Friday, November 05, 2004

From BNA News: FBI PURSUING MORE CYBERCRIME CASES The FBI has included cybercrime as one of its top three criminal priorities. The agency recently placed a hacker onto its most wanted list, providing a good indication of the seriousness with which it is taking the issue. 11:42:57 AM    comment []

No mutiny from Microsoft's bounty. A year on, and the company's $1 million tip-off program has nabbed just one virus writer. Is it a bust? [CNET News.com] 6:30:52 AM    comment []

Librarian of Congress on a Rare, Discreet Visit to Tehran. The Library of Congress said that the purpose of Dr. James H. Billington's trip was "purely cultural." By By DOUGLAS JEHL. The Federation of American Scientists said the trip had been arranged by a private group, Catalytic Diplomacy, at the request of the Library of Congress. The group's president is Jeremy J. Stone, a former president of the scientists' federation. In 1999, Mr. Stone organized a nongovernmental exchange agreement between the National Academy of Sciences and the Iranian Academy of Sciences. The federation said Dr. Billington and his delegation were expected to conclude a formal agreement on library exchange with Iranian officials, and to return to the United States late on Friday. A Congressional official said the delegation included another senior official of the library. As head of the Library of Congress, Dr. Billington is an official of the legislative branch of government. No members of Congress or senior Congressional aides are known to have traveled to Iran since diplomatic relations were severed. An administration official said Dr. Billington was briefed by the State Department in advance of his trip. A spokeswoman for the library, Helen Darlymple, said the library had long been interested in expanding its collection of Iranian publications. The process of collecting those publications "has been curtailed since the Islamic Revolution in 1978-79," Ms. Darlymple said, "and the Library wishes to ensure that Congress is well served with printed, digital and other materials in different formats that are available not only in Persian but also in the other languages of Iran." [NYT > International] Appended to the story, this news: TEHRAN, Nov. 3 (Reuters) - Several thousand Iranians burned American flags and effigies of President Bush on Wednesday, marking the 25th anniversary of the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran. Enmity between the United States and Iran dates to the 1979 seizure of the embassy by radical Islamic students, who held 52 hostages there for 444 days. In 2002, Mr. Bush labeled Iran a member of an "axis of evil," with Iraq and North Korea. 6:22:53 AM    comment []

Attack code exploits new IE bug. Security researchers are warning that exploit code is circulating for a newly discovered security vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. [InfoWorld: Top News] 6:22:44 AM    comment []

Aid Group to Leave Iraq, Fearing Extreme Risk. The humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders announced today that it was ending its operations in Iraq. By By JAMES GLANZ. [NYT > International] 6:21:02 AM    comment []

The Doghouse: Vadium Technology. Yet another one-time pad system. Not a lot of detail on the website, . . . .  . . . I am continually amazed at the never-ending stream of one-time pad systems. Every few months another company believes that they have finally figured out how to make a commercial one-time pad system. They announce it, are uniformly laughed at, and then disappear. It's cryptography's perpetual motion machine. Vadium Technology's website. My essay on one-time pads. [Schneier on Security] 6:18:11 AM    comment []

Daily Show on election results Lisa Rein has posted three clips "from the November 3 Daily Show: "Jon covers Kerry's concession, Bush's relishing in his glory, and Stephen Colbert's commentary on it all." Link Douglas Rushkoff's Frontline documentary to air Nov 9 Our friend Doug Rushkoff is the correspondent on a new Frontline program about the ways marketers influence people. Doug wrote an excellent book on the same subject, called Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say. The show airs on November 9; check your local listings for times. [bOing bOing] 6:16:27 AM    comment []

Where the Democrats go from here. The election results point to serious problems, like an inability to reach outside the Democratic base. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 6:11:02 AM    comment []

California to the Rescue. By enacting a lavishly financed stem cell program, California voters helped keep this nation in the forefront of a promising area of biomedical research. [NYT > Opinion] 6:05:37 AM    comment []

Braking by Train Operator Examined [Washington Post: Top News] 6:05:25 AM    comment []

Okay, almost off this, really trying, but 6:01:24 AM    comment []