During the reporting period, Symantec monitored 44,752 unique samples of sensitive information publicly posted on underground economy servers, which accounted for 10 percent of the total distinct messages. Sellers often publicly post samples of their goods in the channels on underground economy servers. These samples serve several purposes: to prove that sellers actually have the goods in their possession; to show potential buyers the quality of goods they can expect; to enhance their credibility, and; to allow users to validate the information.

A PRIVATE intelligence company has been engaged by police to secretly monitor internet and email use by activist and protest groups, a report says.

The company was hired to monitor and report on the internet activities of anti-war campaigners, animal rights activists, environmental campaigners, and other protest groups, Fairfax Media reported.

It was hired by Victorian Police, the Australian Federal Police and the federal Attorney-General’s department.

we had just finished posting a ria novosti article captioned "russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of u.s."
when we flipped over to the drudgereport and was quite surprised to see that matt drudge appeared to be giving
the same article big publicity with an over the logo, giant type headline:

expecting to find the usual deep link; directly to the ria novosti article we were surprised and
suspicious to be taken to a copy and paste job from the drudgereport website instead:

A man who accidentally left his mobile telephone in a branch of McDonald's is suing the fast-food chain after nude photos of his wife that had been stored in the device ended up on the internet.

Internet users would have their connections terminated summarily on the whim of the film and TV industry should it win its landmark legal battle against iiNet, legal experts have warned.

Seven of the world's biggest film studios and the Seven Network last week filed suit against iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP, in the Federal Court.

They claim iiNet authorised copyright infringement by failing to prevent its users from downloading pirated movies and TV shows.

A former substitute teacher in Connecticut has reached a deal that calls for her to lose her teaching licence after exposing students to online pornography.

Forty-one-year-old Julie Amero pleaded guilty on Friday in Norwich Superior Court in Connecticut to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. She will also pay a $US100 fine.

Pornography appeared on her classroom computer in 2004 in view of seventh-graders. Several computer experts believe the machine was infected with programs that caused the images to pop up beyond her control.

A one-eyed San Francisco artist wants to replace her missing eye with a Web cam - and tech experts say it's possible.

Two Silicon Valley engineers from China have been sentenced to prison for stealing chip designs and attempting to smuggle them back into their native country

The family of a college student who killed himself live on the Internet say they're horrified his life ended before a virtual audience, and infuriated that viewers of the live webcam or operators of the Web site that hosted it didn't act sooner to save him.

Some Defense Department computer networks have been infected with a "global virus" and steps are being taken to mitigate it, the Pentagon said Friday.
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The acknowledgement followed reports that the military has banned the use of removable flash media like thumb drives or memory sticks in any Defense Department computer.

As tragic as Columbine was, Holder’s reaction to stifle free speech on the internet is nonetheless disturbing. Combine his zeal for what he may consider “reasonable regulations” along with his advocacy for a federal hate crime law(H/T to National Review), and internet users may find themselves in a world of legal woe after the Obama administration takes over in January.

Deibert, who also co-authored the book Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, said optional filtering schemes in Canada and the UK had major transparency and accountability problems that may be duplicated, if not exacerbated, in Australia.

In Canada, for example, filtering of access to child pornography is left in the hands of private ISPs. Deibert said this lack of civilian oversight meant there was no measure of redress for sites that had been improperly blocked.

"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account," Verizon said in a Thursday statement.

A prominent Iranian blogger, nicknamed the Blogfather for spawning Iran’s spectacular blogging revolution, has been arrested in Tehran and accused of spying for Israel.

Microsoft Corp. is no longer interested in buying all of Yahoo Inc., CEO Steve Ballmer said Wednesday, though he told shareholders that the company would still be "very open" to a collaboration on Internet search. His comments sent Yahoo shares diving by 19 percent.

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.

Lawyers are noting a new type of lawsuit, in which employees are suing over time spent booting [up] their computers. ... During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group -- the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA -- carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.

