BBC
Cyber criminals are starting to use
fake blogs to snare new victims.

he bogus web journals are being used as traps that infect visitor's
machines with keylogging software or viruses.

Filtering firm Websense said it had found
hundreds of bogus blogs

baited with all kinds of malicious

software to snare the unwary.

Websense warned that the baited blogs
could get past traditional security
measures that try to protect
people from malicious programs.

Hidden harm

The company said blogs were being used
because they inadvertently offered lots of
help to computer criminals.

Blogs are free and simple to use, offer
users lots of storage space, can be used
anonymously and most do not scan
stored files for viruses and other
malicious programs.

Websense said it had seen examples of some computer criminals
creating a legitimate looking weblog, loading it with keylogging
software or viral code, and then sending out the address of it
through instant messenger or spam e-mail.

"These aren't the kind of blog websites that someone would stumble
upon and infect their machine accidentally," said Dan Hubbard,
Websense's research director. "The success of these attacks
relies upon a certain level of social engineering to persuade
the individual to click on the link."
In separate cases some blogs were being used as storage lockers holding
chunks of malicious code that the controller of a network of zombie
machines wants those remotely-controlled computers to use.

In late March, Websense found a fake e-mail message that tried to direct
people to a blog that was hosting keylogging software.
Now it estimates that there could be more than 200 bogus blogs in existence
that are being used to attack net users.

By comparison blog-watching service Technorati estimates that there are
more than 8 million blogs in existence.
Anyone visiting the baited blog and falling victim to the keylogger could
find that they have bank accounts rifled by the phishing gang behind
the bogus website.
Websense warned that viruses hosted on weblogs might be a danger because
they get round the filtering systems many firms have created to ensure
malicious programs do not reach employees.

Users were urged to keep anti-virus and patches up to date, regularly scan
machines with anti-spyware products and exercise caution when reading
unsolicited messages sent via e-mail or instant messenger.

Associated Press


ubert Murdoch urged newspaper editors Wednesday to embrace
the Internet, saying print news executives have "sat by and watched"
as a new generation of digital consumers has turned away from newspapers.

The chief executive of News Corp. cited a recent report commissioned by
the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic foundation, showing 44 percent
of 18-to-34-year-olds say they use Web sites at least once a day for news.

He said newspapers must overhaul how they gather and deliver news to
collect the readers and advertising revenue shifting to the Web.

"The trends are against us. Unless we awaken to these changes which
are quite different than those five or six years ago, we will, as an industry,
be relegated to the status of also-rans," Murdoch told the annual meeting
of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

"We've been slow to react. We've sat by and watched," he said. News Corp. is
the parent company of the New York Post. The global media company also
operates a number of papers in England. When the Web was emerging in
the 1990s Murdoch expressed skepticism about its business prospects.
He referred to himself and other newspaper executives as "digital migrants"
who are too old to have grown up surfing the Net but now must learn to direct
their business toward those who did.

"Just watch your teenage kids," he told the editors. "The challenge for each of us
in this room is to create an Internet presence that is compelling enough that
users make it their home page.
Just as people traditionally started their day with coffee and a newspaper, in
the future I hope that the way they start their day online will be with coffee
and our Web site.

" Murdoch's media empire began with a single Australian newspaper business.
Now headquartered in the United States, News Corp. is the parent of the
20th Century Fox movie studio, Fox television network, Fox News Channel
and other cable channels. In recent years, Murdoch has sought to expand a
satellite business in China, but he voiced doubts Wednesday when asked about
the business climate there.
"There are indications that it's closing up more than opening up," he said, calling

the enterprise "very hard work."
Similar efforts in India have gone much better, he said, even though the

potential market is significantly smaller.

PARIS: Three photographers who took pictures of
Princess Diana and Dodi al Fayed on the night of
their fatal crash must be retried for breaching
privacy laws, a French court ruled today.

he court annulled a ruling made last September, which acquitted
Jacques Langevin, Christian Martinez and Eric Chassery of breaking
the laws, an offence punishable by up to a year in jail.

Dodi's father, Mohamed al Fayed, had appealed against the
September ruling, which followed an original court acquittal of the
three photographers in November 2003.
Diana, Dodi and chauffeur Henri Paul were killed on August 31, 1997
when their Mercedes car crashed in a tunnel as it sped away from
the Ritz hotel in the French capital with paparazzi photographers
in hot pursuit on motorbikes.

The photographers took pictures of the couple as they lay in their
crumpled Mercedes, as well

as taking shots of them before

the crash as they left the Ritz.
The earlier rulings said the photos

did not breach privacy because
no "intimate gestures" were caught

on camera and because the pictures

had not made a secret liaison public.

France's Cour de Cassation, which

decides whether an appeals court
decision conforms to the law, said

on Wednesday these points had
to be reviewed, with the new trial

only focusing on the photos taken
at the scene of the accident, not

the hotel.

An inquiry by French authorities in

1999 ruled that the crash was caused
by Paul being drunk and driving too fast.
But the circumstances of the crash still

cause controversy.

Al Fayed, owner of London store Harrods,

wants the paparazzi punished and has

said he believes his son and Diana were

murdered by British secret services

because their relationship was

embarrassing the royal household.

John Stevens, a retired senior British police officer is investigating allegations
Diana's death was not an accident at the request of Britain's Royal Coroner
Michael Burgess.

Diana's marriage to Britain's heir to the throne Prince Charles brok down

in 1992 and ended in divorce. Charles married his long time lover

Camilla Parker Bowles last Saturday.

as political groups, lawmakers and online journalists said on Friday.

n separate letters, Democratic lawmakers and Internet commentators urged

the Federal Election Commission to make sure that political Web sites that serve

as focal points for political discussion, like Wonkette.com and Freerepublic.com,

don't have to comply with campaign-finance rules.
"Curtailing blogs and other online publications will dampen the impact of new

voices in the political process and will do a disservice to the millions of voters

who rely on the Web for original, insightful political commentary," said the

Online Coalition, a group of bloggers and online activists.

Fourteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives said blogs foster a

welcome diversity of viewpoints.

"This 'democratization' of the media is a welcome development in this era of

media consolidation and a corresponding lack of diversity of views in

traditional media outlets," said the group, which consists of thirteen Democrats

and one Republican.

The FEC ruled in 2002 that Internet activities do not count as "coordinated

political activity" and thus don't have to comply with laws that regulate money

in politics.
But a U.S. judge struck down that ruling as too broad last year, and the FEC is

scheduled to consider it later this month.

If the FEC determines that online "blogs" are in fact political organizations, they

could face fines if they work too closely with political campaigns by, for example,

reprinting their press releases.
FEC spokesman Bob Biersack said the commission would try to craft its new rule

as narrowly as possible.
"The Commission has tried very hard for a long time to be as limited in its

regulation of Internet activity as it possibly could, so there's no reason to

assume that that basic orientation doesn't continue," he said.