For the 10th eLearning Awards, European Schoolnet and ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Agency, announce a new prize category called "Teaching online safety and citizenship".

The rapid spread of internet use among young people is making it essential to address eSafety and ePrivacy, in order to protect young people from online risks and threats and to prepare them to use digital technologies in a secure and responsible way. As a major European actor for eSafety and ePrivacy, ENISA highly encourages all teachers to address these issues with their young students. “Young people and children are today amongst the biggest user groups of online technologies in Europe. It is important to equip them with the skills and knowledge to stay safe online,” said Dr Udo Helmbrecht, Executive Director of ENISA.

 

(Source: ENISA)

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ENISA

The Safer Internet Forum has been organized by the Safer Internet Programme as an annual conference on safer internet issues since 2004. It brings together representatives of industry, law enforcement authorities, child welfare organizations and policy makers. The past editions of the Safer Internet Forum have welcomed guests not only from Europe, but also from countries such as Australia, Brazil or the Russian Federation.

The 2010 edition of the Safer Internet Forum will take place in Luxembourg on the 21-22 October. This year the Safer Internet Forum will focus on the results of two major research projects funded by the Safer Internet Programme: EUKidsOnline II, which surveyed children and parents in 25 European countries about internet use, and European Online Grooming Project, the first European research project that studies the characteristics and behaviour of sexual offenders who have used the internet to groom young people.

 

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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Europe's Information Society

The 12th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Application & Services aims to bring together interested parties from around the world working in the healthcare field to exchange ideas, to discuss innovative and emerging solutions and to develop collaborations. Participants include clinicians, hospital administrators, IT professionals, researchers, educators, healthcare solutions vendors, and consultants. It will also offer an important forum for discussions on e-Health projects supported by world bodies such as ITU, WHO and the EU, including FP6 and FP7 European projects.

 

(Source: IEEE Communications Society)

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IEEE Communications Society

The number of internet threats coming from the UK has increased in May, according to research by managed security firm, Network Box. The UK is now responsible for nearly six (5.9) per cent of the world’s internet viruses, up from three per cent in April. The only countries that produce more viruses than the UK are Korea (16.26 per cent) and the US (11.68 per cent). The US and India continue to dominate the production of the world’s spam, with the US producing 10.7 per cent, and India 7.1 per cent (similar figures from last month).

Russia has seen a decline in viruses produced from within its borders – possibly an early result of Russian hosting service, PROXIEZ-NET – notoriously used by criminal gangs – being taken down earlier this month.

 

(Source: Network Box)

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Network Box

On 23 November 2010 the Belgian Privacy Commission will organize an international conference on privacy and scientific research. The conference will take place in the context of the 2010 Belgian EU presidency and focuses on several target groups, first of all the European data protection authorities, but also national and international academics and researchers. Two areas of scientific research will be examined: historical and clinical-medical research. The conference is primarily intended as a discussion forum on best practices in both areas. That is why workshops will be organized alongside the traditional plenary sessions.

"Privacy & Scientific Research: from Obstruction to Construction" was opted for as the working title of the conference, the objective of the event being a reflection on how to integrate privacy protection in scientific research without making it an obstacle. And what's more, the quality of research will only be improved thanks to privacy protection.

 

(Source: Commission For The Protection Of Privacy)

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Commission For The Protection Of Privacy

Google is investigating a growing number of reports that hackers are breaking into legitimate Gmail accounts and then using them to send spam messages. The problem started about a week ago but seems to have escalated over the past few days.

"The Gmail team takes security very seriously and is investigating the reports we've seen in our user forums over the past few days," Google said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement. "We encourage users who suspect their accounts have been compromised to immediately change their passwords and to follow the advice at the following page: http://www.google.com/help/security/." Gmail accounts are often compromised after phishing attempts or via malicious programs, which can seek out and log online credentials from a hacked computer.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Four countries and two territories have won preliminary approval to have Internet addresses written entirely in their native scripts as early as this summer.

Rules are being developed to make sure that addresses in either script go to the same Web sites. Since their creation in the 1980s, Internet domain names such as those that end in ".com" have been limited to 37 characters: the 10 numerals, the hyphen and the 26 letters in the Latin alphabet used in English. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

In a bid to cut down on fraud and inappropriate content, the organization responsible for administering Russia's .ru top-level domain names is tightening its procedures. Starting April 1, anyone who registers a .ru domain will need to provide a copy of their passport or, for businesses, legal registration papers.

Loopholes in the domain name system help spammers, scammers and operators of pornographic Web sites to avoid detection on the Internet by concealing their identity. Criminals often play a cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement and security experts, popping up on different domains as soon as their malicious servers are identified. Criminals in eastern Europe have used .ru domains for a while, registering domain names under fake identities and using them to send spam or set up command-and-control servers to send instructions to networks of hacked computers.

 

(Source: PC World)

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PC World

At the eighth Ministerial eHealth Conference in Barcelona today, EU ministers have outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how to make eHealth more accessible, interactive and customised to patients. The Declaration outlines a vision and identifies key objectives to be achieved in the next ten years.

The Declaration calls for policy coordination amongst the various areas where eHealth can have an impact on citizens' health in order to enhance benefits for patients, healthcare systems and society. It recognises the need for stronger synergies with policy areas like competitiveness, research and regional development both at European and national levels.

 

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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Europe's Information Society

From 15 to 18 March 2010 the Ministry of Health of Spain and the Regional Government of Catalonia in cooperation with the European Commission are organizing a ministerial Conference in Barcelona. It will co-locate with the World of Health IT conference. High-level eHealth conferences organised by the presiding countries since 2003 represent important annual milestones in this specific field. Spain therefore will carry on the tradition and host this Conference in Barcelona as a part of its presidency in the first half of 2010.

A platform will be provided to encourage the development of on-line health services in Europe. The politicians, health administrators, researchers and suppliers, along with health professionals, are meeting to share their experiences and to discover what is new in this fast-evolving area.

 

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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European Comission

More than three-quarters of people across the world believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right, a poll carried out for the BBC indicated Monday. The poll, which questioned more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries, suggested strong support globally for access to the web. The findings come as efforts are stepped up across the world to increase net access, with the United Nations leading a push for more people to be given the opportunity to get online. Countries including Finland and Estonia have already ruled it is a human right, said the BBC.

"The right to communicate cannot be ignored," Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, told the broadcaster. "The Internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created."

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Authorities have smashed one of the world's biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs. The "botnet" of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to investigators.

Spanish investigators, working with private computer-security firms, have arrested the three alleged ringleaders of the so-called Mariposa botnet, which appeared in December 2008 and grew into one of the biggest weapons of cybercrime. More arrests are expected soon in other countries.

 

(Source: The New Zealand Herald)

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The New Zealand Herald

The International Women Day (8th of March), once again will provide the European Commission with an occasion to address the role of women in the ICT sector. However, this year, substantive changes have been introduced to the formula of the event, starting from the location: Cyprus. The intention is to move the discussion to Member States which have only recently joined the European Union adventure, exactly where women's potential is particularly untapped and where fresh ideas could bloom. This year the debate on women and ICT will be embedded in a broader initiative encompassing other ICT related issues. The event will comprise workshops targeting women willing to set up consortia and submit proposals for future calls.

 

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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European Comission

A new type of computer virus is known to have breached almost 75,000 computers in 2,500 organizations around the world, including user accounts of popular social network websites, according Internet security firm NetWitness. The latest virus -- known as "Kneber botnet" -- gathers login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and email systems from infested computers and reports the information back to hackers, NetWitness said in a statement.

A botnet is an army of infected computers that hackers can control from a central machine." The company said the attack was first discovered in January during a routine deployment of NetWitness software.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters

A man has appeared before magistrates in Truro charged with four sex offences following an investigation into children being groomed on the internet. Michael Williams, 28, of Tresooth Lane, Penryn, was charged with sexual assault and grooming a girl under 16 and two counts of making indecent images. The inquiry centres around pupils from Falmouth School and Penryn College. Mr Williams, who was remanded in custody, is not a teacher and is not directly connected with the schools. Letters have been sent to parents of pupils at Falmouth School and Penryn College informing them of the investigation.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

50% of European teenagers give out personal information on the web – according to an EU study – which can remain online forever and can be seen by anybody. Today, Safer Internet Day, the European Commission is passing a message to teenagers: "Think before you post!" It welcomed actions to protect children using social networking websites taken by the 20 companies who signed the Safer Social Networking Principles last year (IP/09/232 ).

Most of these companies have empowered minors to tackle online risks by making it easier to change privacy settings, block users or delete unwanted comments and content. Yet more needs to be done to protect children online, the Commission says. Less than half of social networking companies (40%) make profiles of under-18 users visible only to their friends by default and only one third replied to user reports asking for help.

 

(Source: Europa)

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Europa

The government has called on the mobile phone industry to do more to protect handset owners against theft. Alan Campbell, Minister for Crime Prevention, said firms "have a social and a corporate responsibility to tackle crime". Around 2% of British mobile phone users report they have suffered a theft in the last year, although for teenagers the figure is three times higher.

The government's call comes as the Home Office unveiled the winning designs in a crime prevention contest, aimed at making mobile phones less attractive to thieves. Designs included an alarm that sounds when a phone is too far from its owner and locks the handset.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks.

The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

The design of the future German identity card has been unveiled. Credit-card sized and made of polycarbonate, it will be issued from November 2010 on. The new card aims to ease the citizens' transactions with government and businesses and to increase security as well as to enhance public confidence in electronic services.

The front side has the image of the federal eagle, whereas on its reverse side the Brandenburg Gate is depicted. The new card contains numerous security features in order to increase protection against forgery. A special feature is that the holder's details are digitally stored. It is also capable to carry a digital signature. Both features will allow card holders to complete commercial online transactions as well as official business with government offices.

 

(Source: eGov Monitor)

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eGov Monitor

The 'Health-e-Space' website has gone online in Moray, Scotland, aiming to encourage individuals to play an active role in personal health matters by providing them with a series of online tools and information.

The website allows anybody living in Moray to become a member and to obtain local health information, links to recommended websites and suggestions on how to live with health conditions. Its sister website, the 'Health-e-Space Community', serves as a social networking platform for people to share their health concerns and experiences among them in the Moray area.

 

(Source: eGov Monitor)

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eGov Monitor

If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe. Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.” Today, it’s one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.”

Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks on Google’s e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug. According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like “abc123,” “iloveyou” or even “password” to protect their data.

 

(Source: The New York Times)

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The New York Times

For the first time, the Ministerial High Level Conference on eHealth and the World Health IT Conference and Exhibition are being held in the same week in a joint initiative called “e-Health Week 2010”, the most prestigious event in the European eHealth sector. Barcelona International Conventions Centre (CCIB) will open its doors from March 15 to 18 to receive the European meeting most attended by the healthcare sector interest groups.

March 15 will see the start of the High Level eHealth Conference, an E.U. event organised by the Spanish Presidency of the E.U., the European Commission, the Government of Catalonia and the TicSalut Foundation. The conference is presented under the motto of “eHealth for sustainable healthcare: global changes through local actions”

 

(Source: eHealth Week)

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eHealth Week

Hundreds of tech volunteers spurred to action by Haiti's killer quake are adding a new dimension to disaster relief, developing new tools and services for first responders and the public in an unprecedented effort. "It really is amazing the change in the way crisis response can be done now," said Noel Dickover, a Washington, D.C.-based organizer of the CrisisCamp tech volunteer movement, which is central to the Haiti effort. "Developers, crisis mappers and even Internet-savvy folks can actually make a difference."

Another volunteer project forged in the quake's aftermath is a cell phone text-messaging system that has helped the U.N., Red Cross and other relief groups dispatch rescuers, food and water.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

The World Economic Forum today released its study on Scaling Opportunity: Information and Communications Technology for Social Inclusion, an analysis of how ICT is evolving to address the social and economic needs of the poor. The study notes that, as 4 billion people have access to the global communications infrastructure, the opportunity to create innovative and inclusively tailored solutions for connecting the unconnected is extraordinary.

Along with highlighting the rapid adoption rate of mobile phone usage within emerging economies, the report focuses on the question: “What’s next?”

 

(Source: eGov Monitor)

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eGov Monitor

Hackers are attacking consumers with an exploit of Internet Explorer (IE) that was allegedly used last month by the Chinese to break into Google's corporate network, a security company said Monday.

That news came on the heels of warnings by the information security agencies of the French and German governments, which recommended that IE users switch to an alternate browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera, until Microsoft fixes the flaw. In a Monday alert Websense said it identified "limited public use" of the unpatched IE vulnerability in drive-by attacks against users who strayed onto malicious Web sites.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

A man who ran a music-sharing website with almost 200,000 members has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court. Alan Ellis, 26, was the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing. He operated the site, called Oink, from his flat in Middlesbrough from 2004 until it was closed down in a police raid in October 2007. In that time Oink facilitated the download of 21 million music files.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Despite the prevalence and popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, almost a third of respondents said that they preferred to meet friends face-to-face, although 44 percent said the internet made it easier to keep in touch with them. More than seven in 10 children said their most common use of the Internet was for gaming, while 59 percent said that they used the worldwide web in the course of doing their homework. The youngsters from Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Poland also expressed a strong sense of social responsibility, with 90 percent saying it was important to look after the planet, and 74 percent saying they recycled regularly.

They've never known a world without the Internet, but they still prefer to meet their friends offline.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters

Violent video games have "a much bigger negative influence on kids" than pornography, a leading porn star has claimed. He said parents should be more worried about the harmful effects of such games. Mr Jeremy's comments were made at a session called the Great Porn Debate during the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, in Las Vegas. His comments angered gamers, who accused him of "ignorance".

Mr Jeremy also urged parents to play their part in preventing children from accessing adult websites. He said the industry already does all it can to protect youngsters. "Parents can block this stuff and need to stop blaming porn for a bad case of parenting," Mr Jeremy told BBC News.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

A wireless industry group said mobile phone conversations are safe from eavesdropping, even after a German security expert released the code for unscrambling calls made using most of the world's cell phones. Concerns spread last week that cell phone calls could easily be intercepted after encryption expert Karsten Nohl unveiled his research at Europe's largest hacking conference, in Berlin.

The London-based GSM Association said on Thursday that it has spent the past few years figuring out ways to thwart hackers who might try to tap into wireless calls using Nohl's research, which it first learned of in 2007.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters

People who post intimate details about their lives on the internet undermine everybody else's right to privacy, claims an academic. Dr Kieron O'Hara has called for people to be more aware of the impact on society of what they publish online. "If you look at privacy in law, one important concept is a reasonable expectation of privacy," he said. "As more private lives are exported online, reasonable expectations are diminishing."

The rise of social networking has blurred the boundaries of what can be considered private, he believes - making it less of a defence by law. We live in an era that he terms "intimacy 2.0" - where people routinely share extremely personal information online.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Got an e-mail list of customers or readers and want to know more about each such as their full name, friends, gender, age, interests, location, job and education level? Facebook has just the free feature you're looking for, thanks to its recent privacy changes. The hack, first publicized by blogger Max Klein, repurposes a Facebook feature that lets people find their friends on Facebook by scanning through e-mail addresses in their contact list.

Using a simple scraping tool, a marketer could then turn a list of e-mail addresses into a rich, full-fledged set of marketing profiles, with names, pictures, ages, locations, interests, photos, wall posts, affiliations and names of your friends, depending on how users have their profiles set.

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

Last year, the Internet began to be seen as a basic human right and some countries have instituted legal means of guaranteeing that the vast majority of their citizens have access to a quality Internet connection. Other countries, though, are going the other way, hindering their citizen's web use and in some cases moving to disconnect them altogether. In France, the heavily criticized and disputed, so-called "three strikes" law has come into effect starting January 1st. Its backers are quick to boast the laws unabridged effectiveness, but common sense points the other way.

How exactly the agency will determine users' email addresses, or even harder, the address they are actively using remains to be seen.

 

(Source: Softpedia)

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Softpedia

Internet users are being warned to watch out for a computer virus targeting popular social networking sites in the run up to Christmas.

Security experts say the new virus is "particularly nasty" and compels its victims to participate manually in creating a new Facebook account to help spread the worm. "The more people who use an application such as Facebook, or any other means of social networking, the more likely they are to be targeted by bad guys to send out malicious threats such as Koobface." The internet security company recommends that users do not reply to or follow links included in unsolicited Facebook messages and users should always carefully check that the URL they are entering is really that of the site they want to access.

 

(Source: FOX News)

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FOX News

ISO will develop a technical report (TR) to help emerging and developing countries implement a solid and internationally harmonized health informatics system. The report will present information in an accessible way to guide and facilitate the adoption of relevant International Standards by countries with limited resources and infrastructure.

International Standards can help by providing globally harmonized specifications for establishing the architectural framework used to design eHealth systems, plan implementation, make build-or-buy decisions, decide on acquisitions and undertake related activities.

 

(Source: ISO)

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ISO 

In the EU27, 65% of households 1 had access to the internet during the first quarter of 2009, compared with 60% during the first quarter of 2008, and 56% had a broadband internet connection in 2009, compared with 49% in 2008.

The se data 2 published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities , represent only a small part of the results of a survey on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usage in households and by individuals in the EU27 Member States, the candidate countries, Norway , Iceland and Serbia . As well as internet use and broadband connections, the survey also covers other indicators such as e-shopping, e-government and advanced communication and content related services.

 

(Source: Euro Stat)

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European Commission

Lessons in using the internet safely are set to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary school children in England from 2011.

The lessons are one element of a new government strategy being unveiled called "Click Clever, Click Safe". Children will also be encouraged to follow an online "Green Cross Code" and block and report inappropriate content. The measures have been drawn up by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, a new body comprising 140 organisations. The campaign intends to encourage children to not give out personal information on the web, block unwanted messages on social networks and report any inappropriate behaviour to the appropriate bodies, which may include the website, teachers or even police.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

If your iPhone has been jailbroken, change your passwords now, advised Paul Ducklin, Sophos Australia's chief of technology. Ducklin said the writers of this virus included a program call "Duh", which added malicious capabilities not present in last month's ikee release.

