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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2003 Broadband Providers Consider Usage Caps SE Asian Countries Unite to Fight Cybercrime MPs to Meet with U.S. Officials About Spam Open-Source Software Vulnerable to Hacking Internet Site Targets Student Suicide JetBlue Shared Customer Records with Military Contractor BROADBAND PROVIDERS CONSIDER USAGE CAPS Several leading providers of broadband Internet service have begun instituting usage caps and notifying abusers that their service could be suspended unless they cut back the amount of bandwidth they use. Some companies offer stated caps, such as Cox Communications, which allows customers to download 2 gigabytes per day. Other companies, including Comcast, do not have explicit limits but have begun notifying those of its customers who use disproportionate amounts of bandwidth. The company said 28 percent of its available bandwidth is used by the top 1 percent of its customers, and those customers have begun receiving notes from Comcast indicating that they are in violation of their terms of service. Verizon Communications and SBC Communications said their services remain unlimited. Usage caps are seen as one of the variables in the ongoing battle for customers among broadband providers and between DSL and cable-modem service. ZDNet, 22 September 2003 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5079624.html SE ASIAN COUNTRIES UNITE TO FIGHT CYBERCRIME The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has announced a plan in which member countries will cooperate in the battle against hackers. All ASEAN countries--Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei--will share information about computer crimes, and each country will create a Computer Emergency Response Team by 2005. At least six ASEAN nations already have response teams, according to Virgilio Pena, the under secretary for the department of transportation and communications in the Philippines. Pena said ASEAN hopes to broaden the cybercrime initiative to all of Asia and then to the rest of the world. USA Today, 19 September 2003 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2003-09-19-asean-on-cybercrime_x.htm MPS TO MEET WITH U.S. OFFICIALS ABOUT SPAM A delegation of government officials from Britain will meet with U.S. officials next month to discuss efforts to limit spam. At the top of the list of topics to be discussed is the difference of opinion between Britons and Americans over whether e-mail marketers should be required to obtain permission to send e-mails (the opt-in approach) or users should be required to request that their names be removed from e-mail lists (the opt-out approach). Britain recently enacted strong opt-in legislation, and many Members of Parliament (MP) see the U.S. strategy of opt-out programs as a "recipe for disaster." According to MP Derek Wyatt, if subject to opt-out regulations "spammers will just swap e-mail addresses and send more viruses out so as to cull even more e-mail addresses." Wyatt said that because 90 percent of spam comes from the United States, cooperation between the two countries is imperative to limit the damage from spam. The Register, 22 September 2003 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32957.html OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE VULNERABLE TO HACKING Security experts have issued warnings about two vulnerabilities in open-source software, casting doubt on claims from some that open-source tools are significantly more secure than their proprietary counterparts. One flaw concerns Sendmail and is described as "an extremely serious vulnerability" by Dan Ingevaldson of Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems. Researchers have not determined whether the second flaw, in OpenSSH, is genuinely exploitable or merely a theoretical flaw. If exploitable, this flaw would also present a serious vulnerability, according to Jason Rafail of Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center. Ingevaldson said that it is difficult to compare the relative security of proprietary and open-source software, but he noted, "In any given year there have been just as many vulnerabilities in the open-source community as there have been with Microsoft." CNET, 19 September 2003 http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5079549.html INTERNET SITE TARGETS STUDENT SUICIDE The Web site Ulifeline offers mental health services targeted at college students at risk of suicide. The site was started by Donna and Phil Satow after their son, Jed, killed himself while a student at the University of Arizona. Tools on the site assess a user's risk of suicide, as well as evaluating several other disorders, and provides advice about what steps the user should take based on the diagnosis. Seventy-two universities have signed up for the free service, which is customized for each institution and locale. Health services officials at several universities noted that presenting useful resources for depressed students in an online medium is often the combination that college students need. Some students echoed this idea, saying the anonymity of using online tools allowed them to open up in ways they would have resisted in person. Some involved in the project want to learn how well the Web site's diagnoses correspond with those that human therapists would reach. Little research exists on the effectiveness of suicide-prevention programs. Wired News, 22 September 2003 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60418,00.html JETBLUE SHARED CUSTOMER RECORDS WITH MILITARY CONTRACTOR In an e-mail apology to its customers, JetBlue Airways admitted that it had disclosed passenger data to a government contractor as part of a project called "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment." Torch Concepts, a contractor to the Defense Department, received the five million records more than a year ago, according to the e-mail, which went on to say that Torch had compared the records to information in commercial databases to obtain data including Social Security numbers and incomes for JetBlue customers, actions the airline did not authorize. The revelation worries some privacy advocates who suspect that the information was used in connection with the government's Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System program, which has been faulted by consumer advocacy groups as an invasion of privacy. San Jose Mercury News, 20 September 2003 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6818691.htm ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EQ" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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