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Sunday deadline for ISP snooping law

Kirsten Doyle
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 13 Mar 2009

Sunday deadline for ISP snooping law

UK Internet service providers (ISPs) will be required to hand over records of customers' Internet surfing habits, including IP addresses and times of use, to police and intelligence agencies from Sunday, reports Computing.co.uk.

As part of the EU Data Retention Directive, all ISPs must retain customers' names, addresses and user IDs, as well as records of e-mail and Internet telephony communications, for a year.

ISPs have been given an extra 18 months to comply with the regulations after some smaller providers complained of a heavy administrative burden ‑ phone companies are already subject to the law.

Debris nearly dooms space station

The three crew members aboard the international space station were ordered yesterday to seek refuge in its Russian Soyuz lifeboat, minutes before a chunk of space debris narrowly missed the station, says The Orlando Sentinel.

According to Nasa, a 5-inch piece of a spent rocket motor came within striking distance of the station. Nasa ordered the precautionary measures after managers decided the debris was too close to manoeuvre the station to dodge the orbiting junk.

Station commander Mike Fincke, Russian flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and Nasa astronaut Sandra Magnus entered the Soyuz capsule and soft-locked the hatches in case the debris collided with the $100 billion station and they needed to abandon the complex in a hurry.

Chinese create counterfeit iTunes racket

Chinese crackers have reportedly infiltrated the iTunes gift card system, says The Register.

The hack has spawned an active trade in counterfeit, but functional iTunes vouchers on Chinese auction sites, such as Taobao.com.

As the trade has grown over the last six months or so, prices have fallen from around $47 for a $200 card to $2.60. Music industry consultancy Outdustry confirmed the counterfeit coupons work by buying a voucher and transferring the illegitimate credit into an iTunes account.

Cyber crime risk exposed

Software used to control thousands of home computers has been acquired online by the BBC as part of an investigation into global cyber crime, reports the BBC.

The technology programme Click has demonstrated just how at risk PCs are of being taken over by hackers.

Almost 22 000 computers made up Click's network of hijacked machines, which has now been disabled.

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