Global Dispatches: Israeli police uncover Trojan horse espionage ring

Computerworld - Israeli Police Uncover Trojan Horse Spy Ring
Israeli police have uncovered a major industrial spy ring that allegedly used Trojan horse software to snoop into some of the country's leading companies.
A husband-and-wife team, Michael Haephrati and Ruth Brier-Haephrati, was detained last week in London on suspicion of creating the Trojan horse program. The software was sent via e-mail or computer disks to people at targeted companies and was then used by competitors to harvest confidential information from the infected PCs, according to a report in the Haaretz newspaper.
The Tel Aviv-based newspaper detailed how a wide range of businesses, including television, mobile phone, automotive and utility companies, allegedly used the Trojan horse to obtain "tens of thousands" of pilfered documents.
Police told Haaretz that the companies started using the malicious software after engaging the services of any one of three private investigation agencies, which were given the task of carrying out the industrial espionage. The newspaper reported that another 21 people have been detained for questioning in Israel.
• Techworld.com (U.K.) and IDG News Service
U.K. Biometric Test Finds Scanning Glitches
LONDON -- The U.K. government has reintroduced a bill to create a biometric identity card system by 2010 to help fight terrorism and fraud, after having shelved the measure before last month's general election . But it also released a report describing what officials called "teething problems" with the technology.
The report on the U.K. Passport Service's eight-month trial of biometric technology, which involved 10,000 people, cited problems with scanning large fingers and the eyes of people with dark complexions, for example.
Of the three methods tested, facial scanning had the lowest verification success rate, especially in bad lighting, the study found. Fingerprint scanning had a better success rate, but the report said the scanner surface was "too small to scan a sufficient area of fingerprint from participants with large fingers." Eye scanning was the most accurate, but the machines had difficulty scanning the irises of people with dark complexions and people over the age of 59, according to the report.
• Laura Rohde, IDG News Service
Japan Aims for PFLOPS in Supercomputer Race
TOKYO -- Japan this month will begin a research effort to build a supercomputer capable of crunching numbers about 30 times faster than today's fastest system can, the country's government said last week.
Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has established a program with NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and several Japanese universities to develop by 2011 a supercomputer that can perform