The new password installed by this virus was "ohshit", which can be used to remove the threat of further remote attacks on an infected device. Ducklin said to clean up the device by searching the file "directory/private/var/mobile/home", type in "passwd" to initiate the command, and change the password. "Otherwise the buggers can get back in anytime they want," said Ducklin.

 

(Source: ZDNet Australia)

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ZDNet Australia

The European Union’s first dedicated NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online (eNACSO) launched its Digital Manifesto on 14 November 2009 during the Internet Governance Forum(IGF) in Egypt. ‘The global nature of the internet places a particular responsibility on international institutions and governments to take action at national and international level to ensure children are safe online’ says Dieter Carstensen, eNACSO Chair.

The Digital Manifesto will form part of eNACSO’s ‘Agenda for Action’ document which will be launched in Brussels in May 2010.

 

(Source: eNACSO)

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eNACSO

 

That television set you discourage your children from watching may not be the greatest threat to their wellbeing. Instead, the mobile phone is the gateway in introducing children to the world of cyberspace, posing a great risk to their safety, a lobby group said Tuesday.

According to The Cradle, the unmonitored use of technology is increasingly exposing youngsters to the risk of harm and violence. "Only 24 per cent of children in the study reported to their parents or an authority of online or cell phone harassment,” Cradle programme manager Brian Weke told journalists. The study also revealed that 77 out of the 96, who had the incidences reported to them, took no action and ignored the seriousness of the matter.

 

(Source: Daily Nation)

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Daily Nation

Four men, including the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Spam," were sentenced to prison on Monday for their roles in an email stock fraud scheme, the Justice Department said. FBI special agent said Ralsky, the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Spam," flooded email boxes with unwanted spam email and attempted to use a botnet to hijack computers to assist them in the scheme. A botnet is a network of computers infected by malicious software.

"Today's sentencing sends a powerful message to spammers whose goal is to manipulate financial transactions and the stock market through illegal email advertisements," said assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

 

The world's biggest social networking site has brushed off criticism by a senior UK police officer responsible for preventing online bullying that it is failing to combat abuse.

Jim Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) Center, said Facebook and MySpace, which between them have more than 500 million users, could work harder to stamp out bullying. The initiative came as UK charity Beatbullying highlighted Bebo, owned by AOL, and Microsoft's instant messaging service as hotspots for bullying. In a poll of 2,094 young people across England conducted by the charity, 30 percent of 11 to 16-year-olds who had been "cyberbullied" had been targeted on Bebo.

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

Cyber war has moved from fiction to fact, says a report. Compiled by security firm McAfee, it bases its conclusion on analysis of recent net-based attacks. Analysis of the motives of the actors behind many attacks carried out via the internet showed that many were mounted with a explicitly political aim.

It said that many nations were now arming to defend themselves in a cyber war and readying forces to conduct their own attacks. "There are at least five countries known to be arming themselves for this kind of conflict," said Greg Day, primary analyst for security at McAfee Europe. The UK, Germany, France, China and North Korea are known to be developing their own capabilities.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

The first applications were accepted on Monday for internationalised domain names (IDNs), in one of the most significant steps to making the Internet more accessible around the globe.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has opened the application process, ending the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses. On the first day, "we have already received six applications from around the world for three different scripts," ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom told an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Criminal gangs are making millions of dollars out of the H1N1 flu pandemic by selling fake flu drugs over the internet, a web security firm said on Monday.

Sophos, a British security software firm said it had intercepted hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical spam adverts and websites this year, many of them trying to sell counterfeit antiviral drugs like Tamiflu to worried customers. Tamiflu, an antiviral marketed by Switzerland's Roche Holding and known generically as oseltamivir, is the frontline drug recommended by the World Health Organization to treat and slow the progression of flu symptoms. GlaxoSmithKline makes another antiviral for flu, known as Relenza.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters 

Nearly half of England's 14-year-olds have been a victim of bullying and cyber-bullying is now the joint most common form, according to new research.

The Government-commissioned research, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, analysed bullying among more than 10,000 secondary school pupils in England aged 14-16. The initial findings show that 47 per cent of young people report being bullied at the age of 14. After cyberbullying - where children face taunts, threats and insults via the internet and mobile phones - and name calling, the most common type of bullying was teenagers being threatened with violence, being excluded by their friends and facing actual violence.

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

For the last few days, some jailbroken iPhone users have found their home screen background a little different than they remembered. A hacker, going by the name "ikee," created a worm that changes the home screen background on jailbroken iPhones whose owners failed to change the default password after installing SSH.

Simply jailbreaking your iPhone will not make you vulnerable to this sort of hack. The iPhone OS, in general, is also immune to this hack. On jailbroken iPhones, SSH is installable with a package from Cydia that allows you to connect to your phone and make changes to the filesystem.

 

(Source: TUAW News)

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TUAW News

THE next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief has warned. "The next world war could happen in cyberspace and that would be a catastrophe. We have to make sure that all countries understand that in that war, there is no such thing as a superpower,'' Hamadoun Toure said.

"Loss of vital networks would quickly cripple any nation, and none is immune to cyberattack,'' added the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union during the ITU's Telecom World 2009 fair in Geneva. As the internet becomes more linked with daily lives, cyberattacks and crimes have also increased in frequency, experts said.

 

(Source: News.com)

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News.com

Spain says Internet-related child pornography has risen tenfold in the past five years. Francisco Villanueva of the Interior Ministry says the number of cases has gone from 108 in 2004 to 1,024 last year. Other Internet-related crimes also rose.

Villanueva said Thursday that hacking has risen from 92 to 447 cases, and that bank fraud has more than doubled in the same period, from 509 cases to 1,954. He says piracy of intellectual property decreased slightly from 330 to 298 cases, but that if more resources are not dedicated to policing piracy, Spain could lose up to 300,000 jobs. Villanueva says Spain's cyber crime levels are similar to those of neighboring European countries.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites. Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Internet users throughout Europe accused of illegal file-sharing are to receive more protection from being cut off by their service provider. The European Parliament and Council is due to make a decision on its Telecoms Reform Package in late November. The package will entitle users in all 27 EU states to be put through a "fair and impartial procedure" before being disconnected.

The outcome is a compromise agreed during all night negotiations. Some members of the European Parliament felt nobody should lose their connection until after they had been prosecuted in a court for illegally downloading content.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

If your cash card gets eaten by the automated-teller machine, it may not end up in the hands of a bank employee. European financial institutions are seeing a sharp rise in card "trapping," where criminals use various tricks in order to capture and retrieve a person's ATM card for fraudulent use.

For the first half of this year, financial institutions reported 1,045 trapping incidents, according to a new report from the European ATM Security Team (EAST), a nonprofit group composed of financial institutions and law enforcement. The figure, which covers 20 countries within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), represents a 640 percent increase over the first half of 2008.

 

(Source: CIO)

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CIO

Twitter warned users Tuesday of a new phishing scam on the social networking site. It's the latest in a series of scams that have plagued the site over the past year, designed to trick victims into giving up their user names and passwords.

"We've seen a few phishing attempts today, if you've received a strange DM and it takes you to a Twitter login page, don't do it!," Twitter wrote on its Spam message page. The message reads, "hi. this you on here?" and includes a link to a fake Web site designed to look like a Twitter log-in page. After entering a user name and password, victims enter an empty blogspot page belonging to someone named NetMeg99.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Facebook outlined changes to its privacy policy on Thursday and asked for feedback from the social network's more than 300 million users. Members will have until November 5 to send in their comments about the proposed changes.

"This is the next step in our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. After the comment period is over, we'll review your feedback and update you on our next steps." Some of the changes to Facebook's privacy policy are the result of pressure from Canada, whose privacy czar conducted an investigation into its handling of personal information.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

I am advised to "avoid giving my credit card online" and to be "careful when banking online" and to use random, complex passwords that I never repeat and never write down. So, as long as I refrain from commerce, stay indoors and have a superhuman memory, I should be fine!

I worry about identity theft and take measures, throughout the year, to defend my identity. So here's some identify defense advice that's actually practical: * Don't sign credit cards. I sign mine "See ID". Why give a card thief my signature too?

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

The 17-year-old’s body was dumped in a ditch after she sneaked out of her home on Sunday night to meet a boy she thought was 16, but who turned out to be 32. Her mother, Andrea Hall urged, “Tell your kids to be careful on the internet. Don't trust anybody and don't put your children on Facebook or other sites if they are under age. All we ask now is that people help the police in any way they can. We don't want any other child to be a victim.”

A 32-year-old man, of no fixed abode was due to appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court on Wednesday, charged with manslaughter and kidnap. The convicted sex offender was also charged with failing to notify a new address as required for sex offenders under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

Nearly a decade after it introduced a program to internationalize domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is expected to take another step on Friday. ICANN, during its annual meeting in Seoul, Korea, will vote on the internationalized domain names (IDN) initiative, better known as the Fast Track.

"In Seoul, we plan to move forward to the next step in the internationalization of the Internet, which means that eventually people from every corner of the globe will be able to navigate much of the online world using their native language scripts," said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO.

 

(Source: NewsFactor)

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NewsFactor 

The Swiss Foreign Ministry says it was the victim of a "professional" cyber attack aimed at obtaining information from its computer network. Spokesman Georg Farago says the ministry cut the connection between its network and the Internet after the attack was discovered on Thursday. He says specialists are trying to determine the source of the attack and whether any information was stolen.

Farago said Monday it appeared the Foreign Ministry was specifically targeted. Switzerland frequently plays host to international peace talks and other high-level negotiations.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

The Internet is set for its biggest technical change in decades when a new multilingual address system is approved this week, a global regulatory body said Monday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said it would declare an end to the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses on Friday -- the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul. When the change comes into force, it will be possible to use characters from other languages -- such as Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese -- for a full Internet address, instead of for just part of an address as now.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Networks of hacked computers are being used more than ever to click on advertisements, a scam known as click fraud that cheats search engines, publishers and ad networks out of revenue.

For the third quarter of the year, 42.6% of fraudulent clicks came from botnet-infected computers, according to Click Forensics, a company that produces tools to detect and filter out fraudulent clicks. The figure is the highest in four years, when Click Forensics began producing reports. For the same quarter a year ago, botnets accounted for 27.5% of bad clicks. Botnets are a powerful tool for hackers.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

The European Parliament has given the green light for member states to cut persistent file-sharers off from the net. It has dropped an amendment to its Telcoms Package which would have made it hard for countries to cut off pirates without court authority. It follows pressure from countries keen to adopt tough anti-piracy laws.

The French government has just approved plans which could see pirates removed from the net for up to a year. The UK's file-sharing policy is also likely to include a clause about disconnecting persistent offenders. The European Parliament was originally opposed to such legislation, claiming internet access was a basic human right.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC 

It is being billed as the largest-ever social change event on the Web and one which its organizers believe will unite the digital world in a wider conversation about climate change.

"I would say that 99 percent of our bloggers have never written about climate change before. I think there is a lot of power in people who usually don't write about this having conversations about a major issue like climate change." The scale of involvement in the day has been impressive. So far, over 8,000 blogs have registered in 144 countries and organizers predict that there will be around 15 million readers.

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

The Republic of Montenegro officially became a member of the International Multilateral Partnership against Cyber Threats (IMPACT), which is established under the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and consists of 191 members. The President of the Board of Directors of IMPACT -Mr. Datuk Muhd Noor Amin- welcomed Montenegro's membership in IMPACT and stated that Montenegro acquired the status of a full member in this international organization.

Montenegro has recently acquired the capability to track new information on cyber threats. More particularly, the participation in IMPACT will assist Montenegro in the identification of cyber threats in the early stages of their development.

 

(Source: eGov Monitor)

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eGov Monitor

Microsoft admitted Hotmail users had been tricked into revealing their passwords, 10,000 of which had been published online.

The spam is being sent from users' accounts to contacts in their address books - so recipients will think it came from one of their friends. While the new spam is not malicious in itself, it does point the contact in the direction of something that is — a "shopping" website. The trick is, the shopping site is not a real one. The scam persuades victims to order goods online by credit card, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.

 

(Source: Fox News)

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Fox News

Hotmail and several other Web e-mail providers were recently hit by phishing attacks that gleaned usernames and passwords.It's terribly insecure, but the string of digits 1234567 is a popular password on Hotmail, according to security researcher Bogdan Calin, who analyzed 9,843 stolen Windows Live Hotmail passwords that were posted on a Web site.

In a blog post, Calin said the following were the most common passwords in the Hotmail collection: 123456, 123456789, alejandra, 111111, alberto, tequiero, alejandro and 12345678.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Surfing the Internet just might be a way to preserve your mental skills as you age. Researchers found that older adults who started browsing the Web experienced improved brain function after only a few days.

"You can teach an old brain new technology tricks," said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatry professor. With people who had little Internet experience, "we found that after just a week of practice, there was a much greater extent of activity particularly in the areas of the brain that make decisions, the thinking brain -- which makes sense because, when you're searching online, you're making a lot of decisions," he said. "It's interactive."

 

(Source: Health Day)

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Health Day

The founder of lastminute.com, Martha Lane Fox, has unveiled an ambitious policy to get everyone in Britain online by 2012, backed by a study that says it would save the government up to £1bn annually in customer service costs and boost the economy by more than £20bn.

Lane Fox, who is now chair of the government-created Digital Inclusion Task Force, says that getting the 10m Britons who have never used the internet to go online could generate at least £22.6bn in economic benefit – including at least £10.6bn over the lifetimes of the 1.6m children who have never used it.

 

(Source: Guardian)

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Guardian

It’s the F word question that all parents now dread. “Can I go on Facebook?” your eleven year-old bullies you over dinner, declaring that absolutely everybody else in her class is not only on Facebook, but also on Twitter as well as Bebo and Orkut and other peculiarly named social networks.

So how should parents in today’s social media age deal with the F word question? Is social networking bad for children’s brains? Should we allow our kids to freely expose their identities on the Internet?

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

Cyber-crime just doesn't pay like it used to. Security researchers say the cost of criminal services such as distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks has dropped in recent months. The reason? Market economics.

Criminals have gotten better at hacking into unsuspecting computers and linking them together into so-called botnet networks, which can then be centrally controlled. Botnets are used to send spam, steal passwords, and sometimes to launch DDoS attacks, which flood victims' servers with unwanted information.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

A survey of 16 to 24 year olds has found that 75% of them feel they "couldn't live" without the internet. The report, published by online charity YouthNet, also found that four out of five young people used the web to look for advice.

About one third added that they felt no need to talk to a person face to face about their problems because of the resources available online. The survey looked at how the web influences the well-being of people aged between 16 and 24.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC 

Internet users in the North East of England have the most nervous attitude towards the web, according to research that highlights the country's "digital divide".

Online engagement will soon replace social class as the most powerful determiner of economic success, damaging the career prospects of internet refuseniks, according to the social anthologist who analysed the survey. Nearly one-third (31 per cent) of in the North East are reluctant to use the internet for anything more than sending email and occasional browsing, higher than the national average of 23 per cent.

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

Twitter users should refrain from changing their log-in data until further notice or else risk getting locked out of their accounts. Twitter is investigating instances of users who have lost access to their accounts after modifying their usernames, passwords or e-mail addresses, the microblogging company said on Tuesday.

Until the problem is resolved, Twitter users shouldn't modify their log-in data, according to an official posting on Twitter's Status Web site. "This seems to affect new users as well as long term users," the note reads.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Studies on whether mobile phones can cause cancer, especially brain tumors, vary widely in quality and there may be some bias in those showing the least risk, researchers reported on Tuesday. So far it is difficult to demonstrate any link, although the best studies do suggest some association between mobile phone use and cancer, the team led by Dr. Seung-Kwon Myung of South Korea's National Cancer Center found.

Myung and colleagues at Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul and the University of California, Berkeley, examined 23 published studies of more than 37,000 people in what is called a meta-analysis.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters 

Facebook has seen an impressive bump in traffic versus this time last year. For September 2009, the site claimed 58.6 percent of U.S. social networking tracking, a jump of 194-percent over the same period last year. Twitter's increase, meanwhile, was downright absurd, jumping 1,170 percent over the past year.

In September 2008, Facebook recorded a 19.94 share, which increased to 58.59 percent for Sept. 2009. MySpace, by contrast, dominated the social-networking sites last September, with a 66.8 percent share. Since then, however, MySpace's market share has plunged to 30.3 percent, still leaving it second in U.S. traffic.

 

(Source: PC Magazine)

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PC Magazine

Scammers have grabbed the Hotmail passwords that leaked to the Web and are using them in a plot involving a fake Chinese electronics seller to bilk users out of cash and their credit card information, a security researcher said.

"We've seen a 30% to 40% increase in these types of spam messages in the last several days," said Patrik Runald, senior manager of Websense's security research team. "By 'these types of spam,' I mean messages that are advertising great consumer electronics bargains, such as cameras and computers."

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Meet "network man." He has basic desires of his own, but has many arbitrary preferences, such as in music or clothes, that have been influenced by the people he knows. Network man's likes and dislikes, in turn, affect the behavior of his friends, and their friends, and their friends.

People have profound influences on each other's behavior within three degrees of separation, the authors find. That means that your friends, your friends' friends, and your friends' friends' friends may all affect your eating habits, voting preferences, happiness, and more. At the fourth degree, however, the influence substantially weakens.

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

IPhone lovers and other smartphone users should take heed: A security researcher showed ways to spy on a BlackBerry user during a presentation Wednesday, including listening to phone conversations, stealing contact lists, reading text messages, taking and viewing photos and figuring out the handset's location via GPS.

And ironically, Sheran Gunasekera, head of research and development at ZenConsult, said the BlackBerry is one of the most secure smartphones available, in some ways better than the iPhone.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Privacy and security are foundational to health care reform. Patients will trust electronic health care records only if they believe their confidentiality is protected via good security.

