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FAA defends 'very secure systems' WASHINGTON - High-tech networks that link key parts of the U.S. air traffic control system lack important controls and are potentially vulnerable to hackers and others familiar with how those computer programs work, congressional investigators concluded Monday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in an update to a 2000 report that the Federal Aviation Administration has made progress in protecting information technology systems and noted the agency's contention that its interconnected networks are secure. Greg Martin, an FAA spokesman, said separately the investigation was too narrowly focused and the agency has adequate controls in place...

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - Three teenagers face felony charges for allegedly hacking into their school computer system to "fix" grades - not for themselves but for friends. The 16-year-olds are enrolled in advanced computer classes at Bay High School, and sheriff's investigator Paul Vecker said they didn't need to change their own grades. "These are three young men who are quite intelligent," he said. Vecker said they mostly changed friends' grades by small increments to avoid notice. However, they allegedly made a big change for one junior, who reportedly would've failed if her grade hadn't been changed from an...

Carpenter had never seen hackers work so quickly, with such a sense of purpose. They would commandeer a hidden section of a hard drive, zip up as many files as possible and immediately transmit the data to way stations in South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan before sending them to mainland China. They always made a silent escape, wiping their electronic fingerprints clean and leaving behind an almost undetectable beacon allowing them to re-enter the machine at will. An entire attack took 10 to 30 minutes. "Most hackers, if they actually get into a government network, get excited and make...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI and the Pentagon are investigating whether Chinese spies have been hacking into U.S. government computer systems, U.S. officials said Thursday. Officials are trying to determine whether the continuing hacking efforts are sponsored by Beijing or merely involve hackers using Chinese Web sites to mask their origins, they said.

A Web forum for Muslim extremists is calling on its members to organize an Islamist hackers' army to carry out Internet attacks against the U.S. government. The site has posted tips, software and links to other resources to help would-be cyber-warriors. The Jamestown Foundation, a District-based nonprofit with a history of extensive ties to the CIA, said that it has monitored postings on a new section of an extremist bulletin board called al-Farooq. According to Jeffrey Poole, a researcher for the foundation, the forum "represents a how-to manual for the disruption and/or destruction of enemy electronic resources, including e-mail, Web...

Web sites in China are being used heavily to target computer networks in the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies, successfully breaching hundreds of unclassified networks, according to several U.S. officials.Classified systems have not been compromised, the officials added. U.S. authorities remain concerned because, as one official said, even seemingly innocuous information, when pulled together from various sources, can yield useful intelligence to an adversary."The scope of this thing is surprisingly big," said one of four government officials who spoke separately about the incidents, which stretch back as far as two or three years and have been code-named Titan Rain...

In the early days of computer attacks, when bright teens could bring down corporate systems, the point was often to trumpet a hacker's success. No longer. In today's murky world of digital viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, the idea is to stay quiet and use hijacked computers to flood the Internet with spam, spread destructive viruses, or disgorge e-mail to choke corporate systems. Not only can networks of these compromised computers be leased or sold, experts say, they are becoming more valuable as the number of vulnerable computers slowly shrinks. That's a major reason that turf wars are emerging among...

Apparently a group of alleged Middle Eastern hackers (whom I will not name) are hacking PHP-Nuke web sites through some sort of vulnerability that I have yet to hear of. A Canadian forum, canadaka.net has been taken down along with some other websites. If you're using this software you may wish to take preventive action. Now is a good time to do that, by the way!

/begin my translation 40,000 Chinese Hackers  to Attack Japan via S. Korean Servers...on Aug. 15  Chinese hackers reportedly plan a massive hacking attack against various Japanese Internet sites on Aug. 15,  using S. Korean servers as 'intermediaries' for their offensive. S. Korean servers, which Chinese hackers will use to elude the tracking of their own IP addresses, include not only servers in S. Korean universities, but also in some government institutions, which would surely raise a major concern. Wen-hui-bao in Hong Kong reported on July 2, "Zhong-guo Hong-ke-lian-meng(Zhong-hong-meng,) one of the five largest hacking organization in the world, plans to launch...

LAS VEGAS -- Attention hackers: Uncle Sam wants you. As scam artists, organized-crime rings and other miscreants find a home on the Internet, top federal officials are trolling hacker conferences to scout talent and talk up the glories of a career on the front lines of the information wars. "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us," Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells told hackers at a recent conference in Las Vegas. Wells and other "feds" didn't exactly...

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Attention hackers: Uncle Sam wants you. As scam artists, organized-crime rings and other miscreants find a home on the Internet, top federal officials are trolling hacker conferences to scout talent and talk up the glories of a career on the front lines of the information wars. "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us," Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells told hackers at a recent conference in Las Vegas. Wells and other "feds" didn't...

