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Hugh Pickens writes 'Business Week reports that security experts plan to recruit victims and other computer users to help them go on the offensive and hunt down hackers. ''It's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys,' says Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president for consumer products at Symantec, the largest maker of antivirus software. Symantec will ask customers to opt in to a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions and then forward the information to authorities. Symantec will also begin posting the FBI's top 10 hackers and their schemes on its Web site, where customers go for software updates and next year the company will begin offering cash bounties for information leading to an arrest. The strategy has its risks as hackers who find novices on their trail may trash their computers or steal their identities as punishment. Citizen hunters could also become cybervigilantes and harm bystanders as they pursue criminal

twitter writes 'Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), microsoft's euphemistically named digital restrictions scheme, is the target of another spyware and false advertising lawsuit. 'Microsoft this week was sued in a Washington district court for allegedly violating privacy laws through Windows XP's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) copy protection scheme. Similar to cases filed in 2006, the new class action case accuses microsoft of falsely representing what information WGA would send to verify the authenticity of Windows and that it would send back information [daily IP address and other details that could be used to trace information back to a home or user]. The complaint further argued that Microsoft portrayed WGA as a necessary security update rather than acknowledge its copy protection nature in the update. WGA's implementation also prevented users from purging the protection from their PCs without completely reformatting a computer's system drive.' There were at least two other lawsuits

It was a bad day for a London council when one of its staff plugged a virus-infected memory stick into a computer, but quite a good day for absent-minded readers harbouring piles of overdue library books, and drivers wanting to park on yellow lines.The meltdown as the virus spread through Ealing council's computer system, crippling internal communications including the phones, and making it impossible to process fines and payments for almost a week, is estimated to have cost the Tory-run authority more than £500,000 in lost revenue and system repairs. Beyond this, 1,838 parking tickets, unable to be processed, were cancelled at a total cost of £90,000, libraries lost £25,000 in fines and booking fees, council property rent went uncollected, and £14,000 was spent on clearing housing benefit claims.As the council considered a report on the incident in May, the Liberal Democrat councillor Gary Malcolm called for heads to roll. 'If this had happened in a private company, people would be s

State officials fear the unsolicited computers could contain malware meant to penetrate the security of state or federal networks.

Al writes 'Many people reveal way too much personal information on social networking sites--something that can easily lead to identity theft or unwanted attention from employers etc. Technology Review has a story about several tools cryptographic tools that can be used to hide your activity on Facebook, from both untrusted users and from Facebook itself. Urs Hengartner, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, developed a Firefox plugin that obfuscates anything marked with '@@' on Facebook and only reveals the correct information to trusted users who have the right keys. The sensitive data itself is even stored on an outside server so that even Facebook cannot access it. The piece mentions two other projects, NOYB and flybynight, that also aim to make personal information more secure on Facebook.' of this story at Slashdot.

...John Girard and Eric Ouellet, discusses mobile data protection products that secure data on movable devices, including laptop/notebook computers, PDAs, and smartphones. Vendors included in the report are evaluated on the completeness of their vision and their ability to execute ...

David Orenstein writes 'Stanford Computer Science researchers are developing Frankencamera, an open source, fully programmable and finely tunable camera that will allow computational photography researchers and enthusiasts to develop and test new ideas and applications — no longer limited by the features a camera manufacturer sees fit to supply. Disclosure: The submitter is a science writer for Stanford and wrote the linked article.' of this story at Slashdot.

After years of struggles with awkward third party software offerings and/or virtual machines dedicated to BlackBerry management, Mac computers users with BlackBerry smartphones can finally download a full-featured BlackBerry desktop manager built specifically for Apple computers.

On the Internet's 40th anniversary, Symantec lists the worst cyber threats.

Apple most recent filing with the court in its case against Psystar for selling computers with Mac OS X preinstalled accused the PC maker of violating the court's protective order by discussing the case with a Harvard Law School professor. Psystar's legal team responded by saying the court order wasn't violated, and that Apple is making an unprofessional and personal attack on its lead counsel, Kiwi Camara.