Topic: SECURITY - on April 26, 2008 at 3:56:00 PM CEST
FBI wants to move hunt for criminals into Internet backbone
FBI director Robert Mueller's testimony to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday gave a tiny glimpse of the future of law enforcement online, and it raised some tough questions about the evolving line between public and private in a networked world.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 26, 2008 at 3:24:00 PM CEST
Which Gov Agency Should Be Your Computer's Firewall?
First the NSA says it needs to examine every search and email on the internet to prevent an e-9/11 attack, then President Bush signs a secret cyber-security Presidential Directive to make that possible, while the Air Force has set up a cyber warfare division where cyber-security is played like a game of Space Invaders.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 22, 2008 at 12:28:00 PM CEST
Flugpassagiere müssen Fingerabdruck bei Ausreise abgeben
Erneut verschärfen die US-Behörden die Grenzkontrollen: Künftig sollen Flugpassagiere auch bei der Ausreise aus den USA ihren Fingerabdruck hinterlassen. Damit will das Heimatschutzministerium die Einhaltung der Visumsgültigkeit überprüfen.
Zeigt her Eure Finger: Auch bei der Ausreise aus den USA werden Flug-, aber auch Kreuzfahrtpassagiere künftig ihren Fingerabdruck abgeben müssen. Das Ministerium für Heimatsicherheit hat eine entsprechende Änderung der bisherigen Bestimmungen vorbereitet, wie am Montagabend aus Kreisen des Ministeriums verlautete.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 22, 2008 at 12:24:00 PM CEST
China's botnet problems grows
Computers infected by Trojan horse programs and bot software are the greatest threat to China's portion of the Internet, with compromises growing more than 20-fold in the past year, the nation's Computer Emergency Response Team (CN-CERT) stated in its 2007 annual report released last week.
The response organization found that the number of Chinese Internet addresses with one or more infected systems increased by a factor of 22 in 2007. The report, currently only published in Chinese, estimates that, of 6.23 million bot-infected computers on the Internet, about 3.62 million are in China's address space.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 21, 2008 at 1:20:00 PM CEST
JFK And LAX Get Scanners That See Through Clothes
The Transportation Security Administration on Friday said that it's beginning new pilot tests of millimeter wave scanning technology at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).
Millimeter wave scanners allow TSA personnel to see concealed weapons and other items that may be hidden beneath clothes.
When the first TSA pilot test of the technology began in October at Phoenix Sky-Harbor International Airport, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said that agency was committed to protecting passenger privacy and that the potentially revealing body scans would not be stored.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 21, 2008 at 12:56:00 PM CEST
Pass mit Fingerabdruck kommt 2009
Preis und Ausstellungsdauer bleiben gleich - EU-Richtlinie schreibt zwei Fingerabdrücke vor - Auch Jugendausweise in Vorbereitung
Neue Reisedokumente werden schon ab kommendem Jahr mit Fingerabdrücken versehen. Die entsprechende Novelle zum Passgesetz werde in den nächsten Tagen in Begutachtung geschickt, kündigte Innenminister Günther Platter gegenüber der APA an. Ebenfalls geplant ist die Einführung eines Jugendpasses für Bürger bis zum 16. Lebensjahr.
EU-Richtlinie Dass zwei Fingerabdrücke im Reisepass abgebildet werden müssen, ist Gegenstand einer EU-Richtlinie. Umgesetzt werden muss diese spätestens Mitte 2009. Platter geht davon aus, dass in Österreich bereits in den ersten drei Monaten des kommenden Jahres die Dokumente mit den Abdrücken versehen werden, jedenfalls aber vor der Hauptreisezeit.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 21, 2008 at 12:52:00 PM CEST
Chinese hackers call off CNN attack
Chinese hackers have postponed a planned attack on CNN.com.
The assault was planned as a response to criticism of China in the Western media that has accompanied the Olympic Torch procession. Chinese policy in Tibet, as well as the nation's poor human rights record, has come under the spotlight as Western activists have succeeded in quenching the Olympic torch on its route around the globe.
theregister.co.uk Chinese Hacktivists Waging People's Information Warfare Against CNN
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 19, 2008 at 2:19:00 PM CEST
How to Beat the Military PCASS Lie Detector
Spies, saboteurs, and terrorists can easily defeat the U.S. Government's new hand-held lie detector, the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System or PCASS. The polygraph countermeasures explained in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) will also work against the PCASS. In essence, all one has to do is to covertly augment one's reactions to the "control" (or comparason) questions. This can be achieved by biting the side of one's tongue, thinking exciting thoughts, or doing mental arithmetic. In addition, although we don't suggest it for polygraph examinations that might include a seat pad, constricting one's anal sphincter muscle would be a simple and effective countermeasure against the PCASS, which doesn't include a seat pad.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 12, 2008 at 12:39:00 PM CEST
Security Guru Gives Hackers a Taste of Their Own Medicine
Malicious hackers beware: Computer security expert Joel Eriksson might already own your box.
Eriksson, a researcher at the Swedish security firm Bitsec, uses reverse-engineering tools to find remotely exploitable security holes in hacking software. In particular, he targets the client-side applications intruders use to control Trojan horses from afar, finding vulnerabilities that would let him upload his own rogue software to intruders' machines.
He demoed the technique publicly for the first time at the RSA conference Friday.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 6, 2008 at 12:39:00 PM CEST
Cyberwar threat way down the agenda at NATO conference
For all its hype the threat cyberwarfare merited less than 100 words in a summary of discussions between heads of state at NATO conference last week.
The three-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Romania last week focused on discussing NATO operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and plans for the further expansion of NATO, particularly in the Balkans. Cyber defense got a briefest of look-ins, as point 47 of a 50 point declaration by heads of state and government meeting at the conference. The policy statement (below), which might have been drafted by Yes Minister's Humphrey Appleby, doesn't give too much away beyond saying the NATO allies might - on request - intervene to help an ally under attack.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 2, 2008 at 1:33:00 PM CEST
Bush administration passport to stupidity
Homeland security is a priority for the Bush administration. I know that because they keep telling us. We have to take off our shoes and take out our identification getting on and off planes. Not just any identification, either. Official stuff. And crossing borders -- any borders, even the border from Canada -- now requires a passport. A passport! Perhaps one of the most highly prized and secure of all official forms of identification, too, now embedded with electronic chips. Even blank passports are expensive, and we are charged for them -- $100, up from $60 ten years ago. Which makes perfect sense. But it's one of the few things about passport production that does make sense. Because it turns out that it is cheaper to make them in foreign countries like Thailand than in the US, so the State Department has been outsourcing printing of blank passports and pocketing the estimated $100 million yearly that is the difference between what they charge and what they cost. But that's not the main issue.
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Topic: SECURITY - on April 1, 2008 at 12:20:00 PM CEST
Teenager guilty of million-dollar hacking campaign
A New Zealand teenager accused of leading an international ring of computer hackers which skimmed millions of dollars from bank accounts was today convicted of illegal computer hacking.
Owen Thor Walker, 18, pleaded guilty yesterday to six charges related to using computers for illegal purposes. Police allege that he led a group of hackers who took control of 1.3m computers around the world without their owners' knowledge.
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