April 15, 2002
Software pirates face ten years in jail
Government backs tougher penalties for those
who deal in illegally copied material, including
software, as part of a counterfeiting crackdown.
The House of Commons has agreed to bring in
significant changes to the copyright law that
will mean someone convicted of software piracy
could face ten years' imprisonment and an unlimited
fine. The move is an attempt to crack down on those
who create and sell counterfeit goods -- a practice
that is estimated to cost the UK billions of pounds
and thousands of jobs each year.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108386,00.html
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Judge To Rule On Motions In E-Book Case
U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte is expected
to rule today on motions to dismiss the government's
case against a Russian software firm. Attorneys for
Elcomsoft, a company charged with violating U.S.
copyright laws by selling computer software capable
of bypassing the security in Adobe's eBooks, are
slated to appear before Whyte in a San Jose, Calif.
court.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175864.html
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FTC Sues To Stop 'Inbound Telemarketing' Scams
The Federal Trade Commission said today it is suing
nearly nearly a dozen groups allegedly involved in
fraudulent "inbound telemarketing" offers, wherein
consumers are prompted to call companies based on
classified ads, Internet banners, and other
solicitations. The FTC actions target five
companies that profited from allegedly bogus work
at home medical billing scams, and four companies
that offered so-called "advance-fee" loan programs.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175886.html
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European Parliament says no to Web-site blocking
The European Parliament has voted against blocking
access to Web sites as a way of regulating content
on the Internet, instead pushing self-regulation
and filter and rating systems. The vote was 460-0,
with three abstentions, to adopt a report on the
protection of minors and to respect human dignity
that addresses many media, including the Internet.
The European Parliament's report isn't a legislative
document but is in response to a previous evaluation
report by the European Commission.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/04/15/eu.site.blocking.idg/index.html
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Korean firm offers hackers $100K prize
A Korean company is offering $100,000 in a 48-hour
hacking competition, to be run this week. Korea
Digital Works (KDWorks) will launch the competition,
which will involve gaining root access to a server,
on April 16 at 11 a.m. Korean Standard Time. The
competition is aimed at demonstrating the resilience
of KDWorks' World OK Security (WOKS) solution,
according to Justin Kim, an attorney with U.S.-based
Mike Choi International Consulting, who is helping
to promote the event.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-882787.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108316,00.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-882663.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/738956.asp
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Nanny-Cam May Leave a Home Exposed
Thousands of people who have installed a popular
wireless video camera, intending to increase the
security of their homes and offices, have instead
unknowingly opened a window on their activities
to anyone equipped with a cheap receiver. The
wireless video camera, which is heavily advertised
on the Internet, is intended to send its video
signal to a nearby base station, allowing it to
be viewed on a computer or a television. But its
signal can be intercepted from more than a quarter
mile away by off-the-shelf electronic equipment
costing less than $250.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/technology/14SPY.html
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Internet crime-prevention company aids law enforcement
When CitizenObserver.com launched its crime prevention
Web site early last August, company executives believed
they had a strong product filling an important niche.
A month later came the terrorist attacks. As law
enforcement officials started sorting out how their
duties might change, the company started hearing that
its Web site linking police departments to residents
and delivering e-mail crime alerts suddenly had new
relevance.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3064490.htm
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Spammers hide behind a friendly face
The latest advertising gimmick is to send junk
emails that appear to have been sent by someone
known to the recipient. Spam's newest pitches are
coming to you courtesy of friends and co-workers --
or so it might seem. In one of the latest marketing
gimmicks circulating the Net, the sender comes
disguised as a corporate network administrator with
the subject line: "Your mailbox is over its size
limit." Once opened, however, the email's message
lewdly invites the recipient to view adult material.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108342,00.html
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Classroom bullies harnessing Net power
Playground bullies are harnessing the power of
technology to persecute their victims around the
clock, a U.K.-based children's charity warned
Monday. NCH, one of the United Kingdom's leading
children's charities, said the latest generation
of schoolchildren is without refuge from a phenomenon
that all too often drives vulnerable children to
suicide -- with one in every four suffering bullying
by text-message or e-mail, or in Internet chat rooms.
"The crucial difference from traditional bullying is
that in the past kids who are being bullied could go
home and find a safe haven," said NCH Associate
Director John Carr. "But if they're bullied on
their mobile (phone) or on the Internet, then
it's ever-present."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-882613.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-882576.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24848.html
Web chatrooms leading to barroom brawls?
