ST. PETERSBURG-BASED web-hosting service the Russian Business Network (RBN) is gone but maybe not permanently. This week it turned in most of its allocated Internet addresses after being implicated in nefarious hacking.

Like in 2005 when somebody took advantage of a previously unknown security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install keystroke-logging software on computers when users visited legitimate Web sites which had been hacked.The keylogging software then sent data back BRN's network.

Then in autumn 2006, insecurity experts saw RBN sites implicated in an attack against Hostgator, a large web-hosting provider in Florida. In May 2007, more insecurity experts reported a large percentage of the sites belonging to Ipower Inc., one of the web's biggest inexpensive web site hosting firms, had been hijacked with code that silently redirected visitors to malicious RBN sites.

Nearly every major advancement in computer viruses or worms over the past two years has emanated from or sent stolen consumer data back to servers at RBN.

Our October 15 article was one of the things which sent RBN customers looking for new places to park their data. The writing was on the bathroom walls when RBN's biggest upstream provider - Tiscali.uk - began refusing to route Internet traffic for RBN, according to our sources. A few days later, the second of RBN's three main upstream providers - C4l - dropped the Russian ISP as a customer.

Tuesday of this week FBI Director Robert Muller gave a major speech on cybersecurity at Penn State University Muller said: "We are concerned not only with loss of data, but with corruption of data, from false information to altered code. Such manipulation can cause electronic devices to fail and networks to freeze. It can alter physical environments in laboratories and shut down safety systems in nuclear power stations."

America's top cop ended his speech with: "The Romans built these roads to access the vast areas they had conquered. But, in the end, these same roads led to Rome's downfall, for they allowed the invaders to march right up to the city gates.

The Internet has opened up thousands of new roads for each of us—new ideas and information, new sights and sounds, new people and places. But the invaders—those whose intent is not enlightenment, but exploitation and extremism—are marching right down those same roads to attack us in multiple ways.

We stand a much greater chance of staying safe if we stand together. We must continue to safeguard our systems and our data. We must continue to share intelligence. Most importantly, we must continue to stay connected."

The Romans maintained their Empire for hundreds of years using brute force and smart military thinking. By that reckoning the US empire should last about another three weeks. µ