internet (Page 21)

Watch out: The Department of Homeland Security and private technology experts are warning us that hackers plan to attack thousands of websites on Sunday in a coordinated “contest” that could disrupt traffic on the internet. Their goal is to vandalize 6,000 websites in six hours. The government has already detected surveillance probes by hackers looking for weaknesses in corporate and government networks.

Peter Allor of Internet Security Systems says, “We emphasize that all website administrators should ensure that their sites are not vulnerable.”

A contest to destroy what others have worked hard to create? This is something that could only happen in our final hour?according to British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. Hear him on Dreamland, starting Saturday.read more

Michelle Delio writes in wired.com about something new on the internet: Mob Projects, where a group of people agree by e-mail to suddenly turn up together to play a practical joke. Recently, 200 people went to Macy’s department store in Manhattan to buy a “Love Rug” for their “commune,” and gangs of drunken Santas have been seen in San Francisco around Christmas time.

Mob Projects are as exclusive as a fashionable club?you can’t just join, you have to be invited. “Everyone loves a mindless mob!” said Merilyn Synder. “I was so stoked when I got my invitation?no action, no protest, no needing to review my political stance on a particular issue. Just be there or be square.”
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Kari Huus writes on msnbc.com that the Japanese, who have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, are forming suicide pacts on the internet. On Sunday, the bodies of four young Japanese men were found in a car, and evidence that they’d all agreed to kill themselves together was found on their computers. These suicide pacts have resulted in 18 deaths so far this year.
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Phuong Ly writes in the Washington Post about Maryland eighth graders and best friends Karen, Mary and Kristin, who are real-life “Charlie’s Angels,” helping the FBI bust internet pedophiles. In Operation Innocent Images, FBI agents pose as teenage girls and try to strike up internet conversations with these guys, hoping to catch them. But agents are too old to know what’s “cool,” so they need help from these three, who’ve been teaching agents across the country how to sound like genuine teenage girls. It’s hard though?the first time they gave the FBI agents a quiz, the agents all failed.
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