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McKinnon charges dropped after ten year battle

posted onDecember 17, 2012
by l33tdawg

Charges against Gary McKinnon for breaching US government IT systems have been dropped by UK authorities, bringing a decade long battle to an end.

In a statement from the Crown Prosecution Court and Metropolitan Police it was announced that a case against McKinnon would not proceed in the UK, following the decision to block his extradition to the US.

A week with the iPhone 5 on EE, the UK's first 4G network

posted onNovember 9, 2012
by l33tdawg

Last week, EE publicly flipped the switch on its 4G network. Launching LTE in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and (parts of) Southampton. EE also plans for an additional five cities before the new year. The new phone network, composed of equal parts T-Mobile and Orange, has other plans -- and they start from £21 SIM-only (starting November 9th) while phone packages begin at £36 per month. For that, the new network offers its customers 500MB of data, plus unlimited calls and texts.

UK businesses get cybersecurity response team to call on if attacked

posted onNovember 7, 2012
by l33tdawg

The UK's intelligence services have unveiled a 'Cyber Incident Response' scheme for businesses who have fallen victim to cyber-attacks.

The idea involves a set of private companies that organisations should be able to turn to in the event of attack. In its pilot phase, those companies will be BAE Systems Detica, Mandiant, Cassidian and Context IS. The scheme is backed by GCHQ information assurance division CESG, as well as the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).

Gary McKinnon not to be extradited to the US

posted onOctober 16, 2012
by l33tdawg

Home secretary Theresa May has announced that London computer hacker Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US. "Mr McKinnon is accused of serious crimes. But there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill", May said. According to the Home Secretary, McKinnon suffers from Asperger's syndrome and an extradition would present a significant suicide risk.

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon to find out if he'll be extradited to the US

posted onOctober 16, 2012
by l33tdawg

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon will finally find out tomorrow whether he will be extradited to the United States following a lengthy legal battle which his mother has likened to a “waterboarding of the mind”.

The decision, which will be announced by the Home Secretary, comes more than ten years after he was first arrested for breaking into a string of American military networks from his north London bedsit.

PayPal UK hiccup held payments for security checks

posted onOctober 1, 2012
by l33tdawg

Technical problems for payments giant PayPal left some U.K. customers left in the lurch while their transactions were left for scrutiny by staff after they were held for additional security checks.

A number of PayPal users were left unable to automatically process payments after their money was sent for review, following changes to the payments system that was meant to ultimately speed up transactions.

NFC exploit used to hack Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.0.4

posted onSeptember 20, 2012
by l33tdawg

Using a pair of zero day vulnerabilities, a team of security researchers from U.K.-based MWR Labs hacked into a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone running Android 4.0.4 by beaming an exploit via NFC (Near Field Communications).

The team -- Tyrone Erasmus, Jacques Louw, Jon Butler and Nils (yes, that Nils) -- carted off a $30,000 cash prize as part of the EuSecWest mobile Pwn2Own hacker contest.

British government agency hoards addresses as IP well runs dry

posted onSeptember 19, 2012
by l33tdawg

Europe has tapped out its supply of Internet addresses in its assigned range, but some tech prospectors believe they've found some IPv4 gold—a full block of 16,777,216 addresses that isn't used to connect to the Internet. But the British government agency that owns the block of addresses (referred to in IP networking as a /8 block) has no intentions of giving it up, even though almost none of the addresses will ever be publicly accessible. That has inspired an electronic petition campaign on a House of Commons website to convince British lawmakers to auction off the address block.

Edinburgh City Council red faced as unencrypted laptop stolen

posted onSeptember 18, 2012
by l33tdawg

Another Scottish council faces an embarrassing investigation after an unsecured laptop was stolen from the home of a consultant working on child fostering cases for Edinburgh City Council.

The unencrypted laptop is believed to have contained details of “dozens” of fostering cases going back some years, including notes on reviews carried out on foster and adoptive parents.