Nexus - 0704 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS SUPERVIRUSES: THE NEXT DIGITAL THREAT Internet messages sent and received in Britain. The UK Government is to require Internet service providers (ISPs) to have "hardwire" links to the new computer facility so that messages can be traced across the Internet. The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission to search Internet traffic, but they can also apply for general warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or an organisation. The new computer centre, codenamed GTAC (government technical assistance centre)—which will be up and running by the end of the year inside MI5's London headquarters—has provoked concern among civil liberties groups. "With this facility, the government can track every website that a person visits, without a warrant, giving rise to a culture of suspicion by association," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computers, but the growth of the Internet has made it impossi ble to read all material. By requiring ser- vice providers to install cables that will download material to MIS, the government will have the technical capability to read everything that passes over the Internet. The new spying centre will decode mes- sages that have been encrypted. Under new powers due to come into force this (northern) summer, police will be able to require individuals and companies to hand Lt Australia, plans are afoot to compulso- rily equip all motor vehicles with elec- tronic sender units which will be read by global positioning system (GPS) satellites. The Victorian Government expects the satellite detection system to be fully opera- tional by 2001. All registered vehicles will be required to carry a microchip sender unit, which instantly records a vehicle's position and speed. Heavy fines and even vehicle con- fiscation will apply to those with missing or inoperable sender units. The government is well advanced in its plan to link Melbourne's new E-tag free- way tolling system into the speed detection net. The E-tag tolling system operates via a number of overhead gantries on major arterial freeways. These gantries detect a vehicle's E-tag signal as it passes under- neath, directly debiting the driver's E-tag account to pay the toll. The gantries are also used to calculate the vehicle's speed. No doubt the Victorian Government will be pleased at President Clinton's recent announcement to make military-level GPS satellite data—which is 10 times more accurate than before—available to all. (Source: Australian Motorcycle News, vol. 49, no. 18, 31 March 2000) lhe "Love Bug" has given us just a taste of what could be coming. The virus caused billions of dollars' worth of dam- age—more than any other virus or hacking attack since the dawn of cyberhistory. It lay dormant for nearly a week before surfacing on computers in Hong Kong. The message, seemingly sent by someone known to the computer user, said "ILOVEYOU" and had an attachment which appeared to be a love letter. Launching the attachment allowed a pro- gram to invade the computer, which not only sent copies of the e-mail to all the addresses listed on the machine but also scooped up all the passwords it could find and sent them back to the creator of the bug. [Emphasis added. Ed.] Anyone from the Pentagon to the House of Commons to New Zealand universities was hit. An estimated 20 per cent of the world's computers were affected. It could have been much worse. In November 1999, the "Bubbleboy" virus broke the longstanding rule that you have to open an e-mail attachment to become infected. By the time it was in your in-box, it was already too late. Thankfully, Bubbleboy did not have a "destructive payload" and so did little damage. Importantly, however, few took much notice of the quantum leap that it represented. In April 1999, a virus called "Chernobyl" was activated in hundreds of thousands of computers in Asia and the Middle East. Not only did it wipe out stored data, it destroyed BIOS—the basic instructions that tell a machine how to start. Another quantum leap. Virus writers are now able to combine the destructiveness of Chernobyl! with the invasiveness of Bubbleboy and the spee of the Love Bug—and create a supervirus. According to experts, at least 50 such superviruses have already been detected on the Internet. None has yet been launche at the public. Some may not work; some may be shot down by existing virus defences; some might get through. An that is the nightmare scenario. A hacker known as "Dark Tangent", who heads a group which advises big busi- ness on their security, said the only sur- prise is that a "supervirus hasn't happene: yet". (Source: The Observer, UK, www.guardian. co.uk, 7 May 2000) ISPs TO BE 'HARDWIRED' TO MI5's INTERNET SPYING CENTRE 15 is building a new £25m e-mail surveillance centre which will have the power to monitor all e-mail and JUNE — JULY 2000 NEXUS -7 DRIVING WITH BIG BROTHER