February 28, 2002 Police arrest 79th person in Internet sex sting operation A 55-year-old truck driver has become the 79th person arrested under a state Internet sting operation after authorities say he attempted to have sex with a woman and her 12-year-old daughter. John Ohlinger, of Eau Claire, was charged Monday with conspiring to commit first degree sexual assault of a child, conspiring to commit child enticement, attempted first degree sexual assault of a child and child enticement. The state Department of Justice's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force reports he is the 79th person to be arrested since the operation began in 1999. http://www.gazetteextra.com/inetsex022702.html - - - - - - - - Drinkordie' pirate captain walks plank A co-leader of "DrinkorDie," an international piracy ring that distributes software, games and movies over the Internet, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of conspiring to commit copyright infringement, U.S. officials said. John Sankus, 28, of Philadelphia, admitted his guilt in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, they said. He will be sentenced on May 17, and could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-847301.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16549.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/717227.asp - - - - - - - - Britney virus makes slave of PCs Teenyboppers and fascinated fathers most at risk. Security experts have warned that an evil virus is masquerading as pictures of pop princess Britney Spears. Some might say it was only a matter of time before the pop diva appeared in the virus spotlight, following similar attempts to play on user curiosity by viruses masquerading as pics of Jennifer Lopez and Anna Kournikova. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1129601 - - - - - - - - Senate mulling anti-copying devices A controversial draft bill involving security technology is returning to Congress. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation plans to hold hearings Thursday on a proposed bill that would require computer and device makers to install a government-approved anti-copying technology. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-847246.html File-sharing company urges Congress to stem copyright suits http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2763459.htm - - - - - - - - State official scrambles to save tech oversight agency Scrambling to save his much-maligned department from being shut down by state leaders, California's chief information officer turned to companies that do business with his department and other state agencies for help lobbying legislators. In a controversial appeal to technology consultants and suppliers, Elias Cortez hinted that the elimination of the Department of Information Technology could jeopardize their contracts with the state, according to a letter obtained by the Mercury News. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/2760314.htm - - - - - - - - Communications system provided heroic service, panel says There were two sets of heroes after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, a panel at a Homeland Security Conference said yesterday. The obvious heroes were the firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers who charged into the World Trade Center and Pentagon to save lives, said moderator Shirley Menish, a consultant. But another group worked behind the scenes helping to save critical telecommunication infrastructures, she said. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18042-1.html - - - - - - - - Police use UV marking to fight mobile theft Thousands of mobile phones will be labelled in an attempt to cut the spiralling number of handset thefts and increase the chances of property being returned to its owner. London police are fighting back against mobile phone thieves by using ultraviolet marker pens to label thousands of handsets. The operation, which is currently underway in 20 London boroughs, is an attempt to deter thieves and swill also make it easier their rightful owners. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105254,00.html - - - - - - - - Flaws found in PHP scripting language A flaw in the common open-source scripting language PHP could allow attackers to crash or compromise a hefty fraction of the nine million servers running the open-source Web software Apache, as well as other Web servers. A member of the PHP engineering team warned Web developers of the software flaws in an advisory on Wednesday, but security experts believe that while some in the Internet underground have tools to exploit the flaw, few people have the resources. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-847252.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/717347.asp http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16555.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105232,00.html - - - - - - - - Music Fans Hear Grammys Night Anti-Piracy Screed With his Grammys awards speech Wednesday night, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences CEO Michael Greene put out what may be the music industry's loudest and most public cease-and- desist order to digital music pirates. But not everyone is buying his message. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174865.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174859.html - - - - - - - - File-Sharing Could Mean Revenue For Everyone - Kazaa The Australian distributor of file-sharing software known as Kazaa says the battle lines between copyright holders and consumers who want to swap digital music and video online could be erased if governments instituted compulsory licensing schemes that touch all technology companies benefiting from the peer-to-peer explosion. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174861.html - - - - - - - - California candidate spams again GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Jones sends mass e-mail California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Jones, whose chances to win the states Tuesday primary are apparently fading fast, sent spam e-mail across the Internet on Wednesday. The e-mail irritated anti-spam activists in part because it was sent by less-than-scrupulous means the spam company took advantage of security vulnerabilities of a computer in Korea to launch the e-mails from there. This is Jones second spam campaign he sent out a similar e-mail in December. http://www.msnbc.com/news/717459.asp - - - - - - - - Defunct Industry Standard Magazine Lives On In Spam Subscribers to The Industry Standard haven't received the new-economy magazine for months since it shut down last August. But they could be getting junk e-mail and other solicitations as a result of their subscription for years to come, thanks to AOL's Time unit. In what may be an effort to monetize its investment, Time has apparently begun renting the magazine's subscriber list, which it reportedly picked up for $500,000 at a bankruptcy auction last September. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174863.html - - - - - - - - Staying on top of Oracle's holes In light of the fortnight-old SNMP pandemic, it's tempting to forget that the world's most popular database kit remains vulnerable to a host of potential exploits which were published about three weeks ago by NGSSoftware Insight researcher David Litchfield. Because SNMP holes can affect virtually any networked device, admins struggling to secure their systems may well have been distracted from the quite serious vulnerabilities Litchfield discovered. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/343 - - - - - - - - Grsecurity This article will discuss the grsecurity patches available for the Linux kernel. Grsecurity is a suite of patches (distributed as a single patch file) for the Linux kernel that are an attempt to improve the security of a Linux system. Grsecurity is based on a port of some previous patches for the Linux 2.2 kernel, including Openwall and PaX, which have never been ported to the 2.4 kernel. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1551 - - - - - - - - Speeding up police traffic stops New voice reader software helps officers on the beat. Jeff Rubenstein could have taken the money and run, when the dot-com he led was sold a few years back. But semi-retirement didnt suit him, and he found himself following his bliss: doing more shifts as a volunteer police officer. And because of his restlessness, cops around the country may be a little safer and crime- fighting, more efficient. http://www.msnbc.com/news/717369.asp *********************************************************** 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.