Brazil Becomes a Cybercrime Lab

<clips>

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Oct. 26 - With a told-you-so grin, Marcos Flávio Assunção reads out four digits - an Internet banking password - that he has just intercepted as a reporter communicates via laptop with a bank's supposedly secure Web site.

"It wouldn't matter if you were on the other side of the world in Malaysia," said Mr. Assunção, a confident 22-year-old. "I could still steal your password."

While impressive, Mr. Assunção's hacking talents are hardly unique in Brazil, where organized crime is rife and laws to prevent digital crime are few and largely ineffective. The country is becoming a laboratory for cybercrime, with hackers - able to collaborate with relative impunity - specializing in identity and data theft, credit card fraud and piracy, as well as online vandalism.

"Most of us are hackers, not crackers; good guys just doing it for the challenge, not criminals," Mr. Assunção said. He insisted that he had never put his talents to criminal use, although he acknowledged that at age 14 he once took down an Internet service provider for a weekend after arguing with its owner.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27hack.html?ex=1067835600&en=21bc95e4773873ac&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE>

<clips>

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration has put Brazil's economy "in order" and established the necessary conditions for renewed growth and the rapid implementation of proposed reforms, announced Finance Minister Antonio Palocci in a national broadcast last Friday.

Mr. Palocci said inflation in Brazil had been brought under control and the economy would resume growth, therefore it was necessary for business leaders to again invest in the country.

"Brazil is preparing to grow again ... as minister responsible for the economy, I can say with absolute certainty that we won the battle (against inflation and economic difficulties)".

A day before president Lula da Silva indicated that in order to "make the necessary structural reforms and have the money (foreign investment) that will help in implementing these policies, which will serve to effectively combat poverty in the country, we must have our house more or less in order."

http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=2770