February 20, 2002 Man pleads innocent to shipping illegal computer goods A businessman pleaded innocent Tuesday to illegally shipping computer goods to three Arab countries despite a Commerce Department order to stop. Ihsan ``Sammy'' Elashyi, 41, entered the plea during an arraignment hearing on federal charges of making 12 shipments of computer goods to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan from Sept. 17 to Dec. 21. Regulators said Elashyi was a consultant for InfoCom Corp., an Internet services company operated by his three brothers in a Dallas suburb. He is also the principal owner of Tetrabal Corp., a computer sales company he founded in 2000. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2703680.htm - - - - - - - - BSA informant gets PS1000s for piracy tip-off An industry snitch has received a tip-off fee running into thousands of pounds after informing on Baines & Ernst Financial Management for using unlicensed software. In an out of court settlement, Baines & Ernst agreed to pay the Business Software Alliance "a substantial five-figure sum" for using more than 400 copies of Microsoft Office without an appropriate license. A smaller number of illicit copies of Windows were also deployed. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24136.html - - - - - - - - Supreme Court to decide when books, songs and movies can go online The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to intervene in a fight over copyrights, deciding whether Congress has sided too heavily with writers and other inventors. The outcome will determine when hundreds of thousands of books, songs and movies will be freely available on the Internet or in digital libraries. Groups challenging copyright law argued that justices should protect the public's right to material. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2702464.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174622.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50527,00.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16419.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/dan_gillmor/ejournal/2704805.htm - - - - - - - - Fliers lose laptops at airport checkpoints Stepped-up airport security has resulted in more laptop computers being stolen or misplaced. Stricter airport security is producing an unwelcome byproduct: a rash of lost laptop computers. Lost-and-found counters report being flooded with jewelry, keys, cell phones and especially laptops left behind at checkpoints since enhanced screening went into effect after Sept. 11. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/02/20/lost-laptops.htm - - - - - - - - Mobile phone theft is far worse than we thought Far more mobile people have had their phone stolen in the last year than reported crime figures suggest. That's one of the main findings of a study by market research firm Continental Research which reckons 1.3 million Britons had their phone pinched in the last year, with teenagers in particular falling prey to theft. The latest Home Office statistics, which are based on crimes reported to the police, estimate 700,000 phones are stolen annually. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24138.html - - - - - - - - Workers enlisted as cybervigilantes Corporations victimized by cybercrime are increasingly taking the law into their own hands to track down the criminal perpetrators, a computer expert told Reuters on Wednesday. Law enforcement experts view cybercrime--the act of exploiting a computer network to conduct a variety of illegal activities from stealing trade secrets to committing credit card fraud--as one of the fastest growing crimes affecting the corporate world. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-840925.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2104697,00.html - - - - - - - - Security shifting to enterprise New Office of Management and Budget requirements aimed at better showing how agencies are securing individual systems are also highlighting how security is changing as agencies focus more on the enterprise, Kamela White, an OMB policy analyst, said Feb. 19. In the past two years, agencies have had to indicate the percentage of security funding included in the budget request for every information technology system. This reporting requirement for Exhibit 53, the portion of an agency's budget submission that details IT budget requests, is intended to get agencies to focus on including security in a system's planning. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0218/web-omb-02-20-02.asp - - - - - - - - New agency aims to improve flow of anti-terror information The Bush administration last week announced the creation of a new U.S. information agency designed to improve the flow of information among the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies involved in the war on terrorism. Details of the new agency remain scarce, but it is headed by former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, who holds a doctorate in information technology and has long pushed for greater data flow among pertinent agencies, officials said yesterday. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0202/022002gsn2.htm - - - - - - - - Beefed-Up Global Surveillance? An addition to an international treaty could permit police to cooperate more closely on intercepting and decrypting the communications of suspected terrorists. The Council of Europe, which includes nearly all European nations, is meeting this week to prepare additions to a controversial "cybercrime" treaty that would cover decoding terrorist messages. The United States, Canada and Japan are non-voting members of the council. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50529,00.html - - - - - - - - Talks fail--Napster's back in court Napster and the Big Five record labels are headed back to court after a month of court-sanctioned settlement talks closed without agreement. The lapsed deadline opens the door for potentially uncomfotable scrutiny of the music industry's licensing practices even as it sets in motion once again legal proceedings that could result in billions of dollars of damages against the pioneering file-swapping service. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-840873.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/02/20/napster.htm Deadline Passes For Napster-Label Settlement http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174635.html MusicMatch sings the download blues http://zdnet.com.com/2110-11-841250.html - - - - - - - - Taking Spammers to Court Computer users file suit to halt annoying email solicitations. Bennett Haselton just received another email from someone he doesn't know, containing information he didn't request, about a service he doesn't want to hear about. He's been spammed, again. But instead of just hitting the delete key, this time Haselton replied by summoning the spammer to court. In Washington State, the law allows Haselton to sue a spammer for up to $500 per unwanted email, while ISPs can ask for $1,000. So far, the Seattle resident has won four judgments in small claims court. However, not one offender has yet paid. http://www.techtv.com/news/politicsandlaw/story/0,24195,3372812,00.html - - - - - - - - Right To A Domain Name At Issue In Sex.com Case The questions of whether a domain name is "property" that can be "converted" will be decided later this year by a federal appeals court in California. The issue stems from the continuing fallout from the theft of a lucrative domain name seven years ago. In April 2001, United States District Judge James Ware awarded California entrepreneur Gary Kremen $65 million, ending a three-year court fight over ownership of the Sex.com domain name. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174608.html - - - - - - - - SNMP exploit bugs HP printers Security experts have warned that Hewlett Packard printers using the JetDirect firmware may be more at risk from the recently discovered vulnerabilities in SNMP than previously thought. According to experts on the Bugtraq security mailing list, JetDirect machines may suffer from more damaging vulnerabilities than those outlined in a recent Computer Emergency Response Team advisory. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1129369 - - - - - - - - VeriSign seeks to become Web services security plumbing VeriSign Inc yesterday outlined how it hopes its digital security services will become an integral part of internet business's evolution into a web services-based architecture, unveiling a toolkit and framework for helping application developers more easily build security into web services, Kevin Murphy writes. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/24140.html - - - - - - - - Tools for a more secure Internet At the RSA Conference 2002, vendors showcase their latest wares for security. Will the latest gadgets to thwart hackers help keep corporate data safe? White House adviser Richard Clarke also sends a warning to the industry: Button up security issues, or face the consequences. http://news.com.com/2009-1001-840974.html - - - - - - - - 'Penetrate and patch' e-business security is grim Application security flaws introduced early in the design life cycle are giving rise to easily exploitable defects that can readily be prevented. That's the main conclusion of an evaluation of 45 e-business applications by security consultancy @stake. It says the current state of application security is "grim". http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/24133.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. 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