As vice chairman of the federal Healthcare Information Technology Standards Committee, I have been on the front lines in the debate over the standards and implementation guidance needed to support the exchange of health care information. Over the past few months, I've learned a great deal from the committee's privacy and security workgroup.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Microsoft blocked access to thousands of Hotmail accounts in response to hackers plundering password information and posting it online.

Cyber-crooks evidently used "phishing" tactics to dupe users of Microsoft's free Web-based email service into revealing account and access information, according to the US technology giant. Phishing is an Internet bane and involves using what hackers refer to as "social engineering" to trick people into revealing information online or downloading malicious software onto computers.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

"We were at a restaurant for my mom's birthday. I looked over and there are my daughter and my oldest son texting, holding their phones under the table," said the mom of four in Lewiston, Idaho. "I just came unglued. I was like, `Are you kidding? You're at your grandma's birthday party. Put those phones away now!'"

We all know teens love their gadgets — more for texting than talking. But the devices are posing some new challenges for parents. How can they teach their tech-savvy kids some electronic etiquette? So far, parents are learning on the fly, imposing new rules for their young offenders such as "no texting at dinner."

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Cybersecurity researchers often scare the IT world with tales of brilliant and devious hacks: encryption cracking techniques, wi-fi booby-traps and undetected vulnerability data sold on the black market. But the most common path cybercriminals use to gain access to victims' PCs today, according to a new report, is far more mundane: buggy software that users and IT administrators fail to patch for months, long after fixes are publicly available.

The study to be released Tuesday by the security-focused SANS Institute states that the cybersecurity community is facing an epidemic of unpatched software, particularly widely used applications like Adobe Flash, Java and Microsoft programs like Word and PowerPoint.

 

(Source: Forbes)

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Forbes

Microsoft on Tuesday began serving up scam warnings with Bing search results for topics such as fixing credit scores or rescue from home foreclosure that are prime material for online cons.

Microsoft worked with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Postal Inspection Service, and Western Union to provide public service announcements (PSAs) in the form of advertising posted on relevant Bing results pages. Targeted in the campaign are key words related to searches for information about foreclosure rescue offers; promises to fix credit problems, and "lottery scams" in which people are told they've won prizes but must pay to collect.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Web surfing is no longer a solo affair. Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks have quickly become an integral part of the online culture, and with them comes a whole new array of potential security threats.

Social networking is built on the idea of sharing information openly and fostering a sense of community. Unfortunately, an online network of individuals actively sharing their experiences and seeking connections with other like-minded people can be easy prey for hackers bent on social-engineering and phishing attacks. It's important to be aware of the threats, and to maintain a healthy skepticism in your online interactions.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

A network of Russian malware writers and spammers paid hackers 43 cents for each Mac machine they infected with bogus video software, a sign that Macs have become attack targets, a security researcher said yesterday.

In a presentation Thursday at the Virus Bulletin 2009 security conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Sophos researcher Dmitry Samosseiko discussed his investigation of the Russian "Partnerka," a tangled collection of Web affiliates who rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from spam and malware, most of the former related to phony drug sites, and much of the latter targeting Windows users with fake security software, or "scareware."

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Next time you're recovering from trip to the emergency room, keep an eye on the young doctors tending to you. They might be chatting about your case on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs.

A survey of medical schools published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 13 percent of respondents reported breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality, and 60 percent reported "unprofessional content" posted online.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld 

Many major social networking sites are leaking information that allows third party advertising and tracking companies to associate the Web browsing habits of users with a specific person, researchers warn.

That's the conclusion of a study on the leakage of personally identifiable information on social networks done at AT&T Labs and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "In some cases, the leakage may be unintentional, but in others, there is clever and surreptitious anti-privacy engineering at work," the EFF said.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Scammers are increasingly using machine-generated Twitter accounts to post messages about trendy topics, and tempt users into clicking on a link that leads to servers hosting fake Windows antivirus software, security researchers said Monday.

The latest Twitter attacks originated with malicious accounts cranked out by software, said experts at both F-Secure and Sophos. The accounts, which use variable account and user names, supposedly represent U.S. Twitter users. In some cases, the background wallpaper is customized for each account, yet another tactic to make the unwary think that a real person is responsible for the content.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Teens and texting is a subject that's often discussed in pathological terms. They're texting in class! They're sexting! They need thumb therapy! But texting isn't always bad. In some families, it's become a primary form of communication between parents and children. In fact, one of my favorite texts from kids is the earth-shattering query "Wuz4dina?"

Psychologist Thomas W. Phelan says one of the biggest problems with teens is getting them to communicate at all, so if they're willing to text their parents, we should embrace the trend. "Instead of seeing the whole text thing as an enemy, see it as an ally."

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Decades of war and occupation have not provided an answer to that question -- but the social networking Web site now permits both options, sparking fears about an anti-Facebook cyber-war. The Golan Heights is Syrian territory that was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Since then it has been internationally classified as Israeli-occupied territory.

Up until recently, Facebook fans in the Golan Heights could only choose Syria as their country of origin or else leave it blank. Pro-Israel Web site honestreporting.com sought to change that, starting a group called "Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria."

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

A new botnet has caused a sharp spike in click fraud because it is skirting the most sophisticated filters of search engines, Web publishers and ad networks, according to Click Forensics. The company, which provides services to monitor ad campaigns for click fraud and reports on click fraud incidence every quarter, said on Thursday that the botnet's architects have figured out a way to mask it particularly well as legitimate search ad traffic.

Click Forensics is calling this the "Bahama botnet" because it was initially redirecting traffic through 200,000 parked domains in the Bahamas, although it is now using sites in Amsterdam, the U.K. and Silicon Valley.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Microsoft filed lawsuits against five companies Thursday, accusing them of using malicious advertisements to trick victims into installing software on their computers.

Typically, when a scareware ad pops up on a victim's screen, it looks like a Windows utility running some kind of security scan. It will then warn that it has found a critical security problem and direct the victim to a Web site where they can buy a product to fix the issue. DirectAd Solutions, Soft Solutions, qiweroqw.com, ote2008.info and ITmeter have used ads to "distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users".

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

In the economic downturn, teenagers around the world have focused their spending cuts on clothes, games and food, according to a survey by networking site Habbo Hotel.

The survey of 61,000 teenagers in more than 30 countries showed one teenager out of three is getting less money from their parents, with more than half of youngsters getting less to spend in the United States, Spain and Latin America. Some 19 percent of youngsters globally say the recession has most hurt their spending on console and computer games -- the industry for which teenagers are a key client group.

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

With many who bank online now wary of phishing attacks, criminals are adding fake live-chat support windows to their Web sites to make them seem more real. RSA Security spotted the first ever of these "chat-in-the-middle" attacks in the past few hours, according to Sean Brady, a manager with the security company's identity protection and verification group.

The phishers send e-mails that direct victims to a fake Web page designed to look like a banking site. That's a standard technique, but what's different in this case is that the phishing site comes with a fake online chat option, so that scammers can talk directly with their victims.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld

The French National Assembly has passed a draft law that would allow illegal downloaders to be thrown off the net. The law was narrowly passed by 285 votes to 225.

The French hard-line policy on piracy has drawn worldwide attention as nations around the globe grapple with the issue of piracy. The ruling majority UMP voted in favour but the Socialist Party has already announced that they will appeal to the Constitutional Court once again. The Constitutional Court insisted that a judge rather than a high authority had to rule on the issue of whether to disconnect users.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

As millions of students across the world go back to school this month, 178 students from 49 countries will turn on their computers and step onto the virtual campus of the world's first global, tuition-free online university.

"Our mission is to change people's lives." Called University of the People, the non-profit comes from Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef who says he founded the school to provide higher education to those who might otherwise never have access to it. "We are creating a global classroom for science and allowing people to freely collaborate. We want to put high quality teaching and learning materials into the hands of anybody and everybody who wants to become a scientist,"

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

A third of Web users under 25 claim they don't care about their "digital tattoo" and the items they post online, says Symantec. Symantec said a "digital tattoo" is created by all the personal information web users post online and can easily be found through search engines by a potential or current employer, friends and acquaintances, or anyone who has malicious intent.

The security firm revealed that nearly two-thirds of all those surveyed had uploaded personal photographs, while 79 percent had at least part of their address online and nearly half had their mobile phone numbers online.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids' online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children's chat messages - and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

In an age in which instant news and constant life streams from Facebook and Twitter change the way we communicate, the rules of etiquette surrounding these interactions are still evolving. What happens when I expected a phone call about something and read about it in a status update instead? What's the polite response to a distant friend posting bad news on Facebook? What to do with sensitive information?

Good etiquette on Facebook might not apply on Twitter or in an e-mail. These days, milestones like marriage, pregnancy, breakups and divorce are being described over more forms of communications than ever. Because it's so new, there is sort of a gray area of what the manners are,"

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Facebook warned Thursday that members who buy "friends" from an Australian online marketing company could face banishment from the social network. The Brisbane-based firm, uSocial.net, offered this week to sell a Facebook user 1,000 friends for 177 dollars and 5,000 friends -- on a standard profile account -- for 654 dollars. USocial caused a stir earlier this year with a similar offer to users of popular micro-blogging service Twitter seeking to increase their number of followers.

Facebook fired back against uSocial on Thursday and issued a reminder that it was against its terms of service for a user to access an account belonging to someone else or to share a password.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Google said Tuesday's widespread Gmail outage occurred when the company took some servers offline to perform routine maintenance, causing its remaining routers to become overloaded with traffic. "We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service." wrote Ben Treynor, a Google vice president of engineering.

Gmail's problems were a top trending topic on Twitter, with users trading updates and posting links to blogs such as Mashable, which published a post called, "5 Things to Do While Gmail is Down." (No. 1: "Immediately flood Twitter with tweets alternately proclaiming 'Gmail is down!' and inquiring 'Is Gmail down?' ")

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

If Google Inc. digitizes the world's books, how will it keep track of what you read? That's one of the unanswered questions that librarians and privacy experts are grappling with as Google attempts to settle a long-running lawsuit by publishers and copyright holders and move ahead with its effort to digitize millions of books, known as the Google Books Library Project.

Librarians and the online world have different standards for dealing with user information. Many libraries routinely delete borrower information, and organizations such as the American Library Association have fought hard to preserve the privacy of their patrons.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Facebook has agreed to make worldwide changes to its privacy policy as a result of negotiations with Canada's privacy commissioner. Last month the social network was found to breach Canadian law by holding on to users' personal data indefinitely.

It will also make it clear that users can deactivate or delete their account. "These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected," said Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

There's still plenty of room for innovation today, yet the openness fostering it may be eroding. While the Internet is more widely available and faster than ever, artificial barriers threaten to constrict its growth. Call it a mid-life crisis. A variety of factors are to blame. Spam and hacking attacks force network operators to erect security firewalls.

"There is more freedom for the typical Internet user to play, to communicate, to shop — more opportunities than ever before," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor and co-founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "On the worrisome side, there are some longer-term trends that are making it much more possible (for information) to be controlled."

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Users of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could face higher insurance premiums because burglars may be using them to find out their personal details. The Digital Criminal report, which polled 2,000 social network users, found nearly two fifths had posted details of their holiday plans, with nearly two thirds of 16-24 year-olds doing so.

"I call it 'internet shopping for burglars'. It is incredibly easy to use social neyworking sites to target people, and then scope out more information on their actual home using other internet sites like Google Street View, all from the comfort of the sofa."

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

A vulnerability in Twitter Inc.'s popular microblogging service remains unfixed and can be used by criminals to hijack accounts or redirect users to malicious Web sites, a developer claimed today. The cross-site scripting bug in Twitter allows hackers to insert malicious JavaScript into tweets simply by adding code to a field of an API used by third-party Twitter application developers.

A software developer, a U.K.-based search optimization specialist, Slater recommended that, until Twitter patches the vulnerability, users should stop following any Twitterers they don't personally know or trust. "Who's to say they're not already stealing your details? If you don't see their tweets, they can't harm you,"

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Internet service providers (ISPs) have reacted with anger to new proposals on how to tackle internet piracy. The government is proposing a tougher stance which would include cutting off repeat offenders from the net.

TalkTalk's director of regulation Andrew Heaney told that the ISP was as keen as anyone to clamp down on illegal file-sharers. "This is best done by making sure there are legal alternatives and educating people, writing letters to alleged file-sharers and, if necessary, taking them to court. But disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection," he added.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Users of social networks are concerned about security but few are taking the steps necessary to protect themselves against online crime, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Nearly 20 percent of those surveyed said they have experienced identity theft, 47 percent have been victims of malware infections and 55 percent have seen "phishing" attacks, in which hackers seek to capture password information. They also suggested that passwords be changed at least once a month and that friends or coworkers not be allowed to access one's personal computer.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Fans searching for "Jessica Biel" or "Jessica Biel downloads," "Jessica Biel wallpaper," "Jessica Biel screen savers," "Jessica Biel photos," and "Jessica Biel videos" have a one in five chance of landing at a Web site that has tested positive for online threats such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware. McAfee's conclusion: Searching for the latest celebrity news and downloads can cause serious damage to personal computers.

"Consumers' obsession with celebrity news and culture is harmless in theory, but one bad download can cause a lot of damage to a computer."

 

(Source: NewsFactor)

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NewsFactor

Internet criminals might be rethinking a favorite scam for stealing people's personal information. A report being released Wednesday by IBM Corp. shows a big drop in the volume of "phishing" e-mails, in which fraud artists send what looks like a legitimate message from a bank or some other company. If the recipients click on a link in a phishing e-mail, they land on a rogue Web site that captures their passwords, account numbers or any other information they might enter.

To protect yourself against phishing, access sensitive sites on your own, rather than by following links in e-mails, which might lead to phishing sites.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

The average gamer, far from being a teen, is actually a 35-year-old man who is overweight, aggressive, introverted — and often depressed, according to a report out this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study also shows that when children and teenagers become game players, a trend toward physical inactivity and corresponding health problems extends -- and is exacerbated -- into adulthood.

"Among researchers, there is growing concern and uncertainty about the health consequences of video game playing," the CDC reported.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

The German government warned job-seekers Friday to avoid posting potentially compromising pictures or remarks on social networking sites such as Facebook, citing a study about their use by employers. Consumer affairs minister Ilse Aigner "calls on citizens who use the Internet often to think about what they put online," a spokeswoman for her ministry told a regular government news conference.

28 percent of the around 500 German companies polled searched for information about their would-be employees' hobbies, political opinions and personal lives.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Switzerland's data protection watchdog on Friday demanded that Google immediately withdraw the "Street View" facility it has started offering on its map of Switzerland. Federal data protection and transparency officer Hanspeter Thuer released a statement warning that the US-based Internet giant was not respecting conditions he set to respect personal privacy in Switzerland.

The online service, which began in the United States, has sparked controversy because the snapshots also inadvertently capture passers-by on camera, sometimes in embarrassing or private moments.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Facebook, for better or worse, is like being at a big party with all your friends, family, acquaintances and co-workers. There are lots of fun, interesting people you're happy to talk to when they stroll up.

Sure, Facebook can be a great tool for keeping up with folks who are important to you. But far more posts read like navel-gazing diary entries, or worse, spam. A recent study categorized 40 percent of Twitter tweets as "pointless babble," and it wouldn't be surprising if updates on Facebook, still a fast-growing social network, break down in a similar way. Here are 12 of the most annoying types of Facebook users:

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

A Canadian model has won a landmark case in a New York court after Google was forced to disclose the online identity of a blogger who anonymously posted derogatory comments about the Vogue covergirl. The ruling came after Liskula Cohen, 36, filed suit in a bid to unmask the identify of her tormentor, who posted suggestive photographs of Cohen on the blog and described her as a "ho" and a "psychotic, lying, whoring... skank."

Google said that while the company does not tolerate "cyber bullying" it is also respectful of privacy. "We sympathize with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying,"

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The clock is ticking, people are dying and a flu virus is sweeping the globe -- that is the scenario of a new computer game designed to make people think about how to respond to the swine flu pandemic. In "The Great Flu", players must choose whether or not to stockpile anti-viral drugs and deploy research teams to new areas of outbreak as the number of infections and deaths rises and more countries are affected.

"The game is very realistic and has an educational value. It informs people how the virus spreads, what the flu is and on the ways to fight the pandemic."

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The cyberattacks against Georgia a year ago were conducted in close connection with Russian criminal gangs, and the attackers likely were tipped off about Russia's intent to invade the country, according to a new technical analysis, much of which remains secret. The stunning conclusions come from the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent nonprofit research institute that assesses the impact of cyber attacks.

Bombers struck targets throughout the country, and at the same time Georgian media and government sites fell under DDOS attack.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

A new hacking incident report warns there has been a steep rise in attacks at social-networking hotspots including wildly popular microblogging service Twitter. Hackers aren't just hunting for victims in the flocks of people at social networks, they're also using Twitter to command "botnet" armies of infected computers, according to Internet security specialists.

"A lot of Web 2.0 widgets, mashups and the like that users go for make it easy for all these guys to launch attacks." Facebook became an Internet star after opening its platform to widgets, mini-applications made by outside developers, and now boasts more than 250 million members.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The Twitter micro-blogging service was knocked offline this morning for several hours as a result of a denial of service attack (DDoS). Twitter has confirmed and reported the attack in a post on its official blog earlier today: "We are defending against this [DDos] attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate." The company later reported that the service as been resumed but they are still continuing to defend against and recover from this attack. No further updates have been provided yet. Several sources are also reporting problems with Facebook today.

(Source: CircleID)

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CircleID

The 24-year-old Singaporean research analyst is constantly on the lookout for attack manuals, video clips of Islamist militants in training and fiery extremist chatter that could hint at an imminent assault somewhere.

Nur Azlin is one of five research analysts at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who monitor extremist websites daily to get a sense of an emerging battleground in the fight against terrorism. There are an estimated 5,500-6,000 websites worldwide peddling extremist ideas, according to the researchers.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

A researcher looking into the attacks that knocked Twitter offline last week discovered another, unrelated security problem. At least one criminal was using a Twitter account to control a network of a couple hundred infected personal computers, mostly in Brazil.

