Net Attack Dismissed; More Than One Net Attack on Monday; A Palm for the Prosecution

Net Attack Dismissed

Internet security experts seem untroubled by Monday’s assault on the Internet’s 13 root servers, according to a story in today’s Boston Globe. Some root servers were still performing slower than normal yesterday, but the system had largely returned to normal. While they’re concerned about the sheer ambition of the attack, one that could have disrupted the entire global Internet if it had worked, the experts say this attack was crude and easily beaten back. “Local [server] operators secure their own machines, and they all do it in different ways,” the Globe quotes John Crain, technical manager for ICANN. Far from making the system less secure, Crain says that this freewheeling approach is much safer. A security flaw in the server in Tokyo might not exist in the one at the University of Maryland, because the two don’t use the same software. But security experts aren’t complacent. They say that while a single attack probably couldn’t take down the whole Internet, the system is riddled with flaws that could enable massive disruptions.More Than One Net Attack on MondayWashington Post, Monday’s attack on the 13 computer servers that manage the world’s Internet traffic was the first of two assaults. The second attack came six hours later, say sources familiar with the incident, and targeted “name” servers that house Internet domains such as dot-com, dot-biz and dot-info, and country code domains such as Great Britain’s dot-uk and Canada’s dot-ca. The White House’s Office of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating Monday’s cyberattacks, but have declined to speculate on who might have been responsible. It is also not clear whether the same source was to blame for the separate attacks on root and name servers.

According to an article in today’s

A Palm for the ProsecutionThe New York Times today. Criminals, too, from drug dealers to spies to white collar criminals, are using them to coordinate their activities. Organizers are rarely encrypted or password-protectedeven when criminals take similar precautions in other electronic formats.

As hand-held organizers like the Clié and Palm have soared in popularity, it’s not just law-abiding citizens who appreciate their usefulness in managing appointments, contacts and schedules, writes