Legal and regulatory issues

Computer crime

• BR - Cybercrime’s superlab: Brazil  +/-

  (New York Times) In Brazil, organized crime is rife and laws to prevent digital crime are few and largely ineffective. The country is becoming a laboratory for cybercrime, with hackers - able to collaborate with relative impunity - specializing in identity and data theft, credit card fraud and piracy, as well as online vandalism.

• IT - Governo approva ddl contro la pedofilia  +/- Translate

  (Corriere della Sera) Il governo ha approvato il disegno di legge (ddl) contro lo sfruttamento sessuale dei bambini e la pedopornografia anche via Internet. Il ddl prevede come reato la realizzazione, attraverso l'utilizzo di minori, di materiale pornografico anche in forma virtuale. Il provvedimento istituisce inoltre un Centro nazionale a cui dovranno pervenire tutte le segnalazioni dell'esistenza di siti che diffondono materiale pornografico utilizzando il web. I fornitori di servizi attraverso reti di comunicazioni elettroniche saranno obbligati a segnalare al Centro i contratti stipulati con soggetti e imprese che diffondono, distribuiscono o commercializzano anche in via telematica, materiale pornografico.

• IT - Pedofilia: due importanti operazioni in due giorni  +/- Translate

  (Corriere della Sera) Due importanti operazioni di lotta alla pedofilia hanno inferto nuovi colpi a un fenomeno che appare sempre più diffuso se è vero che non più tardi di lunedì un'inchiesta di Telefono Arcobaleno (organizzazione che combatte la pedofilia online) e Osservatorio sui diritti dei minori ha posizionato l'Italia al quinto posto mondiale per produzione di siti internet pedopornografici, con un incremento pari al 295,7% rispetto allo scorso anno.

• UK - Police issue internet gun warning  +/-

  (BBC) Criminals are using the internet and postal system to get guns into the UK, senior police officers have warned. They also told an all-party parliamentary group of MPs there should be more armed officers on the streets as the number of armed criminals grows.

• UK - Race to save new victims of child porn  +/-

  (Guardian) Senior police officers have revealed that the scale of peer-to-peer traffic in illegal images of children now dwarfs almost any other paedophile network they have encountered.

• UK - Web 'grooming' sentences upped  +/-

  (BBC) Jail terms for paedophiles convicted of the "grooming" of children will be a maximum of ten years - after MPs agreed a radical shake-up of sex crime laws which date back to Victorian times. Ministers have decided to increase the maximum sentence from seven years after a series of high profile cases. An amendment making the change has been added to the Sexual Offences Bill, which received an unopposed third reading in the House of Commons and returns to the House of Lords for further consideration. The bill will revamp the UK's current "archaic, incoherent and discriminatory" laws and includes measures on rape, voyeurism and legal definitions of consent.

Consumer protection

• UK - E-mail scam targets banks  +/-

  (BBC) Customers of Nationwide, the UK's largest building society, have become the latest online banking consumers to be targeted by an e-mail scam. The scam, known as 'phishing', also targeted Barclays, Lloyds TSB, NatWest and Halifax customers. The e-mails ask customers to verify their details and handover pin numbers and passwords, through a replica website. They are sent randomly to consumers, in the hope that someone will divulge their banking details.

Content regulation

• CN - China to consolidate Net cafes  +/-

  (CNET Asia) Nearly all of China's 110,000 Internet cafes will be consolidated under the management of larger, mainly state-owned companies in the next three years. The move aims to 'regulate and standardize' the 'fledgling and troublesome' cafe business. The government is concerned about the sudden popularity of such cafes, which are gathering places for online gamers and those seeking Web information outside of official sources, in a country where many still cannot afford PCs or Internet access.

• DE - Das deutsche Internet - bald frisch von der KJM gefiltert?  +/-

  (Telepolis) Auf den Münchner Medientagen berichtete die KJM - Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz - nun erstmals von ihrer Arbeit - und auf der daran folgenden Podiumsdiskussion flogen die Fetzen: Der Krieg Fernsehen gegen Internet ist noch lange nicht ausgestanden und seit T-Online auch Video on demand anbieten und somit direkt mit dem Pay-TV Premiere konkurrieren will, "sind Sie auf meinem Radar", so Premiere-Chef Dr. Georg Kofler zur T-Online-Jugendbeauftragten Gabriele Schmeichel.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• EU - A continent full of criminals  +/-

  (BBC) Technology analyst Bill Thompson is only one of millions of file sharers who will be turned into criminals by a new European law. A group of MEPs and administrators gathered to hear Janelly Fourtou argue that I should be sent to prison. Of course, they didn't mention me by name, but Ms Fourtou, an MEP and the driving force behind the European Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive, wants to make a criminal of anyone who uses peer-to-peer networking software to share unlicensed copies of music, movies and other products of the entertainment industry.

