contributed by weld pond
Online retailers in their most lucrative season of the year, appear to be the prime target of a pending DDoS attack that has been gaining silent momentum via a distribution chain channeled though Usenet newsgroups. This variant version of SubSeven Trojan dubbed SubSeven DEFCON8 2.1 backdoor, has been detected by X-force in several hundred computers. Beware: The attack that stole Christmas…coming to a theater near you.

vnunet.com

contributed by laney
A controversial ruling from a Pennsylvanian court that included a portion in favor of the right to maintain online anonymity ( to an extent) in defamation cases, has met with both accolades and opposition. The sentence garnering the most attention stated, "A plaintiff should not be able to use the rules of discovery to obtain the identity of an anonymous publisher simply by filing a complaint that may, on its face, be without merit.'' In an era when the privacy lifecycle can be at best, described as malleable, every bit helps or hinders depending on what side of the issue you are on.

The Boston Globe

contributed by weld pond
A meeting of InfraGard in Eastern Tennessee allowed the FBI and local businessmen an opportunity to put their heads together on computer security, a major concern (or at least it should be) for a growing number of companies. Hopefully the conversion of this particular faction is an indication that the government as an entity will make a concerted effort to ramp up its online security efforts.

KnoxNews.com

contributed by laney
The Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) has deemed certain MSN systems serve as spam conduits and has added them to it's Relay Spam Stopper (RSS) list. While it may not be the notorious Realtime Black Hole List that has been a subject of controversy from the start, the addition of the MSN systems to RSS has directly impeded the email accounts of innocent users. Microsoft just can't seem to catch a break these days.

InternetNews.com