Free Republic

An ex-cybercriminal has warned of the dangers children face online after getting tangled up in scams himself at the age of 12. The man in his 20s, referred to only as 'Harry', has expressed regrets over previous offences, having tricked computer gamers out of thousands during his younger years. These harmful scams took off at a time when Harry was keen to make pocket money, with no option to get a job of his own. But with children now increasingly fixated on the virtual world, he says that protections are vital to ensure they are sheltered from dark practices. 'As...

The case of computer whiz Aaron Swartz -- who committed suicide after federal prosecutors charged him with 13 felony fraud counts -- has become, for some, emblematic of how overzealous prosecutors are going too far in pursuit of a win. The shocking suicide -- the 26-year-old co-creator of RSS and Reddit hanged himself last month -- has led to calls to rein in the practice of overcharging defendants. Swartz could have been punished with up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines -- a greater penalty than some murderers face. And it was all for downloading millions...

Lebanese-born activist Fadi Madi says he started the groups Lebanon View and Palestine Intifada to garner support for a new "intifada," or uprising, against Israel... "As an international movement ... our faith in our common humanity leads us to call on all parties to respect and uphold international law and fundamental human rights to bring an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories since 1948 and pursue a just and lasting peace. The march can only succeed if it arouses the conscience of humanity."

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2009 "In gaz we trust"? I'd rather change GazTranzitStroyInfo's vision to HangUp Team's infamous - "in fraud we trust". It is somehow weird to what lengths would certain cybercriminals go to create a feeling of legitimacy of their enterprise.

Traditionally, botnets have spread through PCs running Windows, and not Macs, in part because of the low market share worldwide of computers like the iMac, shown here behind Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a 2006 photo. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press) A piece of malicious software unwittingly shared over a peer-to-peer network in January was the key tool in what security researchers are saying was the first known attempt to create a botnet of Mac computers. Researchers at Symantec say the Trojan, called OSX.Iservice, hid itself in pirated versions of the Apple application iWork '09 and the Mac version of Adobe Photoshop...

With VPN-enabled malware infected hosts easily acting as stepping stones thanks to modules within popular malware bots, next to commercial VPN-based services, the cost of anonymizing a cybecriminal's Internet activities is not only getting lower, but the process is ironically managed in data retention heavens such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, USA and Germany in this particular case, by using the services of the following ISPs: LeaseWeb AS Amsterdam, Netherlands; ROOT-AS root eSolutions; HOPONE-DCA HopOne Internet Corp.; NETDIRECT AS NETDIRECT Frankfurt, DE. Operating since 2004, yet another "cybercrime anonymization" service is using the bandwidth of legitimate data centers in order to...