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walktalker · 20-07-01, 06:35 PM

Hackers wreak havoc on Aussie banks
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is just one of a long list of banks that have been the target of a security breach, with one industry expert claiming there were more than 20 banks hit in Australia last year. But who is to blame, the banks' or the customers? An anonymous hacker has reportedly breached the security of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Quickline Internet service and taken money from customers' accounts. Ajoy Ghosh, Unisys Australia architecture director, IT security consulting services, told ZDNet that this is not the first time Australian banks have been the subject of a security attack, saying that more than 20 banks were hacked into last year.
http://cms.zdnet.com.au:88/news/inte...0244375,00.htm

U.S. to cybercriminals: You're going down
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said federal officials would crack down on an increasing wave of cybercrime by beefing up 10 specialized units so they can better concentrate on catching hackers and pirates. The squads, dubbed Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property, or CHIP, units will focus on copyright theft, computer fraud and hacking. Ashcroft, speaking after meeting with Silicon Valley CEOs at VeriSign offices in Mountain View, Calif., said he wants to send a message to cybercriminals that they're not immune to prosecution.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft charity dispute draws attention
An Australian charity said it has received applause from around the world after standing up to Microsoft in a dispute over software licences. "It is clear that the international audience is concerned that a well known philanthropist company and its major stakeholder (Microsoft CEO Bill) Gates must understand that their hard line on charities is very damaging to their record," PCs for Kids president Colin Bayes said. The nonprofit organization said it has received overwhelming support on an international scale in regards to the software giant's refusal to support the charity. PCs for Kids recycles old computers and donates them to children. The organization reformats Windows 3.11 or Windows 95, both of which are no longer supported by Microsoft.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

China cracks down on Internet cafes
China has shut down nearly 2,000 Internet cafes across the country and has ordered 6,000 to suspend operations and make changes, state media said on Friday. Anonymous cybercafes are popular because they allow people to evade tough content laws, whose infringement is more likely to be traced by authorities when perpetrated on a personal homepage or message board. The Shanghai Daily said the move, China's second major clampdown on the popular cafes in a little more than a year, aims to regulate the Internet service market in line with rules set by the Ministries of Information Industry, Public Security, and Culture, and by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

What Pops Up Must Come Down
The more advertisers shout, scream and try to coerce users to pay attention to them -- be it swooping shadows of Jurassic creatures hovering over text or jumbo-sized XCam2 pop-up ads -- the more software developers are shouting back with products to block them out. These programs come in a host of assorted flavors with names including AdsOff, Close Popup, Mr. KillAd, Advertising Killer, PopNot, AllGone, PopUp Hunter, Nagger, AdDelete, AdPurger, AdStopper, Pop-Up Stopper, Pop-Up Killer and PopUp Eraser. And since the arrival of the X10's XCam2 pop-ups, users are downloading and installing them in droves. According to CNET’s Download.com, the numbers are now in the hundreds of thousands.
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45306,00.html

An Old City Turns to Technology
The Italians are going to extraordinary lengths to guarantee the safety of the world's top leaders in Genoa for the G8 conference of industrialized nations. But there are concerns other than security. Besides the heavy police and military presence, the hosts have to make sure that the medical facilities are up to the task of handling not only those inside the conference, but the hordes of demonstrators who have descended on the old port city as well. To that end, Ligurian authorities have cobbled together a network of seven local medical and communications companies to provide tech support to both the hospitals and Genoa's equivalent of the 911 system.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,45350,00.html

Cosmos 1 Sails Into Space
A Russian nuclear submarine has successfully launched a prototype spacecraft that sails on the solar wind. But it is unclear whether results of the pioneering mission will ever be known because a "black box" data capsule that records details of the flight may never be found. Cosmos 1, a converted nuclear-missile carrying the first solar sail, was launched from a Russian submarine as it cruised beneath the Barents Sea on Thursday. The Cosmos 1 spacecraft is the first solar sail to be sent into space.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,45414,00.html

