"TechPoint" - The techie edge

E-passports are passports with a chip embedded in them that will help thwart document frogery. America is planning to begin issuing e-passports from October. Germany has already started issuing such documents. A german computer security consultant has successfully cloned an e-passport and proved that this technology is a no brainer. It took him only two weeks to figure out how to clone the passport chip. Although he can clone the chip, he says it's not possible, as far as he can tell, to change data on the chip, such as the name or birth date, without being detected. That's because the passport uses cryptographic hashes to authenticate the data. However, he says, there are ways to fool the chip-reader even if the data in the actual chip cannot be changed.
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Hackers are no longer hacking for the fun of it or for any revenge. They are hacking for money. British online payment processing company Protx went offline after an attack and was warned that problems would continue unless a $10,000 payment was made, according to a recent report in The New York Times.
Credit card accounts are being sold for $100 per card. They get paid for hacking windows, they get paid for creating zombies, etc. Yes, there is a whole new underworld market for hackers....

A new kind of hacking has emerged. Hackers enter in to victims computer and encrypt their files and leave behind a note with email address asking $200 to decrypt the files. Hmm....how about paying the hacker and tracing his bank account and eventually him? sounds like trouble there....