May 24, 2002 Online 'mousetrapping' leads to $1.9M fine An elusive Internet scam artist has been ordered to pay almost $1.9 million back to victims and stop a scheme that used thousands of misspelled Web addresses to trick Internet users into seeing adult advertisements, federal regulators announced Friday. Federal Trade Commission lawyers sued John Zuccarini of Andalusia, Pa., last October to stop the scheme. Zuccarini set up Web sites that contained misspellings of popular names like the Backstreet Boys, Victoria's Secret, Bank of America and The Wall Street Journal. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/05/24/mousetrapping-ftc.htm - - - - - - - - Raid on Spider Man DVDs piracy factory More than 10,000 pirate Spider Man and Star Wars: Episode II DVDs and 31 DVD burners were seized in the UK, in a raid carried out by Surrey Trading Standards and Hampshire Police. The illegal copies of the movies were made in a pirate DVD-R factory, after they were downloaded from the Internet. The raid was welcomed by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which is calling for tougher enforcement measures to combat piracy in general. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/25432.html - - - - - - - - Spammers threaten UK Net user A British man has been threatened by a gang of spammers after reporting its activity to his ISP. The man, who asked to remain anonymous, is so concerned he fears for this own safety. "These people are nasty," he told The Register. "They said they were going to make my life 'not worth living'. If you complain then they retaliate in a very vicious way. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25424.html - - - - - - - - Anti-terror bills march forward Congress is moving forward to put money and muscle behind programs to fight terrorism and protect the homeland. The House passed a bill early this morning to provide $29 billion to fight terrorism at home and abroad. Billions would be showered on information technology projects to tighten security systems and fund such tools as devices that detect explosives at airports. The Senate is considering a bill with even more money $31 billion. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0520/web-bills-05-24-02.asp - - - - - - - - Media companies demand ID numbers for CDs and DVDs ID numbers that would identify every CD or DVD, together with much higher fines those making and using counterfeit software are among news measures being pushed by media companies. Every CD or DVD disc manufactured in the European Union would have to carry a unique code if proposals by media representation groups are adopted in the EU Enforcement Directive. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110882,00.html - - - - - - - - Privacy groups debate DoubleClick settlement While the plaintiffs in a class-action privacy suit against DoubleClick Inc. praised Tuesday's settlement, at least one privacy advocacy group isn't happy. Thirteen separate suits had been filed against the New York-based Internet advertising company charging that it invaded users' privacy and misrepresented itself. The suits were later consolidated into a single federal suit, which was settled in March. A final settlement was approved Tuesday by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/24/doubleclick.settlement.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - EU looks at MS Passport for privacy infringement Microsoft's problems with Brussels have been compounded by news that the European Commission is investigating whether Passport is compatible with European data protection law. European law is substantially tougher than the US equivalent in this area, and Microsoft's record on database control is somewhat patchy, so it wouldn't be a big surprise if the Commission decided there was a problem here. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25433.html - - - - - - - - After Web address lapses, porn fills town's Web site Looking for a good time? Check out the township's Web site. The Pennsylvania municipality has joined the ranks of thousands of cyber-jacking victims, including the White House. Its Internet home has been turned into a porn palace. Bensalem's director of administration, William G. McCauley III, said the township lost the site because the company that registers it, Network Solutions, never informed it that its domain name was going to expire. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3330184.htm - - - - - - - - FAA workers to get smart cards The Federal Aviation Administration plans to equip all of its employees with smart cards as part of a new pilot program. "This will be the second- largest agency rollout," said Bill Holcombe, director of e-business technologies at the General Services Administration. "That's significant. With these congressional mandates, if the FAA does it first, we'll all be watching very closely." Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal officials have pushed agencies to bring secure identification technologies into the public sector. The Aviation Security Act requires the Transportation Department to develop a universal transport worker ID system. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0520/web-smart-05-24-02.asp - - - - - - - - Klez: Hi Mom, We're No. 1 For close to a year, SirCam was the virus most likely to turn up in your e-mail box. But representatives from a half-dozen antivirus firms now believe that "Klez.H" is the most pervasive e-mail virus in cyberhistory, estimating that it has infected hundreds of thousands of computers within hours of first being spotted in mid-April. And so far, Klez has shown no signs of going away. "I don't even bother having Klez messages counted as they come in any more," confessed Rod Fewster, Australian representative of antiviral application NOD32. "The number of Klez-infected e-mails surpassed SirCam in sheer volume days ago, and that's not even counting all of the Klez-related e-mails." http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52765,00.html - - - - - - - - The e-mail battlefield: building a defense The security wars continue. No sooner is your Web server patch in place before a worm like Nimda comes along, infects your system through an end- users Web browser, and propagates to its next victims through your mail server and your Web site. So, what is the next battlefield for security administrators? How can they prepare for what will happen next instead of preparing for what happened last? http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-922384.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. 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