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-882478.html
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New cumulative Microsoft patch fixes two critical threats
At the end of March, Microsoft released Security
Bulletin MS02-015. This is a cumulative patch
that includes new patches for two critical threats,
including the CodeBase Localpath vulnerability I
described two weeks ago. The bulletin refers to
this vulnerability as Local Executable Invocation
via ObjectTag, but its the same as the CodeBase
Localpath vulnerability.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article_guest.jhtml?id=r00220020415mco01.htm
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Restraints relaxed in anti-copy tech
SunnComm is adding a spoonful of sugar to its anti-
copying medicine. The Phoenix, Ariz.-based copy-
protection company has been the target of consumer
outrage over its technology, which is designed to
stop people from shifting music tracks from CDs to
their computers. On Thursday, it offered a compromise,
adding a feature that lets people e-mail songs from
protected albums to family and friends. SunnComm
said a file expires after the recipient listens
to the song a certain number of times.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-882806.html
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HP voice mail theft gets Silicon Valley's attention
It's the talk of Silicon Valley: How did someone
break into the voice mail of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
chief financial officer, capture a sensitive message
from his boss, Carly Fiorina, and leak it to the
local newspaper? HP executives were shocked. But
experts in phone systems and computer security
say they're not surprised - largely because voice
mail is digital and is stored on computers.
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/358943p-2912064c.html
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Policing the net
Peter Robbins takes over as chief executive of
the Internet Watch Foundation at a time when the
self-regulatory group is facing increasing charges
of censorship. Sarah Left asks: how will this
ex-cop respond? Peter Robbins admits he does not
know much about the internet. Aged 50, he retired
as chief superintendent at Hackney police earlier
this year, and picked up a copy of the Guardian's
Society jobs section. And there it was: an ad from
the Internet Watch Foundation, the self-appointed,
self-regulatory body that polices child pornography
online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,681957,00.html
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Experts: Insider threat may be harder to detect
Recent findings that insiders constitute the primary
threat to enterprise security are being challenged
by experts who insist the greater threat to security
remains external. Only 38 percent of respondents
to the latest computer crime survey sponsored by
the FBI and the San Francisco-based Computer Security
Institute said they detected insider attacks during
the preceding 12 months. That's down from 49 percent
reported a year ago and 71 percent reported in 2000.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/04/15/insider.security.idg/index.html
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COMPUTER SCIENCE - Defending Your Desktop
Some recent media reports would have you believing
that, thanks to modern connectivity, monsters can
crawl through the computer screen and into your
home--eating bank accounts and spewing pornography
as they go. Most of us know it's not all that bad.
But computer networks do present the layperson with
some security threats. "The Internet is constantly
being attacked and probed even by our allies,"
says Jim Davis of Iowa State University. "That's
the environment in which we live."
http://www.sciam.com/news/092100/4.html
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Q&A: Meet the new spam buster
Groove Networks CEO Ray Ozzie hates spam just
as much as the next guy. But unlike that next guy,
he's offering a potential way out for corporate-
networking chiefs troubled by unsolicited e-mail.
When his company first introduced its collaboration
software in October 2000, stopping spam wasn't its
chief selling point. But on Monday, when Groove
flips the switch on its first upgrade, the company
will be able to make a plausible claim that it
offers at least one answer to managing spam.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-882566.html
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Security concerns push tech growth
The need to positively prove identity in the world
left changed by Sept. 11 is driving technology
designed to help people clear security checkpoints
at airports and elsewhere. It turns out that one
of the methods to which experts have turned is also
one of the oldest -- the fingerprint. In one example,
Giesecke & Devrient, a German firm, recently unveiled
a "smart" identity card that will contain two of the
owner's digitalized fingerprints on an embedded chip.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-882472.html
U.S. boosts funding for face recognition
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-882475.html
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Ashcroft orders more info sharing
Declaring that "information is the friend of prevention,"
Attorney General John Ashcroft has instructed six
federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies
to do a better job of sharing information as they
fight the war against terrorism. Information from
databases, such as names of terrorism suspects,
fingerprints, photographs and biographical data,
should be regularly available to a wider range of
law enforcement agencies, Ashcroft said.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/news-doj-04-15-02.asp
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175861.html
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FBI study: Hanssen had easy access to case files
The FBIs failure to secure its case files made it
possible for Robert Hanssen tofreely and without
detectiongain access to data for his espionage
activities, a new report concludes. Whats more,
according to the independent commission that
conducted the review, the FBI still fails to
adequately control its case files. Hanssens
espionage demonstrated in a public and convincing
way that the bureaus information systems security
controls are inadequate, noted the report from
the commission headed by former FBI and CIA
director William H. Webster. The unclassified
portion is available on the Web at;
www.usdoj.gov/05publications/websterreport.pdf.
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18403-1.html
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A Top-Secret, One-of-a-Kind Mac
In a drafty shed in rural northern California
is perhaps the rarest Macintosh ever made: an
electronically shielded Mac used by a spy or
military agency. The machine appears to be unique,
and is so secret, no one knows anything about it.
Sitting on a dusty shelf in an old Boulder Creek,
California, barn owned by programmer and author
Bruce Damer, the Macintosh SE 30 1891 ST at first
appears to be a standard all-in-one Mac from the
mid-1980s.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51670,00.html
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