Start-up Guardian Digital has launched an effort to sell a version of Linux that's less vulnerable to attack, a niche the company hopes will gain it a foothold in the market for the Unix-like operating system.

The Allendale, N.J.-based start-up released its EnGarde Secure Professional product Tuesday, a version of Linux that comes with management tools and server software designed to thwart attacks. The product costs $549, plus $219 per year for a mandatory software update service.

Linux, like the Unix operating system on which it's based and other operating systems, has had its share of security problems, but often the problems come with higher-level software such as the SNMP service for letting administrators manage servers or the Apache program for sending Web pages to browsers. Guardian Digital aims to stomp out many of those problems by what software is used, testing it with the other software and in some cases writing new programs, said Chief Executive Dave Wreski.

TechNews.com part of the Washington Post - FBI Fingerprint Research Helps Spawn an Industry.

NEWS.com.au | Cybercrime code ready.

Internet service providers are preparing for a new cybercrime code of conduct that will detail how much data they should keep on subscribers in order to co-operate with police and other law enforcement agencies.

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) is about to release the draft of its Cybercrime code of conduct, chairman Justin Milne said.

The draft code is the result of more than a year of collaboration between the internet industry and representatives from police and crime authorities.

It represents an apparently successful attempt by the internet industry to avoid specific new laws being introduced to specify compliance with authorities.

Technology News from Wired News - Junked PCs Offer Data for Taking.

The surest way to destroy the data on a computer is to destroy the machine. So why do government agencies keep reselling and donating their used systems?

Basically correct but the person interviewed makes one claim thats over the top for any PC that doesn't come from somebody like the NSA, NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) or the CIA

Wired 10.10: Interview - Vigilante Justice for Copyright Holders.

Big Media has become adept at using lawsuits to smother centralized file-swapping services like Napster. But peer-to-peer networks that have no central server are another matter -- there's no one to sue. Representative Howard Berman (D-California) has drafted a bill that would exempt copyright owners from computer-fraud laws if they fight back using measures such as "interdiction, decoy, redirection, file-blocking, and spoofing." Some might call it vigilantism. Berman calls it "technological self-help."

ITworld.com - Privacy: A double-edged sword.

For inherently social beasts that crave the latest gossip, humans demonstrate an entirely different attitude toward personal privacy. Though technology in general, and the database in particular, has made information gathering a breeze, it has been hell on personal privacy. There are megabytes of information on each and every one of us. From medical records, which may show a propensity to high blood pressure and obesity, to supermarket loyalty cards which demonstrate our inability to resolve the apparent dietary hypocrisy between our love of junk food and buying of tofu.

[ ... ]

This is something that IT departments across the country are going to have to start worrying about, if they haven't already. In January 2004, all Canadian companies will have to comply to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The act will apply to all personal information collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial activities by all. This is all occurring as hypothetical worst case scenarios are slowly, but inexorably, becoming reality.

It might only be a matter of time before police start trolling for suspects in a database knowing an assailant has AB+ blood, suffers from arthritis and is between the age of 43 and 52. For many this seems Orwellian.

[ ... ]

"Technology can bring some efficiencies to the abuse of privacy," said Peter Hope-Tindall, chief privacy architect with Oakville, Ont.-based dataPrivacy Partners Ltd. "It is becoming cheaper and more efficient to do nefarious things with databases."

While it is debatable whether use of a database in such a way is nefarious by definition, it is an unquestionably intimidating event for those who fear Big Brother.

[ ... ]

Herein lies the dilemma. No one is out to blame privacy abuses on technology, but there is no question technology has made abusing one's privacy that much easier.

Sweeney, while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in Cambridge, Mass., took ostensibly private medical information (in the form of hospital discharge data, research information collected by 40 of the 50 U.S. states), combined it with publicly available voter registration data and was able to match records to patients. Sweeney was able to determine everything from severity of illness to payment method. All of this was done with the help of database technology.

