January 14, 2002 Internet sex sting leads to prison sentence A New York City man caught in an Internet sting by Pueblo sheriff's officers in 2000 was sentenced Friday to a year in prison for coming to Pueblo to have sex with a juvenile. Robert Henry Dupes was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch. After receiving a complaint that a minor had been solicited on the Internet for sex, sheriff's detective Robert Miller posed on the Internet as a mother seeking a man to educate her "curious" 13-year-old daughter about sex. http://www.chieftain.com/display/saturday/news/articles/ni12.htm - - - - - - - - Computer fix leads to bust for child porn Man reportedly had file called 'Lolita'. The idea that computer technicians can help police catch pedophiles is fairly new, and brings up questions about privacy. What started as a computer repair job turned into an investigation leading police to thousands of hard-core child pornography images, authorities said last week. http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story124288.html - - - - - - - - US nabs 30 suspects in antipiracy 'DrinkorDie' raids Federal investigators have turned up roughly 30 suspects and continue to raid college campuses a month after moving to shut down a massive software piracy ring, a Customs Service official said Monday. Federal agents have not arrested any members of the ''DrinkorDie'' piracy ring but roughly 30 people, including an executive of a major company, have retained lawyers to negotiate settlements with the government, said Allan Doody, who is overseeing the antipiracy effort. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1731633l.htm http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8480990.html No let-up in warez crackdown http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5101709,00.html - - - - - - - - Chinese activist jailed for Web site comments. A Chinese political activist has been jailed for four years for criticizing President Jiang Zemin on an American Web site, a human rights organization said Monday. Lu Xinhua was sentenced by a court in the central city of Wuhan, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Court officials, police and prosecutors in Wuhan refused to confirm the report. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/01/14/chinese-activist-two.htm - - - - - - - - World of Hell back on the warpath Notorious website defacement group World of Hell (WoH) issued a warning to the internet community last week as one of its most prominent members went on a hacking spree. Current WoH front man 'RaFa' has notched up over 500 defacements since 5 January by hitting a number of Linux-based machines hosting multiple websites. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128276 - - - - - - - - Ministry of Defence hacked 27 times Computer systems at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have been hacked 27 times since 1999, and nearly 600 laptops have gone missing. All the hacking was carried out by insiders, according to the MoD. Nearly 1400 laptops have vanished from government departments over the last five years, according to figures gathered by Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow, including 594 from the MoD, 419 from the Department for Work and Pensions and 115 from the Department for International Development. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128265 Ministry of Defense Loses 594 Laptops Almost 600 laptops have been misplaced or stolen from Britain's Ministry of Defence over the last five years, the government has admitted. Opposition Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow obtained figures through a series of parliamentary questions which show a total of 1,354 government-owned computers have gone walkabout over the same period. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23664.html - - - - - - - - Worm posing as Microsoft update moving slowly A new computer worm masquerading as a software update from Microsoft Corp. is capable of deleting all files on the hard drive of an infected computer but has so far spread very slowly, an antivirus vendor said Monday. The so-called ``Gigger'' worm is a low threat since so few computers have been infected, said Vincent Gullotto, senior research director for Network Associates Inc.'s Antivirus Response Team. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/061193.htm http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2838401,00.html http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-8481954.html http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330,3368084,00.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102458,00.html http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,49726,00.html - - - - - - - - .NET virus is .NOT - Microsoft Last week, antivirus vendors exposed Donut, supposedly the world's first .Net virus. Only it isn't a . NET virus, Microsoft argues. Donut is simply a native executable that elects to modify only applications written for the Microsoft .NET Framework in the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) PE format, the software firm says. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/23673.html - - - - - - - - Details On Severe IE Hole Posted Online Instructions on how to exploit a critical security hole discovered last month in Microsoft's latest Web browser were posted today on the Internet, raising concerns that malicious code may soon appear that takes advantage of the flaw. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173622.html - - - - - - - - Email snooping guidelines delayed again Guidelines for monitoring staff email and internet use from the Information Commission (IC) have been delayed yet again. The guidance, part of a document to help companies comply with the 1998 Data Protection Act (DPA), was originally due last year and was put back to January 2002. But it will not now be ready before the end of February, a spokeswoman for the IC confirmed. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128236 - - - - - - - - Computer users take spammers to court Brightmail sees a 16-fold two-year increase in spam attacks. Ellen Spertus was outraged when Kozmo.com still sent her e-mail after she declined such pitches. So she sued the online retailer under California's 1998 antispam law. Spertus is among a handful of individuals who've chosen to fight unsolicited e-mail in court. They've had mixed success so far in what many consider only the early skirmishes of a war on spam. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/01/13/suing.spammers.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - 2600 Magazine Seeks Another Opinion In N.Y. DeCSS Case Lawyers for the New York-based "hacker quarterly" 2600 magazine have asked that the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reconsider a decision by three of its judges to uphold a ban on publishing software code that can unlock encrypted video on DVDs. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173635.html - - - - - - - - Piracy to push Adobe out of China? Graphics software giant Adobe Systems may leave the Chinese market and other Asian regions due to rampant piracy there, according to CEO Bruce Chizen. Adobe could stop producing versions of its products in Chinese and other Asian languages if governments in the region don't crack down on software piracy, Chizen said in a weekend article in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Adobe representatives could not immediately be reached for comment. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5101697,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23661.html - - - - - - - - Officials urge governments to take responsibility for security Governments at all levels need to fine-tune and focus on their cybersecurity plans to ensure that the nation is be better prepared for possible attacks, emergency management officials said Monday. People in law enforcement, public health officials and others need to be "visionary thinkers" about potential modern threats, especially electronic attacks, George Foresman, deputy state coordinator for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, said at an emergency preparedness conference sponsored by The Performance Institute. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0102/011402td2.htm - - - - - - - - Political hackers on the increase in Britain The number of defacements affecting UK government Web sites increased nearly fourfold in the UK last year. Hacking attacks on political Web sites more than tripled in the UK during 2001, despite a sharp fall in the number of defacements around 11 September. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102501,00.html - - - - - - - - E-commerce Web servers vulnerable to attack A UK security company warns that e-commerce companies need to ensure their Web servers are patched to avoid DoS attacks. E-commerce sites could open themselves up to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks unless they patch their Web servers, a UK security company has warned. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102463,00.html - - - - - - - - Find the Cost of (Virus) Freedom Virus and worm attacks were at an all-time high in 2001, costing corporations billions of dollars, according to the news reports that followed each release of malicious code. Nimda, we were told by articles quoting Computer Economics, cost companies $635 million in clean-up and lost productivity. The total sum for the various versions of Code Red was $2.62 billion, SirCam leeched $1.15 billion out of corporate coffers, and the unlovely Love Bug cost $8.75 billion to exterminate. http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,49681,00.html Virus-Busters: Worms, Flaws More Than Doubled in 2001 Last year was a banner year -- or maybe red flag year would be more appropriate -- for computer viruses and software security gaps, with both incidents and vulnerabilities more than doubling in 2001 compared with 2000, according to the CERT Coordination Center. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15764.html Web attacks up 160 per cent in 2001 http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128250 - - - - - - - - 'Homeland Security' Gun Not Misnamed - Firearms Dealer Despite the protests of a self-described gun safety organization, a firearms manufacturer advertising a shotgun online as a "homeland security" self-defense weapon says that, in an age of domestic terrorism, he is not resorting to false advertising. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173626.html - - - - - - - - Government calls for more action on phone theft Some IT managers believe measures already in place, like blocking calls from a stolen phone, are enough to thwart thieves - but the government is calling for more action by operators. The government is urging the mobile communications industry to do more to prevent the theft of mobile phones, but some IT managers believe measures already in place are adequate to protect business users. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102464,00.html - - - - - - - - Sen. Wellstone Rips Qwest's Opt-Out Privacy Policy Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., today urged federal regulators to require Qwest Communications to adopt an opt-in policy for gathering and distributing customers' personal information. Wellstone called on Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Powell to require Qwest to adopt an "opt-in" policy, obtaining customers' permission before sharing their personal data with Qwest's business partners. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173627.html - - - - - - - - OMBs Forman adds two techie chiefs to his staff Mark Formans staff grows by two this month. The Office of Management and Budgets associate director for e-government and IT has gained Norman Lorentz as his chief technology officer. Forman also has tapped Debra Stouffer, deputy CIO for IT reform at the Housing and Urban Development Department, to spend 90 days drafting a governmentwide architecture proposal. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/17752-1.htm http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0102/011402h1.htm - - - - - - - - Security auditing industry set to grow The network security insurance auditing industry is set for major growth as companies are asked to prove that they are secure against hackers and viruses, according to security consultant @Stake. As more companies take out cover against security threats, insurance companies will want to see proof of customers' compliance with best practice on security. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128237 - - - - - - - - Strong results seen for computer Security firms Most computer security companies, particularly those that sell anti-virus and intrusion detection software and services to protect against malicious hackers, are on track to report strong fiscal results, analysts said. ``Many security vendors will meet or exceed expectations and will likely provide positive guidance over the next period,'' said Kevin Wagner, an analyst with Adams, Harkness & Hill Inc. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1731392l.htm http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-8480750.html - - - - - - - - Valley firms dig for federal dollars Hoped-for anti-terrorism funds draw host of high-tech suitors. Maybe they are driven by a sense of patriotic duty. Or maybe it's just the good old-fashioned need to make a buck. Whatever the motivation, Silicon Valley companies are ferociously pursuing the piles of federal money that have been promised after Sept. 11 to help fight terrorism and shore up security. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/secrty01130.htm - - - - - - - - Everything Seemed So Normal About Teen in Internet Scam Even by most teenagers' hectic schedules, Cole Bartiromo would have been hard to keep up with. In November, the 17-year-old from Mission Viejo was going to high school, attending baseball practice every weekday morning, pet-sitting for a family next door, flipping pizzas at a neighborhood restaurant and, according to federal authorities, masterminding an elaborate online investment scam that swindled more than $1 million from investors worldwide. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000003349jan13.story - - - - - - - - Hiding Sensitive Data Can Be Tough in a Digital Age The modern task of successfully destroying electronic documents has become daunting enough to give Oliver North nightmares. Mr. North is the Marine officer who became notorious during the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal after it was discovered he had tried to delete thousands of e-mail messages, only to discover that they had been retained on backup tapes and made available to Congressional investigators. (NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/technology/ebusiness/14DELE.html - - - - - - - - Every Man a Cyber Crook Federal anti-hacking law permits cybercrime victims to sue their attackers. So why is that software companies, webmasters and computer makers are the ones being hauled into court? Shortly after it enacted the federal computer crime law, Congress amended it to allow victims to sue their attackers in federal court for damages. It is now proving to be a costly mistake. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/51 - - - - - - - - Help! I can't cancel my sex site subs -- Part Two Troubled billing processor iBill has again been forced to take its customer database offline, risking excess credit card charges for subscribers to thousands of adult web sites. The latest meltdown, blamed circuitously on a "hardware failure on a non-redundant database", led to iBill's private and public customer service sites being taken offline for several days last week, the second major downtime within three months. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23674.html Help! I can't cancel my sex site subs -- Part One http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/22238.html - - - - - - - - Casino Security Is Watching Advanced video surveillance cameras and face- recognition software catch cheaters. Casinos are fighting a war of deterrence and survival against cheaters. Deterrence comes in the form of obvious signs of surveillance. Gamblers who take a look at the ceiling above the card tables and slot machines can easily see the domes that hide the video cameras. http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3367924,00.html - - - - - - - - State motor vehicle officials seek national ID system State motor vehicle officials plan to ask Congress today for up to $100 million to create a national identification system that would include high-tech driver's licenses and a network of tightly linked databases of driver information. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/005065.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173630.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173603.html Privacy Watchdogs Howl Over National ID Database Amid a howl of privacy concerns, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) on Monday called for a national driver's license system for the U.S. The organization sought the funds and congressional legislation to create ID cards and a state-of-the-art database for tracking license holders. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15775.html - - - - - - - - Palm Beach Airport To Scan Fingerprints, Faces Palm Beach International Airport is going high tech, both by digitizing background checks it performs on its employees, and by adopting a controversial face-recognition technology aimed at rooting out terrorism suspects. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173636.html - - - - - - - - Web site helps jailbirds get back together Ex-British jailbirds, keen to get back in touch with former cellmates or just looking for a getaway driver for the next big bank job, now have a Web site dedicated to their needs -- Convicts Reunited. Set up and run by ex-prisoners, the site allows former crooks to get back in touch, safe in the knowledge that their details will be kept secret. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1731104l.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23663.html *********************************************************** Search the NewsBits.net Archive at: http://www.newsbits.net/search.html *********************************************************** The source material may be copyrighted and all rights are retained by the original author/publisher. The information is provided to you for non-profit research and educational purposes. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however copies may not be sold, and NewsBits (www.newsbits.net) should be cited as the source of the information. Copyright 2000-2002, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.