100 E-mail Bouncebacks? You've Been Backscattered

The bounceback e-mail messages come in at a trickle, maybe one or two every hour. The subject lines are disquieting: "Cyails, Vygara nad Levytar," "UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL, apparently from you."

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Wiretapping is really, really easy

Ask Pellicano, whose case went to the jury last week, and offered arguably more for people who enjoy talk of encryption software, code-wiping booby traps or the low-tech secrets of phone company networks than anyone else.

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Government wiretaps—the ones we know about—up 20% for 2007

Data released this week on 2007 wiretaps shows that nearly all intercepts are for "portable devices" and 80 percent of all taps target drug criminals. Secret FISA warrants are also up, and no one knows what's happening with warrantless surveillance at the NSA.

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How Much File Sharing Traffic Travels the Net?

How much of the traffic on the internet is peer-to-peer file trading? Everyone seems to agree it represents a lot of the traffic, but the truth is no one knows (with the possible exception of the ISPs and backbone providers in the middle, and they aren't telling or sharing raw data).

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Security Flaw Turns Gmail into Open-Relay Server

A newfound flaw in Google's Gmail allows would-be spammers to treat the service as an open-relay server. Compounding the issue is the fact that services such as Hotmail and Yahoo "trust" Gmail. This may facilitate e-mail delivery, but it also makes it easier for spammers to reach their intended targets.

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DARPA Wants Matrix-style Virtual World for Cybergeddon

The US military's famed scientific wingnut farm, DARPA*, has released full details of its planned "National Cyber Range" - a mighty network which could be configured to simulate the cyberspace battlefields of the future. This would allow America's fighting nerds to train for the net conflicts of tomorrow, mounting attacks on simulated enemies..

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Deep packet inspection under assault over privacy concerns

A Canadian law clinic has asked the country's Privacy Commissioner to take a closer look at the deep packet inspection being used by Bell Canada and others. While the technology also raises net neutrality concerns, in this case the issue is privacy.

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