I-gaming Hacked -- The Financial Times reported that in September more than a dozen offshore betting sites serving the US market were hit by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by hackers trying to extort money from unprotected companies. After breaking into a company's network, the attackers would send e-mails to the company demanding payments of up to $40,000 in exchanged for ceasing the attacks. The Times reports that in most cases the companies would rather pay the fine than risk admitting to its customers and the public that its network is vulnerable. Paul Lawrence, a manager for Top Layer, a company that protects against DDoS attacks, said "We have seen these peaks being hit around the world. It does seem to be a trend, where they find a specific type of company - like online gambling - and geography is no barrier to them. They seem to be working their way around the world, picking people off quite happily." Ian Morris of Equip, who has worked with some of the affected sites, told WhatPC? that "In a lot of cases the attacks have taken out well-configured firewalls. Most people in positions of authority believe that, because they've got firewalls, they are protected - bullet-proof if you like. These attacks have shown that this is not the case."
Thailand Gambling -- The Nation, a newspaper in Bangkok, Thailand, reported that the Justice Ministry might legalize all forms of gambling in order to appropriate some of the proceeds toward social developments. Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana, who is chairman of the subcommittee that will update Thailand's anti-corruption law, is inviting concerned parties to help in drafting the new bill next month. The Justice Ministry speculates that legalizing all forms of gambling would eliminate corruption and underground mobsters. According to researcher Dr Sangsit Piriyarangsan's statistics, $452 billion circulated through illegal gambling last year, a figure that is 8 percent of the country's G.N.P. Just last week an official from Thailand's Government Lottery Office said that the office wanted to legalize soccer betting.
Ad Trends -- New Media Zero reports that an increase in the amount of software that blocks pop-up windows is causing a rise in rich-media and interactive forms of advertisements. Greg Paine, Director of interactive marketing strategy at AOL UK, said, "Agencies are using rich media more cleverly. There are more user-initiated ads, like ones that expand on roll-over. They still dominate the page but are under the control of users."