Legal and regulatory issues

Computer crime

• JN - 2 held in 16 million yen cyber-theft  +/-

  (Yomiuri Shimbun) Japanese police arrested two men on suspicion of withdrawing 16 million yen from the account of a Net-bank user after obtaining the personal identification number from a computer at an Internet cafe. They allegedly installed software known as Keylogger, onto computers at 13 Internet cafes in Tokyo over the past two years.

• Nigerian scam continues to thrive  +/-

  (MSNBC) Two new flavors of the age-old Nigerian e-mail scam are making the rounds, and at least one of them appears to be gaining traction. Hundreds of victims have recently fallen for a variation that plays upon people’s misunderstanding about how bank cashier’s checks work. Meanwhile, other scammers are trying to take advantage of heightened interest in Iraq, posing as frightened Iraqis trying to move money out of that country before hostilities begin. The scam also took a deadly turn last month, when a victim in the Czech Republic allegedly shot and killed a Nigerian diplomat after losing his life savings to the scam.

• US - Two judges blast FBI tactics in Net child porn crackdown  +/-

  (AP) Two federal judges have dealt a potentially crippling blow to a nationwide Internet child pornography crackdown, saying the FBI recklessly misled judges to get search warrants that were used in making more than 100 arrests. Both judges criticized a former FBI agent who once led the probe, saying he misled judges to believe that people who tapped into the "Candyman'' site automatically received child pornography, whereas in fact those entering the Web site could choose not to receive e-mails containing pornographic photographs and the vast majority of subscribers to the site elected to receive no e-mails.

Content regulation

• US - Court strikes down law intended to keep kids from online porn  +/-

  (CNN) A federal appeals court has ruled that a law meant to safeguard children against Internet pornography is riddled with problems that make it "constitutionally infirm." A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Child Online Protection Act restricted free speech by barring Web page operators from posting information inappropriate for minors unless they limited the site to adults. The ruling upheld an injunction blocking the government from enforcing the law. The court said that in practice, the law made it too difficult for adults to view material protected by the First Amendment, including many non-pornographic sites. ACLU v. Ashcroft.

• AU - Net porn controls useless: study  +/-

  (CNN) Australian efforts to regulate young people's access to Internet pornography so far have been a "manifest failure", a think tank study has found. The study finds that Australian children have had extensive exposure to pornography on the Internet, either deliberately or accidentally. This is despite government regulations administered by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) designed to restrict access to offensive material and to protect children from exposure to unsuitable material. The study argues for a requirement for all Australian ISPs (Internet service providers) to apply filters to all content. see also Press Release, Regulating Youth Access to Pornography and Youth and Pornography in Australia Evidence on the extent of exposure and likely effects (Australia Institute).

• DE - Bundesprüfstelle setzt "C&C Generals" auf den Index  +/- Translate

  (CHIP) Die Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Schriften hat die Indizierung des PC-Spiels "C&C Generals" bestätigt. Das Game war auf Antrag von Familienministerin Ulla Schmidt (SPD) vorläufig vom Markt verbannt worden. Gegen die Indizierung von "C&C Generals" hatte sich der Hersteller Electronic Arts gewehrt und angeführt, dass die Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle dem Spiel eine Altersfreigabe ab 16 Jahren erteilt hatte. Die Ministerin soll zudem in ihrem Eilantrag "zum Teil falsche und unsachliche" Gründe für die Indizierung des Spiels genannt gaben, meint Electronic Arts.

• Iranians arrested for net dating  +/-

  (BBC) Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for "unlawful actions" after using a website to arrange dates. The Basij militia also detained the operators of the dating website.

Data Protection (privacy)

• US - Supreme Court Upholds Online Sex Offender Registries  +/-

  (SiliconValley.com) The Supreme Court ruled that states can post sex offenders' photos and other personal information on the Internet, a step the states say is aimed at protecting people from criminals living nearby. In a key first test of "Megan's law" provisions that are on the books in every state, the justices said sex-offender registries are not an unconstitutional extra punishment for offenders who already have served their sentences. Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. John Doe (12-page PDF)

Hotlines

• AU - Net porn watchdog pleas for cash  +/-

  (Austrlian IT) The Australian federal Government has ignored pleas for more money from the people charged with defending the internet from hardcore pornography. Internet advisory body NetAlert, the group responsible for the Government's crackdown on illegal internet content is starved of money and will not be able to continue its efforts without a multi-million-dollar funding boost.

