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The Millennium Pledge

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

Hackers

might have become every web site’s nightmare after major sites

like Yahoo!, CNN, and AOL were hacked recently. But what Aastrom

Biosciences Inc. experienced recently was a little different. A

suspected computer hacker posted a fake press release on the

company’s web site announcing a merger with California-based

Biopharmaceutical Company, Geron Corp. The result: An instant

boost in the company’s shares prices at the stock exchange. By

the time an employee spotted the release and trading was

officially halted, the stock had already jumped by 6.5 percent.

The company’s officials were reportedly "appalled"

by the "ruthless attempt to manipulate markets and harm the

interests of shareholders".

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What is perhaps more

interesting to note is some of the initiatives taken by various

organizations to prevent, neigh, to minimize such further

attacks–from small company initiatives to White House

conferences. While Aastrom preferred to temporarily take down

its web site from the Web, ICSA.net, a GartnerGroup affiliate,

officially announced formation of the Alliance for Internet

Security and released guidelines to aid companies in identifying

and solving potential security problems. The Alliance while

recognizing the "inevitability" of network attacks

seeks modest "voluntary" contributions from all the

members towards Internet security. To join the Alliance for

Internet Security, members must subscribe to a pledge. Sound

like medieval loyalty, does it? 



More experienced Internet users have higher incidences of e-commerce and online financial activities. Banks bet that experience will breed the familiarity and comfort necessary to

establish the Net as a viable medium for financial transactions, just as familiarity and experience were key to ATM adoption in the 1980s.

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