Cereal Killer

Drivers could pay up to £1.34 a mile in “pay-as-you go” road charges under new government plans. The transport secretary said the charges, aimed at cutting congestion, would replace road tax and petrol duty. The department of transport says the scheme would be fairer because those who travel greater distances would pay the most.

Concerns that the tracking system would lead to the state knowing where people were all the time, would have to be addressed, said Mr Darling. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was not trying to drive motorists out of their cars.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4610755.stm
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

Blackwater is bidding on the contract NSW/NSO solicitation N00140-07-R-0001. We are looking for professional, motivated, in shape, and enthusiastic individuals to meet the required qualifications listed below.

Personnel Qualifications
1. Mentors will have served at least 8 years in the SEAL, Diver or Navy Special Operations Communities.
2. Mentors will maintain an exemplary level of physical fitness and professional demeanor.
3. Mentors will maintain the personnel, organization, and administrative control needed to ensure that the work is done properly and on time.
4. The work history of each contractor employee must contain experience directly related to the task and functions needed to perform under this contract.
5. The Government reserves the right, at any time, to request work histories on any contractor or employee.

Every NRD shall have one (1) Mentor assigned. For each, NRD, the Mentor shall be assigned to the city indicated below:

Atlanta, GA Nashville, TN St. Louis, MO
North Chicago, IL Burlington, VT Kansas City, MO
Dallas, TX Lafayette, LA Memphis, TN
Denver, CO New Orleans, LA Norfolk, VA
Houston, TX East Meadow, NY San Diego, CA
Jacksonville, FL Columbus, OH San Antonio, TX
Los Angeles, CA Bethesda, MD Sacramento, CA
Miami, FL Phoenix, AZ Bremerton/Bangor, WA
Tampa, FL Pittsburgh, PA Raleigh, NC
Detroit, MI Portland, OR Richmond, VA
Minneapolis, MN New Bern, NC

If you or someone you know is interested, please fax a letter of intent to (252) 435-6388. We appreciate your time and consideration. Any questions should be directed to Ray Horst.

A law was passed last week that makes it an offence to launch a denial of service attack in the UK, punishable by up to ten years in prison.

There had been concern that Britain’s Computer Misuse Act, written in the days before the World Wide Web, allowed denial of service attacks to fall through a loophole. These are attacks in which a web or email server is deliberately flooded with information to the point of collapse.

The 1990 legislation described an offence of doing anything with criminal intent “which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer”; the question was whether that covered denial of service attacks. When a court cleared teenager David Lennon in November 2005 on charges of sending five million emails to his former employer – because the judge decided that no offence had been committed under the Act – the need for amendment seemed obvious.

Lennon’s lawyer had successfully argued that the purpose of the company’s server was to receive emails, and therefore the company had consented to the receipt of emails and their consequent modifications in data. District Judge Kenneth Grant concluded that sending emails is an authorised act and that Lennon had no case to answer, so no trial took place. That ruling was overturned and Lennon was sentenced to two months’ curfew with an electronic tag. But by that time, amendments to the 1990 legislation were already included in the Police and Justice bill.

It was passed yesterday, becoming the Police And Justice Act 2006. The Act also increased the penalty for unauthorised access to computer material from a maximum of six months’ imprisonment to two years.

The 2006 Act expands the 1990 Act’s provisions on unauthorised modification of computer material to criminalise someone who does an unauthorised act in relation to a computer with “the requisite intent” and “the requisite knowledge.”

The requisite intent is an intent to do the act in question and by so doing:

• To impair the operation of any computer
• To prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer
• To impair the operation of any program or data held in any computer.

The intent need not be directed at any particular computer or any particular program or data.

The wording is wide enough that paying someone else to launch an attack will still be a crime, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Supplying the software tools to launch an attack or offering access to a botnet could be punished with up to two years in prison.

See: The Police and Justice Bill (The relevant clauses are 33 to 36; the Act was not available at the time of writing.) as HTML or as a 145-page / 633KB PDF.

You do not want to drive this car.

It beeps at everything, door open, handbrake on, seatbelt off etc, all the same beep, 20 point check every time!

Brakes have two settings, ‘on’ or ‘off’.

You do not want to sleep in this car. Ever. Even with two other people its still freezing as well as cramped.