Government Looks Again at Dangers of Nuclear Fallout; House Votes to Double Reward for Bin Laden; Group Presses For Hacker Warning System; Hotmail and MSN Messenger Go Down Again

Government Looks Again at Dangers of Nuclear Fallout

The New York Times reports that the federal government is reviving a scientific art that was lost after the cold war: fallout analysis from a nuclear explosion. According to the Times, the secretive effort began five years ago and is now hiring new experts, calling in old-timers, dusting off data and holding drills to sharpen its ability to do what is euphemistically known as nuclear attribution or post-event forensics.House Votes to Double Reward for Bin Laden

Reuters reports that the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to double the reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, and sharply boost rewards for information on other suspected terrorists. According to the report, the new bill gives the State Department authority to raise the reward for information on bin Laden to $50 million from $25 million and raises the maximum reward for information on suspected terrorists or narco-terrorists to $25 million from $5 million.

Group Presses For Hacker Warning SystemThe Washington Post reports that a group of technology and business associations today released a series of recommendations for minimizing the threat of cyber-crime and hacker attacks, including a request for congressional funding of an early warning alert network and a national media campaign to promote safer Internet use at home. According to the report, the National Cyber Security Partnership, which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance and the TechNet lobbying group, also asked Congress to provide money to help develop a cybersecurity information clearinghouse for the business community.Hotmail and MSN Messenger Go Down AgainInfoworld reports that technical problems at Microsoft Corp. for the second time within a week caused trouble for users trying to connect to Hotmail and MSN Messenger. According to the report, users around the globe reported that they had problems signing on to the Hotmail and MSN Messenger services during about a three-hour period from 5:00 p.m. GMT until 8:00 p.m. GMT Thursday.