internet.quillem.com

Authorities in the U.K and Russia claim to have busted a major Internet extortion ring based in Russia.

Three men, ages 21, 22, and 24, were taken into custody this week in separate arrests in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Saratov and Stavropol regions of southwest Russia. The men have not been charged, but are believed to be part of a ring that uses legions of compromised or "zombie" computers to launch denial of service attacks against online sports betting parlors ("sports books") that refuse to pay protection money, says Felicity Bull, a spokesperson for the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).

In DoS attacks, Web servers are flooded with junk data and network traffic from thousands of machines, preventing them from responding to legitimate requests.

Infoworld is one of many news services carrying reports of ICANN's addition of IPV6 support to the root name servers.

IPv6 quadruples the size of the Internet address field from 32 bits to 128 bits, resulting in the potential availability of trillions of additional addresses. These will give not only every human an address but also every cell phone, refrigerator, washing machine and device that could be imaginably linked to the Internet, according to ICANN.

On Tuesday, the TLDs (top level domains) of Japan and Korea (.jp and .kr) became the first to support IPv6, with France expected to follow shortly, ICANN said.

This article is available here. ICANN's announcement can be read here.

The Philippines government has claimed to have busted a cyber-crime gang operating out of the Philippines. Two Indian citizens, and a blind Filipino cracker are amongst those arrested.

Narvasa explained that the gang’s operation came to light following complaints from multinational companies in the country who were surprised at the huge overseas telephone bills their firms have incurred.

The officials said that since most of the calls were made to India and Pakistan, they are still investigating the possibility that the syndicates have links with international terrorist organizations.

He added that since the syndicate used a subscribers PABX system to make the overseas calls, it might lead to the suspicion that the purpose is not only to avoid paying telephone charges but also to hide the identities as well as their foreign correspondents.

ABS-CBN has this report.

Technology Review is carrying a report on the debut of a DARPA funded quantum cryptography network.

BBN Technologies, Harvard University, and Boston University researchers have built a six-node quantum cryptography network that operates continuously to provide a way to exchange secure keys between BBN and Harvard, which is about 10 kilometers away. The researchers will soon move one of the network nodes across town to link Boston University into the network.

Quantum cryptography schemes allow a pair of correspondents to securely exchange a one-time pad, or key that will unlock a scrambled message. The schemes call for transferring each bit of information using a single photon. The systems are potentially very secure because the quantum state of a particle cannot be observed without altering it.

Click here for the article.

In a new twist to the Nigerian 419 scam, intended victims are being informed that failure to pay up [enter sum here] dollars, will result in them being 'SNIPPED and GUNNED down' by their crack team of assassins.

CAUTION.

1.you are to attach and send with immediate effect,the payment slip,confirming the payment and to enable us to reconcile with our files and deploy our men already monitoring you.

Note : - Your death has been paid for by someone you offended sometime ago and it will be adviceable that you co-operate with us a.s.a.p.

TOWOGBOLA .A.JOHNSON SECRETARY.

The Register has this little tit-bit.

With the increasing popularity of Google & Yahoo search engine Ads, and the widespread use of technologies such as Ad-sense on websites, click fraud is beginning to become a growing problem.

Click fraud is perpetrated in both automated and human ways. The most common method is the use of online robots, or "bots," programmed to click on advertisers' links that are displayed on Web sites or listed in search queries. A growing alternative employs low-cost workers who are hired in China, India and other countries to click on text links and other ads. A third form of fraud takes place when employees of companies click on rivals' ads to deplete their marketing budgets and skew search results.

Google and Overture employ "fraud squads," or teams of people dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent of advertising fees paid to all search networks.

ZDNet has this report. A related article on the growing demand for ad-space on search engines can be seen here.

Wired has a nice piece on the efforts of an online activist, which might have helped put a cap on CAPPS II - Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II. CAPPS II is a 'program to comb through airline passengers' private records for terrorist connections'.

Established civil liberties groups were already on CAPPS II's case. Scannell had no organization, and few, if any, connections in Washington. So he did what he could, by putting up a website, BoycottDelta.org, calling on travelers to avoid the carrier for its role in the screening effort. It would be the first of many sites he'd devote to bringing CAPPS II to a halt.

It seemed like the steepest of battles back then, in February 2003. On the cusp of the Iraq war, Bush's popularity was in the stratosphere. Challenging the White House's antiterror regime was an unpopular proposition, at best.

But now, in an unlikely turn of events, the Bush administration appears to have backed down. On Wednesday, according to USA Today, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that yes, a stake had been driven through the heart of CAPPS II.

A decent read.

The Economic Times is carrying a report on the growing success of training schools across the country, which specialise in animation, game programming and modelling skills.

The employment potential for animation is massive. According to a recent Anderson study, the Indian multimedia and graphics industry is pegged at around $550 million and is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2008.

Within this market, the animation space is expected to grow to $2 billion in three years and employ as many as three lakh professionals.

The ET article is available here. A related, albeit older article is available here.

While the Tatas are still mulling over the Rs. 1 Lakh motorcar, a Pakistani manufacturer is all set to release one locally in Pakistan, in the next few months.

Habib Maritime, a subsidiary of the Habib Group of Pakistan, will soon unveil its 'Sitara,' a Rs 1.26 lakh (about 100,000 Indian rupees) four-seater, 170 cc car that can attain a top speed of 60 km per hour.

The Sitara has no roof or doors and looks like a golf cart-jeep hybrid. But looks apart, the low cost of the car is likely to make most two-wheeler drivers graduate to a four-wheeler and might spark off a boom in Pakistan's auto market.

In India, the Tatas are said to be the closest to launching a low-cost people's car, but the company has said that it would take three years for the Rs 1-lakh car to hit the road.

Rediff has this story.

New York Times has a good write-up on MSN's recent return to profitability after years of continual losses.

Over the last year, however, MSN has finally started to see some profits. The unit began making money last fall and is expected to post an operating profit of about $200 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, compared with a loss of about $531 million last year.

The reason has little to do with any of Microsoft's more ambitious Internet strategies. Instead, it was one of the businesses that it had put on the back burner - Internet advertising - that really started to take off.

Also takes a look at the other strategies being adopted by Microsoft to corner the Internet services market. The full article is available here.