January 30, 2002 Confiscated PC Reveals Terrorist Focus On Water Supply The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) said it has uncovered evidence that terrorists may have planned attacks on water supply systems in the United States and abroad. According to a bulletin issued by the NIPC Tuesday and labelled as of "high" importance, a computer, owned by an individual with indirect links to Osama bin Laden, was found to contain several software programs used for structural engineering of "dams and other water-retaining structures." http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174079.html - - - - - - - - Prosecutor Suspended Over Porn Plea The Wyoming Supreme Court has suspended a former Park County deputy prosecutor from practicing law after the man pleaded guilty to two counts of promoting obscenity. Dale Chiapuzio, 39, was charged with using the Internet to transmit obscene images of himself to a state Division of Criminal Investigation agent posing as 13- and 15-year-old girls. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/den/news/stories/news-121328520020130-100108.html - - - - - - - - French paedophile ring smashed Police in France say they have broken up a paedophile network that used the internet to distribute child pornography. Thirty people, including several minors, were arrested in dawn raids across the country, and police say further detentions may follow. The inquiry was prompted by a tip-off from the American Federal Bureau of Investigation which led the authorities to the man police say was running the network. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1790000/1790123.stm - - - - - - - - Russians help catch British paedophile A member of an international paedophile ring was told yesterday that he faced a long prison term after being found with more than 120,000 pornographic pictures of children. Christopher Hunter, 42, a promotions manager from Nottingham, was arrested after a tip-off by Russian police investigating a paedophile network. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002042464,00.html - - - - - - - - UK web host downed by DDoS attack Normal services have been restored after a "ferocious" distributed denial of service attack was launched against Doncaster-based hosting firm Donhosts today. The attack started in the early hours of today and forced Donhosts to take one of its Web hosting servers offline for two hours. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23888.html - - - - - - - - Australian Man Banned From Giving Advice On IRC In what is believed to be a world first, Australia's financial watchdog has taken a Brisbane man to court over his messages posted in real-time on an Internet relay chat (IRC) channel. In a display of Internet know-how, the financial services regulator also persuaded the court to halt the man's use of specific meta tags on his Web site. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174054.html - - - - - - - - Cell phone thieves could get five years Britain's most senior judge signals that stealing a mobile phone must become a custodial offence. Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf has addressed the rapid rise in mobile phone crime by announcing that those convicted of stealing a handset should face up to five years in prison-- or even longer if violence is used. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-11-826088.html - - - - - - - - SEC: 'McWhortle' scam a hit with investors Securities and Exchange Commission officials said on Wednesday that their orchestrated Internet hoax campaign received 150,000 hits over three days in an investor awareness project that cost taxpayers about $50. Using tactics from actual online stock scams, SEC officials created a fictitious company called McWhortle Enterprises Inc. and wrote a press release hyping an initial public offering. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1747828l.htm http://news.com.com/2100-1017-826434.html http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0102/013002td1.htm http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/01/30/investing.hoax.ap/index.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16069.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/invest/2002/01/30/web-hoax.htm - - - - - - - - DVD hacker vows to keep challenging ruling Eric Corley, the central figure in the ``DVD Hacker'' case who was barred by a court from posting online how to make copies of DVDs, vowed Wednesday to keep fighting the copyright law the ruling was based on, and which he says oppresses more and more people each day. ``We have every intention of continuing to challenge this ruling because this is such a vital issue,'' Corley said. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/037533.htm http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/01/30/dvd-hacker.htm - - - - - - - - Top Security Sites Easy Prey To Script Attacks Web sites operated by several leading Internet security organizations are vulnerable to an old but serious security flaw known as the cross-site scripting (CSS) attack. A cursory survey today revealed that the corporate home pages of security software vendors including Network Associates, Kaspersky Lab, Trend Micro, SonicWall, and Command Software, were all susceptible to CSS attacks. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174076.html - - - - - - - - Software bug blamed for Australian radioactive spill Amec Engineering has laid the blame for a radioactive spill on faulty software, but refuses to name the company concerned. Amec Engineering, designer of the Beverly uranium processing plant in Western Australia, has blamed buggy software for a radioactive spill at the site last December, confirming early suspicions that computers played a role in the accident. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103388,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1104-825848.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-826124.html - - - - - - - - Watchdog: MS Passport lets crooks in A privacy group on Tuesday asked state law enforcement authorities to examine software giant Microsoft's Passport online identity service, saying it exposes consumers to fraud, junk electronic mail and identity theft. The Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to all 50 state attorneys general, asking them to protect consumers against what it called Microsoft's unfair and deceptive trade practices because the federal government has failed to act. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-825340.html Analyst: Microsoft Passport Investigation 'Premature' Microsoft said user information is not shared with any third parties and that the Passport system does not place personal information at risk. An Internet advocacy group has urged U.S. state attorneys general to take immediate investigative action against Microsoft's Passport suite of services, charging the software company with improperly collecting personal user information and placing that information at risk online. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16072.html - - - - - - - - Windows 2000 security fixes released Microsoft on Wednesday issued an important collection of security fixes for Windows 2000. The release of the 17MB downloadable Windows 2000 Security Rollup Package (SRP1) comes as Microsoft steps up its emphasis on security. In an e-mail to Microsoft's 47,000 employees earlier this month, Chairman Bill Gates called for putting security ahead of adding new features to products. Among the fixes: several denial-of-service and buffer-overflow patches, telnet and file-transfer protocol tweaks and authentication-error repairs, among others. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-826495.html Windows 2000 Security Draft Released http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0128/web-nist-01-30-02.asp - - - - - - - - Netscape flaw leaves cookies unsecure A security flaw in Netscape Communications' Navigator Web browser can let malicious Web site operators view the information stored in cookies on a user's computer, according to a security note published on Netscape's Web site. The vulnerability affects Navigator versions 6 through 6.2, as well as version 0.9.6 and earlier versions of the open-source version of Navigator, Mozilla, according to an analysis written by Marc Slemko, who discovered the bug. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/01/30/netscape.flaw.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - Sex.com Loser Claims Poverty The man who took credit for turning the domain name Sex.com into a multimillion-dollar porn empire now says he is too poor to afford toilet paper. In a motion filed in federal court this week, Stephen Michael Cohen, the former operator of the website Sex.com, asked a judge to set aside a ruling requiring him to pay $65 million in damages to the site's current owner. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50104,00.html - - - - - - - - Pentagon reviews responses to call for anti-terror technology Defense Department officials are reviewing more than 12,000 responses to their broad appeal last fall for new technological ideas to help combat global terrorism. The undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics and the interagency Technical Support Working Group jointly issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) on Oct. 23, seeking concepts that could be developed within 12 to 18 months. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0102/013002td2.htm - - - - - - - - Video Forensics: Grainy to Guilty The image is haunting: Two clean-cut, cool faced terrorists stride through an airport security checkpoint just hours before hijacking the first of two airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Captured on a surveillance camera at the Portland, Maine, airport, the grainy analog image of Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz Al-Omari was digitized, enhanced and released to the public in hopes of jogging the collective memory for information about the infamous duo. http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,50036,00.html - - - - - - - - Payback time! How to catch a hacker A new service from McAfee will soon let you discover whether anyone is hacking into your system, and if so, let you submit that information to the malicious user's ISP or local law enforcement officials. The project, known as HackerWatch.org, is an ambitious attempt by McAfee, a division of Network Associates best known for its antivirus products, to create an interactive anti-hacker community online. But will it make a difference? http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-825844.html - - - - - - - - Reject the Corporate Secrecy Grab Industry's push for new exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act is unnecessary and dangerous. In the name of improving cyber security, corporations are pushing for exemptions to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that are unnecessary and dangerous. These will result in crucial information being suppressed without improving security. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/56 - - - - - - - - On a digital privacy crusade Newsmakers David Holtzman is on a crusade to change the way the digital world defines privacy. Best known as the former chief technology officer of Network Solutions, the 45-year-old former cryptographic analyst with the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War oversaw the growth of the commercial Internet from 500,000 domain names to more than 20 million. He watched in amazement as technology made it easier for marketers to collect and distribute vast amounts of data--everything from the value of homes and stock options to arrest records and death certificates. http://news.com.com/2008-1082-826241.html - - - - - - - - Castles Built on Sand: Why Software is Insecure We have all heard reports of vulnerabilities being discovered in various software. But what actually makes software more or less secure than the rest of its competitors? Theoretically, all software starts in the same place - with the very first sketch on somebody's napkin over dinner. It grows from there; the environment in which it is developed, who controls the project and most importantly who works on the project all contribute to the outcome. http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1541 - - - - - - - - When a secured site is not so secure You probably won't find a bigger fan of PayPal than me. The company's financial intermediation service allows secure Internet transactions between strangers--such as eBay vendors and buyers--without an exchange of private financial information, such as credit card numbers. I think that's an excellent service. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-825076.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.