contributed by acopalyse
NDB, an online broker, was cut off for more than an hour yesterday because of what it said was an attack by computer vandals. National Discount Broker Group, based in Jersey City, said that the company had taken precautionary measures in light of recent attacks but that they had clearly not worked. (Hmmmm, not a whole lot of technical information here, who knows what really happened.)

New York Times

contributed by Evil Wench
John Koskinen, President Clinton's Year 2000 Czar told reporters that the US and about a dozen other countries will work together to track any automated-system failures sparked by a leap day next week. Leap days occur only once every 400 years. No major system failures are expected. Plans for the future of the state-of-the-art computer facility built for the Y2K rollover have not yet been announced.

ZD Net

contributed by Evil Wench
The Commerce Department has confirmed that the new encryption export policy does permit Daniel Bernstein to post his 'Snuffle' program to the web without obtaining an export license. Snuffle is a piece of strong encryption software that has been the subject of a free speech lawsuit.

C|Net

contributed by Evil Wench
Attorney General Janet Reno has rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to make a single government agency responsible for securing all federal computer systems from cyber attacks. Reno acknowledged government networks are at risk from cyber attacks, but said there is no simple answer to the problem of security. (Or the FBI does not want to lose this power.)

APB News

contributed by acopalyse
More than 200 vendors from all eight sectors of the economy classified as critical came together to discuss the new Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security. The PCIS was formed last December under the leadership of the Commerce Department. A critical part of the effort will be sharing information, including potential vulnerabilities, research and development, and best practices, across all eight infrastructure sectors.

Federal Computer Week

contributed by The Dark Tangent
The Black Hat Briefings, a computer security show held in Las Vegas before DEF CON each year, has made its 1999 speeches available on-line for free. If you missed the conference last year, you can still watch what happened with a Real Player 7 viewer and a 56k or better connection. The speeches are available in both audio, and video formats.

The Black Hat Briefings

contributed by H2K
Organizers for the Hope 2000 conference have posted all of the entries in the H2K logo contest. They are still accepting online registrations as well.

H2K