contributed by N-Sanity
A teenager from Montreal has been arrested for 'hacking' by the RCMP. He brought down a Halifax ISP for 5 hours with a smurf attack. Evidently his crimes consist of only DoS attacks and for this he may get 10 years in jail. The RCMP evidently isn't even sure if the person will be charged. The Montreal Gazette is full of FUD and makes it appear that he also cracked MIT, Norwegian, and US Government computers. In an interview with a local newspaper he told them that if put in jail his group "SegFault" would shut down Montreal in a second.

Montreal Gazette
Newsbytes

contributed by Code Kid
Internet users in Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland are participating in the first coordinated Internet Strike in protest against high access charges. Users in the Seven countries are asked to avoid going online during the 24-hours of the strike. The strike was organized by the UK-based Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications (CUT) which has developed a Web site and a mailing list to combine the different national campaigns.

BBC
Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications

The Indonesians are performing their own strike today.HackerLink Indonesia, an HNN Affiliate is reporting that an Internet Strike is being conducted today against PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia. The strike is in protest of the proposed increase of 24% for local calls and a 10% increase in monthly service fees among other new and higher charges. The organizers of the strike feel that they have the support of over 6000 users in the country and feel that this high percentage of telephone users will have a large impact.

PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia
TOLAK_TELKOM- Strike organizers
HackerLink

contributed by Niall McKay
The European Union wants an agreement that will allow law enforcement officials to eavesdrop on Internet communications, fax and cellular phone conversations. The European Justice and Home Affairs Council tabled the plan, known as Enfopol 98, behind closed doors in December. The purpose of the plan is to combat serious crime, such as drug trafficking, child abuse and terrorism. Critics of plan question why it has not been discussed in the Parliaments of the member countries, exactly what the definition is of a 'serious' crime, and wonder why authorities do not need a court order to use this plan.

Irish Times

contributed by Weld Pond
Last months article in Scientific American on computer security was not very well received in information technology circles. This month Scientific American publishes some rather scathing letters targeted against the articles author Carolyn Meinel

Scientific American

contributed by Weld Pond
The recently reposted article by Kevin Poulsen goes into details why Carolyn Meinel is such a favorite target of hackers and crackers. Yes, this article is a little old but considering that her web site was recently cracked wide open it is fairly topical and worth reading if you missed it the first time around.

ZD Net

contributed by WareZ Dud3
More FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt). While this article is basically a big advertisement for Pilot Network Services, an Internet service provider that specializes in securing corporate networks, it paints a picture of total anarchy on the internet. Personally I expect better from PC Week.

PC Week

contributed by Ex Machina
More FUD. Choice quote "Another recent champion of the genre is `Back Orifice' (a pun on Microsoft's Back Office network management products) that uses a security weakness in Windows 95 to allow someone to furtively take over your computer. But it only works if you're kind enough to click on a little installation program that can be disguised as something else." Kind of contradictory. No mention of buffer overflows in mail clients, web browsers, or other bugs that allow execution of programs.

The Miami Herald

contributed by Space Rogue
Besides the new graphics and over all new look and feel of HNN we have added some new features as well. Last week we added a list of Hacker cons on our Cons Page. We have revamped the Search engine and added the Astalavista Security Search option on the Grep Page. You will notice over on the left side a listing of some of the recent files uploaded to Packet Storm Security. Many people have asked for a mailinglist of news. We are working on it. We have several more features planned for the coming weeks and months. Let us know what you want to see.

contributed by f0bic
Belgium Cracked
In what is believed to be the first crack of a system in Belgium, www.interline.be, a Belgium ISP was cracked over the weekend. Also cracked by the same people was www.selangor.gov.my

HNN Archive of Cracked Page

We received email that the following sites where also cracked over the weekend.
http://www.mmc.co.jp
http://www.isd.net
http://www.nolimitrecords.com