Networks of infected PCs are referred to as "botnets" and are responsible for so much of the mayhem online, from identity theft to spamming to the types of attacks that crippled Twitter. A Twitter account that was used to send out what looked like garbled messages. But they were actually commands for computers in a botnet to visit malicious Web sites, where they download programs that steal banking passwords.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Children are using the Internet to watch YouTube videos, connect with friends on social network sites and look up "sex" and "porn", according to a study of the top Web searches by youngsters. The words "sex" and "porn" also made it into the top 10, ranked numbers four and six respectively.

"It also helps identify "teachable moments" when parents should be talking with their kids about appropriate online behavior and other issues in their kids' online lives," California-based Symantec's Internet safety advocate Marian Merritt said in a statement.

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

Worried that your relationship is going south? Maybe it's time to get off Facebook. A study released by the University of Guelph in Ontario shows that the Facebook social network increases jealousy in users' romantic relationships. The study, which was published in the latest issue of CyberPsychology and Behaviour, concluded that the more time people spend on Facebook, the more jealous they get.

"This may include details about their partner's friendships and social exchanges, especially interactions with previous romantic or sexual partners." The simple availability of information -- whether it's a girlfriend's posts, or photos and details about her friends and exes -- seems to increase a person's desire to search for even more information, say researchers.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

The outage that knocked Twitter offline for hours was traced to an attack on a lone blogger in the former Soviet republic of Georgia - but the collateral damage that left millions around the world tweetless showed just how much havoc an isolated cyberdispute can cause.

"It told us how quickly many people really took Twitter into their hearts," Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said Friday. Tens of millions of people have come to rely on social media to express their innermost thoughts and to keep up with world news and celebrity gossip. Twitter "is one of those little amusements that infiltrated the mass behavior in some significant ways, so that when it went away, a lot of people really noticed it and missed it."

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

A Latvian ISP linked to online criminal activity has been cut off from the Internet, following complaints from Internet security researchers. Real Host, based in Riga, Latvia was thought to control command-and-control servers for infected botnet PCs, and had been linked to phishing sites, Web sites that launched attack code at visitors and were also home to malicious "rogue" antivirus products.

"This is maybe one of the top European centers of crap," he said in an e-mail interview. Real Host was considered a "bullet proof" hosting provider, that would allow customers to remain online even after they had been linked to malicious activity.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld

A group of teenagers have reacted to warnings that using sites like Facebook, Bebo and Myspace can leave them traumatised. The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, says the sites encourage users to value the number rather than quality of friends they have.

He’s worried this makes people get too many temporary friends instead of real, genuine ones. He said: “It’s an all or nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up identity. "Friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it’s right.”

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Micro-blogging service Twitter and social networking site Facebook have been severely disrupted by hackers. Twitter was taken offline for more than two hours whilst Facebook's service was "degraded", according to the firms.

The popular sites were subject to so-called denial-of-service attacks on Thursday, the companies believe. Denial-of-service (DOS) attacks take various forms but often involve a company's servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

A suspected pedophile surrendered to police after German law enforcement published clips from videos of child pornography allegedly showing the man. The German Federal Criminal Investigations Office also posted several photos and audio samples of the man's voice as they reached out to the public for clues leading to his arrest.

Police said they found about 42 videos in which the suspected pedophile abused children, believed to be between the ages of 5 and 7 at the time. The Investigator's Office said the man used violence against the children in some of the clips. The German Federal Criminal Investigations Office has been using technology to combat child pornography for several years.

 

(Source: CNN)

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CNN

Parents have been warned of a new teenage trend of "sexting", in which children exchange explicit photos of themselves by text. More than a third of secondary school children have been sent messages containing sexual content, a survey showed.

Researchers found youngsters were regularly being sent sex texts or "sexts" - often by their school friends. The messages contain images of sex acts involving young people but more generally of boys and girls exposing themselves. Material is sent to mobile phones via texts, transferred using Bluetooth or uploaded to social networking groups. Girls are bullied into taking, and sharing, explicit pictures of themselves, the charity warned.

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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Telegraph

A powerful new type of Internet attack works like a telephone tap, except operates between computers and Web sites they trust.

Hackers at the Black Hat and DefCon security conferences have revealed a serious flaw in the way Web browsers weed out untrustworthy sites and block anybody from seeing them. If a criminal infiltrates a network, he can set up a secret eavesdropping post and capture credit card numbers, passwords and other sensitive data flowing between computers on that network and sites their browsers have deemed safe.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites are inceasingly being targeted by cyber-criminals drawn to the wealth of personal information supplied by users, experts warn. Data posted on the sites -- name, date of birth, address, job details, email and phone numbers -- is a windfall for hackers, participants at Campus Party, one of the world's biggest gatherings of Internet enthusiasts, said.

A vicious virus Koobface -- "koob" being "book" in reverse -- has affected thousands Facebook and Twitter users since August 2008, said Asier Martinez, a security specialist at global IT solutions provider Panda Security.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Microsoft released a security patch on Tuesday aimed at preventing hackers from exploiting a vulnerability in its Web browser, Internet Explorer.

The US software giant said that the security update would be automatically installed for Internet Explorer users who have automatic updating enabled on their computers but would need to be installed manually by other users. "These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer," Microsoft said.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

Russia's most powerful business lobby moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security.

In partnership with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's political party, the lobby created a working group to draft legal safeguards against what they said were the risks of Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services.

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

The popularity of Facebook and other popular social networking sites has given hackers new ways to steal both money and information, the security company Sophos said in a report released on Wednesday.

About half of all companies block some or all access to social networks because of concerns about cyber incursions via the sites, according to the study. "Research findings also revealed that 63 percent of system administrators worry that employees share too much personal information via their social networking sites, putting their corporate infrastructure -- and the sensitive data stored on it -- at risk," the Sophos report said.

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament are to start debate Tuesday on a new version of a bill aimed at cracking down on online piracy by cutting the Internet connections of those who illegally download movies and music.

An earlier version of the bill was found to be unconstitutional. Legislators in the National Assembly are to debate the amended bill through Friday, but decided not to take a vote on it until they return from summer recess in September.

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

The popular social networking site Facebook is not doing enough to protect the personal information it gets from subscribers, and it gives users confusing and incomplete information about privacy matters, Canada's privacy commissioner said on Thursday.

"It's clear that privacy issues are top of mind for Facebook, and yet we found serious privacy gaps in the way the site operates," Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a report on an investigation into Facebook.

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the number of people using the online social networking service has climbed to 250 million.

Palo Alto, California-based Facebook was founded in 2004 and has become the most popular online social networking service, eclipsing News Corporation-owned MySpace.

"The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us," Zuckerberg said in a message posted at Facebook's official blog. "For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made."

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The U.K. was the likely source of a series of attacks last week that took down popular Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea, according to an analysis performed by a Vietnamese computer security analyst. The address is registered to Global Digital Broadcast in the U.K. "Having located the attacking source in U.K., we believed that it is completely possible to find out the hacker," Nguyen wrote.

The results contradict assertions made by some in the U.S. and South Korean governments that North Korea was behind the attack. Security analysts had been skeptical of the claims, which were reportedly made in off-the-record briefings and for which proof was never delivered.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

As such, Facebook is quickly becoming a hotbed of activity for all kinds of malware and financial scams. With 200 million registered users, Facebook represents an ocean of fish which are all accessible in one convenient place. It helps that many Facebook users are relatively unsophisticated at the web and especially the complex security issues surrounding it, and are thus more susceptible to attacks delivered via the social network.

Facebook says it's doing its part to fight the problem, but it can't monitor every bit that passes through its servers. Less than 1 percent of its users have been victimized over the last five years, it says. That sounds good, until you realize that could be up to 2 million people, hardly a drop in the bucket.

 

(Source: Yahoo)

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Yahoo

A British hacker who has been fighting extradition to the United States for seven years today made an eleventh-hour appeal to a British court to be tried in the U.K. instead of in a U.S. federal court.

Gary McKinnon, 43, has admitted that in 2001 he broke into U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and U.S. Army computer systems. However, McKinnon has been using a series of legal maneuvers and appeals to fight extradition to the U.S. since he was indicted in November 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on charges related to the computer hacks.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Microsoft Corp warned that cybercriminals have attacked users of its Office software for Windows PCs, exploiting a programing flaw that the software giant has yet to repair. The world's largest software maker issued the warning on Tuesday as it released patches to address nine other security holes in its software.

Cybercriminals target Microsoft programs because they are so widely used, allowing them to go after the largest number of potential victims with one set of code. (Windows runs more than 90 percent of the world's PCs. Office has some 500 million users).

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

Cyber criminals are aping executives when it comes to sales, marketing and risk management in the world of online treachery, according to a report released by networking giant Cisco.

"A lot of techniques they are using today are not new; it is really about how they may be doing some of the same old things," said Cisco chief security researcher Patrick Peterson.

Criminals have taken to sending blanket text messages to numbers based on area codes of local banks directing people to call into a service center to address supposed concerns about their accounts.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The police are to examine claims that a huge mobile phone hacking operation was launched by the News of the World, targeting thousands of people. The Guardian says the Sunday paper's reporters paid private investigators to hack into phones, many of them owned by politicians and celebrities. It is alleged details were suppressed by the police and the High Court.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "This raises questions that are serious and will obviously have to be answered." Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has ordered a senior officer to "establish the facts".

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

New York's attorney general charged Thursday that Tagged.com stole the identities of more than 60 million Internet users worldwide — by sending e-mails that raided their private accounts. Andrew Cuomo said he plans to sue the social networking Web site for deceptive marketing and invasion of privacy.

"This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people," Cuomo said in a statement. "Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their e-mail contacts for Tagged's unethical — and illegal — behavior."

 

(Source: AP)

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AP

A U.S. district court has ordered key players in an international spam ring to give up $3.7 million that they made by sending out illegal e-mail messages pitching bogus hoodia weight-loss products and a “human growth hormone” pill they claimed reversed the aging process.

In a Federal Trade Commission law enforcement action, the court found that the five defendants, located in Canada and St. Kitts, violated the FTC Act and the CAN-SPAM Act by participating in the spam operation. The court order bars the defendants from violating the CAN-SPAM Act and from making false or unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits of any food, drug, or dietary supplement.

 

(Source: Federal Trade Commission)

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Federal Trade Commission

One of Britain's biggest online paedophile inquiries is to be challenged in the court of appeal amid allegations from campaigners that hundreds of men have been wrongly convicted in a mass miscarriage of justice.

Senior officers in Ceop, the child exploitation and online protection unit, who co-ordinated the inquiry, have been anticipating the test case for some time. They are adamant that Ore was an extremely successful operation, which led to more than 2,600 British men who downloaded images of child abuse, or attempted to, being brought to justice. The vast majority of them pleaded guilty.

 

(Source: Guardian)

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Guardian

The head of the U.S. Secret Service on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with the head of the Italian police and the chief executive officer of the Italian Postal Service to set up an international task force to combat cyber crime.

"This is not a borderless crime and we believe there needs to be a reaction at an international level. We'll provide all our resources to make that happen," Mark Sullivan, the director of the U.S. Secret Service, said after signing the accord at a ceremony at the Italian interior ministry.

 

(Source: CIO)

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CIO

Within hours of the death of pop star Michael Jackson, spam trading on his demise hit in-boxes, a security firm said as it warned that more junk mail was in the offing. Just eight hours after news broke about Jackson, Abingdon, England-based Sophos PLC started tracking the first wave of Jackson spam, which used a subject line of "Confidential -- Michael Jackson."

The spam wasn't pitching a product or leading users to a phishing or malware Web site. Instead it was trying to dupe users into replying to the message in order to collect e-mail addresses and verify them as legitimate.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

Police in western Switzerland have broken a paedophile online network operating in nearly 80 different countries, the official Swissinfo.ch news website reported Sunday.

At least 32 people across Switzerland are now under investigation due to suspected connections with the case, the website quoted police in the canton of Vaud as saying.

A police official said cybercrime experts in Lausanne were alerted by Interpol more than a year ago that pornographic details were hidden on a website for hip-hop music run by a webmaster in western Switzerland.

 

(Source: Mathaba)

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Mathaba

Britain warned on Thursday of a growing risk to military and business secrets from computer spies and pledged to toughen cyber security to protect the 50 billion pounds ($82 billion) spent a year online in its economy.

Launching Britain's first national cyber security strategy, security minister Alan West said hostile states and criminals were increasingly attacking British interests online and al Qaeda and like-minded groups were seeking the ability to do so.

"We know that various state actors are very interested in cyber warfare," West, a junior minister at the Home Office (Interior Ministry), told reporters. "The terrorist aspect of this is the least (concern), but it is developing."

 

(Source: Reuter)

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Reuter

Recently scammers have become more aggressive on the site. They will set up new accounts and post spam messages on hot topics in hopes of gaining clicks when people search through Twitter.

And while hacked Twitter accounts are still rare, they're a much more effective way to reach victims, according to Rik Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro. "If you can take over an account that has a couple of thousand followers then you can get a much better return on your investment."

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

The US military announced a new "cyber command" designed to wage digital warfare and to bolster defenses against mounting threats to its computer networks. The move reflects a shift in military strategy with "cyber dominance" now part of US war doctrine and comes amid growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere.

President Barack Obama has put a top priority on cyber security and announced plans for a national cyber defense coordinator. A recent White House policy review said that "cybersecurity risks pose some of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st century." Obama has promised privacy rights would be carefully safeguarded even as the government moves to step up efforts to protect sensitive civilian and military networks.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

The United Nations has appealed to parents, the Internet industry and policy-makers to join hands to eradicate hate speech from cyberspace.

Addressing a day-long seminar titled "Unlearning Intolerance" on the danger of "cyberhate," UN chief Ban Ki-moon lauded the benefits of the Internet but regretted that "there are those who use information technology to reinforce stereotypes, to spread misinformation and propagate hate." "Some of the newest technologies are being used to peddle some of the oldest fears," he warned, decrying what he called "digital demonization... targeting innocents because of their faith, their raace, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation."

 

(Source: UN)

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United Nations

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are exploding in popularity, bringing people from all walks of life together online. At the same time though, overall Internet use keeping family members apart.

Forty-three percent of all online users are involved with a social networking site, and that's up from just 27% a year ago, according to a report released today by The Conference Board, a non-profit research association. The report also notes that more than half of those who use social networks log on at least once a day, and the majority log on several times a day.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

An alleged spammer could face jail time in connection with a Facebook lawsuit after a judge referred him to the U.S. Attorney General's Office for criminal proceedings.

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California referred Sanford Wallace (who has been dubbed a "spam king" for his long and aggressive history in e-mail marketing) l to the U.S. Attorney General's Office for criminal proceedings for allegedly violating an injunction that prohibited him from accessing Facebook.

Facebook filed a lawsuit against Wallace and two other men in February for spamming and phishing schemes through the social-networking site. The following week, Judge Fogel issued a temporary restraining order barring Wallace and two other alleged spammers, Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw, from accessing Facebook's network.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld

A federal grand jury in New Jersey today indicted three people, and five people were arrested in Italy, all in connection with hacking into the IT systems of thousands of companies around the world to gain free access to telephone services, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, N.J.

A multinational team of investigators worked jointly to round up the alleged hackers and their financial backers in the scheme to gain access into the systems of many companies -- 2,500 in the U.S. alone -- to steal access codes that the victim companies used to route phone calls through telecom systems, the office said.

The value of all the stolen services was unclear, though the U.S. Attorney's Office said the thieves routed more than $55 million worth of telephone calls over telecommunications networks in the U.S. "This was an extensive and well-organized criminal network that worked across continents," said New Jersey's acting U.S. attorney, Ralph J. Marra Jr., in a statement.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

After a two weeks meeting in Bonn Germany, it appears that an ambitious and effective global pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is in sight.

“A big achievement of this meeting is that governments have made it clearer what they want to see in the Copenhagen agreed outcome,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.The Copenhagen outcome is to follow on the first phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. The negotiating text under consideration covers issues of a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, enhanced action on adaptation, mitigation and finance, as well as technology and capacity-building.

The gathering in Germany, which brought together more than 4,600 participants from government, business and industry, environmental groups and research institutions, was the second in a series of five major UN negotiating sessions slated for this year ahead of Copenhagen. The next meeting is scheduled to be held from 10 to 14 August in Bonn, followed by sessions in Bangkok from 28 September to 9 October and Barcelona from 2 to 6 November.

Source: UN

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While most viruses target PC users, there has been rise in the number of attacks on Mac systems. Graham Cluley, a security expert with anti-virus firm Sophos, told the BBC that the small number of Mac viruses had made some users complacent.

Security experts have discovered two novel forms of Mac OS X malware. OSX/Tored-A - an updated version of the Mac OS Tored worm - and a Trojan called OSX/Jahlav-C were both found on popular pornographic websites. Users logging on to these sites are asked to download a "missing Video ActiveX Object" but are sent a virus payload instead.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

The continuing fallout from a hacking incident at U.K.-based Web hosting company VAserv should serve as a powerful reminder that companies need proper data backup and disaster recovery procedures.

The incident, which could result in a fire sale of VAserv to another hosting provider, is also an especially stark example of the kind of havoc that a malicious attacker can wreak on businesses.

Late Sunday, an unknown hacker or hackers attacked VAserve's virtual server infrastructure and deleted about 100,000 sites, or about half of those being hosted by the company, according to The Register.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld

A woman has been arrested by police in the UK following investigation into the distribution of child abuse images. The  police raided the home of the 39 yr old nursery worker and closed the 60 place nursery during enquiries. Plymouth Commanding officer Ch Supt Jim Webster stated that the the allegations made against the nursery worker raised "serious concerns"  and in response all the parents of children at the nursery are being contacted.

Ch Supt Jim Webster added, "... our work today is to find out what's happened, where the images have come from, where they've been sent to and any risk to anybody in Plymouth..."

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC website

Movie directors, composers, authors, legal experts, policy-makers and others are meeting in Washinton this week to discuss the "threats and opportunities" the Internet poses to copyright in the digital age.

