Comcast Intercepts and Redirects Port 53 Traffic Slashdot
“An interesting (and profane) writeup of one frustrated user’s discovery that Comcast is actually intercepting DNS requests bound for non-Comcast DNS servers and redirecting them to their own servers. I had obviously heard of the DNS hijacking for nonexistent domains, but I had no idea they’d actually prevent people from directly contacting their own DNS servers.”

Mozilla To Launch “Build Your Own Browser” SlashDot
“Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. … Through the Build Your Own Browser program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser, such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals.”…

T-Mobile hack data is genuine The Register
T-Mobile has confirmed that files posted on a full disclosure mailing list are genuine – but the company fails to explain whether or not cybercriminals really got full access to its systems, IDG reports. Here’s T-Mobile’s latest statement per IDG (http://blogs.csoonline.com/t_mobile_confirms_hackers_info_is_legit): “To reaffirm, the protection of our customers’ information and the security of our systems is paramount at T-Mobile. Regarding the recent claim on a Web site, we’ve identified the document from which information was copied, and believe possession of this alone is not enough to cause harm to our customers. We continue to investigate the matter, and have taken additional precautionary measures to further ensure our customers’ information and our systems are protected. At this moment, we are unable to disclose additional information in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, but customers can be assured if there is any evidence that customer information has been compromised, we would inform those affected as quickly as possible.”

Professor Tries To Get Info On Newspaper Commenters TechDirt
There have been a bunch of lawsuits lately testing the boundaries of various “shield laws” that protect journalists from having to give up information on sources. There was one recent case that found that even comments on online newspaper articles could be protected by shield laws, as those commenters represented a source. However, a professor in Montana is suing to try to find out the identity of some commenters on a local news article.

Sears Settles With FTC For Putting Spyware On Customers’ Computers TechDirt
You may recall a couple years back, a controversy over the fact that Sears appeared to be installing spyware on the computers of online customers who had agreed to join a “community.” Sears insisted this wasn’t true, and that it really was software to help create a community of shoppers — but the evidence suggested otherwise. The FTC eventually got involved, and now Sears has settled the charges that it was unfairly spying on users without clearly indicating this to users. Sears insisted that because the fine print of the terms of service for joining the community said that it would track your online browsing, it was in the clear, but the FTC noted, accurately, that most users would not have gotten that impression from signing up.

[AU] Internet filter: $44.5m and no goal in sight Sydney Morning Herald
The Rudd Government’s internet censorship policy will cost about $90,000 per blocked web address to implement and the Government has admitted it has not developed any criteria to determine whether trials of the scheme are a success.

Dell to bundle open sauce for small businesses The Inquirer
Computer manufacturer Dell will be bundling together hardware with pre-configured open source software packages for small and medium business (SMB) customers. Amit Midha, president of Dell Asia Pacific and Japan small business operations, said the company is seeing a migration away from proprietary software to open source software at small businesses, which is being driven by cost cutting. “The more advanced the customers, the more likely they will adopt open source, because they are likely to ask why they should spend money on something they can get free,”…

ECHR overturns Court of Appeal prisoner privacy ruling The Register
Prisoners have the same right to privacy in medical correspondence as they do in relation to communication with their MPs, the European Court of Human Rights has said. The Court has overturned a ruling of the UK’s Court of Appeal. The Court said that fears that a prison inmate might send secret messages to the outside world via correspondence with his doctor were outweighed by his right to private communication with a doctor… The prisoner in question has been awarded €1,000 in damages and €6,000 in costs.

Texas Lawmakers Crack Down On Fake Profiles MediaPost
In a move aimed at cracking down on cyerbullying, Texas lawmakers passed a new bill that makes it a crime to impersonate people online. The new “online harassment” statute makes it a felony to create phony profiles on social networking sites with the intent to “harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten” others. The statute defines commercial social networking sites broadly, saying they include any sites that allow people to register to communicate with others or create Web pages or profiles. (Email programs and message boards are excluded from the definition.) The law was sent to the Texas governor for signature last week.

Minn. regulators drop bid to block online gambling Associated press
Minnesota regulators may have been outplayed when they bet a decades-old federal law would lend itself to an online gambling crackdown. Following a lawsuit by the gambling industry, which considers the push a violation of federal commerce and free-speech protections, state officials said Monday they’ll withdraw a demand that Internet service providers block access to hundreds of sites. In exchange for the state backing off, the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association filed court papers Monday ending its court fight.

