A U.K. law has been passed that makes it an offense to launch denial-of-service attacks, which experts had previously called “a legal gray area.”

Among the provisions of the Police and Justice Bill 2006, which gained Royal Assent on Wednesday, is a clause that makes it an offense to impair the operation of any computer system. Other clauses prohibit preventing or hindering access to a program or data held on a computer, or impairing the operation of any program or data held on a computer.

The maximum penalty for such cybercrimes has also been increased from 5 years to 10 years.

Source: News.com

The top online shopping sites (as well as old-fashioned stores) to buy computers and electronics are rated in a new survey of Consumer Reports’ readers. Big winners: Crutchfield and Costco.com.

After Crutchfield.com and Costco.com, the other online vote getters include:
Buydig.com with a score of 92;
Amazon.com 92;
Buy.com 91;
JR.com 90;
CircuitCity.com 87;
Dell.com 84; and
BestBuy.com 83.

Source: InformationWeek

NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions, is supplying map data to Norwich Union for its innovative “Pay As You Drive” insurance scheme which could save drivers in the United Kingdom up to one third on their premiums. Drivers are provided with in-car GPS devices coupled with NAVTEQ street level maps, enabling Norwich Union to calculate insurance premiums for each journey, depending on time of day, type of road and mileage.

Norwich Union is the only insurer in the UK to offer a usage-based motor insurance policy and has launched “Pay As You Drive” nationally following a very successful pilot scheme involving 5,000 motorists. The objective is to help drivers control insurance costs by making informed choices about when to use the car. Pricing begins from as little as a penny per mile.

Bills will look similar to mobile phone bills, with the premiums for each journey calculated and totaled. This transparent approach to motor insurance will help customers control motor insurance costs in a way that has not been possible before now.

“We’re confident that ‘Pay As You Drive’ insurance is simply a fairer way of calculating premiums and gives customers greater control, flexibility and choice. That is why we expect this unique UK proposition to be a huge success with motorists.”

Searching the worldwide web with engines such as Google Inc. may help doctors to diagnose perplexing medical conditions, Australian researchers said.

To test how good Google is, Tang and his colleagues selected three to five search terms for 26 difficult-to-diagnose illnesses reported in a medical journal and did a Google search.

After recording the top ranked answers that seemed to fit the symptoms and comparing them with the correct diagnosis, they found the Google searches came up with the right answer in 15, (58 percent) of cases.

Source: eWeek

During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system’s new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed.

Source: BetaNews