EC wants to suppress internet bomb-making guides
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Eurocrats, terrorists vie for techno-dunce supremacy The European Commission (EC) has announced plans to frustrate terrorism by suppressing online guides on bomb-making.â¦
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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday.
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Wants to rein in war on terror The European Parliament is demanding a say on the computerized front of the US anti-terror war and pressing for a global agreement on inter-government data sharing.â¦
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By Leader  EDINBURGH MP Nigel Griffiths is right to call for more control by website operators like YouTube over material which encourages criminal behaviour, but politicians should resist introducing formal measures to clamp down on such sites.
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Safer Internet Plus, the four-year program proposed by the European Commission in March, will have a budget of $60 million to combat illegal and harmful Web content.
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Security researchers are working to shut down a hacking attack targeting Internet banking users of at least 50 financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe.
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(InfoWorld) - Moves by several European countries to tighten laws against computer hacking worry security professionals who often use the same tools as hackers but for legitimate purposes. The U.K. and Germany are among the countries that are considering revisions to their computer crime laws in line with the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime, a European-wide treaty, and with a similar European Union measure passed in early 2005. But security professionals are scrutinizing those revisions out of concern for how prosecutors and judges could apply the laws. Security professionals are especially concerned about cases where the revisions apply to programs that could be used for bad or good. Companies often use hacking programs to test the mettle of their own systems. "One useful utility in the wrong hands is a potentially malicious hacking tool," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos PLC in Abingdon, England. In the U.K., legislators are debating amendments to the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990. The proposed revisions would make it illegal to create or supply a tool to someone who intends to use it for unauthorized computer access or modification. Likewise, the proposed changes to German law would also criminalize making and distributing hacking tools. The German government said the changes will bring it into compliance with the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime. Several German security companies are planning to lobby against the law, as they fear it could hamper those who test security systems, said Alexander Kornbrust, founder and chief executive officer of Red-Database-Security GmbH in Neunkirchen, Germany. For example, tools to check the strength of passwords, often freely distributed, could also be used by malicious hackers, he said. "The security community is very unhappy with this approach," Kornbrust said. "The concern is that the usage and possession of so called hacker tools will become illegal." The U.K. and Germany are trying to align their laws with Article 6 of the Convention, which bans the creation of computer programs for the purpose of committing cybercrime. So far, 43 countries have signed the Convention, which indicates their willingness to revise their laws to comply. Fifteen have ratified the Convention. After a country changes its laws, it can ratify the convention and put it into force. The Convention does not mandate a deadline for when countries must comply, and the process of changing laws can be lengthy depending on the country, said Margaret Killerby, head of the European Committee on Crime Problems, which tracks implementation of the Convention. But the goal is for Europe -- and other countries, such as the U.S., which also said it will implement the Convention soon -- to mount a consistent defense against computer criminals given the transnational nature of computer crime, Killerby said. A key point of the Convention requires countries to have a law enforcement contact available at all times to assist foreign authorities in obtaining electronic evidence, which can disappear quickly without quick moves by law enforcement. "What we want to have is an institution to allow states to cooperate with each other as rapidly as possible," she said. Those requirements are devoid of controversy. Individual countries can draft their own customized legislation to comply with the Convention, which can be used as a checklist, Killerby said. The Council has provided assistance to countries in central and eastern Europe in creating computer crime laws where none were on the books, Killerby said. Countries with existing laws will have find a medium that satisfies their own legal requirements and the Convention. In the U.K., the House of Lords is scheduled next month to debate changes in the part of the CMA concerning creation and distribution of hacking tools. The proposed revision to the CMA says a person is guilty of an offense if he makes or supplies something intending it to be used to commit an offense or "believing that it is likely to be so used." But officials are confident that the wording can be smoothed. The controversy could be dampened merely by changing "likely" to "primarily" which could "make sure we don't catch the legitimate penetration testers," said Merlin Erroll, a Lord who sits on the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG), during a recent presentation in London. REFERENCES: UK bill would increase penalties for cybercriminals, Jan. 27, 2006Analysts eye revamp of UK cybercrime law, Jun. 7, 2006UK teen pleads guilty to DOS e-mail attack, Aug. 24, 2006
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The contenets of the site, whose goal is to discourage âunethical behaviorâ by corporations and governments, can still be found on âmirror sitesâ around the internet.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission has warned its member states to beef up their efforts to cut spam, spyware and malicious software, after research showed that up to 85 percent of all e-mail received in the European Union is unsolicited.The findings come four years after the EU adopted anti-spam legislation in the form of the e-privacy directive. "It is time to turn the repeated political concern about spam into concrete actions to fight spam," Viviane Reding, the commissioner for Information Society and Media, said in a statement on Monday.If there is no improvement by this time next year, Reding will consider introducing new legislative measures to fight the scourge, she said.She pointed to the Netherlands as an example of how the current legal regime can be used to cut spam. Hollandâs spam-busting unit, known by the initials OPTA, has just five full-time staff and â¬570,000 (US$747,000) worth of equipment, and has succeeded in cutting spam by 85 percent. âI'd like to see other countries achieving similar results through more efficient enforcement,â Reding said.Finland was also singled out for praise. A filtering system there has cut the amount of spam to 30 percent of all e-mail, from 80 percent two years ago, the Commission said.âWe encourage other countries in the Union to develop similar filtering means,â said Martin Selmayr, Redingâs spokesman, at a press conference Monday.The Commission is urging other countries âto lay down clear lines of responsibility to use the tools available under E.U. law effectively." Better cooperation with enforcement authorities from other countries, including countries outside the Union, is essential to defeat the spammers, the Commission said.The U.S. remains the single biggest source of spam, accounting for 22 percent of all spam received in the EU, the Commission said. China is the second largest source, accounting for 13 percent. France and South Korea rank joint third at 6 percent.The U.S. and the EU have agreed to tackle spam through joint enforcement initiatives, the Commission said.Last year, Ferris Research estimated spam to cost â¬39 billion worldwide, while fellow researcher Computer Economics calculated malicious software to cost â¬11 billion worldwide.The Commission's latest communication on spam is available here in several languages.
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The Council of Europe has called on its 46 member-states to introduce legislation on the right of reply to correct false information on online media.
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Hackers may want to avoid Germany, after the approval of a law that makes their activity a punishable crime.
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European consumer groups warned the European Commission Thursday that&#160;Google&#39;s plan to take over the online advertising company DoubleClick, currently&#160;under investigation, would&#160;erode consumers&#39; privacy&#160;and would push up prices for online goods and services.
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Trying to outlaw using fake information to open e-mail accounts or set up websites, some European nations could run afoul of privacy advocates. By the Associated Press.
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Several antispam organizations have been targeted by an attempt to knock them offline.
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All spams must be of regulation size and weightâ¦ The European Commission called for stronger action against spammers and spy ware merchants today and said it may bring in further legislation to combat the problem.â¦
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A New York Times decision to block  British online readers from seeing a story about London  terrorism suspects raises new questions on restricting the flow  of information in the Internet age, legal and media experts  say.
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A European Union proposal to stop people  from accessing bomb-making instructions online is fraught with  technical difficulties, if not downright unworkable, Internet  practitioners say.