Whois, in or out? by Claudia Sonea

The Internet will eventually lead to the trespassing the frail terrain of human privacy. If there isn't created a global law for the Internet and its limits, people lives will be completely exposed to anyone who has the right programs. Such a program is Whois, a database with information such as names and phone numbers on the owners of millions of ".com" and other Internet addresses. The opinions on the matter are different, some- those that benefit by giving domain name owners more options when they register, such as designating third-party agents- plead for keeping it. Among them are the law-enforcement officials, trademark lawyers, journalists and spammers. Tech industry lawyer Mark Bohannon says it helps them to discover the responsible for theft and fraud. Marilyn Cade, a former AT&T executive stands up for keeping the database and do further study on it, in order to assure that the purpose of those registering is not professional, but rather personal. At the opposite pole are the privacy advocates like Ross Rader, a member of ICANN's generic names council and the sunset proposal's chief sponsor. ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and fulfills the role of an Internet watchdog, while sunset is a project that involves the scrapping of the program with the motivation that people shouldn't share personal information only to have a web site. In fact, Whois was created by researchers from government and universities with the purpose of sharing personal details in order to help at solving technical issues. Nowadays it is used differently, by different persons: preventing fraud and hacking by law-enforcement officials and Internet service providers; to chase those who don't respect trademark and copyright; journalist to find Web sites owners, while spammers simply get email addresses for sending advertise or different stupid things. Meanwhile, the ones without any mean of protection are still the users, the regular ones that expect more privacy and anonymity. Somehow this program contradicts the European privacy laws that are stricter than in US. Vint Cerf, ICANN's chairman says that the main questions remain on who will be allowed to see the information and also how can privacy be maintained in the same time with the accuracy of it. All in all, the sunset project seems far away from being accepted and more and more people are in favor of keeping it, of course with the mention that changes have to take place. Surf on, but carefully to where you apply and what information you release.

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

Adobe's Acrobat is at risk for hackers by Corina Ciubotaru

Adobe, the company that created popular document reading software like Reader and Acrobat, has announced its programs are open to malicious viruses when used with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7. This type of security breach is used by viruses to gain control of computers and steal data or send e-mails, but usually it is fixed fairly easily as companies issue repairing instructions along with statements about the programs' vulnerabilities. This was not the case now with Adobe because their problem was first exposed on the website of a company called Heise Security, dealing with Internet viruses and also in a blog by UK security researcher Petko Petkov, on gnucitizen.org. By the end of the month, the company will release a software update and publish it at the address www.adobe.com/support/security, but since word spreads fast when it comes to Internet viruses, users should be very careful as hackers will surely try to take advantage until the problem is fixed. Even now, Adobe has published a workaround strategy for this critical issue on its website but common users may not be able to apply it because of the rather complex steps that need to be taken in the Windows registry. Updates have also been released for other Adobe applications such as GoLive 9 and Illustrator from Creative Suite 3. More updates will be available soon for Adobe Reader 8.1 and Adobe Acrobat 8.1 and Adobe 3D. Users of Windows Vista can relax though: the security flaw can not damage their computer.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071010/tot-uk-usa-hackers-b86c26b_1.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.