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Internet blackouts: Reaching for the kill switch. Obama 'Internet kill switch' plan approved by US Senate panel. A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack. Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch. " Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.

The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation by voice vote Thursday, a committee spokeswoman said. The bill next moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which has not yet been scheduled. Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition, he added. FBI Investigating IPad E-mail Leaks - PCWorld Business Center. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into the leak of an estimated 114,000 Apple iPad user e-mail addresses. Hackers belonging to a group called Goatse obtained the e-mail addresses after uncovering a Web application on AT&T's Web site that returned an iPad user's e-mail address when it was sent specially written queries. After writing an automated script to repeatedly query the site, they downloaded the addresses, and then handed them over to Gawker.com. Now the FBI is trying to figure out whether this was a crime. "The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation into addressing the potential cyberthreat," said Lindsay Godwin, an FBI spokeswoman.

Investigation by Request The investigation was opened Thursday by the FBI's Washington Field Office, she said. They wrote a PHP script that flooded AT&T's Web site with possible ICC-ID numbers and logged responses when the site returned an e-mail address. Damage Denied. Class Action Suit Filed Against Apple over Location Tracking. Survey Shows We're Too Lazy About Mobile Phone Security. A new survey shows U.S. consumers are shockingly lax about basic security on their mobile phones. Most of us have no qualms about making purchases via mobile, and the vast majority of us use the same phone for business and personal use — two common vulnerabilities in web security. Yet in spite of these yellow flags, few of us use phone-locking passwords and duplicate the same passwords for mobile apps that we use on our desktops. The survey [PDF] in question comes from security firm AVG and research and consulting firm The Ponemon Institute. One key finding we mentioned was the crossover between business and personal use of the same device.

Around 84% of consumers use the same smartphone for both professional and personal tasks. In those cases, if the user's phone ever becomes lost or compromised, the amount of risk is automatically doubled, since both kinds of private and confidential data could be accessed. And we're not as wary as we should be about mobile viruses, either.