Some 500 delegates from more than 55 countries are scheduled to attend the 2nd World Copyright Summit being held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Convention Center. Web and software giants Google and Microsoft and representatives of movie, music and book rights societies are also among those attending the summit organized by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), whose president is Bee Gees brother Robin Gibb.

Organizer CISAC, listing the "key issues" for the summit, cited "How the digital media environment is providing common threats and opportunities to all creative repertoires."

French Culture Minister Christine Albanel, Hollywood director Milos Forman and US Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are among the nearly 100 speakers slated to address the gathering. Looming over the summit is the threat posed to artists by digital piracy.

 

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

"In the week we used the system we found it very useful to pupils, teachers, therapists and parents alike. It allows children to take control of the conversation without having to rely on help from us.", Sue Williams, head teacher at Capability Scotland's Corseford School in Kilbarchan, said.

'How was school today?' is software to help children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy communicate faster. The system is the result of a project between computing scientists from the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee, and Capability Scotland. Pupils from Corseford School in Renfrewshire were first to trial it.

Scientists claim to have developed the first technology of its kind to allow children with communication problems to converse better.

 

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

British YouTube users are amongst the most sensitive in the world, executives at the site have claimed. Amid demands for an independent regulator to police its content they said Britons are amongst the most likely to object to footage hosted on the site.

The company has reacted by introducing special “Britain-only” policies following a raft of complaints from users over gang-related videos. Victoria Grand, head of policy at YouTube, told The Times: “The UK is a big flagging country. We get a lot of videos flagged up in the UK because of issues that British people are concerned about which maybe aren’t an issue in the US, such as the brandishing of guns.”

 

(Source: TimesOnline)

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TimesOnline

As many as 40,000 Web sites have been hacked to redirect unwitting victims to another Web site that tries to infect PCs with malicious software, according to security vendor Websense.

The affected sites have been hacked to host JavaScript code that directs people to a fake Google Analytics Web site, which provides data for Web site owners on a site's usage, then to another bad site, said Carl Leonard, threat research manager for Websense.

Those Web sites have likely been hacked via a SQL injection attack, in which improperly configured Web applications accept malicious data and get hacked, Leonard said.

 

(Source: ComputerWorld)

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ComputerWorld website

Accessing your bank account using your mobile phone might seem safe, but security experts say would-be hackers can access confidential information via a simple text message seemingly from your service provider.

People in the industry aware of the risk see it as extremely small, as only a few people use handsets to access their bank accounts, but it is growing as mobile Internet usage rises.

 

(Source: Reuters)

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A mother has been reunited with her son, 27 years after she claims he was kidnapped, after her sister saw him on the social networking site Facebook.

Avril Grube, 62, who lives in Poole, Dorset, says she was given custody of her son Gavin Paros after her marriage to a Hungarian man broke down in 1982. His father, who died in 2006, had visiting rights but took him to Hungary and Ms Grube has not seen him since. But Mr Paros met his mother again this week after being found on Facebook.

Avril Grube and her sister Beryl Wilson who lives in Liverpool, had spent years trying to trace her son, even contacting the Hungarian Embassy and taking their case to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. 

 

(Source: BBC)

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ID theft victims are much more likely to get hit with fraudulent charges on their credit cards or debit cards, according to a new study from the Identity Theft Resource Center that tracks the effects of ID theft.

While repairing the damage from ID theft involves some cost for things like police reports, photocopying, travel, etc., ranging from an average of $739 for dealing with damage done to an existing account to $951 to fix the aftermath of a fraudulently opened new account, the real pain comes from the time spent dealing with the mess. It took 58 hours on average to deal with ID theft involving existing accounts, and a painful 165 hours for new accounts, the study found.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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PCWorld website

Spammers seem to be working a little bit harder these days, according to Symantec, which reported Tuesday that unsolicited e-mail made up 90.4 percent of messages on corporate networks last month. That represents a 5.1 percent increase over last month's numbers, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. For years, spam has made up somewhere between 80 percent and 95 percent of all e-mail on the Internet.

Symantec reported that nearly 58 percent of spam is now coming from so-called botnets --networks of hacked computers that can be misused by criminals to steal financial information, launch attacks or send spam. The worst of the spamming botnets -- called Donbot -- generates 18.2 percent of all spam, according to Symantec.

These botnet computers can be rented out on the black market by anybody, but in recent months some spammers have been moving away from botnets, experimenting with a new way to sneak their unwanted e-mail past corporate filters, according to Adam O'Donnell, a researcher with antispam vendor Cloudmark.

 

(Source: PCWorld)

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As part of this year’s focus on education, the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID) presented the newly formed University of the People, a non-profit institution offering higher education to the masses.

For hundreds of millions of people around the world higher education is no more than a dream, Shai Reshef, the founder of the University of the People, told reporters. They are constrained by finances, the lack of institutions in their region, or they are not able to leave home to study at a university for personal reasons. Mr Reshef said that this University opened the gate to these people to continue their studies from home and at minimal cost by using open-source technology, open course materials, e-learning methods and peer-to-peer teaching. Admission opened just over two weeks ago; and without any promotion some 200 students from 52 countries have already registered, with a high school diploma and a sufficient level of English as entry requirements. Students will be placed in classes of 20, after which they can log on to a weekly lecture, discuss its themes with their peers and take a test - all online. There are voluntary professors, post-graduate students and students in other classes who can also offer advice and consultation.

Source: United Nations

Full Report

Experts on information and communication technology (ICT) from the United Nations, private industry, non-governmental organizations and government agencies have met in Geneva to look at ways to use the latest digital innovations to fight poverty and improve public health.

“The objective is to introduce cutting-edge, innovative knowledge, experiences, expertise and best practices” to the work of the UN, and the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development in particular, according to the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), which organized the one-day meeting. “New technologies can boost education through distance learning, content creation and delivery, and teacher training,” GAID noted in a news release. “They can help create new job opportunities for people living in poverty. These technologies can also empower women and the disadvantaged to increase their access to information and participate in the economy.”

The Alliance also noted that advances in health information systems based on ICT are improving patients care and healthcare providers’ productivity worldwide. However, developing countries lag behind in employing ICT to these ends. “While diseases in developing countries account for over 90 per cent of the global disease burden, it is estimated that only 10 per cent of the more than $100 billion spent annually on health research is allocated for health problems prevalent in these countries,” it stated.

Source: UNESCO

Full Report

A new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, has gone live, offering an application called "The pope meets you on Facebook", and another allowing the faithful to see the Pope's speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican's World Communications Day this Sunday is devoted to communicating the gospel with new technologies. "We recognise that a church that does not communicate ceases to be a church," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Social Communications department. "Many young people today are not turning to traditional media like newspapers and magazines any more for information and entertainment. "They are looking to a different media culture, and this is our effort to ensure that the Church is present in that communications culture."

Users of the new site can select from more than a dozen "virtual postcards" with pictures of the pope and messages from him on faith, love and life specifically aimed at young people, and send them to other users.

 

(Source : Reuters)

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Video-sharing website YouTube has removed hundreds of pornographic videos which were uploaded in what is believed to be a planned attack.

The material was uploaded under names of famous teenage celebrities such as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers. Many started with footage of children's videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts appeared on screen. YouTube owner Google said it was aware and addressing the problem.

Under other uploaded videos, online users posted comments such as: "Take the tags off, you'll get us caught." Another said: "Your gonna kill us all!" As the disturbing videos were being uploaded, many viewers added them to their favourites and rated them highly.

 

(Source : BBC)

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Identity thieves that hit Facebook last week with a new round of phishing attacks are harvesting passwords for profit.

The newest Facebook attacks resemble previous phishing rounds in their tactics: A compromised account sends a malicious link to friends. That link leads to a site that mimics the legitimate log-in page. But users duped into entering their usernames and passwords are likely giving away more than just their Facebook credentials.

"It's not surprising that they're targeting Facebook," said Kevin Haley, a director on Symantec's security response team. "Facebook has, what, 200 million-plus users? The bad guys always go where's there's a lot of people."

 

(Source : PCWorld)

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Militants and hate groups increasingly use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube as propaganda tools to recruit new members, according to a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The report was based on "over 10,000 problematic Web sites, social networking groups, portals, blogs, chat rooms, videos and hate games on the Internet which promote racial violence, anti-semitism, homophobia, hate music and terrorism."

Examples of what the report calls "digital terrorism and hate" range from a Facebook group named "Death to gays" in Croatian to a YouTube video of a Koran being burned and various Web sites promoting militant groups such as Hezbollah, the Taliban, al Qaeda and Colombia's FARC.

 

(Source : REUTERS)

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Researchers from Cambridge University have found that many photos were still accessible on a number of social networking sites  including Facebook, even after having been deleted.

The researchers reported that Flickr and Google's Picasa performed better, while Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces removed the photos immediately.

A Facebook spokesperson stated: "When a user deletes a photograph from Facebook it is removed from our servers immediately. However, URLs to photographs may continue to exist on the Content Delivery Network (CDN) after users delete them from their Facebook, until they are overwritten. overwriting usually happens after a short period of time".

 

(Source: BBC)

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The UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre reports in its Annual Review that it had assisted in protecting '139 children and disrupte 82 paedophile networks' during the past year.

The types of crimes, in the UK and abroad, include a wide range of offences from possession of indecent images of children and rape.

Jim Gamble, CEO of CEOP, stated, "..This is not about technology - this is about people. There is no distinction between the online and offline worlds......This is about the behaviour of offenders manipulating any environment to abuse children..."

CEOP's Annual Review showed that there was a "fast and growing trend" of grooming through social networking sites and warns that mobile Internet access was "placing new and additional responsibilities on parents".

Mr Gamble added, "...Child protection is everybody's business and we should afford our children the same protection online that we would give them in the park or playground".

(Source; BBC)

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ContactPoint, the 224 million pounds database containing details of all children in England has finally been launched following two delays due to data security concerns. This information will be available to 390,000 childcare professionals who must have undergone 'stringent security training'.

Although the UK government argues that such a database will allow for improved coordination in the services provided to children, a 2007 report by auditors Deloitte and Touche stated that it could never be secure.

(Source: BBC)

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Recent sexting (the sending of naked or partially clothed photos of an individual to others via mobile phones) cases in the USA have led to concern about whether such online behaviour should be classified as a criminial offence or simply a 'misdemeanour'.

Such cases have resulted in police arrests of several adolescents and criminal charges of child pornography.

Sending or distributing explicit images of child under 18 is illegal in many countries.

Parents are being encouraged to warn their children about the possible consequences of sexting (for both the sender and receiver).

A recent National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies survey of more than 1000 teenagers in the USA, found that one-fifth of 13-19 year olds had actually sent compromising images of themselves via text or online. A third of boys and a quarter of girls reported that they had had nude or semi nude images, originally meant to be private, shared with them.

Speaking to the BBC, WiredSafety founder, Parry Aftab stated, "It is dangerous behaviour that we don't want children to be encouraged to do.....Not only could these images end up in the hands of paedophile groups and place kids at higher risk of being targeted, but they could also be subject to extortion by those who have ended up with the images".

 

(Source: BBC)

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In order to increase efficiency in municipal parking services in Turkey, the Municipality of Istanbul and Turkcell Mobile Phone Company, have come up with a project that aims at solving the parking problem in Istanbul by using mobile technologies, especially mobile phones. Subscribers to the service use SMS function of their mobile phones to park their cars and the parking bills are sent to them within their mobile phone bills.

Source: epractice.eu

Project Website

 

UK children's charities want to ensure that children do not have access to those online goods which are aimed at adults. To that effect, a private members bill going through the House of Lords will oblige web retailers to have such a system in place.

Charities have fully endorsed this bill following concerns about children purchasing alcohol, knives and violent video games online.

Trading standards officers from a London Council performed tests on a sample of websites in order to establish whether there were age verification checks being made. In a controlled test, a 16-year old managed to purchase pre-paid credit cards which were registered under his true date of birth and address. This adolescent successfully bought knives, drink and adult-rated DVDs as well as games from 12 different online retailers.

Only three of the retailers asked the 16-year old to confirm his age, and when he "lied" was not challenged or asked for proof.

Zoe Hilton, policy advisor for the NSPCC, speaking on behalf of the Children's Charities Coalition on Internet Safety, stated, "..Retailers' increasingly successful efforts to control the sale of age-restricted products over the counter on the High Street are being seriously undermined by their failure to take similarly effective steps to limit sales of exactly the same items on the Internet".

(Source: BBC)

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Eight paedophiles from Scotland were convicted of child abuse and producing indecent images of children. The charges against them include abusing infants from three months old to conspiracy and possession of more than 125,000 images of child abuse.

The accusers were caught after one of them, Neil Strachan, took his computer to be repaired. The repair technician found indecent images of children. 7000 more images were uncovered, with emails showing that other children were at serious risk. Local Scottish detectives were granted warrants by courts in the USA to have access to email records from Microsoft.

Investigation into the digital camera used to record the abuse exposed another of the accusers' identities. Sophisticated tracking equipment pinpointed this individual's broadband Wi-Fi signals in a specific area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Further investigation by the police revealed the identities of all eight paedophiles.

(Source: Guardian)

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The first ever 02 Digital Families Report released yesterday showed that for families, the Internet was more important than food and other household bills. The telecommunications company, 02 polled 500 families in the UK in order to find out which items they were reluctant to cut back on, and found that more than 67% opted for Internet access over school uniforms (59%), family holidays (30%) and their weekly food shopping (24%).

(Source: Telegraph)

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A secret report by the UK Border and Immigration Agency's national intelligence unit reveals that a 59-bed local authority children's home was used by criminal gangs to traffic Chinese children into prostitution and drug trafficking spanning  four continents.

The 'restricted' report indicates that children arrive at the children's home, located by Heathrow airport, only to vanish straight away.

UK Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is being asked to respond to questions on how the local authority home fell under the control of child traffickers.

(Source: Guardian)

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A UK man successfully delivered his baby boy by following instructions on a YouTube video. Marc Stephens had the foresight to watch the videos a few hours ahead of time, however his skills would be called upon as his wife went into labour before the ambulance arrived.

Mr Stephens told the BBC, "I Googled how to deliver a baby, watched a few videos and basically swotted up".

 

(Source: BBC)

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Although the IWF 2008 Annual Report suggests that there has been a 10% decrease in the number of child abuse websites in the past year, it is important to note that there has been an increase in the serious nature of those abuse images which are still available.

The IWF report shows that among the remaining 1,536 child abuse sites, 74% were for profit while 26% allowed users to share or swap images, and states, "..1,536 domains remains a problem of a scale which can be seriously targeted and significantly disrupted through international efforts".

Peter Robbins, Chief Executive of the IWF said, "These websites, although reducing in number, represent an extremely serious problem."

The methods used by such sites to avoid detection were reported to be more and more sophisticated and include the scrambling of domain names and attempts to hide methods of payment in order to try to remain one step ahead of law enforcement.

(Source: BBC)

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An American girl chatting on Facebook with a British teenage boy alerted her mother after he admitted that he planned to commit suicide. Without having his address, the girl's mother contacted local police which then led to a series of calls to the White House, the British Embassy in Washington and finally the police in the UK town where the boy was found alive.

(Source: BBC News)

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The ITU Regional Cybersecurity Forum for Africa and Arab States, dedicated to “Connecting the World Responsibly”, aims to identify some of the main challenges faced by countries in Africa and Arab States in enhancing cybersecurity and securing critical information infrastructures.

It will consider best practices, information sharing mechanisms and concrete actions for cybersecurity development, taking into consideration the key principles of matching the borderless, transnational nature of cyber-threats with meeting specific national and regional requirements. The Forum will consider initiatives at the regional and international levels to increase cooperation and coordination amongst different stakeholders. The forum programme will include interactive sessions on the projects and related tools that ITU is working on to assist Member States in developing and implementing cybersecurity capabilities.

Capacity building activities will be undertaken in the following main areas:

Development of a legal framework;

Development of watch and warning and incident management capabilities, including the establishment of a national computer incident response team (CIRT); and,

Actions to be considered when developing a national cybersecurity strategy and harmonization within the key principles of international cooperation.

The event is expected to bring together government representatives, industry actors, and other stakeholder groups from countries on the African continent and the Arab States to discuss, share information, and collaborate on the elaboration and implementation of national policy, regulatory and enforcement frameworks for cybersecurity. It will benefit information and communication policy makers from ministries and government departments; institutions and departments dealing with cybersecurity policies, legislation and enforcement; and representatives from operators, manufacturers, service providers, industry and consumer associations involved in promoting a culture of cybersecurity.

The forum will be conducted in English, Arabic and French with simultaneous interpretation. Participation in the Forum is open to all ITU Member States, Sector Members, Associates, and other interested stakeholders, including representatives from regional and international organizations.

More detailed information about the event (including the draft forum agenda, online pre-registration, fellowship requests (for eligible LDCs) can be found on the ITU Regional Cybersecurity Forum for Africa and Arab States website at www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/events/2009/tunis/.

Register for the ITU Regional Cybersecurity Forum for Africa and Arab States here.

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

The Times reports that a young German man, David Heiss, became infatuated with Joanna Witton while playing on a cyber war website set up by Joanna and her boyfriend, Matthew Pyke, in the UK.

After seeing her photo on Facebook, Mr Heiss made up his mind that she was the girl for him, sending her a stream of disturbing messages despite her protests that she was already in a relationship.

Travelling to the UK from Germany, Mr Heiss tracked the couple down, committing the murder on his second visit. The killing of the victim was said by the prosecution to be driven by "...obsession for Joanna Witton, who was Matthew's girlfriend, and hatred for Matthew, because he was Joanna's boyfriend".

(Source: The Times)

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Following earlier reports of users not being able to delete their personal information, Facebook has now allowed voters to decide on the best way to proceed. In reviewing their policies with users, the popular social networking site has agreed to allow its users greater control of their personal data.

After a vote, 75% of responders were in favour of these proposed changes, which will allow users to own their own information and also have the right to remove it if they so choose.

