May 10, 2002 FBI spy Hanssen sentenced to life in prison An apologetic Robert Hanssen, the disgraced former FBI agent considered one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, was sentenced Friday to life in prison for selling secrets to Moscow. Hanssen, who pleaded guilty last year to disclosing some of the nation's most sensitive secrets for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds, apologized for his behavior and said, ``I am shamed by it.'' Hanssen avoided the death penalty after reaching an agreement with government prosecutors in which he promised to cooperate fully with investigators on his espionage, which spanned more than two decades and caused the death of at least two agents in Russia. http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3238006.htm http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-051102hanssen.story http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/11/national/11SPY.html - - - - - - - - Prison suicide watch for ex Cisco exec A former Cisco executive has been placed on suicide watch in a federal prison after attempting to kill himself while on the run from multi-million dollar fraud charges. Robert S. Gordon, 43, a former vice president and director of business development at Cisco, was indicted by a federal grand jury last May on two counts of wire fraud, and one charge of planning to illegally move Cisco owned stock into an offshore account he controlled in the Bahamas. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/25231.html Cisco exec's saga ends in federal custody http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/invest/2002/05/10/cisco-exec.htm - - - - - - - - Trade theft charges for HP hackers We paid for it, we can modify it, claim defendants. Three businessmen have appeared in a US court accused of stealing Hewlett Packard's trade secrets. The prosecution claims that Steven Cooper, Stanley Sieler and Charles Finley conspired to unlawfully use an HP program called SS Config in their business from 1991 to 1998 by disabling the program's password protection. But their defence said that since the men legally possessed the software they had the right to modify it. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131638 - - - - - - - - Pirated copies of new 'Star Wars' film appearing online With only days left before the opening of "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," illegal copies have already begun to appear on the Internet. One copy of the movie making the rounds online appears to have been recorded at a private showing, using a tripod-mounted digital camcorder pointed at the screen, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Another copy apparently used a more sophisticated version of the same technique. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/397946p-3166826c.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/10/star-wars-piracy.htm http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17714.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/750385.asp http://news.com.com/2100-1023-909507.html?tag=fd_top http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109999,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-909087.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3238166.htm http://www.latimes.com/business/la-051002starwars.story - - - - - - - - House of Fraser pays up for pirate The Business Software Alliance has published the names of three London firms caught using illegal software. Retailer House of Fraser paid an undisclosed sum to the BSA for the illegal use of Macromedia software, the organisation informs us. Euro Car Parts, a retailer and distributor of car parts, and Internet media company Prominent Pages were recently found to be using unlicensed copies of Microsoft software and were fined PS7,500 and PS20,000 respectively. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/25239.html - - - - - - - - Twilight of China's DVD Pirates Amid a crackdown, Chinese knockoffs are threatened Even as China has become the workshop of the globe, with just about everything seeming to carry a "made in China" label, it has earned another, more dubious honor: the world center of counterfeiting. With factories producing everything from pirated software to knockoff designer clothes, Beijing is notoriously lax in enforcing intellectual-property rights. http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_19/b3782129.htm - - - - - - - - LSU Sues Law Student Over Web Site Douglas Dorhauer has a tiger by the tail. The second-year student at Louisiana State University's law school is the target of a trademark infringement lawsuit by the school because he operates a Web site called LSULAW.com. The school's lawsuit, which is documented on Dorhauer's site, alleges that his use of the registered mark "LSU" creates a "mental association" with the school. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176519.html - - - - - - - - Xbox web hoax installs Trojan horse Malicious code masquerades as Xbox emulator Internet users caught up in the hype of the recent Xbox launch may be falling for a web hoax that installs a Trojan horse on their machine. The success of the malicious code may be boosted by the fact that the Trojan masquerades as an Xbox emulator for the PC. Of course, there is no such thing, but the launch hype of the new console, mixed with a little bit of internet trickery, seems to have created a sizeable hotbed of web users who really think they are downloading an Xbox emulator. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131681 - - - - - - - - Chat 'bots' may be hacker tool A network monitoring group is warning that a file-sharing racket and exploit code for IIS vulnerabilities means that a massive hack attack may be brewing. An international network monitoring group has alerted corporate Australia to a growing file-sharing racket that uses Internet Relay Chat "robots" to compromise networks. That, and the recent release of exploit code or certain Microsoft IIS Web server vulnerabilities, means the hacker community has all the tools necessary to launch a massive attack. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109962,00.html - - - - - - - - Anti-'Sim' Kid Porn Forces Rally Anti-porn advocates are quietly rallying to outlaw "morphed" child erotica. This week, the National Law Center for Children and Families (NLC) sent a detailed memo to Congress suggesting how best to ban computer-generated images that seem like nude minors. It is, the NLC wrote, a bad idea to "invite the porn industry to invest in the technology necessary to create such realistically indistinguishable child porn materials at this time." http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52453,00.html - - - - - - - - Online and on guard: UTD program targets cybercrime Institute will train police, work with nearby telecom firms. The University of Texas at Dallas is developing a new cybercrime institute in the heart of the Telecom Corridor. The Digital Forensics and Security Institute will offer training for law enforcement agents and, eventually, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. Andrew Blanchard, senior associate dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, said the university wanted the program to be close to corporations that are inventing, manufacturing and using computer technology. http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/city/richardson/stories/050502dnriccybercrime.4e619.html - - - - - - - - How Geo-Encryption Makes Copyright Protection Global Via an encryption scheme that uses GPS satellites to track users' locations, Georgetown professor Dorothy Denning takes the copyright fight to Hollywoodand into the heavens. For nearly 30 years, Dorothy Denning has been devising ways to keep the wrong people from cracking into computers and stealing secrets locked up by cryptographic algorithms. She'll hack into a technology, then use what she has learned to figure out new ways to keep hackers at bay. http://www.unixtech.be/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2038 - - - - - - - - INS will use Internet for tracking foreign students Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday announced a system to track hundreds of thousands of foreign students, saying it will allow the United States to "gain a measure of assurance that the students who are visiting our country are who they purport to be." Ashcroft said the Internet-based system will provide rapid access to information about a student. "We do not currently have a system that efficiently verifies if a student is in fact studying at an institution," Ashcroft said. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/10/ins-internet.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176506.html http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105-909484.html - - - - - - - - Tracking device in passports could help locate terrorists Each year, about 100,000 U.S. passports are reported lost or stolen. And an estimated 100,000 passports issued by countries whose citizens don't need a visa to visit the United States have also been stolen in recent years. The problem isn't a minor one. At least one of the September 11 hijackers is believed to have entered the United States with a stolen passport. Three of the terrorists had reported their passports stolen so they could get clean ones that didn't show their travel histories. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0502/051002nj2.htm - - - - - - - - Usenet death penalty imposed on blueyonder Usenet posts by Telewest blueyonder Internet service subscribers are been blocked by other news providers because of complaints over spam. In a notice to users yesterday, Telewest explains that a Usenet Death Penalty has been put in place because many spammers are using its customers' poorly configured computers as relay agents. Telewest has been criticised in postings to groups such as news.admin.net-abuse.usenet for failing to curb the abuse. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25242.html - - - - - - - - Privacy concern as eBay Australia prepares to track sellers Privacy advocates are concerned over indications eBay Australia is likely to follow in the footsteps of its US counterpart and launch an authentication system to track sellers. One of the problems with modern technology is that publicly available data is able to be compiled and cross referenced, Cameron Murphy, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties told ZDNet Australia. Theres an easy capacity for this information to be misused. http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/security/story/0,2000024985,20265136,00.htm - - - - - - - - Battling Against Spam Down Under The fight against spam, or unsolicited bulk e-mail, is universal and in Australia the organization at the front line is Caube.au. The volunteer organization's mission is to eliminate spam, with a particular focus on Australia's role as a source of spam and the nation's efforts to reduce spam in citizens' electronic mailboxes. This is the place to go to find out what the situation is in Australia, what local businesses should do to avoid being ostracized for spamming, how you can personally reduce the amount of spam in your mailbox, and what moves are afoot in legislative and regulatory circles. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176504.html - - - - - - - - New Web spyware eschews cookies Researchers in Scotland are developing a new kind of Web monitoring software that they claim can collect enormous amounts of data on Web surfers while remaining nearly undetectable. The technology came to light when it was chosen as one of 40 technologies funded this year by the Scottish Enterprise, Scotland's economic development agency. The University of Strathclyde received the award for an undisclosed sum Thursday. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-909499.html - - - - - - - - AOL aims secure IM at corporations Enterprise AIM is being developed in partnership with VeriSign to offer encoded chat for business use VeriSign and AOL Time Warner on Thursday announced a partnership to offer encoded chat messages through AOL Instant Messenger, the same day rival Microsoft warned IM users of a security hole in its own instant messaging service. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109990,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-908819.html - - - - - - - - Combating binary bandits: Honeynet's Reverse Challenge Finding, capturing and disabling a binary released in the wild is the challenge issued by the Honeynet Project's latest contest. Whereas the jungles and deserts of Africa provided the backdrop for Dr Livingstone's exploits, Michael Clark searches the wilds of the Internet for elusive and potentially catastrophic binary. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109951,00.html - - - - - - - - Patriotic Protectors or Pranksters? Hackers Say Their Attacks Are For Homeland Cyber-Security. They call themselves the "Deceptive Duo" and say they're trying to protect the United States from terrorist hackers. But their victims don't appreciate the pair's brand of patriotism. Superheroes or crackers, the Deceptive Duo has penetrated computer networks in some of the nation's most secure organizations: NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_hackerheros020510.html - - - - - - - - Bug centre monitors real-time threats Internet Storm Centre offers latest security alerts. The Sans Institute's Incidents.org security watch- tower has launched a new monitoring centre to keep track of threats in the wild. The Internet Storm Centre lives at isc.incidents.org and informs network administrators of the latest security alerts and real-time threats. Currently we're well in the green on the threat level meter and there are no current alerts. But the Storm Centre is warning that widespread port 80 scans, still being caused by Nimda and Code Red, are dominating all other activity. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131665 - - - - - - - - Net Threats Monitored In Malaysia Alert and attentive, the Malaysian Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT) records, reports and analyzes Internet-based PC security incidents as they impact on the Malaysian Net population. MyCERT monitors incidences of hacking, denial-of-service, viruses, hoaxes and other nasties that make connecting to the Internet fraught with peril. Internet users are encouraged to report any activity and learn about how to secure their systems and protect themselves against those who would steal or destroy their data. World Wide Web: http://www.mycert.org.my/ . http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176503.html http://online.securityfocus.com/news/403 - - - - - - - - Does P3P equal privacy? Online privacy isn't the issue it once was, if indeed people really ever cared about it. Oh sure, everyone's in favor of privacy in the same way that they're in favor of Mom and apple pie, but exactly how software should preserve privacy is a more controversial issue. Were they aware of the trade- offs involved, I'm not so sure how committed people would be. The main industry initiative facilitating user privacy is the W3C initiative, Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). P3P provides a way for site authors to make their privacy policies available in an automated and structured manner. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2864742,00.html - - - - - - - - Police seek millions to deter terrorisim -- 'Right now we're not ready' - Municipal police services in Alberta are asking the government for millions of dollars so they can equip themselves to deal with a major terrorist strike should one occur, said Calgary Police Chief Jack Beaton. "At our present state we are not prepared for terrorism to strike a major centre," Beaton told the Herald Friday. "We need equipment. We need technology resources. We need detection devices." http://www.canada.com/calgary/story.asp?id={AFFE985E-0A21-4870-9B54-798FEBA9D762} - - - - - - - - Wells Fargo brings in new scanners to catch fake money Wells Fargo & Co. is adding one more weapon to its arsenal of fraud-fighting tools -- an ultraviolet scanner capable of ferreting out phony checks, cash and IDs. The scanners are being introduced in Wells Fargo's Minnesota branches and will eventually be used across the bank's 23-state turf. The bank declined to explain how the scanners work, citing security concerns. But the equipment, first tested in nine branches last fall, allows tellers and bank officers to scan drivers' licenses, checks, cash and other documents to verify authenticity. http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/2618850.html - - - - - - - - Growing Asian Audience For Adult Sites - Study Web sites hosting adult or pornographic content have received a surge in visitors from the most advanced Asian Internet nations, according to a new survey by Internet measurement company NetValue. In a study that included Internet users from Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, NetValue found significant jumps in the number of visitors to adult sites. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176499.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. Copyright 2000-2002, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.