"That's frightening...we would not release any [data] like that," said Miyo Yamashita, corporate privacy officer with the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto. It appears this method of patient re-identification cannot be duplicated in Canada.

Jacksonville Daily News - Protection of vets' privacy sought.

Military personnel fill out a DD-214 discharge form upon leaving the service. The form contains personal information such as a person's date of birth, Social Security number and military identification number. The form is then turned in to the local register of deeds office.

However, with more and more register of deeds offices getting Web sites, a veteran's personal information was then available online, making identity theft a potential problem.

Computerworld - Congressional interest in privacy issues gaining steam.

Privacy, the leading technology issue in Congress before last year's terrorist attacks, quickly took a back seat to homeland security, corporate financial scandals and Iraq. But as Washington cooled to the issue, some states and a California county moved forward and adopted tougher privacy rules. It's a trend that has gotten the attention of federal lawmakers and may be spurring them to action on privacy.

Following a hearing today on a major privacy bill in the U.S. House, Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-Fla.) said he would push for action by his Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee -- and possibly by the full Energy and Commerce Committee -- before Congress adjourns next month.

State efforts to adopt their own privacy laws are going to give much more of an impetus to a federal privacy bill, Stearns said. Those localized efforts also represent the worst fears of business groups: an emerging patchwork of state laws and systems capable of recognizing the various rules.

[ ... ]

But Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said actions to adopt privacy rules in Minnesota and North Dakota and by San Mateo County in California show "how strongly people feel about this issue."

Rotenberg was also critical of a number of provisions in Stearns' bill, including strict limits on the privacy rights of consumers and legal action available to them. Under the bill, enforcement of privacy issues would rest with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Without private rights of action, "that means there is no real accountability," Rotenberg said.

InfoWorld - Privacy bill for consumers not likely this year.

U.S. consumers are unlikely to see new federal privacy protections this year, but lawmakers said on Tuesday they are still hammering out compromises with an eye on the next legislative session.

With a scant six weeks to go until congressional elections, lawmakers concede that neither a business-friendly bill in the House of Representatives nor a tougher bill in the Senate is likely to become law.

But Congress faced renewed pressure to act as high-tech firms worry that they could face a growing patchwork of conflicting state and local regulations, while civil-liberties advocates fear that government counterterrorism investigations could further erode individual privacy rights.

House lawmakers said they would continue to fine-tune their bill with the hopes of attracting a wider base of support when Congress convenes again next year.

Computerworld - Liberty Alliance plans interoperability with Passport.

The Liberty Alliance Project, which is developing Web technology to facilitate single sign-on authentication, plans to support interoperability between its system and Microsoft Corp.'s rival Passport system.

"We see opportunities for interoperability between Passport and Liberty Alliance; this option could be part of a 1.1 specification, possibly later this year," Paul Madsen, product manager at Entrust Inc. in Addison, Texas, said today at The Burton Group's Catalyst conference in Munich, Germany.

Entrust is a member of the Liberty Alliance consortium, which is made up of vendors, service providers and enterprise users.

Slashdot | Liberty Alliance Plans Passport Interoperability.

EvanDelay writes "The Liberty Alliance Project, which is developing Web technology to facilitate single sign-on authentication, plans to support interoperability between its system and Microsoft Corp.'s rival Passport system. Computerworld has the story."

Dotcom Scoop - Letter from RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen to industry execs about P2P firms .

ATTENTION KAZAA USERS: Please note that this an internal email from RIAA Chairman and CEO Hilary Rosen to industry executives. The publisher of Dotcom Scoop has nothing to do with this letter other than publishing it. Do not email the Editor expressing support for KaZaA or opposition to the RIAA's policies. This email is published merely for informational purposes and does not express the views of Dotcom Scoop. This is an internal email that was leaked to this publication.

Dotcom Scoop - Internal RIAA legal memo regarding KaZaA, MusicCity & Grockster.

