treasury

The federal organization overseeing administration of funds from the 2008 bailout has shut down 85 alleged online mortgage scams that advertised with Google to target struggling homeowners.

The agency, known as the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, says that the alleged scammers preyed on homeowners seeking to lower their mortgages through a program created by the bailout. The program, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, offers homeowners who are having difficulty paying their mortgages a way to alter their payments to ease the burden.

In a press release today (PDF), … Read more

A cyberattack against Canada that tried to access classified government information and forced two key departments to go offline has been traced back to China, according to a story today from CBC News.

Sources told the CBC that the attacks were initially discovered in early January but that it's unknown whether the attackers themselves were in China or just directed their attacks through the country to hide their true source.

Specifically, the attacks reached computer systems at the Canadian government's Finance Department and Treasury Board in an attempt to capture passwords for government databases. In response, the government … Read more

For at least seven years, a handful of politicians in Washington, D.C., have been unsuccessfully trying to make it more difficult for countries such as China or Iran to censor and monitor the Internet.

There was a failed 2003 bill directing the U.S. State Department to develop anti-"jamming" software, and another two years later. A 2007 effort by Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, to ban Internet companies from storing personal information about users inside a "designated Internet-restricting country" never received a vote. Neither has a bizarre new proposal allowing the Federal … Read more

Savings Bond Wizard gives users a tool to help them manage their savings bonds. Using a very simple format, this is a great tool that will save time and headaches by doing all the complicated calculations for you.

This program isn't much to look at, but gets its job done. Its basic black and white screen takes a little clicking around and possibly a trip to the Help file to fully understand management and entry of data. Fortunately, the program is organized in a way that users should only need the information on their physical savings bond to fully … Read more