engineers in their late thirties, Kim Nyberg, Kari Sydänmaanlakka, and Teemu Rantanen, have spent their working careers at the engineering software company Tekla in Finland. Their clients have used the software they created to model several well-known buildings, including Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, New York’s Hearst Tower, the famous Bird’s Nest
that is Beijing’s Olympic Stadium, and the world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai. But if matters had turned out a little differently, these men — and a former colleague named Kati Suominen (now Kati Borgers) who could not be present at the interview — might have become known as the Fathers and Mother of the World Wide Web browser
RSS – Posts