Security

Why San Francisco’s network admin went rogue

An inside source reveals details of missteps and misunderstandings in the curious case of Terry Childs, network kidnapper

RIM fixes critical BlackBerry Enterprise Server bug

Research in Motion patched a critical bug in its BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could have allowed hackers to break into company networks

Can obscurity make cryptography better?

New worm transcodes MP3s to try to infect PCs

Windows users who download music files on peer-to-peer networks are at risk from new malware that inserts links to dangerous Web pages within ASF media files

Update: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering

Terry Childs is accused of setting up an unauthorized access system and holding much of the city of San Francisco's computer network hostage

The criminal digital divide

Spammer gets 30 months for inundating AOL

Defendant and partner sent around 250,000 spam messages to more than 1.2 million e-mail addresses belonging to AOL subscribers

Data can leak from partially encrypted disks

Apps like Microsoft Word and Google Desktop, which store data on unencrypted sections of the hard drive, can spill out information, even with encrypted files

Lawmakers question another ISP about NebuAd service

Legislators ask Kansas-based Embarq if it notified customers prior to testing controversial ad service

Activists raise awareness over targeted advertising

In June 2007, Stephen Mainwaring of Weston Super Mare, England, noticed something wasn't quite right with his Web browser.