Cisco: By 2013 Video Will Be 90 Percent Of All Consumer IP Traffic And 64 Percent of Mobile Tech Crunch
By 2013, annual global IP traffic will reach two-thirds of a zettabyte, according to a new forecast of IP traffic issued by Cisco today. What is a zettabyte? It is a trillion gigabytes, dummy. (I had to look that up too). And that number represents more than a fivefold increase in IP traffic from today. (See the forecast in the tables below)… [Comment: For Canadians this means: Prepare for more throttle! "up to" 5kB/s for 90$/month *100-megs of B/W included. **Additional B/W usage billed at $12.95 per 250-meg, rounded up.]

Computer injuries on rise, youths most at risk: study Ottawa Citizen
Blurry vision and wrist pain are among the well-known health perils of computer use, but a study released on Tuesday shows a rise in previously overlooked injuries due to computer equipment falling over. Researchers found a 732 per cent rise in “acute computer-related injuries” from 1994 through 2006, double the 309 per cent increase in household computer ownership over the period, according to a study in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Young children are particularly at risk, it said.

McAfee downplays service pack fail The Register
Virus update leaves PCs unbootable – A recent McAfee service pack led to systems being rendered unbootable, according to posts on the security giant’s support forums. The mandatory service pack for McAfee’s corporate Virus scanning product, VSE 8.7, was designed to address minor security bugs but instead tagged windows system files as malware. The software update was issued on 27 May and pulled on 2 June, after problems occurred. Users were advised to keep the patch if they’d already installed it in a low-key announcement on McAfee’s knowledge base. Posts on McAfee’s support forum paint a different picture of PCs and server left unbootable after the update had automatically deleted Windows systems files wrongly identified as potentially malign. Our source among the McAfee user community, who asked not to be named, described the incident as a “massive fail” by McAfee … [McAfee still owes p2pnet money. But we're not holding our breath.]

McKinnon launches second extradition challenge The Register
A judicial review of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s handling of the Gary McKinnon extradition proceedings began in London today. The hearing, which is expected to last two days, will consider whether Smith acted correctly in allowing extradition proceedings against the UFO-hunter-turned-hacker to proceed, despite his recent diagnosis with Asperger’s Syndrome. Separately, McKinnon’s legal team recently launched a legal objection against a February decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute McKinnon in the UK. McKinnon signed a confession to hacking offences, but UK prosecutors decided that this still constituted insufficient evidence for a case. US prosecutors, by contrast, aren’t obliged to present any evidence in order to secure extradition, under the terms of the one-sided extradition treaty between the US and UK.

U.S. Lawmakers Feud Over Legislation Banning Release of ‘Torture’ Photos Fox
The debate over releasing photos that potentially show the abuse of detainees at the hands of U.S. troops is on the verge of exploding into a full-blown standoff on Capitol Hill. House Democrats are threatening to defeat a war spending bill unless an amendment that prohibits the release of the so-called “torture” photos is removed. But the authors of the amendment, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are threatening a filibuster if the provision, which passed unanimously in the Senate, is stripped out. [Comment: ah]

Obama Taps Well-Known Hacker as Security Adviser Fox
The Obama administration is embracing the dark side to help it fight cyberattacks. On Friday, a well-known hacker was one of 16 people named to the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council (HSAC). Jeff Moss, aka “Dark Tangent,” started out as a high-school “phone phreak” making free long-distance calls and later founded the DefCon and Black Hat hackers’ conferences. He’s since worked in information security for accounting giant Ernst & Young, and now is a consultant testing corporations’ cybersecurity. But he told Wired News and Cnet News he was genuinely surprised to be asked to join a government law-enforcement body.

Pete Doherty busted ‘injecting drugs on plane’ News AU
British rocker Pete Doherty has been arrested and fined by police in Geneva, Switzerland, after allegedly injecting drugs during a British Airways flight. A spokesperson for Geneva police declined to confirm the reason for the fine, but sources said he was found slumped in a plane toilet with a needle stuck in his arm during a flight from London to Geneva on the weekend.

Does Obama Want to Replace Your Facebook Profile with Your Social Security Card? Alternet
Today U.S. President Obama announced plans for a “cyberspace strategy” that includes everything from possible offensive cyberwar strategies to education. It also contains a little-discussed “identity management” plan that makes me wonder if Facebook profiles are about to become the new Social Security cards… Here is what a “cyber-security identity management vision” really is: A plan for how the government will establish and track your identity online. One of the biggest problems for law enforcement and business has been the way people can take on many identities online, which are very difficult to verify. [Comment: The land of the free?]

Marc – p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

June, 2009