Security Flaw in Windows 2000

This sounds like no big news at first: Researchers found a security loophole in Windows 2000. But the scope of this potential flaw is fairly tremendous. The researchers, from the University of Haifa, say that emails, passwords, credit card numbers could all be tracked by someone exploiting the purported loophole. An industrious hacker could even access information dispatched prior to the breach, or data that is no longer stored on the computer. The computer scientists say the flaw lies in the Windows 2000 random number generator, and could apply to XP and Vista as well. You can read the paper here, and get involved in the lively conversation at slashdot here.—Gregory Mone