A look at Jayjg's wiki page:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayjg

will show his overarching interest in articles about synagogues on Wikipedia. It seems that a page for every minor synagogue is far more important to Jayjg than a page for a noteworthy man that informed the political views of the new White House chief of staff.

My point? Only a fool thinks that Wikipedia has anything to do with objective, neutral articles. Had my article been about a noteworthy terrorist father of an Arab politician, Jayjg probably would have added to it.

The government, projecting a comprehensive internet filter, originally assured internet users that they could legally receive banned content by contacting their providers and circumventing such restrictions. Now the government says they can't. All illegal content, which should include everything from pornography to political and religious speech violating Australia's hate laws, will be forbidden. It will be illegal to create or receive communication which the government disapproves.

Salon.com has published new details about a top secret government database that might be at the heart of the Bush administration’s domestic spying operations. The database is known as “Main Core.” It reportedly collects and stores vast amounts of personal and financial data about millions of Americans. Some former US officials believe that “Main Core” may have been used by the National Security Agency to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Transmissions from a top secret naval base may have caused a Qantas flight to nose dive more than 1000 feet last month, Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators say.

Investigators into Qantas Flight 72 from Singapore to Perth on October 7, are assessing possible sources of external electromagnetic interference, "including from the Harold E. Holt very low frequency transmitter near Exmouth in WA", the bureau's director of strategy and capability, Kerryn Macaulay, said.

The attorney general has charged the company and its owner, Gilbert Walker, with:

* Misrepresenting the ability to significantly increase traffic to customer Web sites by achieving top search-engine rankings and failing to deliver other promised services.

* Falsely claiming an affiliation with other marketers including Specialty Merchandise Company, a so-called drop-ship wholesaler.

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates' 2004 proclamation that the spam problem would be solved within two years has proved a bitter joke, with unsolicited messages doubling yearly to make up about 90% of mail transmitted on the Internet.

But this week, the tide turned. The number of unwanted, offensive and misleading e-mails sent across the globe plummeted by about two-thirds, to a mere 60 billion or so a day by Thursday, according to spam filtering companies.

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have collapsed.

The drastic move announced Friday highlights Sun's desperation to cut costs and survive as an independent company. Sun's shares have fallen so steeply they've crossed an ominous threshold, driving the company's market value below its cash on hand.

Wikipedia has deleted Rahm Emanuel's father's page. Benjamin M. Emanuel's entry was recommended for deletion shortly after Obama named the younger Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, and it looks like it had already been deleted (or recommended for deletion) once before in January of 2007.

Reporting from Washington -- The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide may have dropped drastically Wednesday after a San Jose Web-hosting firm, identified by many in the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity, was taken offline.

McColo Co., which computer security experts say serves as a U.S. staging ground for international firms that sell items including counterfeit pharmaceuticals and child pornography, ceased operations after two Internet providers blocked Web access.

The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide plummeted on Tuesday after a Web hosting firm identified by the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline.

Commercial Usenet access providers have been offering discounts to Usenet refugees from Time Warner and other ISPs in the hopes of getting them to switch. Giganews Vice President of Sales and Marketing David Vogelpohl told NewTeeVee that his company had “a great response” to its Time Warner special, and that Giganews is “thankful for the opportunity” provided by the ISPs’ Usenet shake-up.

In Sarah Palin's interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren this evening, she referred to bloggers as "kids in pajamas sitting in the basement of their parents' homes" spewing out mean and inaccurate things about her. Well, I am no kid, I am definitely not wearing pajames and I am living in my own house, thank you! And I am seriously depressed about the prospect of this person having a political future.

Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly "wired" presidency.

That's quite an afternoon, but we're taking offense to the Pentagon's classification of the press and bloggers as "threats" -- come on guys, we're here to help. We wouldn't spread rumors -- there's nothing at all in the hollowed-out left leg of the front pew at St. Micheal's Church in Fort Walton, Kansas.