An anonymous reader writes "A week after the Justice Department cleared him of any wrongdoing, Chris Soghoian, the Indiana University PhD student who created an online boarding pass generator for Northwest Airlines to highlight security holes is on the government's 'no-fly' list. The Transportation Security Administration has now launched its own investigation, says Wired blog 27strokeB. The TSA is claiming that Soghoian 'attempted to circumvent an established civil aviation security program established in the Transportation Security Regulations,' violations of which carry fines of up to $11,000 per violation. That could be a steep fine, says Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog: 'Something like 35,000 people viewed and possibly used the boarding pass generator during the less than 72 hours that it was live on his site in November. Soghoian told WaPo: "If they decide that the only safe way for me to leave the country is by boat, then that's pretty much the end of my career here in the States. It's one thing to harass researchers, but if they can chase them out of the country, then that's a real chilling effect."'"

emil10001 writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has rejected a proposal suggesting that electronic voting have a paper trail. The draft recommendation was developed by NIST scientists, who called out electronic voting machines as being 'impossible' to secure." From the article: "Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.' The proposal failed to obtain the 8 of 15 votes needed to pass. Five states — Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina — use machines without a paper record exclusively. Eleven states and the District either use them in some jurisdictions or allow voters to chose whether to use them or some other voting system." So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.

kop writes "The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. Most previous studies of economic disparity have looked at income, whereas this one looks at wealth — assets minus debts. The survey is based on data for the year 2000. Many figures, especially for developing countries, have had to be estimated. Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken." The study itself is available from the World Institute for Development Economics Research.

AcidAUS writes "The widely-publicized reforms to Australian copyright — which would turn iPod, camera phone and DVD recorder owners into criminals — have been significantly amended. The amendment bill was passed this past Friday, after the changes were put into place. The Labor and Green parties still have problems with the bill as it exists, but the Labor party (at least) wants to let it go based on the fact that it is 'a million times' better than the original proposed legislation." From the article: "Following an outcry by industry bodies and the public, [Attorney-General Philip] Ruddock amended the bill. 'The Government has listened to the Senate Committee and stakeholders and has improved the effectiveness of the reforms,' Mr Ruddock said in a statement. 'The amended reforms make it clear consumers can transfer the music they own onto devices such as iPods and enable the next wave of technology by allowing people to record a TV or radio program on mobile devices to watch it at a more convenient time.' The amendments also removed on-the-spot fines for some copyright offenses, to ensure they didn't 'unintentionally capture harmless activities of ordinary Australians'."

eldavojohn writes "Earlier this year, UK citizen & hacker of NASA Gary KcKinnon was extradited to the United States (also interviewed twice). Now, another hacker has been indicted for hacking more than 150 U.S. government computers. Victor Faur, 26, of Arad, Romania claims to have led a 'white hat team' to expose flaws in U.S. government computers. It seems everyone else has been busy hacking into government systems while I've been wasting my time playing Warcraft." From the article: "The breached computers were used to collect and process data from spacecraft. Because of the break-ins, systems had to be rebuilt and scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft, resulting in $1.36 million in losses for NASA and nearly $100,000 in losses for the Energy Department and the Navy, prosecutors said. Several suspected NASA hackers have been dealing with law enforcement recently."

Virchull tells us about a case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, in which former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr will take the side of an Alaska school board against a student who displayed a rude banner off school property. The banner read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" and it got the student suspended. He and his parents sued the school board for violating his First Amendment rights. The case is nuanced: while the student did not display the banner on school property, he did do so during a school function. Starr is said to be arguing the case for free.

El Lobo writes "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of both of them dying. The foundation focuses on improving health and economic development globally, and improving education and increasing access to technology. It also focuses on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The Seattle-based foundation plans to increase spending to about $3.5 billion a year beginning in 2009 and continuing through the next decade, up from about $1.75 billion this year." The Wall Street Journal (excerpted at the link above) called the foundation's decision "a decisive move in a continuing debate in philanthropy about whether such groups should live on forever."

reporter writes "British authorities had identified polonium 210 to be the radioactive poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who defected to Great Britain. Now, according to a disturbing report, the authorities have identified the source of the poison to be Russia. Bloomberg ominously reports, 'Scientists at the U.K.'s Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, west of London, have traced the polonium 210 found in London to a nuclear power plant in Russia, the capital's Evening Standard newspaper reported today. Officials at the establishment didn't return calls.' A cold chill just fell on relations between Russia and the West." In another twist to this developing story, the shadowy Italian security consultant who dined with Litvinenko has also fallen ill with radiation poisoning.

cc writes "The Des Moines Register is reporting that opening statements have begun in the Microsoft-Iowa antitrust case. The Register reports that the Plaintiffs have shaped their case around nine stories involving competitors from IBM to Linux. Microsoft attorneys say Gates is expected to testify in January, and company CEO Steve Ballmer will likely appear in February. Both men are expected to be on the stand for about four days. Unlike previous antitrust cases against the software giant, the Iowa case is seeking additional damages for security vulnerabilities. Plaintiffs allege that Microsoft's bundling of IE with Windows caused harm to consumers by increasing the consumer's susceptibility to security breaches and bugs. The case is one of the largest antitrust cases in history, encompassing millions of documents and Microsoft's business practices during the last 20 years."

