It looks like SHA-1 has been further broken, allowing the attacker to choose some of the text in the collision.

"Cryptographic experts at the Crypto 2006 conference have demonstrated a modified method of attack against a reduced variant of the SHA-1 hash algorithm. The new method is an attack which, for the first time, allows at least a part of the message to be freely selected, for example as straight text. Previous approaches, for example the collision attack by Xiaoyun Wang and her team, which attracted considerable attention, were merely able to produce almost completely different hash twins of the same length, both consisting of meaningless gibberish."

SHA-1 hash function under pressure

The House Committee on the Judiciary today approved the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act (HR 5417) in a vote of 20-12. This particular 'Net neutrality bill would make it an antitrust violation to "block impair, discriminate or interfere with anyone’s services or applications or content," but the bill also addresses service improvements on top of the status quo. If a provider were to offer increase VoIP performance, for instance, the bill would require such providers to prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service "to all data of that type... without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhances quality of service."

This bill will die very quickly, I think. I'd like to be optimistic, but I just don't see something like this having any chance of passing.

Strict Net neutrality passes House Committee, but fate is rather uncertain

Cameron Wilson at the USACM Policy Blog writes about a Cato Institute event about copyright policy, which was held Wednesday. The panel on the DMCA was especially interesting. (audio download; audio stream; video stream)

Copyright policy event @ cato

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, gave a speech saying that data retention by Internet service providers is an "issue that must be addressed." Child pornography investigations have been "hampered" because data may be routinely deleted, Gonzales warned.

Now, in a demonstration of bipartisan unity, a Democratic member of the Congressional Internet Caucus is preparing to introduce an amendment--perhaps during a U.S. House of Representatives floor vote next week--that would make such data deletion illegal.

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal (click for PDF) says that any Internet service that "enables users to access content" must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user's account was closed.

Congress may consider mandatory ISP snooping

SAN FRANCISCO, April 28 — The government asked a federal judge here Friday to dismiss a civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed.

U.S. Steps Into Wiretap Suit Against AT&T

In a new twist on phishing, fraudsters are sending out e-mail that attempt to trick people into sharing personal information over the phone.

Phishers try a phone hook

In a vote of 34 to 22, the House Committee on Energy & Commerce rejected an amendment to a sweeping telecommunications law, the Communications, Promotion, & Enhancement Act of 2006. The proposal, by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), would have given the Federal Communications Commission the power to prohibit discrimination when it comes to sending traffic over the Internet. In effect, the amendment would block the creation of a multilane "information highway," where network operators could give preference to their own content, or ensure speedier delivery to content providers that pay extra fees.

Net Neutrality ammendment shot down by House Committee on Energy & Commerce

Compuware pulls the plug. All I can do is laugh, and say go ollydbg!

RIP Softice

Interesting analysis of a newly proposed french drm law.

[freedom-to-tinker] Bernard Lang Reports on the Proposed French DRM Law

Two employees have been injected with RFID chips this week as part of a new requirement to access their company's datacenter.

Cincinnati based surveillance company CityWatcher.com created the policy with the hopes of increasing security in the datacenter where video surveillance tapes are stored. In the past, employees accessed the room with an RFID tag which hung from their keychains, however under the new regulations an implantable, glass encapsulated RFID tag from VeriChip must be injected into the bicep to gain access, a release from spychips.com said on Thursday.

Company requires RFID injection