(MSNBC, 31 March) Major biotechnology firms Monsanto Co. and Aventis Co. S.A. will reportedly be targeted beginning this past weekend for Internet protests, according to a spokesman for the Electrohippies, a group that plans such protests. The two companies will first be targeted with a straightforward e-mail write-in campaign. But by the end of the week, new denial-of-service software tools will be distributed and could be aimed at the Internet operations of both firms. And according to one security expert, other big-name companies like PepsiCo and McDonald?s could also be targeted. Then early this week, e-mail campaigns will target specific companies involved in production of genetically modified crops. The Electrohippies claim to have created a tool that automatically writes and addresses protest e-mails to political leaders of industrialized nations and corporate executives. (Bloomberg, 30 March) Bloomberg reports that a Texas day-trader was charged Thursday with posting a fake profit warning for Lucent Technologies Inc. on a Yahoo! Internet message board last week, driving Lucent stock down 3.6% and cutting the company's market value by more than $7 billion. Federal prosecutors said Fred Moldofsky, 43, traded approximately 6,000 shares of Lucent stock on March 22, the day he allegedly posted the phony press release. The Houston man was arrested Thursday. Authorities didn't disclose the results of Moldofsky's trading activity that day. ''Law enforcement officers were able to quickly identify Moldofsky, despite his efforts to remain anonymous,'' U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said in a statement. ''By collecting evidence from Yahoo!, America Online, and Moldofsky's Internet service provider, authorities identified Moldofsky and the location'' of his computer. <MG: A great ad for ZKS> (CIAC, 31 March) According to CIAC Information Bulletin K-032, recent interactions with DOE sites have shown that many of the network administrators are only concerned with being the target of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Although with the current TCP/IP implementation, there is little that can be done to prevent your network from suffering the effects of a DDoS, there are steps that can be taken to help reduce the chances that DOE networks are used as a source of an attack against another network. For more detailed information on this issue, see CIAC's paper at: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/documents/CIAC-2319_Distributed_Denial_of_Service.pdf IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are not using HushMail, this message could have been read easily by the many people who have access to your open personal email messages. Get your FREE, totally secure email address at http://www.hushmail.com.
