February 5, 2002 Computer Hacker Sentenced to 21 Months A computer hacker from Mission Viejo was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison Monday for breaking into high-security systems at NASA and several universities and for using stolen credit card numbers to obtain money and merchandise over the Internet. Jason Allen Diekman, 21, hacked his way into some systems while out on bail after his first wave of computer break-ins. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000009016feb05.story http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174238.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/02/05/hacker-sentenced.htm http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128962 - - - - - - - - Teen protester charged with posting weapons information online One of the demonstrators arrested during the World Economic Forum which ended Monday is accused of posting information about making weapons of mass destruction on the Internet. Sherman Austin was ordered detained Monday pending a Thursday bail hearing. Austin, 18, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., was arrested during a demonstration Saturday on city charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/240544p-2288701c.html - - - - - - - - ASHLEY COUNTY MAN SENTENCED FOR RAPE An Ashley County man was sentenced to 250 years in prison Monday night for three counts of rape and 23 counts of child pornography. David Dye, 43, was convicted of having sex with a 4- or 5-year-old boy and forcing him to perform deviate sexual acts upon his brother, sometime between 1983 and 1986. The seven-man, five-woman Ashley County jury also convicted Dye of 23 counts of child pornography. Three counts were related to three pages of photos of three young brothers whom Dye befriended sometime in the mid-1980s. The 20 remaining counts were for downloading images of prepubescent girls -- and at least one infant -- from the Internet and saving the images to disks. The images depicted the rape of the children, some involving sadomasochistic acts and bondage. http://www.pbcommercial.com/display/inn_news/NEWS2.TXT - - - - - - - - Paul Pierpaoli faces 15 years in prison Professor at VMI guilty of sex crime. Pierpaoli admitted he met two people but denied having sexual contact with the 14-year-old boy. One night last summer, in his bedroom in his mother's house, a pimple-faced 14-year old and his gay, 21-year-old, live-in lover used a stolen computer to offer themselves in an Internet chat room as "whores." Within minutes, a Virginia Military Institute history professor and former special assistant to Superintendent Josiah Bunting III named Paul Pierpaoli took an interest in them. http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story125416.html - - - - - - - - Economic Forum site crashes; groups take credit The Web site of the World Economic Forum crashed Friday, and cyber-activists claimed they took it down in a "virtual sit-in." Forum officials said they were trying to determine what brought the site down. They originally attributed the failure to "overuse," but messages posted on a Web site called Indymedia.org. took credit for the crash. Anti-globalization groups urging Internet users to join the cyberattacks identified themselves as Electronic Disturbance Theater, Electronic Civil Disobedience and the Federation of Random Action. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/02/04/virtual-sit-in.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/240777p-2289814c.html - - - - - - - - Major privacy hole in Windows/MSN Messenger A nifty feature in MSN and Windows Messenger which apparently was intended to identify IE users (without their knowledge or consent) on Microsoft Web sites can easily be abused by any Webmaster with a bit of Javascript or VBscript, a clever empiricist has discovered. The feature allows anyone to obtain a surfer's Messenger username and those of his contacts, according to Richard Burton in a post Monday to the BugTraq mailing list. Worse, if a username is not available, the e-mail address of the surfer and those of his contacts are displayed instead. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23936.html - - - - - - - - Millions at risk from chat flaws An Irish security consultant published details this weekend of two software bugs in a popular chat program --bugs that could be used to install malicious programs on a victim's computer. The flaws make users of mIRC-- a common Windows program that lets people chat in real time over a network of "Internet relay chat" servers --susceptible to attack if they connect to a compromised server, said James Martin, the independent security consultant who found one of the flaws. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-830081.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-829887.html - - - - - - - - Cybersecurity Research Vote Expected Thursday Legislation aimed at strengthening U.S. cyberdefenses by boosting research funding is scheduled for a vote Thursday in the full U.S. House of Representatives. Sponsored by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., the Cyber Security Research and Development Act would earmark roughly $900 million to be divvied up between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for use in cybersecurity research efforts. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174237.html Bush Eyeballs Heavy Tech Spending http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50223,00.html - - - - - - - - State, Silicon Valley win, lose under plan With its anti-terrorism emphasis, the president's 2003 budget plan would directly benefit Silicon Valley and California but at a cost to transportation and community development funding. Major increases in spending for high-tech research, such as cyber security and developing countermeasures to biological attacks, would boost Silicon Valley's biotech and computing industries. http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/front/docs/california05.htm - - - - - - - - NIPC head: Communication key and must be improved Though communication between the government and private sector in the area of cybersecurity has been good, the U.S. National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) has areas in which it can improve, according to NIPC director Ronald Dick, whose keynote speech kicked off the CyberCrime 2002 conference here on Sunday. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/02/05/nipc.communication.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - Pentagon official emphasizes 'creative approach' to defense The U.S. military must embrace a "more entrepreneurial, more creative approach" to acquiring the tools necessary to combat enemies abroad and to protect the homeland, the Defense Department's director of force transformation told reporters Tuesday. Retired Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, who was appointed to the newly created office last October, explained that the rapid proliferation of information technology has made the future of warfare much harder to predict. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0202/020502td1.htm - - - - - - - - U.S.: Critical Government Computers Under Threat Analysts are less worried about the vulnerability risks from the average hacker than about international espionage and fraud on a global scale. Government computers responsible for doling out Social Security, tax refunds and other payments were found to have significant security flaws, a government agency reported on Monday, leaving the systems vulnerable to hackers, cyber-terrorists and internal fraud. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16171.html - - - - - - - - Size matters in fending off hacker attacks. When a small Internet service provider called Cloud Nine Communications Ltd. crashed to earth, it blamed hackers for overwhelming its networks with bogus traffic. The blitz cut short Cloud Nine's six-year existence and underscored the mounting costs of protecting online businesses against increasingly sophisticated attackers. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/066047.htm http://www.techtv.com/news/security/story/0,24195,3370593,00.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/02/01/hack.attack.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - Escort services are flourishing on Web Some risque businesses are flourishing in the East Bay, serving up contact with women who promise to fulfill sensual desires for a price. These aren't subtle Yellow Pages ads, spicy innuendoes in a free tabloid newspaper or come-hither looks from a woman on a street corner -- this is the Internet. And it's big business. Locally based Web sites -- perhaps as many as several dozen in the last few years -- as well as uncounted others across the nation and around the world make substantial money selling ads for escorts, masseuses and other services, and these ads leave little to the imagination. http://www.dailyreviewonline.com/Stories/0,1002,10973%257E379413%257E88%257E,00.html - - - - - - - - Spammer appeals to state court An alleged spammer is appealing its case to the California Supreme Court a month after an appeals court upheld the state's anti-spam law, ruling that it does not violate the U.S. Constitution. Ira Rothken, attorney for Friendfinder and Conru Interactive, said he filed a brief Tuesday asking the state supreme court to review the ruling. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1104-829978.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174252.html - - - - - - - - Uncle spam wants you to join the battle Larry Kilgallen got so fed up with junk e-mail that he finally decided to do something about it. Kilgallen, a Cambridge, Mass., business owner, says he takes about five minutes each day to fire off e-mail complaints to spammers and Internet service providers that relay their payload to his in-box. "It's civic duty," said Kilgallen, who uses a free online reporting service called SpamCop to help filter the junk and identify the culprits. "It probably takes me 10 seconds to report a spam. But the only reason the filtering is good is through the people who report it." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-829433.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-829399.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/700070.asp - - - - - - - - Navy taps rear admiral to head new NMCI office. The Navy will establish a new program office to serve as a central point of authority for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet. Rear Adm. Charles L. Munns will manage the office; Marine Corps Col. Robert Logan will be his deputy. The office is scheduled to open Feb. 11, but a Navy spokesman said it was unclear when Munns would assume his post. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/17924-1.html - - - - - - - - DivXNetworks gives piracy the boot DivXNetworks said Monday that it has licensed its technology, a video compression format most closely associated with the online piracy of Hollywood movies, to the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics. The DivX code is based on the MPEG-4 video standard, a successor to the technology that gave the world the popular MP3 audio format. The company says its technology can transfer a feature film over a high-speed connection in about 30 minutes. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-829653.html - - - - - - - - Music Exec: Forget Piracy, Think Quality Online Service Record labels would be well advised to stop focusing on theft and develop a compelling online music delivery service that consumers will pay for, one music executive said today. Steven Sheiner, chief revenue officer for Vivendi Universal Net USA, gave a keynote speech addressing digital music issue on the second day of the Digital Media Summit conference in Los Angeles. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174244.html - - - - - - - - Outside Hackers vs. the Enemy Within: Who's Worse? SecurityFocus incident analyst Ryan Russell told NewsFactor that far more internal attacks go unreported because companies are better able to keep them quiet. The 2001 Computer Crime and Security Survey from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Computer Security Institute makes it clear that cybercrime is on the rise. But for the first time, according to survey respondents, incidents precipitated by outside hackers outnumbered those originated by internal threats. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16157.html - - - - - - - - Whos benefiting from Net attacks? Selling security software may be as close as it comes to a recession-proof business in the computer industry these days. Software makers have their hopes set that the gravy train keeps running. Security software companies including Symantec, Network Associates and SonicWall are enjoying a boom time in the middle of an overall economic slump. They're selling more packages for locking down networks and Web sites thanks to increased worries among big companies and consumers alike about sophisticated threats such as the Nimda worm and the SirCam and Code Red viruses, along with new dangers. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-829686.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103776,00.html http://news.com.com/2009-1001-829889.html - - - - - - - - The Penguin bites back at Windows Our postbag has been overflowing, following reports that certain distros of the Linux operating system suffered more security vulnerabilities than Windows last year. Because all Linux distributions use the same kernel, figures cannot be aggregated for the open source OS. But readers have also pointed out that confusion has resulted from the fact that Linux distros typically ship with bundles of applications, which may also be prone to vulnerabilities. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128950 - - - - - - - - One smart card for all your debts The annual Demo conference that kicks off in Phoenix next week may be the most influential high-tech gabfest you've probably never heard of. But Demo is very much on the radar screen of technology luminaries across the spectrum executives, financial analysts, venture capitalists and the press. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/2002/2/06/smartcard.htm - - - - - - - - Olympic Security Tech Gyroplane's observation technology among tools to help secure Olympic venues. On Friday night, Salt Lake City's Rice-Eccles Stadium, site of both the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies, will welcome the world under some of the most intense Olympic Games security ever. About 44,500 people are expected to attend the opening ceremonies, and organizers insist the event will be secure. http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3370796,00.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.