contributed by sw3wn/WH
56k DES has been cracked in 22 hours and 15 minutes. Once again the US government standard on encryption has been shown to be extremely weak. Deep Crack, a machine built for less than $250,000 a year ago accomplished the task in conjunction with hundreds of thousands of machines across the world. This not only proves the weakness in DES but the power of distributed computing. If your idle CPU cycles aren't being used they should be.

distributed.net
ZD Net

contributed by BlackFlag
We received an email Wednesday morning claiming that WRGT-TV, a FOX network affiliate in Dayton Ohio, has allowed the names, addresses, and anything submitted through its web based form to be accessible to anyone. The email claims that WRGT had been notified several times but that no action had been taken. Several hours after we received this email the file was still available. We tried to contact them via phone but their offices are still closed for a few more hours.

BlackFlag Email recieved by HNN
Email list on WRGT site

contributed by sellis
PCHelp, a web site that tries to help people and their problems with technology, is being threatened by the makers of Lockdown 2000. Why? Because their ISP is lame and has no backbone. Lockdown 2000 is software that claims to remove ALL trojans such as Back Orifice. Evidently the people behind Lockdown 2000 where not to happy with the review made about their program by PCHelp so they complained to the ISP. They threatened legal action. The ISP of course wants nothing to do with court so regardless of who is right or who is wrong the ISP is forcing the pages to be taken down.

Original cry of help from PC Help.
PC Help
NorthWest Internet - the ISP

Late Update
NorthWest Internet has taken the high road! Hear, hear, for stong willed ISPs that will not bow to idle legal threats! NWI has decided not to take any action against PCHelp and has told LockDown 2000 to deal directly with the sites owner. Yeah!

contributed by mountn_king
Following in Malaysia's footsteps China is now requiring Internet cafes to report the names and address of all customers or risk being shut down. China says that these new laws are to protect children from gambling and pornography.

ZD Net

contributed by Ryan.Russell
Someone finnally writes a story that questions Winn Schwartau's article, "Striking back: Corporate vigilantes go on the offensive to hunt down hackers". Unfortunately the article only covers the physical side and does not mention anything about the liabilities of the virtual side. Its better than nothing. There is also a neat little poll to fill out.

NW Fusion- Registration Required
Winn Schwartau's original article - Registration Required

contributed by Space Rogue
Republicans to the rescue! Finally someone is speaking out about the proposed "Know Your Customer" program being put forth by the FDIC. This is something we reported on last month. The FDIC wants your bank to report not only how much you make but where you make it and and any activity that looks 'suspicious' in an effort to prevent bank fraud. A group of Republican legislators will attempt to block the proposal in February.

HNN Archive for December 16, 1998
Wired

contributed by jsb4ch
An alpha version (0.1) of "sscan", a security auditing program has been released. It has the ability to create internet worms, add vulnerability checks, etc, by using the programs built in scripting language. (Note: We haven't had time to test this download.)

Download http://bear.berkeleycs.ml.org/~jsbach/sscan.tar.gz

contributed by turtlex
Not only does AntiOnline get a few million in venture capitol they also get press coverage. We are all waiting in anticipation for February 16th.

C | Net