A Cyber-Attack on an American City Perens

Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes serving the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. That attack demonstrated a severe fault in American infrastructure: its centralization. The city of Morgan Hill and parts of three counties lost 911 service, cellular mobile telephone communications, land-line telephone, DSL internet and private networks, central station fire and burglar alarms, ATMs, credit card terminals, and monitoring of critical utilities. In addition, resources that should not have failed, like the local hospital’s internal computer network, proved to be dependent on external resources, leaving the hospital with a “paper system” for the day. Commerce was disrupted in a 100-mile swath around the community, from San Jose to Gilroy and Monterey. Cash was king for the day as ATMs and credit card systems were down, and many found they didn’t have sufficient cash on hand. Services employees dependent on communication were sent home. The many businesses providing just-in-time operations to agriculture could not communicate. In technical terms, the area was partitioned from the surrounding internet. What was the attackers goal? Nothing has been revealed. Robbery? With wires cut, silent alarms were useless. Manipulation of the stock market? Companies, brokerages, and investors in the very wealthy community were cut off. Mayhem, murder, terrorism? But nothing like that seems to have happened. Some theorize unhappy communications workers, given the apparent knowledge of the community’s infrastructure necessary for this attack. Or did the attackers simply want to teach us a lesson? Although they are silent on the topic, I hope those responsible for emergency services, be they in business or government, are learning the lessons of Morgan Hill. The first lesson is what stayed up: stand-alone radio systems and not much else. Cell phones failed. Cellular towers can not, in general, connect phone calls on their own, even if both phones are near the same tower. They communicate with a central switching computer to operate, and when that system doesn’t respond, they’re useless. But police and fire authorities still had internal communications via two-way radio.

Swedish Anti-Pirates Threaten BitTorrent Trackers TorrentFreak

When the Pirate Bay verdict came in last Friday, many feared that the copyright holders would use it as ammunition against other sites. Indeed, Antipiratbyrån – the Swedish anti-piracy office – is now going after BitTorrent trackers with that verdict in hand. They demand that the trackers stop their activities, threatening them with legal action. A few days ago we reported that many Swedish BitTorrent trackers had shut down voluntarily, fearing that they might end up in the same position as the four defendants in the Pirate Bay (mis)trial. Their suspicions were not far off, as the Swedish anti-piracy office is sending out emails to those who operate BitTorrent trackers where copyrighted material is being shared. “We noticed that you, through the activities with swedvdr.org, similarly engaged in copyright infringement of several works whose rights belong to our principals. You are hereby requested to immediately take the necessary measures to prevent the ongoing incursions,” wrote Antipiratbyrån in an email to the operator of the Swedvdr BitTorrent tracker —- with demands.

BT Blocks Pirate Bay, P2P Sites Shut Billboard

U.K. telco BT and other mobile providers have blocked access to P2P BitTorrent trackers including the Pirate Bay. However, the move is a result of the content that such sites link to, rather than the issue of copyright infringement or the April 17 court verdict against the Pirate Bay in Sweden. “BT and the other U.K. mobile operators have agreed and implemented a voluntary code of practise for mobile content that restricts access to content unsuitable for customers under the age of 18,” said a BT statement. “The list of sites and content that is restricted is compiled by individual operators themselves. The warning that BT provides links to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) website for information on the code only.”

Google Street View cleared of breaking Data Protection Act The Guardian

Google Street View, the controversial website that shows 360-degree street views of many of Britain’s cities does not breach the Data Protection Act, the information commissioner ruled today. Hundreds of people complained that their privacy was breached by the service, which launched last month for 25 cities and towns. Today the Information Commissioner’s Office rejected those complaints but said it would watch Google closely to ensure that it responded quickly to requests for the removal of images that identified individuals.

German cabinet backs new law against child porn Reuters

The German cabinet backed a new draft law Wednesday that would make it harder to access child pornography online and easier to prosecute those who use it. The bill will oblige Internet providers to block access to child porn sites by installing a “stop” sign when people try to enter them, the German ministries for justice, families and the economy said in a joint news conference. “This is an important, decisive signal demonstrating our determination to fight child pornography,” Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told reporters. Critics of the law, which is due to come into effect before a federal election in September, say the blocks can easily be circumvented and fail to address the root of the problem.

E-commerce laws to be upgraded Australian IT

Domestic e-commerce laws will be upgraded so Australia can adopt the United Nations Convention on the use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts – a new legal standard that underpins business activity conducted over the internet. The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) yesterday agreed to amend state and territory Electronic Transactions Acts, following “overwhelming support” for reforms aimed at addressing technological advances since the present uniform ETAs — based on the 1996 Model Law on E-Commerce — were adopted. The rules address means of confirming the validity of electronic transactions, including the recognition of legal contracts, and rules for establishing the time and place of dispatch and receipt of electronic communications.

Experts: Malicious program targets Macs CNN

Mac computers are known for their near-immunity to malicious computer programs that plague PCs. Some security experts say viruses are moving toward Mac as those computers become more popular. But that may be changing somewhat, according to computer security researchers. It seems that as sleek Mac computers become more popular, they’re also more sought-after targets for the authors of harmful programs.

MySpace CEO Stepping Down In Management Shake-up ChannelWire

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is stepping down as head of the social networking Web site, MySpace’s parent company News Corp. announced Wednesday. The move comes just a month after former AOL executive Jonathan Miller was named to oversee News Corp.’s digital media business, raising speculation Miller is shaking up the MySpace management ranks.

MySQL founder and ex-CEO react to Oracle/Sun Heise Online

Both Monty Widenius, founder of MySQL, and Marten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL and until recently, VP of the Sun database group, have both commented on Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems and MySQL. Observers had noted that Oracle may not be interested in pursuing development of MySQL, despite Oracle’s announcement saying MySQL would join the ranks of its other database products. In his blog post about the acquisition Monty Widenius notes the range of reasons that Oracle would buy Sun, from hardware, storage to virtualisation, cloud computing, OpenSolaris and Java. But he also worries that the options for MySQL were either kill MySQL, sell MySQL to a third party, or embrace MySQL and open source. Widenius hopes that Oracle will take the latter course of action but notes that Oracle do not have the best possible reputation in the open source community.

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April, 2009