Judge traps RealDVD in legal limbo

RealNetworks has been forced to shut down sales of its DVD copying software, RealDVD, while a California judge decides if it violates US copyright laws, reports The Register.

The company clearly knew there would be trouble from Hollywood studios at the outset. On the day of RealDVD's release, RealNetworks pre-emptively filed a lawsuit against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) seeking a declaratory judgment that the software was legal.

At nearly the same time, the MPAA filed its own lawsuit claiming RealDVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing technology that prevents copying without permission of the copyright holders.

The FBI is seeking two Europeans alleged to have been involved in attacks on Web retailers, says The BBC.

Briton Lee Graham Walker and Axel Gembe, of Germany, are being sought in connection with attacks on two sellers of satellite TV equipment.

The FBI said the pair carried out so-called denial-of-service attacks that knocked the Web shops offline. If convicted, the men face a maximum 15-year jail sentence. Both men are believed to be still at large.

Those wanting to ride the subway for free without having to jump the turnstiles will be able to do so by making a fake transit card, says CNET.

A scientific paper detailing the security flaws in the Mifare Classic wireless smart card chip used in transit systems around the world is being published by the Radboud University Nijmegen. A researcher at Humboldt University, in Berlin, has published a full implementation of the algorithm.

"Combining these two pieces of information, attacks can now be implemented by anyone," RFID researcher Karsten Nohl told CNET News. "All it takes is a $100 [card] reader and a little software."

The Home Office will create the Police Central E-crime Unit, says Computing.co.uk. The unit promises to tackle cyber-crime and clamp down on Internet fraud, and will provide “specialist officer training and co-ordinate cross-force initiatives to crack down on online offences”.

Today, e-crime is alive and kicking; tomorrow it will be an even greater threat as commercial, business and personal transactions increasingly go virtual.

The Guardian reported that losses from online banking fraud have tripled, tallying up to £21.4 million in the first half of 2008 alone. The private sector is not exempt from cyber-crime either; consider the incident with TK Maxx last year, where data thieves extracted the records of over 45 million credit cards.