The Net was their accomplice. The teens tracked the movements of stars such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and broke into their houses, making off with millions of dollars in stolen possessions in a spree that lasted almost a year.

Police said the teens scoured celebrity blogs and Web sites, looking for valuables, and then used the Internet to find where the stars lived. In fact, thanks to our tabloid world, it was easy to develop a list of designer clothes and jewelry, then raided the homes while celebrities were away.

“They thought it was fun, kind of an adrenaline rush,”
- Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin.

It’s like Sugar and Spice meets Ocean’s Eleven, with a dash of The Babysitters Club’s entrepreneurial spirit and a soupçon of Robin Hood. Except that it actually happened.

Considering the world’s appetite for semi-true teen tales of real events that sound too crazy to be legit, just hope the accused have good lawyers: both for any criminal charges, and to sell their life rights.

Of course, when they get out of prison they can write a tell-all books; someone will make a TV series out of it, they’ll get rich, and enterprising hooligans can steal their swag.  And so continues the circle of life….cue Elton John.

For more coverage, tune in to TMZ.

One document, “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative,” is a 30-page guide to the “story” NATO representatives are to tell, and what details should not be given to journalists. Among the things not to be told the press is Jordan’s presence as a secret member of the US-led occupation force.

The documents came from the Pentagon Central Command (CENTCOM) site. Once the Pentagon found the decrypted documents on Wikileaks, they reportedly blacked out the entire CENTCOM site.

Microsoft has offered a bounty of $250,000 for the arrest of what appears to be an organized enterprise that is adding alarming new features to variants of the virus.

Cyber spying and warfare will be an important element to future wars, particularly those in which small forces hope to do big damage to highly automated military systems.  If an errant virus can infect most of the Royal Air Force, just think what an effort run by a military opponent could do.

This is of particular concern in the US, as the Pentagon suspended work on a cyber warfare command until the new President can sort out the organization issues needed to move forward. The Black Hat Security conference last week in Virginia discussed the need for a national leader to marshal the US response to a “cyber-Katrina” or perhaps, to draw a better metaphor, a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”

President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division, programs that have faced significant criticism over the past year.

Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the National Security Agency should have more oversight of cybersecurity (PDF).

“The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cybertalent,” he said. “I think that capability should be harnessed and built on as we’re trying to protect more than just our intelligence networks or our military networks (and) as we expand to our federal networks and to our critical infrastructure networks.”

Later in the week, the idea that NSA should run cyber-security lead to the protest resignation of Rod Beckstrom, the US Government’s head of cyber. Beckstrom had headed the new National Cybersecurity Center, which was created just a year ago. Reuters quotes him has saying NSA leadership of domestic cybersecurity is “bad strategy”.  Mr. Fox, meet the hen house.

As Walter Mondale once observed, “everything will be just fine unless something foreseen happens.” The US Government has seen this threat approaching. It has made several abortive attempts to respond. As Mondale suggests it not the surprise new issues that are decimating, its the immense ones, which can be seen clearly approaching, that become a big deal, as once they arrive any response it just too late.

Since preparation requires vision and and effort which preceeds any popular call, it is easy to defer, until there’s an “event”. Isn’t that what Pearl Harbors are for?

“The lesson here for Washington is that any modern conflict will include a cyberwarfare component, simply because it’s too inexpensive to be passed up,” says Bill Woodcock, research director at Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit Internet research institute in San Francisco. “We’ve spent eight years completely ignoring that, while the Chinese and Indian governments have been paying really close attention and investing many tens of billions of dollars.”

Pentagon Suspends Work on USAF Cyber Command
“I think this is a very poor time to send a signal that the United States is not interested in focusing on warfighting in the cyber domain,” said Michael Wynne, the former US Air Force Secretary who made cyberwar a central mission of the Air Force.  See AP coverage

Cyber Warfare Began Well Before the Russian Attack
Attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks that effectively shut down Georgian servers. See NY Times coverage.

Blurring the Line Between Propaganda and SPAM from War Victims
Citizens now have tools of mass communication and the ability to distribute them. This creates expanded opportunities for citizens in conflict to speak, as well as for governments to spoof such communications to win hearts and minds. See Circle ID coverage.

Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, raises these questions in his blog and considers some of the legal issues.

Turns out this was a really bad idea.

The Air Force’s marketing chief, Keith Lebling, helped distribute the video for this kind of public viewing. Lebling says any intellectual property claim should have gone through his office, and none did.

The privacy section of the Air Force site, where the video is promoted, states, “Information presented on the Air Force Recruiting web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied.”

To avoid legal risk, YouTube has diligently complied with the take-down notice. However, it has allowed this non-infringing content to be uploaded elsewhere on the service.