Buyer Beware: New Study Shows Pitfalls of Internet Pharmacies
octobre 31, 2007 on 9:40 | In Viagra, Sildenafil Citrate, Generic Viagra | No CommentsSept. 29, 1999 (Washington) — Filling prescriptions through the Internet might seem like a convenient way to keep the family medicine cabinet stocked, but there are a number of dangers associated with buying medications through Web sites, say researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
A study of 46 Web sites that sell prescription medications found that some would not reveal where they are based or where their medications are manufactured. Internet pharmacies may use physicians from outside the U.S. to provide online consultations to people without prescriptions. And despite the common belief that the Internet can provide bargains, the researchers found the medications and physician services cost more when they are purchased online than they would if obtained the conventional way.
The study, which was released early due to its public health implications, is scheduled to be published in the December issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine and was conducted by Bernard S. Bloom, PhD, and Ronald C. Iannacone, BS. Their search of Internet pharmacies, conducted in February and March, yielded 37 sites that required a prescription or an online physician consultation to dispense pharmaceuticals and nine — all based outside the U.S. — that did not.
For consumers, the greatest risks come from sites that don’t require a prescription or physician consultation, or that market medications that are not approved by the FDA. But even with an online consultation, there is potential for harm because the quality of the physician is generally not known, Bloom and Iannacone write.
“Let’s hope to God it is a physician. It could be your Aunt Mildred. You just don’t know,” Bloom tells WebMD. And as for those “sites that offered physician consultants, there was a disclaimer that said the physician may not be in your country.” Bloom is a research professor in the department of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bloom says it’s not practical to suggest that consumers stay away from ordering all prescription medications without a physician visit. “It’s remarkable how accurate people are in doctoring themselves,” he says, adding that there should be some physician involvement. “It seems to me, certainly for most prescription medications, you want to have a physician have some input, to know the patient, know something about other medications they might be taking.”
The list of the commonly sold medications reads like a “who’s who” of the most popular and heavily advertised medications today: Viagra (sildenafil) and Propecia (finasteride), Claritin (loratadine), Celebrex (celecoxib), Valtrex (valacyclovir), and Zyban (bupropion). Many of the medications are not covered by insurance plans because they are so-called “lifestyle” drugs. Some sites existed only to sell specific medications, and little information was available about them, according to the authors.
The authors also reviewed the costs of medications and consults. “Among the 37 sites selling Viagra, the median per pill price was $4.50 (range, $4.30 to $4.65). Among the 16 Internet sites offering Propecia, the median per pill price was $1.94 (range, $1.55 to $1.95). On average the two medications were about 10% more expensive when they were obtained from a web site than from a local pharmacy,” the authors write.
Internet physician consultations ranged in price from $20.00 to $90.00, while a primary care visit reimbursed by managed care plans or Medicare in Philadelphia averages about $60.00, according to the study.
In an accompanying editorial, FDA Commissioner Jane E. Henney, MD, and three other FDA officials counsel physicians and patients to report potentially illegal sites to the agency or the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.
They also suggest a number of steps consumers can take to reduce the risk of buying medications through the Internet. These include not buying from sites that offer to sell the drug without a physician’s examination or a valid prescription, offering to sell medications not approved by the FDA, or sites that do not include a U.S. location and address. They also recommend consumers verify that a site is duly licensed by going to the Boards of Pharmacy site at www.nabp.net.
Source: Buyer Beware: New Study Shows Pitfalls of Internet Pharmacies
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News - UK - Gang jailed for fake Viagra scam
octobre 30, 2007 on 10:16 | In Viagra Soft, Viagra, Generic Viagra | No CommentsThree men have been jailed for their part in a multi-million pound global conspiracy to sell fake Viagra and drugs used to treat male hair loss.
Salesman Gary Haywood, 59, of Leicester, was jailed for six years, and student Ashwin Patel, 25, from north London, for 18 months.
Zahid Mirza, 46, of Ilford, Essex, who absconded from bail and was not in court, was given two-and-a-half years.
The judge said the gang had placed customers at “unacceptable risk”.
He added that their main motivation had been greed.
‘Vulnerable customers’
At Kingston Crown Court, sentencing judge Nicholas Price told Haywood and Patel it was important to impose sentences that would deter others from becoming involved in what was “undoubtedly a lucrative business”.
“Greed is the overriding motivation to such offences,” he said.
