May 13, 2002 Littleton man held in teen-age sex sting The owner of a Littleton gymnastics academy was arrested Friday after he allegedly paid an undercover detective $400 to arrange sex with two teen-age girls. Steven T. Siegel, 38, was being held in the El Paso County Jail on suspicion of soliciting for child prostitution, attempted sexual exploitation of a child and attempted sexual assault on a child. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_1140674,00.html - - - - - - - - Former corrections officer sentenced for misusing FBI system Gary Piedmont of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, was sentenced to 30 days of community confinement, a $5,000 fine and a year of probation for using the FBIs National Crime Information Center system to check whether a warrant had been issued for a friend. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18631-1.html - - - - - - - - Kansas Teen Sentenced After Hackings A Kansas teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking the official Web site of Stockton, Calif. and telling city officials he would secure it if they gave him a laptop computer. Matthew Kroeker, 18, was sentenced to serve two years probation and pay at least $18,000 restitution, his attorney Kevin Moriarty told Newsbytes. Kroeker pleaded guilty to four felony counts of computer crime in Johnson County District Court last week. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176526.html - - - - - - - - Supreme Court partially upholds law to shield children from online smut The Supreme Court partly upheld a law intended to shield children from online pornography, but said on Monday that there are unresolved free speech questions that prevent the law from taking effect now. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3254733.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/400110p-3186444c.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/13/court-porn.htm http://www.msnbc.com/news/751504.asp http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176545.html High court remands online porn case to appeals court http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/05/13/scotus.online.porn/index.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-912422.html Kid Smut Law Needs More Work http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52478,00.html Creating children's zone online easier said than done http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3245245.htm - - - - - - - - Argentine judges want law update after crackers walk free Argentina's top judges are calling for an update in the country's laws on computer crime after the collapse of a trial involving crackers who allegedly defaced the country's Supreme Court Web site. Last month, Argentine Federal Judge Sergio Torres threw out the case of a group of defacers, called the X-Team, who were suspected of altering the Web site as part of a protest over the 'cover-up' by judges of the murder of magazine journalist Jose Luis Cabezas. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/407 - - - - - - - - Does new Europe law mean slammer for DRM crackers? Forthcoming EU legislation could criminalise Europeans who circumvent copyright protection. Fears that the pending European Union Copyright Directive could lead to a European re-run of the Dmitri Sklyarov prosecution were much in evidence during the recent Campaign for Digital Rights mini-conference at London's City University. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25256.html - - - - - - - - Credit Card Theft Thrives Online as Global Market Tens of thousands of stolen credit-card numbers are being offered for sale each week on the Internet in a handful of thriving, membership-only cyberbazaars, operated largely by residents of the former Soviet Union, who have become central players in credit- card and identity theft. The market-places where credit card prices fluctuate with supply and demand in a sort of black stock market offer a window into a crime that costs the financial system $1 billion or more a year. They also show how readily personal information is being stolen and traded in the computer age. (NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/technology/13CARD.html Rampant trade of stolen credit-card numbers shows lack of security. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3252532.htm - - - - - - - - ID thieves mine for gold on jail sites Online public records give Social Security numbers and more. If keeping Social Security numbers off the Internet is a bit like trying to plug holes in a leaky dam, the U.S. justice system has left a floodgate open. Dozens of law enforcement Web pages list names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, heights and weights everything an identity thief needs to impersonate a victim. Sometimes theres even a photo. The dossiers belong to prison inmates and wanted criminals; the sites that list them have become user-friendly shopping malls for identity thieves. http://www.msnbc.com/news/750428.asp More Court Files Online http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0513/news-court-05-13-02.asp - - - - - - - - Army layers security blankets to guard networks Shortly after a military surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter last April, a two-week 'cyberwar' began, and U.S. Army Web sites took numerous hits. More than 50 Web pages were defaced by an automated attack launched by supporters or agents of the PeopleOs Republic of China. The hackers placed anti-American sentiments in English and Chinese characters on some of the sites. But most of the attacks could have been prevented if published fixes, identified in Information Assurance Vulnerability Alerts, were in place on the hacked machines, said Lt. Col. John Quigg, chief of the ArmyOs network security improvement program in the service's chief information office. http://www.computeruser.com/news/02/05/12/news7.html - - - - - - - - A New Direction for Intellectual Property Perceiving an overly zealous culture of copyright protection, a group of law and technology scholars are setting up Creative Commons, a nonprofit company that will develop ways for artists, writers and others to easily designate their work as freely shareable. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/technology/13FREE.html Hollywood's Way Out New distribution platform is solution for copyright theft http://www.sfgate.com/technology/beat/ Public domain info under threat, say groups http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/399236p-3178262c.html Homeland research may miss out http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0513/web-rights-05-13-02.asp http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0502/051302td1.htm - - - - - - - - The pen is mightier than copy-protection Controversial copy-protection mechanisms on CDs could be negated with something as simple as a marker pen. According to one German geek who sent the tip to technical magazine Chip.de, a variety of copy-protection systems, including Cactus Data Shield and KeyAudio, which also stop music CDs being played in CDRom drives, can be circumvented with a felt-tip pen. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131719 - - - - - - - - The Yahoo Privacy Storm That Wasn't Internet privacy is like the weather. Everyone complains about it, and no one does anything about it. The latest example involves users of Yahoo, the vast Internet portal that set off howls of protest when it abruptly changed its marketing policy in March. Suddenly, Yahoo granted itself the right to send advertising messages to tens of millions of its users who had previously asked to receive none. The blanket permission went beyond e-mail to include postal mailings and telemarketing phone calls. Immediately, privacy advocates reacted with criticism, and outraged postings flooded message boards all over the Internet. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/technology/ebusiness/13YAHO.html Mistaken identities http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2864585,00.html - - - - - - - - Museum's Cyberpeeping Artwork Has Its Plug Pulled An Internet-based artwork in an exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art was taken offline on Friday because the work was conducting surveillance of outside computers. It is not clear yet who is responsible for the blacking out the artists, the museum or its Internet service provider but the action illuminates the work's central theme: the tension between public and private control of the Internet. The shutdown also shows how cyberspace's gray areas can enshroud museums as they embrace the evolving medium. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/arts/design/13ARTS.html - - - - - - - - Cookieless Web monitoring tool 'nearly undetectable' Privacy advocates fear that a Web monitoring tool that is under development in Scotland may lead to more covert surveillance 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. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110028,00.html - - - - - - - - Pentagon alienating elite science advisers For more than 40 years, an elite group of academic scientists has provided the federal government with largely classified advice on the most vital issues of national security. Every summer they have met behind closed doors for almost two months near San Diego, emerging with judgments that have helped shape the nation's policies -- from ending nuclear testing to preparing for the danger of bioterrorism. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3252347.htm http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3251844.htm Computer-based artificial societies may create real policy http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/399129p-3175925c.html - - - - - - - - Businesses Able To Ward Off Virus Virus-scanning software, which is frequently updated, scans all incoming e-mail and attachments so that infected messages never reach an employee's computer. A pernicious computer virus has been proliferating throughout Pittsburgh and the world, though most area businesses say they've been able to ward off infection. The Klez virus arrives through an e-mail, copies the recipient's e-mail addresses, then makes a mass mailing of the computer's files to the e-mail addresses it copied from the computer. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17720.html - - - - - - - - Slot Machine Justice for Melissa Author Under capricious computer crime sentencing rules, virus-writer David Smith managed to get the right prison term for all the wrong reasons. David Smith, the author of the "Melissa" virus, was sentenced recently in federal and New Jersey state courts to serve what amounts to 20 months of incarceration in a federal penitentiary. The government estimated that the Melissa virus caused more than $80 million in "loss" to computer users. The question then is, like that with Goldilocks and the three bears, is the sentence too little, too much, or juuuuuuust right? My answer is, that the sentence if probably just about right, but not for the reasons that it was actually imposed. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/81 - - - - - - - - Virus writers get behind Gigabyte Sharp author gets the plaudits. The virus-writing community made something of an about-turn last week as an increasing number of authors gave their support to female virus writer, Gigabyte. Previously the teenage coder had been lambasted by male members of the community for her creation of the Sharp virus that attacks Microsoft's .Net platform. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131707 - - - - - - - - Security trips up instant messaging Matt Conover worries that malicious Net users may know something about instant messaging that he doesn't. The hacker and security expert, who specializes in finding holes in instant messaging clients, publicized a flaw in AOL Time Warner's messaging application a week ago. Because he gave the company advance warning, AOL had fixed the problem and people remained secure. It's the bugs that AOL and its rivals don't know about that worry Conover. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-909639.html - - - - - - - - INDUSTRY MUST ACT TO AVOID SHORTAGE OF IT SECURITY WORKERS Few university computer science or information technology programs offer a concentration in security. A National Science Foundation program to train security workers is still small. Training people is up to enterprises, says Gartner. http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00620020508ern01.htm - - - - - - - - How secure is your password? BBC Go Digital's Jon Wurtzel casts a wry eye over developments in the world of technology. In order to access computer networks, online bank or e-mail accounts, we need a wide range of usernames and passwords. Constant attention is required to track what our name is in each virtual environment, and what password is needed at that moment to access personal information. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1977000/1977405.stm - - - - - - - - Cop fined over wife's online strip Husband surprised by nude pics. A policeman's wife who posed nude on the internet landed her husband in trouble with his superiors. US news sources say that officer Daniel Lake was stripped of three days' pay when chiefs found out about the naughty pictures. His wife had apparently posted the nude photos online in a bid to spice up the couple's lovelife, but had not got around to telling her husband about it before downloaded copies appeared around the police station in Florida where he worked. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131714 *********************************************************** 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.