...''The kids basically stumbled through an open rabbit hole and found Wonderland,'' Polly, a library technology administrator, said of the Kutztown 13. The trouble began last fall after the district issued some 600 Apple iBook laptops to every student at the high school about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The computers were loaded with a filtering program that limited Internet access. They also had software that let administrators see what students were viewing on their screens. But those barriers proved easily surmountable: The administrative password that allowed students to reconfigure computers and obtain unrestricted Internet access was easy to obtain....

KUTZTOWN, Pa. -- They're being called the Kutztown 13 -- a group of high schoolers charged with felonies for bypassing security with school-issued laptops, downloading forbidden Internet goodies and using monitoring software to spy on district administrators. John Shrawder, 15, is one of 13 Kutztown High School students charged with felonies for bypassing security barriers on their district's network with school-issued laptops, downloading forbidden programs and spying on their elders. The students, their families and outraged supporters say authorities are overreacting, punishing the kids not for any heinous behavior -- no malicious acts are alleged -- but rather because they...

The website of a Catholic civil rights group was hacked over the weekend, apparently by Islamic extremists. William Donohue, president of the New York City-based Catholic League, said the breach began yesterday, one day after his comments about the controversial new Hollywood film on the Crusades, "The Kingdom of Heaven," were published in the New York Post. The unknown hackers replaced the home page with one of their own, featuring a photo of a Palestinian holding a rock in each hand, facing down Israeli soldiers. It included epithets against President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, called for freedom...

The Approaching Chinese Cyber Storm By Frederick W. Stakelbeck FrontPageMagazine.com | July 29, 2005 On numerous occasions in the past, China’s authoritarian regime has publicly stated that the U.S. is its ideological enemy. Comments made by Chinese defector Chen Yonglin to Australian authorities in June support the theory that China’s leaders view the U.S. as their main adversary. “The U.S. is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival. The U.S. occupies a unique place in China’s diplomacy,” noted Yonglin. With inflammatory statements like those noted by Chen Yonglin, it is easy to understand...

Forget the Fantastic Four. As I write, the forces of Good (the White Hats) and Evil (the Black Hats) are fighting for control of the Internet as we know it. At stake is the exploitation of flaws affecting the once-invincible Cisco router hardware, which currently carries most of the Internet's traffic on a daily basis. Once a working exploit for the Cisco IOS Shellcode is available on the Internet, it'll be only a matter of days before someone finds a way to craft it into a network worm. And then it's going to be a rough ride for everyone who...

Enemy at the door ... al-Muhajiroun propaganda   Hackers fight terrorists By PETE BELL Sun OnlineTHE INTERNET has become the latest frontline in the war against terror. With the world wide web increasingly used as the main instrument of propaganda and communication for extreme religious groups like al-Qaeda, MI5 and patriotic hackers have formed an unlikely alliance to close down their sites.Prime Minister Tony Blair announced this morning the Government would be looking at options to tackle the problem.Alarmingly, experts believe al-Qaeda’s master hacker is running the terrorist group’s central communications hub from the UK.Impressionable youngsters are targeted through...

More than 422 new Internet security holes were found during the second quarter, according to data released Monday by the SANS Institute. This represents an increase of 10.8 percent compared with the number found in the first quarter, and a jump of 20 percent compared with the second quarter of last year, the institute said in its quarterly report. If companies and individuals don't take corrective action, the agency warned, their systems could be used by remote hackers for identity theft, industrial espionage, and distribution of spam and pornography. In order to be included on the quarterly list, the vulnerabilities...

Austin group complains of hack attack Online political warriors savage opposition Web sites. Andrew Price/unamerican-stateswoman Kfir Alfia, a co-founder of the Austin-based group ProtestWarrior, which counters anti-war protests, says that attacks on left-leaning Web sites last year were made by a man who is no longer a member. By Asher Price AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, July 14, 2005 In the 1992 movie "Sneakers," Martin Bishop and his crackerjack hacking partner Cosmo infiltrate the Federal Reserve mainframe in 1969 and orchestrate a $25,000 donation from the Republican Party to the Black Panthers, as well as a generous contribution from Richard Nixon to...

Last year a German teenager named Sven Jaschan released the Sasser worm, one of the costliest acts of sabotage in the history of the Internet. It crippled computers around the world, closing businesses, halting trains and grounding airplanes. Which of these punishments does he deserve? A) A 21-month suspended sentence and 30 hours of community service. B) Two years in prison. C) A five-year ban on using computers. D) Death. E) Something worse. If you answered A, you must be the German judge who gave him that sentence last week. If you answered B or C, you're confusing him with...