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This is the biggest drugs counterfeiting case to be brought to date Mick Deats, MHRA head of enforcement
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“The scale of this criminal enterprise was truly global. It was long-running, it was highly organised and it was conducted with total and cynical disregard for unsuspecting and vulnerable customers.”
He said Haywood, who was convicted of 11 counts of conspiring to sell fake medicines, money laundering and selling medicines without a wholesalers’ license, had enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle as a result of his criminal activities.
He told him: “You demonstrated yourself to be deceitful, unscrupulous and determined.”
Investigators from UK regulatory body the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) say the case was the biggest counterfeit drugs bust in British history.
Chance interception
All three men were found guilty on a number of counts of conspiring to sell fake medicines at Kingston Crown Court in August.
A fourth man Ashish Halai, 33, of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, was jailed for four-and-a-half years last month.
Haywood, Patel, and businessman Mirza were part of a gang which smuggled copies of Viagra and medicines to treat male baldness.
The court had previously heard that Patel was drawn into the scam by his brother-in-law Halai.
The fake medicines were made in factories in India, China and Pakistan.
A chance interception by UK customs officers of a parcel containing 12,000 fake Viagra tablets addressed to Haywood led to a huge investigation spanning three continents.
‘Clear message’
The drugs were bought from suppliers for as little as 25p but sold on the internet for up to 20 per tablet.
The supply ring sold tens of thousands of tablets in the UK, America, the Bahamas and Mexico.
Investigators are still trying to uncover how much profit was made from the three-and-a-half year enterprise.
Mick Deats, head of enforcement at MHRA, said: “This is the biggest drugs counterfeiting case to be brought by the MHRA to date.
“The conviction of these individuals sends a clear message to those engaged in such criminal activity, which puts peoples’ lives at risk, that we will not hesitate to use the full force of the law against them.”
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House Says No To Viagra
octobre 29, 2007 on 10:11 | In Viagra Soft, Viagra, Sildenafil Citrate, Generic Viagra | No Commentstadalafil generic
(AP) Impotence drugs such as Viagra would not be covered by Medicaid and Medicare, the government health programs for the poor and the aged, under new prohibitions approved by the House on Friday.
By a 285-121 vote, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, to stop the government from paying for the drugs. King said his amendment would save taxpayers $105 million next year alone.
King had earlier commissioned a budget study that found the government would spend more than $2 billion on such impotence drugs over the next decade. The amount spent would greatly increase as the Medicare prescription program begins next year.
Continue reading House Says No To Viagra…
Medicaid To Cover Viagra
octobre 28, 2007 on 10:19 | In Viagra Soft, Viagra, Sildenafil Citrate, Generic Viagra | No Comments(AP) Despite concerns by some states about cost, the federal government says state Medicaid programs must pay for Viagra, the popular but expensive new impotency pill.
Use of the drug will be closely monitored, however, and abuse could land it on a list of drugs states can choose to exclude from coverage by the health insurance program for the poor.
“The law requires that a state’s Medicaid program cover Viagra when medical necessity dictates” said Medicaid administrator Nancy-Ann Min DeParle in a letter Thursday to the National Governors’ Association.
Continue reading Medicaid To Cover Viagra…
The Odd Truth, May 18, 2005
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(CBS/AP) The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com’s Joey Arak.
Governor Needs No Viagra
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Gov. Rod Blagojevich is defending his use of the phrase “testicular virility” to describe his ability to make tough decisions.
The remark prompted both laughter and complaints that it was sexist and an undignified thing for a governor to say.
But Blagojevich called such objections “complete baloney.”
Continue reading The Odd Truth, May 18, 2005…
A Healthy Dose of RFID
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Imagine a world where every single manufactured item is tagged with a tiny RFID chip that holds various bits of information about that item. And as each item moves along a supply chain&151;information is gathered, stored and accessed at various points in a mixture of systems.
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The goal is to be able to know where everything&151;is at any given time. The challenge, however, is determining how such a scenario would play out: what the actual network would look like once companies up and down the supply chain collaboratively start inputting and exchanging information among trading partners and their partners&39;s goods. It has created standards to enable RFID data exchange and has proposed a network architecture, called the EPC Network, for enabling all the objects in the world to be linked via the Internet. At the same time, other groups&151;have floated potential, and competing, network architectures that could accommodate the global exchange of RFID data.
But before a network architecture can be agreed upon, some basic questions need to be answered: How much network traffic would be created in such a scenario where every physical item transmits data? What type of architecture is necessary to support a scalable network? What type of security would be necessary to validate queries? And what kinds of resources will be needed to handle all this traffic?
