Law enforcement officials across the country will soon have access to a database of 50 million overseas applications for United States visas, including the photographs of 20 million applicants.

The database, which will become one of the largest offering images to local law enforcement, is maintained by the State Department and typically provides personal information like the applicant's home address, date of birth and passport number, and the names of relatives.

It is a central feature of a computer system linkup, scheduled within the next month, that will tie together the department, intelligence agencies, the F.B.I. and police departments.

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Local law enforcement agencies seeking photographs have typically had immediate access only to their own database of booking photos. But to get photos of people not previously charged or arrested, an investigator would make a request to a motor vehicle department or the State Department.

So officials emphasize that the State Department database is not making any information newly available to law enforcement, simply making such information easier to acquire. But that increasing ease of accessibility raises some concern from civil liberties groups.

InfoStructure News from Wired News - Net Security Czar Stepping Down.

Warning that Internet attacks like the Slammer worm that struck last weekend will become more frequent and destructive, the White House adviser on cybersecurity announces that he'll resign his post to join the private sector.

Slashdot | Distributed Internet Backup System.

deadfx writes "Since disk drives are cheap, backup should be cheap too. Of course it does not help to mirror your data by adding more disks to your own computer because a fire, flood, power surge, etc. could still wipe out your local data center. Instead, you should give your files to peers (and in return store their files) so that if a catastrophe strikes your area, you can recover data from surviving peers. The Distributed Internet Backup System (DIBS) is designed to implement this vision."

Note that DIBS is a backup system not a file sharing system like Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, etc. In fact, DIBS encrypts all data transmissions so that the peers you trade files with can not access your data.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Finland Drops EUCD For Now.

replicant_deckard writes "Electronic Frontier Finland just got a huge legal victory. They report the local DMCA-copy (based on EU copyright directive) was dropped today at the parliament after heavy criticism. So far just two EU nations have accepted the innovation threatening law. Campaigns go on in different European states. They need your support!" cabra771 writes "The European Commission has put up a new proposal dealing with online music piracy that appears to have slightly upset a few people."