March 26, 2002 Hackers target UK national infrastructure Government admits weekly average of 84 attacks. Government departments vital to the protection of the UK's critical national infrastructure are being attacked an average of 84 times a week by hackers. The infrastructure consists of key departments like Government Communication Headquarters, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, along with power and communications companies in the private sector. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130416 - - - - - - - - Hackers attack eBay accounts Hackers are taking over eBay accounts and setting up false auctions - although the crime is not widespread yet, it may indicate a worrying trend. Someone other than Gloria Geary had access to the artist's eBay account last week. Using Geary's user ID, the person set up an auction for an Intel Pentium computer chip. Not only that, but the person changed Geary's password so she could no longer access her own account -- or cancel the bogus auction. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2107350,00.html - - - - - - - - Company raided in computer fraud case. Taking aim at alleged theft, Compaq seizes $5M in parts from Tewksbury warehouse. Compaq Computer yesterday seized $5 million worth of computer parts from a Shawsheen Street warehouse the company says were fraudulently obtained. Constables pushed more than 200 pallets of computer products out of the sprawling warehouse at about 7 a.m. Houston-based Compaq charges that S-Systems Inc. and its owner, Anthony Sallee, created phony purchase orders to receive the computers. http://www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1002,4746~480846,00.html - - - - - - - - Clinton Virus Shows PCs at Risk Last year's Code Red virus caused many companies to beef up their corporate defenses. But the majority of home users remain completely unprotected. In the wake of last year's Code Red and Nimda viruses, many corporations beefed up computer security systems to deflect viruses. But home PC users are another story. Only a third of home Internet users make use of up-to-date anti-virus programs, according to computer security firm McAfee. The rest lack even the most basic anti-virus software -- leaving most open to viruses that are getting ever more creative. The latest: a virus called MyLife.B. It entices users to open an e-mail attachment that displays a cartoon of former president Bill Clinton. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16947.html - - - - - - - - Porn trial expert says blocking software limited Software products that claim to stop personal computers from accessing pornographic sites on the World Wide Web are doomed to fail, a computer language expert testified Tuesday in a case challenging a federal effort to protect youngsters from Internet smut. At the trial, which looks at how far the U.S. government can go to prevent children from exposure to pornography on library computers, Stanford University linguist Geoffrey Nunberg testified that the crude mathematical methods used to operate filtering software are simply no match for the subtleties of human judgment. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2939124.htm http://www.msnbc.com/news/729300.asp http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51338,00.html Porn-Filter Trial Gets Raunchy http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51312,00.html Librarians testify against Web-filter requirement A special panel of judges is hearing two groups' challenge to a federal law that would link funding to use of the software. This was an incident that seemed to illustrate perfectly the need for the Children's Internet Protection Act, the federal law that would require libraries to install Internet filtering software as a condition of receiving federal technology funds. The case involved illegal child pornography found in a lavatory trash bin of the public library in Sun Prairie, Wis. - material apparently downloaded from an Internet site on one of the library's public computer terminals. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2936807.htm http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/26/net-filtering.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/323950p-2742732c.html Librarians: 'Don't make us thought police' http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/03/26/internet.filtering.ap/index.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/325283p-2750266c.html - - - - - - - - Bill takes wrong approach on copyright piracy Wrong approach on piracy issue. Bill to require anti-copy devices unfair to consumers. If you know someone with political clout, you might suggest he take a look at Sen. Ernest Hollings' bill to regulate computer hardware. Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, last week introduced the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act. Senate Bill 2048 would require computer and other electronics manufacturers to build anti-copying features into everything from MP3 players to computers and digital videorecorders. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2933886.htm - - - - - - - - Nigeria launches site to target e-mail scams Have you received an e-mail claiming to be from Nigerian government officials or petroleum executives trying to smuggle money out of their country? Are you getting tired of spiking all that Nigerian spam? Well the Nigerian government is sick of those scams, too. The African nation, through its high commission in the U.K., recently created a Web site to target the scheme and offer tips on combating fraud and how to legitimately invest in Nigeria. http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO69562,00.html http://www.nigerianfraudwatch.org - - - - - - - - Officials tout info sharing Although sharing information among the courts, the police and other justice agencies in every level of government has been a goal of dedicated individuals and organizations during the last several years, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has given the issue a renewed national scope. Critics say that Sept. 11 highlighted the lack of information exchange and underscored the importance of improved coordination to prevent future terrorist attacks. http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/0325/web-search-03-26-02.asp - - - - - - - - Napster Gets A Year To Build Antitrust Case Against Labels The saga of Napster and its seemingly endless legal battles with the music industry could stretch on for at least another year while the MP3-sharing network fortifies its antitrust claims against major record companies. In a ruling today by the federal court judge refereeing copyright infringement lawsuits against the Redwood, Calif., company, Napster was given until Jan. 10, 2003, to wrap up pre-trial discovery on a mountain of documentation it says could show record companies colluded to eliminate competition for music distribution online. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175483.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/323757p-2742099c.html Another nail in the Napster coffin http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24586.html - - - - - - - - Peacefire.org beats spammers in court Free-speech group Peacefire.org has won a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law. The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-868509.html Anti-Spam Advocate Wins Big In Small-Claims Court http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175476.html The Problem of Fighting Spam http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16874.html - - - - - - - - Spam creator tackles the meaty issue On April 12, 1994, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, two immigration lawyers from Arizona, flooded the Internet with a mass mailing promoting heir law firm's advisory services. In doing so, this unknown husband and wife team changed the Internet with one keystroke. The "Green Card Lottery" notice they sent out reached thousands of people using Usenet newsgroups and, on one level, qualified as an unqualified success. But it also triggered a firestorm of criticism from purists outraged at a breach of the informal rules prohibiting the transmission of unsolicited junk mail and advertising over the Internet. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-868653.html - - - - - - - - Verisign accused of DNS slamming There's a cheesy scam in the phone industry called 'slamming', wherein customers are tricked into switching their service provider. Double-talk and deceptive marketing materials figure large in this enterprise. Now Verisign (formerly Network Solutions) is taking heat for a practice which borders on registrar slamming. According to competitor Go Daddy Software, a renewal reminder being mailed to its customers is a gimmick designed to switch them to Verisign. The mailing from "Expiration Department" gives little indication of its true origin. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24577.html - - - - - - - - 1024-bit encryption is 'compromised' Upgrade to 2048-bit, says crypto expert. According to a security debate sparked off by cryptography expert Lucky Green on Bugtraq yesterday, 1,024-bit RSA encryption should be "considered compromised". The Financial Cryptography conference earlier this month, which largely focused on a paper published by cryptographer Dan Bernstein last October detailing integer factoring methodologies, revealed "significant practical security implications impacting the overwhelming majority of deployed systems utilising RSA as the public key algorithm". http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130451 - - - - - - - - Virus WildList closed 'until further notice' The WildList, a list of viruses currently at large which plays an important role in testing antivirus software, has been suspended indefinitely. In a message to the antivirus community, Shane Coursen, chief executive of the WildList Organization (which compiles the list), said that March, 2002 WildList will be the last "until further notice". Coursen is seeking a full-time position as an antivirus researcher. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/24587.html - - - - - - - - Are intruders in your digital dumpster? Is a hacker or foreign agent rooting around in your digital backyard at home? Systems administrators protect you at work, but when you get home, look in a mirror -- this is the systems administrator who protects your home computer. How good are you? Even if you are digitally savvy, are your children? Your spouse? Would they open an attachment or get into an online chat with a stranger? http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Mar2002/a20020326iacomt0302.html - - - - - - - - Alerts lessen chance of network security breech In 2000, Army networks were exposed to more than 5,000 intrusion attempts -- less than 70 were successful. Intrusion attempts in 2001 nearly tripled, but less than 100 were successful. During an undeclared "cyber war" between Chinese and U.S. hackers in the first two weeks of May, more than 50 Army Web pages were defaced by an automated attack. These defacements were successful because published fixes, identified in Information Assurance Vulnerability Alerts, were not in place on the hacked machines. http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Mar2002/a20020326ia032602.html - - - - - - - - Panel Debates Hacker Amnesty Should hack-and-tell intruders who warn companies about security holes do time with hardened criminals? Security experts probe the ethics of hacking. Do good intentions count in a network intrusion, or should well-meaning hackers be prosecuted just like any other computer criminal? A panel of information security experts chewed on that issue at a security conference here Monday -- and for one of them, the question was more than academic. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/358 - - - - - - - - Always On, Always Vulnerable: Securing Broadband Connections You finally got it. No more late nights at the office wasted on downloading sprees. No more screeching modems or constant busy signals. Streaming media, lightning quick file transfers and online gaming, all within your reach. Yes - you finally have broadband Internet access! While it may not be necessarily change user's lives, broadband access - primarily cable and DSL connectivity - is nonetheless a great enhancement for any household or small business. The speed and always-on convenience are certain to change the way users work and play on-line. But the leap to broadband comes with a major snag - security. This article will look at the threats that accompany broadband access and the requirements necessary to protect this growing component of the Internet. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1560 - - - - - - - - Transportation turns to technology to track terrorists Deputy Transportation Secretary Michael Jackson said Tuesday the Transportation Department will unveil a series of technology innovations in the coming months that will help the agency better track airline passenger manifests and determine who needs closer scrutiny. Jackson said the new system would not be a type of racial profiling. Rather, it will make use of new analytical tools to help airlines gather information on individuals who are using the nation's transportation systems. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0302/032602td1.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.