These are just some of the questions being tackled by MIT&151;the successor to the Auto-ID Center, which was split in 2003 into Auto-ID Labs and EPCglobal&39;s RFID product tracking and authentication application.
On MIT&39;s side, heading the EPC data project is John Williams, a specialist in simulation and large-scale data modeling who has been asked by the Department of Homeland Security to simulate different networks, such as the Internet, telephone networks and water-supply systems, where communication has broken down at one time or another.” />
Homeland Security to simulate different networks, such as the Internet, telephone networks and water-supply systems, where communication has broken down at one time or another.
Williams has some clear ideas about how RFID data can be used to facilitate communication among companies and about the challenges that lie ahead.
“The idea would be to know where everything is at any time. One of the things&151;is that in a year, maybe a trillion products are manufactured, so to try and keep track of trillions of things, we haven&91;network&91;RFID-enabled network&91;an item&39;s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in a triumvirate of top-tier suppliers, has standardized on RFID in its California distribution center&39;s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in a triumvirate of top-tier suppliers, has standardized on RFID in its California distribution center&151;manufacturer, retailer, wholesaler. Everyone has to worry about the problem, as opposed to other &93; which would be attributable to one aspect of the supply chain,” said Krish Mantripragada, director of RFID, SCM (supply chain management) and solution management at SAP Labs, in Palo Alto, Calif. “The project is looking at a much bigger problem, but ePedigree keeps the project grounded.”
In addition to offering best practices for RFID implementations and the pharmaceutical industry, SAP Labs is contributing an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to Auto-ID Labs. Running at MIT, in Cambridge, the software incorporates SAP data and business processes. Actual customer input will come in the project&91;tagged items&91;and&39;s potential risks to data security and privacy. Click here to read more.
For the simulation, the teams have taken a two-pronged approach, asking both concrete questions that speak to SAP&151;RFID and supply chain applications&151;how best to connect companies and identify people in an RFID-supported supply chain&39;t any EPC-based networks in operation.
The Auto-ID Labs simulator can replicate as many as 100,000 facilities, with 10 million items traveling through the combined facilities on a given day.
“Each facility is a state machine that runs through its own multithread,” said Williams, who is simulating the flow of goods and purchase orders up and down the supply chain. “Our goal is to simulate the pharmaceutical supply chain. Having formed that, we believe we can get enough information to simulate other verticals, &93; auto and aerospace.”
To do the simulation, Williams has built a model of a generic facility&151;and then multiplied the generic model to simulate 100,000 facilities. Each facility has two inputs: purchase orders and physical goods. Purchase orders flow from retailer to manufacturer, and physical goods flow from manufacturer to retailer, with distributors and wholesalers getting in the mix at different points of the process. The simulation environment changes the amount of purchase orders and physical goods flowing between facilities at any given time to determine network capabilities. “I can take all the POs for Viagra from all the CVS stores &93; so that a wholesaler will say, &39; and then send that PO up to a distributor,” he said. “So what we have is a state machine. The systems have certain states they can be in that are well-defined and change depending on input&39;s what we&39;s product strategy but also the RFID industry itself.
“We have firsthand insight into this new technology, and we will understand better how to develop innovative products for our customers,” Hofmann said. “We will understand better what the market needs, the real problems, and what type of technology we have to develop and buy to realize this solution.” At the same time, SAP and MIT presenting a joint “profound concept” for collaboration and data exchange over the Internet will carry weight with the RFID industry in general, Hofmann said.
Next Page: Competing architectures.
Via ePedigree, the EPCglobal data project is simulating several architectural models&151;for both single and distributed networks. But outside the pharmaceutical industry, several competing network architectures are in play. The most widely described architecture is the EPC Network, which was developed to ensure global interoperability of tag data as products move along the supply chain.
The EPC Network consists of three major components: EPC Discovery Services, essentially an electronic chain of custody for EPC tags; EPC Information Services, the interpreter communicating between a database and applications; and an Object Name Service, which identifies the location of the server hosting the appropriate information needed by an application.
The EPC Network, proposed by EPCglobal, is essentially a central repository. There is also a hybrid model that assumes all data is local to various enterprises, and intelligence discovery mechanisms are used to search for relevant data.
Then there are document models, on-demand models and registry models to consider.