ATTENTION KAZAA USERS: Please note that this an internal memo prepared by the RIAA legal department. The publisher of Dotcom Scoop has nothing to do with this memo other than publishing it. Do not email the Editor expressing support for KaZaA or opposition to the RIAA's policies. This email is published merely for informational purposes and does not express the views of Dotcom Scoop. This is an internal memo that was leaked to this publication.

LawMeme (Yale) - Sherman, Set the Wayback Machine for Scientology.

The Wayback Machine (aka Archive.org, The Internet Archive) has, with little fanfare, removed entire domains from its archive in accordance with a request from Scientology's lawyers:

Lawyers for the Church of Scientology contacted the Internet Archive, asserted ownership of materials visible through the Wayback Machine, and those materials have been removed from the Wayback Machine. [email to LawMeme]

The problem is not that the Internet Archive received such a request from the Church of Scientology's lawyers, or even complied with the legal portions of the request, but that the Internet Archive has not taken minimal steps to defend free inquiry and access to information. LawMeme reveals the sordid details...

This current attack by Scientology on freedom of expression appears very similar to what happened to Google back in March 2002, initially reported among other places in Microcontent News (Church v. Google: How the Church of Scientology is forcing Google to censor its critics). The New York Times (reg. req.) has a good summary of the entire controversy on Google vs. Scientology (Google Runs Into Copyright Dispute).

The Shifted Librarian - Wayback Machine Removing Content.

CNET NEWS.COM - Net archive silences Scientology critic.

Buckling under pressure from the Church of Scientology, the Internet Archive has removed a church critic's Web site from its system.

The Internet Archive, a site that preserves snapshots of old Web pages and bills itself as "a library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form," no longer contains links to archival pages of Xenu.net. Instead, surfers are pointed to a page telling them the site was taken down "per the request of the site owner."

However, Xenu.net operator Andreas Heldal-Lund said he never made any such request. Heldal-Lund, a Norwegian businessman and longtime church critic, said he's eager for people to read archived pages of his site.

"I'm the author, and I never asked that it be removed," he said. "I believe what's happening in this case is important history."

A representative of the Internet Archive said the organization, which is run mostly by volunteers, took the pages down after lawyers for the Church of Scientology "asserted ownership of materials visible through" the site. He said the group replaced the links with a generic error message about blocked sites.

However, the organization removed not only Xenu.net pages containing excerpts from Church of Scientology documents, but also the entire Xenu.net site, which contains pages crafted entirely by Heldal-Lund.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Wayback Machine Purged of Scientology Criticism.

muldrake writes "The Wayback Machine, an archive of websites as they appeared in their past incarnations, is reported by CNET in this story as having censored the Scientology-critical Xenu.net, in a repeat of the heavy-handed tactics used against Google as reported in this previous Slashdot thread."

CIO Insight - By Lawrence Lessig - A Bounty on Spammers.

Spam is a blight on our high-tech civilization. Lawrence Lessig has an idea: force spammers who don't label their junk e-mail to pay $10,000 to the first recipient who finds them.

[ ... ]

If California Congressman Howard Berman has his way, soon these spam vigilantes will be joined by a new rank of lawless law enforcers--copyright vigilantes. In July, Berman, a Democrat, introduced a bill to deputize the recording industry and other copyright holders to help fight copyright violations. Through his bill, these vigilantes would be granted immunity from liability as they deployed tools to hack peer-to-peer systems that they "reasonably believe" violate copyright laws. Run a Morpheus server with content that recording industry executives think is theirs, and you may find your machine doesn't run much content at all.

Citizen involvement in any war on crime is not necessarily a bad thing. There's a long tradition of people helping cops, especially where cops are hard to find or fund. But somehow, the Internet always seems to use vigilantism in the worst possible way. Berman's idea is an extreme example, but it shares important features with spam vigilantism as well.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Lessig On Bounties For Spamhunters. An anonymous reader submits: "Digital rights (as in yours, not the RIAA's) guru Lawrence Lessig comes up with a Swiftian idea of how to fight spammers -- $10,000 for the first ubergeek to hunt the offender down. The column is at CIO Insight. Wonder if it'll reach its audience there."