Protection of minors

• Curious teenagers need to be informed about sex, not controlled  +/-

  (Sydney Morning Herald) Young people are more sophisticated in understanding sexuality, and the internet is not their major problem. See also Labor won't support tighter net porn laws (ABC) .

Racism and xenophobia

• US - Man Acquitted of Online Threats on Jews  +/-

  (AP) A man has been acquitted of sending e-mails that threatened to kill Jews in Brooklyn. A federal court jury found Fowad Assed, a Palestinian-born U.S. citizen living in Brooklyn, innocent of sending three online messages to the Jewish Defense League that threatened bombing businesses. Assed, 33, never denied sending the e-mails. The defense was that while the messages might be offensive, Assed was exercising his First Amendment rights.

Rating and filtering

• AU - Net Nanny a part-time supervisor, says report  +/-

  (Sydney Morning Herald) Net Nanny 4.0, the internet filter provided by the three largest service providers, Telstra, Optus and OzEmail, is so ineffective it is about to be ditched by the Australian Broadcasting Authority due to its high failure rate. According to tests conducted by the CSIRO, Net Nanny 4.0 failed 38 per cent of the time. Other products on the approved list were worse - Cyber Sentinel failed more than half of the time (53 per cent). The broadcasting authority, which regulates the list of approved products, released the figures in its submission to the ongoing government review of the content regulation scheme. The Communications Minister, Richard Alston, is expected to report back within weeks.

Safer Internet awareness

• Singapore - Surfers urged to behave online  +/-

  (AP) Singapore's Cyber Wellness Task Force will urge people not to send unsolicited e-mails or spam, not to view pornographic Web sites and to use their real name, not a pseudonym, in chat rooms. The group's recommendations will not be enforceable by law. It will make its case through a media campaign, public workshops and special Web sites aimed at parents and children, said Bernard Tan, head of the government's National Internet Advisory Committee.

Security and encryption

• Visa moves to prevent identity theft  +/-

  (Reuters) Visa USA will stop merchants that take Visa payments from displaying all but the last four digits of a card number on receipts in an effort to thwart a surge in financial identity theft.

Market & Technology

Internet access and use

• UK - Wireless net offered with a pint  +/-

  (BBC) People will soon be able to surf the internet from the comfort of their local pub as wireless hotspots reach out to the country's favourite location. There are already around 200 so-called wireless hotspots in cafes, hotel and service stations across the UK. In July, this network will extend to 3,000 pubs in the UK.

Junk mail (spam)

• US - Spammers hiding behind students  +/-

  (Network World) University networks already stressed by file-sharing programs, viruses and hackers now face a new threat: students who sublet their network access to spammers for as little as $20 per month. see also Tufts student to be disciplined for using university network for spam (AP) A Tufts University student will be disciplined for sending junk e-mail or spam through his computer that was connected to the university computer network.

Market

• Europe - PlayStation tempts gamers online  +/-

  (BBC) The European trials of the online gaming service for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) will start at end of March. Sony is lagging behind rival Microsoft, who has been testing its European online gaming network for several months now. Both Sony and Microsoft have already ventured into online gaming in the US, where they have attracted hundreds of thousands of players.

Standards

• Customization and Personalization through RDF  +/-

  (ICRA) At a meeting in Luxembourg, a project was launched to develop a new RDF application that: supports multiple content classification vocabularies; can be applied to multiple media types such as text, audiovisual materials and multimedia presentations; works with multiple device types such as desktop PCs, handheld devices, mobile devices and a wide range of consumer electronics such as MP3 and DVD players. The aim is to use XML/RDF to create a common platform through which metadata can be fully utilised across all digital media and device types for a variety of purposes. These include but are not limited to: parental control using a variety of classification schemes applied through a single delivery method, automated locating of resources (i.e. search engines) and educational use.

Statistics

• UK - Wealthy users dominate internet  +/-

  (BBC) Three times as many well-off families are going online for the first time as those with low incomes, a new report has revealed. The charity Citizens Online also found more than six times as many homes were online in some parts of the country than in others.

Technology

• UK - Virtual detectives track criminals  +/-

  (BBC) Increasingly police forces are relying on software that can sift through the information they gather to help them solve more crimes. Every UK police force, some European ones and the FBI in the US now use a visualisation software tool by a British company called i2 to analyse all data. It allows hard-pressed police officers to piece together and picture the evidence they have collected.

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