“This &93; is the first scientific analysis where we look at a couple of different architectures&39;s Mantripragada.
Given that the yearlong project is in its early stages, researchers at Auto-ID Labs and SAP Labs are reluctant to release initial results regarding architectural models. But Tao Lin, senior research scientist and EPCglobal data project manager with SAP Labs, said there are some widely understood findings about the proposed architectures.
“&93; some of the architectures proposed by EPC or by other organizations, we found some assumptions in the beginning weren&151;say, at a manufacturer&39;s product strategy.
A larger implication of the study is that because the whole concept of RFID-tagged goods throughout the world is so new, people haven&39;re talking about thousands, even millions of data storage systems&151;holding RFID/EPC data,” said Lin. “The data could have a contribution to a query. So now we&39;s infrastructure can actually support the data storage, Lin said. There is, however, Google. What Google brings to the table for the EPC data project is the concept of storing data in memory rather than in a database to enable extremely fast queries. MIT&39;s, with resident in-memory that is scalable.
“The big challenge is streaming data. How do you process lots of real-time data? That&39;re looking at are security, scalability and extensibility of the network&91;designed using&151;very close to the way the Internet works now. At the top level, each country hosts a top-level server, and then these top-level servers interface with each other. That&39;s going to have to work. We can&91;the data&39;s going to take a lot more sophistication than that.”
Check out eWEEK.com's Mobile & Wireless Center for the latest news, reviews and analysis on mobile and wireless computing.
Continue reading A Healthy Dose of RFID…
What’s the Greatest Medical Advance?
octobre 24, 2007 on 10:27 | In Viagra, Sildenafil Citrate, Generic Viagra | No CommentsIn the world of medicine, “breakthrough” is not a word taken
lightly. But the prestigious British medical journal BMJ soon plans to
name what it considers the greatest medical breakthrough since 1840 — the year
the journal was launched.
Last year, BMJ invited readers to submit nominations for the honor.
Now in contention are 15 medical advances, ranging from anesthesia to vaccines,
that over the decades have saved millions of lives and immeasurable human
suffering.
These breakthroughs were culled from more than 100 nominations from
BMJ readers — mostly physicians and scientists — based on the
ability of each medical development to transform lives around the world.
Among the suggested breakthroughs that didn’t make the cut? Condoms, Viagra,
soap, exercise, and the mobile phone.
For the 15 advances that made the short list, BMJ has chosen 15
leading doctors and scientists to champion each milestone in contention for top
honor. These are respected medical experts, including the creator of the modern
birth
controlbirth control pill, a
descendent of the scientist who helped developed anesthesia, and the author of
a book on the history of penicillin.
Beginning Friday, Jan. 5, subscribers and the general public can log onto
the web site, read arguments for all 15 advances, and vote for their personal
favorite. The deadline for voting is Sunday, Jan. 14, and the winning
breakthrough will be announced Jan. 18 on the site.
The Nominations, Please
Here is a sneak peek and description of the 15 advances that made the
shortlist, to give you a running start:
-
Anesthesia: In 1846, a Boston dentist used ether during
surgery, putting an end to much of the pain of undergoing surgery. Since then,
general anesthesia has become a mainstay in operations. -
Antibiotics: Alexander Fleming, a British bacteriologist,
discovered penicillin in 1928 by accident when he sloppily left a Petri dish of
bacteria uncleaned in his lab. He found a substance (later named penicillin)
growing on it that killed the bugs, and thus was the beginning of modern-day
antibiotics. Fleming shared the Nobel Prize in 1945 for the discovery. -
Chlorpromazine: Discovered in 1952, chlorpromazine
(Thorazine) was the first antipsychotic medication. It was used to treat
psychotic disorders and their symptoms, such as hallucinations, hostility, and
delusions. Its development brought new understanding of the biological basis
for mental illness, and some say it provided more humane management. -
Computers. From medical records to insurance, to making
sure your new medication isn’t going to clash with an existing one, computers
are now viewed by some doctors as being as important as their stethoscopes.
They’ve been in use in medicine since the early 1960s. Doctors can access
information on new drugs and interactions, new medical studies, clinical
trials, or keep patient records stored at their fingertips — so they’ll know
in an instant if you really have kept the weight off. -
DNA structure. Scientists James Watson and Francis Crick
presented the structure of the DNA helix, the molecule responsible for carrying
genetic information from one generation to the next, in 1953. It earned them
the Nobel Prize in 1962. -
Evidence-based medicine. As the name suggests,
evidence-based medicine involves making use of the current best evidence (such
as research), a patient’s values, and a doctor’s clinical experience to make
decisions about patient care. The term was coined in the early ’90s and the
concept has been evolving ever since.
