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Darren Newell, a data security director for SBC Communications, Pacific Bell’s parent company, said the firm soon plans to use its Web site to caution consumers about online security issues. But it does not tell customers who sign up for $49-a-month home DSL lines about the risks and how to avoid them.

The computers at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab are under daily assault from would-be intruders, according to William Orvis, the Lab’s computer security expert. Orvis said he has seen plenty of evidence that hackers break into home computers and use them to mount attacks on others. The consequences for innocent users can be catastrophic.

?If we see an attack coming from somebody’s home machine, we’re going to ask your ISP to disconnect you,?’ Orvis said. Those who get caught up in a serious security breach may find law enforcement authorities seizing their equipment and examining it to try to track down the hacker and develop evidence for a criminal prosecution.

Bob Sullivan of MSNBC reported on an Internet chat room where “carders” buy and sell credit card numbers stolen from the Internet. The electronic scene resembles a combination of a commodity traders’ floor and a street corner of drug dealers. Typically, a carder posts a claim that he has a ?fresh list of cards,? and then to prove it, he posts a sample card, including billing address, phone number, etc., into the open chat room. A feeding frenzy follows. A participant reports that the “sample” card is maxed out within 10 minutes, and then others jump in to buy the remaining list.

One anonymous source across a “list of 10,000 or 20,000 numbers, and it took two days to figure out who to contact.” There is no Web page or e-mail address set up by credit card companies like Visa to help report fraudulent activity. A spokeswoman for Visa said her company does monitor a number of public sources of information, but declined to offer details, saying that would compromise the company’s monitoring methods. Told of a freshly posted Web page with an exposed credit card number, she replied: “You can assume we already know about that.”

A great deal is at stake ? for Visa alone, there was $487 million in fraudulent charges reported last year ? but that?s still a fraction of the $700 billion in total sales. ?What?s more,? Visa says, ?fraud rates are actually down, and fraud rates on Net transactions are only slightly higher than real-world rates? (.09 percent to .07 percent).

In Rome, Italian Privacy Commissioner Stefano Rodota ordered Infostrada, the country’s second-largest telecom, to temporarily shut down its free ISP service for violating national privacy laws. The free service, Libero, required users to disclose their age, health status, sexual habits, as well as political, labor, and religious preferences, an unlawful imposition, Rodota said.

He added that his office will be designing a series of guidelines for Internet services and contracts that will insure companies like Infostrada do not trample privacy. He is looking into other free Internet services as well. Infostrada admitted the original contract for Libero service did, in fact, conflict with privacy rules and took immediate action to correct the problem. A company spokesperson said that it was merely an oversight. The information required was utilized for marketing purposes, as the access for free Internet is compensated by advertising, and not to “spy” on users.

Informed Customer Consent

After conducting an opinion survey of Internet users, a database-marketing firm has recommended that e-commerce Web sites post clear privacy policies and obtain the informed consent of their customers before using their data.

?At the minimum, make sure all information is collected using the fundamentals of permission marketing. This means ?opt-in? should be the default,? wrote Cyber Dialogue a market research and database marketing company.

Web sites should always facilitate an easy opt-out procedure on every communication. This does not mean opt-in opens the floodgates, rather it is only the first step in establishing a continuous dialogue with a company?s most valuable customers. Consumer ignorance about terms like ?opt in? should not be taken advantage of.

The survey found there was a strong desire for personalization among Internet consumers and a growing awareness of cookies and other data collection practices. Increasing numbers are willing to give their names and other demographic data in exchange for personalization. What many will not accept, however is the distribution of personal information, including age, name, education, address, salary or credit card number ? without permission or compensation.

The survey found that 88% were willing to give their name, compared to 67% in 1997. Nearly 90% were willing to give level of education, age, hobbies and attitudes toward the Internet. Some 59% were willing to give household income, compared to 44% in 1997; 41% would reveal salary, compared to 29% in 1997; and 13% were willing to give a credit card number, compared to 4% in 1997.

While 38% of online users see the benefit of receiving targeted marketing messages from a personalized site, they do not appreciate targeted messages from sites that they have not personalized or registered with, as it is a clear indication that their information has been disclosed to a third party. Web sites should not mistake a consumer’s need for relevant content as a sign of tolerance for unsolicited marketing messages.

Over 95% of

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