• Questions by authors on searches by Amazon  +/-

  (New York Times) The online retailer Amazon.com has introduced a feature that lets users search for specific words or phrases in a database of the texts of 120,000 books, prompting an expression of concern from the Authors Guild, a writers' trade group, who regarded the practice as questionable and that publishers did not have the right to make the contents of books available without the authors' permission.

• US - FCC orders anti-piracy tech for TVs  +/-

  (AP) The government has approved an anti-piracy mechanism to make it harder for computer users to illegally distribute digital TV programs on the Internet. In its order, the Federal Communications Commission told makers of digital television receivers that by July 1, 2005, their models must recognize an electronic marker that broadcasters can embed in their programs to limit piracy. Archive of information regarding the broadcast flag (EFF).

• US - Study: Millions delete all music files  +/-

  (Reuters) More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August, a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, research company NPD Group said. NPD credited the ongoing anti-piracy campaign by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and said publicity about the move led more consumers to delete musical files.

• US - To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy  +/-

  (FTC) The Federal Trade Commission has issued its report on how to promote innovation by finding the proper balance of competition and patent law and policy. Although both competition in markets and patents for inventors can work together to foster innovation, the report states that each policy requires a proper balance with the other to do so. The report - which makes recommendations for the patent system - is the first of two reports about how to maintain that balance. A forthcoming second report by the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) will make similar recommendations for antitrust law. Executive Summary [PDF 149KB]. see also Report [PDF 2.28MB]

Data Protection (privacy)

• DE - LKW-Maut: Datenschützer fordern Kündigung  +/- Translate

  (Heise) Vertreter verschiedener Datenschutz- und Bürgerrechtsorganisationen haben die Bunderegierung dazu aufgefordert, den Vertrag mit Toll Collect zu kündigen. Das Mauterfassungsystem für den schweren LKW-Verkehr ist nach Ansicht der Verbände nicht nur ein technisches und finanzielles Desaster, sondern sei im Kern ein 'Straßen-Totalüberwachungs-System'. Das Verfahren, über eine On-Board-Unit laufend die Fahrdaten zu ermitteln, berge ein erhebliches Überwachungspotenzial.

• EU - Court gives data protection ruling  +/-

  (Reuters) The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice has given its first ruling on EU data protection law in relation to an Internet Web site. see Lindqvist. [Ed: see Court's ruling on applicability of Directive to non-commercial Web sites (yes) and question of whether posting on Internet constitutes transfer to third countries (no) ].

• UK - Cabinet decision on ID card  +/-

  (Independent) The cabinet agreed to draw up plans for a national identity card, but it will wait 'until later this decade' to decide whether to make them compulsory. The compromise, forced through by Tony Blair, was designed to defuse a bitter row between ministers over the practicality and wisdom of the step.

• UK - Government stalls on child protection reforms  +/-

  (Guardian) A multimillion pound government project to improve the sharing of information about England's 11 million children to protect them from abuse, neglect and deprivation has been delayed amid legal and technical problems. The deadline for implementation of the information, referral and tracking (IRT) scheme, meant to identify children at risk before they reach crisis point, has been pushed back by six months. By September, 150 councils were meant to have ensured that local welfare and law enforcement agencies understood what information they could and could not share under current law. But this was not possible because one of the 10 IRT pilots received legal advice last month that warned it could be illegal for the NHS to put information it holds on children onto a database accessible to other agencies, such as social services.

Digital signatures

• EU - Legal and Market Aspects of Electronic Signatures  +/-

  (Europa) Report of the European Commission project on legal and market aspects of electronic signatures. This study is performed by the K.U.Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). Project manager Jos Dumortier, Professor at the Faculty of Law and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and Information Technology (ICRI). For the legal aspects he worked together with his research fellow Patrick Van Eecke and with Georgia Skouma of the IT Law Unit of the law firm Landwell (Bogaert & Vandemeulebroeke, Brussels). For market and technical issues Professor Dumortier was assisted by Hans Nilsson and Stefan Kelm. They are well-known technical experts in electronic signatures and related standardisation and implementation issues.

