You know that there is a problem when the UN comes out and gives an authoritative opinion.

"Some ISPs are very proactive, and are spending huge amounts of money combating spam. The problem is not all ISPs are doing this. A smaller group of ISPs profit from carrying spam or take no action, and those bad apples touch the rest of the ISP community," said Susan Schorr, regulatory officer with the ITU’s telecommunications development bureau.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the UN organization responsible for global telecom standards. According to them, ISPs should be required (by whom?) to enforce conduct codes regarding their customers and block spammers’ access to email.

"We’re proposing regulators could pass legislation to require ISPs to enter into enforceable codes of conduct for their customers," Schorr told ZDNet UK.

Nice idea, but does the ITU realize how hard it is to write new laws that force ISPs to create codes of conduct for their users? Shouldn’t the market do this?

[More at  ZDNet UK, UK -]

Another laptop theft. Another identity theft risk. This time it is Verizon.

A theft of two laptop computers has put a "significant number" of Verizon Communications’ employees at risk of having their identities stolen, the company said Wednesday.

According to the report, two laptops were stolen from a Verizon facility and may contain personal information, such as Social Security Numbers. Verizon has assured its employees in a March 1st letter that this incident appears to be a random criminal act and that the laptops were password protected.

It is interesting that Verizon has underscored that laptops were password protected. Are they trying to imply that because there is a password on the laptop any data stored inside is protected? Many of our readers know that having a Windows password is hardly any deterrent against obtaining access to the laptop information. Is having a relatively weak login password protection on a laptop sufficient to protect that data inside?

[Via Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required)]

A report conducted by the Australian Consumers’ Association found that most new PCs come packaged only with very basic trial (and not up-to-date) anti-virus software.

Most computers connect to the internet and we think all computers should be sold with a full internet security package rather than a couple of months’ protection against viruses and worms.

Considering that it takes only a few minutes to "zombify" an unprotected networked PC, this report underscores a major threat to the security of the Internet - as long as vendors to not provide adequately protected PC to new users, there will always be a pool of proud new PC owners who would provide easy targets to botnet operators.

[Via CNET.com.au, Australia -]