More Nominations
-
Germ theory. In the late 1800s, Louis Pasteur was the
first to suggest the theory that disease is caused by exposure to
microorganisms. Others furthered the theory, showing that specific diseases are
caused by specific “bugs.” -
Imaging. The X-ray was accidentally discovered in 1895.
Since then, the field has expanded, giving us computed tomography (CT scans),
positron emission (PET scans), magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), and
ultrasound. -
Immunology. The history of immunology is traced to 1798,
when Edward Jenner found that people could be immunized against the disease
smallpox. Numerous other immunology discoveries followed, leading to a greater
understanding of such things as allergiesallergies and antibodies. -
Oral rehydration therapy. As the name suggests, ORT
involves giving fluids by mouth to replace losses of body water. It was first
reported in 1964; now it’s a mainstay of treatment in patients with cholera,
acute diarrheadiarrhea, and other conditions. -
The pill. Since the pill arrived on the U.S. market in
1960, it’s been hailed as one of the seven wonders of the world. For women who
use it correctly, oral contraceptioncontraception can be up to 99% effective. -
Risks of smoking. The first report of the connection
between smoking and lung cancerlung cancer was published in BMJ in 1950. Even so,
tobacco use still kills an estimated 440,000 Americans each year. -
Sanitation. The importance of clean drinking water and
waste disposal emerged in the late 1800s, as diseases began to be linked to
impure water. But the World Health Organization says there is a long way to go.
More than 1.1 billion people still lack access to drinking water from an
improved source; 2.6 billion do not have basic sanitation. -
Tissue culture. Tissue culture (keeping tissue alive and
growing it in a culture medium for research or other purposes) was
“discovered” in 1907, but it took until the 1950s for it to become an
important tool for clinical investigation. -
Vaccines. Vaccines have helped prevent a variety of
diseases — including polio, whopping cough, and measlesmeasles. The first was Edward Jenner’s smallpox
vaccine, in 1796.
The Envelope, Please
Continue reading What’s the Greatest Medical Advance?…
Hamsters on Viagra take center stage at spoof Nobel awards
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CAMBRIDGE, United States (AFP) -CAMBRIDGE, United States (AFP) - Scientists who discovered that Viagra helps hamsters overcome jet lag and a Japanese researcher who extracted vanilla flavoring from cow dung have won top honors at the 17th annual spoof Nobel Awards.
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The so-called Ig Nobel awards, a tongue-in-cheek homage to their Scandinavian counterparts, were announced during a raucous ceremony late Thursday at Harvard University in Massachusetts that shone a bright light on obscure and often bizarre research and inventions.
The Igs, as they are known, are chosen by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine to highlight scientific achievements that, in the words of editor Marc Abrahams, “first make people laugh and then make them think.”
Among the winners were a British-US duo for a penetrating report on the effects of sword swallowing and a Spain-based team who answered the question of whether rats can discriminate between Japanese and Dutch spoken backwards.
“It was a surprise, it was the last thing we expected,” said Nuria Sebastian-Galles, one of the Barcelona team of scientists, of the findings. The awards, she said, “bring out the freak inside most scientists.”
Seven of the 10 winners this year paid their own way to accept the awards, which were handed out by six real Nobel Prize laureates.
Although pelted by paper airplanes, as per tradition, each winner expressed delight at receiving the small trophies affixed with a chicken and an egg.
Asked why chickens were chosen as this year&39;t take it as an insult at all,” said Brian Witcome, a British radiologist who won the medicine prize for his sword-swallowing research.
“Humor adds to research,” he said. His co-author, US scientist Dan Meyer even gulped down a short sword before thanking the whooping crowd with the hilt between his teeth.
Past winners who showed up included the creator of the pink plastic flamingo, the inventor of a hiding alarm clock and a researcher who reported the first known case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck.
“To the best of my knowledge, this behavior has not been observed in chickens,” Dutchman Kees Moeliker deadpanned.
Research highlighted by this year&39;t stop eating when presented with an apparently endless bowl of soup.
Some winners tried to explain their research but if they talked for more than 60 seconds they were interrupted by an eight-year-old girl who repeatedly intoned, “Please stop, I&39;s activities intervened.
