May 17, 2002 ********************** SPECIAL NOTE *********************** Due to travel plans and Internet availability, NewsBits editions may be delayed until 05/31. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause RJL *********************************************************** Leader of software piracy ring gets prison term A co-leader of what federal authorities say was one of the largest software piracy rings on the Internet was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Friday. John Sankus Jr., 28, of Philadelphia, was the leader of DrinkOrDie, a piracy ring that authorities believe cost the sofware industry billions of dollars in sales each year. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3284343.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-916741.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-916824.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176649.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/05/17/crime.tech.reut/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/17/microsoft-flaws.htm - - - - - - - - Defense agency found using unsecure WLAN security cameras The agency responsible for the U.S. Defense Department's global networks and classified command and control systems has a gaping security hole in its front yard -- security cameras at its headquarters in Arlington, Va., are connected to a nonsecure and unencrypted wireless LAN. Chris O'Ferrell, chief technology officer at NETSEC Inc. in Herndon, Va., which provides intrusion-detection services to numerous federal agencies and commercial customers, detected the nonsecure wireless LAN at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DSIA) last Friday. http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,71231,00.html - - - - - - - - Yahoo stops World Cup ticket scalping To help prevent touting of tickets to the soccer tournament, Yahoo! Japan is banning their resale through its auction site Internet site Yahoo! Japan has stopped the trading of tickets for the World Cup finals on its auction site to help prevent scalping of tickets for the tournament, which starts on May 31. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-916498.html - - - - - - - - Abortion foes lose ruling on free speech U.S. Supreme Court expected to take up online- threat case. A sharply divided federal appeals court on Thursday refused to extend free speech protections to the most incendiary rhetoric of the abortion debate, concluding that an Oregon jury was right to punish anti-abortion activists for threatening doctors on grisly Web sites and Wild West-style ``Wanted'' posters. http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3279917.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176653.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52604,00.html - - - - - - - - Online privacy bill sent to U.S. Senate floor A Senate committee Friday sent an online privacy protection bill to the full Senate, but business lobbyists vowed to keep trying to derail the measure before it becomes law. ``It's time Congress acted on privacy,'' declared South Carolina Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that voted 15-8 to approve his bill. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3284336.htm http://news.com.com/2100-1023-916662.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/05/17/privacy.02.reut/index.html Spam, privacy legislation advance http://www.msnbc.com/news/753301.asp - - - - - - - - DVD Decryption: Supporters Ponder Supreme Court Appeal A civil liberties group says it is pondering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that two years ago became the poster child for opposition to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said Thursday that it has been rebuffed in a bid to convince the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to rethink its support for a ban on publishing software code capable of unlocking encrypted video on DVDs. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/424 http://news.com.com/2100-1023-916665.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176643.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52602,00.html DeCSS banned again http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-916717.html Making Copy Right for All http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52556,00.html - - - - - - - - Fanatics with Laptops: The Coming Cyber War Any country that can scrape together the price of a computer manual and that has a basic understanding of information systems infrastructure can train and motivate a misguided 'patriot.' The blossoming of the Internet and its universal adoption have reinforced a trend toward interdependence of the world's political, economic and social systems. That increasing interdependence, however, becomes frightening when one considers that a next- generation cyber terrorist will likely not represent an aggressive world power. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17784.html - - - - - - - - Spammers Making Life Miserable for Internet Users The porn spam geeks have come up with some spam wizardry that opens their e-mail when you attempt to delete it from your computer. Unsolicited junk e-mail has gone from bad to worse. I used to merely waste a bit of time each day highlighting and deleting unwanted e-mail messages, known as spam, from my computer. Now Internet pornographers are so desperate for my business that they are taking control of my computer. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17816.html - - - - - - - - Blueyonder escapes Usenet death row Internet admins have lifted a Usenet Death Penalty (UDP) sentence from blueyonder after deciding it had done enough to clamp down on the stream of spam emanating from its network. For weeks Telewest has been criticised in postings to groups such as news.admin.net-abuse.usenet for failing to curb the abuse concerning its blueyonder broadband service, prompting the issue of a Usenet Death Penalty, which was due to become effective on May 16. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25332.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft opts Passport holders into spam hell Emboldened by user 'apathy' to Yahoo!'s privacy changes in April, Microsoft has followed suit. It has now co-opted existing Passport users to share their email addresses and other registration information with third parties, Register readers report. Three new checkboxes have appeared on the registration page, with "Share my email address" and "Share my other registration information" ticked by default. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25314.html - - - - - - - - Windows Media Player Exposes IE Users To Attack In a reversal of its previous advice, Microsoft is warning that a security flaw in its Internet Explorer browser could enable a malicious Web site or e-mail message to automatically download and run a dangerous program on victims' computers. The flaw, the exploitation of which requires that Microsoft's Windows Media Player be installed, is one of six security bugs corrected by a patch released Wednesday by Microsoft. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/423 http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/17/microsoft-flaws.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/404637p-3221315c.html MS IE patch misses the mark http://online.securityfocus.com/news/421 Hoax calls Java file in Windows a virus http://www.idg.net/ic_862813_5055_1-2793.html Microsoft plugs six more security holes in IE http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/17/ms.security.holes.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - Best E-Buyers Have High Privacy Standards - Survey E-mail recipients with tough privacy standards should not be written off as "privacy nuts," in fact, they do a lot of shopping on the Internet and spend more money than other online consumers, a survey has found. Thirty percent of those most concerned about privacy were more responsive to permission e-mail, according to a Executive Summary Consulting, which conducted the survey for e-mail marketing firm Quris. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/422 - - - - - - - - When e-mail comes back to haunt you You'd think Bill Gates would learn. The Microsoft chairman, who's been stung by e-mail several times, got caught yet again discussing schemes against a corporate enemy in e-mail messages admitted as evidence in antitrust testimony last week. In one note to top executives, Gates said he approved of Microsoft's association with the Web Services Interoperability Group (WS-I), code-named "foo," as long as Sun Microsystems was kept on the sidelines. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-916311.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110434,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-916257.html - - - - - - - - Is there a price to be paid for game violence? The link between virtual violence in video games and violence in the real world is once again under scrutiny after a school shooting in Germany left 16 people dead. Expelled student Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, killed former classmates and teachers April 26 before taking his own life. He was a fan of video games. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/17/game-violence.htm - - - - - - - - News Web sites opened in China China appears to have lifted long-standing blocks on the Web sites of several Western news organizations that were freely accessible through local Internet connections in Beijing and Shanghai on Thursday. There was no official announcement explaining why normally censored Web sites, including those of Reuters, CNN, and the Washington Post, were unexpectedly open. http://www.msnbc.com/news/753599.asp http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131855 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52618,00.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/16/china.censorship.reut/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/17/china-net.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/404981p-3225805c.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. 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