Three graduate students from CMU have written an interesting paper on a process they call Path Identifier Marking, which would use a voluntary adoption of additional router processing to help track down the true origin of packets on the internet. The purpose is to allow the identification and nullification of …

Spamhaus (keepers of one of the many "black lists" of spammers' IP addresses) has penned a response to the folks at eMarketersAmerica (EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG) who filed suit against them in Florida court claiming that Spamhaus is illegally stopping legal communication. Clearly, the spammers don't understand, but the response is nicely …

The RIAA apologized to the Penn State department of astronomy and astrophysics after falsely accusing them of having illegal content on their FTP server. The original letter (according to this article on CNET) was received last Thursday and demanded that the institution take remove the site and delete the offending …

An article on SecurityFocus heralds the coming of the book Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. What makes the self-publication of this book by hacker/author Andrew Shane Huang of interest to an audience broader than the hacker community is the fuss over whether Microsoft will attempt to …

Preying on the pent up demand for the upcoming national do-not-call registry, a number of web sites have started charging people to be put on the list when it becomes available later this year. Problem is, the service is free and no company is allowed to register people with the …

CNet Asia is reporting that the Tokyo Book Fair has a demonstration showing the use of RFID (Radio Frequency ID) technology to track shoppers within a book store. The concept is to station the receivers on shelves, so that you can see where the shoppers go while browsing for the …

An appeals court has decided to hear the case against Verizon by theRIAA. The case involves a subpoena by the RIAA requesting Verizon disclose personal information (name, etc.) about a user they suspect was illegally sharing files.

An article in Wired today reports that the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as a way to provide legal cover for wiretaps is increasing as state and federal law enforcement agencies reduce the number of "Title III" Federal wiretap requests. The FISA taps are completely secret and are …

An insightful article from FindLaw about the recent court decisions on P2P file sharing and Apple's entry into the music market.

A significant vulnerability in Microsoft's Passport facility was found by a security enthusiast. The exploit allows the changing of arbitrary passwords to arbitrary accounts, and through such access to services, personal information, and potentially hotmail email. Microsoft has been alerted to the problem, but has not responded with a …

No, they're not getting $16.4M for being purveyors of fine spam. Instead, they have received a judgment in that amount from Howard Carmack (no relation to the games developer) from Buffalo, NY who reportedly sent (with his "ring" of spammers) some 825 million pieces of spam using EarthLink's …

Another example of the DMCA hard at work can be seen today at MacOS X Hints. The author has wisely chosen not to take on the RIAA or Apple, by flouting the DMCA and publishing information on how to circumvent the copy protection scheme used on the tunes downloaded from …

An article from the Associated Press, appearing on Yahoo covers an interview with Bill Gates of Microsoft about the Next Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly known as Palladium, FAQ Here). Key questions were whether the system would require users to use it for all documents (his answer: no, but they'd …

This little gem of a story comes to us courtesy of Aftenposten (a Norwegian newspaper with English information). It seems that in February, a TV2 comedian burned a US flag in the background of his monologue. Unfortunately for Mr. Jespersen, this appears to be an illegal act under paragraph 95 …

Just in time to save the consumer from the changed ways of the RIAA, Methlab Productions has released their PeerGuardian software that blocks transmissions from IP addresses known to be haunted by the music industry. An article from Wired details the next salvo in the fight between the RIAA and …

An article from Wired describes a recent bill that has made it through committee and in to the full assembly in California which would require that subpoenas made to ISPs for user information be forwarded to the customer within 14 days of receipt and that the customer have 30 days …

Apple apparently had a bug in their AppleID (used for common log in to Apple's services, including the new Apple Music Store). The bug enabled a crafty web surfer to change the password on any user's account with merely their email address as the key. The folks at Wired report …

A thought-provoking article from Wired give a number of different people's take on the appointment of Nuala O'Connor Kelly (formerly of DoubleClick) to the position of Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security. The reviews so far are mixed, but she hasn't really had the opportunity to do …

With the growing concern about privacy and security for online services and databases, security engineers are using a series of fake data to catch the errant crackers. Much of this isn't news or new, but the term "honeytokens" appears to be. Coined earlier this year on a mailing list, it …

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is on the warpath and they are now preparing all sorts of "special ops" to attack their enemies (the consumer). An article on the New York Times site describes a set of technologies and techniques (many of them believed to be illegal under …