‘Google hacking’ triggers fears
It’s called “Google hacking” — a slick data-mining technique used by the Internet’s cops and crooks alike to unearth sensitive material mistakenly posted to public Web sites.
And it’s just gotten easier, thanks to a program, Goolag, that automates what has typically been painstaking manual labor. The program’s authors say they hope it will “screw a large Internet search engine and make the Web a safer place.”
Google hacking doesn’t mean anyone’s hacking Google’s Web site. Rather, it refers to a sophisticated searching technique used to uncover flaws in the way Web sites handle confidential details, such as public files containing password and credit card numbers and clues about the vulnerability of the site’s own servers.
It works by examining the hidden recesses of a Web site, areas that have been indexed by Google but don’t pop up in traditional searches.
Although Google hacking has been used for several years by good guys and bad guys to monitor security, experts caution that Goolag could tip the balance in favor of criminals.
Google declined to comment on Goolag, released by the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow.
Internet company sued for holding names: A company that sells Internet addresses is being sued for its controversial practice of holding a domain name in reserve if someone checks for its availability but does not buy it right away.
Although Network Solutions LLC termed its new program a consumer-protection measure, the moves make it difficult for interested parties to shop around for better prices. The company charges $35 a year for a name — a few times more than what many of its rivals charge.
The federal court lawsuit against Network Solutions was filed last week by Chris McElroy, a Florida man who checked for “KidSearchNetwork.com” at Network Solutions without buying it, then learned it was unavailable elsewhere. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, calls for an end to the practice and unspecified damages.
Network Solutions has said it was trying to combat domain name front running — the use of insider information to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them. But what it’s doing shares similarities with that very practice.
AT&T whistle-blower among award winners: A whistle-blower credited with providing key documents in a lawsuit over the Bush administration’s secretive domestic wiretapping program is one of three recipients of the “Pioneer Awards” from a civil-rights group that brought the challenge.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued AT&T Inc., accusing it of colluding with the National Security Agency to make communications on AT&T networks available to the spy agency without warrants.
As part of its case, the EFF said it obtained documents from Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who said the documents detail secret NSA spying rooms and electronic surveillance equipment in AT&T facilities.
Another prize will go jointly to the Mozilla Foundation and its chairwoman, Mitchell Baker. The foundation is the organization that oversees the open-source Firefox browser, a strong alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The EFF credited Mozilla with promoting openness and innovation on the Internet.
MIT student honored for antibiotics work: A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student has earned a $30,000 prize for work on destroying drug-resistant bacteria and keeping medical and food-processing equipment sterile.
Timothy Lu, 27, was named winner of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for developing processes to attack bacteria strains that increasingly resist antibiotics.
One of Lu’s projects involves engineering viruses called bacteriophage that help destroy the mechanisms bacteria use to resist antibiotics.
From Herald news services
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