Hack the Planet

The UK Ministry of Defence has come under attack from a hacker who is allegedly threatening to target military satellites unless a £3 million ransom is handed over. According to a story in today’s Daily Mail, the hacker has already seized control of one satellite, altering its course. The satellite in question is said to be involved in co-ordinating bombing raids on Iraq. Other targets for the hacker have been GCHQ - the spying operation that listens in on telephone calls and other communications - and a number of UK operations overseas. Officers...

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Stateside Perspective on CyberCrime Powers

The US Senate has passed a bill to strengthen the hands of federal prosecutors who fight computer crime by removing some of the more common hurdles in prosecuting online miscreants.One provision would eliminate a requirement that prosecutors prove illegal activity has caused at least $5,000 in damage before they can bring charges of unauthorized computer access. The threshold often proves problematic in pursuing cyber crime because a single incident may spread the damage across hundreds of thousands of victims. Because the harm is so dispersed,...

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Insecure Wireless and the Terrorist Email

Indian police raided the Mumbai home of an American expatriate after someone used his open wireless network to send an email that took responsibility for a bomb blast that killed at least 42 people... We've often argued that Wi-Fi bandwidth is like air, and the oft-repeated warnings about people leaching off unsecured networks was so much hysteria. This experience goes to show there are down-sides to any share-and-share-alike philosop...

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