contributed by Seraphic Artifex
An article posted to alt.comp.virus last Sunday claims that most of the Web Anonymiser programs that are currently available have serious security flaws and may not really be protecting your privacy as claimed. The post covers four of the most popular internet anonymising services Anonymizer, Bell Labs, Naval Research Laboratory, and Aixs. The post claims that these methods of protecting your privacy have two inherent flaws. One is using JavaScript to pull IP addresses, the second is to redirect the browser to another web page and thereby removing the anonymising features by bypassing the proxy.

Security Holes in Web Anonymizing Services - Original Post

HNN contacted Zero-Knowledge Systems, the only company _not_ mentioned in the above advisory, and they had this to say...

Re: JavaScript Querying for IP
Tweaking JavaScript to pull IP addresses is no different than creating a virus. Anything in the application layer requires much more effort to scan for malicious content. Freedom scans all content, ensuring that a user's IP address cannot leave the TCPIP stack unanonymized, whether JavaScript requests it or not. However, like a virus, people can always design around systems so the real challenge for Zero-Knowledge is to catch these attempts and correct them.

Re: Turning Off the "Anonymizing" Feature
Redirecting a user to another web page and thus moving the browser into a "non-anonymous" mode is not an issue with Freedom. Working at the driver level, Freedom is application independent and therefore does not rely on running your browser through an anonymizing proxy.

Zero-Knowledge Systems

Wired magazine comes up with an article on the subject.

Wired

contributed by Simple Nomad
This commercial product has been out a while, but it is damn interesting. Remember in Sneakers when Dan Ackroyd rigged up an audio lie detector? Now you can have your very own with a handy point and click interface, called Truster. No social engineer should be without it -- to make sure no one lies about that snarfed password and to test their elite SE skills. Comes in home and "professional" versions.

Trustech LTD.

contributed by Weld Pond
Script Kiddies are making it difficult for security experts to weed out the real threats. By using easy to use off the shelf software script kiddies are creating a noise cloud that makes it difficulty to see the real attacks.

Australian Financial Review

contributed by Code Kid
A recent article in Yahoo Life that labeled Washington State University as the countries most wired school is being blamed for recent 'hack' attacks.

Spokane Review

contributed by Weld Pond
This is taken directly from the article ""The average "cyberpunk'' is a white, middle-class male, aged 12 to 28, who lacks social skills and comes from a dysfunctional family, says Marc Rogers, who is studying hackers for his graduate thesis. "They usually have not the best social skills. They tend to be the loners,'' the former Winnipeg police officer says. "They feel a lot more comfortable behind a computer system than in face-to-face interaction."" I don't think anything more needs to be said.

The National Post

contributed by Anonymous
Cracked!
Lots of international cracks reproted today. Some protesting NATO actions, some protesting Kevorkian being sentanced and some not protesting anything at all.
http://mexico.silverserver.co.at
http://pitesti-gw.mediacom.pcnet.ro
http://chiavari.omninet.it
http://rapallo.newnetworks.it
http://servizi.raffo.it
http://nazi.org
http://hitler.org
http://www.amerika.org
http://www.moral.org
http://www.genocide.org