Cryonics Over Dead Geeks' Bodies
Many geeks will survive death and go on to a glorious future -- assuming that medical science figures out a way to defrost and reanimate them. According to a new book, The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead, techies make up a large percentage of those who have signed up for cryonic suspension, an experimental procedure used to preserve legally dead bodies in the hopes that future medical breakthroughs will allow them to be brought back to life.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45188,00.html

Missing black hole forces galaxy rethink
Astronomers have found a galaxy that is missing a vital component at its heart - a supermassive black hole. The discovery challenges the prevailing view that these black holes are crucial to galaxy formation. Supermassive black holes have more than a million times the mass of the Sun and astronomers have found them in every one of the thirty or so galaxies they have examined, usually by observing the gravitational effect they have on stars. But David Merritt and colleagues at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, have used the Hubble Space Telescope to image the centre of a disc shaped galaxy called M33. They calculated that the largest black hole it can possibly contain is thousands of times smaller than the smallest supermassive black hole.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991049

Second tourist aims for space holiday
South African information technology billionaire Mark Shuttleworth, 27, has said he intends to become the second tourist in space. He confirmed that he had undergone initial space training in Star City outside Moscow - the heart of the Russian space programme - but had yet to sign a contract. Andrei Maiboroda, a spokesman for the cosmonaut training centre, said Shuttleworth was undergoing a one-month orientation. If he goes into space, he will be the second fare-paying passenger the Russians have launched. US billionaire Denis Tito bought a ride into orbit earlier this year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1448711.stm

Civil Liberties Group Postpones Anti-Adobe Rally
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said today that it would postpone its plan to rally outside the headquarters of Adobe Systems pending the outcome of a Monday meeting between Adobe and EFF officials over the fate of detained Russian software developer Dimitry Sklyarov. EFF had planned to protest Adobe's participation in Sklyarov's arrest in a rally Monday at Adobe's San Jose, Calif., offices. EFF Online Activist Will Doherty said today that EFF would temporarily hold off on the march in hopes that Adobe would help secure Sklyarov's release. Sources for Adobe confirmed earlier this week that the company alerted the FBI to their concern that the "Advanced eBook Processor" - which Sklyarov developed - violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by allowing users to circumvent the security features in Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168198.html

Privacy Supporters Clash Over P3P
Although hailed by many as an important technological advance that will allow Internet users to exert more control over their personal data, the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), remains a source of debate within the privacy community as some leaders question its usefulness in safeguarding consumers. In a paper published last week by the Internet Law Journal, "P3P - An Imperfect Tool for Privacy," that debate is highlighted as author Yair Galil argues that the tool may give consumers a false sense of security. Galil further argues that P3P should not be viewed by lawmakers as a substitute for federal Internet privacy regulations.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168194.html

Get Ready To Pluck Your Data From Thin Air
Say goodbye to the personal computing era. Just on the horizon is the era that comes next — the personal information era. PI instead of the PC. Right now, when you think about your information (documents, spreadsheets, music, photos) and applications (Word, Excel, America Online, RealJukebox), they are one with your machine, which is almost always a PC or laptop. Though some of your stuff might be stored online, for the most part, data and machine need each other. To get your data, you have to have your machine. PI cuts the two apart. What becomes important to you is just your information, which is floating out there on a combination of networks and computers. You can get it, use it, run it or play it on any kind of machine or device anywhere you are — a computer in someone else's office, a terminal in a Starbucks, your home PlayStation, your mom's Palm and so on.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168184.html

Napster Time Way Down, Alternatives Emerge
Even before Napster shut down for repairs, time spent using the embattled song-swapper plummeted 70 percent in the U.S. and fell 65 percent worldwide between February and June, according to a survey of online file-sharing services released today. Meanwhile, Bodetella, Audiogalaxy and Imesh have emerged as rapidly growing alternatives for music downloaders, said the Jupiter Media Metrix study. The survey found that globally, total time spent using Napster fell 65 percent among home Web users in 14 countries surveyed, dropping from a peak of 6.3 billion minutes in February to 2.2 billion minutes in June. Unique users during the same period dropped 31 percent, from 26.4 million to 18.3 million.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168173.html