Domain names

• ES - Ruée sur les domaines internet de la future reine d'Espagne  +/- Translate

  (AFP) Les demandes d'enregistrement de domaines internet en rapport avec Letizia Ortiz, la fiancée du prince héritier d'Espagne, Felipe de Bourbon, ont afflué depuis l'annonce le week-end dernier de leur mariage prochain. Le ministère espagnol de la Science et de la Technologie, qui supervise la vente des domaines en .es pour l'Espagne, n'enregistrera toutefois pas le domaine www.letiziaortiz.es, pour "éviter toute confusion". Le gouvernement a également bloqué la semaine dernière les noms de domaines nationaux pouvant se référer au mariage du Prince Felipe pour éviter leur détournement par des internautes mal intentionnés.

• ICANN - Internet group mulls a meaty meeting  +/-

  (CNET News.com) ICANN's meeting in Tunisia will focus on IPv6, VeriSign's 'wild card' redirection service, and intellectual property rights in domain names. Representatives of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers predicted that the dozens of working groups will produce more 'substantive' discussions than those formed during previous meetings, which often were devoted to internal procedures.

e-Government

• The New Civic Virtue of the Net  +/-

  (STLR) Who should the law-makers of cyberspace be? Who should be setting the rules that apply to conduct in the new global medium of cyberspace? What polity or polities should we look to as a source of legitimate and welfare-enhancing rules for conduct on the net?

Electronic commerce

• EU - European Court upholds Italian Internet gambling ban  +/-

  (EuPolitix) The liberalisation of internet gambling in Europe has been put on hold after EU courts authorised governments to restrict the flow of cross-border sports betting. In the Gambelli case, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the Italian government's prohibition of unregulated cross-border sports betting via the internet does not breach EU law per se but merely restricts? European market freedoms of establishment and services. The court held the gambling ban on the 'net' is justified on moral and social grounds - that is, through a concerted drive to reduce gaming and gambling in the state. The court added that gaining state money or the procurement of finances for public funds from lotteries, games of chance and betting would not be a valid reason for a ban

Employment and social issues

• US - Agencies Surf for Translators  +/-

  (Washington Post) The CIA and the FBI are launching a program to help solve the shortage of linguists in Arabic and other languages, which officials say has become a crisis in the fight against terrorism. They're going online and creating a "virtual" network of bilingual university students, professors and other language experts. When the National Virtual Translation Center starts operations Dec. 1, it will initiate an unusual and perhaps risky plan: hiring individual language speakers around the nation who haven't worked in government to translate documents and audiotapes sent to their homes or offices by e-mail. At least 300 non-government employees are expected soon to be working as center contractors, with most coming from universities, companies and private laboratories. Most of them will get a cursory background check and will not receive full security clearances. Those working at this level will not be given secret materials to translate, but they will do more humdrum work.

Information society and Internet policy

• EU - Council endorses MODINIS Programme  +/-

  (Euractiv.com) The multiannual MODINIS Programme was launched by the Commission on 26 July 2002 and covers the period from 2003 to 2005. Its original aim was to monitor the progress of the eEurope initiative, disseminate good practices and prepare measures to pave the way for a European policy on network and information security. It also seeks to promote the dissemination of good practices and launch the Agency for the Security of Networks and Information. The amendment, approved by the Council on 27 October without debate, sets the budget for the programme at 21 million euro.

• US - Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age  +/-

  (Stanford Law School) by Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America. Cooper analyzes the growing threat to media democracy, combining a detailed review of First Amendment jurisprudence with rigorous economic analysis to demonstrate the continuing need for structural limits on media ownership to promote democratic discourse in America.

• WSIS - UN tech summit looms with no agenda  +/-

  (Associated Press) Who controls the Internet and how richer nations should subsidize its growth in poorer countries are central issues dividing planners a month ahead of the first United Nations summit on information technology. More than 50 heads of states have confirmed their attendance for the Dec. 10-12 Geneva meeting, but there's still no agreement on what they'll be asked to consider. So government, business and civic representatives are convening in the Swiss city to try to narrow differences over such contentious issues as government oversight of on-line media that several rounds of talks failed to overcome.

Junk mail (spam)

• GDDe - Global Organization Tackles Proliferation of Spam  +/-

  (TelecomWeb) Proclaiming spam a worldwide problem that threatens the global Internet economy, the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce (GBDe), one of the world's leading voices on e-commerce policy, has called for a global strategy to tackle spam, including focusing on "fraudulent email". In addition to addressing the issue of spam, the GBDe announced an agreement between Consumers International, an organization representing consumer groups and agencies worldwide, to establish alternative dispute resolution (ADR) guidelines, and a policy framework for broadband adoption. In seeking to halt spam, the GBDe warned against regulations that penalize legitimate marketers who send bulk email. The international body said the focus should be on emails intended to deceive, either in the content of the message or the identity of the sender. Approximately 60 percent of all email includes false headers and deceptive content, according to GBDe estimates.

Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

• See you later, anti-Gators?  +/-

  (CNET News.com) In an effort to improve its corporate reputation, adware company Gator has launched a legal offensive to divorce its name from the hated term 'spyware' - and so far its strategy is paying off. In response to a libel lawsuit, an antispyware company has settled with Gator and pulled Web pages critical of the company, its practices and its software. And other spyware foes are getting the message.

• UK - Net makes royal rumour spread inevitable  +/-

  (BBC) So was it a good idea for the Prince of Wales's private secretary Sir Michael Peat to come out fighting, and declare that the unreportable allegations about the prince were "untrue" and "risible"? But one thing almost all the experts agreed on: the allegations were bound to get out sooner or later. The reason? The internet.

• US - How Direct is Too Direct When It Comes to Hyperlinks?  +/-

  (LawMeme) by James Grimmelmann. Diebold, a manufacturer of electronic-voting machines, claims that it is copyright infringement to make available copies of its internal memos. Students at Swarthmore College decided to engage in an "electronic civil disobedience" by hosting the files and by linking to sites hosting the files. Swarthmore has responded by shutting off the Internet access of any student linking to the site with the leaked memos as part of the disobedience. Let's see. Can't host the files. Can't link to the files. Can't link to a site with the files. Where will the madness end?

Market

• Music-industry mergers  +/-

  (Economist) Sony and Bertelsmann have unveiled plans to merge their music subsidiaries, creating a company that would have a quarter of the world market for recorded music. Competition authorities have frowned on such deals in the past, but the prevalence of piracy may persuade them this time. See also Bertelsmann deal with Sony responds to plummeting sales (IHT);

Racism and xenophobia

• FR - Paris Court Convicts Jewish Man Over Web Hate Call  +/-

  (Reuters) A French court has sentenced a Jewish extremist to a suspended four month jail term for inciting racial hatred against French Jewish celebrities he branded "anti-Israeli" on his Web site. Computer scientist Alexandre Attali, 29, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred for calling for attacks against Jewish people in particular. The court also fined him 13,000 euros ($15,000). The Web site alleged Jewish and non-Jewish celebrities, including Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche and best-selling writer Regine Deforges, backed a French boycott of Israeli products to protest against Israeli government policies.

Security and encryption

• E-police unlikely to get bigger budget  +/-

  (vnunet.com) Businesses must take more responsibility for corporate security because funding for electronic policing will not increase. Organisations must work on the basis that prevention is better than cure and not rely on over-stretched police resources, according to Peter Sommer, senior research fellow at the London School of Economics.

• UK - Users face malicious attacks from HTML email  +/-

  (BBC) Net security experts are now predicting a growth in attacks that strike when people are simply browsing messages or the web. Russ Cooper, chief scientist at security specialist TruSecure, said the risk of such attacks would grow as long as e-mail messages were written that used the HTML formatting more usually used to create webpages. Mr Cooper said the threat from maliciously formed HTML was increasing and was being used to damage, disrupt or collect sensitive information about users and their computers.

• US - FTC accuses pop-up maker of 'extortion'  +/-

  (Reuters) U.S. regulators said that Windows users should disable a back-door communications channel called Windows Messenger Service to prevent unscrupulous marketers from filling their screens with unwanted ads. see also FTC Obtains Order Barring Pop-up Spam Scam, Urges Consumers to Take Steps to Protect Themselves and how to disable Windows Messenger Service.

Self-regulation / codes of conduct

• EU - Mobile self-regulation - draft paper  +/-

  (PCMLP) This draft paper on self-regulation of mobile content and services (PDF format) was drawn up by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford University, as part of the Selfregulation.info project funded by the European Commission under the Safer Internet programme. It was presented at the World Telemedia Conference in Prague on 5 November 2003, organised by the Network for Online Commerce (NOC). The project investigates self-regulatory codes of conduct across national, EU and International boundaries covering a wide range of media from Internet, film, video (games), (digital) television to mobile communications. The project will also assist self-regulatory bodies in the development and implementation of codes of conduct. Comments invited until 1st Dec: 3gcomments@selfregulation.info

• EU - Advertising industry: better self-regulation needed  +/-

  (EurActiv.com) Speaking at the World Federation of Advertisers on 28 October, Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne reminded the audience of the advances made in the area of self-regulation but stressed the need for continued efforts. Among the problem areas, Mr Byrne listed the differences in the levels of compliance with advertising codes across the Member States, as well as the difficulty in controlling certain advertising methods by code-owners. Self-regulation has been a central feature of the legislative framework set out by the Misleading Advertising Directive (1984). Self-regulation gives industry a chance to promote the application of fair advertising practices.