Founder, Mark Zuckerberg explained that the networking site was aiming for a more "...transparent and democratic approach"

(Source: Telegraph)

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A new report of the mobile industry shows that some progress has been made by the 26 mobile operators signed up to the "European Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children” brokered by the Commission in February 2007 (IP/07/139). These operators serve around 580 million customers, 96% of all EU mobile customers. "The new report of the mobile phone industry association shows that mobile operators have started to take seriously their responsibilities to keep children safe when using phones," said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding.

50% of 10 year-old, 87% of 13 year-old and 95% of 16 year-old children in the EU have a mobile phone, but half of European parents worry mobile phone use might expose their children to sexually and violently explicit images (51%) or bullying by other children (49%), according to a survey. The European Commission today called on mobile operators to do more to keep children safe while using mobile phones by putting in place all the measures in the voluntary code of conduct, signed by 26 mobile operators in 2007. The report published by the GSM Association, the trade body of the mobile phone industry, showed that national self-regulatory codes based on the framework agreement brokered by the European Commission now exist in 22 Member States, 90% of them in line with the 2007 agreement, and 80% of operators have put in place measures to control child access to adult content.

Read the full EC press release from 20 April 2009 here.

More information on the GSMA report onimplementation of the framework agreement on "Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children" can be found here.

The Guardian reports that, in one of the first cases of its kind, images of a UK man sexually abusing Thai girls were used to identify him despite the fact that he had taken steps to hide his face.

Photographs were uncovered during a police search of Dean Hardy's home, where images were stored on memory cards from cameras and the hard drive of a computer.

A forensic anthropologist examined the freckles and blemishes visible in the images and found them to be identical with those on Mr Hardy's left hand.

Judge Stone, sentencing, referred to this case as "...sex tourism of the most offensive kind."

(Source: Guardian)

 

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The Government of Malta has officially announced the launch of three new eGovernment services and an eGovernment Services Directory. The three services are the eHealth portal, the online certificates website and the scholarships service.These initiatives are aimed at improving the service delivery channels available between the Government and citizens.

"We have compiled this e-Government Services Directory to help users look for the e-services they require. The user may consider this directory as a manual and a complete list of the e-government services launched to date. We will continue to update it with every service launched and an updated version will always be available at www.mygov.mt." said Austin Gatt, the Maltese Minister for Information, Transport and Communications (MITC).

The ongoing transformation on the Maltese Government's IT resources is merely part of a much larger restructuring programme in the Government's approach to offering public services.

Source: epractice.eu

See: Full Press Release

The EU's Commissioner in charge of Information and Communication Technology Viviane Reding, has called on the European ICT sector, which accounts of 2% of carbon emissions, to become the engine in the drive against carbon emissions, by setting trends that can be followed in the wider economy to affect the other 98% of emissions.

"Personally, I would recommend the ICT sector to lead the way for the rest of the economy by reducing its own carbon footprint by 20 percent as early as 2015", said Reding. "I see from the response of European ICT companies to the Commission's ongoing work that Europe is already well ahead in using ICT to green the economy, with some ICT companies already voluntarily working to reduce CO2 emission by 50 to 80 percent."

Commissioner Reding cited buildings and transport as other sectors where ICTenabled energy efficiency could have an impact. Recent studies suggest that better use of ICT could reduce energy consumption of buildings in the EU by up to 17% and to reduce carbon emissions in transport logistics by up to 27%.

Read Full Report

Source:European Union

1 April 2009 was the start of a new anti-piracy law in Sweden where, according to traffic data, an immediate and significant drop (over 30 per cent) occurred in the nation's overall Internet traffic.

"The combined traffic passing through Sweden's Internet Exchange Points usually peaks around 160 Gbit/s, but on Wednesday it peaked at around 110 Gbit/s. That's a huge drop in traffic, and is presumably a direct result of less file sharing taking place. ... Another interesting observation is that there was more traffic than usual during the last days before the law took effect. Were people hoarding films and music? On Tuesday (the day before the law went live) traffic peaked at nearly 200 GBit/s, roughly 25% above normal levels."

Read the full story and view the related statistics at CircleID. 

The European Commission has unveiled new laws aimed at protecting children from online sexual abuse. As a result, individuals who are found to be guilty of abuses such as online grooming or viewing online pornography, may face criminal prosecution.

(Source: BBC)

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An advertising campaign by Beatbullying for its new website CyberMentors was helped by the testimony from boxing champion Joe Calzaghe.

Joe Calzaghe, a spokesperson for Beatbullying, spoke about the misery he suffered during his school years from bullying and how it affected him and changed his personality.

Adding, "For two years I was bullied, called names and ignored by former friends which turned me from a happy, out-going kid who enjoyed school and schoolwork, into an introverted wreck, detached from his studies and scared of his own shadow during school hours".

 

(Source: BBC)

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The UK government has unveiled plans to monitor social network sites contacts in an effort to “tackle crime gangs and terrorists” , stressing that it “would not keep the content of conversations”.

 

Following earlier plans to keep all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database, the UK government has been accused of putting together a “snoopers’ charter” by campaigners for civil liberties.

 

Amid concerns about security, Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake stressed his lack of confidence in the security of personal information in a government-controlled database.

 

Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer called this latest proposal "overkill".

 

An EU directive to store all Internet traffic data will come into force in the UK on 6th April 2009.

 

(Source:BBC)

 

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BBC website

A new social network site available only for under-18s,Yoursphere.co.uk, has commissoned a research paper on parental supervision of children online.

Evidence from this Virtual Parenting Report supports the need for more parental supervision for children online.

It suggests that parents should treat their children's online safety as having the same risks as  offline safety. There appears to be a false sense of security in parents feeling that their children are less at risk because they are using the Internet whilst in the safety of the family home.

(Source:Telegraph)

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A new report from ITU, highlights some harsh realities for the global ICT industry. The report, Confronting the Crisis: Its Impact on the ICT Industry, considers how the industry can position itself for recovery in the future.

Confronting the Crisis: Its Impact on the ICT Industry draws on analysis from leading industry experts and international institutions. As the established order is overturned, it says, convergence in the ICT industry will accelerate, with the emergence of new players with new business models. Firms’ ability to weather the economic storm will depend on their ability to invest for the future and explore new opportunities to benefit from the eventual upturn. For an industry founded on innovation, the current turmoil will create openings for nascent ICT companies.

Confronting the Crisis finds that although credit is now less abundant and more expensive, with financing costs for operators on average 3 − 4 per cent higher year-on-year, savvy operators can take advantage of the economic turmoil to reposition their services for the upturn. Funding is still available for players with sound business models, established demand and early projected cash flows. Alternative sources of financing are now needed, with a growing role for government financing and economic stimulus packages.

Many analysts contributing to Confronting the Crisis underlined the need for ICT as vital services and suggested that fixed-mobile substitution and consumers’ decision to switch to mobile telephony may gain momentum in developed markets during a prolonged recession. The report also notes that long project lead times for the satellite industry mean that it has been less affected in the short term, with strong recent growth in demand from developing countries. The financial difficulties facing the private sector could add to pressure for government intervention in the financing of national backbone infrastructure. Governments are already stepping in to diminish the impact on the transition to next-generation networks (NGN), which can carry voice, data and media services simultaneously. Several administrations have announced commitments to invest in their national backbone infrastructure, while others, such as the European Union, have included the roll-out of broadband networks in their economic stimulus packages. Although the financial crisis may delay investment in NGN, it has also led to a widespread reaffirmation of the importance of building advanced telecommunication infrastructure as part of an economic stimulus package.

See the full press release from 16 February 2009.
The report is available for download here.

Press release issued simultaneously by ITU and European Commission.

Geneva, 10 February 2009 — ITU and the European Commission have joined forces to mark Safer Internet Day. This year, the focus is on protecting children online.

Children are among the most active — and most vulnerable — participants online. According to recent surveys, over 60 per cent of children and teenagers talk in chat rooms on a daily basis. Three in four children online are willing to share personal information about themselves and their family in exchange for goods and services. One in five children will be targeted by a predator or paedophile each year. Protecting children in cyberspace is, therefore, clearly our duty.

"Children are very resourceful in making the most of online services such as social networking sites and mobile phones," said Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "But many still underestimate the hidden risks of using these, from cyber-bullying to sexual grooming online. Today, I call upon all decision-makers, from both the public and the private sector, to listen and learn from children and to improve awareness strategies and tools to protect minors." Ms Reding added: "The Internet binds the whole world together. The safety of children who use it is a concern for everyone. I am therefore very happy that ITU is associated with us in doing this, today on Safer Internet Day, and all year round."

"Child online safety must be on the global agenda," said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré. "We must ensure that everyone is aware of the dangers for children online. And we want to promote and strengthen the many outstanding efforts that are being made around the world, such as the Safer Internet Programme, to limit these dangers." This year, the 6th edition of Safer Internet Day includes more than 500 events in 50 countries worldwide. ITU and the European Commission will collaborate on this and future events, such as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, 17 May 2009, which is dedicated to "Protecting Children in Cyberspace". The European Commission’s Directorate General for Information Society and Media has declared its full support for ITU’s Child Online Protection (COP) Initiative. The EC’s Ins@fe Network will launch a Safer Internet Day virtual exhibition which will host pavilions where visitors can learn more about initiatives undertaken by the 50 participating countries. ITU will host an online pavilion in support of EC’s efforts to raise awareness among youngsters aged 12 to 17 regarding the risks they may face online.

ITU and Child Online Protection (COP)

ITU’s motto is "committed to connecting the world", but we are also committed to connecting the world responsibly. That means working together to ensure cybersecurity, enable cyberpeace, and — more importantly — protect children online. While child online protection programmes exist in many developed countries, there are very few in the developing world today — and very little coordination between them. ITU established the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) and launched the Child Online Protection (COP) initiative. COP aims to bring together partners from all sectors of the global community to ensure a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere.

See the press release here.

Telecommunication company, 02 has launched  a new book, 'Who Wants 2 No?', aimed at 8-12 year olds in an effort to promote greater Internet safety among children.

Available to schools and libraries, this book also aims to encourage children's literacy skills by providing an enjoyable story as well as an important safety message.

Ronan Dunne, CEO, Telefónica 02 UK Limited added, "....Technology is available to help keep children safe, but is only part of the solution. It's also important that children learn how to be smart and stay safe as part of their online experiences...."

(Source:www.02.com)

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Despite the number of data breaches which have occured in the UK over the past year, the UK Government has now authorised 390,000 professionals (including local authorities, police, health service and children's charities) direct access to contact details on all under 18-year-olds in England.

This  224 million pounds ContactPoint database was developed following the death of Victoria Climbie in 2000, when Social Services were highly criticised for lack of coordination and adequate follow-up of children at risk.

It is hoped that this database will go some way to preventing children from slipping through the net.

The Conservatives voiced their concern by stating that this database was "another expensive data disaster waiting to happen". The Liberals were equally opposed, calling it an "intrusive and expensive project".

(Source: BBC NEWS)

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Well-known British Child Psychologist, Tanya Byron compares the dangers of letting children use the Internet without supervision to allowing them to cross dangerous roads without assistance.

"Government must be co-ordinated in its approach, we must have a national strategy" Byron states, adding,

"Now Obama has laid out his ambitious strategy and France has just published its own, too, there's a bit of a race on to lead the way in protecting children online...."

She encourages parents to take an interest in their children's online activity as well as providing commonsense advice such as putting the family computer in the living room as opposed to the child's bedroom.

(Source:Telegraph)

Full story

A number of children at a London girls school were suspended from school as a result of posting "deeply insulting comments" about a staff member who is reported to be receiving counselling as a result.

The group of girls, aged between 11 and 18 signed up as members of The Hate Society on Facebook. The headteacher of Grey Coat Hospital School, Rachel  Allard stated, "We can confirm that a number of pupils have been given fixed term exclusions for between 2 and 15 days after the school became aware of their involvement in a hate campaign about a member of staff using an open Facebook group.."

 

(Source: Telegraph)

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In a letter to the Guardian newspaper, John Carr, from the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety argues that cohesion within the Internet industry can do much to address child online safety "without the need for direct government intervention".

(Source: Guardian)

Read letter here

Guardian website

ITU launched a new initiative today to safeguard children, the most vulnerable users of the Internet. Addressing ITU’s high-level meeting on cybersecurity by video message, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "We have to protect against cyberthreats, especially when they target children. I welcome the ITU’s Child Online Protection (COP) initiative and urge all States to support it."

The Child Online Protection initiative brings together partners from all sectors of the international community with the aim of creating a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere. While the virtual world offers unlimited opportunities in many respects, it is also the hunting ground for cybercriminals and paedophiles. Recognizing that a concerted global effort would be required to ensure that the cyberworld becomes a safe place for young people to work, learn and play, ITU is working with other UN agencies, including UNICEF, UNICRI and UNIDIR.

Building confidence and security At the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005, ITU was entrusted by leaders of the international community with Action Point C5: "building confidence and security in the use of ICTs". As an intergovernmental organization with a network of 191 Member States and more than 700 Sector Members and Associates, ITU was a logical choice. In 2007, in answer to this responsibility, Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, launched the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), an international framework that addresses 5 main aspects: legal measures technical and procedural measures organizational structure capacity building international cooperation The WSIS outcomes also specifically recognized the needs of children and young people and their protection in cyberspace.

The Tunis Commitment recognized "the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the protection of children and in enhancing the development of children" and the need to "strengthen action to protect children from abuse and defend their rights in the context of ICT". The COP initiative is in line with ITU’s mandate to establish the foundation for a safe and secure cyberworld for future generations. The need for COP is clear. A decade ago, there were just 182 million people using the Internet globally — and almost all of them lived in the developed world. By the end of 2008, however, there will be over 1.5 billion Internet users worldwide, and more than 400 million of them will have broadband access — vastly increasing the dangers online, especially for children. With over 600 million users in Asia, 130 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 50 million in Africa, the Internet is a growing common resource. 

"ITU is the lead UN agency on ICT for Development," said Mr Sami Al-Basheer, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT). "In working towards an all-inclusive information society we must ensure that children everywhere can enjoy the benefits of ICTs while being protected from the risks posed by inappropriate use."

Read the full press release for the COP initiative here.

As part of its effort to combat climate change, the European Commission announced on 13 May 2008 that it would promote the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) to improve energy efficiency throughout the economy, starting with buildings, lighting and the power grid. The Commission will encourage the ICT industry to demonstrate leadership in reducing its own CO2 emissions and by identifying and creating solutions that will benefit the whole economy. "To meet Europe's energy efficiency goals by 2020, we need a high growth, low carbon economy. Research and rapid take-up of innovative energy efficient ICT solutions will be crucial to lowering emissions across the whole economy," said Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "There is a win-win situation in which ICT will promote the competitiveness of EU industry while leading the fight against climate change."

For more information, click here or read the European Commission document on Addressing the challenge of energy efficiency through Information and Communication Technologies.

BBC News recently reported the arrest of five hackers described as being among the most active on the internet. The hackers, who include two 16-year-olds, are accused of disrupting government websites in the United States, Asia and Latin America. Spanish police say the hackers co-ordinated attacks over the internet and hacked into 21,000 web pages over two years.

Read the full report here.

The Guardian recently reports on a survey into ways in which colleges and universities can make computing greener and more sustainable. Preliminary findings of the study is about to be published soon. "Higher Education Environment Performance Improvement (Heepi) and SustainIT, an NGO set up to focus on the environmental and social impact of IT, are researching how sustainable further and higher education IT is, and how education best practice compares with the private sector. The report being written for the Joint Information System Committee (Jisc) says green IT is best achieved through the collaboration of IT and estates management." Among the findings is that increased energy and computing costs can be offset by technologies such as grid computing and virtualisation. According to Peter James, author of the report and is also part-time professor of environmental management at Bradford University and associate director of SustainIT, "Eighty to 90% of a computer's capacity is wasted. By linking PCs together we can run complex computing tasks broken down into manageable chunks when the computers are not in normal classroom use."

The publication of Heepi and SustainIT's interim report in June marks the start of a series of up to seven campus IT open days to be held throughout the UK until October and designed to allow IT managers a chance to see the latest sustainable initiatives for themselves. At least one event will be focused on the further education sector and based around the virtualisation programme at Stockport college.

Read the full article here.

According to a press release of the European Commission, published on 25 April, a pan-European survey on electronic services in healthcare (eHealth) shows that 87% of European doctors (General Practitioners) use a computer, 48% with a broadband connection. The survey shows that there are considerable differences between the countries, with broadband penetration ranging from 93% in Finland to 5% in Romania. An increasing number of doctors in Europe store and send patients' data such as lab reports electronically.

In using such eHealth applications, doctors and medical services have already improved healthcare in Europe through, for instance, more efficient administration and shorter waiting times for patients. According to the report, a majority of European doctors agree that information and communication technologies (ICTs) improve the quality of healthcare services that they provide.

Doctors not using ICT mention a lack of training and technical support as major barriers. In order to increase the use of eHealth, they ask for more ICT in medical education, more training and better electronic networking among healthcare practitioners that are willing to share clinical information. The report also highlights where doctors could make better use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to offer services such as telemonitoring, electronic prescriptions and cross border medical services.

For more information, click here.

The 6th "Med-e-Tel Conference and Exhibition" took place on 16 -18 April 2008 in Luxembourg with about 450 participants from over 50 countries. Med-e-Tel focuses on eHealth and telemedicine applications and a wide range of other medical information and communication technology (ICT) applications and on the convergence of ICT with medical applications, which lead to higher quality of care, cost reductions, workflow efficiency, and widespread availability of healthcare services. Abstracts and presentations of annual events are soon available on the organizer's website.

Information Security experts recently revealed that government networks in Blighty and UN computers have been hacked and ensnared in a botnet. According to Websense, the attacks happened in March using some sort of SQL injection. It was said that the number of computers compromised is impossible to know but an estimate could be around 100,000 URLs. "A victim reaching a hacked site will be redirected a different page, hosted on a Chinese server. The IP address keeps changing within the JavaScript making it hard to locate."

Read the full article here.

