The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

U.S., Aussie security centers sign pact
Two groups that disseminate and analyze information about computer-security incidents in the United States and Australia announced Tuesday they will work together to develop better tools and techniques for protecting corporate and national networks. The network-security information clearinghouses, known as Computer Emergency Response Teams, or CERTs, have worked together in the past on an informal basis, said Jeffrey Carpenter, manager of the U.S. CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University. "It is not the first time we have ever had an agreement with a response team in another country," he said. "However, in the past, those agreements have been for a specific task." CERT and AusCERT plan to release joint advisories and work together on creating new tools and techniques to combat threats to the Internet.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Smart cards starting to take off in U.S.
One of the more compelling arguments for wide-scale use of smart cards in large companies can be summed up in the following, somewhat cryptic question: How often do you call your bank's help desk when using an ATM? Companies are taking a cue from the banking business, starting to simplify their operations by distributing a single, plastic card to employees that unlocks office doors, gives them access to company networks, e-mail, human resource functions and employee benefits, as well as giving remote access when people are working from home or on the road. Such smart cards can replace myriad passwords and user IDs that modern office workers typically have. Under the new systems being offered, a worker can access a range of services by putting a single plastic card into a reader and typing in a personal identification number, or PIN, just the way people have at an automated teller machine for the past 20 years.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Online music site climbs the charts
It sounds like a genuine blast from the past: an online music site on an acquisition binge, expanding quickly around the world, with a stock price that has actually climbed since the beginning of the year. But don't look in the United States. The company is Vitaminic, the independent Milan, Italy-based site that has carved out a space in Europe somewhere between MTVi and MP3.com, with more success than either inside its own markets. The 3-year-old company has a little of the same rocky history of shifting business models that's familiar in the United States. But Vitaminic is attracting applause from analysts as it refocuses on farming out music to other corporations hungry for tunes to use in marketing campaigns or on their own Web sites.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Online Cash Ain't Worth Squat
It's not just Internet stocks that are getting tossed in the garbage heap this year. Soon, several upstart cyber-currencies won't be worth the paper they aren't printed on. In the last two weeks, three sites offering Internet payment and incentive programs -- Flooz, Beenz and Cybergold -- have either shuttered their sites or announced plans to close down. The closures, analysts say, offer fresh evidence of what they've long suspected: Alternative online payment systems are having a rough time competing with the already ubiquitous credit card. "The folding of these companies was pretty inevitable," said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Group who specializes in payment systems. "It's just amazing that they've lasted two years." In some ways, Litan says, the latest round of shutdowns follows the typical Internet riches-to-rags storyline.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46180,00.html

What's Really in Their Backpacks
Let's take a look
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45880,00.html

What's On Tap? Why, Haptics
Someday soon, drivers will be alerted by a little tap on their shoulder when another car is riding on their blind spot. The car, which springs out of research from Purdue University and other U.S. research institutions, is an early application for haptics -– the science of integrating the sense of touch into human/computer interactions. And it promises to greatly expand the reach of computers into everyday life. Haptics is "based on the way the brain processes information," said Mk Haley, chair of the just-completed Emerging Technologies Exhibition at the Siggraph conference and a researcher at Walt Disney Imagineering. "If the information is based on physical sensations, your reactions are much, much faster."
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46192,00.html

Scientists Find Great Steak Gene
Australian scientists say they have discovered new ways to produce better beef. More tender, juicier steaks could go on sale following a breakthrough in gene technology. Scientists have identified a particular gene associated with beef tenderness, and have also found that slower-moving cattle taste better than their quicker cousins. Both breakthroughs use advances in molecular genetics to identify cattle with genes that produce tender steaks. "We're not interfering with the bovine genome. We're using it as an aid to selection," said Dr. Bernie Bindon, who heads up the Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) for Cattle and Beef Quality.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46203,00.html

All That Dissolves May Be Gold
Call them the microbes with the Midas touch. Thriving where most life forms cannot survive, simple microscopic organisms known as extremophiles are performing an astounding feat: turning dissolved gold into solid gold. University of Massachusetts professor Derek Lovley discovered the microbes' special power while experimenting on the use of a similar microbe to clean up toxic waste. Now he's using extremophiles to explain how some gold ore deposits may have formed.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46197,00.html

Wireless Networks in Big Trouble
Wireless networks are a little less secure today with the public release of "AirSnort," a tool that can surreptitiously grab and analyze data moving across just about every major wireless network. When enough information has been captured, AirSnort can then piece together the system's master password. In other words, hackers and/or eavesdroppers using AirSnort can just grab what they want from a company's database wirelessly, out of thin air.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,46187,00.html

Hack insurer adds Microsoft surcharge
Insurance broker J.S. Wurzler Underwriting Managers has started charging up to 15 percent more in premiums to clients that use Microsoft's Internet Information Server software, which the Code Red worm feasted on. In light of the $2 billion in damage caused by Code Red, founder and CEO John Wurzler's decision just before the virus hit seems prescient. Wurzler gained notoriety earlier this year for hiking cyberinsurance rates on companies that use Microsoft NT software on their servers. So far, Wurzler appears to be the only insurer singling out Microsoft for higher rates. And some security officials are not kind in their comments.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Songwriters claim MP3 set the stage for widespread piracy
A new lawsuit filed against MP3.com seeks to hold the San Diego music-locker service liable not just for songs it improperly copied and distributed -- but for every bootleg track exchanged through Napster and other underground file-swapping services. The suit, filed on behalf of 52 independent songwriters and music publishers, accuses MP3.com of "viral'' infringement. It alleges MP3.com's technology set the stage for widespread music piracy, enabling bootlegged songs to pass from computer to computer faster than you can say "Oops, I Did It Again.'' The argument goes like this: MP3.com made compressed copies of about 900,000 songs, which it placed on its computer servers -- without obtaining the rights to do so. That created a vast bootleg library, from which MP3.com subscribers could download songs. Once on the user's computer hard-drive, a single song could be copied and passed around infinitely in the music underground.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/ne.../mp3082101.htm

Even more news later on