stevew writes "A small company in Florida is trying to take on the FCC in an attempt to make their Cell phone jamming product legal. Their main argument seems to be that the Communications act of 1934 conflicts with the HomeLand Security Act — so the Communications act has to go." From the article: "Local and state law enforcement agencies, which would be the first responders to a terrorist attack here at home, are prohibited by law from obtaining such gear. 'It just doesn't make much sense that the FBI can use this equipment, but that the local and state governments, which the Homeland Security Act has acknowledged as being an important part of combating terrorism, cannot,' said Howard Melamed, chief executive of CellAntenna. 'We give local police guns and other equipment to protect the public, but we can't trust them with cellular-jamming equipment? It doesn't make sense.'"

quizzicus writes "Paperless electronic voting machines 'cannot be made secure' [pdf] according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the most sweeping condemnation of voting machines issued by any federal agency, NIST echoes what critics have been saying all along, that due to the lack of verifiability, 'a single programmer could rig a major election.' Rather than adding printers, though, NIST endorses the hand-marked optical-scan system as the most reliable."

feuerfalke writes "Homeland Security recently disclosed a plan regarding an Automated Targeting System, or ATS, that would generate a 'terrorist risk rating' based on information collected about the traveler. This information would include things such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and the meals they ordered in-flight. These ratings have now been assigned to millions of international travelers, including Americans, and the ATS is exempt from many provisions of the Privacy Act — one cannot view their rating or the information used to generate it."

mikesd81 writes "The AP has an article about a possible attack against the New York Stock Exchange via the internet by a radical muslim group. The notice was issued to the U.S. cybersecurity industry after officials saw a posting on a 'Jihadist Web site' calling for an attack on U.S. Internet-based stock market and banking sites in December, said Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke. Knocke has said: 'There is no information corroborating the threat and that the alert was issued as a routine matter and out of an abundance of caution.' There is no immediate threat to our homeland at this time. The attacks were to be conducted in December, 'until the infidel new year,' the site said, according to a U.S. government translation. It called for attackers to use viruses that can penetrate Internet sites and destroy data stored there. Spokespeople for the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq declined to comment on the cyber-terror threat."

netbuzz writes "Dilbert's Scott Adams kicked off the idea in his November 19th blog post, saying there isn't anything wrong with this country that President Bill Gates couldn't cure in less time than it takes to get a new operating system out the door. Today, the idea is moving forward with a brand-new 'Bill Gates for President' Web site. Adams is also back on the campaign trail, flogging the site and Gates' candidacy." A blog post at Network World includes a lot of eye-rolling about this idea, but neither Adams nor the folks at the 'Gates for President' website seem to be taking this lightly.

An anonymous reader writes, "Investigators have dropped the criminal case against Christopher Soghoian after satisfying themselves that he acted without criminal intent. The grad student had created a web site capable of printing fake airline boarding passes. Soghoian is quoted: 'If they fix the airport security problems... then this entire process has been worth it. If they don't fix airport security, then... what was the purpose?'" Soghoian's blog has insightful comments about the divide between security researchers and government officials on subjects such as TOR.

reporter writes to point us to a story in the Washington Post reporting that the Iraq Study Group has reached consensus and will issue its 100-page report on December 6: 'The Iraq Study Group, which wrapped up eight months of deliberations yesterday, has reached a consensus and will call for a major withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, shifting the U.S. role from combat to support and advising, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.' The Post mentions that first word of the panel's conclusions came from the New York Times yesterday. The Times points out that it is not clear how many U.S. troops would come home; some brigades might be withdrawn to Iraqi bases out of the line of fire from which they could provide protection for remaining U.S. operations.

gamer4Life writes "The United States has created their list of products banned from being exported to North Korea. This list includes iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. U.S. intelligence officials who helped produce the Bush administration's list said Kim prefers Mercedes, BMW and Cadillac cars; Japanese and Harley Davidson motorcycles; Hennessy XO cognac from France and Johnny Walker Scotch whisky; Sony cameras and Japanese air conditioners."

orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."

An anonymous reader writes, "The United States is one of the few countries in the world whose currency isn't distinguishable by blind people. Most other nations use raised text, different-sized bills, or other methods to assist blind people in spending their money. If a recent decision by a federal court in D.C. survives appeal, however, that will soon change. Under Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, federal programs cannot deny 'meaningful access' to people with disabilities. Because blind people are unable to distinguish U.S. currency without assistance, the court held that they are denied meaningful access to their own money. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it." How Appealing notes that Judge Robertson opened the door to a speedy appeal of his ruling.

At a dinner honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech, former House speaker Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined in the interest of fighting terrorism. Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message. The article has few details of what Gingrich actually said beyond the summary above, and no analysis pointing out how utterly clueless the suggestion is given the Internet's nature and trans-national reach.