On 15 November 2006, a Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on fighting spam, spyware and malicious software had been released. "The Commission Communication on a Strategy for a secure Information Society aims at improving the security of network and information at large and invites the private sector to address vulnerabilities in network and information systems that can be exploited to spread spam and malicious software. The Commission Communication on the Review of the EU Regulatory Framework proposes new rules to strengthen security and privacy in the electronic communications sector." This Communication deals with the evolution of spam, and threats such as spyware and malicious software. It also takes stock of efforts made so far to fight these threats and identifies further actions that can be taken, including strengthening Community law, law enforcement, cooperation within and between Member States, political and economic dialogue with third countries, industry initiatives, and R&D activities.

Among the proposed actions in this Communication are:

1. Member States and competent authorities are called upon to lay down clear lines of responsibility for national agencies involved in fighting spam, ensure effective coordination between competent authorities, involve market players at national level, drawing on their expertise and available information, ensure that adequate resources are made available to enforcement efforts, and subscribe to international cooperation procedures and act on requests for cross border assistance.
2. Companies are encouraged to ensure that the standard of information for the purchase of software applications is in accordance with data protection law, contractually prohibit illegal use of software in advertisements, monitor how advertisements reach consumers and follow up on malpractice, and e-mail service providers to apply a filtering policy which ensures compliance with the recommendation and guidance on e-mail filtering.
3. The Commission aims to continue efforts in raising awareness and fostering cooperation between stakeholders. It also aims to continue to develop agreements with third countries including the issue of the fight against spam, spyware and malware, introduce new legislative proposals that strengthen the rules in the area of privacy and security in the communications sector, present a policy on cyber crime, involve ENISA expertise in security matters, and support research and development in its FP7 program.

With the accelerating development and spread of spam, spyware and malicious software, "the Commission is using its role as an intermediary to create greater awareness about the need for greater political commitment to fight these threats."

Read the full Communication here.
More on European Union Laws here.

As an input to its activities on economics of network and information security (NIS), ENISA has commissioned a study identifying barriers and incentives for NIS. The overarching aim of the report is to analyse the economic impact of NIS, to assess added value and contribution to the smooth functioning of the Internal Market for e-Communication. In February 2008, the report entitled "Security Economics and the Internal Market" by Prof. Ross Anderson, Rainer Böhme, Richard Clayton and Tyler Moore was submitted to ENISA, aiming:

• To identify existing economic barriers for addressing Network and Information Security (NIS) issues in a single, open and competitive Internal Market for e-Communication;
• To assess these barriers’ potential impact on the smooth functioning of the Internal Market for e-Communication;
• To identify and analyse incentives (regulatory, non-regulatory, technical, educational, etc.) for lifting these barriers identified to cause distortion of the smooth functioning of the Internal Market for e-Communication;
• And to provide a range of recommendations to relevant actors (decision-makers both at EU and national level, industry, academia, etc.) for policy options, possible follow-up actions and initiatives.

The report identifies relevant groups of stakeholders and assesses their role and responsibilities. In addition, the report offers explanatory and where possible causal linkages.

More information on the ENISA website.
Read the full report here.

The European Network and Information Security Agency, ENISA's report gives an overview on information security certifications of products, people and processes. It addresses common concepts, definitions, certifications of different types, as well as clarifies the mandatory and legal background for some certifications. It also explores the analogies and disparities between a number of existing certification schemes. Finally, it analyses current trends in certification and offers six recommendations to improve network and information security in Europe through a wider use of security certification.

Recommendations:

1. ENISA recommends that organisations should certify their information security management systems, choose certified security products where possible and encourage information security employees to choose
   one or more appropriate personal information security certifications.
2. Starting from ISO 27001 as the standard of choice for the certification of information security management systems in private and public organisations, the development of the complementary standards of the
   27000 family should be encouraged. However, their value must be verified on a case-by-case basis.
   The case of small or medium-sized organisations deserves particular attention.
   
3. Special attention should be paid to areas where Common Criteria evaluation has become mandatory, and to the impact on the market.
   The EC should reconsider the feasibility and benefits of extending the intergovernmental Mutual Recognition Agreement on Common Criteria to all Member States as a shared tool contributing to a more secure e-Communication market.
   Government, vendors and security experts should analyse ways of building solid business models for product certification according to various schemes.
   Framework Programme 7 should consider sponsoring research to analyse the economics of the certification of products.
4. The European Institutions should consider the feasibility of strengthening accreditation schemes related to people certification in IT security as well as a more systematic reference to recognised standards.
   The European Institutions should also encourage the development of people certification adapted to different types of professional use of IT systems, from the enduser level (Computer Driving Licence) to the most professional (e.g. IT security officer).
5. The European Institutions should consider ways to reinforce bridges between education (schools and universities) and the certification process (private training and certificate providers) throughout a professional career.
6. At a more individual level, ENISA recommends that the decision to seek a certificate should be based on the following questions: Do I want information security to be my certified profession? Do I want to prove that I can work in information security? Do I want to prove expertise in a very specific area of security? Or do I just want to prove IT skills which include aspects of security?
   

For more information, please refer to the full report.

A report by the UK media regulator, Ofcom, has reported that 'millions of children are using social networking websites intended for older users.'

Despite the minimum age requirement  of between 13 and 14 yrs set by Bebo, MySpace and Facebook, the report found that more than 25% of UK 8-11yr olds have a social network profile.

The Home Office is due to disclose a set of guidelines for such sites involving best practice, security and privacy on Friday 4th April.

This report by Ofcom showed a "significant difference" between the perception of risks in using social network sites between parents and children.

James Thicket, director of market research, Ofcom stated, "While people are aware of the status of their profile, there is a general lack of awareness of the issues attached to them around privacy and safety". He also added, "People put aside concerns about privacy and safety believing they have been taken care of by someone else".

The lack of child protection in such social network sites is further demonstrated by the following Ofcom figures:

41% of children allowed their profile to be viewed by anyone -

16% of parents did not know if their child's profile could be seen by strangers -

The vulnerability of children (especially younger ones) to online predators cannot be ignored and Mr Thickett goes on to say,

"Children are using these sites with a far lower awareness of some of the issues and rules that these sites entail".

Ofcom  plan to monitor and review the new guidelines agreed by social networks and the Home Office.

Dr Rachel O'Connell, Bebo chief safety officer, said, "We're working with the regulatory bodies. It's critical to our business that we adhere to these guidelines".

For more information see BBC and The Guardian.

The Guardian newspaper reports that the first UK national strategy for child Internet safety (which includes a streamlined system for classifying  computer games and codes of practice for social networking sites) will be set out today, 27th March 2008.

This comprehensive and detailed report  carried out by child psyhologist, Dr Tanya Byron, showed that parents are worried about online predators and children are worried by cyber bullying.

One of her proposals includes new codes of practice to regulate social networking sites, such as Bebo and Facebook, and standards on privacy and harmful content.

Dr Byron states that these social networking sites should be asked to agree on codes of practice on harmful content and calls for an independent body to evaluate whether the site is meeting such standards.

She is planning to say that the online explosion has rendered parents as "...the Internet immigrants" and children as "...the Internet natives.." leaving parents lagging behind as as result of the fast past of technology.

Dr Byron is reported to have said yesterday, "Ironically parents' concerns about risk and safety of their children in the streets and outside has driven a generation of children indoors, where it could be argued they are being exposed to a whole new set of risks".

Suprisingly, the British Board of  Film Classification system fails to provide any indication about the actual content of computer games or to explain their age rating.

Full article here.

Bill St. Arnaud writes about fiber to the home (FTTH) connections on his blog on Green IT/Broadband and Cyberinfrastructure. A presentation quoted of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the European FTTH Council of 28 February 2008 takes into account CO2 emissions that are produced in the construction and deployment of fiber and measure them against the savings of three ICT applications in the area of telecommuting,telemedicine and home assistance. Among others, the main findings are that the environmental impact of the deployment of a typical FTTH network would be positive in less than 14 years regarding the selected services mentioned above. Additional existing or future applications would further emphasize these results.

For more information on the European FTTH Council, click here.

The European Commission recently proposed a new Safer Internet programme to enhance the safety of children in the online environment. Encompassing recent communications services from the Web 2.0, such as social networking, the new programme will fight not only illegal content but also harmful behaviour such as bullying and grooming. With a budget of €55 million, the programme, which builds further on the successful Safer Internet programme started in 2005, will run from 2009 to 2013.

The proposed new programme will:

• Reduce illegal content and tackle harmful conduct online.
• Promote a safer online environment.
• Ensure public awareness.
• Establish a knowledge base.

Read the full press release here.
For more information on the Safer Internet Programme, click here.

According to a report from vendor Mcafee, the growing number of cyber criminals in areas of Asia and Eastern-Europe is the result of a lack of IT jobs for qualified professionals. Joe Telafici, vice president of operations at Mcafee says that "the motivation to engage in illegal behavior is strong in Eastern Europe where technical skills were widely taught during the Cold War but economic opportunities are limited. The same is true in Asia, where population growth has stretched strong economic performance to the limits." In China, 43 per cent of IT graduates are unemployed, and hacker "training" web sites are creating a pool of effective malware authors and paying them like a legitimate business.

Read the full article here.

In the context of promoting Risk Management and Information Security, ENISA has generated material that can help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to understand and to apply simplified Risk Management methods. The aim of this document is to provide a simplified and comprehensive view of risk management/risk assessment for use within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). To achieve this goal, the present document has been structured in a modular way. It is made up of various parts each devoted to particular needs of stakeholders involved in the process of risk assessment and risk management. The philosophy behind the generation of this material was to shield (non-expert) users from the complexity of risk management and risk assessment activities. In doing so, some complex security matters have been simplified to the minimum needed to achieve an acceptable security level.

For more information, see the relevant deliverable.

As a further step towards the promotion of Risk Management, ENISA has also planned to pilot this method with a number of European stakeholders. The selected pilots will be financially supported by ENISA, helping them to install Risk Management within their IT infrastructure and perform an initial Risk Assessment. Potential stakeholders (e.g., SMEs, associations, etc) who would like to run such pilots are requested to apply for a possible Risk Management introduction project. The deadline for proposals is the 29th of February 2008.

Please visit the ENISA website for more information.

The European Journal of ePractice yesterday published its second issue on "New e-ways of doing the Government's job" with some case studies that show Administrations are willing to experiment. From interoperability, to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) via online portals to bridging the digital gap, public actors take home important insights every day thanks to e-Government applications and services. The second issue of this journal includes topics of interest in e-Government such as:

• Interoperability and the exchange of good practice cases
• Using online auctions to sell surplus property
• Some best practices in e-Government
• Using RFID in healthcare organizations
• Example of a city library trying to bridge the digital divide

For more information on the European Journal of ePractice as part of ePractice.eu, an interactive initiative created by the European Commission, click here.

The OPTA Commission has imposed a fine of 1 million Euros on three Dutch enterprises, operating under the company name DollarRevenue, and their two directors, due to their unlawful installion of software on more than 22 million computers belonging to Internet users in the Netherlands and elsewhere. They primarily used misleading files, making Internet users believe that they were about to download apparently innocent files, whereas they actually contained DollarRevenue software. "They also used botnets, thereby installing files without user intervention. Each day 60,000 installations occurred on average. A total of more than 450 million program files were illegally placed on 22 million computers." With the enterprises and their directors having deliberately contravened provisions of the Universal Service and End Users Decree [Besluit universele dienstverlening en eindgebruikers], based on the Telecommunications Act [Telecommunicatiewet] and designed to promote safe Internet usage and to protect the privacy of Internet users, fines totalling 1 million Euros were imposed.

Read the full article on the OPTA website.

ENISA recently launched its latest Position Paper, "Botnets - The Silent Threat", a 12-page paper identifying roles and structures of criminal organizations for creating and controlling botnets, and trends in this type of cyber crime as well as online tools to identify and counter malicious code. ENISA points out that browser exploits account for more than 60% of all infections, email attachments for 13%, operating system exploits for 11%, and downloaded Internet files for 9%. It also emphasizes that the main problem is uninformed users. ENISA, thus, calls for "a more coordinated, cross country cooperation among multi-national law enforcement agencies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and software vendors" to combat botnets, and further adds that education of the everyday user is a key measure.

For further information, read ENISA's press release or access the full ENISA Position Paper.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee recently states that the UK government has failed to understand the threat to the continued growth of the internet posed by cybercrime as evident in their response to the committee's report on personal internet security, published on 10 August. The Lords' report had warned of the danger that public confidence in the internet would be lost, due to "perception that the internet is a lawless 'Wild West'." In the government's reply, presented to Parliament on 24 October, the government rejected this as well as the recommendation that there should be a data-breach notification law to provide businesses with incentives to take better care of customer data. According to the government, this kind of law that forced companies to admit when they had been the victims of cybercrime does not prove to be effective, but reassures businesses that they will consider finding "more formal ways" of reporting security breaches to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) "when problems arise". The government also rejected calls for software and hardware vendors to be liable for the security of their products, and for banks to guarantee e-fraud refunds.

Read the full article at ZDNet.co.uk.

John E. Dunn of Techworld reports on the Austrian Police's intention to use specially-crafted Trojans to remotely monitor criminal suspects.

"According to reports in Austrian media, the minister of justice Maria Berger, and Interior Minister Gunther Plater, have drafted a proposal that will be amended by legal experts and the cabinet with the intention of allowing police to carry out such surveillance legally with a judge’s warrant... According to Berger, Trojans would only be used in cases of serious crime, such as terrorism and organised racketeering. The Swiss authorities have declared the intention of using the same controversial technique, but only in cases of the most extreme nature, such as terrorism... The Austrian, German and Swiss governments have yet to explain how they would circumvent security programs that might be used by criminals to protect themselves, whether this would involve collusion with security software companies, and what would happen if such software-busting Trojans were subsequently reverse engineered and deployed by criminals themselves."

Read the full article on Techworld.

Heise Online recently reported "on a ruling, dated March 27, 2007, which has only now been published and is likely to have legal ramifications, the local court of the Berlin district of Mitte has barred the Federal Ministry of Justice from retaining personal data acquired via its website beyond the periods associated with the specific instances of use of the site... The local court also opposed the view espoused by operators and some data privacy watchdogs that security reasons justify a recording regime that over short periods of time maps the behavior of all Net users and allows individual users to be picked out." Slashdot adds that "German privacy activists have started a campaign Wir speichern nicht, ("we don't log your data!") which provides manuals how to turn off the IP logging on your server."

In response to this ruling, Patrick Breyer of the German Working Group on Data Retention, who was the plaintiff in the relevant case, has called on all public authorities, departments and agencies of the German Federal State and of the federal states comprising the Federal Republic to abandon their "illegal data retention policies" by the end of this year at the very latest or have additional lawsuits filed. Breyer has made a model complaint available on his website.

Read the complete news report here.

The Portuguese Government and the European Commission are jointly organising the fourth Ministerial eGovernment Conference entitled “Reaping the Benefits of eGovernment” in Lisbon from 19 to 21 September 2007.

Topics to be covered during the workshops at the conference include the analysis of experience and results of the e-government initiatives at European level such as:

• Research and Technological Development in Electronic Government;
• Public Sector Innovators;
• eGovernment standards;
• Benefits for All derived from Electronic Government;
• Benefits of the electronic infrastructure in e-government, e-health and e-learning.

The European Union proposes that internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be filtered and blocked across the European Union. "Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview... The EU executive is to make this proposal to member states early in November as part of a raft of anti-terrorism proposals. These include the screening of private data of passengers flying into the 27-nation bloc and the creation of an early warning system to alert police forces to thefts of explosives. Representatives of the Internet industry are meeting the EU on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of al Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the United States, at a European Security Research and Innovation Forum. The Internet has taken on huge importance for militant groups, enabling them to share know-how and spread propaganda to a mass audience, as well as to link cell members."

Read the full article on Reuters.

On early May this year following the controversial uprooting of the 6-foot-tall bronze statue in downtown Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, the nation faced a series of massive botnet attacks. Estonian government, banking, media, and police sites were flooded by overwhelming internet traffic from all over the world which led to DDoS attacks forcing the sites to shut down and remain inaccessible outside the country for extended periods of time. In mid-May, the major botnet attacks suddenly stopped, and the bots appeared to have been set to run for exactly two weeks after which the infected computers abandoned the attacks and reverted to more traditional botnet activities, like spamming and extortion.

This recent attack on Estonia has proven the power of botnets and it DDoS capabilities. Using rented botnets, hundreds of thousands or even millions of infobombs may be launched at a target, all while maintaining total deniability to bring down a country's information infrastructure.

For more details on the botnet attack against Estonia, read full article here.
An article on how bots attack may also be accessed here.

The Russian government plans to introduce full-scale e-government services by 2010, as The Moscow Times reports. This would create a single point of entry to government services substantially reducing administrative costs and time to access information by citizens, public institutions and private organizations in the country.

To read more, click here.

InfoWorld reports that security experts warn Germany's new antihacker law could result to more cybercrime and not less. The law, which aims to mitigate the rise of computer attacks in the public and private sectors, was approved in May by the German government and implemented on Saturday. Although Germany already has approved numerous laws to curb attacks on IT systems, the most recent one aims to close any remaining loopholes. Punishable cybercrimes include DOS (denial-of-service) attacks and computer sabotage attacks on individuals, which would extend the existing law that limited sabotage to businesses and public authorities.

The new law defines hacking as penetrating a computer security system and gaining access to secure data, without necessarily stealing data. Offenders are defined as any individual or group that intentionally creates, spreads or purchases hacker tools designed for illegal purposes. They could face up to 10 years in prison for major offenses.

Security experts from different clubs and vendors such as Chaos Computer Club, F-Secure and Kaspersky Lab, all share the same concern on the legal uncertainty the new law creates. According to them with the new law, their development of hacker tools to test and ensure network system security, which is essential to their business, could get them in trouble and bring them to court in the future.

Other groups of computer experts that develop hacking tools to test the security of computers and network systems have already pulled the out their operations in Germany. KisMAC and Phenoelit, hacker groups that offer a tool to detect security holes in networks, stopped its work in Germany and plans to resume in neighboring Netherlands.

