March 22, 2002 Man faces jail for Web sales of CDs An Austin, Texas, man could face up to $100,000 in fines and a year in jail after pleading guilty to distributing live concert recordings of actor Russell Crowe's band over the Web, U.S. attorneys said. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said Thursday that Billy Joe Acosta pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement in connection with selling at least 10 copies of a live performance of the band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts on eBay and Yahoo. He will be sentenced June 11 in federal court in San Jose, Calif. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-866809.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175418.html - - - - - - - - Criminal case against ORBZ spam blacklist dropped The City of Battle Creek, Michigan, has agreed not to pursue criminal charges against the administrator of spamlisting blacklisting service ORBZ, which led to the withdrawal of the service earlier this week. The move lets Ian Gulliver, the administrator of ORBZ.org, off the hook for allegedly causing a major slowdown of its mail server in the course of testing for open mail relays, which are often used as a tool by spammers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24544.html - - - - - - - - Texas County Shuts Computer Network Over Hacking Concerns Anyone with a laptop computer can buy a wireless card, slide it into their computer, and scan for and capture radio waves linking computers on a wireless system. Harris County (Texas) District Clerk Charles Bacarisse shut down a wireless computer network in his office this week after officials found it could be vulnerable to high- tech vandals. The decision was made Tuesday, after a computer security analyst demonstrated to Steve Jennings, head of the county's Central Technology Department, and the Houston Chronicle how the system could be compromised. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16904.html - - - - - - - - Sax-playing Clinton worm stages attack There's something to be said about persistence, except when it comes to virus writing. MyLife.b (w32.mylife.b@mm, also known as Caric.a) fixes bugs that plagued the original worm, MyLife.a (w32.mylife.a@mm). Besides e-mailing copies of itself to everyone included in the Windows address book, the new version includes a caricature of Bill Clinton playing a saxophone with a bra hanging out. It also executes its file-destroying payload whenever an infected computer is rebooted in an hour divisible by 8, such as 8:00 or 16:00. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-866811.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2107243,00.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175413.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/728077.asp?cp1=1 http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130356 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/24547.html - - - - - - - - Hackers 'could gain missile secrets' White House orders security review In its latest act in the 'war on terror', the US government has ordered officials to check that any information held about "weapons of mass destruction" is stored securely. The government fears that hackers could access the details and use them to their own ends. In a memo issued to departments yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said that government information "regardless of age, that could reasonably be expected to assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction ... should not be disclosed inappropriately". http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130336 http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/21/web-sites-attacks.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/318125p-2712933c.html - - - - - - - - Justice officials endorse FBI reforms Law enforcement officials, testifying yesterday about FBI records management foul-ups in the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, endorsed legislation proposed by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The Justice Department, however, has no official position on S 1974, the Leahy-Grassley FBI Reform Act, witnesses said. The bill would charter the Justice inspector general to review allegations of FBI misconduct, reorganize the agencys IT regime and shield agency whistleblowers. Leahy and Grassley have said three previous IG reports on the bureaus IT problems did not spur action. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18230-1.html - - - - - - - - Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood. When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill. A bill introduced this week by Sen.Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html What Hollings' Bill Would Do http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51275,00.html - - - - - - - - Fed. appeals court lets casino serve legal documents via e-mail. Lawyers can serve legal documents via e-mail, a federal appeals court decided in a groundbreaking ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a Las Vegas hotel-casino could e-mail legal documents to an offshore company with no physical address. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2913542.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175414.html - - - - - - - - Presidential board asks for feedback on cybersecurity The President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is soliciting advice from the public on how national cybersecurity can be improved. The board, which is headed by Dick Clarke, the president's special adviser on cyberspace security, was created in October by an executive order entitled "Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Information Age." One of the board's primary functions is to draft a national strategy to protect cyber space. It has put together a 53-question survey that offers a preview of what the national strategy will look like. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0302/032202j1.htm - - - - - - - - Homeland security group formed President Bush signed an executive order March 19 creating a new public-private sector advisory council to assist the administration in developing, implementing and determining the effectiveness of homeland security policy. The President's Homeland Security Advisory Council will be composed of 21 experts from the private sector, academia, federally funded research and development centers, state and local governments, and other areas. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0318/web-council-03-22-02.asp - - - - - - - - Firms weave honeynet to monitor hacker behaviour Three firms have joined forces to create a non-profit organisation in Dublin to research and monitor the behaviour and motives of hackers, and share this information with the computer community. The Irish "honeynet" project will mimic a US honeynet project established in April 1999 by Mr Lance Spitzner, a senior architect at Sun Microsystems. http://scripts.ireland.com/technology/newsshowall.cfm?ID=2541 - - - - - - - - Employees hooked on cyber snooping Peeking at emails becomes a national pastime. Two thirds of UK employees are addicted to email snooping, with 18 per cent admitting that they would attempt to break email security protection to access private information. A further 87 per cent have surreptitiously read their boss's private email on at least one occasion, and two thirds say they became an addicted cyber snooper after just one hit, fuelled by easy access to confidential information. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130363 - - - - - - - - Employees stealing more from workplace But does the downturn help explain it? Not long after Donald McNeese had a falling-out with his boss at the Prudential Insurance Co., he allegedly settled on a scheme to exact revenge. McNeese worked in the tax department of Prudential's Jacksonville, Fla. office and was frustrated at what he felt was unfairly low pay. Federal prosecutors say he took out his anger by stealing computerized personnel files for more than 60,000 company employees. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2915381.htm - - - - - - - - Images may replace your lousy passwords Researchers at Microsoft are working on new types of passwords that will be easier for people to remember but harder for hackers to crack. The key-- images, which tend to make more of an impression on people than strings of text characters. Darko Kirovski, a cryptography and anti-piracy researcher at Microsoft, demonstrated a prototype password system at Microsoft offices in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-866544.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16910.html - - - - - - - - Digital Diagnosis Websites selling prescription drugs make life easier for many sick people, but they can cause some serious side effects. The Internet has made it much easier for sick people, some of whom are confined to their homes, to purchase prescription drugs, but the convenience of online pharmacies has it drawbacks. This week on 'CyberCrime' we give online drugstores a check-up to see if they're as trustworthy as your neighborhood pharmacy. http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/internetfraud/story/0,23008,3374238,00.html - - - - - - - - Just Don't Call It a Hacker Camp A planned gathering in Colorado for young geeks probably won't be billed as the "Hacker Summer Camp" because of some confusion over the proper definition of the word "hacker." Denver security firm White Hat Technologies plans to teach network security methods and hacking ethics to computer- savvy teenagers at what the company had been happily referring to as a "Hacker Summer Camp." http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,51240,00.html - - - - - - - - Just how safe is Outlook 2002? Internet privacy researcher Richard Smith released on Thursday a list of four issues that continue to undermine the security of Microsoft's Outlook 2002 and could leave the major mail program open to attack by virus writers. Although Smith called only one of the issues "critical," he said he released the list to bring the potential security hazards out into the open. "I just wanted to get it off my table," he said. "I would like to see these issues addressed." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-866329.html - - - - - - - - FBI takes page from Mormons' data book The FBI is consulting Mormon Church computer experts who oversee the institution's vast genealogy data bank to help rebuild the bureau's outdated information system. Officials say repeated failures by the FBI system have hindered some of the bureau's most important investigations in recent years, including the probe into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/22/fbi-system.htm *********************************************************** 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.