Estonia

Attackers bent on shutting down large Web sites -- even the operators that run the backbone of the Internet -- are arming themselves with what are effectively vast digital fire hoses capable of overwhelming the world's largest networks, according to a new report on online security.

In these attacks, computer networks are hijacked to form so-called botnets that spray random packets of data in huge streams over the Internet. The deluge of data is meant to bring down Web sites and entire corporate networks.

Some of the most vicious Internet predators are hackers who infect thousands of PCs with special viruses and lash the machines together into "botnets" to pump out spam or attack other computers.

Now security researchers say cell phones, and not just PCs, are the next likely conscripts into the automated armies.

The mobile phone as zombie computer is one possibility envisioned by security researchers from Georgia Tech in a new report coming out Wednesday.

The European Union's telecommunications minister plans to propose a new set of price controls that would sharply cut the roaming fees charged by mobile operators to send short text messages while also reducing the cost of surfing the Internet on a cell phone.

Details of the proposal, obtained by the International Herald Tribune on Wednesday, show that the minister, Viviane Reding, will seek to cap retail roaming fees for short text messages, or SMS, within the European Union at 11 euro cents, or 16 U.S. cents, a message.

U.S. authorities are calling it the largest hacking and identity theft case yet. But this week's indictments of 11 people who allegedly plundered millions of payment card numbers might not seriously dent the underworld where such crimes occur.

Researchers at a hacking conference [in Las Vegas] met the news with a bit of a shrug, saying the theft of credit and debit cards still will flourish.

Estonia is putting its green face forward with a new sustainable city to be built next to its capital city of Tallinn. Architects from Schmidt Hammer Lassen have won a design competition for their Ecobay design, a realistic concept city that is sustainable and eco-friendly.

Hackers attacked about 300 Web sites in Lithuania during the weekend, defacing them with Soviet symbols and anti-Lithuanian slogans, officials said Monday.

The sabotage of the Web sites occurred two weeks after Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, outlawed the display of Soviet symbols. The ban touched off new tensions with Russia.

Lithuanian officials did not directly accuse Russian hackers of initiating the attacks, but said they had come from foreign computers and were most likely related to the ban.

Hackers often harness the combined power of thousands of virus-infected personal computers to pump out spam e-mail or disable targeted servers by overwhelming them with Internet traffic.

Now an Air Force colonel is suggesting the U.S. military build its own "botnet," or network of remotely controlled computers, to be ready to attack the computer networks of foreign enemies.

Estonia and six NATO allies sign a deal this week to provide staff and funds for a new research center designed to boost the alliance's defenses against cyber terrorism.

The agreement to be signed in Brussels on Wednesday comes a year after the small Baltic nation was exposed to an unprecedented wave of cyber attacks that crippled government and corporate computer networks.

The attacks lasted three weeks and followed deadly riots sparked by the relocation of a Soviet war memorial. Many Estonians suspect the Kremlin was behind the virtual strikes but Moscow has denied involvement.

Three men were charged Monday with hacking into a national restaurant chain's computerized cash registers and stealing credit card information from customers.

Eleven Dave & Buster's restaurants at various locations around the United States were hit in the scheme, including one in Islandia, on Long Island, where information was stolen on 5,000 credit and debit cards, causing at least $600,000 (EU390,000) in losses, federal prosecutors said.

The extent of the losses from the other branches was not immediately known.