City business races the Games for power

Power demand in the UK's finance centre already outstrips supply, but the Olympics will get priority in the energy infrastructure

Pete Warren
The Guardian,
Thursday May 29 2008

When the UK won its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, Tony Blair was jubilant - but he probably little thought that he was shackling the City of London, the UK's top money earner, by denying it access to the national grid.

How? Put simply, demand for the cabling to provide power for the computer centres the industry relies upon has outstripped supply. The City has been told there can be no more computer centres until after the Games.

Add Comment (0)

Crime fears as cheap PCs head for Africa

Crime

Written by Peter Warren

Crime fears as cheap PCs head for Africa

Initiatives such as the OLPC and Classmate could mean an explosion in botnets in the developing world, warn security experts

Pete Warren
The Guardian,
Thursday February 7 2008
Article history

The OLPC could have the unwanted side effect of fuelling cybercrime in Africa

What if the plans to spread low-cost One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Intel Classmate computers to the developing world work? What if in a few years there are hundreds of millions of them out there? Many might applaud. But among computer security experts, there's growing concern that those scheme could inadvertently lead to a huge increase in computer crime.

Initiatives such as the OLPC and the Classmate are intended to help bridge the digital divide. But security experts warn that there could be an unforeseen negative effect.

"There is the possibility of creating the largest botnet in the world," says Yuval Ben-Ithak of Finjan, a computer security company. This view is borne out by a recent report by F-Secure identifying Africa as one of the emerging cybercrime threats.

Add Comment (0)

Hunt for Russia's web criminals

Crime

Written by Peter Warren

The Russian Business Network - which some blame for 60% of all internet crime - appears to have gone to ground. But, asks Peter Warren, has it really disappeared?

Published by The Guardian Thursday November 15 2007

Russian Business Network

A curious game of cat and mouse is being played out on the internet, as high-tech hunters close in on a group of cybercriminals known as the Russian Business Network, or RBN.

In scenes reminiscent of Cold War hunts for Russian submarines, the chase started a week ago when the RBN - a Russian ISP alleged to be behind much of today's web crime - slipped its internet moorings in the Baltic coastal city of St Petersburg and made for servers in China.

Add Comment (0)

Lack of concern over growing cybercrime angers UK businesses

Crime
Written by Peter Warren
Peter Warren Thursday July 19, 2007 The Guardian British industry leaders have called for urgent government intervention over the failure to deal with escalating online crime. The UK's largest corporations are being told to report multimillion pound international cybercrime incidents to their local police stations. The Confederation of British Industry said that the situation is a shambles. "The CBI is calling for a national debate to raise awareness of this issue and who will be responsible for dealing with it, and that will need to be backed by the prime minister," said Dr Jeremy Beale of the CBI's e-business group. Read More Add Comment (0)

The shambles over cybercrime

Crime
Written by Peter Warren
Despite the increase in online fraud, enforcement of the law is a mess since the dissolution of the specialist agency set up to fight it, says Pete Warren Thursday July 5, 2007 The Guardian Been the victim of online fraud? Until recently you would have reported it to the police, but now the onus on investigating such crimes lies not with the boys in blue but with the banking industry. On April 1, the Association of Chief Police Officers announced that it would no longer be responsible for investigating e-crime. That move marked the final straw for some. "You tell me of any other area of policing where the police would tell you to report a crime to a business," says one police officer. "The government line is that the banking industry created the problem by having credit cards. In that case, should we report gun crime to the arms manufacturers?" Read More Add Comment (0)