To read the full article, click here.

The first Global Information Society Watch 2007 report was released at the United Nations' Palais des Nations in Geneva on 22 May 2007 and during the The Third Annual SANGONeT "ICTs for Civil Society" Conference and Exhibition in Johannesburg, South Africa on 18 July 2007. The report discusses the state of the field of information and communication technology (ICT) policy at local and global levels and particularly how policy impacts on the lives of people living in developing countries.

Studies of the ICT policy situation in twenty-two countries from four regions are featured: Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda); Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Philippines); Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru); and Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania), with one report from a Western European country (Spain).

The report concludes that when it comes to ICTs for development, there are some conspicuous similarities between the countries. Excluding Spain, the other twenty-one countries each show obvious evidence of the "digital divide" which impacts on the majority of people negatively. The report also includes provocative, analytical essays on five international institutions (including ICANN and the World Intellectual Property Organisation) questioning the extent to which they allow all stake-holders to participate in their processes. There is a special section on how to measure progress as well.

Read more on the Global Information Society Watch.

A Report entitled Personal Internet Security from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has been made available on Friday discussing primarily the issues pertaining to individual experiences of the Internet. In the report, the U.K., ISPs and others, has been said to unfairly hold Internet users responsible for online safety. According to the panel, this "laissez-faire" attitude toward personal security is what weakens user confidence. The report proposes that ISPs should be held responsible and avoid them from ignoring spam and malware notices, and that information technology vendors be held liable for not making products secure.

Network security, appliances and applications, how businesses and individuals use the Internet and policing of the online world were studied and dealt with in the Lords inquiry. It also noted that the U.K. government is at fault for not showing leadership in assembling available information and interpreting it for the public. "The Government are not themselves in a position directly to gather the necessary data, but they do have a responsibility to show leadership in pulling together the data that are available, interpreting them for the public and setting them in context, balancing risks and benefits. Instead of doing this, the Government have not even agreed definitions of key concepts such as 'e-crime'." The report recommends the establishment of a cross-departmental group in the Government, "bringing in experts from industry and academia, to develop a more co-ordinated approach to data collection in future. This should include a classification scheme for recording the incidence of all forms of e-crime. Such a scheme should cover not just Internetspecific crimes, such as Distributed Denial of Service attacks, but also e-enabled crimes - that is to say, traditional crimes committed by electronic means or where there is a significant electronic aspect to their commission."

The committee points out the need for more support for research from the industry as well. "The development of one or more major multidisciplinary research centres, following the model of CITRIS, is necessary to attract private funding and bring together experts from different academic departments and industry in a more integrated, multi-disciplinary research effort."

End-users are still predominantly viewed as unable to protect their own security according to the report. And private companies are driven by strong incentives to either promote security for profit or to oppose it as imposing costs on them according to lawmakers. The committee, thus, proposes that ISPs, being the link between the users and the network, could take more control over the network traffic by blocking or filtering traffic containing malicious code. "We do not advocate immediate legislation or heavy- handed intervention by the regulator," says the lawmakers, adding that the market must be nudged to provide better security.

Further recommendations of the committee include criminalizing trade in botnet services, no matter what their use, creating a unified, Web-based reporting scheme for e-crime, more action on creating a central e-crime police unit, fast ratification of the Council of Europe CyberCrime Convention, and educating courts on Internet crime.

Read the full article on Factiva Content Watch.
To access the report, click here.

On 30 July 2007 in Berlin and 27 June 2007 in Tokyo, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology of Germany, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan signed a Joint Statement expressing the following:

"Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including the Internet, are key enablers in the development of the economies in both Germany and Japan. Spam poses a potential threat to this economic development. It must be made clear that spam has no legitimate role in the German or Japanese e-economy.

The Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology of Germany, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan see mutual benefit in strengthening friendship and cooperation between their two countries through cooperation concerning anti-spam policies and strategies. The aim is to support international cooperation in and among a variety of organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network, and the Asia-Europe Meeting.

Under this Joint Statement, cooperation in matters of mutual interest will be able to take place through the exchange of ideas, information, personnel, skills and experience and collaborative activities that will be of benefit to both sides. Because spam has implications for many groups of stakeholders, every effort will be made to ensure that all interested parties, both public and private, are consulted as appropriate. Particular areas of cooperation will include:

a) Exchanging information about anti-spam activities such as anti-spam policies and strategies, as well as technical and educational solutions to spam;

b) Encouraging the adoption of effective anti-spam technologies and network management practices by German and Japanese Internet Service Providers and major business network managers, and further cooperation between government and private sectors;

c) Supporting German and Japanese marketers or bulk email senders in adopting spam-free marketing techniques;

d) Identifying and promoting user practices and behaviours which can effectively control and limit spam and supporting the development of multi-stakeholder public information and awareness campaigns to foster increased adoption of anti-spam practices and behaviours by end users in Germany and Japan;

e) Cooperating to strengthen anti-spam initiatives being considered in international fora."

To access the Joint Statement in different languages, click here.

Sophos recently released its global statistics naming the top 12 spam-relaying countries for the period between April to June 2007. The US and China tops the list, while Europe, on the other hand, houses six of the top 12 countries mentioned in the statistics, which when combined, account for even more spam-relaying than the U.S. The statistics reveal as well that the overall global volume of spam rose by 9% during the second quarter, when compared to the same period in 2006.

"'While the US remains top spam dog, the latest chart emphasises the urgent need for joined-up global action to combat this growing problem,' said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. 'For every spam campaign, the spammers, the compromised computers used, and the people being deluged by the unsolicited mail are often located in totally different parts of the world. A consolidated effort is needed not only to pursue and prosecute spammers, but also to convince computer users everywhere of the importance of blocking rather than responding to spam messages. Everyone has a part to play if we are to win the global battle against spam.'"

Statistics on spam relayed by continent, however, show Asia as the top spam-relaying continent with the number of Asian nations relaying smaller amounts of spam. Europe, which topped the chart in the first quarter of 2007, has reduced its percentage by 6.6 percent and fallen to second place. Asia, North America, South America and Africa have all seen rises in spam-relaying activity.

Read the full article here.

KPMG, a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax, and advisory services, released a report on Cross-Border Investigations: Effectively Meeting the Challenge.

KPMG, along with the research firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates Inc. approached multinational businesses in diverse industries around the world, and asked those charged with the responsibility for cross-border investigations within those companies how they responded to their current challenges. As the trade barriers fall and international commerce expands, and as the speed of conducting business and remitting funds increases, companies that conduct business across international boundaries are recognizing the corresponding increase in the risk of fraud and misconduct. They thus face several challenges such as taking the appropriate first steps, cultural and legal differences, investigation resources, and the availability and accessibility of electronic data.

The report proposes that an effective approach can lower the risk of the occurrence of fraud or misconduct, thus lowering the possibility of being hit with serious sanctions, can demonstrate to regulators, shareholders, stakeholders, bond-ratings agencies, and the capital markets that the business takes accountability and control seriously, thereby mitigating damage to reputations, can exhibit the business's commitment to overall corporate governance activities, and can assist in a rapid and efficient response before issues spiral beyond control.

This report aims to provide insights into possible responses to the described challenges. It points out as well that an effective cross-border investigations plan demonstrates not only an organization's sound risk management practices, but also its overall commitment to good corporate governance.

Read the full report here.

The SHA-1 algorithm, which has been widely used in many of today's mainstream security products since 1995, was significantly compromised in February 2005 by a team of researchers led by Xiaoyun Wang based at China’s Shandong University. (This team had already undertaken attacks against the MD5 and SHA: hash functions previously, prior to their attack on SHA-1).

Their success prompted calls for a replacement algorithm. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology had already announced that they planned to phase out the use of SHA-1 by 2010 in favour of the SHA-2 variants. The need for a replacement algorithm has now led NIST to launch a contest to devise a successor on 27 January 2007. The competition is to begin in the fall of 2008, and continue until 2011, with full completion and approval by 2012. Contests like this one have a promising history in cryptography. Notably, the Advanced Encryption Standard (devised as a more secure replacement to the prior Data Encryption Standard) was devised through an open competition between fifteen teams of cryptographers between 1997-2000.

The New York Times has published an article on the early moves by European governments to implement the European Union Data Retention Directive.  The initial programs proposed by the governments of Germany and the Netherlands are more stringent than the directive requires.  The New York Times has noted that some of the people involved in this issue are concerned that these programs may represent a policy shift within Europe, which has traditionally followed a policy of protecting individuals' privacy rights.

More information can be found here.

The New York Times article can be found here.

Under the "Shaping Tomorrow's Networks Project" and in line with the stated objectives of the WSIS Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (November 2005), that “… ITU and other regional organisations should take steps to ensure rational, efficient and economic use of, and equitable access to, the radio-frequency spectrum by all countries ….”, ITU and the Ugo Bordoni Foundation (Italy) jointly organized a workshop to identify global trends and good practice in radio spectrum management.

The Workshop on "Market Mechanisms for Spectrum Management" was held from 22 to 23 January 2007 at ITU Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland.  

In preparation for the workshop a Background Resources Website on Spectrum Management was created. This website aims to provide a number of background resources on regional and national initiatives as well as some background information on spectrum management policy and regulation in general.

Background papers as well as Contributions to the workshop can be found here.

To download the Speaker's Presentations, please click here.

Link to Workshop Webcast Archives is available here.

More information about the Shaping Tomorrow’s Networks Project can be found here.

More information about the workshop can be found here.

See the full ITU Press Release for the event here.

We would like to inform all workshop participants that the Chairman's Report will be made available at the event website in the next few weeks.

According to a recent article in The Register, two young Dutch hackers who built a large botnet were sentenced to prison earlier this week. The main suspect, now 20, was handed a two-year sentence and a €9,000 f($11,800) fine, while his 28-year-old partner was given 18 months and ordered to pay €4,000 0 ($5,200).

As stated by the article, the men, part of a larger hacking ring, and one other suspect, were arrested in 2005 for extorting a US company, stealing identities to purchase cameras and games consoles, and distribute spyware. The operation netted an estimated €60,000 over a period of six months.

Read the full The Register article here.

A public forum on the availability and robustness of electronic communications networks was held in Brussels, Belgium on 18 January, 2007.  It was done as part of a study being conducted for the European Commission by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and professional services organizations on this issue.  The study provides insights into the availability and security provisions of electronic communication networks and also makes recommendations to the Commission, Member States, and private sector designed to enhance the security and resilience of these networks.  The findings of the study will be presented at the multi-stakeholder dialogue in Europe, which will be attended by representatives of governments, industry, and users.  Opening the dialogue will be speakers from the financial sector, the electricity sector, and the transport sector who will stress the importance of reliable communications in their operations. 

This study follows a request form the European Council in June 2004 to prepare a critical infrastructure for Europe, the adoption of a Green Paper on critical infrastructure protecion in November 2005 (more information), and a proposal by the Commission for a European Programme on Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP) in December 2006.  In May 2006, the Commission adopted a Communication on a strategy for a secure Information Society - "Dialogue, partership and empowerment" (COM(2006)251).  This action was endorsed the Council Resolution adopted on 11 December 2006.

See more information here.

For the purposes of the New Initiative Programme event on The Future of Voice, held on 15-16 January 2007 in ITU Headquarters, five background papers as well as four regional studies have been developed and presented for comments. In order to access documents, please click on the links below.

Background Papers

• "Innovation Dynamics in the IP Environment" by Dr. Knud Erik Skouby and Dr. Reza Tadayoni
• "The Future of Communications in Next Generation Networks" by Dr. James Alleman and Dr. Paul Rappoport
• "Regulatory Trends: New Enabling Environment" by Dr. Aniruddha Banerjee, Dr. Gary Madden, and Joachim Tan
• "The Status of Voice over Internet Protocol Worldwide, 2006" by Phillippa Biggs
• "The Future of Voice: Consumer Issues" by Ewan Sutherland

Regional Case Studies

• "Future of Voice in Africa" by Russell Southwood
• "Communications: Government and Business Practices in the Asia Pacific Region" by Khelia Johnson and Oluwaseun Oyeyipo
• "Regulatory Challenges of Voice over IP Telephony: Analysis for Selected South and Eastern European Countries" by Anna Riedel
• "Ruling Voice over IP: Challenges for Regulators in Latin America"

A presentation entitled Update on ITU Cybersecurity and Countering Spam Activities (PDF), was made by Robert Shaw, Deputy Head, ITU Strategy and Policy Unit, at the 2nd Joint London Action Plan (LAP) - EU Contact Network of Spam Authorities (CNSA) meeting on 13-14 December in Brussels.

At the same event, Mark Sunner of MessageLabs gave a presentation entitled Security Landscape Update describing the latest kinds of security threats, including the emergence of a new peer-to-peer 'SpamThru' zombie botnet (Slide 7).

The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) has launched its new book "Communications - The Next Decade". It consists of a series of essays by academics, politicians and regulators that examine the effect of convergence on the communications sector and the authors come to some provocative conclusions.

The book is available for download as a pdf either in sections or in its entirety from the Ofcom website.

OFCOM has just released its first research publication, The International Communications Market 2006. Report focuses specifically on the international communications market, reflecting the increasing impact of global issues on the UK commercial and regulatory communications agenda. 

To read executive summary, please click here.

To download the document, please click here.

According to the European Commission, EU member states are not doing enough to tackle the problems of spam, spyware and malicious software, despite the existing EU legislation. The implementation by EU members of this legislation is still a problem and Europe continues to suffer from illegal online activities from inside the EU and from third countries.

The Commission is now calling on all regulatory authorities and stakeholders in Europe to step up the fight against spam, spyware and malicious software and urging governments and industry to cooperate fully in this fight by applying proper filtering policies and assuring good online commercial practices. The Commission has also called for prosecution of those involved in illegal online activities. Because of the criminal and fraudulent trend in spam, and its cross border aspects, good cooperation and dialogue between the EU and third countries is essential to succeed in this fight. According to Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Information Society and Media "it is time to turn the repeated political concern about spam into concrete actions to fight spam."

For more information, see the newly released Commission Communication.

Read also the SiliconRepublic article.

OFCOM has just released a new public discussion document on Regulatory Challenges Posed by Next Generation Access Networks. 

To read executive summary, please click here.

To download the document, please click here.

A major new study prepared for the UMTS Forum by Booz Allen Hamilton quantifies the economic benefits of maintaining a harmonised approach to spectrum management across EU Member States.

To download the study click here.

On 16 November 2006, during the ECTA Conference 2006, Ms Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media spoke on From Service Competition to Infrastructure Competition: the Policy Options Now on the Table.

In her speach Ms Reding focused on recent trends in the European ICT sector. She discussed issues related to the efficient regulation, liberalization process, spectrum, investment, competition as well as "separation" stating:  

"...we have to be clear as to what is meant by terms like “structural separation” and "functional separation". The term "structural separation" has been used to mean several things: full divestiture of companies; legal separation with separate management structures; functional separation of organisational and management structures within vertically integrated undertakings; and simple accounting separation of specified activities within vertically integrated undertakings. I have expressed myself already in June in favour of finding a European way on the separation issue.

I believe that functional separation, which is a specific form of separation in the large sense as just described, could indeed serve to make competition more effective in a service-based competition environment where infrastructure-based competition is not expected to develop in a reasonable period. It may be a useful remedy in specific cases. It is certainly not a panacea. A cost benefit analysis therefore has to be made on a case by case basis, before such a remedy is imposed. And the effects of imposing such a remedy in Europe’s internal market have to be carefully analysed in each individual case. Functional separation is certainly a field where one will not be able to do without the “two pair of eyes” principle. "

For full version of the speach, please see here.

Ofcom published its second annual Technology Research and Development Report which provides an overview of emerging technologies that have the potential to make more efficient use of the radio spectrum.

More information can be found here.

ITU-T will host this year's Broadband Europe Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, 11-14 December 2006. BBEurope is an annual event which was initiated by the European Commission Framework Programme 6 BREAD project which is part of the "BroadBand for All"-strategic objective of the European Commission.

Peter Van Daele, BREAD Project Leader: "The concept of 'Broadband For All' refers to a situation in which broadband is not only available to every citizen, but is actually used by all of them. In that respect it is a more demanding concept than the traditional universal service obligation in telephony, which merely stipulates the availability, at certain conditions, of a given service. The usage of information and communication technologies via broadband infrastructures by all citizens is a policy objective because it is considered to be a key component of transforming Europe into a knowledge-based society, thus enhancing economic growth and increasing employment."

The BREAD project has amongst its objectives to develop a holistic vision encompassing technical, as well as economical and regulatory aspects. Another important aspect is of identifying roadblocks on European, national/regional level and share visions and best practices on national level to EU level.

BBEurope brings together on an international level all the BroadBand players, researchers, service providers, content providers, operators, manufacturers, policy makers, standardisation bodies, professional organisations. The meeting will discuss topics such as NGN, IPTV, wireless access, powerline, security, QoS, and broadband in rural areas. The event will conclude with a panel discussion titled: Future Perspectives in Broadband.

For a draft meeting agenda and more information on the call for papers (deadline: 10 November 2006), see the event website.

"In a sweeping set of measures, the German Federal Network Agency has ordered more than 80 network operators and service providers not to bill or collect for any phone numbers used illegally. A large number of consumers had complained to the German Federal Network Agency about so-called ping calls and other forms of telephone spamming."

"A ping call is where a call is made to a telephone number and broken off after just one ring. The subscriber’s display shows a “missed call” with an expensive premium-rate number or an 0137 number. In addition to these ping calls, another form of telephone spamming promises prizes where the person called hears a prerecorded message saying that they have won a large amount of money that can be collected by calling an expensive premium-rate number."

"The Federal Network Agency’s stringent measures are a continuation of the intense battle against telephone spam. Since May 2006 alone, the Federal Network Agency has disconnected 237 call numbers on account of ping calls and prize promises. In addition, a ban has been imposed on billing and collecting for 78 call numbers. These bans protect consumers that have called a spam number back, and prevents them from having to pay any charges. The spammer does not receive any payment for the calls initiated."

See the Federal Network Agency's press release here.