April 16, 2002 Supreme Court strikes down ban on virtual child pornography The Supreme Court struck down a congressional ban on virtual child pornography Tuesday, ruling that the First Amendment protects pornography or other sexual images that only appear to depict real children engaged in sex. The 6-3 ruling is a victory for both pornographers and legitimate artists such as moviemakers, who argued that a broad ban on simulated child sex could make it a crime to depict a sex scene like those in the recent movies ``Traffic'' or ``Lolita.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3075114.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-883735.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-884085.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175914.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/739373.asp?0si=- http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/index.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51856,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/16/virtual-child-porn.htm - - - - - - - - Hackers target Israel Middle East conflict moves into cyber space. The conflict in the Middle East is being fought in cyberspace as well as on the ground, showing that hacking is developing into a recognised form of international warfare, according to a leading security analyst. Intelligence agency mi2g said that the Israeli .il domain suffered 67 per cent of all significant web defacements over the last two weeks, while Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has been caricatured in a new wave of viruses. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130941 - - - - - - - - Argentine judge rules in favor of computer hackers Computer hackers may be the scourge of the digital age, hunted down by police across borders, but in Argentina they have found an unlikely ally -- the very justice system they scorned. Warning of a `dangerous legal void'' making digital crimes hard to prosecute, a judge has ruled that hacking is legal by default in Argentina. The decision came in the case of cyberpirates who defaced the Supreme Court's Web page. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3070194.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108417,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24877.html - - - - - - - - FTC accuses 11 online firms of Net fraud Federal regulators said Monday that they have filed charges against 11 companies that they accused of running--online and off--a variety of scams, from loans that did not come through to work-at-home schemes that promised easy riches. The companies named in a series of complaints sold a range of services to consumers, the Federal Trade Commission said. Some promised loans or credit cards that never materialized, while others offered to help consumers set up their own medical-billing or envelope-stuffing businesses that had long odds of success. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-883588.html - - - - - - - - Doctor risks losing license for allegedly prescribing drugs online A chemical-dependency doctor faces a possible suspension for allegedly prescribing drugs over the Internet and ignoring a prior state order barring him from doing so. Dr. Jon Steven Opsahl of Riverside is medical director of the OptiHealth Wellness Center in Colton and is the son of Myrna Opsahl, who was killed by members of the radical group the Symbionese Liberation Army during a 1975 bank robbery near Sacramento. Five people were charged earlier this year with her slaying. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3075136.htm - - - - - - - - Net thieves caught in action Fraud investigator sets sting, watches thieves swap fake info. Just how long does it take for stolen credit cards to find their way around the Internet, and the world? About 15 minutes. Thats what fraud investigator Dan Clements found this weekend when he posted a Web page full of faked credit card data to track how quickly the information would make its way around the carder culture. He then planted links to the Web site in a few Internet chat rooms. Within 15 minutes, 74 carders from 31 different countries arrived to peek at the data. http://www.msnbc.com/news/739128.asp - - - - - - - - Security Cams Not OK in Canada? Canada's privacy commissioner and solicitor general are locked in a battle over a surveillance camera in the city of Kelowna in British Columbia's interior. For months now, Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski has fought to have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police camera removed on the grounds that it intrudes on citizen privacy. And Radwanski's most recent salvo could lead to Canada outlawing public surveillance cameras entirely. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51821,00.html - - - - - - - - UK eyeing Internet privacy protections for workers Businesses in the UK, including U.S. firms with branch offices there, may soon face limits on their ability to monitor employee Web surfing and e-mail activity under a new privacy code due to be released by a government body in the next two months. The UK privacy protections also illustrate the sharp difference in privacy approaches that exist between the U.S. and European nations, many of which have stringent privacy rules. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/04/16/uk.net.privacy.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - Internet standards group approves privacy system for Web sites A system for quickly telling Internet users how well a Web site honors their personal privacy won final approval Tuesday from the Web's main standards organization. The decision by the World Wide Web Consortium seeks to address growing concerns about how e-commerce sites use e-mail addresses, shopping preferences and other personal data they collect. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3075822.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108489,00.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175917.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/739493.asp http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,51863,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/16/net-privacy-standards.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/363868p-2945714c.html Privacy Worries, Net Activism Top Privacy Show Agenda http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175916.html - - - - - - - - Senators lambaste official over Bush's proposed tech funding Irritated senators assailed a Bush administration official on Tuesday, criticizing President Bush's decision to cut funding for some technology programs in fiscal 2003 and arguing that the federal investment in such programs is paying dividends for the nation. The Advanced Technology Program (ATP), for example, "has been tried and true," Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Ernest (Fritz) Hollings, D-S.C., said in questioning the administration's proposed reforms of that program and also the decision to eliminate funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0402/041602td1.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175919.html - - - - - - - - Government security survey under fire Is the DTI just pushing products? A government IT security survey out next week has been criticised by users for hyping up the number of security breaches, and being used as a vendor-sponsored bandwagon to push products. The Department of Trade and Industry's biennial Information Security Breaches Survey 2002 found that four out of five large companies fell victim to viruses, hackers, fraud and other security breaches last year. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130940 Behind the Security Breach Hype http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17273.html - - - - - - - - Poor IT security costs British business billions A government-backed report discovers underinvestment in IT security, and finds that the number of firms suffering serious computer attacks has nearly doubled from two years ago. Hacking and virus attacks are costing British companies billions of pounds a year because firms are failing to spend enough money on IT security, according to an official report due to be released next week. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108453,00.html - - - - - - - - Labels to count cost of pirates' plunder Record executives Tuesday will gather at a plush London hotel to release annual global music sales figures, but this year music pirates are expected to steal the spotlight from the chart-toppers. The event, hosted by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), had been the measuring stick to determine who's hot and who's not in the fickle recording industry. Lately though, the gathering has taken on a more somber tone as executives decry the amount of business they're losing to rampant CD-copying, or "burning," and Internet file-swapping services such as Kazaa and Morpheus. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-882873.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108484,00.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175909.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/739330.asp?0si=- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51862,00.html A debate on the rules of digital recording http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/16/copy-usat.htm Science publisher eases copyright rule http://news.com.com/2100-1023-883990.html Company lures piracy whistle-blowers http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/04/15/piracy.whistle.idg/index.html Burning Desire to Make CDs Pay http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,51843,00.html - - - - - - - - Harris to defend Army computers The Army announced April 15 that it has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to Harris Corp. to help protect its worldwide computer networks from cyberthreats. The award calls for deploying Harris' Security Threat Avoidance Technology (STAT) Scanner on more than 1.5 million Army workstations worldwide. The work to install the vulnerability assessment tool is already under way, according to a company spokesman. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/web-army-04-16-02.asp - - - - - - - - McAfee Unveils New Internet Security Grid Giga analyst Jan Sundgren told NewsFactor that McAfee rival Symantec is working on a similar approach to Internet security. Consumer and small business computer security provider McAfee.com is introducing a security grid that utilizes millions of sensors across the Internet to prevent, analyze and report security threats to a central hub via Web services. The company calls its Grid Security Services, which ties together distributed computing capabilities with XML-based Web security services, the first phase of a grid initiative that will provide real-time security and reporting to Internet users. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17299.html - - - - - - - - Symantec Warns of Blended Security Threats Attacks are becoming more sophisticated, security vendor warns, while promoting company's new tools. Attacks on corporate computer systems will continue to get more sophisticated, simultaneously targeting several areas of vulnerability in "blended" attacks, according to executives from security vendor Symantec. "Security threats today are extremely nimble," says Leigh Costin, Asia-Pacific regional product manager for Symantec's enterprise solutions range. "There are toolkits out there now which enable rapid virus development and multifaceted attacks. Security systems often don't have enough integration between firewall, antivirus, and intrusion detection." http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,94383,00.asp - - - - - - - - The Buck Stops Where? Don't blame Microsoft. They gave you the patch; it's your responsibility to use it. A buddy of mine is the CTO of a big retail chain back east. Just this morning he was telling me how his Network Admin group was pushing back on installing the new Microsoft patch that covers ten security vulnerabilities in IIS, because they heard it broke the server, they didn't have time to test it, and thought it would be months (if ever) before they even needed to worry about it. He wanted my advice. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/74 - - - - - - - - Identity Theft Insurance Going Mainstream Consumer concern over online fraud is helping a Fairfax, Va., company turn its identity-theft protection service into a product that's catching the attention of mainstream insurance companies. One such company, Farmers Home Group of Minneapolis, Minn., announced today that it would resell the Identity Theft Protection Plan launched more than a year ago by privately held PromiseMark Inc. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175890.html - - - - - - - - Did Brilliant do something wrong or not? A recent column by my colleague David Coursey gave peer-to-peer networking the "60 Minutes" treatment. Coursey allowed Brilliant Digital Entertainment CEO Kevin Bermeister to field a round of tough questions about the company's business practices, licensing, and security. While steadfast in his defense of Brilliant's strategy, the executive's comments swayed the opinion of a scant few. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-883600.html - - - - - - - - Network Intrusion Detection Signatures, Part 5 This is the fifth and final installment in a series of articles on understanding and developing signatures for network intrusion detection systems. In the previous article, we looked at the topic of protocol analysis, meaning that the intrusion detection system actually understands how various protocols, such as FTP, are supposed to work. We initially looked at protocol analysis as it applied to a single request or response. In this article, we will extend this discussion by looking closely at stateful protocol analysis, which involves performing protocol analysis for an entire connection or session, capturing and storing certain pieces of relevant data seen in the session, and using that data to identify attacks that involve multiple requests and responses. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1569 Network Intrusion Detection Signatures, Part One http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1524 Network Intrusion Detection Signatures, Part Two http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1534 Network Intrusion Detection Signatures, Part Three http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1544 Network Intrusion Detection Signatures, Part Four http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1553 - - - - - - - - Database launched for crime victims The U.S. Justice Department has set up a new database system to keep crime victims updated on cases. The Victim Notification System, launched Tuesday, is a joint project of the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, all units of the Justice Department. GRC International, a subsidiary of AT&T, was awarded the contract to develop the system in July 2000. The VNS allows victims and their families or guardians to be notified of each step in a case, including arrest, trial date and incarceration. Victims can be notified through letter, e-mail, fax or pager, and can call an 800 number to get updates. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-884079.html http://news.com.com/2100-1017-883938.html http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/web-att-04-16-02.asp - - - - - - - - Technology to help local governments fight terror The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Public Technology are partnering in an initiative to enhance local governments' ability to monitor, detect and report chemical and biological releases in the atmosphere. The multiyear initiative called LINC which stands for the Local Integration of the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center with Cities will help local agencies prepare for and respond to urban terrorist attacks involving chemicals and biological weapons. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/fcw2.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.