More news later on

20-07-01, 06:35 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Hackers wreak havoc on Aussie banks The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is just one of a long list of banks that have been the target of a security breach, with one industry expert claiming there were more than 20 banks hit in Australia last year. But who is to blame, the banks' or the customers? An anonymous hacker has reportedly breached the security of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Quickline Internet service and taken money from customers' accounts. Ajoy Ghosh, Unisys Australia architecture director, IT security consulting services, told ZDNet that this is not the first time Australian banks have been the subject of a security attack, saying that more than 20 banks were hacked into last year. http://cms.zdnet.com.au:88/news/inte...0244375,00.htm U.S. to cybercriminals: You're going down U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said federal officials would crack down on an increasing wave of cybercrime by beefing up 10 specialized units so they can better concentrate on catching hackers and pirates. The squads, dubbed Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property, or CHIP, units will focus on copyright theft, computer fraud and hacking. Ashcroft, speaking after meeting with Silicon Valley CEOs at VeriSign offices in Mountain View, Calif., said he wants to send a message to cybercriminals that they're not immune to prosecution. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh Microsoft charity dispute draws attention An Australian charity said it has received applause from around the world after standing up to Microsoft in a dispute over software licences. "It is clear that the international audience is concerned that a well known philanthropist company and its major stakeholder (Microsoft CEO Bill) Gates must understand that their hard line on charities is very damaging to their record," PCs for Kids president Colin Bayes said. The nonprofit organization said it has received overwhelming support on an international scale in regards to the software giant's refusal to support the charity. PCs for Kids recycles old computers and donates them to children. The organization reformats Windows 3.11 or Windows 95, both of which are no longer supported by Microsoft. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh China cracks down on Internet cafes China has shut down nearly 2,000 Internet cafes across the country and has ordered 6,000 to suspend operations and make changes, state media said on Friday. Anonymous cybercafes are popular because they allow people to evade tough content laws, whose infringement is more likely to be traced by authorities when perpetrated on a personal homepage or message board. The Shanghai Daily said the move, China's second major clampdown on the popular cafes in a little more than a year, aims to regulate the Internet service market in line with rules set by the Ministries of Information Industry, Public Security, and Culture, and by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh What Pops Up Must Come Down The more advertisers shout, scream and try to coerce users to pay attention to them -- be it swooping shadows of Jurassic creatures hovering over text or jumbo-sized XCam2 pop-up ads -- the more software developers are shouting back with products to block them out. These programs come in a host of assorted flavors with names including AdsOff, Close Popup, Mr. KillAd, Advertising Killer, PopNot, AllGone, PopUp Hunter, Nagger, AdDelete, AdPurger, AdStopper, Pop-Up Stopper, Pop-Up Killer and PopUp Eraser. And since the arrival of the X10's XCam2 pop-ups, users are downloading and installing them in droves. According to CNET’s Download.com, the numbers are now in the hundreds of thousands. http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45306,00.html An Old City Turns to Technology The Italians are going to extraordinary lengths to guarantee the safety of the world's top leaders in Genoa for the G8 conference of industrialized nations. But there are concerns other than security. Besides the heavy police and military presence, the hosts have to make sure that the medical facilities are up to the task of handling not only those inside the conference, but the hordes of demonstrators who have descended on the old port city as well. To that end, Ligurian authorities have cobbled together a network of seven local medical and communications companies to provide tech support to both the hospitals and Genoa's equivalent of the 911 system. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,45350,00.html Cosmos 1 Sails Into Space A Russian nuclear submarine has successfully launched a prototype spacecraft that sails on the solar wind. But it is unclear whether results of the pioneering mission will ever be known because a "black box" data capsule that records details of the flight may never be found. Cosmos 1, a converted nuclear-missile carrying the first solar sail, was launched from a Russian submarine as it cruised beneath the Barents Sea on Thursday. The Cosmos 1 spacecraft is the first solar sail to be sent into space. