US panel supports China net laws A congressional panel in the US has backed legislation which would prevent Internet companies from cooperating with authorities in China. Laws stopping firms such as Yahoo from revealing personal data to Beijing and other governments were supported by the Foreign Relations Committee. Under the legislation, companies would also have to reveal terms and phrases that they filtered in certain countries. The bill now needs approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Republican representative Chris Smith introduced the legislation last year after allegations that Yahoo provided information to the Chinese government that led to the jailing of two dissidents. The Chinese government enforces strict laws on Internet usage, blocking content it considers a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents. Yahoo has been accused of releasing data that led to the jailing of, online writer and critic of corruption, Li Zhi for eight years in 2003, and to the imprisonment of reporter Shi Tao in a separate case. Meanwhile Google has been criticized for blocking politically sensitive terms on its Chinese site. Microsoft has faced claims that it closed down the blog of a critic of the Chinese government—angering human rights groups.

Child porn Web sites ‘worsening’ More than seven Web sites hosting child pornography are reported to the police every day, an online charity has said. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) also said that new research showed the images, which included rape, sadism and bestiality, had become more severe. Now Web giants including Tiscali, Yahoo and MSN are helping to publicise the IWF’s hotline, which allows Internet users to report these sites. About 1.5m UK adults had accessed child pornography online, the IWF said. It also said that more than a third of all child sexual abuse sites contained images of the most severe kinds of abuse. Nearly one in three children appearing on the sites were under six years old, while one in 20 were under the age of two, the IWF said. Through the hotline, the IWF offers a “notice and take-down” service to police and Internet service providers. The Internet companies will run advertisments on their Web sites and among e-mail customers as part of an awareness day program. So far this year, the IWF has passed on details of 2,092 child sexual abuse Web sites to the police and child protection agencies. The awareness day will be followed by a series of regional presentations for professionals involved in tackling sexual abuse of children online.

PDF bug bedevils Adobe Acrobat and Reader A malicious PDF document that exploits bugs in Adobe Systems Inc.’s Reader and Acrobat software is on the loose, Symantec Corp. said, just hours after Adobe patched the programs. The rogue PDF document is attached to e-mail spam, and arrives with a filename such as YOUR_BILL.pdf or INVOICE.pdf, said Symantec. It exploits the “mailto:” protocol vulnerability disclosed more than a month ago by U.K.-based researcher Petko Petkov. Users of older versions of these programs must either upgrade to version 8.1.1 or apply one of the temporary workarounds that Adobe provided to stop attacks. Adobe did say that it would update Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and Acrobat 7.0.9 “at a later date” but the company has not set a definite timeline for this activity. When recipients open the rogue PDF, it launches a Trojan horse dubbed “Pidief.a” that knocks out Windows Firewall and then downloads another piece of malware on to the compromised computer. That second piece of attack code is a dedicated downloader that can retrieve files from a remote server and, at the attacker’s command, pull them onto the hacked PC.

Advanced Flash memory from Samsung Electronics giant Samsung has shown off what it claims is the world’s most powerful chip for use in memory cards. The 64 gigabit (Gb) chips could be used to make 128 gigabyte memory cards, commonly used in MP3 players, capable of holding the equivalent of 80 DVDs. The chips are built using circuits with a minimum feature size of just 30 billionths of a metre (nanometre). Rival firm Toshiba has said it is also working on similar technology. Both firms will release products in 2009. Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory, primarily used in memory cards, USB drives and MP3 players. Non-volatile memory retains information even when there is no power supplied to a device. Samsung said that it was facing “exploding demand” for flash memory as a storage medium in a range of applications. The new chips are designed to be used in a specific type of memory known as NAND flash. A single chip could be used in an MP3 player capable of holding 18,000 songs. Combining 16 chips would allow 128 GB devices, the company said, making Flash a rival to hard drives. Toshiba announced its plans to use 30 nm technology earlier this month.