Japanese researcher Mayu Yamamoto, who received the chemistry Ig for her work extracting vanilla flavor from cow dung, got an additional honor: a local ice cream shop created a new flavor, the “Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist,” in her honor.
Yamamoto said she first learned of her award by email and thought it was a joke but decided to go to the ceremony because “I want everyone to know about my research.”
As if further levity were needed, the ceremony was punctuated with goofy “Moments of Science” and a contest to win a date with a Nobel laureate billed with the slogan: “He&39;s sassy and he's smarter than you.” Continue reading Hamsters on Viagra take center stage at spoof Nobel awards…
Type 2 Diabetes: Living With Complications - Home Treatment
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type 2 diabetes. Eating a balanced diet, getting
regular exercise, taking oral diabetes medication, and possibly taking insulin
to keep your blood sugar levels within a
normal or near-normal range will help you feel better
and have control of your life. If you need help with these skills, see the
topic
Type 2 Diabetes: Living With the Disease.
Early treatment of complications can help save your vision, slow
the rate of kidney failure, and reduce the risk of amputation. Keep all
appointments with your doctor, specialists, and other health professionals. The
examinations and tests done during these visits can detect early signs of
complications and monitor the progression of existing complications. Continue reading Type 2 Diabetes: Living With Complications - Home Treatment…
Bad things lurking on government sites
octobre 14, 2007 on 9:52 | In Viagra Soft, Viagra, Sildenafil Citrate, Generic Viagra | No Comments San Francisco (IDGNS) -The U.S. federal government took steps earlier this week to shut down Web sites in California in order to protect the public from hacked Web sites, but new incidents show that the problem is not going away any time soon.
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On Thursday, compromised pages hosted by the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Superior Court of Madera County, California, were still hosting inappropriate content. Brookhaven had links that redirected visitors to pornographic Web servers, and the Madera County court site featured ads for porn and Viagra.
Brookhaven has begun an investigation into the incident, said Tom Schlagel, a manager with the lab's information technology division. “From what I've been told, there isn't any evidence that there's any pornography on the server,” he said. “It's all just redirections.”
Brookhaven is a U.S. Department of Energy lab that specializes in nuclear and high-energy research.
The security of U.S. government Web sites has been front-page news in California this week afterthe U.S. General Services Administration, which administers the .gov top-level domain, temporarily removed California's state servers from the Internet's DNS infrastructure, apparently because of a security problem on the Web site of a small state agency, the Transportation Authority of Marin.
Observers said that this was an unusually extreme move and one that eventually would have knocked the entire state off the Internet.
The move was caught before it caused widespread service outages within the state government, but it drew attention to an underlying issue: compromised governmental Web sites.
The GSA said on Thursday that it has revised its policies to avoid another possible statewide shutdown, but it defended its right to remove .gov sites from the Internet. “The potential exposure of pornographic material to the citizens — and tens of thousands of children — in California was a primary motivator for GSA to request immediate corrective action,” a GSA spokeswoman said. “Also, in these days of heightened security concerns from hackers, it is important to quickly stop potentially harmful damage to federal, state, and local Web sites from those who have no love for our country.”
Alex Eckelberry, the president of Sunbelt Software who first reported the problem that led to the California shutdown, said that the government could do better. “Once you're on the Web, especially if you're government, you really have to be responsible for your content,” he said. “We have to have some sort of recognition that there is constant danger and that people need to stay on top of their sites.”
However, educational sites, hosted within in the .edu top-level domain, have far more problems than the .gov sites, Eckelberry said.
Security professionals like Eckelberry complain that poor response from Web site administrators means that even when problems are discovered by outside researchers, it's often hard to report them.
For example, the Madera Superior Court site has a “Click Here To E-mail Our Webmaster” link on the bottom of its front page, but when Trend Micro Network Architect Paul Ferguson used it to inform the court that its site had been hacked, his e-mail bounced back as undeliverable. Madera Superior Court representatives did not return a call seeking comment.
“It is almost impossible for someone like, say, a security researcher to find the right person to report problems to,” Ferguson said. People outside of government cannot do “Whois” queries on the .gov domain, which would yield contact information for site administrators, he added. “In many cases, either the contact information is incorrect, nonexistent, or the lights are on and nobody is home.”
“Everyone has really got to do a better job on securing the Internet,” Ferguson added. “You can't just put a Web server out there and forget about it any more.” Continue reading Bad things lurking on government sites…
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