Politics and Law

WASHINGTON--The threat of cybersecurity attacks are on the rise from organized crime, terrorists, and foreign governments, an FBI official warned on Wednesday.

There are a "couple dozen" countries interested in breaching U.S. networks, said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI cyber division, though he declined to list any specific countries.

The attempted attacks on U.S. networks are "increasingly sophisticated" and "the amount of information that has been stolen is significant," Henry said.

In particular, the use of botnets continues to increase, he said, while companies have lost tens of millions of … Read more

Politicians are still slowly learning how to reach out to their constituents on the Internet, but that doesn't mean citizens can't keep tabs on Washington online. The latest new-media tool from The New York Times provides an embeddable widget that allows people to analyze campaign contributions made to the presidential candidates.

The campaign finance tool is one of the application program interfaces the Times is developing to let its readers dissect the data it uses in its reporting. The data for this API comes straight from the Federal Election Commission, though the campaigns are only required to report … Read more

Just as the economy has dominated headlines in recent weeks, it is likely to be the overriding issue Wednesday night in the third and final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama.

The presidential candidates will take to the podium at 6 p.m. PDT, this time at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. Moderating the debate--which is to focus in on domestic policy as well as economic matters--will be Bob Schieffer, the chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and host of the show Face the Nation.

Both McCain and Obama this week released new proposals on ways to reinvigorate … Read more

YouTube has rejected a request from John McCain's presidential campaign for a legal review of political videos that are the subject of deletion requests.

The Google-owned company said Tuesday evening in a response to McCain's organization (PDF) that it could not give campaigns special treatment and that it was "not in a position to verify" whether infringement complaints made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act were legitimate or not.

The McCain camp is upset that some of its political ads and videos, which used brief snippets of news broadcasts and other copyrighted material, have been the … Read more

John McCain's presidential campaign has discovered the remix-unfriendly aspects of American copyright law, after several of the candidate's campaign videos were pulled from YouTube.

McCain has now discovered the rights holder friendly nature of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forces remixers to fight an uphill battle to prove that their work is a "fair use."

However, instead of calling for an overhaul of the much hated law, McCain is calling for VIP treatment for the remixes made by political campaigns.

McCain's proposal: complaints about videos uploaded by a political campaign would be manually reviewed … Read more

John McCain's presidential campaign is protesting YouTube's video-removal policy, which has resulted in the deletion of some political advertisements the campaign believes are perfectly legal and protected by fair use.

In a letter (PDF) sent to YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and company attorneys on Monday, the campaign charges that "our advertisements or Web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine." The DMCA is, of course, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows copyright holders to submit takedown notices.

The letter cited "… Read more

The government has made great strides working with private industry to secure the nation's critical infrastructure, an advisory board to the president and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday, but top executives in the private sector need to step up and do more.

With infrastructure like electric grids, water, and telecommunications largely in the hands on private industry, it is up to the leaders in those sectors to work with government to keep the country safe--yet the participation of chief executives in such efforts has steadily waned since September 11, 2001, according to a working group … Read more

Ads for Democratic politician Barack Obama are appearing in an Electronic Arts high-speed racing game. This appears to be the first time that a presidential candidate has bought in-game advertising.

Electronic Arts confirmed on Tuesday to our sister site GameSpot that the ads have been appearing on virtual Obama billboards since October 6, and will continue to run until election day in November.

The ads will appear in the Xbox 360 version of the game in 10 states, most of them hotly contested: Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

The game in question … Read more

Child predators will be easier to track online because of two new laws President Bush signed Monday.

The Protect Our Children Act--which includes provisions introduced by Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and John McCain, (R-Ariz.)--sets requirements for Internet companies to report incidences of child pornography. It also authorizes more than $320 million for the Justice Department over the next five years for, among other things, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

The president on Monday also signed the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act, which requires a sex offender to provide the … Read more