March 15, 2002 Kid Porn Suspect Wants Trial Larry Benedict is still waiting to learn if he'll have his day in court. A federal judge in Rochester, New York, heard arguments this week on whether the accused child pornographer will be able to tell his story to a jury or not. After listening to three days of testimony from Benedict's former lawyers and Benedict himself, U.S. District Judge David Larimer is expected to rule this spring on whether the 44-year-old defendant will be able to reopen a guilty plea he signed last summer. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51042,00.html Kid Porn Case a Cautionary Tale http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49141,00.html - - - - - - - - Man charged with Xbox theft A thief wasted no time in getting his hands on an Xbox, stealing it just hours after launch, police say A man has been charged with stealing an Xbox computer games console just a few hours after Microsoft launched its new product in Britain, according to police. Unemployed Jomar Allen, 20, was due to appear in court later on Thursday. Police said the man was charged shortly after midnight after an incident in London's Oxford Street. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2106669,00.html - - - - - - - - Pirated Oscar favorites up for bid on eBay A few enterprising -- and potentially illegal -- eBay traders are gearing up for the Oscars this weekend, auctioning off pirated versions of top film nominees, some priced at less than a ticket and popcorn. Many of the Academy Award hopefuls up for bid on eBay, which include "Monsters, Inc.," "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," are not bound for the video store for weeks. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/03/15/movie.piracy.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - Ali G prank recording breaks into BT help line BTopenworld has launched an investigation into how an offensive Ali G-style message appeared on a recorded telephone help line. The message, a poor imitation of the cult comedic figure, appeared around midnight 12th/13th March and was removed after about 15 minutes. According to one reader, who asked to remain anonymous, the message said: "Aiii. D to the I to the O... BT are shite ... You want to eat now? You want to eat the pussy now? Do not go with the BT." http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24442.html - - - - - - - - US Military Scours Windows Systems For Hacker Back Doors The United States Army and Navy are conducting a high-priority security review of their Microsoft Windows systems for the presence of an unauthorized remote-control program, sources familiar with the investigation have confirmed. An unclassified memo, sent Mar. 6 by the Navy's Computer Incident Response Team, warned Navy computer administrators to scan their Windows systems for evidence of a popular commercial software program called RemotelyAnywhere. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175245.html - - - - - - - - Group Sues Transportation Dept. Over Passenger Database A privacy rights group is suing the federal government to obtain more information about the Transportation Department's plan to launch a computer network that would link all U.S.-based airline reservation systems to private and government databases. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of Transportation in early February to learn more about a new system designed to link passengers' travel history and destination to their personal and demographic information. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175226.html - - - - - - - - West coast law firm sues company over spam Fed up with spam, California's largest law firm is suing a Belmont e-mail-marketing company, claiming the marketer sent at least 6,500 pieces of unsolicited e-mail to law firm employees over six months. In the suit, Morrison & Foerster alleges that Etracks broke California anti-spam laws by sending unwanted e-mail, advertising a range of items, including online gambling, wireless services, office products and psychic readings, without the required advertising label. Also missing, the suit said, was a legally mandated toll-free 800 number or valid return e-mail to request removal from the marketers' lists. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/local/2861505.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175250.html - - - - - - - - CIOs sleepless over security In New York City yesterday, Veterans Affairs deputy CIO Ed Meagher spoke frankly about the federal governments need to outsource more of its IT tasks. At one meeting I kidded that everybody in the room had gray hair, except for the ones who were cheating with dye, Meagher said. Government has been in a hiring freeze since about 1990. We dont have a choice about outsourcing. We cant do this alone. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18140-1.html - - - - - - - - Digital Piracy Burden Falling on Industry Consumer advocates argue that the DMA and moves by companies are constraining everyday consumers, who are allowed by law to make recordings for their own use. As the widespread availability of copyrighted music and movies over the Internet has proved, once content is available for free on the Web, it's impossible to stop it from being widely shared. So entertainment and technology companies, lawmakers and others are starting to change their strategy in the war against online pirates: to protect what they have, instead of going after those who take it. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16788.html - - - - - - - - Many major Web sites noncommittal on automatic privacy disclosure. Dozens of leading Web sites are adopting the Internet's version of nutrition labels, giving visitors a quick sense of how well they honor surfers' personal privacy. The labels alone won't protect credit card numbers or stop junk e-mail -- just as nutrition labels won't guarantee balanced diets. But they should offer consumers a simpler alternative to the lengthy privacy policies written in legalese that hardly anyone reads. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2867671.htm - - - - - - - - BT anti-spam drive backfires on users Measures to combat spam passing through BT mail servers are also trapping and deleting legitimate emails from BT's ADSL customers A move by BT to cut out spam passing through its servers has ended up deleting valid emails sent out by some of BT's ADSL customers. BT introduced the measures, which entailed filtering out and deleting emails that looked like spam, on Tuesday. But the company failed to tell its customers about the new policy and as a result some had their outgoing emails filtered and deleted too. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2106727,00.html - - - - - - - - Back Orifice for Unix flaw emerges from obscurity A vulnerability involving an obscure UDP protocol might permits crackers to obtain remote control of Unix workstations, security experts have warned. Security firm ProCheckUp has issued an advisory warning that anonymous XDMCP connections allow remote attackers to obtain a remote console identical to a local X-Windows session, using a command enabled by default on most Unix boxes. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/24447.html - - - - - - - - Old Morpheus still works for unhacked users Older versions of the Morpheus file sharing utility still work, Register readers have discovered to their surprise. Earlier this month Music City Morpheus ditched support for the P2P stack supplied by developer FastTrack and embraced the open source Gnutella protocol, with the launch of Morpheus Preview Edition. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24445.html - - - - - - - - Companies' Security Decisions Reactionary, Tech Driven Security breaches took place at more than one in three companies over the past two years, and some firms that have been breached don't even know it, according to a research report published today. Once the breaches come to light, image-conscious companies often hit the panic button and make hasty, unwise - and costly - decisions about information security management in a rush to save face, said researchers with the Meta Group. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175248.html - - - - - - - - Time to lock down cybersecurity These days, computer security sells itself. But that isn't stopping John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of security software maker Symantec, from doing whatever he can to nudge the issue even higher up the corporate priority list. Even before Sept. 11, these were especially hectic times for Thompson, a charismatic executive who joined Symantec after 28 years at IBM. During his tenure at Big Blue, Thompson earned a reputation as an unflagging salesman. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-861318.html - - - - - - - - Definitive guide to writing a Linux virus Austrian student publishes White Paper Following on from this week's discovery of the Jac Linux virus, an open source hacker from the University of Linz, Austria, has released a definitive guide to writing Linux viruses. The Jac virus was discovered on Tuesday and quickly dismissed by the Linux community for its inability to spread effectively - a common occurrence in Linux viruses. But yesterday, Alexander Bartolich released "the Linux virus writing howto". http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130150 - - - - - - - - Airport security systems get personal The airport security systems of the future can see through clothes for weapons, sniff a person for explosives and determine what's in a bottle without opening it. That future has landed at Orlando International Airport, as six prototype security systems will begin operation over the next few days. OIA, one of the world's busiest airports, was chosen in December as the testing ground for next-generation security checkpoint devices. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/15/airport-security.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/305215p-2651984c.html - - - - - - - - Singapore Traffic Cops Give Advice On The Web This is the official Web site of Singapore's Traffic Police. The Traffic Police is responsible for the regulation of driver behavior. Their stated mission is to maintain law and order, and to bring about a safe environment on the road. That mission extends online with public education programs and two Traffic Police FAQs (frequently asked questions). The FAQs cover everything from getting your first driving license, through making motor accident reports and insurance claims, to information about traffic violations. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175233.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. 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