contributed by Weld Pond
A working document for the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment panel, recently released by the European Parliament, claims the United States has tried to persuade European Union countries to adopt its key escrow or key recovery policies. These policies would allow backdoor access to encryption programs. The US has claimed that this was necessary to read messages exchanged by criminals. The report clams however that the UKUSA alliance, which includes the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, has used its secret Echelon global spying network to intercept confidential company communications and give them to favored competitors. The report also claims that the NSA had struck deals with Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use, presumably to make it easier for the NSA to intercept communications.

C|Net

contributed by wariac
Print and online media are bad enough but television 'news' has got to be the worse information source on the planet. The local CBS affiliate in Tucson Arizona, KOLD, ran a lead story on its 10pm "news-cast" last week that claimed that 'hackers' had invaded AOL and where threatening to distribute the personal information of its users. Unless of course that user forwarded an email to 10 other users within 45 minutes. KOLD aired this "news" without confirmation, without contacting an independent third party, without even getting an official response from AOL. All they had was the copy of an email from someone who wasn't even a user of AOL! This email was evidently enough to run a several minute segment as the lead story and scare the hell out of several thousand viewers in the Tucson area. And people wonder why Joe Schmoe is afraid of the Internet.

Star Net Dispatches

contributed by webmaster
The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in Charlotte against an unknown defendant. The individual, who is unknown at this time is accused of sending spam as part of a telemarketing scam. The FTC predicts that they will have enough information to name a suspect within a few days. A choice quote from the article, "Anonymity doesn't necessarily stand in the way of some kind of law enforcement," said Eileen Harrington, the FTC's associate director of marketing practices. "We sued them anyway." Pretty soon we'll have them suing "unknown hackers" for million dollar damages. Oh, wait that already is happening isn't it?

ABC News

contributed by Y0han
German officials are hoping to contain the spread of politically extreme matter or, child pornography over the Internet. Deputy Interior Minister Claus Henning Schapper recently announced that German police are developing an Internet search engine that will zero in on illegal activity on the Web such as pedophile networks and neo-Nazi propaganda.

Yahoo News

contributed by Velkro Kode Warrior
BoW Magazine, an electronic ezine started in 1992 as a reaction to the degradation of the so-called "H/P scene" that was around at the time, has after a five year hiatus released its ninth issue. Eight issues of BoW were released from 1992-1994, and now BoW magazine is back with a much overdue ninth issue.

BoW #9

contributed by Anonymous
Cracked
The following have been reported as Cracked
http://bell.shops.bnl.gov
http://bernoulli.gsfc.nasa.gov
http://info.law.arizona.edu
http://htc149.hi-techcolor.com
http://secure.wcoil.com
http://www.synergetics.be
http://www.bewakers.com
http://www.firewallers.com
http://www.wave.be
http://www.senderex.com
http://data.accu-find.com
http://assets-www.idss.ida.org
http://proxy.tpg.gov.tw
http://raptor.jcu.edu.au
http://training.clemson.edu
http://www.theargon.com
http://www.khakiman.com
http://www.tyan.com