hackers

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This is a TED talk by Misha Glenny, who have investigated cyber crime and their roots. He quickly discovered that hackers play a vital part (no surprise there), and suggests that the way we treat black hats may be a threat to our society. Perhaps he's got a point?

The following article has been compiled by Bev Robb. Bev owns Teksquisite, a Southern Oregon IT Consulting business that specializes in Internet security technologies and social media. She is currently consulting with Virtual World Computing (VWC) on their flagship product Cocoon, a Firefox plug-in that protects Internet users from viruses, malware and online tracking.  She blogs at the Tekblog and the Cocoon blog and currently administers five Facebook fanpages.

In a bid to cut down on fraud and inappropriate content, the organization responsible for administering Russia's .ru top-level domain names is tightening its procedures.

Starting April 1, anyone who registers a .ru domain will need to provide a copy of their passport or, for businesses, legal registration papers. Right now, domains can be set up with no verification -- a practice that has allowed scammers to quickly set up .ru domains under bogus names.

The changes will help Russia align its rules with international best practices, said Olga Ermakova, informational projects manager with the Coordination Center for the .ru top-level domain, in an e-mail interview. The .ru administrators care about the "cleanness" of the domain, she added. "We don't need negative content, and such content is often [created] by unknown users."