Top 10: Military goods for sale and miscreants aplenty

Psssst ... Hey, you over there! Yeah, you. Wanna buy some F-14 components? According to the Government Accountability Office, purloined military equipment can be found online at eBay or Craigslist. Seems like it was a week for wild-and-woolly Internet-related news. SANS Institute researchers found a software tool that uses Google's search engine to sniff out sites that have vulnerable applications, University of Washington researchers found that a small portion of Internet traffic is messed with by ISPs, and a Chinese hacker group is calling for a denial-of-service attack as a protest of the protests related to the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

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1. GAO: Stolen U.S. military gear sold on eBay, Craigslist: In the market for body armor, night-vision googles, or protective gear in the event of a nuclear or biochemical attack? Well, who isn't these days? Such goods are easy enough to find, as it turns out -- all it takes is an online trip to eBay or Craigslist, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found a variety of stolen U.S. miliary equipment for sale at those sites. GAO undercover investigators sniffed around between January 2007 and March 2008 and turned up an impressive list of purloined military goods, including F-14 aircraft components, a U.S. Army combat uniform complete with accessories, body armor vests, and night-vision goggles that contained a component that identifies friendly fighters wearing infrared tabs. Executives of both companies appeared before a congressional subcommittee investigating the matter and insisted they have strong antifraud efforts in place.

2. Chinese hackers poised for anti-CNN attack on April 19: Chinese hackers have apparently called for a denial-of-service attack against CNN's Web site on April 19, as well as for street protests in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the U.K. as a counter to media coverage of demonstrations against the upcoming Olympics in Beijing. Protesters have turned out in recent weeks as the Olympic torch has made its jog around the world, with demonstrations focused on Tibet and human rights violations in China. The Chinese site, Anti-CNN, doesn't much care for what it says are lies and distortions in Western media coverage of China and the attendant protests and so has called for a protest of its own.

3. Don't skip Vista, Forrester study says: Companies should get going on migrating client desktops to Microsoft's Vista operating system, and those without plans to update should rethink that decision, an independent study from Forrester Research urges. With a lot of talk about companies forgoing Vista and planning OS migration around the forthcoming Windows 7 release, Forrester sets out why that's not a good idea. Chief among those reasons is that Microsoft plans to end support and security patches for Windows 2000 and XP with Windows 7 not expected out until 2010 at the earliest. Forrester also noted that Vista does have features and capabilities, including security functions and user enhancements, that make it worth using.