House committee OKs spectrum auction delay. The House Energy and Commerce Committee today passed legislation to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from auctioning off a valuable swath of airwave spectrum. Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said that lawmakers hope to bring the bill to a vote in the full House of Representatives. At issue is a block of airwave licenses in the 700 MHz band that has many wireless companies salivating. Broadcasters currently occupying that spectrum band are expected to vacate the airwaves as they make the transition to digital television. "It is true that the auction of the upper portion of the 700 MHz band has been delayed five times. But conducting the auctions for both the upper and lower parts of the 700 MHz band in June would be wrong. These auctions are simply not ready for prime time," he added. (Washtech.com, 2 May) Bipartisan group pushes bill to create homeland security department. On 2 May A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers introduced a bill to establish a Cabinet-level Department of National Homeland Security and a White House Office of Combating Terrorism. Within the department, an office of science and technology would act as an interagency clearinghouse for new technologies to assist in improving homeland security. The department would consist of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office; the National Infrastructure Protection Center; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Customs Service; the enforcement branch of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard and other agencies. (National Journal's Technology Daily, 02 May) Hackers set off on a rampage. A group of hackers has defaced dozens of Web sites in the past two weeks and published sensitive data culled from the sites in what it says is an effort to increase awareness of online security risks. The group, which calls itself the "Deceptive Duo", is in the midst of a multi-part hacking campaign targeting different sectors of government and industry. Initial victims have included the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense and Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories spokesman Chris Miller confirmed that a page maintained by the lab had briefly been defaced. (ZDNet News, 2 May) WWU Comment: As of this posting another web site maintained by the Sandia National Laboratories had been successfully targeted and defaced by the Deceptive Duo. This cracking team appears to be targeting Windows based web servers.
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