May 31, 2002 Police in internet porn raids Up to 500 Irish police officers have raided dozens of addresses across the Republic of Ireland in a crackdown on internet child porn trafficking. No arrests have yet been made but computers and software have been seized by Garda officers during the dawn raids. Detectives say Operation Amethyst is part of an international investigation into the trafficking of paedophile images. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_596441.html - - - - - - - - Young sex offender's mom jailed in FBI child porn sting FBI agents recently arrested an Oak Harbor couple during a child pornography sting, raising the profile of a family that already included a well-known sex offender, several law enforcement officials said yesterday. Tracey L. Wright, 29, is being held in federal custody and is scheduled to have a detention hearing today in Seattle. Agents also arrested her husband, James L. Wright, 30, in last week's raid. Court documents say agents found hundreds of child pornography images on one of their home computers. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/72746_pornbust31.shtml - - - - - - - - Aerospace workers arrested for hacking Firms temporarily banned from NASDA bids. Three workers at a major Japanese aerospace company were arrested Thursday for allegedly hacking into the computer network of Japan's space agency to spy on a rival company, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police spokesman said. Shunsuke Migita, 28, Shoichi Motohashi, 44, and Masao Amano, 40 -- all employees at NEC Toshiba Space System Co. -- were charged with illegally obtaining Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s antenna designs for a high-speed Internet satellite from a computer at the National Space Development Agency in December, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/31/japan.space.hackers.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - Security bug closes Inland Revenue site Security fears have forced the Inland Revenue to shut its Self Assessment Online service. An Inland Revenue spokeswoman said that the service was suspended after users reported seeing information about other taxpayers. "The security of our customers' data is of paramount importance to us," she told the BBC. The spokeswoman stressed that the number of people reporting the problem was small, but that it was decided to temporarily withdraw the service until the glitch is repaired. The Revenue did not say how long this would take. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132269 - - - - - - - - EBay auction of Air Force equipment prompts probe Parts sold used in SR-71 spy plane and F-16 fighter. The Air Force is looking into the Internet auction of sensitive government aircraft communications equipment. THE SALES ON EBAY, which were reported by Newsweek, were of parts used in aircraft like the SR-71 spy plane and F-16 fighter. It is actively under investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, an Air Force spokesman, Capt. David L. Englin, said Sunday. http://www.msnbc.com/news/760852.asp http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52921,00.html - - - - - - - - Appeals Court Overturns Law Blocking Sex-Site Access Public libraries cannot be forced to use Internet filters designed to block pornography, three federal judges said Friday in overturning a new federal law. In a 195-page decision, the judges said the Children's Internet Protection Act went too far because the filters can also block access to sites that contain protected speech. ``Any public library that adheres to CIPA's conditions will necessarily restrict patrons' access to a substantial amount of protected speech in violation of the First Amendment,'' the judges wrote. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Filtering.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3373419.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25535.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-929553.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18025.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/759858.asp http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40127-2002May31.html http://www.itechnology.co.za/index.php?click_id=31&art_id=qw1022880961125B253 Justice reviewing Internet screening ruling, may appeal http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/05/31/justice.internet.screening/index.html - - - - - - - - FBI: Cybersecurity is priority No. 3 Further organizational changes announced Wednesday by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) included honing its focus on combating computer- related crimes, the federal agency said Wednesday. In a top ten list of priorities detailed during a press conference at the FBI's headquarters in Washington, D.C., FBI Director Robert Mueller pegged cybercrime prevention as its third-most important priority behind battling terrorism and espionage, a spokesman for the FBI said. http://www.idg.net/ic_868760_5055_1-2793.html - - - - - - - - EU vote relaxes e-privacy rules The European Parliament has endorsed new rules on protecting the privacy of communications in the Internet age, which civil liberties advocates and telecommunications companies say includes sweeping powers for police to monitor telephone calls, Internet communications, faxes and other kinds of data. The bill on Thursday was the final element of a broader package of measures aimed at modernizing European Union telecommunications law and boosting confidence in e-commerce. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-929605.html http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132301 EU whams spam with ban http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132292 - - - - - - - - 'Porn-napping' is rubbing users the wrong way Harvard student Ben Edelman was searching on the Internet for a bicycle repair shop, but stumbled instead onto "Tina's Live Webcam," a hard-core pornography site. There was no mistake: Edelman had clicked through to www.bicyclebill.com, but the website registration of the local bike shop had expired, and was quickly grabbed by the Canadian operator of the sexually explicit website. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1022734800721B225 - - - - - - - - Study: Open source poses security risks A conservative U.S. think tank suggests in an upcoming report that open-source software is inherently less secure than proprietary software, and warns governments against relying on it for national security. The white paper, Opening the Open Source Debate, from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (ADTI) will suggest that open source opens the gates to hackers and terrorists. "Terrorists trying to hack or disrupt U.S. computer networks might find it easier if the federal government attempts to switch to 'open source' as some groups propose," ADTI said in a statement released ahead of the report. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-929669.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111240,00.html - - - - - - - - BSA warns on downloading copyright dangers A survey of Web users indicates that more than half have downloaded software without paying, even if the product is copyrighted. The Business Software Alliance, a trade group that represents the major software makers, says that more than half of all Web users have downloaded software they have not paid for. In a study of 1,026 Web users released on Wednesday, the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111206,00.html - - - - - - - - Klez-H tops virus charts - again Variants of the Klez worm were by far the most common viruses circulating on the Internet this month. Again. That's according to monthly statistics from managed services firm MessageLabs, which stopped 524, 507 copies of the virus in May, compared to 422,507 in April. MessageLabs reports that virus infection rates are currently running at around one per 200 emails, which compares to one in 30 infected emails at the heights of the Goner and Love Bug epidemics. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/25542.html - - - - - - - - Exchange 2000 flaw allows DoS attacks Hole could tie up mail servers indefinitely Microsoft has admitted that its Exchange 2000 email server software has a "critical" flaw that could enable a denial of service attack to bring down any servers running the application. The warning came as the company posted a patch for system administrators to fix the flaw on Exchange 2000 servers. According to Microsoft, the weakness in its Exchange 2000 server software could allow an attack that would tie up mail servers indefinitely. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132291 - - - - - - - - Some breaking music CD copy protection Some music fans are trying to fake out CD copy protection technology with the stroke of a felt- tip pen. The tactic is being used in Europe, where Sony is trying out a copy protection method. That model won't be coming to America, the company says. The crack in the copy protection is the talk of the town on Internet message boards, though Digital Audio Disc Corporation, Sony Corp.'s CD manufacturing unit, is not amused. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/419302p-3341929c.html - - - - - - - - Giga Defines Emerging Chief Security Officer Role More than 200 companies in the U.S. have named chief security officers, but the roles, qualifications, and pay for this new IT title vary widely, according to a new report from Giga Information Group. The importance of a more secure enterprise has grown in recent years, with drivers ranging from increased hacker activity to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Giga said. The role of the CSO, a relatively new title, is "wildly diverse" today -- but the position is growing to be a crucial, executive level title at many companies, according to Giga security expert Steve Hunt. http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/INW20020529S0010 - - - - - - - - Senator's Spam Making the Rounds The e-mail from Sen. Joseph Lieberman took a decidedly high-tech tone, calling for a deployment of a "national broadband Internet strategy." Unfortunately, it came in a low-tech package. Since Tuesday, the Connecticut Democrat's office has been straining under the unrelenting embarrassment of an e-mail that will not stop replicating itself. Up to 400 reporters nationwide have been receiving dozens of copies of the e-mail release, the result of an outdated system called cc: mail. A large recipient list and several attachments apparently were too much for it to handle. http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzspam312726574may31.story - - - - - - - - Instant Messaging Enterprise Security Ramps Up Research firm Gartner has estimated that there are now more than 100 million IM users worldwide, and that by 2005, IM will be used more often than e-mail. The attractions of instant messaging (IM) are obvious: The software knows when others are online, enabling employees to avoid engaging in time-consuming "phone tag." Analysts call IM "real-time e-mail." http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18008.html - - - - - - - - High-tech piracy High-tech pirates are exploring new territory, as new chips promise to defeat Xbox copy-protection features and an Eminem CD becomes a most-played hit way before it goes on sale. The Xtender, a "mod chip" intended to be added to the main circuit board of the Xbox, purportedly allows the console to play illegally copied game software. Will this inspire a Napster-like wave of copy infringement? Probably not, analysts say. For starters, using the mod chips requires disassembling the Xbox case and affixing the chip to the circuit board, a task that can require more than 20 soldering connections http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-929942.html - - - - - - - - When hacking competitions go wrong A hacking contest that promised $100,000 as first prize appears to have been weighted so heavily against competitors that some decided to hack the competition rather than the target server. What do you do when you enter a hacking competition only to discover that the target server is running a cut-down operating system running with almost all services switched off so that it does not resemble a "real-world situation"? Simple. You hack the competition itself. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111243,00.html - - - - - - - - Fans kick back at Mac hack flak Apple keeps mum as Macintosh users defend OS. Following vnunet.com's article exploding the myth that Mac users are not totally invincible to viruses and hack attacks, our post bag has been full. Mac evangelists from around the world have written in to state that MacOS is a more secure alternative to other operating systems. Despite numerous requests for comment from Apple in both the US and the UK, the company has not yet provided a spokesman to comment on the issue. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132303 - - - - - - - - Farewell to a Net Freedom Fighter Stanton McCandlish, the Internet's first full-time activist, is retiring. McCandlish, 33, left his job at the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month after spending nearly nine years exhorting Internet denizens to pay more attention to legal threats to their freedoms. It was tiring work. "I think to a large extent, I just became burned out on it," McCandlish said. "That kind of work carries a lot of the weight of the world on your shoulders." http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52915,00.html - - - - - - - - Aussie women give a XXXX about cyber sex Worse than watching strippers and porn, say Sheilas Australian women believe that cyber sex constitutes more serious cheating than going to a strip club or watching pornography. A survey of 1,117 internet users conducted by a lecturer at the College of Social and Health Sciences at the University of Western Sydney showed that people see little difference between virtual and regular relationships. Almost all surfers ranked cyber sex as cheating which, although not as bad as being physically unfaithful, is much worse than watching a stripper or pornography. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132285 - - - - - - - - Congress takes a first leap into biometrics An office within the House of Representatives has become the first congressional office to use biometric access technology. After recently completing a four-month pilot, the House Office of the Legislative Counsel this week began using iris recognition technology for network access. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18863-1.html - - - - - - - - Using fingerprints to buy groceries Wider use of technology brings convenience, privacy worries. "It doesnt feel so much like an invasion of privacy, but is more like a convenience," says customer Christopher Conrad of a fingerprint system at a Seattle grocery. Christopher Conrad cuts off telemarketers on the phone, regularly reminds direct-mail associations to keep him off their lists and diligently opts out of mass e-mail lists. But the Seattle commercial photographer didnt hesitate to give his fingerprint, credit card information and phone number to a company he had never heard of. http://www.msnbc.com/news/760026.asp - - - - - - - - U.S. Considers Requiring Cameras Providing Cabin Views The Sept. 11 hijackings have left pilots wanting more knowledge about activity in the passenger cabin, without stepping through their newly fortified doors. Now the Transportation Department, with encouragement from Congress, is considering requiring video cameras that will provide images of passengers to the cockpit. (NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/31/national/31SECU.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.