contributed by Code Kid
In an effort to fight illegal immigration US Representative Lamar Smith, from San Antonio, Texas, has proposed that your social security number and possibly microchips encoded with your fingerprints and other personal data be a mandatory part of your drivers license. At a hearing Thursday, the House Immigration subcommittee will debate the future of modified driver licenses, which has been labeled by some as a "national ID card."

Wired
House Immigration subcommittee

contributed by Carole
A report released by the Emergency Response and Research Institute paints a disturbing picture. The report claims that many local, county and state agencies have little or no fear of illegal data access. While most respondents said that they have dealt with Viruses, 30% claimed that computer tampering was of little or no concern to them. Someone needs to wake these people up.

Civic
Emergency Response and Research Institute

contributed by Weld Pond
Still think the Internet is a safe place to conduct business? Here is an eye opening article that takes a look at what it calls 'microfraud'. Stealing a little money from a lot of people. The idea has been around for years but is only now coming to fruition with the unlimited reach and anonymity of the internet.

Scientific American

contributed by Space Rogue
A Chinese engineer has been arrested on charges of leaking state secrets after he posted secrets about a new warplane to an Internet bulletin board. The message he posted allegedly touched on secrets about a new fighter plane that he learned about while working at a research institute in the city of Chengdu.

Nando Times

contributed by tweety
Back in February HNN asked if anyone knew anything about Abe, the "punk hacker". Well now we do. Salon Magazine has posted a rather long expose on Abe's exploits. The article describes how he used the original Back Orifice to break into the producer's computers and then used the information he found there to not only get on the show but learn inside information about other cast members. Evidently all it takes to be an MTV 'hacker' is to use Back Orifice.

Salon
HNN Archive for February 11, 1999

contributed by RA
The web site of someone who hosted a screen shot of someone's computer that had been owned with Back Orifice 2000 had to be shut down from over use. The site was generating one gigabyte of traffic per day.

BO2K Fun

contributed by Code Kid
Neil Whitehouse, 28, was convicted of "recklessly and negligently endangering" a British Airways flight carrying 91 passengers from Madrid to Manchester after he ignored repeated requests from the crew to switch off his cell phone. He was sentenced to one year in jail.

ZD Net

This raises several questions. Yes, radio waves from a cell phone have the potential to screw things up. Is this threat being blown out of proportion by the airline industry? Is this tactic used by the airline industry to increase use of their in flight phones at their exorbitant rates? Are these multi million dollar aircraft so poorly built that they can not withstand a few low power electromagnetic radiations? If anyone can point us to the the proper scientific studies we would appreciate it.