• UK - Ofcom launches consultation on future regulation of broadcast advertising  +/-

  (Press Release) Ofcom, the new communications regulator from the end of 2003, is launching a public consultation on the future regulation of broadcast advertising. The Communications Act 2003 places a duty on Ofcom to consider effective forms of self-regulation for its various functions. Ofcom is seeking views on its proposal to delegate the regulation of advertising on television and radio to a new industry co-regulatory body. The new body would have responsibility for drawing up, reviewing and enforcing Codes, approved by Ofcom, setting standards for the presentation and content of broadcast advertisements. The new body would operate under the banner of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), currently the industry regulator for non-broadcast advertising. Ofcom would retain backstop powers over the new system. The consultation document, The Future Regulation of Broadcast Advertising and Summary. Ofcom is also publishing a linked consultation document, Criteria for transferring functions to co-regulatory bodies, proposing criteria for transferring regulatory functions to co-regulatory bodies. The closing date for responses is 9 January, 2004.

Statistics

• World drowning in oceans of data  +/-

  (BBC) Growing net, computer and phone use is driving a huge rise in the amount of information people generate and use. US researchers estimate that every year 800MB of information is produced for every person on the planet. Their study found that information stored on paper, film, magnetic and optical disks has doubled since 1999.

Telecommunications

• DE - Call by Call: Schluss mit 0190  +/- Translate

  (Spiegel) Wer auf der Telefonrechnung eine 0190-Nummer entdeckt, dem fährt erst einmal der Schreck in die Glieder: Die Nummer steht längst synonym für Abzocke in den Netzen. Das soll bald vorbei sein. Die Regulierungsbehörde verordnet eine deutliche Trennung von 'Mehrwert-' und Telefondiensten.

• DE - Regulierungsbehörde verbietet 0190-Sparvorwahlen  +/- Translate

  (Heise) Die Regulierungsbehörde hat den Einsatz von 0190- und 0900-Rufnummern für Call-by-Call-Gespräche untersagt. Die entsprechenden Dienste müssen ihre Arbeit innerhalb von drei Wochen einstellen. Die Regulierungsbehörde stellte klar, dass Call-by-Call nur über die dafür vorgesehenen Vorwahlziffern 010xy und 0100xy angeboten werden darf. Offenbar will die Regulierungsbehörde in allen Bereichen für Ordnung sorgen. Vor einiger Zeit hatte sie bereits dem Missbrauch von Online-Einwahlnummern den Kampf angesagt. Die Regulierungsbehörde begründet die Entscheidung mit Vorteilen für den Verbraucher: Sie sorge für Klarheit und Transparenz. Die bestehenden Angebote verstießen gegen das Gesetz und verwirrten den Verbraucher. Außerdem bestehe bei den Sparvorwahlen mit 0190- und 0900-Rufnummern die Gefahr, durch Verwählen einen teuren Mehrwertdienst anzuwählen.

Market & Technology

Employment and social issues

• Games at work may be good for you  +/-

  (BBC) Playing simple computer games at the office could improve productivity and job satisfaction, research suggests. Scientists from the University of Utrecht have studied the effects of game playing on 60 employees in a Dutch insurance firm. The team measured changes in work and job attitudes and found that game players felt better about their job. Many big companies ban games which come as standard on many computers, saying they are just a waste of workers' time. But, says research leader Professor Jeffrey Goldstein, there has been little research to show how playing games might positively change employee productivity, job satisfaction or reduce absenteeism.

Junk mail (spam)

• Help! my Belkin router is spamming me  +/-

  (Register) The marketing geniuses at Belkin, the consumer networking vendor, have dreamed up a new form of spam - ads served to your desktop, by way of its wireless router. A former Belkin wireless router user was perplexed to find machines on his network redirected to an ad for Belkin's new parental control system, following a software update. Belkin confirmed that the behaviour was designed into the products as a way to make it easier for consumers to sign up to a free trial of its parental control software.

