A quick note on some interesting news/tidbits I’ve run across whilst trying to keep up with/clean out my RSS feed before I head out for the 4^th of July weekend…

The Iceman Goeth. Saw where Max Ray Vision (nee Butler), aka “Iceman,” has plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud stemming from the theft of nearly 2M credit card numbers and $86 million in alleged fraudulent purchases. Apparently, he could get 60 years in prison when sentenced in October.

SecureTwitter Plug-In. Don’t normally like to pimp products here (well, perhaps with the exception of Firefox and Apple and …), especially if they come from a competitor, BUT… I thought this one was important for all of you who spend your time on Twitter. Seems the good folks at Finjan have developed a free (love that word) browser plug-in called SecureTwitter which warns users about malicious URLs in Twitter. Additional support in the current version includes:

• Search Engines: Google, Yahoo, Live (MSN)
• Advertising systems: Google Adsense
• Online email applications (AJAX-based): Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail
• Popular Websites: MySpace, Digg, Slashdot, Blogger

It’s available for both MS Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Passwords Matter. Yet another politician is brought asunder by a hacked email account. According to this bit in El Reg (as John Leyden periodically calls it), the woman at the center of the Mark Sanford (Governor of South Carolina) claims her Hotmail account was hacked through an older Argentinian account, which she has since closed. Let’s see: Sarah Palin (Governor of Alaska), Jack Straw (UK Justice Secretary), Mani Shankar Aiyar (Indian politico) … I’m sure the list is longer. We’ll talk more about this soon, but remember: longer is better, and don’t use information that can be Googled or found out by talking with your co-workers.

Real Costs. While I’m sure many Mancunians are pleased with this, it seems that another community (joining, among others, the Houston justice system and the French Navy) was hit in a very real way by the Conficker worm (remember this one?). Among the £1.5 million (almost $2.5M) in total costs reported by the Manchester Evening News:

• £43,000 in lost revenue from bus lane fines;
• £1.2 million spent fixing the problem, including £600,000 on external IT consultants;
• £169,000 on staff to process a backlog of benefits claims and council tax bills; and
• compensation payments to families awaiting benefits.

Apparently, the city council has banned the use of USB Flash Drives and even blocked all USB ports as a result. Doesn’t seem like the best approach, as it does not balance the productivity gains possible via proper information sharing versus the need for security. Perhaps a more granular approach, which ensures that data can be safely shared but prevents malware from downloading via USB ports/devices, is more appropriate. Oh, and make sure you patch on a timely basis. I’m just sayin’, ya know?

Happy Birthday, America.