Monday, March 01, 2004

Chileans go online to file taxes A few months ago, I mentioned the growing interest in Chile for eGovernment.  Today, Forbes reports that 70% of Chileans file their taxes online.  Furthermore, 37% of homes with computers have broadband service.  Chile is increasingly urban, so expect these trends to continue. 1:02:30 PM    comment []

RSS Feed for Purchasing Bids Doug Stout of the Utah Division of Purchasing and General Services has created an RSS feed for purchasing bids.  By adding it to my aggregator, I can quickly review the latest state procurement activity with minimal effort.  Potential bidders can subscribe to this feed to see what procurement opportunities are available with the state.  This is an excellent resource that should be duplicated elsewhere. 9:00:37 AM    comment []

Cybersecurity Update Senator Ron Wyden (OR) is sponsoring the Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act that prohibits the use of databases to mine for hypothetical scenarios and prevents government agencies from browsing bank records, online purchases or travel plans without regard to actual intelligence or law-enforcement information.  That bill was assigned to the Senate Judicial Committee last summer and has not been seen since.  Last week, Wyden teamed with Barbara Boxer to sponsor a new anti-spyware bill. The Judicial Committee held a hearing on cyberterrorism last week.  Speaking of cyberterrorism, Bill Gratsch's eGovLinks site was hacked over the weekend by the "EmpEror SeCUriTy Team".  The Department of Homeland Security is working with the National Association of Attorneys General (“NAAG”) to compile the Computer Crime Point-of-Contact List, a 50-state list of state and local prosecutors and investigators who are responsible for computer-related crimes within their respective jurisdictions. This list allows agents and prosecutors from one jurisdiction to call upon their colleagues in another jurisdiction for rapid response in cybercrime matters. Here's a good powerpoint on legal frameworks for combatting cybercrime. F-Secure reports that "a new variant of Netsky worm - Netsky.D was found on March 1st, 2004 and is spreading fast in the wild. This worm variant lacks many text strings that were present in NetSky.C variant and it does not copy itself to shared folders."  We saw a lot of NetSky last week so I guess we'll be continuing to screen thousands of attempted intrusions. 8:49:02 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David Fletcher.