So…. did The BBC break the law when it bought and implemented a 22,000-strong botnet as part of its Click news reporting? Nick Farrell of IT Examiner reports that Sophos’ Graeme Cluely suggests that they did because the UK Computer Misuse Act makes it an offense in the United Kingdom to access another person’s computer,…
Category: Non-U.S.
Japanese court orders ISP to reveal file-leaker’s ID
From Daily Yomiuri Online: The Tokyo District Court has ordered an Internet service provider to reveal the name and address of a person who used file-swapping software to spread leaked private information on the Internet of about 110,000 Kanagawa prefectural high school students in fiscal 2006, it has been learned. IBM Japan Ltd., which had…
UK: New Forest District Council blunder exposes residents’ details online
At least 200 Hampshire residents applying for permission for a new extension, wall or fence learned that their names, home addresses, email details, phone numbers, and signatures had been posted on the New Forest District Council’s web site despite the council’s policy of redacting such information. The breach was discovered by The Daily Echo. Read…
Public sector crippled by ‘lovesick’ hacker
Emily Watkins of Northern Territory News reports that a man who was drunk and upset over the breakup with his fiancee hacked into the government system using her password and deleted 10,475 accounts from the Health Department, hospital, prison and Supreme Court servers. It reportedly took 130 experts to find the problem and fix it,…
Nature security breach prompts password reset
John Leyden of The Register reports: The website of science journal Nature has suffered a security breach that resulted in the potential exposure of users’ login credentials. The login credentials were stored in an encrypted form, making them hard to extract. But Nature.com has still opted to reset the passwords of affected users, as a…
UK: Children’s details published on website in council blunder
Annie Riddle of The Salisbury Journal reports that 146 special needs (i.e., special education) children had their personal details published on a Wiltshire County Council website. What makes this one worse is that the council had been alerted to the problem in 2004 and thought it had been taken care of back then. Two weeks…