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,45414,00.html Cryonics Over Dead Geeks' Bodies Many geeks will survive death and go on to a glorious future -- assuming that medical science figures out a way to defrost and reanimate them. According to a new book, The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead, techies make up a large percentage of those who have signed up for cryonic suspension, an experimental procedure used to preserve legally dead bodies in the hopes that future medical breakthroughs will allow them to be brought back to life. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45188,00.html Missing black hole forces galaxy rethink Astronomers have found a galaxy that is missing a vital component at its heart - a supermassive black hole. The discovery challenges the prevailing view that these black holes are crucial to galaxy formation. Supermassive black holes have more than a million times the mass of the Sun and astronomers have found them in every one of the thirty or so galaxies they have examined, usually by observing the gravitational effect they have on stars. But David Merritt and colleagues at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, have used the Hubble Space Telescope to image the centre of a disc shaped galaxy called M33. They calculated that the largest black hole it can possibly contain is thousands of times smaller than the smallest supermassive black hole. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991049 Second tourist aims for space holiday South African information technology billionaire Mark Shuttleworth, 27, has said he intends to become the second tourist in space. He confirmed that he had undergone initial space training in Star City outside Moscow - the heart of the Russian space programme - but had yet to sign a contract. Andrei Maiboroda, a spokesman for the cosmonaut training centre, said Shuttleworth was undergoing a one-month orientation. If he goes into space, he will be the second fare-paying passenger the Russians have launched. US billionaire Denis Tito bought a ride into orbit earlier this year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1448711.stm Civil Liberties Group Postpones Anti-Adobe Rally The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said today that it would postpone its plan to rally outside the headquarters of Adobe Systems pending the outcome of a Monday meeting between Adobe and EFF officials over the fate of detained Russian software developer Dimitry Sklyarov. EFF had planned to protest Adobe's participation in Sklyarov's arrest in a rally Monday at Adobe's San Jose, Calif., offices. EFF Online Activist Will Doherty said today that EFF would temporarily hold off on the march in hopes that Adobe would help secure Sklyarov's release. Sources for Adobe confirmed earlier this week that the company alerted the FBI to their concern that the "Advanced eBook Processor" - which Sklyarov developed - violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by allowing users to circumvent the security features in Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168198.html Privacy Supporters Clash Over P3P Although hailed by many as an important technological advance that will allow Internet users to exert more control over their personal data, the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), remains a source of debate within the privacy community as some leaders question its usefulness in safeguarding consumers. In a paper published last week by the Internet Law Journal, "P3P - An Imperfect Tool for Privacy," that debate is highlighted as author Yair Galil argues that the tool may give consumers a false sense of security. Galil further argues that P3P should not be viewed by lawmakers as a substitute for federal Internet privacy regulations. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168194.html Get Ready To Pluck Your Data From Thin Air Say goodbye to the personal computing era. Just on the horizon is the era that comes next — the personal information era. PI instead of the PC. Right now, when you think about your information (documents, spreadsheets, music, photos) and applications (Word, Excel, America Online, RealJukebox), they are one with your machine, which is almost always a PC or laptop. Though some of your stuff might be stored online, for the most part, data and machine need each other. To get your data, you have to have your machine. PI cuts the two apart. What becomes important to you is just your information, which is floating out there on a combination of networks and computers. You can get it, use it, run it or play it on any kind of machine or device anywhere you are — a computer in someone else's office, a terminal in a Starbucks, your home PlayStation, your mom's Palm and so on. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168184.html Napster Time Way Down, Alternatives Emerge Even before Napster shut down for repairs, time spent using the embattled song-swapper plummeted 70 percent in the U.S. and fell 65 percent worldwide between February and June, according to a survey of online file-sharing services released today. Meanwhile, Bodetella, Audiogalaxy and Imesh have emerged as rapidly growing alternatives for music downloaders, said the Jupiter Media Metrix study. The survey found that globally, total time spent using Napster fell 65 percent among home Web users in 14 countries surveyed, dropping from a peak of 6.3 billion minutes in February to 2.2 billion minutes in June. Unique users during the same period dropped 31 percent, from 26.4 million to 18.3 million. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168173.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies