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Items by Ryan Singel

Wired News: Top Stories

State Can Ban Prescription Data Mining, Appeals Court Rules

Fetched: November 20th, 2008, 11:28pm CST by Ryan Singel

Data-mining companies have no free-speech right to buy and analyze prescription data in order to market drugs to doctors, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The ruling clears the way for other states to mimic New Hampshire's landmark law prohibiting the widespread practice of buying and selling prescription information.
Experimental Shoe-Print Database Sees the Soles of Criminals

Fetched: November 20th, 2008, 11:28pm CST by Ryan Singel

Criminals better watch their steps, as a Univerisity of Buffalo computer science professor develops a search engine for shoe prints left at crime scenes. With funding from the Justice Department, professor Sargur Srihari hopes his computational forensics will make life easier for shoe-identification experts, and harder for criminals.
Chertoff: We're Closing that Boarding-Pass Loophole

Fetched: November 17th, 2008, 3:34pm CST by Ryan Singel

Five years later, the Department of Homeland Security gets around to fixing a security hole that allows people to easily fly under an alias, bypassing anti-terror name screening.
Net Spying Firm and ISPs Sued Over Ad System

Fetched: November 14th, 2008, 11:46pm CST by Ryan Singel

ISP customers sue a controversial Net monitoring firm and its ISP partners, alleging that the companies violated federal wiretapping law with their ad-targeting scheme. All have already quit monitoring customers' behavior after bad press and congressional pressure.
Classmates.com User Sues; Schoolmates Weren't Really Looking for Him

Fetched: November 11th, 2008, 11:00pm CST by Ryan Singel

When Classmates.com told user Anthony Michaels last Christmas Eve that his former school chums were trying to contact him, he pulled out his wallet and upgraded to the premium membership that would let him contact long-lost fifth-grade dodge-ball buddies and see if his secret crush from high school had looked him up online.
But once he'd parted with the $15, Michaels learned the shocking truth: No one he knew was trying to contact him at all. Classmates.com's come-on was a lie, and he'd been scammed.
At least that's what the San Diego resident alleges in a lawsuit (.pdf) filed against one of the net's original social networking sites, whose banner ads featuring unflattering yearbook pictures remain a staple around the internet. If the lawsuit, which is seeking class action status, succeeds, it could raise the minimum standards of honesty for online businesses.
"Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts … Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile," the complaint reads. "Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized ... as members who viewed Plaintiff's profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter."
The putative class action suit, filed in a California state court on October 30, says there are hundreds of thousands of Anthony Michaels around the country who were similarly duped. The lawsuit asks the court to force the company to refund millions in subscription dollars and fine the company for deceptive advertising.
Lawsuits that seem funny are not always a laughing matter, according to Scott A. Kamber, a plaintiff's attorney with KamberEdelson.
"Cases that seemingly have a similar chuckle factor are rooted in a real consumer fraud that influences a consumer purchase decision," Kamber said. "Sometimes people are defrauded and misled and obviously there is a financial benefit in companies making those claims or they wouldn't do it."
Classmates.com could have a good defense, according to internet law expert Mark Rasch, if someone was actually contacting Michaels but was defrauding Classmates.com by claiming to have gone to a certain high school.
"Or were they making statements they know to be false to induce a person to pony up the oney for a premium service to learn these statements weren't true?" Rasch asked. "A lot of this comes down to knowledge and intent on the part of Classmates.com."
Classmates.com was founded in 1995, years before Friendster, MySpace or Facebook grew popular, and is one of the net's largest advertisers, having spent $30 million in 2005, for example, on online advertising.
The company claims to have 40 million registered users, some of whom pay $15 every three months to be able to send and receive messages. The site's billing practices are complained about nearly daily on ConsumerAffairs.com.
The suit is not the first legal action accusing a prominent online company of deception. In 2003, Bonzi Software settled a class action lawsuit that alleged its banner ads (which mimicked Windows operating system warnings) were deceptive. And in January, Member Source Media agreed to pay $200,000 to settle a Federal Trade Commission complaint about the company's spam messages that promised consumers, "Congratulations. You've won an iPod video player."
While the FTC and state attorneys general have handled some deceptive advertising claims, in tight financial times the burden of online fraud fighting is increasingly falling on class-action attorneys, according to Kamber.
"Attorney General offices are seriously under budget pressure and federal enforcement in last eight last years has not been picking up the slack for the state budget issues," Kamber said. "That leaves class action attorneys on the front line of technology in the consumer area."
Neither Classmates.com nor Michaels' law firm, Kabateck, Brown and Kellner, responded to requests for comment.
Attorney Eric Sinrod, a partner at Duane Morris in San Francisco and a legal columnist at Findlaw, says that legitmate companies make a better target for lawsuits than outright scammers, like those sending fraudulent offers of long-lost Nigerian fortunes.
"Classmates.com is not some fly-by-night company -- it is a real service, not something being operated by unknown people offshore," Sinrod said. "So they are subject to U.S. law and regulators if they are conduct themselves improperly."
Bush Spy Revelations Anticipated When Obama Is Sworn In

Fetched: November 10th, 2008, 6:29am CST by Ryan Singel
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, Americans won't just get a new president; they might finally learn the full extent of George W. Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Since the New York Times first revealed in 2005 that the NSA was eavesdropping on citizen's overseas phone calls and e-mails, few additional details about the massive "Terrorist Surveillance Program" have emerged. That's because the Bush Administration has stonewalled, misled and denied documents to Congress, and subpoenaed the phone records of the investigative reporters.

Now privacy advocates are hopeful that a President Obama will be more forthcoming with information. But for the quickest and most honest account of Bush's illegal policies, they say don't look to the incoming president. Watch instead for the hidden army of would-be whistle-blowers who've been waiting for Inauguration Day to open the spigot on the truth.

"I'd bet there are a lot of career employees in the intelligence agencies who'll be glad to see Obama take the oath so they can finally speak out against all this illegal spying and get back to their real mission," says Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's Washington D.C. legislative director.

New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh already has a slew of sources waiting to spill the Bush administration's darkest secrets, he said in an interview last month. "You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on January 20. [They say,] 'You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then.'"

So far, virtually everything we know about the NSA's warrantless surveillance has come from whistle-blowers. Telecom executives told USA Today that they had turned over billions of phone records to the government. Former AT&T employee Mark Klein provided wiring diagrams detailing an internet-spying room in a San Francisco switching facility. And one Justice Department attorney had his house raided and his children's computers seized as part of the FBI's probe into who leaked the warrantless spying to the New York Times. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales even suggested the reporters could be prosecuted under antiquated treason statutes.

If new whistle-blowers do emerge, Fredrickson hopes the additional information will spur Congress to form a new Church Committee -- the 1970s bipartisan committee that investigated and condemned the government's secret spying on peace activists, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other political figures.

But even if the anticipated flood of leaks doesn't materialize, advocates are hopeful that Obama and the Democratic Congress will eventually get around to airing out the White House closet anyway. "Obama has pledged a lot more openness," says Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was the first to file a federal lawsuit over the illegal eavesdropping.

One encouraging sign for civil liberties groups is that the Center for American Progress's president John Podesta is one of the top three heading Obama's transition team, which will staff and set priorities for the new administration. The center was a tough and influential critic of the Bush administration's warrantless spying.

Among the unanswered questions:
- Were there quid pro quo promises made to the phone companies and internet carriers who cooperated with the secret spying? For example, were co-conspirators promised lucrative government contracts?
- Did the program appropriate the CALEA wiretapping infrastructure? Under CALEA, Congress forced telecoms to build surveillance capabilities into the phone and internet network, but promised it would only be used with court orders.
- What did the first version of the surveillance program sweep into its net? In March 2004, a squadron of top officials at the Justice Department, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI head Robert Mueller, threatened to resign over the illegality of the program. The program was subsequently scaled back, but nobody knows what the NSA was doing that was bad enough to horrify Ashcroft.
- What was the legal rationale for the surveillance?FISA explicitly made warrantless domestic eavesdropping illegal, but the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a series of memos justifying the spying anyway. The ACLU is fighting the Bush administration for access to the documents, as well as secret memos justifying torture.
The other looming question is whether, as president, Obama will continue the warrantless spying himself. Obama voted with the majority in Congress to legalize the Bush spying program in July, but the constitutionality of the measure is yet untested. An Obama administration is less likely than Bush to devise convoluted legal end-runs around the Constitution, according to Marc Rotenberg, the head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"Keep in mind that Obama is a constitutional scholar and has a deep understanding of checks and balance," says Rotenberg. "It's hard to imagine that an Obama administration would support ... warrantless wiretapping."

With the financial markets and the economy in deep trouble, it's unlikely that Obama will quickly turn to the issue of warrantless wiretapping. But the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T over the surveillance could force the new administration to pick a side quickly. In December, a federal judge in San Francisco will hold a hearing on whether the retroactive immunity granted to AT&T and other telecoms as part of the FISA Amendments Act is Constitutional. Obama voted for the act in order to legalize the spying program, but tried unsuccessfully to strip out the immunity provision.

EFF's Opsahl hopes that if EFF prevails in December, an Obama administration might let the decision stand, clearing the way for EFF's lawsuit to proceed.

"If we are victorious in our constitutional challenge, I would hope the Obama administration would accept that loss and move on without an appeal," says Opsahl. "But we will have to see."
In Troubling Economic Times, Consumers Flock to Online Psychics

Fetched: November 8th, 2008, 9:39pm CST by Ryan Singel

Katrina Spears, a self-described internet medium, was running errands Sept. 30, the day the Dow plummeted 770 points.

"When I got home that day, I had messages from 30 clients," Spears says.

While it doesn't take a psychic to see that tough times lay ahead for the economy, online practitioners of the divination arts say they're seeing a marked sift in the questions posed by their clientele, with anxious consumers increasingly asking what's in store for them financially in the months ahead. Believers who normally seek psychics for advice on a cheating spouse are now asking whether a pink slip is in their future, and internet psychics across the board saw a spike in traffic in the days following the initial market crash.

The boom in superstition is a predicable response to troubling times, says Columbia Business School professor Gita Johar, who's studied the phenomenon. "If the future is uncertain, people turn to psychics," Johar says. Consumers tend to embrace the supernatural when confronted by stress, combined with uncertainty. "You have an illusion then that you can then control the outcome. People want the illusion of control."

Spears is one of many self-described psychics, empaths and mediums who make a living giving online readings by instant message or phone on sites such as LivePerson.com and AT&T's Keen.com. Spears performs readings by online chat for $2 to $3 a minute, and says that since September she's been talking almost exclusively with Americans who are concerned about their economic futures.

"People ask if they are going to lose their house or if they are going to find a job soon, or am I going to be laid off," says Spears,

"Usually I can give some time frames, and for some people, it is clearly 'yes,'" Spears says. "I can tell them if another job is coming and a time frame for when they will get another job."

Hourly rates for online psychics typically range from $100 to $1,000 per hour, but those steep rates haven't seemed to deter the monetarily anxious from reaching out.

Another IM reader, Pure Empathy, says his business has soared since the economic downturn. He charges $2 a minute and says he gives away lots of free time.

"It's really starting to pick up," he says. "People are more depressed, and I can easily make $150 to $200 a day."

"Finances are coming up a lot more lately," he adds. "People want to know when their finances are going to get better. I tell them I don't see it happening until middle of next year — we are going to have a long down period."

But not all psychics are having bullish times in a bear market.

Amaya Elliot, an intuitive and spiritual consultant who also does IM readings via Live Person, says her business has already entered its own recession: It's off 50 percent from months ago.

This time last year Elliot — also known as Autumn Dancing Heart — charged a higher rate and made a "fairly nice living" off four to eight sessions a day.

The drop-off is a bit unusual, though, according to Elliot who has been reading professionally since 1999. "Usually in times of crisis — war and usually in economic crisis — business picks up," Elliot says. "Not this time."

Elliot might take some solace in Spears' reading of the U.S. economy.

"Things will improve in March, April and May and start progressing from there," Spears says. "We are not about to go into a holy war that means everyone will have to eat rice and beans for the rest of our lives. But it is back to basics, and people won't shop as much."

Spears also says that her initial spike of new business has declined, but that her American clients remain economically worried.

"Things are back to normal," Spears says. "I have several clients in Australia and for them every day is the same as usual, but people in the U.S. are stressed about jobs and the economy."

All three say their job isn't just about making future predictions, it's also about giving good advice and listening to people's concerns.

"I answer all of my questions using my cards or gifts, but I make sure to tell them to use common sense in spending, to not quit a job that is a sure pay until another job is secured, and to make sure to use a budget and stick to it as best they can," Elliot says. "I also remind them that readings are entertainment and not a necessity, to keep in mind the things that are wants and the things that are needs."

Sometimes people ask the obvious, according to Spears.

"Sometimes a person asks what does that person feel about me," Spears says. "If he doesn't call you in four weeks, that tells you other things are on his mind, and you are not it."
ICANN Targeting Notorious Domain Name Seller

Fetched: October 31st, 2008, 2:06am CDT by Ryan Singel

The net's naming authority is moving to shut down a domain name seller after learning its CEO was convicted of online credit card fraud. Security researchers say the Estonia-based EstDomains plays too friendly with online criminals, while the company defends itself by saying it already has a new CEO.
DDoS Attacks Strike Campaigns Against Same-Sex Marriage Bans

Fetched: October 31st, 2008, 2:06am CDT by Ryan Singel

A group fighting a California anti-gay marriage amendment says its website was attacked Wednesday night with a denial-of-service attack right as it launched a fundraising drive. The No on Prop 8 capaign says a similar Florida group was also hit with a DDoS and that the Secret Service is now investigating.
ACLU Assails 100-Mile Border Zone as 'Constitution-Free'

Posted: October 22nd, 2008, 12:16pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Under a little known post-9/11 power, border agents can stop and question people up to 100 miles from the border without any cause. Though the courts approve, the ACLU says it's unconstitutional and that Congress needs to step in.
'Anonymous' Member Unmasked, Charged With Web Attack on Scientology

Posted: October 17th, 2008, 6:17pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Federal agents charge an 18-year-old New Jersey man with computer hacking Friday for participating in an anonymous internet attack on the Church of Scientology in January. He faces up to 18 months in prison for an offense that thousands of bored online griefers joined in on.
Telecom Spying Amnesty Unconstitutional, EFF Tells Court

Posted: October 17th, 2008, 1:19pm CDT by Ryan Singel

A civil liberties group suing AT&T over its alleged complicity in illegal government wiretapping tells a federal court Thursday that Congress had no right to pass a law giving telecoms a free pass for helping out.
VeriSign, ICANN Square Off Over DNS Root

Posted: October 10th, 2008, 4:59pm CDT by Ryan Singel

As the U.S. government starts the process of closing a major net vulnerability, two longtime net infrastructure rivals -- the non-profit ICANN and for-profit VeriSign -- are battling over who will compile and verify the net's most important document. Internet experts give the nod to ICANN and bring up VeriSign's greedy past.

Wired.com
Feds Start Moving on Net Security Hole

Posted: October 8th, 2008, 7:05pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Following a massive security hole that opened this summer, the U.S. government is now asking the public for comment on who should control and sign the net's most important document. Security experts say it's about time.

Wired.com
Data-Mining for Terrorists Not 'Feasible,' DHS-Funded Study Finds

Posted: October 7th, 2008, 2:30pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Searching for terrorists in masses of electronic data doesn't work and will lead to unacceptable privacy invasions, a government-funded commission reported Tuesday. Instead, the government should carefully evaluate how it uses the same technology as book recommendation software, and update the nation's privacy laws.

Wired.com
Toy Robot Intended to Save Humans From Evil

Posted: October 6th, 2008, 12:05pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Zeno, a toy robot that may be available for around $300 in 2010, is designed to fend off future robots that are psychotic and lack sympathy for humans.

Wired.com
Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal Searches

Posted: October 4th, 2008, 4:26pm CDT by Ryan Singel

If a false entry in a database leads to an unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you? That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday.

Wired.com
Chinese Skype Software Secretly Logs Political Chat Messages

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 2:26pm CDT by Ryan Singel

A Chinese-version of Skype's text messaging and online phone call software secretly stores copies of political messages on servers controlled by Skype's Chinese partner company, according to a watchdog report. Despite company promises that the software offers secure communication, a Canadian researcher found and decrypted more than a million messages, transmitted to company servers, triggered by keywords like "democracy" and "Olympics."

Wired.com
Bill Proposes Privacy for Americans' Laptops at Border

Posted: October 1st, 2008, 4:14pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Proposed legislation introduced in the Senate on Monday would enhance the privacy of American travelers. Among other things, the measure requires border agents to have reasonable suspicion someone is engaged in criminal activity before searching their laptop at a U.S. border stop. The legislation is to counter recently published Homeland Security rules allowing inspections of electronics without any reason.

Wired.com
See the Future at Wired NextFest

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 1:00pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Millennium Park -- Chicago's $475 million ode to its future -- is constantly watched over by rangers on Segways who glide around the park's public art and plazas like hallway monitors from the future. And for the next two weeks, the guards will keep an eye on the WiredNextFest 2008 pavilion, which will be showing off bits of the future -- ranging from self-healing robots to a human-powered car -- to thousands of park visitors. On its fifth anniversary, the free festival of the future returns to the Windy City, showcasing the latest in green technology, videogames, interactive art, prosthetics and robots. The setting couldn't be more appropriate. Millennium Park draws hipsters, office workers and tourists to its modern idyll between Lake Michigan and the city's fabled skyscrapers. Built atop a 2,000-vehicle-capacity parking garage that sits on top of a working railroad yard, the park itself is a technological marvel. Wired NextFest's outdoor tent is nestled between the park's popular interactive public art pieces and the Frank Gehry-designed swoop of an amphitheater. Inside the NextFest pavilion, visitors will have a chance to get hands-on and play with the cellphone disco exhibit -- an LED grid that responds to cellphone signals. Visitors can also take a turn with ImmersaDome -- a virtual reality machine that one pulls down over your head. With a vibrating seat, sprays of scents, surround sound and high-def images on all sides, it may be the future of both first-person shooters and meditation. Those who prefer social responsibility to future entertainment technology can try out the green measurement tool created by UCLA's Center for Embedded Network Sensing. The Personal Environmental Impact Report is a carbon footprint calculator tied to a GPS-enabled phone that can give you a real-time online look at how heavily or lightly you tread on the Earth. Plus, PEIR comes with a Facebook app so you can share your green cred with your friends. Given the price of oil, it's not surprising that NextFest has green on its mind. There's biofuel made from algae whose cells double every hour. And ultra-efficient solar cells that may soon be more cost efficient than coal? That's here too. French designer Tomas Erel will be showing off his Planilum lights -- softly glowing, low-heat light panels that use phosphorescent chemicals, rare gasses and glass pockets to create lamps that resemble life forms more than light bulbs. And Erel's panels...

Wired.com
Palin Hacker Group's All-Time Greatest Hits

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 2:00pm CDT by Ryan Singel

The group of online troublemakers that busted into and shared private emails from Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls itself Anonymous, but its work in attacking Scientology and causing seizures in epileptics is earning it a name online.
Rights Group Sues NSA and Cheney for Spying

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 3:50pm CDT by Ryan Singel

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government and top Bush officials over its warrantless wiretapping program Thursday. The suit comes just a day before the government tries using a new and powerful tool to dismiss the group's surprisingly resilient suit against AT&T for helping with the program.
Santa Adds Facebook to Naughty List Over Friend Limit

Posted: September 16th, 2008, 10:00am CDT by Ryan Singel

Santa Claus joins Facebook but quickly finds he's so popular he's not allowed to have more friends. Now an upset Mr. Claus wants Facebook to change the rules for him, but Facebook says the limit applies to everyone -- including Santa.
Terrorism Fear Could Create Psychosomatic Epidemic, Feds Warned

Posted: September 15th, 2008, 3:01pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Fear of terrorism could lead to a "fake" epidemic in the wake of a real or perceived attack that could overwhelm the nation's hospitals, government analysts warned hospitals in 2006. The newly leaked document says fear led to outbreaks of "psychogenic illnesses" in Chechya, Japan and even once in California.
Turkish Police Arrest Alleged ATM Hacker-Kidnapper

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:46pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Turkish officials nabbed an alleged ATM-hacking kingpin, according to news reports. The hacker, named Cha0, allegedly tortured an informer and said not even the FBI could catch him.
Cops Need Warrant for Cellphone Location Data, Judge Rules

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 2:51pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Learning where someone was when they made a cellphone call just got harder for cops, after a federal judge ruled they need to do more than promise the information is relevant. While the ruling is not binding around the country, it's the first-known ruling to force police to get a warrant to get at stored cellphone location data.
Wikipedia Sleuths Win Journalism Award for Wired.com

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 1:58pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Readers who caught Dow Chemical erasing mention of the deadly Bhopal spill from its Wikipedia page won Wired.com an award for innovative journalism. The Threat Level blog won the Knight-Batten award for creating a venue for readers to popularize anonymous, whitewashing edits of Wikipedia they found using a tool created by clever hacker Virgil Griffith.
Feds Set to Take Over Airline Watch-List Checking, Again

Posted: September 9th, 2008, 7:00pm CDT by Ryan Singel

The federal government is planning yet again to take over the job of comparing airline passengers to an ever-growing terrorism watch list ... six years after it was first proposed. The feds say this time they've fixed the privacy problems and can fix the name mismatches that have snagged children, nuns and senators.
Researchers Use Facebook App to Create Zombie Army

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 2:40pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Facebook users who choose to install the wrong third party application could find themselves inducted into a robot computer army controlled by a hacker. At least, that's what a team of Greek computer researchers proved with their rogue Photo of the Day application.
Report: Internet Capacity Keeps Pace With Demand

Posted: September 3rd, 2008, 6:45pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Do not worry about conserving bandwidth: The internet's tubes aren't close to full, a new report finds. Internet capacity grew more than 60 percent in the last year and is growing faster than demand, even in the age of online video.
Gonzales Violated Secrecy Rules With Spy Docs, Lied to Cover It Up

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 7:44pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly and knowingly mishandled ultra-secret documents about the government's warrantless wiretapping program and lied to investigators about it, according to a report by the Justice Department's inspector general. The Justice Department declined to prosecute him, however.
Asylum-Seeker Rejected Based On Wikipedia, Appeals Court Reverts

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 10:45am CDT by Ryan Singel

The government can't use a user-generated encyclopedia to decide whether to grant a woman political asylum. Homeland Security used Wikipedia to decide an Ethiopian travel document wasn't legitimate, but a federal appeals court changed that decision last Friday.
Spying Court Stays Secret, Rejects ACLU Plea Again

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 9:00pm CDT by Ryan Singel

For the third time in a year, a secret spying court rejects an ACLU request to let some sunshine pierce its dark curtains of secrecy, ruling that national security prohibits publishing even unclassified versions of court documents or allowing non-government lawyers to argue in the court.
AutoAdmit Defendant Asks Court to Free Him From Byzantine Lawsuit

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 1:44pm CDT by Ryan Singel

An obnoxious commenter being sued for sexual harrasment by two Jane Doe Yale law students wants to be freed, saying that his comments were just crude. He claims the women's lawyers are intentionally dragging out the suit and won't even serve him with papers.
Latest Wikileaks Prize for Sale to the Highest Bidder

Posted: August 27th, 2008, 1:15pm CDT by Ryan Singel

The net's most infamous document-leaking site has thousands of e-mails about the Venezuelan government, but this time, the site isn't publishing them for the world to see. Instead, they are being auctioned -- an experiment that's raising ethical questions.
Virus Infects Space Station Laptops (Again)

Posted: August 26th, 2008, 1:22pm CDT by Ryan Singel

A password-stealing virus infected laptops on the international space station, though NASA says no mission critical equipment was affected. It's also not the first time a computer virus has made its way into space.
Group Suing AT&T for Spying Will Sue Government, Too

Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 7:05pm CDT by Ryan Singel

A civil liberties group suing AT&T for allegedly spying on Americans on behalf of the government is not giving up, despite Congress' vote to give amnesty to the tlelecoms that helped. Instead, the group says it will now sue the government, too.
Watch-Listed Fliers Can Sue, Appeals Court Rules

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 11:20pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Individuals put on the government's terrorism watch list can sue to get free of the secret database, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. Now travelers frustrated with repeated pat-downs and Homeland Security's one-sided appeal process can turn to the nation's courts.
Experts Accuse Bush Administration of Foot-Dragging on DNS Security Hole

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 2:45pm CDT by Ryan Singel

The internet remains vulnerable to a spoofing attack recently discovered by security expert Dan Kaminsky. The only real solution is to digitally sign the DNS root zone, but security experts say politics in the Department of Commerce are slowing the effort and endangering the trustworthiness of the net.
Chertoff Misleads on Laptop Searches, Feingold Charges

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 3:46pm CDT by Ryan Singel

In an interview with Wired.com, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff blatantly mischaracterized when border agents can search Americans' laptops, Sen. Russ Feingold charges. The Wisconsin Democrat says Congress needs to step in to protect Americans from intrusive searches of their electronics.
Chertoff: I'm Listening to the Internet (Not in a Bad Way)

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 7:28pm CDT by Ryan Singel

In an exclusive interview with Wired.com, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff explains why cybersecurity finally matters, how airlines botch the terrorist watch list, and why blog comments are driving policy changes at DHS.

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Posted: August 13th, 2008, 2:45pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 3:46pm CDT by Ryan Singel

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 7:28pm CDT by Ryan Singel