Mobile and wireless

• Nokia targets multimedia mobiles  +/-

  (BBC) Surfing the net, text and multimedia messaging, e-mail, calendar and gaming have all become key parts of handsets, making them a lot smarter. Nokia has been outlining its strategy to drive this market into the next year, announcing this week it hopes to ship 100 million devices with colour displays, Java and MMS in 2004.

• Symbian will lose smartphone battle  +/-

  (vnunet.com) Analyst Gartner has warned that, without a concerted effort by Symbian and its backers, Microsoft will sweep them aside in the smartphone business. Redmond's ability to offer standardised handsets which are easier for businesses to support and use will help the software giant win corporate approval, the market watcher predicted.

Portals, browsers and search engines

• Google tests desktop search  +/-

  (CNet News.com) Search company Google is testing software that lets people navigate the Web without opening up an Internet browser, placing itself in a field that Microsoft has designs on - desktop search. The search company has introduced the Google Deskbar. The downloadable software for users of Microsoft’s Windows operating system puts a Google search box in the desktop taskbar

• How good is Google?  +/-

  (Economist) As search engines go, in other words, Google has clearly been a runaway success. Not only is its own site the most popular for search on the web, but it also powers the search engines of major portals, such as Yahoo! and AOL. All told, 75% of referrals to websites now originate from Google's algorithms. Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, understood that the key to monetising all those customer searches (now 200m a day) was to place small, unobtrusive and highly relevant text advertisements alongside Google's search results. Advertisers like this system because they pay only if web surfers actually click on their links. And consumers either do not mind, or even learn to love these commercial links for their relevance, just as they appreciate the Yellow Pages. For Google to stay permanently ahead of other search-engine technologies is almost impossible, since it takes so little to lose the lead. In contrast to a portal such as Yahoo!, which also offers customers free e-mail and other services, a pure search engine is always but a click away from losing users. Yahoo!, in fact, will probably be the first to attack. Even more frightening (especially to those who remember Netscape's fate in the browser wars), Microsoft smells blood. It is currently working on its own search algorithm, which it hopes to make public early next year, around the probable time of Google's share listing.

Security and encryption

• Web Vipers  +/-

  (Washington Post) These days, careless computing can be downright dangerous. E-mail spam is not just annoying; it can bring offensive content, fraudulent schemes and damaging viruses into personal computers. Hackers are constantly probing home Internet connections, looking for vulnerabilities so they can gain remote entry and steal personal data. (Memo to those with wireless home networks: You are an especially inviting target.) Worms can literally take over your computer and allow hackers to turn it into a weapon for more mayhem. Viruses can wreck hard drives, wiping out years of hard work. Think we're exaggerating? Spam accounts for roughly 60 percent of all e-mail, up from 18 percent 18 months ago. In 1995, the number of hacking or computer attacks reported to the CERT Coordination Center for cybersecurity was 2,412. In the first three quarters of last year, the number was 114,855. In many cases, each attack affected hundreds of thousands of machines. see also Watch Your Wallet, Kids' Play, Stop Pop-Ups, Can Spam , Cookies & Spyware, Rx for Viruses, Wireless Worries, The Apple Alternative and Geek Speak.

Statistics

• UK - Speed 'tempts dial-up net users'  +/-

  (BBC) A million Britons will swap dial-up for broadband in the next year, says the telecoms watchdog Oftel. More are signing up to broadband, an always-on connection 10 times faster than dial-up, as it gets cheaper. Oftel's latest figures show half of all households in the UK are online, with 750,000 new web users in the last three months. Both dial-up and broadband net access is cheaper in the UK than other European countries.

Forthcoming events

• CANCELLED event 2003-11-24 FR, Paris - EGOVOS 3: Open Standards and Libre Software in Government  +/-

  (EGOVOS) This event, previously announced in QuickLinks, has been cancelled. MERIT at the University of Maastricht are no longer organising the conference on the topic of Open Standards and Libre Software in Government at UNESCO Paris, November 24-26, 2003. Until now, MERIT was responsible for the logistics and through the FLOSSPOLS project, EC funding for the conference. This is now wholly withdrawn. We have taken this decision in consultation with the European Commission, whose support for this conference was earlier being provided through the proposed FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT.

Who's who

• ICANN to Open Office in Brussels  +/-

  (Press Release) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announces that Paul Verhoef will be joining the ICANN staff on a full-time basis as the Vice President of Supporting Organizations and Committee Support. Paul Verhoef joins ICANN from his position as the head of international policy aspects for the Information Society Directorate General for the European Commission (EC).

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